Chapter 22
Kitchen
Sirius' excitement over getting two whole weeks off of classes seemed to fade as they got closer and closer. When asked he said he was worried about being bored, although that wasn't exactly the truth. The truth was that he was afraid of being without his friends. They were all going home and he, well he was stuck at school with no one but Snape and a pair of twin sixth year Hufflepuffs for company. That was all the students that were staying. The way James talked it sounded like there would be a lot there. It was actually sad that he would rather stay here with Snape, or as Sirius had started calling him Snivellus, than go home to his family.
When Sirius woke up on the day the rest of the Marauders were supposed to leave it was not hard to tell he was having a bad day. He was in a very pouty mood and snapped at people a lot. He of course took his anger out on Snape. It was three hours into the day before they found Snape hanging from a chandelier.
"Well at least it's good to know he'll miss us." James said while watching McGonagall yell at Sirius for 'attacking' Snape.
"Very true." Remus agreed before sighing. "We have to tell McGonagall that we took part in it too, don't we?"
"All for one" They walked over to Sirius and began arguing with them over whether or not they had a part in it. In the end McGonagall gave all three of them a detention just to get them to shut up over whose fault it was.
Sirius walked with them to Hogsmeade station. They hugged him goodbye, which startled him a little. Hugs weren't common in the Black household. Then he walked back towards the school.
McGonagall saw Sirius walking back. She sighed, technically he wasn't supposed to be there, but she chose to ignore this and walked up to him. He looked up at her, and she smiled at him and put her arm around him. He didn't seem to mind the contact so she just left it there and they walked back to the castle.
"Since there are so few students left we have decided to have the students sleep in the Great Hall. Most of the teachers went home as well." She told him hoping to cheer him up.
"Sounds like fun" from the way he said it she was sure it didn't really sound all that fun. They finished their walk in silence.
OOOOOOO
Sirius was bored, probably more bored than he had ever been in his entire life. He even was bored enough to finish all of his homework by the end of the day after the rest of the Marauders left. He spent a lot of time working on the map. He got the Hufflepuff common room done. He was able to go in there because there was only two Hufflepuffs left. He also decided to draw the Ravenclaw tower on a different parchment. That way they didn't have to worry about it later when there were actually Ravenclaws in the school. He could add it to the original map later. He also did the Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin, and Gryffindor dorms while their occupants were away. He had a little trouble with the female dorms but found a way around that.
One exciting thing did happen before Christmas though. He was on his way back from the Hufflepuff common room when he passed the picture of the fruit basket. He hadn't realized it but he was dragging his hand across the wall. To his surprise when his hand passed over the picture he heard a strange laughing noise. He looked over and saw the pear giggling. He looked at it for a while and it stopped moving so he did it again. It started laughing again. He started to tickle it, feeling stupid. It continued laughing and began to change. To his surprise it turned into a door handle. Sirius laughed. He did it! He found out how to get into the mystery room! He looked around to make sure that no one was around before he opened the door. He was surprised to see he wasn't the only one in here.
House-elves, hundreds of them, were hurrying from one area to another they looked hard at work. The room itself was huge, as big as the Great Hall at least.
One of the house-elves stopped when they saw him. He elbowed another one and they stopped too. By the time he noticed they were coming at least ten of the house-elves were surrounding him, murmuring excitedly.
"Um hi." He greeted more than a little nervous.
"Hello Sir" they said all at different times, making it hard to understand.
"Um, where exactly am I?" He asked knowing the house-elves would tell him.
"In Hogwarts Sir." One of them told him. He rolled his eyes.
"I know that, but where in Hogwarts. What is the purpose of this room?"
"This is the kitchen, Sir." Sirius thought about this for a moment. This was the kitchen, the place the best food in the world was made. He smiled hugely.
"Woah."
"Does Sir want something; we have never had a student here to visit us before." The house-elves looked excited and were beginning to talk amongst themselves.
"What, oh you can call me Sirius. What do you mean do I want something?"
"Food Sir isn't that why you came here?" The house-elf asked forgetting to call him by his name.
"Not really I just wanted to see what was here, but now that you mention it I am kinda hungry."
"What would Sir like?" A few of the house-elves ran off to go get things ready to make something.
"Um, I don't want to be a bother if you're busy or anything." He said
"Oh no bother Sir, no bother at all!" The house-elves seemed almost offended that he thought he was bothering them.
"Well what do you have?" He asked. This was awesome; he could get food whenever he wanted it. He didn't have to wait till the nearest meal anymore. He was very happy.
"Anything you want Sir." Sirius thought for a moment.
"What about fried chicken." The house-elves all scurried off to make his food. He couldn't imagine how but they were back with his chicken in less than five minutes.
"Woah, you guys are good." They beamed at the complement. "I wish Kreacher could do that." He sat down on a table and ate. It was the best chicken he ever had.
"So how big is this room anyway?" He asked hoping he could get out of measuring it for the map.
"The same size as the Great Hall, Sir." One of them answered, many of them had gone back to work.
"Exactly the same size." He looked at the map, a room the size of the Great Hall would be a perfect fit.
"Yes Sir." He looked at them and smiled.
"Really you can call me Sirius if you want. Or if you would rather call me Mr. Black or something go ahead. Sir is rather annoying, I'm not that old."
"Yes sir, Mr. Black, Sir." The house-elf said sort of killing the purpose of the title. Sirius laughed. He finished the rest of his chicken in silence thinking about how the other Marauders would react to this discovery when he remembered that Christmas was coming up. At first he didn't really care, but he remembered James say that he was going to send him a present. He began to feel bad; he hadn't even considered getting any of them anything. Of course, they would understand, as he had never even celebrated Christmas, but that doesn't been he felt good about it. He decided to get them something, anything. They were his friends after all. The problem was what to get them. He knew what Remus would want, but he had no way of getting any chocolate. Unless…
"Do you guys have any chocolate?" He asked the elves curiously.
"Oh yes Sir, Mr. Black Sir. Would Sir like some?"
"Well, I was thinking about giving some to my friend for Christmas, do you think you have any that can be sent though the mail?" The house elf nodded quickly and ran off. He quickly brought back a basket. It was even wrapped in paper with Christmas trees on it. He looked at it curiously.
"What is the paper for?" He asked.
"Mr. Sir said it was a Christmas present so we wrapped it for you?" Sirius smiled at them.
"Thanks?" He said still not sure what the purpose of the paper was but figured that they knew more about this Christmas thing than he did. He put the present down for a second and finished drawing the kitchen on the map. He stood up to leave bringing Remus' present with him.
"Thank you very much." He told the elves they bowed and said goodbye as he walked out the door. He walked towards the Gryffindor tower. He had to find something for James and Peter as well. He placed Remus' present on his semi abandoned bed.
At first he thought sleeping the Great Hall with everyone else would stink, but it really wasn't that bad. Snape stayed as far away from him as possible and the two Hufflepuff twins were actually really good company. They would have been better if they didn't see him as a cute little first year. Professor McGonagall was always there and for that he was thankful. Though every time he got into a conversation with her he felt like a teacher's pet, and it was difficult to hold a conversation with someone when you feel like that. He was starting to get kind of close to the teacher though.
He was still thinking about the upsides, and downsides to being a teacher's friend when he found the perfect present for James. His mirror, not just any mirror of course but a two sided mirror. With this they could talk any were, any time, any place. He had two of them that connected. His uncle had given them to him a while back as a reward for getting his Hogwarts letter. It was perfect, he was sure James would love it. He walked down to the Great Hall leaving Remus' present there knowing it was safer in their dorm. He brought the mirrors though.
When he got to the Great Hall he had just barely beaten curfew, and he still hadn't thought of what to get Peter. He saw the Hufflepuff twins wrapping a few of their presents and watched them for a while. He absolutely could not figure out how or why they were doing it. Wouldn't the present be just as good without the dumb paper?
"You look confused." He turned to see McGonagall.
"Why are they wrapping it?" He asked her, he had already told her that his family had never celebrated Christmas.
"So the ones who receive it won't know what it is until they open it. Half the fun is unwrapping the gift to see what you got."
"Oh, how do you wrap it?" He asked her as he sat down in what he deemed to be his section of the Great Hall. They each had claimed their own parts, the parts closest to where their house tables usually sat naturally. She sat down next to him.
"Is that what you want to wrap?" She asked pointing at the mirror. He nodded and she showed him. He felt rather pathetic really.
"That is the muggle way to do it, and the way you would do it if you had gone home. There is also a spell you can use." She unwrapped the present, pointed her wand at it, and said a spell. It wrapped itself perfectly.
"Sweet, I think I'll do it that way." She laughed and stood, then walked over to the twins. He looked at his, no James', mirror and smiled. It felt kind of good to give someone something.
"Darn it, I still have to think of something for Peter." He said to himself and lied down, he couldn't think of anything Peter would like. Maybe he would send him his homework so Peter could copy it. He laughed at himself and fell asleep.