"Sirius. . . ."
"Mmm?"
"Sirius, er . . ."
"What, Remus? What?!"
"Could you please . . ."
"It's midnight, Remus. Freakin' midnight. What can you possibly want in the middle of the bloody night?"
The crescent moon lit an ideal picture of a room in which several soft and comfortable looking four-poster beds stood. Two of them were occupied with sleeping boys (one each), one of them occupied with a half asleep boy, and the last one not occupied at all. Sirius shut his eyes for a moment, sighed, and then sat up straight. Remus sat down as well, somewhere in the feet area, squashing the toes of Sirius' left foot.
"What's wrong? Remus?"
"There's something I always really wanted to do . . . I'd hoped it would be in . . . different circumstances, but when you think about it, what can be better than the middle of the night for that kind of stuff? After all, we always do things after dark. . . ."
Sirius shivered. Remus was acting a little strange. Did he really mean to – "What is it?"
"Sirius – I – I'm hungry!" Whined Remus.
"You're WHAT?"
"Hungry. Terribly hungry. My stomach has been making noises for half the night already. I can't sleep. What you heard before wasn't James snoring. It was my stomach. I'm really, really hungry. I need food. Nourishment. Fuel."
"Remus. . . ."
"Hmm?"
"I. Am. Going. To. Kill. You."
But before Sirius had a chance to grab a pillow and charge, Remus held his wrists down.
"Sirius, please! Come with me. I don't want to go all by myself, and I mean it, I am hungry. James wouldn't be happy if I took his cloak, and he'd let you, you know. Just a small trip. We'll take a sandwich and come back. Besides, you remember how you said you'd wished you had a bottle of mead to get Mathilda Hopkirk drunk enough for. . . ." He trailed off then, turning red. "Anyway, in the middle of the night there's no reason you wouldn't be able to smuggle a bottle or two. The house elves will probably let you. Please, Sirius? If you do this tonight for me, I swear you can torment Snape for two weeks without me saying anything!"
Sirius sighed again and looked for some clothes and shoes. Remus, gleeful, ran to change from his pajamas.
oOo"Damn, it's dark!" Muttered Sirius beneath his becoming moustache (he checked it everyday in the mirror. Fifteen visible hairs, so far).
"Lumos?" Remus suggested. His wand lit with a tiny crackling noise. They were both huddled under the invisibility cloak, walking with their backs lowered since the cloak couldn't hide two fourteen years old boys all that well. They almost breathed one on the other's neck (in a way that was somewhat familiar and somewhat exhilarating. After all, how many times have they been with James and Peter under the same cloak, when they were smaller and more easier to squeeze together? And how many times did they do it alone?) and their shoulders and hands brushed one another in a non-bothering way.
"D'you know," said Remus, "I can't remember the way to the kitchen. I was here once or twice, and that's about it. . . ."
"Well, that's not really a problem. The secret is that you need to turn left at the Entrance Hall and then you're supposed to know the right stuff."
"But you said I should turn left. . . ." answered a confused Remus.
"Oh, stop that." Sirius patted Remus on the head, "Anyway, why didn't you take Peter on the first place? You know that he'd go to the kitchens whenever he can." Remus blushed to the luckily red light on his wand, so that Sirius did not see the interesting shade that covered his face.
"If I'd woken James up he'd turn me into Lima-beans (and I want to eat some, not to be some)," he added quickly, "and he doesn't trust Peter and me well enough to let us borrow the cloak just like that without asking, you know . . ." he finished in a melancholy tone.
"Yeah, trust good old Sirius." Mumbled the other boy as an answer.
They reached the Entrance Hall and went left through a door that led to the kitchens. It was then when they heard the steps . . .
"Ho, my dear. I can actually SMELL them, those little filthy, pesky creatures . . ." both Remus and Sirius got the shade of a yogurt that has gone bad, when they heard the voice. It was Argus Filch, the caretaker, who spoke to his awful cat, Bottom.
As quietly as a stew and as quickly as a fastfood's cheeseburger, Sirius nailed Remus to the nearest wall while Filch drew closer. The caretaker hissed vengeful things, like: "Oh, When I'll lay my hands on them," and "Toe binding."
Sirius' spirit almost escaped from his body when Filch shouted an excited "Aha!" and started running up the corridor. Sirius could already feel Filch's steps thundering on the floor beneath him.
Remus and Sirius shut their eyes forcefully, waiting for the moment when the caretaker will tear the invisibility cloak from above them, but Filch continued running, and . . .
. . . passed by them. Bottom, doing the Cat Walk stopped for a moment, meowed at them, and then turned and ran after Filch.
The two boys held their breath for a few seconds and then suppressed a loud groan of relief. Sirius' hand, that until now was laid over Remus' chest, crawled towards the werewolf's shoulder and pushed him forwards.
"By the time you move, Remus, your precious sandwiches will mould and that bloody he-cat will have little kitties out of him."
Remus reddened again. It would be very unpleasant if Sirius would be hanged from his toes just because he was hungry. But he was very hungry. He could feel himself salivating at the thought of cooked meat. Just a little bit longer.
oOo
Walking in the hall leading to the kitchen made Remus even hungrier. It was full with paintings of different kinds of foods, and even the carpet had patterns of vines and wine bottles on it. Sirius stopped in front of the fruit bowl, and moved his hand towards the pear in order to tickle it.
A twist of the knob led them into the kitchens. Sirius removed the invisibility cloak to not frighten the dozens of house elves in the kitchens.
Remus looked everywhere around him with awe, like he'd never seen the place before, though he had. But the size, the load and the abundance always surprised him every time he went there.
Sirius waved friendly at a group of twenty house elves that worked on peeling and cutting of many hills potatoes for breakfast. They bowed in response.
"Sirs," squealed one house elf, which ran towards them. "It's middle of the night, what dear respected sirs doing here right now?"
Sirius coughed, glanced at Remus and started to shriek dramatically: "Ho, dinner is such a faraway memory and I'm thinking oh so fondly of the great sandwiches, the tasty pastries, the juicy meats, and the rich and luxurious fruit salad that I haven't yet eaten, and my stomach rumbles with yearning. Feed me, Simor[1]!"
Remus looked horribly embarrassed at the over emotional confession, but the house elves looked as happy as an oyster. Three of them bowed and scattered all over the kitchen. A few minutes later, a basket was brought to the two boys, so filled up that the food would last for a week.
"Wow," said Sirius as he looked at the basket; "I didn't think I'm that good. By the way," he added, the volume of his voice raised a little, turning to the elves. "Do you have some mead?"
"You're not that good," his friend muttered, looking at him from the corner of his eye. "They just want you quiet and preferably out."
"Well, at least they do want me," winked Sirius. Remus blushed for the fourth time that da—eh, night.
"Here, sirs! Come again!" Two house elves said in unison.
"Great. Excellent service. Compliments for the cooks!" Sirius called as Remus dragged him out by the sleeve – afraid of yet another scene.
oOo
"Err, Sirius, that's not the way to the Gryffindor tower," Remus exclaimed when Sirius turned right in the Entrance Hall, towards the door outside, instead of left, in the direction of their common room.
"Of course it isn't, no use climbing seven floors on empty stomach. Let's go out."
"Out? Now?!"
"Just know, that's the best hour to be out at. The crickets will sing and the stars will shine."
"I thought that was what they always did," mumbled Remus. "What happened that you're so dramatic?"
"It's the mead," Sirius answered apologetically.
"But you haven't drunk it yet!"
"That's the point."
oOo
They sat down underneath a beech tree (the same tree that within a year will be remembered traumatically by Severus Snape) while Remus sing-sang "Food! Food! Food!" Sirius took out of the basket a sandwich of the length of a broomstick, and handed it to the other boy.
"Umm, you know," started Remus, chewing on the sandwich and then wiping some mustard off his chin. "It'd be pretty risky if Filch caught us. He'd have roasted us, or something."
"Well, we wouldn't have come out better than this roast," said the munching Sirius.
"Yeah, we need to invent something to warn us. Like a Filch-alarm or something. Actually, an alarm wouldn't be good; he'd hear it too. . . ." He added as a second thought.
"Mmm," Sirius answered mutely, because he was chewing. "You' 'ight. Mayee a lam' o' something."
"Huh?"
Gulp. "You're right, maybe a lamp that'd blink, or something."
"Or a map, that'd show us where he is. . . ."
They both digested the idea (including some other things) quietly for a while.
Sirius went through the bag.
"Great! They really put it!" He pulled out a bottle of mead, opened it, and passed it to Remus.
"Told you it'd pay off. . . ." Remus replied, taking a long sip. Sirius burped.
"Still starving?"
"Mm. Less." Remus pondered, swallowing the last muffin.
Since they both felt full like a Haggis, they both decided to lean against the tree and moan – taking the mead with them.
"It's actually nice. You were right. It was better outside." Remus said, retaking the mead from Sirius and speaking in between sips.
"We need to do it more often, Remus my dear friend," said the slightly tipsy Sirius, laying his hand on the nearest Remus-y shoulder and holding out his second hand to take the bottle back.
"That's enough for you," Remus stated, keeping the mead out of Sirius' reach.
"But I didn't drink anything!" Said Sirius with mock dissention.
"Mm, that map thingy. . . ." he started, his head lolling onto his shoulder. "It's a really good idea. We should tell James. Maybe even Peter, if he behaves."
They both leaned their head as well on the bark of the tree, staring (in Remus' case, a pretty glazed stare) at the stars.
"Remus, we should go back to bed," Sirius said.
"Nah, I don't feel like moving."
A few moments of silence.
"Hey Remus, you know?" Sirius stopped and looked at his bark-mate. Remus' head was hanging loosely on his right shoulder, and he snored softly with the almost empty mead bottle threatening to drop from his grip. Apparently, he didn't know.
Sirius smiled, taking the bottle from Remus' hands, and put it back in the basket. He took off his winter cloak, staying in the school's uniform (that against Remus' patched sweater was in the highest quality that the honour of a pure-blood family supplied), and covered his sleeping friend. Then he sat back with his back leaning against the tree and stared at the sky a little more.
The moon's face was nice and friendly and Sirius felt as if the Sandman threw sand into his eyes . . . and he fell asleep.
The two friends would wake up tomorrow morning. First Remus, that would be embarrassed to find himself leaning against Sirius and covered with an extra cloak and then Sirius, who would giggle to himself because of an unseen reason. They'd both be wet from the dew and hungry again – for breakfast.
But now they were guaranteed to have enough material for several sweet dreams.
The End