In the meantime, Remus's two comrades struggled on and on through the now really thick undergrowth. They hardly talked, only if they had to, and then they kept their voices low. The cracking and snapping of twigs and branches and rustling of leaves as they passed by was loud enough to their ears.

When the light began to get dim, they started looking for a place were they could spend the night. As the semi-darkness surrounding them grew deeper rapidly, they had to hurry. Finally they found something close to a cave at the side of a big boulder-stone. They huddled against the rock, wrapping their knee-length uniform robes close around themselves.

"I'd really like to make a fire now", Sirius suggested. "What about that?"

"I don't think so. There's nothing for dinner we could cook, anyway." Severus, chewing on a piece of dry bread, unrolled his blanket. "Get ready to sleep. First watch's mine."

"Mine!" Sirius protested. "You're having the first watch all the time! I know you'll wake me much too early."

"That's what you'd do!" Severus shot back at him. "I'm really tired, see, and I want that watch thing to be over as soon as possible and then sleep until dawn."

"That proves it even more", Sirius protested. "Alright, take it, but if you dare to wake me up just five minutes too early, I'll tear your head off." And with that he crawled under his blanket, accompanied by a hastily self-made cheese sandwich.

"Do what you like", Severus said absent-mindedly, fingering something he had taken out of one of the pockets of the part of his utility belt leading across his chest, from his right shoulder to the left side of the actual belt.

"What's that, Sevyboy?" Sirius asked with interest. "A cigarette? I thought you were a non-smoker?"

"I really am", Severus growled, angered at being addressed like that. "That's not a cigarette, fool." Nonetheless he lit it up and stuck it into his mouth.

Sirius grinned. "It does look like a joint, you know. You're on marihuana?"

Severus sighed, obviously bothered. "You ever heard Mandrake leaves keep you awake when you have to stay up? Best thing to use in such a situation, believe me." He sent from his lips a thin stream of smoke. "We experimented with it at school already, remember?"

"Oh yes, you're right!" Sirius laughed cheerfully. "We met behind the greenhouses. Remember the stuff we used to hover over the ground? And how Lestrange fell from the greenhouse roof!"

"Like it's been only yesterday. Lestrange, yeah. And Rosier, that big ape. Couldn't get enough of the stuff. I guess he'd be a heavy smoker now, if not for Moody."

Sirius grinned. "And that Hufflepuff loony, that Manson. Remember his N.E.W.T.s, by the way?"

"Horrible, simply horrible, man. Remember how Avery called Filch a muckraker?"

"Remember how James, Remus and I accidentally felled one of the Christmas trees in the Great Hall?"

"Remember how I accidentally splattered your feet with Swelling Solution in our second year in Potions?"

Now they both had to laugh. "I think we'll be buddies for this task, shall we?" Sirius suggested. "Just remember I don't like you when we're back to normal again."

"We'll have a fight as soon as we return", Severus agreed grimly. "Amnesty until then."

As Sirius wrapped his blanket around him, he thought that he maybe wouldn't miss Remus as much as he had feared he might.