Chapter 13 – Two Hands, two Bands, two Possessions

Nutty stomped into the hanging smoke haze trapped in the Potter's kitchen, (which in all likeliness wasn't all cigarette smoke, as it had a rather weird tang to it.) His mind was honed on one thing only, so he barely took in the visual of the main attraction – the short small-eyed Gryffindor, Peter Pettigrew standing in the middle of the kitchen whimpering, a dripping wet dishcloth pressed to his left eye.

The "Muggle Milkman" barged through the outer circle of party-goers and stopped abruptly in the centre, causing most of the crowd to stop clapping. They turned their heads to frown at him questioningly. (Or more likely squint drunkenly at the brightness of the flowery orange jacket and stripy pink tie that had so rudely interrupted their drunken haze...)

"Where is he?" he snarled.

Nutty looked round to recognise a few familiar faces from his Quidditch days. Couple of huge Beaters over there, and that short man with sandy hair – probably Hufflepuff.

Why the heck did some of them have badly singed eyebrows?

It was only then he noticed that a tall man dressed in a trim black leather jacket was staring at him from the far end of the room. Nutty raised an eyebrow and stared back, as he recognised him as none other than Sirius Black.

If that guy was in this room – then it stood to reason Severus wouldn't be. And that Lupin had lied to him.

Sirius downed his tumbler of whiskey in one, flicked his ash, and turned to swagger toward the questioner. It was that crazy milkman again. Merlin, he'd bumped into him how many times? Crawling away from the Potters' parties he often saw him on his round at some unwizardly hour of the morning. What a shit job that must be.

And what Sirius found really interesting was that Nigel Norway looked like someone had just spilt his pint. And by that he wasn't talking about milk.

The Gryffindor took the roll up out of his mouth and blew the smoke downwards. "Where is who, my good man?"

Nutty's lip twitched slightly. "The...unwelcome one, if you know what I mean."

Sirius' eyebrow twitched, the corner of his mouth lifting into a slight smirk. "Y'know, I think I do. Last I knew he was doing some House Elf work for the hostess. If you were that impressed with the job he did on Lily's rug, I hear he comes pretty cheap..."

Some of the crowned groaned, some snickered. Nutty gave a half-amused flash of his over-white teeth and tutted. "Hardly. I'm more interested in where he is now."

Sirius watched the man closely, watched the way his smile never seemed quite genuine, and particularly, particularly - Sirius watched for that rather....murderous flash in his dark eye. Yes – there it was again, and it looked more than simple irritation. And the man was near sober, so it wasn't the drink talking. This was very interesting –

"So, what has he done to offend you? Apart from being here?"

Nutty's smile once again tinged on the predatory. "Well, he did promise to get me a Tequila Sunrise..." he held up his hands and appealed to the crowd. "And do you see one?"

The crowed 'oohed.' Sirius snorted. Evidently this man thought himself quite the comedian. Even more so with his clothes – he was at least 3 years out of fashion for Merlin's sakes!

But if the flowery twat was up for skinning dark weedy Slytherins as he seemed to be, Sirius was all up for it. Magic versus Muggle brawn. Snape wouldn't know what hit him.

"Seems like a good enough reason to want to have a little...word with him," he smiled dryly. He held out his hand for shaking. "Sirius Black. You're Norway, ain't you? Need some help looking for the little...?"

Nutty stared back at the Gryffindor thoughtfully before shaking his hand with a tough grip. Black had always been far too in-your-face to be a Slytherin – he was popular and did he know it. But he did have that one streak of cruel mischievousness... No wonder his brother and Black were always at loggerheads at school.

Nutty grinned impishly. How ironic this was.

Sirius turned up his collar, shrugged his shoulders and grabbed himself a shot of something. "Okay, lets go," he growled.

And together the two menacing looking mismatches filed out of the kitchen.

The rest of the kitchen loiterers turned and gave each other funny looks. They for sure weren't in the mood to break up a fight.

Perks coughed. "Er, anyone want some music? About time this party had some."

"I know there's an enchanted turntable in the dining room," gestured the larger of the Gryffindor beaters, Edgar Bones. "Lines up the records in order of requests. Potter's got loads of Magic stuff on LP – Lily's got Muggle. Put on anything - "

"The Banshees!" piped up Wormtail immediately.

"Right you are," smiled back Perks.

"Except for the Banshees," grumbled Bones. "Bloody awful."

Wormtail's face fell, and he turned sulkily to run the dishcloth under the cold tap again.

"Okay," commented Perks, looking slightly put out. "What else?"

"Have they got anything by The Sweet?" ventured Muggleborn, Andy Bell.

"The Who?" said Bones.

"The Sweet," replied Bell, smirking..

"The Who."

"The Sweet!"

"No – I meant, The Who?"

"For the third time, he said The Bloody Sweet!" cut in John Rookley suddenly, a pureblood Ravenclaw known for his short temper.

"And I said The Who!" grinned Bones, adding before Rookley made a move to strangle him, "The Who is a famous Muggle band."

"Well...that's a bloody stupid name for a band," groused Rookley, slouching sulkily in his seat.

"So's The Sweet," Andy Bell grinned, taking a swig of his Butterbeer. "Well, mellow out...it's a Muggle thing..."

Perks smiled and raised what eyebrows he had left. "I'll have a look for them both then. Any wizarding requests too?"

Wormtail squeezed out the dishcloth and put it back to his bloodshot eye, looking round pleadingly at them all. "The Banshees?"

Spencer groaned as he came to, and froze as he realised he was lying on a bed that wasn't his.

Merlin. Not again.

He sat up doggedly. The room was going around a little, but what sense he could make of it was that it belonged to a straight couple. The cute soft toy puppy dog on the left side of the bed clashing sharply with the masculinity of the discarded pair of worn boxer shorts on the floor to his right...

He sighed. He wasn't in some sexy bachelor's pad then. More's the pity.

A sudden loud snore broke his thoughts. Spencer craned his head around to the right. It was James Potter slumped awkwardly in an armchair, his head lolling back and his mouth wide open.

Ah.

Sharpe frowned as various bits of memories began to return to him. He was at Potter's party, he knew that now. He came dressed as a cowboy, yes, yes. He played a drinking game -

Singing....

He frowned still more. Singing? Nothing at all after the singing? Surely there was more? And still more, what was he singing? He rubbed his head and moaned. Merlin, this was so bad; what had he been drinking to make him forget this much?

He glanced toward the alarm clock, a little delicate wizarding thing on spindly legs, which also seemed to be snoring. It had only just gone midnight.

Potter began to snore even more throatily. Spencer wrinkled up his nose. Men who snored were highly unattractive. For Godric's sake, if he knew he sounded like a lion roaring, he would definitely take some potions to stop himself.

And with the headache he was rapidly developing.... He would bet Lily needed some effective silencing charms to combat James' level of decibels.

He managed to stand up and walk a perfectly straight line (or so he thought) to the door. Turning onto the landing he stopped at the first door he came to, which luckily enough for him in his state, was the bathroom.

As Sharpe walked past the mirror he cast a quick look at himself before halting and frowning. Something was missing from the costume. Surely he'd had a hat when he came to the party? Where had it gone?

As he lifted the toilet seat and looked down to his belt he noted an empty clip. Make that two things missing.

Sharpe cocked an eyebrow and twisted his lips into a devilish smile as he whistled. Who in their right mind at a party would steal a whip?