Chapter Two
Quite and Early Breakfast
Sirius awoke with a start. He looked at his alarm. Way too early to get up. He thought. It was only four thirty.
The last three weeks had been a breeze. He had been doing very well academically, and had made many new friends. Peter, whose bunk was right across from Sirius', had turned out to be quite the amusing fellow. It was a little annoying to watch him fidget, but he could come up with the most miraculous ideas. Peter would suggest they do something hilarious to do, and it always turned out to be well worth it, even if Peter sometime did not tag along.
Sirius looked around the room. Everyone was fast asleep. Casey Wilder was snoring slightly, but otherwise the room was silent. Sirius heard a muffled thump from the common room. Someone must have left the window open again and the shudder is hitting the wall. He told himself. He gazed around the room again with sleepy eyes. Hey! Remy isn't in bed! That's odd. He stayed up a little later than everyone else last night doing homework, maybe he's not done. Sirius joked to himself. Then Remy came through the doorway. His hair was a mess and he was breathing fairly heavily. He looked quite startled to see Sirius looking at him.
"What in the world are you doing awake at this time?" Remy whispered loudly.
"Well what are you doing up?" Sirius replied.
"I had to go to the bathroom. I tripped on a chair on the way in. Stop looking so suspicious!"
"OK. Well you woke me up. What do you want to do?" said Sirius.
"I was about to go back to sleep…" Remy said, a little sarcastically.
"You sure? You look like you've had quite a bout with the loo. Besides, by the time you get to sleep you will only be in bed for another hour or so. We might as well use this as our free time."
"Oh all right. We could play chess." Remy suggested.
"That's fine. Until I think up something better to do…" Sirius replied. They both laughed quietly as they made their way down to the common room. Sirius sat down as Remy got out the wizards' chess board. They played a few games, Remy winning most of them, but Sirius did win a couple. The chess pieces in wizards' chess move by themselves and attack other pieces on their own.
"OK, I give up." Sirius finally declared.
"Do you?" said Remy
"Yes I do, you win, be happy. How about we sneak downstairs and get some food from the kitchens?"
"But it's five o'clock! Breakfast will be open soon."
"So? The food the elves personally give us is much better than the stuff at breakfast. Not that breakfast food is bad, but house elves seem to work harder for personalized things. Plus it is always more fun to do it secretly." Sirius said.
"OK fine, but breakfast will still be soon and it would be odd to return to the common room when people are just getting up."
The two snuck through the fat lady's picture and down to the large painting of pieces of fruit. Remy tickled the pear and the painting opened to let them through into the kitchens. They had been using this passage frequently since their third year friend, Eric Thomas, had informed them of it.
"Hello, can I get you anything?" said the nearest house elf.
"Yes, thank you. I would like a couple raspberry pancakes with syrup. Oh, and an orange juice. Remy?" Sirius told her.
"I think I will just have a toasted sun dried tomato bagel with cream cheese." Remy said.
"Alright! I will try my hardest to get it to you as soon as I can. Thank you so much for stopping by!" the small house elf said while bowing excessively.
Before Remy and Sirius could decide to be impatient or not, the house elf had returned with their plates. "There you go, and there you go! Is there anything else I can get you?" They both shook their heads and the elf left them to work on breakfast for the rest of the school. The two finished their breakfast and put their dishes in the washing pile. As they exited the picture of the fruit, they found themselves face to face with Mortimer, the Hogwarts games keeper.
"Why, hello there." Mortimer said with an air of authority.
"Uh… Hi" Remy replied, not quite sure if he was in trouble.
"I saw you two leave your house earlier this morning. Now I suppose I would be in the right mind to report two first years sneaking out before your open hours?" Mortimer asked them.
"Uh… yes sir."
"Do you really think you are in trouble?"
"Uh… yes sir."
"You know what? I don't think you should either. My advice to you is to be more careful next time. You should be more careful next time, it shows bad form to get in trouble with these things. Now get going back to your house, don't get caught, and enjoy your second breakfast."
Sirius and Remy scurried back up to the Gryffindor common room, this time being cautious to who might be around.
"That was brilliant!" Sirius finally said when they stepped through the Fat Lady's portrait.
"Yeah, really. You nearly got us caught!" Remy said, slightly angered. "If that had been almost anyone else we would be scrubbing dishes for the house elves until first period!"
"Bloody hell, mate, calm yourself. It was by pure luck that Mortimer got us, and most likely he is the only one up at this hour, and anyone else who is would be working or trying to sleep."
"Oh, whatever. I think we should spend a visit to Mortimer, see how we can 'improve our form' so we won't get caught again." Remy said.
"You know, that's not a bad plan. Any idea where his office is?" said Sirius.
"Does he have an office? I mean, he is only the games keeper. What would he do with an office?"
"Do you know what a games keeper does?" Sirius questioned him.
"Um… No, I actually don't"
"Well neither do I, and for all I know he could need one!"
As the rest of the house began to wake, they found Remy and Sirius fast asleep on the couches.
"What in the world are you do doing down here?" James asked with a yawn. Sirius woke up groggily to the sound of his friend's voice.
"What? Oh. Well, sleeping I guess…" he said, a little surprised that he had fallen asleep.
"Well you could have done that in your bed. Did you somehow sleepwalk with Remy down here or did Remy just fall asleep after finishing his homework at three?"
"Uh… yeah… I mean no. He woke me up going to the bathroom so we stayed down here…"
"OK, whatever. Let's get him up."
"Right-o" Sirius said with a grunt as he got up from laying down.
After a few futile efforts stopping short of hitting, Sirius and James gave up and went down to breakfast without him, planning to wake him after they eat. "Why aren't you eating anything?" James asked Sirius when he saw him nibbling on a piece of corn bread, as opposed to his usual mountain of pancakes.
"Oh, I already ate." He said.
"You did? When? I didn't see you."
"Didn't I tell you? Me and Remy went down to the kitchens earlier while everyone was asleep."
"No, you did not tell me that."
"Oh, sorry. By the way, we ran into Mortimer on our way back and we were going to see him later." Sirius said as he finally remembered what had happened the night before. He was very tired from just getting up after sleeping on a couch.
"He caught you? But you can't be out before opening hours! He would have given you detention!"
"Oh lighten up, Mortimer is smarter than that. He wouldn't give us detention for sneaking out for a little munchings. We are going to see him to ask how we can avoid getting caught in the future! You should come too, it will be good fun."
"That sounds brilliant, but I don't know he will actually help you break the rules." James said.
"Sure he will! You just don't know him."
"OK. Why don't we go drop a bomb on Remy?"
"Now that's more like it." Sirius said, laughing a little, as the two left breakfast and headed back to the common room.
Meanwhile, back at the Gryffindor house, Remy was already up. He walked up to the dormitory to change. Uh oh. My damn shirt is full of hair… good thing I was wearing robes with Sirius and he didn't see it… He yawned, and then realized that he had been up practically all night. He was dead tired. At least I got to sleep on the couch. He thought. He troubled over how he was to make it through the day on no sleep as he changed out of his hairy shirt and put on new robes.