#4 The Morning After
The five sleepy yet jubilant Slytherins swaggered in for breakfast with more arrogance than usual. Poised in the act of sitting down they shot identical smug looks at the Marauders. Potter rolled his eyes and Lupin yawned, shrugging off the degradatory looks flung their way. Pettigrew was too busy digging into the hot buttered toast and scrambled eggs to even notice if Dumbledore cart wheeled in to the Great Hall in his pajamas. Discerning this Snape directed his sneer at the one person who he knew from past experience could neither ignore nor restrain himself from striking back Sirius Black. But to Severus's perplex ion, Black merely batted his eyelashes coyly and blew him a kiss.
Risking a double take Severus settled himself at the Slytherin table.
"All right there Sev?" Lucius questioned switching glances from Snape to the Marauders.
"Nothing" Snape declared. "It just seems as if the Gryffindors are more self assured than usual."
"Well then, may be that would be their down fall." smirked Lucius. Then lowering his voice he continued, "Do I have any reason not to feel confident about the plan Severus?"
"No." snapped Snape irritably. If there was any reason to dampen an imminent Gryffindor defeat, it was Lucius's incessant nagging. Nevertheless he ran through the plan one more time.
"We draw them out to the forbidden forest."
"Yes?"
"We provoke them to use the cloak."
"Next?"
"We finger them to the authorities!"
"Then?"
"Then what?" Severus hoped that Malfoy the control freak had not revised the plan for the two hundredth time.
"We stay back and gloat of course! Four simple steps. That brings us to the matter of bait. I consider…" Lucius stopped talking as his eyes inspected the incoming owl post.
"Ah! I believe Father has replied." But the black owl who delivered the letter Lucius was holding was not the Malfoys' regular Eagle owl who Severus had come to recognize intimately due to Lucius's chronic letter writing tendencies.
'Honestly I imagine Lucius writes home if he sneezes to the left instead of right.' thought Severus maliciously. Then complete recognition dawned. The owl was Black's. He recognized it from a particular bad memory when Black had instructed his pesky pet to drop a pellet of Silver Snail excreta into his tomato soup making him turn in to a…Severus shook his head ridding himself of the vicious memory.
"Grab the owl" he barked at Crabbe and Goyle while knocking the letter out of Lucius's hand.
The two minions did what they were ordered to do without thinking and learned the hard way how a normal looking post owl can turn into a flesh shearing, skin tearing clawing, cutting monster in a matter of seconds.
Lucius merely raised an eyebrow.
"I'm glad you're so happy to hear from my father Sev. You must be lonelier than you're letting on."
As Narcissa erupted in to giggles Snape gave a collective glare and said snidely. "The letter's from Black or maybe I should've let you figure that out while your hand are covered from Burburtuber pus."
"Good thinking" Lucius swung his gaze over to the marauders who were watching the drama closely.
"What about the owl Lucius?" Goyle interrupted still desperately holding on to the clawing menace. Trust Black to own an owl sharing his own personality.
"Here" Lucius picked up Crabbe's pumpkin juice and pointedly dumped it on the owl and turned to smile nastily at the Gryffindors.
The Marauders looked scandalized as the owl, drenched and dripping hurried to escape out of the window.
In a flash Black sprang up from his table pulling his wand out but both Lupin and Potter wrestled him back into his seat all the while muttering something to him urgently.
The Slytherins laughed even more loudly at the apparent submissiveness of the Brave Gryffindors.