A/N: Well I absolutely adore the new ability to reply to reviews, so everyone who reviews I shall happily respond to! Even the bad ones! Though I of course will not be mean :) All reviews are good ones.

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving, and hopefully you didn't spend too much time out with the hordes shopping. Heh.

Enjoy the new chapter. And please, review. I love reading them, and it's just such a nice thing to do. Little presents for me. :)

Chapter 32

When the weekend finally came the students, and likely the teachers were ready for the break from each other. Though all of us had plenty of work we should have been doing, the students their homework and the teachers their corrections and lesson plans. Suffice it to say that most of the students weren't really paying attention to what they needed to do. Not to mention some of the teachers weren't either...

"Sirius... Do you plan on working at all?"

The two of us were searching some of the upper level corridors in search of any sort of hiding place. I was fine, I had already set my lesson plans for a few weeks in advance, and I had no papers to correct yet.

"I'll have you know that I finished everything I needed to."

I snorted, deciding that in all likelihood he had not given any homework or tests to the students, therefore making him free from any real work to do. The man had a talent for getting by with as little effort as possible. Still, he amused the students enough that they were seeming to like him. Not to mention his lack of school work to do left him free to chase after what we were really here for.

At the moment he was peering behind a peculiar picture of a nurse dancing with an ogre, who happened to be wearing a rather formal tuxedo. The woman seemed rather outraged that Sirius would be so rude as to look behind her painting. It was rather shocking, some of the things coming out of her mouth. I had to hurry the students along the hall, telling them that Professor Black and I were just doing some regular inspections... and that they should never remember anything they heard coming from the portrait.

A flash of black and blonde caught my eye once again, and I saw Cain Montgomery heading down another hallway. Throwing an apology over my shoulder to Sirius, I ran to catch up with the young boy.

"Mr. Montgomery? Can I have a word with you?"

"Professor Mackinnion. What do you need with me? I'm not in your class..."

I don't know what I had been expecting. Perhaps a new little Malfoy... Draco 2.0. Likely a snarky reply, a sneer, a well timed roll of the eyes maybe. Instead he seemed rather different. There was no overwhelming confidence, no image ruling the world, no sneer, not even a smile. His voice was soft, his eyes avoiding my own.

"I don't think I need a reason to speak to you, you don't even have to be in my class. It's the privileges of being a teacher."

I put my hand on his shoulder and steered him down the stairs, level by level, until we came to the third floor and my own office.

Truth be known, I didn't really like spending too much time in the office. There really wasn't much I could do to decorate the place, not like I had easy access to stores, or magic to conjure things. Instead it was still filled with the things the old teacher had left behind. A telephone, a wide array of spoons, plenty of used pencils all with their tips broken (strangely the teacher seemed to have never discovered pencil sharpeners), and a particularly old bicycle. I didn't think I would be able to do a class on bicycles... this one was so old I don't think I had any chance of riding it.

"Professor... I was on my way to the library to study..."

I winced immediately. Studying in the library... on a weekend. That was so unnatural. Granted it was good that he was learning, but it just seemed so vastly, pathetic. It was true that I had never seen the boy speaking to anyone, but there still had to be some people in his house who he had become friendly with over the last week. No one can shut themselves out completely.

"Mr. Montgomery, I commend the studious attitude you have, but this is important." Now the only thing was how to word this...

The young blonde boy had sat down in a chair across from my desk, and I took my appropriate place behind the desk. He didn't seem particularly nervous, despite being called into a teacher's office for no real reason. Aside from his avoidance of direct eye contact, he was otherwise calm. With his already odd behaviour I had been expecting some twitching, or fidgeting at least.

"Are you going to ask about my father?"

Well that solved the problem of having to ask the question.

"Actually, it was part of my thought process yes..." I tilted my head in confusion. He knew I had wanted to ask about his father being a death eater, other people must have asked already, and yet he didn't look the least bit perturbed or depressed. It was like someone was asking him the time.

"I don't discuss my father with people. Even teachers."

There was little emotion in that response. I was beginning to wonder if aside from magic, if perhaps human like robots existed as well.

"That's fine. I am certainly not going to be the one to talk you into spilling your history to me. I'm just a bit concerned about you. I haven't seen you speak to anyone. You said you were going to spend your weekend in the library. I just thought I'd let you know that you could talk to me if you so wished. Or Severus." I paused, perhaps Severus wouldn't be thrilled at me offering him up as a guidance counselor, but since he was there head of house I didn't really worry too much.

There was no lie in my being concerned over the boy. I certainly was concerned. I was just neglecting to tell him that I also wanted to keep an eye on him since his behaviour was a little odder then the norm for an eleven year old boy.

"Thank you Professor. I'll keep that in mind. Can I be excused now?"

There was no way to know if he was happy or not with my offer. I nodded, and he quickly left the room.

Really, I had dragged the boy down here on a whim. After noticing him quite a few times I felt it about time to actually speak to him. Of course I hadn't realized I would pretty much be the only one talking. He was as untalkative as a teenager, so he had a good head start there. Hopefully though he would, at some point, choose to talk to me or Severus. After all I had basically adopted Slytherin as my house, and if nothing else he was a Slytherin. While there were plenty of circumstantial evidence against him, I was optimistic that Slytherins were not always the enemy. Just played them on TV...

"You offer to help me look for..." Sirius voice dipped as some sixth year students ran by us. "The horcrux. But then you just run off. Sometimes I wonder if you even want to find it."

He should have judged by the hands placed on the hips, the narrowed eyes, and the general aura of malcontent that he should have stopped there. Sirius though if nothing is a very brave man.

"Or perhaps you don't want to find it because you want to spend more time with me?"

One of Sirius's weak points is this one spot on his left side, just under his rib cage. If hit just right then it pretty much just brings him to his knees. It's an entirely useful thing to know, especially during situations like this where he really deserves it.

"You really were asking for that." I tapped my foot on the ground, waiting for Sirius to stand up straight again.

"There was something that I was asking for, sort of similar to that in terms of loss of breath... just without clothing."

"So have you found it yet?" I chose to ignore his little joke, my foot tapping faster.

"I'm looking for the last remaining horcrux of the dark lord... and you expect me to have found it in the short time you were gone?"

I was just glad that he was speaking softly, after all we didn't need the entire school to know what we were doing. What it looked like was suspicious enough... It looked like we were searching for something after all.

"Sirius, there has to be something you remember. Some place your brother would have hidden things." I sighed, tired of all of this already.

Sirius responded with a sigh as well, leaning against the stone wall, his body tense. His appearance was one of somebody who looked exhausted, as if he had been put through the ringer more then a few times.

Perhaps I shouldn't push him. After all this must have been hard for him, asking simple questions wasn't going to make him remember anything. This must be particularly hard for him, after all it did have to do with his dead brother. The one that he thought he had failed...

Across from me a sudden light seemed to go off in his head, because Sirius had pushed away from the wall, looking like he finally had remembered something.

"I need you to go talk to Snivellus."

"Severus." I frowned, the reply coming out without me even thinking about it. I wasn't sure where he was going with this. What did Severus have to do with the horcrux? He better not be suggesting that he was in with Lord Voldemort again...

"Whatever. I need you to get in on his good side, and maybe he'll tell you something that will help me find the place my brother hid the horcrux."

All right then, that made a little bit of sense. Regulus had been a Slytherin, and so was Severus.

"How is Severus going to know anything about it? Other then both being Slytherins."

"He's evil, he's in with the bad guys. Of course he'll know." Sirius waved his hand at this, making it seem that what he had said was so completely obvious to anyone with any brains. Really the man just could NOT think well of Severus. For the rest of eternity he was going to hate the man completely.

"He's reformed." I muttered.

"Whatever. Reformed, right. Anyway he might know of some Slytherin hiding places. You know I can look everywhere in this damn castle but one place. The slytherin rooms are off limits to me."

"Why don't you go ask him?" Not that I expected any sort of civil conversations between the two. But there was really no harm in trying to help mend the bridge between the two. Okay, maybe there was a harm... after all they could hex each other to eternity. Actually that certainly was a likelihood.

"Of course. 'Snivellus, do you know any places one of your master's servants would have hidden something? I don't want to ruin any of their plans, but I thought it'd be nice to hide something as well. My old coinbank needs a safe place...' That'll be easy."

"I said he's reformed." My patience with the dark haired man pacing in front of me was wearing thin. I wondered if he was this annoying as a dog. Somehow I doubted it, too bad he couldn't just go around in his canine form.

"Whatever."

It appeared he wasn't actually paying attention to anything that I said. Not that I should have been surprised. Whenever it had to do with Professor Snape, he came across as deaf to anything to went against his won opinions. The idea of Severus being reformed was so way out there for him that what I said was just not getting through to him. But it said something for how desperate he was that he was willing to ask for help from the man he hated, even if it was through me and not personally.

"And Regulus wasn't a servant if he stole something as important as the horcrux." I said, going back to his suggested opening line to Severus.

"I know that, but I was just saying what it would sound like to Snape. He thinks that Regulus was the dark lord's servant."

So that was slightly obvious. I hadn't told Sirius that Severus had suggested that exact thing... That Regulus had stolen the horcrux to preserve his lord's life. If that had been true, it certainly had worked. The dark wizard was still alive because no one had known that there was an eighth horcrux, or where it was. Sirius didn't need to think about that though, it was far better to just believe that he had been doing right by stealing and hiding it.

"You speaking to him will likely sound like a braying donkey." I joked, smiling slightly at the twitch that appeared on Sirius's temple.

"Are you saying that I sound like a donkey?" He moved closer to me, making me take a step back.

"No I'm saying that Severus will find you annoying and your voice will therefore transform into a farm animal to him."

"But yours won't." He sounded skeptical, and slightly amused by the whole conversation.

"Didn't say that, but more likely I'll be something cute like a baby chicken." I shrugged, fluttering my eyelashes innocently.

"Why are we talking about farm animals?"

"I have no idea Sirius dear." I shrugged again, deciding not to mention that he had asked the question. The man wasn't overly fond of being the root of problems, or at least being told that he was.

"You need to talk to him, you're the best chance of getting him to talk. No attractive woman would like him. I'm sure even the idea of a woman speaking to him will give old Snivellus the jollies for a month." He snorted, but then looked absolutely disgusted that he had suggested anything sexual about the Potions master.

"Putting aside the fact you just said the jollies... Severus is not that desperate. He has no problems with women I'm sure." I smirked slightly. Unlike Sirius, I had no problems thinking about Severus and perverted things. And it was fairly amusing that Sirius had used a word like jollies.

Wait a second... Sirius knew that I was attracted to Severus, which meant that he had just insulted me as well.

Sirius snorted.

"He's attractive in a certain way." I narrowed my eyes at the dark haired Gryfindor.

"In a girls-would-rather-gouge-out-their-own-eyeballs sort of way I guess." He was smiling openly now, knowingly trying to piss me off. Can't say that it didn't work.

"You're an arrogant bastard. Just because all the girl students have crushes on you." I huffed.

"Are you jealous darling?" Now it was his turn to flutter his eyelashes innocently. Innocent on Sirius strangely works...

"The mere idea makes me want to throw up. We're getting off topic now." I muttered softly, even though there was a small ring of truth to it. I didn't like the fact that all the girls liked him.

"The mere sight of me makes you want to strip me naked." I snorted at that stupid comment of his. It wasn't the mere sight. "But anyway, make nice with him."

"Sirius, I already make nice with him. You've forgotten that I try and talk to him all the time."

"Why is that by the way?"

"I happen to like the man. I told you this already." My arms were now crossed over my chest. Hopefully he would drop this line of conversation. Normally looking like hell frozen over would shut any sensible man up, but apparently the animagus was not so sensible since he just continued on.

"Yes you did mention that but whatever for? He's not as attractive as I am." He said this was supreme confidence. The man certainly knew that women found him attractive.

"It's an intellectual thing honey, you wouldn't understand." I smiled slightly, reaching out a hand to pat his cheek softly. It was something an older woman would have done to their grandchild after being asked if Santa existed.

"I am not stupid." He muttered softly, crossing his own arms and looking rather like a sulky grandchild actually.

"Never said you were. It's just my reasons for liking Severus are intellectual. You just can't understand someone liking someone else for reasons other then the physical."

For Sirius everything was physical. He liked me because I was attractive. Not that it was the only reason, I'm sure. If I asked him he'd likely come up with half a dozen other reasons, but when you came right down to it, how I looked had been the initial reason and the one that was the most important. Everything for the man was physical, how he dealt with people, problems. If he had a fight with someone it would be with blows, not words.

"That's just a nauseating idea."

I blinked up at him in confusion.

"I didn't say anything disgusting."

"The idea of anyone liking Snape..." He shuddered dramatically.

"You're an ass. I don't think I want to even help you with this. You can go ask Severus yourself."

I turned and started to walk away from the infuriating man. There was no way I was going to stay and argue Severus's attractiveness or my own attraction to the man. Honestly, sometimes even speaking to Sirius was like going to the dentist for a root canal.

Before I got very far though, Sirius had caught up and grabbed my arm, successfully stopping my progress.

"Fine fine. Severus Snape is one fine piece of ass that any girl would be lucky to get." He paused. A particular tinge of green on his face."I think I'm going to be sick."

"I think I might as well after hearing you say that. Strange... normally I love the idea of two attractive men together. But that one I think is going to haunt my nightmares." I raised my hands into the air, trying to physically stop the images from entering my mind. " I'll help you if you promise never to say anything like that again."

"You don't have to ask twice. Just see if you can get him to talk about places where a Slytherin student would hide things. My brother after all spent most of his time down there. I'll try everywhere else, I'll go over everything twice even, with a fine toothed comb. But I don't think it will help. He was a Slytherin, if it's not down there, it isn't at Hogwarts."

The look on Sirius's face was unhappy, like he wasn't too pleased that it couldn't be him to find the horcrux. He looked less then thrilled at having Severus help. He looked practically depressed that Regulus hadn't told him what he was planning on doing.

"So the plan is for me to seduce Severus and..." I threw this out there since I knew something like this would snap Sirius out of his sulk. Getting the man angry is the fastest way to cheer him up, well that or offer to sleep with him. I wasn't that desperate yet.

"No one said anything about seducing!"

"Well I figured if I was there I might as well have some fun..."

"That's really not funny." The grey eyes were hard, and he looked rather serious at that moment.

"But Sirius, don't worry. I still find you drop dead gorgeous." I laughed softly, patting his arm comfortingly.

"But you won't sleep with me! But you will with old snake skin?"

This little joke had taken a rather serious turn.

"His skin is not scaly." Defending the man certainly did come naturally. "And I said nothing about sleeping with him. Seducing doesn't necessarily mean nudity."

It was typical of Sirius that if I said seduce, to him that meant have sex. He apparently didn't watch American television. We're quite good at suggesting things without actually doing them.

"The fun kind does." He was pouting again.

"That is why I would never sleep with you Sirius. Your mind is far too centered on the act of sex. Afterwards I get the feeling I'd be forgotten about." I sighed, now it was me who was practically sulking.

"I wouldn't forget about you. You're special." His eyes had widened at my comment, looking surprised that I would even suggest anything as crude as that.

"Probably the only muggle you'd have slept with. That's special, sure." I snorted.

"Of course not! I've slept with TONS of muggle women."

Men sometimes don't realize when they've said something that has dug their hole even deeper. Sirius being a man is exactly like that. He had just dug his hole all the way to China with that one little statement. If there's anything a girl loves to hear, it's that the bloke has slept with TONS of women. Really. We love that.

My silence apparently clued Sirius in on the mistake he had just made, because his mouth opened and he tried to work it for a few moments, but nothing right came out. He looked like a fish out of water.

"Okay so maybe not the best thing to say. But do you really think that sleeping with Snape would end any differently then you think it would with me?"

Not really a good apology. All he had basically done was try and redirect my anger toward someone else. In this case Severus.

"Strange that the two of you would have something in common. You'd both drop me soon after the act was finished. For you the 'fun' part would be over, and Severus would likely kill me for making him do something he never had wanted to do in the first place."

Not that I had thought about this all that much. It's just that I knew both their personalities pretty well by now. For Sirius, sex was fun. For Severus, well it didn't happen that often. He didn't really like me too much anyway, so if something did happen it would likely end with him cursing me to oblivion for making him do something he hated. Really my confidence had taken a severe blow since coming to this school.

"I'm telling you I wouldn't forget about you." Sirius huffed.

"Well we're not going to find out one way or the other, so oh well. I shall try my hardest to find out where Regulus could have hidden this horcrux." I shook my head, annoyed that I had let the conversation go so completely off topic. "In fact why don't I just go talk to Severus right now about this?"

I started to stalk off again, but Sirius's hand on my arm stopped me again.

"Don't do anything stupid..." His voice was soft, gentle even.

"The only stupid thing I could do would be to actually believe you." I growled out, pulling my arm away from him and angrily walking off down the hallway.

Sometimes I really let certain things get to me. Sirius, it seems, was something that always got to me. There had been no real reason to get angry with Sirius. I should know his personality well enough by now to know he hadn't really meant harm by anything he had said. It was just starting to get frustrating. It's difficult knowing that you like two men but you can't do anything about it. And in the case of Sirius, at least the feeling was mutual. But outside interferences had to be taken into account. He had the horcrux to find, and I wasn't even sure how I really felt about him aside from physical attraction. Not to mention he wasn't really a long-term sort of person.

I found myself down in the dungeons without even having thought of it. It was a weekend so there was no reason for Severus to be in his classroom, but that probably wouldn't have stopped him. Thinking of him sitting in his own room relaxing was a little difficult to comprehend. It was an amusing picture though. Severus wearing a smoking jacket, in front of his fire, drinking scotch...

So I tried his classroom first, and as I thought he was sitting behind his desk, doing some work of some sort. I was still rather angry so I slammed the door behind me as I entered the room, causing him to look up an annoyed expression on his face at the disruption. When he saw it was me though his expression softened a bit, a curious look replacing the annoyance.

"What's wrong?" His cold voice asked the question with no hint of any emotion, but for some reason I felt the compelling need to tell him what had happened.

"Sirius is a... bloody git." I muttered, thinking that the insult wasn't really strong enough but in my tempers thinking isn't really a strong suit of mine. "He thinks that just because I'm attracted to him, and vice versa, that we should immediately hop into bed together."

Severus had put down the quill he had been writing with, standing up and coming around the desk to stand in front of me. He looked annoyed again, but when one is mentioning Sirius around him that is to be expected.

"Anything else?"

"He's angry with me as well because I like you." I huffed, glaring to my side at a cabinet filled with potions ingredients. If Sirius had been in the room I likely would have kicked him.

"So the canine has problems with you speaking to other men?" There was a trace amount of amusement in Severus's voice.

I snorted at that, if only that was the case.

"No. He has a problem with me speaking to you. He hates you. He hates you, and he hates that I like you."

"So according to Black you can't have friends?" One black eyebrow rose in question.

"No." I sighed softly. "He doesn't like that I'm attracted to you. That's the problem. While I don't think he likes that I consider us friend, that he can deal with. It's the fact that you're competition for him that irks him." I shrugged.

Both eyebrows were raised at this comment, a startled look in his eyes. Severus looked more then slightly surprised. I started to wonder if I needed to be a bit more obvious with men in the future. I suppose telling them outright is really the only way to assure that they know you like them. It looked like Severus really had no clue, other then that I chose to speak to him.

His rather pale appearance seemed to have gotten worse, before a very light blush crossed his cheeks. Well it's quite nice to know I can make a man like Severus blush a bit.

"He thinks you're evil, that you're scaly, that you're a horrible person who'll sell us all out." I grew angry even thinking about it. It's one thing to hold a grudge against the man, but he should have believed in me since I trusted him.

"Do you think he's right...?" Severus's voice was quiet, silky even.

"Of course not!" I muttered angrily, shaking my head vehemently. "Sirius is just coming up with any excuse to hate you. He was even going on about me getting hurt if I got involved with you. As if he should talk, it would end badly with him as well!"

While I had been talking, Severus had moved closer to me until he was standing only a few inches in front of me. Cool hands came up to my cheeks, and I blinked up at the man in confusion. Before I could say anything though his lips descended upon mine.

Now Severus is normally described as cold, icy, frozen really. Everything he does is deliberate, determined, and smooth. So I had expected the kiss to be quick, cold, and relatively unfeeling.

I was surprised though when the warm lips smoothed over mine in a gentle and warm way. The kiss wasn't as impassioned as Sirius's had been, it wasn't as needy and hot. Instead it was rather soothing, and with it I felt my anger fly out the window.

He pulled back, a small smirk on his lips. It really was a Slytherin trait that...

"You told me that the first kiss wasn't a real one." He turned and walked back around his desk, leaving me staring at him in utter disbelief that he had done that at all. For a moment I wondered if I should jump on him and show him exactly what I meant by a real kiss, but I didn't think I should push my luck really.

Well there went my whole 'don't flirt with the boys' idea.

"You know..." I licked my lips, as I did that I saw Severus's eyes flick down to my mouth before returning to my eyes. Well he wasn't completely ice cold then. "Making out with you wasn't the reason I came down here. Or even to rant about Sirius."

The silky eyebrow rose again.

"We need to find the horcrux that Regulus stole. Sirius is looking everywhere he can, but when it comes right down to it his brother was a Slytherin. He doesn't know anything about the Slytherin rooms. You though are a Slytherin as well. Can you help us out?" I pleaded softly, knowing fully well that a request like this was a lot to ask Severus. In general he didn't really want to help people out.

"I'm already looking for ways to help you disconnect from Black, and keeping an eye on the Montgomery boy. Now you want me to tear about the Slytherin areas to find a horcrux you're not even sure is here because Sirius can't do it himself?"

"I know you don't want to help Sirius. Think of it then as helping to get rid of Voldemort. After all you'll never get rid of that mark until he's gone." I gestured to his left arm, and he placed a hand over the place where the mark was. The wound on my own left arm was starting to twinge a bit. "You could always do it for me?" I joked.

"Fine."

My eyes widened. Really despite my good arguments, I didn't think he was going to agree, at least not this fast. Actually I thought I was going to have to blackmail him again.

"Thank you Sevvie!" I smiled brightly, running around the desk and jumping on him to give him a crushing hug. He was startled by it, but quickly pulled me off him, a displeased look on his face. I though was still smiling up at him. I reached up, pulled his head down, and planted a rather sloppy kiss on his lips.

"You're the best Sevvie."

He moved a step away from me, a little fearful that I was going to do anything else to him. He ran a hand through his hair, making sure it wasn't mussed up, and tugging on his robes.

"Don't call me Sevvie. It's Severus or Professor Snape."

"Well at least you're giving me a choice now." I winked at him. "Now I shall return to the search with Sirius. Really he'll be happy you agreed."

"Thinking that makes me want to take it back now..." Severus muttered, sitting down again.

I laughed, not worried at all. Once he agreed to do something he would do it. Honour really was important to the man, so he wasn't going to go back on his word.

"I'll see you around Severus." I waved and ran out of the classroom, newly energized to deal with Sirius and look for the horcrux.