Thursday, 19:55...
"Do you have to have such a giant nose, Snivellus? Only it's blocking all my light," Sirius stated cruelly as he shoved the other boy aside, grasping the scavenger hunt list from a startled-looking Professor Burbage's hand. Snatching the piece of parchment from the Muggle Studies professor, he jerked away from Severus' grasp. "No, don't touch it, you'll get grease over everything," he snapped. The taunts did little to improve his morale, however, and his heart sank as he looked over the list. "A true love's kiss?" he remarked, surprised. He'd expected they were supposed to find hidden treasures. "Like that will happen. Who would kiss you, right Snivelley? Something stolen from Filch's office – that I can manage. Too bad I'm not partnered with James, we'd be done in a flash."
Severus elbowed the disgruntled Muggle Studies teacher aside, grabbing for the parchment. He felt embarrassed to have her watch him suffer insults from Black; they'd never be close, but he had enjoyed Muggle Studies early on, when he had been able to share his findings with Lily. That, of course, had been before their falling out, and before he had become further entrenched in the confusing, propaganda-filled politics that embroiled Slytherin House.
"Oh, bother. Are you really so childishly selfish, or just blind? Must we add near-sightedness to your appallingly long list of flaws, Black?" retorted Severus, making another grab for the paper. His fingers almost closed around the parchment before Sirius pulled it from his grasp. "Need I remind you we are in this together? As we are in this most unenviable situation, I should think devoting ourselves to quickly completing the scavenger hunt would be the wisest course of action. I don't wish to remain in your presence any longer than necessary" He glared at the other boy. "I'd prefer not to catch fleas."
"Wash your hair more than once every decade, then, why don't you," said Sirius mildly. He was too engrossed in the scavenger hunt list to think of a proper insult. "Hang on. They're barking! How are we supposed to be in two places at once?"
"Separate," decided Severus. The solution seemed marvellously straightforward.
Sirius shook the paper under Severus' large nose. "Read it, you stupid arse. It calls for one partner to be in two places at once while the other takes a photograph. How do you propose we meet that requirement, oh ye of excess oil?"
"Get splinched," retorted Severus, as both an explanation and an insult. He stared longingly across the room to where Lily was sitting with her legs curled under her. Beneath a gently waving Ravenclaw banner, she reached out and patted Caradoc Dearborn's hand, laughing at some comment he had made. Severus felt himself burn with desire and envy. If only I hadn't shouted at her...but who would think Lily Evans incapable of forgive and forget?
Sirius dropped the piece of paper and languidly threw himself back into his seat, one arm resting over his eyes in a gesture of surrender. "You have it then, Snivellus. I'll just lay here, broken in spirit –"
"– cracked in mind," finished James, who had wandered over to see how his best mate was fairing. Bouncing alongside him was Doris Purkiss, a seventh year Hufflepuff, who was beaming as though she had won a thousand galleons in the lottery. "I've come to see how you're holding up. I've ascertained things are going badly. Cheer up mate, it's only forty-eight hours, as Remus did try to tell you. Anyway, it could be worse." He tried to imagine how, and shuddered. "Speak of the devil...have you seen poor Remus?"
The two of them glanced across the Great Hall to the Slytherin table where Remus sat looking flustered and embarrassed as Marlene McKinnon drilled him on the books he had read. Every time he opened his mouth to comment, she interrupted him. Several times she even nudged him in the back, forcing him to straighten his posture.
"Poor bloke," said Sirius, consolingly. "Like somebody's evil stepmother, she is."
"The domineering yin to his submissive housewife yang," agreed James. "Anyway, we'd best be getting back down to it. Doris and I are trying to find out where they hid that statue of St Mungo –"
"Now that has gone too far," thundered an irate Severus all at once, making James, Sirius and Doris Purkiss jump. His hands shook so hard that the list he held rattled. "Absolutely intolerable – hideous invasion of privacy – " Given over to anger, he stammered, red in the face. "Look at this," he pronounced fiercely, throwing the list at Sirius. "Outrageous!"
Sirius smoothed out the rumpled parchment, his eyes scanning the list for anything offensive. "I don't see anything – oh," he finished, his voice small. A horrible urge to laugh out loud bloomed within him, which he restrained solely for the sake of James, who was looking on curiously. "Something from Lily Evan's lingerie drawer?" he read, barely controlling his smirk.
"What?" demanded James, red-faced and on the war-path.
"That's what it says. We have to find it. Pity you're not partnering with us, o Jamesy," began Sirius, when he was interrupted by the Headmaster's booming voice.
"You may have noticed," called Dumbledore over the rising din of a number of outraged, confused and entirely too giggly students. "That some of your lists call for items of a rather personal nature. In the interest of giving you all something to talk about while you start on your journey, we have supplemented your unique lists with the wishes of those you last spoke to. The items in question have been selected by those nearest you." When questions began to filter, Dumbledore explained further. "Whatever the person nearest to your pair was thinking about exactly sixty seconds ago has now become your exclusive item."
"James?" asked Sirius lightly, his eyes bright. "Care to explain?"
James shook his head, ignoring Sirius' teasing expression and Severus' murderous one. "Not really." He turned his attention instead to his list. "What've we got, I wonder." His expression screwed up. "One very naked Remus Lupin?" he asked, flabbergasted. His mouth hung open in mute shock as he jerked his head up, gaping at Sirius.
"Was that mine?" Sirius asked a nauseated Severus, supremely innocent as he fluttered his long eye-lashes. "Or were you thinking about him too?"
"I hope a picture will suffice," said James as Doris collapsed into fits of giggles behind him.
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