A City Visible But Unseen

One: AT THE DAWNING OF THE DAY

The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.

At five to nine on one cold January morning the students of Oakfield Comprehensive School began to converge on the school gates. Predictably there was a huge scuffle, much pushing and shoving, and as a background hum the screeching of damp bicycle brakes as their riders desperately attempted to avoid running someone over. Being pulled for dangerous bicycling is not the best way to start your day, especially a school day, which is only ever going to get worse.

The students of Class 6A detached themselves and wandered in a most relaxed manner to their form room as the bell began to ring. Their starchy Scottish form teacher, Miss McGonagall, stood in the doorway, impatiently beckoning them on.

'Hurry up there, Potter, Weasley - and Potter, how many times have I told you, trainers are not part of the school uniform! Don't come in wearing them tomorrow.'

Potter, a scrawny young man with close cut gelled hair that contained several bleached highlights, wearing battered specs, a baggy uniform and scruffy trainers, muttered, under his breath, 'Then I won't come in!'

'I heard that, young Potter,' Miss McGonagall said, scowling fiercely at him and his best pal Ron Weasley, who was wearing his tie around his head and had his jumper slung about his waist. Only one of his shirt buttons was done up, revealing a Grateful Dead t-shirt underneath. His too-short trousers revealed two different socks, one red and one purple. Trinny and Susanna would have had a field day.

'Hurry up there, Black!' Miss McGonagall called abruptly. Much to her chagrin, she spent most of her teaching career marshalling people into class, and far less doing any actual teaching, which suited her students, at least, just fine.

A tall, lean blonde boy was sauntering down the corridor, flanked by his two shaven-headed, thug like mates, Greg and Vinnie - the terror of the school. The attention of sundry females was firmly fixed on Black, as nature and he himself intended it to be. One of his pale blonde eyebrows was shot though with a steel bar in the shape of a dragon, and as he stuck his tongue out at the girls he revealed a partner stud piercing that. Like Ron, he wore only his shirt, rolled up to the elbow and gaping at the neck to reveal nothing but pale, bare skin underneath. His jumper was hooked over one shoulder and his trousers - non-regulation stonewashed jeans - were slung low on his hips, bagging over his Timberland boots, and encircled by a thick leather belt. Sadly, the Village People analogy would have entirely passed him by.

Miss McGonagall sighed in despair. 'There's no point even saying anything to you, Black,' she said. 'Take a detention for flouting uniform regulations and get into class.'

'Whatever.' Black shrugged, showing the utmost indifference to the punishment he received almost every day. In his opinion, it was a small price to pay for wearing whatever the hell he wanted.

As Black strolled through the door, an out-of-breath girl dashed up, curly hair flying, her arms hugging about half-a-dozen books.

'I'm so sorry, Miss!' she gasped. Black turned around to watch the spectacle with a mildly amused expression. 'Mum's car wouldn't start this morning and I had to walk, then my locker got stuck again - '

'It's quite alright, Miss Granger,' Miss McGonagall said fondly. 'Just go take your seat.'

The girl edged into the room past Black, who made no attempt to move out of her way. She made the utmost effort not to touch any part of him, being about the only female in the school (aside from McGonagall) who treated him as though he had contracted leprosy rather than as a walking Viagra factory, and eventually got inside.

'Move, Black!' Miss McGonagall barked.

She took her seat at the battered teacher's desk that stood at the head of the small, grubby, grey-walled classroom, whose grimy windows overlooked a windswept, desolate concrete yard. It was very inspiring sight, in the 'oh looky a little flower outside my prison cell window' genre. Unfortunately for any budding poets, most teachers at Oakfield Comprehensive were too busy trying to instil basic grammar skills into the lower primates who filled its ranks to pay any attention to potential genius, and one or two flowers blushed unseen and wasted their sweetness on the Tuesday-curry-scented air.

'Black, why aren't you sitting down?' Miss McGonagall burst out, having just noticed Black lounging against the wall, one foot propped against it, hands in pockets, staring out of the window with what appeared to be avid interest. He turned slowly at her voice, looked at her for a few seconds, then said in a clearly enunciated voice, 'I don't know.'

'Well, take a seat!' Miss McGonagall was nearly apoplectic with rage.

'Where?' asked Black in disdain. Miss McGonagall noticed that all the back seats were gone. In a barely controlled voice, she pointed at the one free chair - next to Hermione, at the front of the class - and said, 'Here.'

Black gave her a disbelieving look, but, noticing the whiteness of her lips, and not wanting, after all to be expelled, he sighed and meandered between the maze of desks to the front. As he made his way forward, Miss McGonagall noticed Hermione flushing in embarrassment and slowly clearing a space, attempting, with difficulty, to stack all her books in one pile. Black slammed his one book - a tattered, dog-eared one it was too - on the desk and slammed himself down after it. He then took to chewing the end of his biro, all the while affecting the same complete interest in the view outside of the window. Hermione edged herself and her books away from him, then leaned down so close to her novel that her forehead was almost touching its pages.

'Roll call!' said Miss McGonagall, eyeing her class beadily through her small square glasses. She smoothed out her tartan kilt skirt, brushed a few non-existent specks from her white Arran jumper, self-consciously hitched up her wrinkled black tights and commenced.

'Well, Black, you're clearly in. Wonderful. Millicent Bulstode?'

'Millie's not in, Miss,' volunteered her best friend, Pansy, who was chewing gum with loud smacking sounds. She was wearing a skirt so short it could have doubled as a belt and a too-tight shirt, its buttonholes straining at the seams. 'She's - uh - sick. Ya know, de painters are in.'

'Remove that from your mouth, Miss Parkinson,' said Miss McGonagall automatically, too long in the tooth at this stage to actually expect Pansy to obey her. 'Alright.' She marked Millicent Absent. 'Remind Miss Bulstode to bring a note tomorrow. Terry Boot?'

'That's me!' said a freckled boy with long, floppy chestnut hair in altogether too cheery a voice for that time of a cold, dull Monday morning. He turned to wink lasciviously and grin with sparkling white teeth at the girls behind him, who fluttered eyelashes and fringes back.

Miss McGonagall rolled her eyes. 'Lavender Brown?'

'Here, Miss,' said a giggly brunette with growing out highlights. Her skirt, though

not as indecent as Pansy's, was still an inconsiderable length, as were the skirts of the two other girls squeezed at a table for two. All wore their jumpers in deference to the bitterly cold weather, but their legs were completely exposed, their knee socks rolled down to the last degree. The other two girls, who were identical twins, had long shiny hair, which they were constantly flicking over the desk of the boys behind them. They were all heavily caked with eyeliner, sparkly eyeshadow and sticky lipgloss, presenting the world with the overall image of an exploded working diagram of a cosmetics factory.

Miss McGonagall rolled her eyes. 'Vincent Crabbe.' Vinnie made a grunting noise, which she took for a declaration of his presence in the room.

'Seamus Finnigan?'

A gangly boy in the back row said 'Yah' in a languid Irish bogger accent. His jumper was pinned with dozens of Irish flag badges of the type sold to gullible tourists. His tie was bound directly around his neck, bypassing his collar entirely, which had been coloured green with a highlighter and inked with the letters IRA at intervals.

'Gregory Goyle?' Another incomprehensible grunt.

'Hermione Granger?'

The curly haired girl, seated alone in the front desk, looked up vaguely from the open books spread around her. She appeared to have been interrupted in train of reading 'Great Expectations.'

'Oh, present,' she said, so Miss McGonagall could just hear her, and bent her head back over her book.

'Neville Longbottom?'

A podgy boy with a food-stained jumper and white socks spoke in a trembling voice. 'I'm here.'

'Padma and Parvati Patil?'

'Here!' the twins chorused, tossing their hair in unison. Pam and Par, as they liked to be known, then turned to Seamus, who was behind them, and winked. Pam blew a huge pink bubble. Seamus made a horrified face and tipped his chair back. He then clasped his hands behind his head and grinned at Dean, two desks down, who ignored him.

'Pansy, you're here,' Miss McGonagall muttered. 'Harry Potter.'

She looked down at him when he didn't reply. Harry had his eyes closed and was leaning back in his chair, nodding his head slightly. Miss McGonagall stormed down between the row of desks, incensed. Her anger only increased when she detected the tinny sound of Lost Prophets wafting from the tiny earpieces wedged in Harry's ears. Spotting the teacher descending like a bat out of hell, Ron opened his eyes properly for the first time that morning, took stock, and rammed his elbow into Harry's side. Harry's eyes jerked open just as Miss McGonagall snapped the headphones out of his ears.

'Listening to music in class!' she cried, breathing hard. 'Take a detention, Mister Potter, and if I see that blasted contraption within five yards of your person again I will personally take it and clobber you to death with it!'

'Not bad, Miss,' Black drawled approvingly. Hermione gave him a admonitory -

albeit extremely rapid - look from under her bushy fringe. Dean held up a scrap of paper on which he had artistically delineated a rather curly eight.

'Humph!' Miss McGonagall snorted through her beaky nose. 'Back to the roll call, then, if you please! Dean Thomas!'

Dean held up another piece of paper on which he had sketched 'Here' in bubble letters. Seamus gave him a friendly nod. Dean pointedly shifted in his seat so that he was facing away from Seamus, who folded his arms in a huff.

'Blaise Zabini?'

A girl with very long dyed black hair (for which there is no equivalent in nature), black eyeliner, black lipstick, black (not to break a winning formula) fingernails and a fake-pale complexion indolently raised one hand, tugging down her skirt with the other. Terry gave her a come hither look and she gave him the finger. He shrugged and went on attempting to find his reflection in the zip of his pencilcase.

'Well that concludes that, at last,' Miss McGonagall said. 'Now, if you could all open your copies of - uh - the Scottish play - today we're going to be studying the theme of Kingship in its different forms.'

'Notice the way she can't say Macbeth?' Black sniggered, ostensibly to Hermione, because there was no one else in the vicinity.

'Some people think it's bad luck,' Hermione replied pointedly.

'I thought that was only actors?'

'Bad luck can happen to anyone.'

'Only if you believe in it.' Black stretched his arms lazily behind his head.

'Aren't you fortunate, to be able to think like that,' Hermione said waspishly.

'Jeez, no need to be so defensive,' Black said in surprise, opening his eyes wide. Hermione coughed angrily and started maniacally rearranging her books; anything not to have to look in a direction that contained Black.

'Black!' Miss McGonagall's voice lit on Black with altogether too much malicious pleasure. 'Try and see if you can name me all the kings in the play and the type of kingship they represent.' It was the kind of question she usually reserved for Hermione, or Neville if she was feeling particularly patient.

'Duncan represents the wise and beloved king who's a bit too gullible for the job. Macbeth typifies the evil tyrant as he gains kingship through the forces of darkness. Edward is a sainted king and Malcolm at the end shows signs of being both a good and wise ruler, unlike his father,' Draco shot off, barely pausing for breath.

Miss McGonagall merely raised her eyebrows. 'If only you used that intellect more often, Black, you'd make a class A student,' she said, so that only he and Hermione could hear.

'Thanks, but no thanks,' Black said dismissively. 'I've got better things to do with my time.'

Miss McGonagall only shook her head sadly and moved on to try and coax a relevant answer out of Lavender. She had seen too much wasted potential in Oakfield to get het up over what was, after all, just another bright loser. Hermione, however, had no such experience, and when Miss McGonagall's back was turned, rounded on Black.

'Why don't you try a bit harder?' she accused him in a hiss. 'What more important things have you got to do than earn yourself a better future?'

Black simply regarded her impassively with his blank silver orbs. 'What future did you think I currently had, that a couple of years in Oxford, like you want, would improve on it?'

Hermione shrugged, her lip curling. 'Unemployed. Checkout chick - only you'd be a guy. Drug pusher. Hell, if you were a girl I'd say pregnancy and living off social welfare. That's what people do around here.'

'I thought we were talking about my future here, not my post-secondary school employment.'

'Same thing!'

'Not at all,' Black said with infuriating calmness. 'I'm an only child, and the 'rents have stacks of money. I'd never have to get a job if I didn't want one.'

'If your parents are so loaded, what are you doing here?' Hermione said disbelievingly. 'Why aren't you at Winchester or something if you can afford it?'

'Ah, there you have it,' Black said, grinning. 'I never said that the money was technically legal or anything.'

Hermione stared at him with round eyes, then, compressing her lips into a thin line, a la McGonagall, proceeded to ignore him for the rest of the class.

She stayed behind after class to check her latest essay with Miss McGonagall, so

that everyone had gone by the time she had left to go to Chemistry.

Her tardiness was not noticed, as the class was in its usual state of disarray. Most of the sixth form girls had taken Chemistry, not out of any love for the subject, but rather lust of the teacher's arse. Mr Snape, by Hermione's calculations, had to be at least thirty-something, but he didn't act it, with his Adrian Brody-esque floppy black locks and tight leather trousers. She could not, for the life of her, see what the girls liked about him, but she was ineffably polite to him always. He was, after all, a teacher.

She made her way to her usual seat at the front, not even bothering to apologise

for her lateness, as Snape was draped over Lavender and Blaise's desk, 'correcting homework'. Even the habitually taciturn Blaise was moved to a rare half smile in his presence, although she still didn't condescend to say a word. Hermione shook her head in astonishment, as always, and went to put her books on her desk -

Only to find that their space was already occupied. Hermione stared at the foreign books for several seconds, trying to guess their origin, before turning her eyes to her stool, which was being insouciantly lounged upon by Black, radiating an air of sullen cool.

'Black, why are you here and what are you doing in my seat?' Hermione said, with a valiant stab at politeness.

'I need a new lab partner,' he muttered, flicking repetitively at the battered wood of the desktop. 'Greg transferred to Maths because he fancies Miss Vector, so I was left alone.'

'Excuse me if I'm not weeping buckets at your predicament,' Hermione said sarcastically. 'But I've managed to get along just fine on my own for the past two years, and you can bloody well do the same!'

'Do sit down, Hermione, so that we can start,' Snape murmured, finally deigning to stop flirting with Lavender and the Patil twins in time to start the class. 'I'm sure you'll find Black doesn't bite. Much.'

Scowling furiously, Hermione plonked herself down on the stool next to the blonde-haired first-class pillock, biting the side of her cheek to stop herself punching him. She made a mental effort to reign in her passionate anger. He's not worth it, she reminded herself. In fact, she hadn't even noticed that he was even in the class until now, when he just had to go and annihilate her personal space.

At Snape's command, she began setting out the equipment for an EDTA test on hard water. To her dual gratification, Black managed to stay out of her way, and more importantly for her state of mind, stay silent.

They worked in silence for the next hour, Hermione even refraining from comment when Black blatantly copied her write-up of the experiment.

As per usual, one of the tables had 'accidentally' spilled a container of Erichchrome Black T all over their table, and Mr Snape was most solicitous in offering his aid. Hermione stared into space, unable to even summon up the will to make a start on her homework while Black was beside her, flicking at the table again.

'Stop!' she growled at last.

'Stop what?' Black seemed genuinely affronted, as if he didn't realise what he had been doing. Hermione didn't reply, only snatched up her books as the bell signalled welcome release.

~

Draco looked up from the boring-as-hell literary passage he had been given to transcribe as detention work and was instead doodling on. To his left, Harry Potter was scribbling away furiously, but from what Draco could see it wasn't an essay on cultural context in Silas Marner - rather, something more along the lines of Slipknot lyrics. Draco couldn't see why he was bothering to squander the paper - the teachers never actually read what was written in detention. He'd even tested it once, by transliterating a well-thought out, steamy piece of erotica in which Mr Snape, Miss McGonagall, Mrs Sprout the biology teacher and a good deal of whipped cream had featured prominently. He had even felt slightly insulted that he'd got no reaction from them - Greg, whose only reading material consisted of tomes from the Black Lace line, had assured him it was worthy of publication. Anyway, the point was that if Potter was trying to shock the teachers with a few obscene lyrics, he was wasting his time.

Draco stared out the window, trying to find shapes in the clouds, a pastime that occupied him during most of his classes. The sprinkling of his classmates around the windswept concrete yard caught his attention. There was Weasley, with a few of his drongo mates, staggering dizzily around in the shelter of the wheely bins, clearly smoking something illegal that made them go 'wow' a lot.

Terry Boot, Seamus and Dean were playing football. Correction - Terry was flexing his muscles at the gaggle of girls, who were giggling gamely despite their blue knees, Seamus had removed his shirt in an effort to show something off (quite what, Draco couldn't ascertain), and Dean, with a look of desperate determination, was kicking the ball at a nearby wall.

Hermione was sitting on a bench, reading a book. Draco nearly scowled at her, then reminded himself that this was a futile act, as there was no one there to see. Potter didn't count - he didn't pay any attention to anyone except Weasley and possibly those voices inside his head.

As he watched, Greg and Vinnie began throwing things at Hermione - coins and fag butts, by the look of it. Hermione didn't respond beyond picking the things out of her hair. Draco frowned. He'd have to have a word with them about that. If anyone was going to be tormenting the Granger swot, he should be the one that was doing it.

At long last, McGonagall returned and let them out for lunch. Potter immediately inserted his headphones into his ears and headed off down the corridor with a set look on his face. Draco ambled after, wondering if the delights of chicken in the canteen for the third week in a row were enough to get over the bother of eating at all. He idly crumpled up the sketch of Harry he'd drawn and dropped it in the bin. Deciding to opt for the easy way out, he stopped by the vending machine and inserted some silver.

As a Mars Bar was slotted through the hatch, a disapproving voice said, 'You'll ruin your teeth. And chocolate for lunch? That's very unhealthy.'

'Why Granger, I didn't know you cared,' Draco replied, ripping off the foil with his teeth without turning around.

'Don't flatter yourself,' she sniffed. 'Nothing would give me more pleasure than to see you die slowly of vitamin deprivation.'

'I thought you were outside,' he said, turning around to look at her. Her cheeks were stained red from the cold.

She gave him an odd look. 'I was, but your precious mates decided to start throwing things at me again.'

'Do they stop when you move away?' Draco asked curiously.

'I'm not worth the bother of following, Black.' She laughed hollowly.

'Besides, I brush my teeth twice a day,' he added thoughtfully.

'What?' Hermione looked at him as if he'd gone mad. Or rather, considering her opinion of him, as if he were finally deigning to demonstrate to the world what she had long considered to be an inalienable fact.

'See? Heffy sink song.'

'Yeah, but having a tongue piercing knocks the enamel off your teeth.'

'Why, Granger, you're no fun,' Draco complained. 'Can't I do something a little bit wrong?'

'Far be it from me to stop you,' said Hermione, with a closed expression.

'What class do we have now, out of interest? So I'll see if I'll bother turning up.'

'Did you say that just to infuriate me?'

'Maybe. Come on, Granger, have you ever known me to miss a class?'

'How should I know? What do I look like, your Filofax? You're always on detention, I know that much.'

'Not for missing class, though.'

'PE. We have PE.'

'Thank you. That was all I wanted.'

~

Half an hour later, 6A were assembled in the freezing basketball court that doubled as a football pitch and unihoc court and tennis court and lacrosse pitch, as well as, occasionally, disguising itself as a hash den. (It lead a fully and varied life and in the line-up of sports arenas, was the token schizophrenic.) Oakfield Comprehensive's obligatory gym class outfit of navy tracksuit pants, a white polo shirt with the school crest and a navy jumper was of course hardly evident - Hermione was the only one who was shivering in it in its entirety.

Harry was huddled against the sagging, torn goals, dressed in a huge black hoodie which displayed a pictorial rendition of Metallica on the back, dusty black cords and hiking boots. Standing, but swaying slightly, at his side, Ron appeared to take no note of the cold, from the fact that all he was wearing was tracksuit pants and the school polo shirt. However, the shirt was tie-dyed in rainbow colours and 'Sex Kills Die Happy' had been scrawled across the front in permanent marker. He still retained his school tie, knotted around his head.

The other girls in the class had chosen the option of wearing gym skirts which were larger than their usual school ones only in the volume of material they contained as opposed to actual length. They all sported labelled designer zipped hoodies - each a various shade of pink. Blaise remained the exception, for her top half was swathed in a black lace poncho. She was flicking at her nails while the others chattered like a flock of starlings in DKNY.

Terry barely covered his decency in black football shorts that clearly showed

where the name had come from and a tight white Calvin-Klein-modelesque t-shirt. He was jogging on the spot, gamely trying to keep the circulation going in his legs, all the while shooting Pearl Drop smiles at the female component. Dean was more sensibly, if still rule-breakingly, attired in a West Ham jersey and black Adidas tracksuit pants. He was determinedly not looking at Seamus - in a Sinfest t-shirt and baggy jeans - who was bouncing a ball off his head in a vain attempt to get attention.

Greg and Vinnie looked as if they were bouncers from a grotty nightclub who had wandered in by mistake - all black leather and inexplicable wrap-around shades. (The last reported sighting of the sun in the area had been June 14, 1978.) Beside them, Black lounged with panther-like grace, carrying off a faded All-Blacks jersey and white tracksuit pants that on anyone else would have looked ludicrously camp. Neville was excused from PE due to raging asthma.

Hermione wrapped herself in the arms of her voluminous jumper, trying to squash herself into as small a space as possible in order to enclose maximum heat.

Black flicked a coin at her. Her reflexes, tuned from years of putting up with similar every day, snatched it out of the air before it had even begun its downward cycle. She sent him a venomous glare.

'Buy a clue, Granger,' he called over lazily. 'No one wears the proper uniform to this class anymore.'

'Bugger off,' she retorted, doubly annoyed that she couldn't think of a wittier put-down. But it was always the case - Black irritated her so much he managed to shut down a lot of her thinking cells, allowing something far more primal - and primitive - to surface, hence the uncharacteristic cursing.

'Oh, Hermione, you're so lucky,' Parvati sighed. 'I wish Black paid as much attention to me as he does to you.'

'But he's a twit!' Hermione said in amazement, completely forgetting to add, 'Please, you can have him! Just take him away before I poke his eye out with a biro lid and get done for murder although with strong provocation.'

'Oh, it must be love!' Lavender said rapturously, and she and the twins went off into a storm of giggles. Hermione snorted incredulously, and was rewarded with a killer wink from Blaise. Hermione dared to venture a small grin in her direction.

'All righ' class, line up!' came the booming tones of the PE teacher, Mr Hagrid. He was dressed in size XXXXXXL trousers and polo shirt, on which sweat stains were already forming, despite the icy coldness of the air.

Notwithstanding his intimidating size and foghorn voice, Hagrid could exercise as little control over the class as any other teacher. Within minutes, Harry and Ron were seated in the lee of the goals, with a headphone each. Dean was ramming Seamus' head repeatedly into the wire boundary, while Seamus shrieked, 'I wasn't really looking at your arse, I swear!' Terry was showing the girls warm up stretches, amidst the inevitable giggling, and Greg and Vinnie had wandered over to watch and try and spot any knicker-flashing. At last, only Hermione and Black were left, the former clutching a tennis racket, the latter unmoved from his original position, hands thrust deep in his pockets.

'Well - ' Hagrid gestured helplessly. 'Yous just - get set up there, and I'll be back in a mo....'

As the teacher's table-like back retreated in the direction of the equipment shed, Black deigned to sidle within Hermione's earshot.

'Off to take a coupla nips of the finest Irish breweries can offer, I'd wager,' he laughed.

Hermione didn't reply, only frowned, and started to hit a tennis ball against the wall with her racket.

After watching her for a few moments with the detached interest of a scientist observing a very odd specimen under his lens, he denied Hermione her unspoken wish and began to talk.

'Why are you bothering to do that?' he asked. 'It's not like you have anyone to play with, or you actually enjoy tennis.'

'It's a physical education class, and I'm physically exercising,' she panted, red-faced from her exertions. 'Besides, who says I don't like tennis?'

'You don't,' said Black with infuriating certainty. 'You don't like things you aren't good at, and you are most surely appalling at tennis, even against a wall.'

'Two words: Go. And away,' she snarled.

'The truth hurts, huh Granger?' he laughed, not moved in the slightest.

'You do know how much I hate you, I hope?' she said, whacking the ball so hard it imploded against the wall with the force of a nuclear missile and sailed away into the neighbouring housing estate. 'Oh, shit.'

'Don't worry,' said Black in amusement. 'I doubt they can afford a new one, but since no one ever plays for real anyway it won't be missed.'

'This place is - so - crap!' Hermione exclaimed. She was astounded at her sudden eloquence. All those years of reading, all the critical analysis, all the memorising of the wittiest literary put-downs and this was what she came up with? Not so hot at thinking on her feet, much?

'You know, it always sounds so wrong when you utter obscenities,' Black mused.

'Bite me,' Hermione said, scowling. 'I'll say whatever the hell I want. Hang on - you just said a four-syllable word? How? Why? Where are the aerial pigs?'

'I can confound people with four syllable words if you can shock them with four-letter ones,' he shrugged.

'Puh-lease.' Hermione rolled her eyes. 'You cannot make me think swearing shocks you. Greg doesn't think something is worth saying if it doesn't contain at least one reference to a sexual act, and Vinnie can turn the air blue just saying 'socks'.'

'Exactly,' Black agreed, smiling charmingly. 'That's how they are. You, however, only do it for the effect, while they couldn't stop if they tried.'

'Oh, just - fall off a cliff, why don't you, and do the world a favour!'

'The world,' he said laughingly, leaning closer till they were almost touching noses, 'or just you?'

Hermione spluttered in indignation, unable to form anything coherent, while Black drifted away, chuckling.

'Oh, girl, you are so lucky!' Parvati's voice broke through her red haze.

'Oh god, the squawkers descend,' Hermione groaned, shutting her eyes. She could hear Blaise trying to stifle a husky laugh.

'Did you see that? They were almost kissing!'

'No we weren't!' Hermione wailed. 'I was trying to see the quickest way of pulling his brain out of his nostrils and tying it under his chin! Oh, I hate him so much.'

The gaggle watched her as she stormed away. Blaise was biting a finger in an effort not to laugh.

'Oh, they so fancy each other,' Lavender said knowingly.

'Unresolved sexual tension, for sure.'

'Uh-huh.'

'She doesn't deserve him, though - not with that attitude.'

'Maybe we should give her a makeover.'

~

Draco rejoined his friends, who had lost interest in Terry's workout once the girls had stopped waggling their asses about. He stepped over Seamus, who was curled in a heap, whimpering. He made to walk on, then paused, bent over Seamus and patted him on the shoulder.

'Sorry mate, but I really don't think he fancies you.'

Greg and Vinnie, who had heard the exchange between the infuriated Hermione and the pink-clad nymphets, eyed him shrewdly.

'Look, D- Black,' Greg began, 'I know you're touchy about this, but I think you should leave the Granger bint alone. From what I can see, she'd rather go out with a blind one-legged camel than you.'

'What he means to say,' Vinnie supplied, 'Is the girl ain't putting out. She don't fancy you, man! So you should find yourself someone easier. That Parkinson chick, maybe.'

'That's where you're wrong, oh despicable cronies mine,' Draco said, smiling angelically. 'I don't fancy her, so I could care less that she hates my guts.'

'No way, it's bleeding obv - owww!' Greg ended in a howl as Vinnie stepped on his foot and all fifteen stones of V. M. Crabbe descended on his small toe.

'What was that, Greg?' said Draco dangerously.

'Absolutely nothing,' said Vinnie innocently. 'Its probably his ingrown toenail bleeding, what?'

'If it wasn't before, it bloody well is now,' Greg groused, but wisely refrained from following his former train of thought aloud.

As they wandered back to the main building, Harry shoved up the over-long sleeve of his jumper to look at his watch.

'Its twenty-five past three,' he said, prodding Ron, who had sunk into half-conscious stupefaction. 'For crying out loud, did you get stoned again at lunch?' He looked despairingly at his friend, whose head was lolling slightly, the pupils of his half-lidded eyes wildly dilated. 'You used to be such a laugh,' he muttered sadly, heaving Ron up by the arm and hooking it around his shoulders to walk him inside, Lost Prophets still blaring tinnily from the dangling headphones.

As the bell rang, signalling the end of school, Seamus realised he was all alone. Groaning wearily, he staggered to his feet and started to jog towards the school, clutching his aching head.

~

In the staffroom, tired and dispirited teachers sagged around the vomit-green walls, occasionally perching on battered plastic chairs to start marking work, or orbiting towards the ancient coffee machine in search of sustenance.

Currently, Sev was banging the side of the machine in an effort to get it to yield more dirt-coloured sludge. Giving up, he announced to the world in general, 'The machine's broken again.' He was greeted by a weary chorus of groans from the assembled staff.

'Has anyone seen Dumbledore since before Christmas?' Minnie McGonagall

demanded.

'Nope,' said Selina Vector, a pretty student teacher much beloved by the libidinous male section of Oakfield Comprehensive, from where she hoped soon to escape and never return.

'I think he went on a drinking binge with Hagrid over New Year's. Hagrid woke up in a dustbin in the park, so god knows where the principal is by now,' the biology teacher volunteered. Ivy Sprout was a motherly, plump woman whose dedication and enthusiasm for her job had been long since eroded by students who couldn't care less, either about her, or more importantly, about the reproductive system of an oak tree.

'Good Lord,' Marie Sinistra, a heavy-lidded, black-haired physics teacher, groaned. 'Bugger all for getting someone to fix the machine, then.'

'Surely we can still have someone in,' said Remus Lupin, the French teacher, mildly. Despite having done a stint teaching in Oakfield during his training, he had still returned when offered a full-time job, and as yet did not seem to have imbibed the true nature of the place.

'That's where you're mistaken,' said Joe Binns, the history teacher, in a dry tone of voice. 'Dumbledore has the account book for the school, and he takes it with him everywhere. We haven't access to any other ready money for the school, unless you're prepared to pay for it out of your own wages?'

'Um.' Remus feigned avid interest in a horrendously written third form essay about drugs in school which, if it bore a resemblance to the French language, was entirely coincidental and apparently unintentional.

'I'm sure things will be all right,' said Sybil, the philosophy teacher, leafing rapidly through a tabloid paper. 'Look, Dumbledore's a Leo, and it said in his horoscope that the Moon is in the third house, meaning an easing of financial pressures.' She looked up with a triumphant smile that was met by glares from the teachers who had bothered to listen to her.

'Of course he has no financial pressures,' Sev muttered, sinking into a chair and raking a hand through his gel-laden hair. 'He drank them all away with the finances.'

'Surely not,' Remus retorted, without malice. 'He's probably just sick or something. And as a matter of fact, my friend Sirius is a vending machine repairman. I'll get him to fix the thing as a favour.'

'Sirius, the vending machine repairman?' Sev snickered, with an evil grin. 'Does he have a daughter that he calls Easter and who was born on a Tuesday night?'

'No,' said Remus thoughtfully. 'I think he's gay.'

Sev nearly spat out the mouthful of optimistically-named coffee that he had been thinking about swallowing. 'Why, thanks for sharing that with us, Remus.'

'No worries,' Remus said, hiding a smile behind his empty coffee cup. 'I could set you up, if you like.'

'I'm not gay!'

'Oh,' said Remus, with wide eyes. 'My mistake.'

Marie Sinistra snickered, and waved a hand in front of Sev's furious face. 'Cool it, honey. I can feel your chakras disintegrating as we speak.' Behind her, Sybil made a pained face.

'Seeing as we're all here - well, almost all,' Ivy Sprout began with a sigh, 'I suppose it's time we talked about the sixth form trip.'

'What's this then?' Remus asked, with genuine interest.

'It's another name for involuntary suicide,' Sev growled through gritted teeth.

'Each year, the sixth form is taken out for - depending to what level their untrustworthiness has sunk - either a day or an overnight stay,' Marie took it upon herself to explain.

'Oh, a sort of graduation trip then,' Remus nodded. 'Do they get to pick it - no educational component, I presume?'

'The only educational component in this place is the stack of porn mags inside the covers of the Encyclopaedia Britannica,' Joe Binns murmured.

'Yes, I never knew one could actually bend that way,' Marie mused. Remus stared fixedly at the table while Sev smiled maliciously at his discomfiture.

'We stopped letting them choose their own destination after we ended up in a lap-dancing club in Soho a few years ago,' Marie added.

'Yes, I remember that,' Sev drawled, watching Remus' expression with grim amusement. 'Now, that was what I call edifying.'

'Yes, yes,' said Ivy, waving a hand tiredly. 'So, does anyone have any ideas?'

'Pick something out of the air,' Sev suggested in a bored tone. 'They don't care anyway. Or take them to a hash farm, that's something they'd actually enjoy.'

'Severus!' Remus exclaimed reprovingly.

Sev rolled his eyes. 'I assume you have some wonderful plan that will suddenly make them all realise what a waste their entire lives have been, and push them on to great and good futures?'

'You shouldn't give up on them so easily,' Remus said quietly.

'Au contraire, Lupin,' Sev snapped, his limited patience at an end. 'It's they who have given up on themselves.'

'Did you have something in mind, Remus?' Ivy asked quellingly, as Sev relaxed into a sullen scowl, his dark hair falling into his eyes. 'Lord knows, I could do without having to carry the bloody thing this year.'

'I can take over planning it if you like,' Remus offered. 'I'm not completely disillusioned yet - despite the strong attempts of certain people to enlighten me.' He shot a sharp glance at Sev, who ignored it, and muttered to no one in particular, 'Give me potheads over idealists any day.'

'That's very kind of you, Remus,' said Ivy, smiling properly for the first time. 'And may I remind you that as class teachers of 6A - Minnie - and 6B - Severus - it is your turn to accompany them as supervisors.'

'Oh, Lord,' Sev groaned in unfeigned agony. 'Can't somebody else do it? Please? I'll pay them!'

'There'd not that much money in the entire world,' Marie said, laughing, and utterly thankful she'd escaped the task this year.

~

Draco and Greg were playing Medal of Honour on Draco's PS2, while Vinnie looked on, bored, waiting for his turn. Gripping the pads for dear life, Draco finally let loose a roar of triumph as Greg's character shrivelled and died.

'I win, I win!'

'Point out the bloomin' obvious,' Greg muttered grumpily, as Vinnie snatched the pads from his fingers.

'Want a drink?' Draco offered in an attempt to be conciliatory. 'Vinnie, you want one?'

'Naung.' Vinnie's small eyes were fixed irrevocably on the flashing screen. Draco rolled his and beckoned Greg down the stairs.

His mother was in the kitchen, surrounded by a sea of expensive Turkish tiling and copper pans suspended from the ceiling. The overhead lighting shone off her blonde hair, making it glow. Beside him, Draco could feel Greg salivating, and stepped on his foot. The same one that Vinnie had stepped on earlier.

Greg's grimace of pain switched instantly to an ingratiating smile when Narcissa looked up from the artistic thing she was doing to some red peppers.

'Hello, Draco, I didn't hear you come in,' she said, flashing her two thousand pound crowns, courtesy of her ex-husband.

'I'm just getting us a drink, Mum,' Draco said perfunctorily. 'Will dinner be ready soon?'

'Give me half an hour.' Narcissa turned to slide a tray into the state-of-the-art oven. 'Vegetarian lasagne.'

'Oh, for crying out loud, not that no-meat shit again!' Draco sighed in despair.

'Language, Draco!' she reproved, having remained in apparently blissful ignorance of Greg and Vinnie's swearing habits despite their ten year friendship with Draco. 'My phrenologist said that eating meat clouds your inner eye.'

'Phrenologist?' Draco frowned, taking two cans of Coke from the fridge and tossing one to Greg. 'Don't they read the bumps in your skull? What's he doing telling you what to eat?'

'He's got a secondary line in holistic nutrition,' Narcissa said, beaming angelically, and eliciting a strangled groan from Greg. She moved closer to her son, subtly moving herself out of Greg's earshot.

'By the way, your father wants to see you on Saturday.'

'No!' Draco responded vehemently, clutching his can.

'You have to see him, Draco,' his mother said inexorably. 'It's written into the custody agreement. Besides, he's still your father.'

'Not by choice!' said Draco angrily, not bothering to keep his voice down, as his mother was doing. 'You dropped him like a hot coal of hellfire, why can't I?'

'Draco, that's completely different,' Narcissa replied with a hint of impatience, and an air that said that the subject was closed. Draco wondered vaguely when he would learn how to do that. When he was a divorcee with an eighteen-year-old son, probably.

'Would you and Vinnie like to stay for dinner?' she said graciously to Greg.

'Sure, I'd like that, Mrs - um - Mrs Draco,' Greg said, shy as a virgin on a first date, his confusion compounded by the fact that since the divorce - despite its seven year duration - he still had no idea what to call her. With an edge of malice that lined her soul, Narcissa had never clarified it for him. With the edge of malice that lined his, Draco had never bothered to do so either.

As they made their way back up the stairs, Draco remarked, 'I was just thinking about Granger's hair. It's so curly. Someone should tell her about the invention of ceramic straighteners.'

'Yeah,' Greg said non-committally, his mind still on the blonde vision below.

'I get the feeling your heart just wasn't in that reply,' Draco said sarcastically.

'Well, you talk about her all the time, it gets bloody boring,' Greg said vaguely. 'Plus, you stare at her arse,' he added, with complete irrelevance.

Greg proceeded into Draco's room, from where the sounds of explosions were emanating, leaving Draco fuming in the hall. First his mother telling him he had to see his father, and now - this? Whatever the hell it was?

Angrily, he pulled the ring of the Coke can. After having been carelessly shaken during the kitchen interlude and on the journey up the stairs, it obliged by exploding frothily. All over his white shirt.

'SHIT!'

~

Several days later, the dying rays of the sun lit on the dark brown head of Remus J. Lupin, BA French and European Studies, Exeter University, who was still sitting at the brown plastic, coffee scarred staff-room table at half-past five in the evening, sucking thoughtfully on a biro lid.

'Still here for your sins, Lupin?' said Sev breezily, leaning against the doorjamb.

'Well, I'd hate to have been sent here for my good deeds,' Remus responded dryly.

'Yea gods, did Remus Lupin just make a joke?' Sev pretended to clutch his heart in agony.

'A mere observation, Severus.' Remus chewed harder on his biro, starting hard out of the smeared window. 'Did it ever strike you, Sev, how odd all our names are?'

'Nope,' Sev said carelessly. 'By the way, did you get in touch with your friend - you know,' he snickered, 'the vending machine repair man?'

'Yeah, I called him last night,' said Remus absently. 'He's calling round tomorrow.'

'How are you going to pay him?'

'Well, he offered to let his charge be a sexual favour from yours truly,' Remus said, with a faint grin, 'But I said no.'

'Not that way inclined, hey?' Sev's voice had just a hint too much of eagerness about it, but Remus didn't pick up on it.

'Towards Sirius - no.' Remus laughed. 'We were madly in love when we were younger, but he got done for drugs smuggling years back and was in prison for a while. We sort of drifted apart. I think he's got a new boyfriend now - someone he met inside.'

'Jeez,' Sev gulped. 'That was a little TMI, Lupin.'

'The question asked for it, Snape.' Remus turned and regarded him with his large, clear golden eyes.

'Seriously though, how are you going to pay him?' Sev asked urgently. 'I mean, the chocolate machine is broken again too - better than a punching bag for some kids, that thing. I hope you didn't offer him the bodies of your poor co-workers -'

Remus gave an uncharacteristic snort. 'He's not interested in women or straight men, Snape, remember?'

'Oh, good,' Sev said hastily. 'I'm glad of the - um - clarification.'

'As a matter of fact, I used a little emotional blackmail,' Remus said quickly, sounding uncomfortable. Sev opened his mouth to question, thought about the last time, and closed it again with a queasy expression.

'What time is he coming?' he managed. 'Hell, what's his name again?'

'Sirius Black.'

Sev's eyes bulged. 'Siriusly? I mean, seriously? Is he anything to the Black boy in 6A?'

'Which Black boy?' Lupin asked. 'I don't recall anyone of that name in my classes - I would have remembered it.' He gave a wry grin.

'Black - do you know, I don't know what his first name is?' Sev looked at Remus in consternation. 'I don't think anyone does. Everyone just calls him Black.'

'Maybe it's a nickname?' Remus suggested.

'Maybe.' Sev looked doubtfully, chewing his lip in thought. 'He's a tall chap, blonde hair, couple of piercing with dragon studs.'

'Oh, him?' Remus made a moue of distaste. 'He's - well, he's a bit of a pillock, isn't he? I heard him tormenting that poor Hermione Granger today. From her expression, it's a regular occurrence.'

'Well, I guess he is a bit,' Sev conceded with a knowing smile. 'But don't be fooled - he's absolutely crazy about that girl.'

'He's got a seriously odd way of showing it,' Remus said, disbelief writ large over his features.

'He's a seriously odd kid,' said Sev. 'I think he's got a bit of a messy family break-up in his past. Besides which, he's rather exceptionally bright, except he has no interest in taking advantage of it.'

'So is Granger.' Lupin permitted himself a small smile. 'Maybe they wouldn't make such a bad couple.'

Sev let out a bark of laughter. 'I don't think that will ever happen. She's not very good at reading people - takes them at face value too much. She truly thinks he despises her, or at least couldn't care less about her, and she hasn't got enough self-esteem to go after him.'

'God, who'd be eighteen again, hey?' Remus said, running his hands through his heavy, silky brown curls, which immediately fell back over his forehead. He gave Sev an easy smile, and Sev felt a jerk somewhere in the region of his navel.

'I wouldn't mind having the body of an eighteen-year-old,' he objected, without thinking very much about his mouth. Remus' mouth, maybe -

'What, all scrawny, under-developed muscles, and spots?' Remus laughed. 'Thanks, but no thanks. I earned my body, and I think I'll keep it.'

'You never did say why you're still here,' Sev said, quickly - anything not to have to ponder what exactly Remus' body looked like, under the battered jeans and holey woollen jumpers.

'Oh - just thinking about the sixth form trip.' Remus ruffled at the brochures littering the table with a hand.

Sev just restrained himself from rolling his eyes. 'You are such a dreamer. Do you still actually think they'll care? Where the hell did you teach before, Eton?'

'For two years,' Remus admitted with disarming honesty. 'What do you think of this place? Its a Scottish castle, you can hire it out, and there's loads of activities like water-skiing on the lake - '

'A Scottish castle?' Sev looked a little green around the gills. 'As in, in the country of Scotland?'

'Yep. That's what people generally mean by the adjective 'Scottish'.'

'Smart-arse. How long would we be on a bloody bus with these excuses for students?'

'A couple of hours. And then two nights in the castle itself.'

Sev looked at Remus' bright eyes and smiling red mouth, and suddenly felt very old. 'It seems like a great idea - at least, until you add actual people to it. But where on earth are you going to get the money for this? Dumbledore's still AWOL with the bankbook, we're having to resort to sexual favours to get the vending machine fixed, and most of these kids have to get summer jobs to buy their school books - those that bother to buy them, that is.'

Remus held up a hand. 'Amazingly enough, despite what you seem to think is my blind idealism, I did realise that. And the school is eligible for a grant from some organisation - ' he shifted rapidly through his accumulated paperwork - 'that covers the cost of things like that.' He looked up and made a face. 'It's for disadvantaged children. Anyway, I wrote to them, and they're happy to pay for it.'

Sev laughed incredulously. 'You know, Remus, you could be a dangerous man to have around. You're actually making me feel enthusiastic about something again.'

~

Sirius Black made ripples as he passed through the school, dressed in tight-fitting jeans and a black jumper, heavy boots and a tool belt swinging obscenely from his waist. He ran a hand through his raven's-wing hair, eyeing up fit lads over his tilted, aristocratic nose. As soon as he saw Remus, burdened under a stack of copies to be marked, he dropped the supercilious act and greeted him with unfeigned delight, also relieving him of his burden with a noticeable lack of effort.

'Remus!'

Remus had to laugh at his puppy-like enthusiasm, which he showed at every possible occasion and which he had never grown out of.

'I was just going to the staffroom. You can come with me and have a look this coffee machine.'

'Ah, Remus.' Sirius waggled his eyebrows suggestively. 'I know it's been a long time since we were together, but surely you must remember that you never came with me?'

Pansy Parkinson, who was passing by, paused in the middle of blowing a huge pink bubble to eye them in shock. It was clear that she was only prevented from giggling by the imminent danger of choking such a course of action would entail.

'Chewing gum is against the rules, Miss Parkinson!' Remus called after her as he hurried Sirius up the stairs, knowing his ears were turning red. Sirius, as usual, simply revelled in the attention.

'I bet they just quiver when you use that manly tone of voice, huh?' Sirius said seductively as they entered the staffroom. Remus could feel the blush spreading to his whole face. Sev, who was the room's only occupant, turned noticeably pale under his sallow complexion.

'I'll leave you to it,' he muttered, grabbing his coffee cup instead of his biro by mistake and hurrying out of the room.

'Well, now,' Sirius whistled. 'Either I have a more instantaneous effect than I realised, or that guy has the hots for you.'

'Shut up, Sirius, you prize idiot,' said Lupin serenely, holding his hand out behind him without turning around. Sev grabbed his biro from it and fled from the room again, muttering his thanks.

~

Remus and Sirius passed Black and his two lolloping mates on their way to the vending machine. Sirius gave Black a thoughtful look, which he returned with a sneer. For some reason this made Sirius smile.

'Do you know him?' Remus inquired, remembering that they shared the same name.

'Nah. He looks oddly familiar, though,' Sirius shrugged.

'His name is Black, too,' Remus offered.

'Really? Could be a second cousin. A lot of my family comes from near here.'

'I didn't know that.'

'You wouldn't.' Sirius smiled grimly. 'I doubt you'd be well up on ruling drug-baron families, now really?'

'Oh. Oh god.' Remus bit his lip as he saw who was standing by the machine. It was the Potter kid and his permanently stoned best mate. Even from here, Remus could see the desperation in Potter's eyes.

'All right?' Potter said, nodding at them.

'Sirius is going to fix the machine,' Remus said desperately.

'Oh, good.' Potter was fairly quiet, Remus recalled, vaguely rebellious but mainly just lost.

'Where'd you get that scar, kid?' Sirius asked genially, laying out his tools. ''S odd shape - lightning bolt.'

'I got it in the car crash where my parents died, when I was one,' Potter said in a low voice.

'Ah, shit man.' There was genuine sympathy in Sirius' voice. 'That sucks.'

'I can't remember them.' Potter shrugged.

'So, do you have a foster family now?' Sirius asked.

'No, I live with my aunt and uncle.'

'Treat you well, do they?'

'All right.' For the first time, Remus noticed Potter's scrawny wrists, his prominent cheekbones and the deep violet shadows under his eyes. All right was as far from correct as it was from left. And now he was stuck with a best friend turning into a drug addict in front of him.

Potter waited quietly until Sirius was finished, then bought himself a Snickers. Remus felt his heart twist in his chest as Potter counted out the money in five pence pieces. Sirius must have seen it too, for he leant over and dropped a handful of pound coins into his hand.

'From the machine,' he said, and winked.

As they walked away, Sirius turned to Remus with a sigh. 'I suppose you're going to tell me off now for nicking from the machine.'

Remus turned to him, his golden eyes hooded and sad. 'Actually, it couldn't have been further from my mind.'

~

Seamus was exhausted. He stumbled down the halls, his eyes half shut, miraculously not bumping into anyone until -

'Watch it, you great wanker!'

Dean. Great.

Seamus wedged his eyes open a little further and took in Dean's furious face, inches from his own, and grimaced. He made to walk on, but Dean wasn't having any of it.

'I have told you over and over,' he was raging, his brown eyes sparking chips of ice. 'I'm not interested, so could you bloody well leave me alone!'

'I get it!' Seamus snapped. 'I'm sorry I bumped into you. I wasn't looking where I was going, otherwise I would have headed in the opposite direction when I saw you. Towards Tibet, preferably.'

'Oh.' Dean looked a little put out, but Seamus wasn't in the mood to humour him, shooting him a death glare which was somewhat diluted in wrath by the huge yawn that overtook it .

'Look,' Dean began uncomfortably, 'I liked being mates with you, its just that -'

'You don't fancy me, I know,' Seamus sighed. 'I still have a bruise from where you tried to indent my head in the wall.'

'Yeah, I just don't - you know,' said Dean, looking shifty.

'How about we forget it? Not forget it, but,' Seamus fumbled.

'Start over?' Dean smiled brilliantly. 'Yeah, cool. I have missed having you as a mate, you know. I don't know anyone else who's so utterly useless at football. You're a great ego booster.'

'Thanks,' Seamus muttered, a little indignantly, but too pleased with the turn of events to jeopardise it now.

'So why are you walking around looking like the living dead?' Dean inquired, as they set off down the hall together, companionably, but careful not to accidentally brush against each other.

'What do you mean?'

'The last few days - you look like you haven't slept at all.'

'Oh, that.' Seamus shrugged. 'I've been having the dreams again. About the castle, and the owls.'

'Those again?' Dean frowned. 'Funny, that. I've been having my ones again too. Towers and paintbrushes, remember?'

'Yeah, I do.' Seamus grinned. 'But that's not what's been making me tired. Those dreams always just stop all of a sudden, and I'm awake, and bored, and - '

'Yes, you can just stop there,' Dean commanded. 'I really don't want to know.'

'Two words - Orlando Bloom,' Seamus smirked.

'Ahh!' Dean covered his face with his hands. 'It's like having a bloody girl mate. I knew I should never have taken you to see The Return of the King.'

'Muhaha. A shadow and a threat has been growing in my mind.'

'Interesting. Do you think you might be gay? Oh wait, you are.'

There was a tense pause. Then Seamus thumped him on the back of the head.

'Now, you will die, for without me to propagate, the Kingdoms of Men shall fail!'

'Oh, Jesus.'

'He's not here, can I take a message?'

~

Hermione wasn't quite sure how it had happened, but now Black was sitting next to her in almost every class. McGonagall had moved him in English; he had moved himself in Chemistry. And now, in History, Mr Binns had announced that he was changing the seating arrangements and that he would be happy to show the door to anyone who didn't follow them from here on in. Hermione wondered if she was the only one who noticed the desperate glint of hope in his eye when he said that.

Soon enough there was a murderous glint in her own eye, when it transpired that he had seated her next to Black at the back of the class. Not only had he lined her up for endless tormenting, she wasn't even going to be able to hear what was going on at the front of the class. Mr Binns had a droning, monotone and above all very low voice.

Black had become even more truly insufferable since he had begun going out with Pansy Parkinson. Hermione had no idea what he saw in her - despite being creatively capable of putting out, her brains wouldn't have filled even half an eggcup, she had a huge forehead and she walked like a duck.

Maybe that was the attraction.

Hermione ground her teeth together.

She most definitely did not want to be thinking about this. Damn Binns! The one midway interested student he had, and what did he do with her? Stuck her at the back with a notorious dosser. Oh, well done.

Closing her eyes for a moment and trying to think calm thoughts, she picked up her books and made her way back to her assigned desk. Only to see Black grinning at her like the Cheshire Cat. She almost demanded to know what he was smiling about, before realising that it would certainly have a lot to do with Pansy, and as a consequence any answer would be unspeakably disgusting.

Choosing the less volatile option of completely ignoring him, she opened her notes copy and strained to catch what Binns was saying.

'Don't have a heart attack, Granger,' Black said in amusement. 'Currently he's pointing out to the doped-up Weasel child that his essay on Disraeli should not have contained any references to sex with small chickens.'

Hermione frowned at him, but the chicken impression that Ron was now giving - complete with clucking - seemed to back up his ludicrous statement. Beside Ron, Harry had his head buried in his arms, in what looked a lot like abject despair.

For some reason, Black didn't seem to be in a chatty mood. He was smiling to himself, and performing his usual table-flicking routine. Hermione decided that, on the whole, she could stand that as long as he didn't talk.

Within a few minutes, she had forgotten his existence entirely, focusing completely on Binns' lecture. She wrote swiftly in a clear, rounded script, occasionally pushing her hair out of her eyes. Its springy curls defied any form of corralling, and it was the bane of her life. However, the frequent tucking of hair behind a handy ear was such an ingrained habit that even with a crew cut she figured she'd still do it. Every so often, she looked up at the notes Binns had scrawled on the board, squinting slightly, and biting the side of her lip.

When the class was over, she ceased writing with a satisfied sigh and stuffed her pens into their case. She headed out of the classroom without a backward glance, leaving Black tilted back in his seat with the same expression of boredom he had worn for the entire class.

She didn't register him watching her leave, no more than she had realised that for the entire class, except when jotting a desultory note, he hadn't taken his eyes off her.

~

Sev gave a rare genuine smile as the coffee machine spurted dark brown liquid - the exact shade of Remus' hair, actually - into his chipped mug. The smile lit up his whole face, the weak early spring sunlight catching glints off his rather crooked teeth.

'Ah, pure caffeine,' he sighed, inhaling the scent drifting from his mug as if it were a rare Brazilian connoisseur's brand rather than cheap, bulk-bought, no-label decaff.

Remus looked up from his stack of marking, taking in the sight. Sev's head was tilted back, strands of dark hair tangled in his eyebrows while the rest slid back over his head, dripping into the collar of his shirt. His deep-set eyes were half closed, his generous mouth curling in pleasure. He was dressed in leather trousers, as he was at least once a week.

'Are they uncomfortable?' Remus - a devotee of baggy jeans and fraying faux-cashmere pullovers - asked curiously.

Sev's eyes snapped fully open, his expression wary at having been caught displaying emotion. 'Are what uncomfortable.'

'The leather trousers,' Remus said patiently, gesturing at Sev's lower half with a chewed biro. A dark flush unaccountably stained Sev's hollow cheeks.

'Well, no. Once you get used to them.'

'Definitely not a vegetarian then,' Remus said reassuringly.

Sev shuddered delicately. 'God no. I couldn't live without my red meat.'

'Yes, they do say that animal rights campaigners protest more against fur than leather only because women in mink coats are far less intimidating than Hell's Angels,' Remus mused.

Sev raised one dark eyebrow - no mean feat.

'Were you ever a biker, then?' Remus asked cheerfully.

'No.' Sev rolled his eyes. 'I was more in the brooding poet mould, if you must know - although my poetry was, and still is, abysmal.'

'Can I read some?'

'When there's a cold day in hell, Remus, then yes, certainly.'

They were both momentarily distracted by the entrance of the universally despised philosophy teacher, Sybil Trelawney. As ever attired in floating scarves and gypsy skirts, Indian bangles clanking heavily at her wrists, she looked like a cross between Shiva and a Portobello Market hawker. Her eyes lit up when she spotted Remus. Ignoring Sev, whose features had sunk into a vicious scowl, she floated over to them.

'My dear Remus! You have a free class, I see. Would you like me to do that tarot reading for you now?'

'Not unless you're going to predict a tall dark stranger for me,' Remus said brightly. Sev choked on air. 'Come on, Severus, we have to do that - thing, remember?'

'Oh, yes,' said Sev, gasping. 'The - thing. The really important thing. Right. Better go now.'

'Yes, sorry about that,' Remus said, flashing a mega-watt smile at Sybil so that she forgot entirely what they were talking about. 'Another time.'

As they exited the room at speed, Trewlawny fluttered her scarves and muttered to herself, 'Such a lovely boy. And so enamoured of me!'

~

'I think she has a crush on you!' Sev gasped out, in between hoots of laughter. They were doubled over in the space behind the bike sheds, which Sev had cleared with a glare and a threat of cigarette confiscation.

'Oh, Lord.' Remus bit his lip, raking a hand through his damp curls, the light drizzle having settled on them both like stronghold hairspray. 'I feel sixteen again, and trying to fend off infatuated girls with Sirius.'

'Were you very popular, then?'

'Inexplicably, yes. Sirius was incredibly so, but I came in for my fair share.' Remus shook his head in bemusement, sending little droplets of water flying from his wet locks.

'I can see why,' Sev said, without thinking. Every time Remus reached up a hand to push his hair back, it drew up the frayed hem of his jumper, revealing the tail ends of a white shirt and a hint - just a tiny hint - of rippled muscle and skin covered in downy hair.

Remus chose to ignore the heated undercurrents, shrugging modestly. 'Thanks. But I think it had a lot more to do with the fact that we were the school troublemakers, and co-owned this huge monster of a motorcycle.' He laughed at the expression on Sev's face. 'Yes, I know - I look like more of a bicycle person, no? But it was Sirius' idea, of course.'

'It clearly worked,' Sev remarked, raising one eyebrow again.

'Yes - it did get me into bed. Eventually.' Remus watched Sev's red and spluttering face for a while. 'You know, for someone who comes across as unshockable, you're ridiculously easy to stun.'

'It's not fair!' Sev complained. 'You keep springing these clinkers on me.'

'How long have you been teaching here, Severus?'

'Ten years,' Sev returned guardedly.

'And you mean to say that vaguely explicit sexual talk still gets your knickers in twist?'

'I wear boxers, not briefs,' Sev said with a pained expression. 'And you are a relatively mature teacher - I thought - not a rabid teenage sex bunny.'

'Well, I wouldn't say I'm a sex bunny,' Remus said thoughtfully, 'A sex wolf, maybe. But mature? Spare me, please.'

'Ha! I knew something about that reliable, tweed-jacket with leather elbows domesticity was off!' Sev said triumphantly. 'You're not really like that at all, are you?'

Remus started walking back towards the school as the bell rung. 'You're the one who's brilliant at reading people,' he yelled over his shoulder as the wind began to pick up. 'You tell me!'

Preoccupied with not staring at Remus rather - very - Oh God - attractive arse, Sev didn't answer. Only when the rain began to pelt down did he pause to think that moving indoors might be a Very Bright Idea.