The Rocky Hogwarts Picture Show

The Rocky Hogwarts Picture Show

'Oh, come on, Remus. You must admit they make a sweet couple.' Sirius Black's face was the picture of sincerity, as painted by Picasso; that is, a little warped. Remus calmly refused to react.

'Oh, they do. Especially now we're more than ten feet away and don't have to look at them.'

'But didn't Lily just look radiantly beautiful?' Sirius was alarmingly perky, Remus noted, even for someone who had recently managed to escape the cloud of cloying cuteness that choked anyone within ten feet of James Potter's relationships. He was positively skipping ahead as he spoke, backwards at that, eyes dancing and firmly fixed on Remus. His companion decided that this couldn't possibly be healthy and directed at him in response a sceptical eyebrow-raise, carefully designed to make Sirius finally drop the pretence. 'Oh, fine. Sod being supportive, then.' With a sigh, the sixth-year fell back to walk beside his boyfriend, casting him a rueful glance. 'They made you want to throw up too, right?' Remus nodded reassuringly, linking his arm through Sirius'.

'Only every second that we were with them.'

'D'you think that makes us bad people?' Sirius asked, smiling crookedly.

'Oh, Lord, no. It makes us human.'

Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were wandering back through Hogsmeade one late November evening, having just left James to his first date with Lily Evans. Some bizarre and misguided sense of loyalty had compelled the two to play Supportive Best Friends to James' Paranoid and Insecure Mass of Nerves, despite a relative mistrust of heterosexual relationships and a definite mistrust of any of James' sickeningly sweet and hopelessly hapless romantic ventures. Luckily for them, Peter had volunteered to lurk and keep an eye on the new couple, allowing Sirius and Remus to make a hasty retreat.

'So. Will it last?' Remus shrugged.

'I don't see why not. They seem as well suited as James ever is to his, ah, conquests.' Sirius snickered derisively, but Remus ignored him. 'James is a lucky man. Everyone knows Lily's a wonderful little...'

'Fuck,' supplied Sirius. Remus glared.

'I was going to say Charms student.'

'My arse you were.'

'We can talk about your arse later.' Their conversation was suddenly and rudely interrupted by a loud rumble. Dark storm clouds, heavy, black and pendulous, had been threatening rain all day, and now they were finally delivering. Sirius groaned.

'Oh, fuck, my hair!' Sirius was fond of his hair. As was Remus, for that matter. Black, approaching curly, overlong, and usually yanked back into a haphazard ponytail that people claimed took hours to perfect. Sirius, however, was one of the rare cases where the 'just got out of bed' look was cultivated by just getting out of bed. One recent evening Remus had put it into bunches and over the course of the evening, neither had remembered to take it out. It had taken until the lunchtime of the following day for Remus to decide that however adorable Sirius looked, not telling him for much longer would be something of a death wish. He still had a fair bit of apologising to do, and decided now would be a good time.

'Impervio.' Sirius grinned through teeth that were beginning to chatter.

'Thanks. Smart-arse.' Remus bowed theatrically.

'At your service.'

It took about ten minutes for Sirius and Remus to realise they were going the wrong way. Sirius' spatial awareness had always left something to be desired, and the three minutes pre-Impervio had left the dark-haired Gryffindor's shirt suitably wet for Remus to be suitably distracted. That said, when the light of the Hogwarts gate had disappeared from view and all they could see in front of them was a vast expanse of wall, even they knew they were in trouble.

'Remus?' Sirius asked, looking around him. 'Where the fuck are we?'

'I have absolutely no idea.' Remus stopped dead, catching the attached Sirius by surprise and causing him to trip over his own feet. He righted himself hurriedly, adjusting his dignity and turning to face a Remus oblivious and deep in concentration.

'None whatsoever?'

'Well, being as we've only been walking for about fifteen minutes, I'd guess Hogsmeade.'

'Ha bloody ha.' Sirius drew himself closer to Remus, shivering a little. 'Any chance of specifics anytime soon, Sherlock?' Remus leaned into him almost without realising he was as he gestured towards the wall in front of them.

'This is the outer wall of Hogwarts. Look, you can see the castle behind it. We must just have worked our way around the back somehow.' He smiled ruefully at Sirius. 'I suppose we'll just have to retrace our steps.' Sirius groaned.

'But it's freezing. And it could take us hours.' Remus looked at him.

'If we've been walking for fifteen minutes, Sirius, it'll take us fifteen minutes to retrace our steps.' Sirius pretended he hadn't heard this.

'Look, Remus. There's a light over there. I bet it's just an alternative entrance. I mean, Hogwarts has to have back doors, right? And it'll be damn sight quicker than trying to find our way back...' Sirius was looking cajolingly at Remus, fluttering his eyelashes. It took the other boy all of seven seconds to cave in.

'Why not? You're right, it's bloody cold out here.' The two made their way over to the sliver of light in the wall. Sirius had been right, it was indeed a door. A door of ancient wood, faded so as almost to look like stone and hardly discernible from the wall that spread out from each side of it. It was also locked, as Sirius quickly found.

'Damn,' he cursed, shaking flakes of decrepit door handle from his fingertips. Remus smiled.

'Alohomora.'

'Took the words right out of my mouth...'

The door eased itself open with a tortured creak to admit entrance to a narrow passage, which stretched ten or so yards before turning off to the left. Floor and walls of bare stone were lit by a series of green-flamed lamps that hung at head height from motionless chains. The oil paintings of blank faced aristocrats that lined the walls and the heavy, deadened air gave the corridor a strangely antiquated, stuffily Gothic feel, a far cry from the extravagant yet welcoming splendour of the rest of Hogwarts. The two Gryffindors surveyed their surroundings curiously.

'It looks like the entrance to some hunting lodge for rich weirdoes,' Sirius said, squinting at a picture of a particularly vacuous looking young lady. Remus nodded.

'Only a little greener.'

'Mm.' Sirius had stopped squinting at the picture as soon as it started to squint back at him. 'So. Where the fuck are we?'

'I don't know. Which worries me a little.' Remus was frowning slightly, which would have appealed to Sirius had it not been for the issue of them being completely and utterly lost. 'I've never been here before.' Suddenly the two froze. Footsteps were echoing down the passage in front of them, heading unmistakably in their direction. Panic, eye widening and sweat provoking, hit the pair of them instantaneously.

'Shit. Now what?' asked Sirius. Remus decided Gryffindor bravery would only take them so far here.

'Run?' he suggested. But he was a little too late. As the words left his lips, a tall figure emerged from around the only visible corner, and stopped dead in his tracks upon seeing them.

'Sirius Goddamn Black. And the other one. What the fuck are you doing here?' The voice that echoed the length of the corridor belonged unquestionably to Severus Snape. Sixth-year, a little over six foot tall, and very much a Slytherin, the elegant, angular form ran a hand exasperatedly through slightly greasy black hair that fell straight to his shoulders. As he swept towards them, emerald lamplight glinted in his black eyes. He came to a stop next to a painting of a sharply pretty young man who smiled a coy greeting at him, fixing the now defiant looking Gryffindors with a glare devastating enough to make even Sirius Black's bravado falter a little. Refusing, however, to belie the slight intimidation, Sirius jerked up the corner of the sneer he reserved specially for Snape.

'If we knew where we were, Snape, then we'd know what we were doing here. It's hardly as though we'd choose to spend time anywhere that you hang out.' Severus laughed affectedly; it sent shivers down Remus' spine but he wasn't sure why.

'And there was I, thinking I was saving you the trouble of avoiding me by staying the fuck away from you. Is it any wonder we Slytherins have lost all sense of altruism when any efforts we make are so horrendously underappreciated? Oh, don't even try to understand, Black, you won't like it when you do. Or perhaps I should say if.' Severus stopped mid flow, surveying the somewhat speechless Gryffindors in front of him. 'You're wet.' Remus knew he should keep quiet, but couldn't resist.

'Yes. It's raining.' Severus rounded on him.

'We live in a basement, Lupin. Being as there are no windows and all, how the fuck are we supposed to know whether it's raining or not?' The Slytherin's harangue slurred into a smudge of low notes and smoky sounds as Remus sized him up thoughtfully. Severus was a strange entity. It was widely acknowledged that the sharp-tongued sixth-year was the most talented student in the school, with something of a particular gift for Potions and Arithmancy. His close circle of friends was without exception self-possessed, confident almost to the point of arrogance (in some cases, at least), bitchy and intelligent, and the four of them together defined the word insular. Intra-group relationships were the subject of wild speculation, but it seemed fairly well established that Snape had a disturbing degree of influence over Lucius Malfoy in ways Remus would be lying if he said he hadn't thought about. The Slytherin wasn't good-looking, as such, thought Remus, eyeing him appraisingly. Not in the way Malfoy was, anyway, and yet there was still something about him...Severus allowed his tirade to tail off, quelling Remus' semi-appreciative look as he did so with a archly raised eyebrow. His black eyes flickered from one Gryffindor to the other, and he sighed.

'I suppose there's nothing else for it. You'd better both come inside.' He turned to lead the way, black school robes swirling out behind him, and looked back disdainfully over his shoulder. 'I'd assume that not even Black could manage to get himself lost down a corridor with no more doors than those at either end, but you'd better keep hold of him just in case, Lupin.' Sirius started forward and flinched back from Severus' elegantly arched eyebrow. Staying a comfortable distance away, he spat out:

'Come inside? Are you insane? We aren't going to follow you anywhere. Especially not into what I'm assuming is the Slytherin basement.' Severus turned back to them, flicking his hair impatiently over his shoulder.

'You seem to be under the delusion that you have some sort of choice in the matter.' He moved so that he was face to face with Sirius, their noses almost touching. 'Look, Black, it's simple, rather like you. You have found the apparently not-so-secret entrance into the Slytherin basement. I'm going to make sure you don't tell anyone about it. And if you don't follow me unquestioningly...'He let his voice trail off into a threat, smiling disarmingly and dangerously. He stepped back, spreading his hands. 'You choose. You name it, I can do it. I'm one of the few torturers who'll do requests. Let me see, what can I offer you? I can make your legs come with me and your torsos follow ten minutes later. Only last night I discovered how to shrink someone's fingers to about an inch or so in length. Fun in itself, especially once you get to mealtimes, but the really interesting thing is that to keep you in proportion, the curse shrinks a few other things as well...A lovely curse, that one, irreversible for 28 days.' Severus let his features slip from their artfully arranged expression of reverie and adopted a knowing, confiding tone. 'It's the mark of a dedicated sadist, you know. Constant devotion to the art, and never slipping into complacency. Always recognising that there's something new to learn. I would never pretend to know everything. I just know I'm damn good. You're coming, then? Marvellous.'

TBC