The Convict Trio and the Wings of the Heir

--------------------------------

Food Fight of the Century

--------------------------------

Remus Lupin groaned as the pale, warmthless rays of the midday sun shone through the barred windows, falling across his eyes. He hadn't had a very good night's sleep, what with the dementors right outside his cell. He moaned softly again, a wave of depression washing over him. He rubbed his chin and noted the faint stubble growing on it. I'll have to shave, he thought absentmindedly, before he noticed a large roach crawling across his blanket.

He abruptly sat bolt upright, sending the roach flying across his cell, hitting the wall with a slight smack and scuttling across to Snape's cell. Lupin hoped fervently that it would crawl at least once across the greasy-haired man's face.

The dementor who stood guard at his cell door reminded him where he was: the island prison, Azkaban. It made no noise; it faced him silently, unnaturally dark shadows hiding its face from the rest of the world. It hissed at him once, before gliding away. Lupin felt a brief burst of hope as the dark creature receded, positive emotions flooding back into his mind. But then another dementor rounded the corner, and the good feelings slid from his grasp, as intangible and incorporeal as the sunbeams flooding his room. Unfortunately....

Kuuuuuuuuh.... Puuuuu.... Kuuuuuuuh... Puuuu....

"BY GOD!!!" Lupin shouted, springing off his cot and running to the cell door, where he just managed to reach through the bars and give the dementor a solid smack on what passed for its cheek. "STOP WITH THE FUCKING DARTH VADER IMPRESSIONS, AYE?!?!"

The dementor who he'd knocked to the ground stared up at him, one rotted hand to the cheek where Lupin had hit it. Slowly, it rose to its feet, its shoulders shaking. Lupin gulped nervously, he'd never seen a dementor show any emotion, much less rage. He tensed as it stood to its full eight-foot height, seeming to glare at him.

Then it abruptly turned away and stumbled down the corridor, emitting a strangled sound that sounded suspiciously like a sob. Brackish, dirty liquid dripped from its hood and hissed on contact with the floor, the sound continuing long after the dementor itself had fled.

Lupin stood, dumbfounded, looking like an idiot as another dementor, evidently of sterner stock than the last one, glided silently to his cell and unlocked it, grabbing his arm and dragging him out into the hallway. A horrible cold feeling cascaded through his arm, leaving him thinking of the time he had walked through the Bloody Baron at Hogwarts.

He could see Sirius and Snape being manhandled out of their cells as well; apparently it was breakfast time. They were led down the corridor to the huge Azkaban cafeteria, made to easily seat over five hundred inmates. The tables were already spread with a huge array of food. Certainly nothing compared to the Hogwarts feasts, but certainly better than he expected the meals to be. Then again, he gloomily reflected, the inmates are probably too gloomy to enjoy their meals. And he was right. It had been another fiendish plan devised by the cruel warden of Azkaban, Gred Forge((COUGH)), trying to make the inmates even more miserable than they normally would be.

He had barely sat and started to eat when he was heard a strangely familiar voice behind him.

"Well if it isn't Severus Snape, finally come to join our little family here at Azkaban!" The voice belonged to a woman who had once been pretty. As it was, her slightly bloodshot eyes and the white streaks in her once raven-black hair served only to make her look fairly deranged. Which, of course, she was. Being Maria Lestrange can do that to a person. She was currently advancing towards Snape, her hand held out in greeting.

Lupin hastily covered his face with a meringue platter, pretending to stuff his face in the bowl in an effort to get the last scraps. For where Maria Lestrange was...

Sneaking up behind Snape was John Lestrange, Maria's husband. In his hands he held a pair of cream carrot cakes, and the grin on his face was simply evil. As Maria attempted to engage the slimy Potions professor in conversation, John padded silently behind him and slowly raised the creamy confections. Lupin couldn't watch with a clear conscience; in a place like Azkaban, humiliation could drive a man mad.

So it happened that Lupin shouted, "SEVERUS! Behind you!" Just as John Lestrange hurled the cakes.

--------------------------------

It had been a sleepless night for one Severus Snape. The ashen, pale, haunted figure sat upon his cot, staring blankly at the dusty floors of his cell. The former Potions Master vaguely noted in some far-off corner of his mind that a cockroach had just scuttled across his foot. Not that petty things such as that mattered anymore.

A full 8+ hours of nothing but reliving past nightmares does that to a person, after all.

Snape hadn't looked up until he heard the unmistakable clanking sound of a door latch. He watched with dull black eyes as his cell door creaked open, revealing...the Darth Vader-imitating dementors.

"Will you stop that insufferable sound?!" the greasy-haired git hissed, a bit of his old self seeping back into his demeanor. "How long does it take for our words to penetrate your immensely thick hoods and comprehend in your shallow minds?!" The dementor made an offended 'hmph' sound and promptly shoved Severus out the door.

The dementor's touch had left the man with an immensely cold, depressed feeling...which, of course, hadn't left him, since another one of those awful creatures had been waiting just outside the cell in preparation to drag him off. It wasn't but a few minutes that he found himself forced into a seat in the mess hall, a platter of...something...placed in front of him.

Snape merely stared at his food in silence. He was not in the mood to eat right now...would he ever be able to in the near future? That was a point to ponder.

After all, who knew if Azkaban's food was poisoned or not?

"Well if it isn't Severus Snape, finally come to join our little family here at Azkaban!" a woman's voice cried out. An ominously familiar woman's voice.

The Potions Master slowly looked up from his food to meet the face of Maria Lestrange. She looked absolutely deranged, what with that nasty glitter in her eyes and those streaks in her hair--and was she offering a hand to him? Snape made no move to accept the greeting, and merely stared at the woman before him.

"It's been a LONG time, Severus! How has life been in the Wizarding World, old friend?" she asked cheerfully, an odd glint in her bloodshot eyes. The black-haired man gave Maria a wary look as he opened his mouth to respond--

"SEVERUS! Behind you!"

Half out of instinct, Snape ducked at the warning. The cakes sailed right over his head...

And into the face of Maria Lestrange.

--------------------------------

Lupin had to stifle a burst of laughter as everybody in the room turned to look at the rare, rare sight of Maria Lestrange standing completely still, her face hidden by two cream cakes, which were slowly dripping icing and little jelly candies ((brr... hated those)) into her bodice. She slowly started to shake, although this time, Lupin was quite sure that she, unlike the rather fragile dementor of just a few moments before, was trembling with rage. Her hands slowly reached up and wiped off the frosting, leaving her looking like a clown, not a woman with a cake for a face.

Suddenly, she snapped.

"You incompetent BASTARD!" she shrieked, showing that indeed, Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. "How DARE you miss?!?!" As if it was John's fault that Severus had ducked. Inmates who had seen the whole thing started backing away; evidently they were smart enough to get away from the blast area.

John Lestrange let his wife's words wash over him like a wave, his face slowly going from flushed with excitement to horror to anger. "Is it MY fault that Snape ducked?!" he exclaimed, raising his hands in frustration. "It's just like you to fly off the handle like that, you BITCH!"

But Maria was too busy kneeling, scooping the remnants of the two cream cakes off the floor. Mashing them together like a kind of snowball, she hurled it with all her might, sending it right into the center of John's chest, where it splattered messily, showering his entire upper body with cream and cake. "Take THAT, JOHN!" she crowed, apparently forgetting Snape, who was caught in the middle.

John's face darkened even more, if that was possible. "Why you... WHORE!!" he shouted, grabbing a huge punch bowl with both hands and heaving it at Maria. It shattered on a ceiling fixture and showered the inmates with (most likely spiked) punch. A roar began building as the inmates began a food fight, and the dementors, too, flooded into the cafeteria, their long rotted hands outstretched.

It was Remus Lupin who leapt forward with a dozen boiled eggs grasped in the crook of his arm. Running up to the cheerless entities, he stuffed the eggs into their gaping mouths (which, not being able to close OR open OR chew, were stuck like that until the eggs were removed the next day) and promptly grabbed a beef casserole, throwing it at Maria Lestrange from behind John Lestrange's back. The inmates cheered loudly and continued the food fight as the dementors staggered around. It appeared that their breathing was the main component in their Absolute Terror Field ((sorry, I just couldn't help myself)).

She wheeled on her husband, bits of meat stuck in her hair; apparently she hadn't spotted Lupin. "You called me a WHORE?!?" she howled, her already bloodshot eyes seeming to bulge. "WHO was the one who came in every night drunk and smelling of women's perfume"?!?!" It was obvious that her words had struck home, as John's face became so purple as to be almost black.

"You fucking slut," he growled, sounding much more crazed even than his wife. He grabbed a huge cake from the center table where it had been set, celebrating an inmate's birthday (another plan from the good Gred Forge). Grunting with strain, he lifted it with a Herculean effort and promptly overturned the whole thing onto his wife. Her horrified scream was drowned out by the veritable avalanche of icing and sliced fruits that buried her. John Lestrange looked around, his eyes completely bloodshot, before grabbing a pair of eggplants and wielding them like clubs. He waded, roaring, into the huge dogpile that was starting to form at the center of the room.

Meanwhile, Lupin was sniping; a pile of hard plums and crab apples lay at his side. From time to time, he would snap a fruit into a yelling inmate's mouth with a flick of his wrist. A distinctly amused expression was on his face.

A man wandered past Snape, a large watermelon with holes for his mouth and eyes stuck over his head. He bumped into a wall, and then a pair of inmates who looked less like they were fighting and more like they were making out. They promptly stopped their wild tussling, grabbed the poor man and poured steaming gravy into a hole they punched in the top of the watermelon. Gravy dripped from the bottom as the man writhed in pain, his anguished screams muffled by the melon.

There was laughter and hatred and glee and serious bodily harm in the cafeteria. People who were watching the fortress that day would have noticed that a few minutes into the fight, a large amount of sauteed ferrets were tipped out of one of the Azkaban windows. They were quickly followed by copious kegs of gruel, which shattered on the rocks below to a loud cheer from the inmates. After all, only breakfast was exquisite. Lunch and dinner were (predictably, from what exited the windows that day) sauteed ferrets with gruel.

Apparently the Food Fight was getting a bit out of control. Shall we see what Severus Snape was doing during this?

--------------------------------

What had Severus been doing as this war broke out?

Actually........nothing.

The Potions Master was wise enough to stay close to the ground and slowly back away from the fight ensuing between the two Lestranges. In fact, even as the food fight broke out and the dementors flooded in to control the chaos, he had simply observed the ludicrous ongoings.

Until he eyed the exits---free of dementors.

With a greasy smirk, Snape took one last glance around before he nonchalantly made his way toward the doorway. Amidst a food fight, he'd be awfully surprised if anyone noticed him..............

But unfortunately, Snape's greasy hair caught the sunbeams and flashed painfully into the eyes of one Sirius Black. The latter growled as he saw the source of the light that stabbed his sensitive eyes, and a rather evil glint flooded his peepers as he snuck up behind the Potions Master and grabbed him, heaving him bodily into the air...

And into a large soup tureen. Garlic soup. Not piping hot, fortunately. :D

Severus silently trembled with anger in the soup tureen. With barely suppressed rage, the Potions Master calmly pulled himself out of the soup, sopping wet and enveloped in the strong stench of garlic. His black hair did well to shield his facial expression from Sirius as he stalked over to the nearby table of foods.

With deadly accuracy and astonishing speed, Snape picked up a full bowl of gruel, strode over to his archenemy, and dumped the disgusting slop upon his head.

Severus had joined the fight. :D

Sirius growled like the huge black dog he was at times, slowly lifting the bowl up and off his head. With an angry snarl, he snatched a pair of baked apples and squashed them messily on each side of Snape's head, leaving him looking like he had apples sprouting from his ears.

"Dammit, Snape," he said. "I thought you were a vampire. Guess you don't have an excuse for yer sallow skin, greasy hair and bad teeth now, do you?"

Then he snatched two chicken legs and began attempting to shove them up Snape's overly large nostrils.

With a scowl, Snape tore the apples off the sides of his head and promptly smashed the remains into Sirius's eyes. He pulled away from the chicken legs with a snarl.

"So sorry to disappoint you, Black, but unlike your werewolf friend, I am not a dark creature."

With that, Severus picked up a hot apple pie and chucked it at Sirius's face, hitting him square in the face.

Sirius collapsed, squirming as the hot gooey appleness oozed down his collar. He wasn't going to be getting up anytime soon. Black barely managed to crawl under a table, unnoticed by the rampaging prisoners.

In the center of the room, the giant cake that held Maria Lestrange trembled.

Lupin rushed to his friend's aid, pelting two crab apples and a peach pit at the back of Snape's head. Then he grabbed a handful of ice cubes and stuffed them down the greasy git's robes, and one into his briefs for good measure.

Suddenly, the cake in the middle of the brawling room of inmates burst, sending bits of the nummy confection flying everywhere. Rising from the center like a phoenix from its ashes was Maria Lestrange. Her eyes were a deep red as she stepped out slowly, and Lupin could have sworn that the stone floor hissed and smoked with each step.

"Johnathan Matthias Lestrange..." she growled, walking slowly towards said wizard, who, completely and blissfully unaware, was still fighting with a trio of burly men. "DIE!!!!" she shrieked, grabbing the back of the man's robes and lifting him bodily; apparently the adrenaline flowing through her system allowed her to exert far more strength than was normally possible.

With a huge grunt of effort, she chucked him out the window.

A roar of approval drowned out the last despairing scream of John Lestrange as the inmates began grabbing their most hated enemies and throwing them out the windows. More than a few dementors met their watery end as well, unable to do anything due to the boiled eggs still stuck in their mouths.

And it was a full-fledged riot at Azkaban. :D

--------------------------------

Snape barely had time to 'hmph' with triumph before Lupin attacked him with more food. With a barely suppressed cry, the sallow-skinned man struggled with the ice cubes in his robes, trying so VERY hard not to make a fool of himself in front of a mess hall full of fellow former Death Eaters and other various convicts.

After a very, VERY long 60 seconds, all of the ice cubes were successfully expended from his robes and briefs. With a snarl of anger, Severus pelted Lupin with a few half-melted blocks of ice for good measure (like hell he isn't getting the last word).

The riot was suddenly brought to his attention as a rather bulky man just tossed a scrawny, pale figure out a nearby window. The rising danger rate set off warning bells in Snape's head---it was time to go.

And so, the Potions Master headed towards the exits once more, making sure to keep an eye out for Lupin and Black.

Lupin caught a glimpse of Severus beating a hasty retreat out of the corner of his eye, and quickly helped Sirius to his feet. Black rose awkwardly, still wiping bits of pie out of his stinging eyes. He and Lupin exchanged a glance and quickly ran in the opposite direction, past egg-sucking (always wanted to use that term) dementors and finally burst through a pair of barred wooden doors into...

Gred Forge's office. Fortunately, the warden himself was not present, but mounted above his fireplace was a plaque with...

The Wand of Sirius Black, the marble plaque proudly proclaimed. Sirius ignored it and snatched his wand from the pegs that supported it, giving it a few practice flicks and nodding as a few red and gold sparks shot from the tip.

Two other wands were lying on the warden's desk, and Lupin recognized one of them to be his own. He quickly snatched it and held it in his right hand, ready to cast a quick Patronus if need be. Remus gave the other wand a glance. It was most probably Snape's. After a moment's hesitation, he grabbed it as well and followed Sirius, who was already halfway down the corridor.

Finally, they caught up with Snape. Lupin tossed the former Death Eater his wand, hoping he wasn't making the wrong choice.

Snape froze as he heard the telltale pounding of footsteps catching up to him. Won't those Marauders just leave him in peace?! The Potions Master whirled around, preparing for a fistfight...

And was met with Lupin tossing him his forgotten wand. Bewildered, Severus caught the slim stick of wood and cocked a greasy ebony eyebrow at one of his hated enemies. He gave the pair a questioning look as he slipped the wand into his garlic-doused robes. Snape made a mental note to snatch a pair of clean robes later---it won't do to smell strongly of garlic whilst trying to hide from civilization. Like it or not, he was a convict now, after all.

Snape hurried after the pair of Marauders as they strode past him down the torch-lined, dank hallway towards the heavy iron front doors. Soon enough, the doors had been painstakingly pulled open and the three were out in the frigid morning air of the North Sea.

They were free again. But would this turn out to be such a good thing after all?

Remus Lupin smiled cheerfully to his two companions as he pulled out his wand and held it up, preparing to concentrate on his upcoming Apparation.

"To the Forbidden Forest!"

--------------------------------

A lone beetle fluttered its wings briefly before its departure out the shattered windows of Azkaban for the second time in a matter of 24 hours...

--------------------------------

Yes, Snape is a briefs man. :D