the cadence of part time poets

Chapter 14: Snivellus Takes a Shower

And the man in the back said, "Everyone attack!"
And it turned into a ballroom blitz;
And the girl in the corner said, "Boy I want to warn you—
"It'll turn into a ballroom blitz!"
Ballroom blitz! Ballroom blitz! Ballroom blitz! Ballroom blitz!

- "Ballroom Blitz" The Sweet, 1974

November 1975

The punishment for their rather loud indiscretion was three week's worth of detentions, all of which were to be carried out before or after lessons and every Saturday morning. They were separated of course, so as to discourage any further insurrections. Sirius was sent back to Mrs. Pince, their prickly librarian, in hopes that the library's quiet atmosphere might soothe his cutting tongue. James, half afraid he was going to lose his spot as football captain, personally volunteered to be Ms. Hooch's faithful dog for the entirety of November and spent his detentions polishing the gymnasium floor or otherwise scrubbing the mildew off the undersides of every one of the rowing team's boats. Poor Peter, who nearly rivalled Remus when it came to being a horrible morning-person, was forced to wake up at the crack of dawn to help Professor Kettleburn—Hawkings' Agricultural Department head and resident farmer—water, feed, and muck-out the school pens.

It was apparent to all of them, even him, that Remus was getting off easy with his punishment. Though his Saturdays were spent reshelving books in the library with Sirius, most of his detention hours were spent with his forms teacher, Mrs. Buchanan, doing whatever odd jobs she could think up the day of. According to Sirius, Sheila disappeared nearly every second weekend, though no one had the faintest idea as to where she went. It was Hawkings, so there were some rumours of course, the craziest of which was that she was British Intelligence and was only placed at the school to keep an eye on the next generation of politicians and title-owners. During the afternoons he organised music sheets or polished and restrung instruments Remus almost always entertained the idea of asking where it was that she was really going, but every time he got up the nerve to broach the subject, Mrs. Buchanan would direct his attention to scrubbing the dried saliva out of the tubas, and he learned to stop asking after that.

"You're just in a glorified forms class," Sirius complained, still nursing the sore ankle he'd gotten falling off one of the library ladders. It wouldn't have happened at all if he hadn't been trying to show-off to a group of sixth form girls who'd been sneaking glances at him over their homework.

"Well, they've got me doing real manual labour," Peter moaned. "A goat bit me yesterday—I actually bled!"

"You're lucky I didn't make you bleed first, Pete," Sirius growled. "It's all your big mouth's fault that we were caught in the first place. Really between you and Lupin I—"

"The firecrackers were not my idea," Remus snapped. He'd been angry with Sirius ever since his birthday, and they'd spent most of their shared time between detention and lessons making subtle jabs or else ignoring each other entirely. This seemed like a great step back in progress to James, who Remus suspected had been secretly keeping tally of every moment he and Sirius had talked civilly with one another.

Well tough, Remus thought. Sirius was already a wanker, but now he'd gone and lost Tomny's lighter too.

After marching the boys back to Castle Hall, Filch had made them turn out their pockets in case they were carrying any other illicit articles. Having left his cigarettes behind, Remus' pockets were empty, but James lost a lucky Arsenal trading card and Peter had been forced to give up a few chocolates leftover from the Halloween stash, which he seemed pretty sorry to lose anyway.

When Filch made Sirius hand over the lighter, Remus had seen red. He'd spent several long seconds trying to picture what might happen if he just whacked the caretaker and took the zippo back. But in the end he did nothing and just let himself simmer in enraged silence while they waited for Headmistress McGonagall to arrive for their late-night lecture. A year ago, that kind of restraint would've been beyond him. Apparently Hawkings College was having an effect. Unfortunately, that restraint lasted only so long.