The Marauders: Year One | #Wattys2016

Detention

It took Sirius a ridiculous amount of time to find Madam Hooch's office, which was why he was so surprised to find that Severus hadn't arrived yet by the time he got there. "Well there's one of you," Madam Hooch said when she opened the door to find Sirius standing in the hall. "Once Mr. Snape has arrived, we shall go."

"Go?" Sirius asked, confused. He'd thought they would be staying at the office for the duration of the detention, but before Madam Hooch could respond, Severus came rushing down the hall.

"And there's the other!" she said. "You know, many of the other instructors at this school might give you a second detention for your tardiness!"

"Sorry," panted Severus. He'd just run all the way from his meeting with Lily in the Defense corridor.

Madam Hooch huffed and pulled her office door shut behind her, locking it with a flick of her wand. "Come along, then, off we go." She led the way down the hall to the entrance hall and out onto the grounds.

Sirius was surprised they were going out of doors. It was a nice day, the sunlight streaming down in great big, warm rays, shining off the lake and the leaves of the Whomping Willow. Across the grounds they could see the gamekeeper, Rubeus Hagrid, out digging in his garden with a spade, wiping his brow with a gigantic kerchief as he took a pause and waved at them. "Mornin'," he called out as they passed by.

"Good morning, Hagrid," called Madam Hooch, but she didn't pause to talk.

Madam Hooch led the pair of them into the equipment house by the quidditch pitch and opened up the broom cupboard. "These brooms," she said, waving her hands around herself at the motley collection of school broom, "Have not been serviced in some time and are in desperate need of some attention. For the next two hours, the two of you shall consult the owners manuals of the brooms, which can be found there on that shelf in the corner, and trim the brooms' twigs to standard length, polish and wax the handles, and hang them back on the walls in their proper places. You will find the servicing kits there on the bookshelf as well." She eyed them beadily. "I will be in the very next room here, making out the gaming schedule for this term. I shall hear if you begin fighting and it will result in another detention if you do. I recommend working together in, at very least, a civil manner. Is that understood?"

"Yes ma'am," both Sirius and Severus chorused together.

"Okay then. Let me know if you finish before the two hours are up," she added, and she turned and disappeared into the next room.

Sirius and Severus exchanged a look. Finally, Sirius reached up and took down one of the old brooms and looked it over. Severus inched across the room and lifted a manual off the shelf. "What sort of broom is that?"

"This is a Comet 360," Sirius replied.

Severus ran his finger along the spines of the books until he found the manual for the Comet and pulled it off the shelf. He carried it and the servicing kit over to where Sirius was sitting down on a bench, the broom laying across his lap. Severus dropped the kit beside him and opened it. "You wax it and I'll trim it, I suppose," he suggested.

Sirius shook his head, "I don't need help servicing a broomstick. It'll go twice as fast if you do your own brooms."

Severus felt a flare of anger flash through him, but he shoved the kit at Sirius and got up to get the other one and the manual to another broom as Sirius flicked through the pages of the manual for the Comet 360, looking for the standard twig length for the Comet.

Neither one of them spoke to the other as they worked, the only sound in the broom cupboard being the swishing of their rags or the clicking of the scissors as they trimmed the twigs. Every once in a while one of them would get up to hang up their old broom and get a new one to work on, though Severus was definitely switching brooms more often than Sirius, who kept perusing through the manuals while he worked, reading about the broom specs and manufacturing information instead of staying focused on the task at hand. As he worked, he couldn't help thinking about calling for the Black family house elf, Kreacher, to come do the work. But then Snape might pitch a fit, he thought, glancing over at Severus. He was too poor to have a house elf and he could just see Severus tattling to Madam Hooch if Kreacher appeared, and that would probably just land him even more detention time. So he slowly did it himself.