}} boys -- grab your [guns], tag; sirikinsdoodlefacelumpikins

[Emmeline Vance]

<sub>Emmeline was fairly good at not getting caught. Despite her clumsy nature, she was careful to avoid getting punished for her handiwork. It seemed that the only times Emme was caught, she was caught by McGonagall. The professor had a sixth sense for those things, and Emmeline was no match. But this time, she wouldn't be caught.

As soon as she stepped into Filch's office, she immediately knew that the grumpy caretaker needed a makeover. She had thought about it for ages, what color would look good on the walls, what furniture was needed... It was a month of planning, and finally she set it into motion.

Unfortunately, Filch caught her right as she was leaving.

"I swear Vance, if this doesn't come off, you'll be hanging by your tongue in the dungeons!"

"Screw yooooooooou!" Emmeline was now currently in the middle of a very nice arguement with Filch. ("But pink is so nice, Filchie-poo!") Filch was now thoroughly pissed off. He had threatened her numerous times, even threw a broom at her. There was no way that the schism between the two would be mended.

Filch. Hated. Her.

As Emmeline stuck her tongue out at him, Filch went very red in the face and started shouting at her in what seemed to be a mixture of English and Neanderthal. She had started to run down the corridor, or really, skip while reciting little poems.

"Filchie Poo, oh Filchie Poo
Why are you so glum.
It's not like I've been mean to you
I thought that we were chums!"

This only made the old caretaker angrier, and his shouting grew louder. In turn, Emmeline grew louder. "FILCH POO OH FILCHIE POO --" She turned and started running backwards to blow a raspberry at him. The chase went on for a while longer before Filch's stamina seemed to run out. He was really no match for the hyperactive gryffindor, and Emmeline slowed down.

And bumped right into Mcgonagall.

Before Emmeline could even register what happened, Professor McGonagall was taking her up to the trophy room. "Now usually, Miss Vance, I do not assigned cleaning as a punishment, but I think this calls for it."

"C'mon, McGoogles. It was just a bit of fun. It's washable and everything..." The professor barely acknowledged Emmeline's defense, and only twitched slightly at the nickname. As they stopped outside the door, Mcgonagall conjured a bucket of soapy water, and a rag.

"Now get to it, Miss Vance. Don't want to miss dinner now, would you? And throse trophies better be spotless. Oh, and you won't be needing your wand." The old transfiguration professor held out her hand as Emmeline dug into her pocket to hand over her wand.

With that, Emmeline was left alone to clean every inch of the room. As she walked in, she groaned. Emmeline hadn't been in here since what, 5th year? It seemed like it hadn't been cleaned since then. Well, she had to start somewhere. Emmeline moved to a corner of the room and set down the bucket angrily.</sub>

[Sirius Black]

Getting a little too hex-happy with the Slytherins was a common occurrence among Gryffindors and especially the Marauders and was simply one of Sirius's favorite hobbies--you couldn't go wrong, really, especially when you were battling it out on several sets of moving stair cases... He had rather purposefully tripped some Slytherin while walking up said stairs and the git had turned right around and started casting hexes his way. Expecting this, Sirius had been able to avoid the onslaught of curses and hexes and it had started a full out battle when he had started sending them back himself. Students seemed to join in as they happened upon the scene and the end result was a group of students--predominantly Gryffindors and Slytherins--hexing anything and everything that flashed red or green respectively.

Despite the fact that most of the students involved (well--the Gryffindors at least) had obviously simply thought of this as a bit of good fun, the inevitable and rather worst possible outcome had been being happened upon by none other than McGonagall and Slughorn. Having luckily avoided all hexes cast his way, Sirius was (perhaps thankfully) issued to the group being escorted by Slughorn to their doom while McGonagall, (rather red in the face and screaming about being ashamed about something or other and how students about to graduate shouldn't be so immature), had escorted the "wounded" to the hospital wing. Slughorn, apparently feeling rather uninventive when it came to handing out punishments, had in turn assigned Sirius to scrubbing trophies. Minutes later he was left at the trophy room with a bucket of soapy water and a rag and the instructions to "think hard about what he had done." Sirius had hardly been able to keep from laughing--Slughorn had almost forgotten to confiscate his wand but turned around at the last second to take it before marching away with the remaining offenders in tow.

Obviously seeing no use in pressing the matter when there were so many accomplices as well as witnesses to the crime and rather disappointed (they had hardly even gotten the chance to begin before being interrupted--honestly, he didn't see where it was such a big deal, it wasn't as though it hadn't happened before--at least it hadn't been in the Great Hall this time...) Sirius sighed resignedly and stepped forward to his fate, setting the bucket down rather carelessly so that the suds nearly spilled over the edge onto the floor. Only when he stood straight again and looked over did he see none other than Emmeline Vance standing there, nearly mirroring his own current stance. Amusement if not slight surprised flitted across his features--he didn't recall seeing Emmeline, but he could have simply been too busy hexing Slytherins to notice... "Didn't know you'd taken up cleaning the trophy room in your spare time."

[Emmeline Vance]

There was a noise, another bucket dropped in the room, and Emmeline jumped visibly. She stumbled slightly, and knocked into the bucket. Water went everywhere, and her shoe was soaked in seconds. It was then that she looked up. "Shit, Sirius," she said, staring down pathetically at her destroyed shoe. "Gave me a bloody heart attack..." She bent down to mop up the water when suddenly, Sirius' voice echoed.

"Didn't know you'd taken up cleaning the trophy room in your spare time."

"Oh yes. I just bloody felt like coming up here and cleaning until my hands bleed. Girls have those kinds of urges. I'm sure I'll want to cook and pop out babies in the near future." Okay, so it wasn't the best ice breaker, but obviously, Emmeline was not exactly in the mood for politeness. Her beautiful plan of making Filch into a real lady was ruined. Anyone would be angry.

"What did you do?" She asked, kneeling down to scrub a particularly gross-looking trophy. Without waiting for his answer, Emmeline grinned up at him. "I bet it was lame. I made Filch's office entirely pink. Furniture and everything. I've been wanting to do it ever since I saw that dump of an office. It's bloody grand now. It's got little pictures of kittens everywhere, and all the brooms have little ribbons on them." Emmeline paused and frowned. "I wanted to fix Filch up while he slept, but I was obviously caught."

Emmeline put the trophy back and smiled at it. "God, I'm gorgeous." She said quietly into her reflection. She sat back and looked up at Sirius. "Have you got your wand, or are we both doomed?" She asked, glancing at his pockets.

Sirius was one of the few people that could keep up with Emmeline. She figured it was from hanging around James all day, and she was thankful for it. Most people asked her to slow down when she spoke, or would warn her against running down the stairs. Sirius, on the otherhand, could talk as fast as she could, and usually ran ahead of her when they went downstairs.

Of course, she could never tell him this. She'd sound as if she was in love with him. And after the whole patronus incident, Emmeline had to stay far away from the subject of their relationship. 'Or lack thereof,' she would say whenever the subject did arise. No, Emmeline had to be sure that Sirius would never even think that she liked him. Even if it wasn't true, she'd never hear the end of it.

[Sirius Black]

He didn't bother to stifle a laugh at her clumsiness; and he hadn't even been trying to scare her, though it would have made a better entrance now that he thought of it... When she remarked to his first question he only grinned back at her; you had to love the sarcasm. He laughed again. "'Pop out babies'? Well, that is a little odd, but I wouldn't worry too much about it--most females tend to have similar types of urges while in my very overwhelming presence. Or at least the ones leading up to said act... But don't worry, I won't think any less of you for being... er, strange." He glanced sideways at her with his usual lopsided grin.

He strolled nonchalantly toward the nearest wall of trophies as if with no intention of cleaning any of them, simply looking at them disinterestedly, fingers lightly brushing the shelves they sat upon as he walked down the row of unkempt awards and trophies. He stopped and looked down at the fingers which had touched the obviously very dusty shelf with an undeniably slightly snobbish and indignant expression. "You'd think they let it get this filthy on purpose... Seems to be only one use for the entire room anyway." At her next question--right on time and certainly an inevitable one--he shrugged, an expression of amusement crossing his features at her explanation of her own crime. "The usual for me--hexing Slytherins, dangling them upside down above moving staircases... except a bunch of others ended up joining in, which I guess made the entire thing seem worse than it actually was... Mcgonagall and Slughorn walked in right in the middle of it, Mcgonagall's furious--probably thanks to you for getting her started." At this, Sirius shot a half-amused look at Emmeline.

"Doomed," he said simply in regards to her next question, a sigh escaping his lips. "Slughorn nearly forgot to take it but I think I gave myself away by laughing as he started to leave." He turned to look at the hardly legible inscription on the nearest trophy and suddenly felt an unusual wave of foreboding nostalgia for seemingly no reason in particular. He sighed exaggeratedly. "Oi, Emme, did you ever think... what if this is our last punishment together? Like, thee last, I mean." He turned, a wry smile on his lips at the thought which was perhaps not so strangely one that he failed to find himself at all thankful for. He'd been increasingly bitter simply in general as of late, in wake of their quickly approaching graduation, though he had refrained from admitting this to anyone outwardly... but, then again, he usually had a way of making things like that rather obvious.

[Emmeline Vance]

<sub>"'Pop out babies'? Well, that is a little odd, but I wouldn't worry too much about it--most females tend to have similar types of urges while in my very overwhelming presence. Or at least the ones leading up to said act... But don't worry, I won't think any less of you for being... er, strange."

Emmeline laughed. "Oh of course Sirius. Just being in the same room as you makes me want to rip off all my clothes and attack you." She said, as though the two were talking about something as innocent as tea. "And you know you love me, Sirius. Especially my strangeness. Makes me mysterious and amazing." She grinned back at him and shook her head.

As Sirius explained his crime, Emmeline listened quietly. She had to fight to keep the grin off of her face. "I knew it must've been lame. Quite dissapointing, compared to my escapade." She stuck out her bottom lip at him. "But that's okay. There's always tomorrow." She laughed. "Sorry about McGiggles. She's always in such a good mood, I'm sorry you had to se her get angry." Emmeline said sarcastically, shrugging.

Emmeline grabbed another trophy and sighed. It seemed as though she had spent her whole life cleaning. Unfortunately, it had only been what, ten minutes? Well, with Sirius there, their punishment could go faster, or they'd be spending the night in the trophy room. Emmeline was starting to think it would probably be the latter.

"Doomed,"

"Great. You're useless aren't you?" She sighed. "A great, useless blob." Emmeline muttered as she scrubbed a trophy that seemed to be covered in god knows what. It smelled awful, and Emmeline didn't want to investigate. Instead, she plunged the thing into the bucket, making a face. Then came Sirius' next comment. Her eyes flew up at him, looking quite sad indeed. She remained quiet for a moment, and sighed.

"Don't say it like that. I doubt this will be our last punishment together. And-and we'll definitely keep in touch after..." she paused, as if she just realized that this was her last year. "Shit!" Emmeline layed down, feeling slightly dizzy. "We're graduating. I have no money. I'll have to resort to prostitution to put food on the table. And what if I marry some jerk? What if I have ugly kids? What if I don't get married at all? I don't want to be an old spinster with a house full of cats..."</sub>

[Sirius Black]

The smile upon his features was, for the moment, rather unmovable; one of the things he liked best about Emmeline was the fact that she would always be willing to match his sarcasm, which was usually something that made other girls either squeal and giggle and blush or, in the cases of most Ravenclaw girls, turn their noses up at him and place something like disgust about their faces (though, in reality, like Emmeline, they secretly wanted him, of course). "Your self-control is admirable." He grinned at her, not bothering to deny her next comment nor further their little game--which, in fact, might have very well come off as uncharacteristic but perhaps his purpose would be better served to leave her wondering.

He was nearly about to make some comment about not knowing it was a competition (but if he had, then surely he would have been dangling Filch from the top of the stairs while Emmeline redecorated his room...) but her next comment made him flinch immeasurably. "But that's okay. There's always tomorrow." It was an effort to stifle yet another sigh. There wouldn't always be tomorrow--there would be tomorrow for another handful of weeks but right now that seemed a lifetime away from always and perhaps it was even longer.

It would have been easy not to dwell upon such things around Emmeline if he didn't always allow them in the front of his mind but at the same time part of him wanted to bring up these inevitable notions of unease if just to determined whether or not everyone was feeling the same unpleasant sense of anticipation. But with Emmeline's ceaseless sarcasm it was hard to keep the unmistakable quirk of a smile from his lips and so the urge to sigh had just been a brief, one-sided lag in the conversation and Sirius was happy to leave it at that for the moment.

Instead he resumed to pull a face at the disgusting thing she had just pulled from the shelf that smelled to a disturbing extent as though someone had thrown up into it (though he thought he caught the word "Slytherin" somewhere on the inscription and wasn't surprised...). "As long as this is what we're supposed to be doing,"--he waved a hand as the thing sunk into the bucket of water--"I think I will be rather useless... Hopefully Slughorn and McGonagall will forget we're in here or something."

An unmistakable upsurge of kinship accompanied Emmeline's answer to his previous question and he wasn't sure whether feeling relief that he wasn't the only one having doubts was something he should have been experiencing. He yawned and moved to sit next to her on the floor, pushing the bucket of water away with his shoe. "I've been trying not to 'say it like that' for weeks, but it is like that." It was a relief to hear so certain that they would keep in touch but he hadn't been so sure--friends would drift apart after school wasn't there to pull them together anymore and in the current troubled circumstances it seemed more likely than anything else--or maybe that was just him being his usual pessimistic self.

But he couldn't help but laugh at her rather exaggerated observation nonetheless. He layed back next to her with a sigh, lifting a hand aimlessly to his hair. "You could always marry me, you know." He glanced over at her, grinning. "I think we'd make rather lovely offspring, personally. You can stay at home and fulfill your dreams of cooking and cleaning and 'popping out babies,' of course. I'm sure my parents would be thrilled to hear their son was carrying on the Black name...," he joked, knowing Emmeline had heard well enough from him about his parents to recognize the sarcasm in it.

[Emmeline Vance]

"Your self-control is admirable."

"Well, I suppose I just got used to supressing all urges to snog your face off. It was horrible for the first couple of years, but now I can look at you in the eye for almost five minutes. Any more than that is pushing it." Emmeline grinned at him. She went silent for a moment, as if waiting for him to continue their game, frowned, and then turned back to the trophies.

She took the gross trophy out of her bucket and sighed. She vaguely remembered a time in her 5th year. She had been sick, but James had dragged her up the stairs to look at the empty space where his trophy would be. She told him repeatedly that she was going to throw up, and was told to aim for the nearest Slytherin trophy.

...Well, that certainly would explain the mystery. Emmeline scrubbed it clean and put it back, looking slightly satisfied that she gad cleaned three trophies. She glanced over to Sirius and supressed a frown. This would take forever...

"I think I will be rather useless... Hopefully Slughorn and McGonagall will forget we're in here or something."

"Sirius, I will not be cleaning these all by myself. You better get cleaning, or I'm going to dump this water on you." She threatened, glaring up at her friend. "And that would be quite gross. Nobody would want to snog yuo after that."

As he came to sit next to her, she sighed. It would definitely take all night. "Don't mope," she said, prodding his side. "The least you can do is act happy. If you mope, then graduation will come up before you know it. Anyway, moping gives you wrinkles, and then I won't talk to you again. Because I'm that shallow." Emmeline smiled.

"You could always marry me, you know."

Emmeline made a face. "You'd be the worst husband ever. And anyway, you'd be in competition with what, the whole school? Everyone'll be asking me to marry them. And the thought of getting slipped the Sirius Sausage makes me sick." She said, shuddering. "Also, our kids would be too goodlooking. They'd be breaking hearts before they make it out of diapers." Emmeline grinned and snuggled up closer to him.

"And you dad. He wants me too. Yeah, he'd be too jealous. So obviously, I can't marry you. But I will not hesitate to mooch off of you once my parents kick me out. I'll pay you in smooches."

[Sirius Black]

[askdljaskdj ughhh i'm sorry for the sucky post, i wrote it once and then my computer decided to be a faggot and it got deleted soooo here's the second attempt...]

Perhaps he should have taken the "don't mope" advice to heart, but it was hard when his mind tended to work in the most pessimistic of ways and he'd never been at all skilled at hiding his true feelings let alone bothering to "act happy" when there was really nothing in it for him. Graduation was coming up fast no matter which way you cared to look at it and Sirius was more prone to be counting each second with spite rather than making most of the time that was left simply because he tended to be perhaps a bit overly bad-natured that way when everything seemed to be working against him so inevitably and there was little he could do to change any of it.

In his mind, getting through these next few weeks would be the brunt of it simply because it would undoubtedly be easier to grit your teeth and bare it when preconceived notions were confirmed or forgotten and you were left with the simple truth of the matter. But rather than explaining this he simply opted to answer simply and predictably less-than-seriously: "I've been moping for 18 years now and I'm still the best looking thing to grace the halls of Hogwarts, aren't I?" He grinned at her.

He had to suppress a laugh at her answer but put on a mock hurt expression anyway, though it was hard to keep the amusement from showing in his face. "Pff, fine, suit yourself. But you'll have to stop denying the inevitable sometime." He grinned at her as if to say exactly what the 'inevitable' was. "Or I could always just run off with some nice Ravenclaw broad..." He smiled slightly purposefully, then laughed, raising his brows when she mentioned Orion. "That's disgusting," he said, looking over at her, though obviously amused. "Not to mention your worst excuse yet..."

[Emmeline Vance]

Emmeline sighed. The more she talked to Sirius about their upcoming graduation, the more depressed she got. She hadn't really thought of how close it really was. What if she never saw her friends ever again? However corny it sounded, she really would miss Sirius. But if she told him... well, he'd probably laugh and say something stupid like 'of course you would.'

"I've been moping for 18 years now and I'm still the best looking thing to grace the halls of Hogwarts, aren't I?"

Emmeline laughed. "Or so you think." She said, grinning at him. "I personally think you've been getting a bit flabby lately." She pinched his side. "If you don't raise your game, I think Slughorn'll take first place again." She sighed. "Just watching him with that crystalized pineapple... he really is delicious."

"Pff, fine, suit yourself. But you'll have to stop denying the inevitable sometime."

"The inevitable? You mean when I get the urge to throw myself at your feet?" Emmeline laughed. "Don't hold your breath." She frowned. "But I must admit, I won't be looking forward to living on my own. What happens if there's a thunderstorm? I mean, I used to just hide in the closet, but my parents were always around, so I didn't freak out too much..." She turned to look at him. "And what if there's a mouse? I'd die! And spiders?" Emmeline had to close her eyes. "But I guess you'll be too busy to help little old me. What with your countless girlfriends..."

"Not to mention your worst excuse yet..."

"Well, I'm running out..." She said, shrugging. "But that doesn't mean anything, so don't think you're wearing me down. I won't be snogging you anytime soon." Emmeline said proudly. "I'd sooner proclaim my love to Filch. Although, I hear he's great in bed..."