"I'm bored," Sirius complained for about the thirtieth time in so many minutes. 

Remus was bent over the desk, working on a paper that was due after the holidays (a paper which Sirius hadn't even started yet), and had several textbooks open across his desktop, revising studiously. "So do something, then," Remus suggested.

Sirius frowned. "Like what?"

"Dunno," Remus said, "Use your imagination."

Sirius grinned, "Dirty."

Remus sat upright and turned around, "I didn't mean like that, you foul thing."

Sirius's eyes danced. "So c'mere and we'll use our imaginations together."

Remus raised an eyebrow. "Unlike you, sir, I'm actually doing something that is keeping me quite busy, thank you," he turned back to his desk and positioned his quill once more, running his finger along a page, tracing a sentence...

Sirius moaned, "I'm bored, Moony. Help."

"You could work on your paper, too," Remus suggested. "Actually give writing it yourself a go so I don't have to do it twice."

"That's just as boring as doing nothing," Sirius complained. He got up on his knees and shuffled closer to the end of the bed on them, leaning over so he was looking over Remus's shoulder intently.

Remus glanced at him. "What are you doing?"

"Watching you."

"Why?"

"Because you're my fiance, Moonpie, and you're supposed to entertain me."

"Oh is that it?" Remus asked.

"Mmhm," Sirius nodded. "Official definition and all."

"I rather think it's not," Remus replied. Then, "Bloody hell that sounded weird. Fiance."

Sirius grinned, "Sounds bloody fantastic to me. Even better than boyfriend, but not nearly as grand as husband, and one day somewhat soon in our intermediate future, I'll call you that everyday."

Remus laughed and shook his head, but he was smiling.

"Have you changed your mind at all about the unicorn, by the way?" Sirius asked, having told Remus of all the brilliant ideas he'd come up with for their wedding while talking to James, only to be somewhat sternly told that the wedding should be a simple affair amongst friends and family and not some gaudy circus sideshow.

Remus said, "No, I haven't."

"What about the disco ball and pistachio green suits?" Sirius tried.

Remus shook his head, "Most definitely not."

"Surely you don't have anything against the animalistic snogging for our first kiss, though, I mean..."

"Yes, not a thing wrong with snogging in front of everyone we know and love," Remus said, "Hell, why don't we just have it go I now pronounce you husbands and you may go ahead and shag right here at the alter?"

"Brilliant!" Sirius cried. 

"I was just -- oh nevermind, I'm not even going to dignify it." Remus rolled his eyes.

Sirius snaked his arms around Remus's shoulders. "Moony?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm bored."

"I know you are," Remus answered.

"Entertain me, Moony," Sirius begged.

Remus mused, "You know, actually, I have an idea for you to stay busy doing. Why don't you go and find Peter? Huh? He's only been missing for - what now, four days? Bloody would be nice to know where he is, wouldn't it be?"

"He's left crumbs," Sirius replied, and he pointed to a candy wrapper that was discarded by the foot of Peter's unmade bed, which had been made the night before and void of Bertie Bot's packaging when they'd gone to sleep. "He isn't too far missing."

"Well, do it anyway," Remus said, "James will be asking next time you talk to him in the mirror, you don't want him to be angry you haven't even tried, do you? And when you find him, I'll take a break and we can go get him and maybe do something with him so he doesn't feel so left out."

Sirius withdrew his arms. "Oh sure, take a break for Peter," he said dramatically. "Besides, where the hell do I even start looking for him?"

Remus said, sarcastically, "I dunno, wouldn't it be nice if someone had invested like three or four years of their lives mapping the castle and setting the homunuclus on the thing so it could tell you exactly where to look?"

Sirius froze.

"In case you didn't get that, I'm saying that you ought to use our Map," Remus said, turning around. He saw Sirius's expression of panic. "What's that look for?"

Sirius drew a deep breath. "Alright. So. There's something I forgot to mention in all the things that've been going on and this is the first time it's really come up, so you can't be angry with me for not telling you sooner."

Remus officially put down his quill and turned in his seat, crossing his legs and settling in for a long winded excuse-filled story. He stared at Sirius, "Here we go," he muttered. "What did you do?"

"Remember that day when we were sledding on the stairs --"

"Oh do I ever. And with... much fondness. Go on."

"And remember Filch picked me up for Regulus's fanged frisbee."

"Which you stole from him, and then held out of his reach and teased him with, yes. Go on."

"So I was in Filch's office and he was writing me up and I was bored --"

"This is a pattern."

"-- and he suddenly got suspicious and told me to turn out my pockets, so I turnt them out and put all my rubbish on his desk and he starts sifting through and of all the ruddy things I had in there, he decided the most suspicious was a damned blank piece of parchment..."

Remus raised his eyebrow.

"He threatened to throw it into the fireplace and I went to grab it back and he knew it was more than just parchment then, so he tried to make it reveal itself and --"

"The insulting charm we put on it. Did it work, then?"

"Of course it bloody worked, remember how much we tested that thing? Anyways, worked great. Filch was ruddy pissed. But he wouldn't give it back. Threw it in a drawer and locked it up with this big old lock he got from the Bloody Baron. I tried picking it and magicking it and everything --"

"Did you try the alohamora?"

"Bleeding hell," Sirius rolled his eyes, "You and James both. Am I ruddy first year?"

"Well I dunno," Remus answered, "I love you but you tend to skip over the rather simple and just go for the reducto on things like that."

Sirius didn't bother confessing he'd tried the reducto, and definitely wouldn't admit that he had, in fact, tried that first. Instead, he said, "Anyway. Filch has the map."

Remus nodded and turned around to the desk again, methodically closing his books and rolling his half-finished parchment up.

"What're you doing?" Sirius asked.

Remus said, "Well I'm not going to ruddy well let my life's work sit in a drawer in Filch's office and not do something about it." And with that, Remus got up and headed out the door.

Sirius sat, rather dumbfounded, staring after him.

Remus's head poked back in. "Well come on, then, I'm not doing this by myself."

Sirius leaped off the bed and hurried after Remus.

Peeves was in the corridors by the Defense hall, angering the suits of armor by switching their helmets. They were rattling and clanking in agitation as Peeves cackled and juggled three of them and put the back out of order - one upside down, even. He clapped his hands, singing happily, "Peevesy makin' mischief, making mischief, wherever Peevesy is there is mischief being made..." 

Remus marched directly up to the poltergeist. "Peeves, I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," he said, "And I need your help at it."

Peeves flipped over upright and stared down with squinting eyes. "Loony Loopy Lupin? That youuuu? Saying that yooooou are up to no good? Who's put you up to it, Mr. Prefect?" he blew a raspberry in Remus's face.

"Nobody's put me up to it," Remus replied. "I'm actually putting Sirius up to it at the moment."

"Sneaky Snoopy Sirius... my eeeeeex-booooooyfriend.... this truuuue?"

Sirius shrugged. "Appears to be. It's actually kind of amusing, really."

Peeves made a sound mimicking a human gasp and then laughed loudly and obnoxiously. "Maybe we change your name," Peeves sing-songed at Remus, "Maybe we call you Rowdy Rebelly Remus!"

"Whatever you want, Peeves, but listen here, I need you to do a couple things for me. And if you want us to be up to no good, and really hack old Filch off, then you better do them. Alright?"

Peeves saluted.

"Very good. First, do you know how to break one of the locks the bloody baron's given a person?" Remus asked.

Peeves cackled at him, then, "Loony Loopy Lupin!"

"Well? Do you?" Remus pressed.

"Of course not!" Peeves spun about head over heels in a somersault in the air. "Nobody but the key holder can break a lock the Baron's given, no matter what they do to it! Could be that the whole castle burns tonight and if it does, the lock stays put!" Peeves shook his head, "Do you not know the Legend of the Bloody Baron?" He clapped hands to his cheeks loudly.

"I reckon I don't," Remus replied.

Peeves spun about, "The locks of the Bloody Baron are forever!" he made a funny noise like a balloon being let out and shot about the room for a moment, as though he couldn't bear to be telling a serious story. When he came to a stop before Remus a moment later, he added, "He was locked up for murrrder and he's been chained all these centuries past! The locks that bind his chain are unbrekable except by a key-holder! If he gives you a lock you're most lucky because no burgler can steal your thingggggggs!" He paused in his spinning. "What's it you want to know about all this for???"

"It's very important," Sirius announced. "So is the Baron the key holder then?"

Peeves nodded.

"Spiffing," Remus said, then, "In that case we'll need you to go and talk to the Bloody Baron and --"

"Cannot do!" Peeves cried and he shot into the nearest suit of armor, making it clatter even more as he hid, peering out from inside it's hood.

"What happened to --" Remus mimed the salute Peeves had done prior.

"Anything but that," Peeves made the amendment.

"Well why not?"

Peeves zipped close to Remus. "Because, he's a ghost," he said, emphatic.

"Mate, I hate to break it to you if you haven't noticed yet... but... you're a ghost yourself," Sirius said.

"Oh but not the sort of the Baron, oh no," Peeves shook his head, "No, no. Peevesey does not cross the Bloody Baron."

 Sirius said, laughing, "What kind of ghost is afraid of... well, ghosts?"

"Well, do you know where we could find him then?" Remus asked.

Sirius raised an eyebrow.

"Haunting the catacombs below Ravenclaw tower, most like," Peeves's voice echoed from inside the armor.

Remus looked at Sirius and sighed. "Alright. Well, thanks for nothing, Peeves."

"Do you need a distraction? Peeves is excellent at distraction!"

"Not yet," Remus answered. "But in a bit, alright?"

Peeves cackled and clapped, rubbing his fingers together eagerly as Sirius and Remus walked away down the corridor. When they'd gone about the corner, he turned back to the suits of armor and his previous game of mixing up their pieces.

Remus was leading Sirius the way through the castle. "Hang on," Sirius said, "You're not really leading us to seeing the Bloody Baron, are you?" he asked, realizing with a start that they were coming up to the cork-screw style staircase that spiraled up the tower to the high door far above, where the Ravenclaw common room hid behind an eagle-shaped door knocker that asked riddles.

"I'm getting the map, Sirius," Remus answered.

"Okay but you're talking about the Bloody Baron, Moony."

"Yes."

"In dark catacombs."

"Yeah."

"Mental," Sirius murmured. He stared after Remus as he kept walking on. "It took seven years for us to rub off on you, and we've finally bleedin' done it and he's going to go and get us killed on his first go of it!" he said, shaking his head, then he ran after Remus down the stairs toward the dark and musty smell of the catacombs.

It wasn't hard to imagine this space had once been a crypt, Sirius thought, looking about as they reached the bottom of the stairs and found themselves in a huge room below the ground, lined with rectangular drawers all the way along the walls as far as Sirius's eyes could see them... which, given the dark, wasn't very far. It smelled of must and stagnant air.

Remus pulled his wand, "Lumos," he announced and with a spark, his wand lit up. 

If the place was dismal in the dark, it was twice as bad in the light of Remus's wand. Sirius took a couple steps closer to Remus, unnerved. "You know what, mate," he said quietly, "I reckon we could just go and make a new map, alright? Our legs are twice as long as they used to be, so we could walk it twice as fast."

There was a loud groaning from far off down the hall.

"For real," Sirius continued, standing a bit behind Remus. "Could probably even do the whole thing from memory. It'll be a great test of our brains. You like that - testing people's brains, don't you?"

But Remus didn't have time to answer because it was from the far off shadows at the edge of his light's reach that there came the apparition, glowing grey-green light as he hovered toward them, slowly, with groans and the scraping of metal chains across the stone floor. They stared at the menacing-looking ghost, both of them wide-eyed and rather regretting their choice to come down to the catacombs, but here they were now...

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" bellowed the Baron from some way off, using all his strength to whip one of the chains before him with an almighty clash, adding to the volume in the catacombs and the over all drama of his shouting. The Baron certainly lived up to his name, too. He wore old fashioned clothes with ruffs and fancy stitching work, and whatever beauty that might've been seen in his fashion (or else humor) was lost to the blood stains that positively covered his front in great splashes and sprays. Even paled by the colouration of being a ghost, the stains were still horrid. Sirius could only imagine how bleedin' awful he'd look if he was in full, living color.

Remus cleared his throat, "We're seeking an audience with you, sir."

The Baron laughed in a terrible way that echoed deep into the catacombs. "So again, I ask... WHAT DO YOU WANT?"

Sirius looked at Remus, standing side-by-side now, Sirius's stance getting more and more protective over Remus the closer the Bloody Baron came. 

"The - um, the lock you've given Mr. Filch," Remus said nervously, "We... we need to break it."

The Baron's laughter echoed through the hall again, "If it's one thing that I've learned, it's that taking something that isn't yours is a crime most dreadfully rewarded..." He hoisted his chains for Remus to see. "A long time ago I went after something that I didn't earn and --" he waved his hands before him. "And now I wear this."

"Well, that's the thing, see, isn't it?" Remus asked. "Mr. Filch has something that's ours in a drawer with your lock on it, and we need it."

"Yes, it's very dear to us!" Sirius said quickly.

The Bloody Baron eyed them for several long moments. "He's stolen something of yours?"

"Yes!" Sirius and Remus spoke at the same time.

The Baron hesitated, then groaned and suddenly he flew straight up, right through the ceiling, bellowing angrily as he went. 

They both stared at the spot on the ceiling where his feet had gone.

"Well," Sirius said. He looked at Remus. "That went well." And then they both scrambled for the door of the catacombs, eager to see what was about to happen next upstairs.