Sunday Mornings. A time a quiet serenity for students to cling tightly to the last lie-in day of the weekend or to scuffle off and finish their weekend homework. Or, if you were Carter Morsely and Xander Perdue, a time to slide sail down the Grand Staircase on a pirate ship- in costume of course.

Which is exactly what Carter and Xander were doing. They were getting ready for their test run, dragging the crate pirate ship across the stone floor and into position at the top of the stairs. Carter was completely dressed up in pirate costume with everything but a peg leg and hook hand. He had loaned out some of his stuff for Xander to wear, and even given Perry the rat/crow's nest lookout his own little feathered hat.

It actually hadn't been to hard to put together a box ship sled thing. Lots of the Hogwarts food came in crates and if you mange to run into a house elf cleaning up your house, well all they needed then was some paint and a pirate flag, which Carter had plenty of.

"This is," Carter grunted as they moved along. "One of. The Best. Ideas. Ever."

It wasn't that Xander didn't think this was an awesome idea - it was. He had always prided himself on coming up with good ideas in the past, but now that he'd met and bonded with his twin brother, their brainstorming powers combined were just, like, through the roof. So it was an excellent idea, and he was excited to try it out! Except... well... he was a little bit worried about the safety features.

 Because, to be honest, there weren't any. No breaks, no parachutes (hey - the staircases here moved. There was no guaruntee one wouldn't switch on them as they were sliding down it, and send them crashing seven stories to their brutal, messy, piratey deaths), not even seatbelts! He was decked out in a helmet and kneepads, and he had a pillow ready to strap to his bum, but it wasn't like those could do much if he and Carter encountered any real danger.

 Still, he tried to be enthusiastic - in between being safety concious, of course. "Yeah!" he exclaimed, helping his brother push the 'pirate ship' up the stairs. "It'll be great! But um... maybe we should test it first. With a dummy. You know, like they do with cars and stuff. Just in case."

Xander had some great ideas, but sometimes he had trouble getting into character. Carter wasn't really sure the best way a first mate should act (there were lots of examples) but padding without at least a proper pirate hat didn't seem right. Sitting on pillows wouldn't really save you from sinking would they?

"Test run?" Carter repeated. He almost lost his hold on the ship, but caught himself. Whew. No one told him getting a ship into position for sailing could be so much work. Begin a pirate must really be one of those whachamacallits...labors of love. Yeah that.

"We didn't bring a dummy though," Carter pointed out. "Just us and Perry. And I bet they do that with cars. Da says muggle cars are really dangerous. Do you know how many people die in car-related accidents every year? A lot. This is waaaay safer."

Yes, sliding down who knew how many flights of magical stairs in a crate was much safer than a muggle car.

"'Sides, then we'd have to go haul it up here again," Carter said. "And pirates always end up okay. Always. Especially hero pirates. Which we are."

And those were the facts.

They were going to die. They were eleven years old, and they were going to die. Xander could tell that this was going to happen, because they weren't ten minutes into this endeavor and Carter had already almost dropped the ship. They hadn't even made it up the first flight of stairs yet. And when they did, they were going to drop the ship on purpose. With them in it. They were going to die.

But really, if you had to go at an early age, what better way to go than having an adventure with your best friend? Crashing a pirate ship on land was going to make for an awesome obituary. So Xander sighed and tried to resign himself to a messy, early death and continued pushing the ship up the stairs.

"But cars have seatbelts," he couldn't help pointing out anyway. "And airbags. And they're made of metal, so they're, you know, harder to smash." And set on fire. Not that Xander thought they were likely to set their ship on fire. At least, not on a trip down the stairs. Maybe during a battle or something, after they'd installed a cannon. But not now.

"We're hero pirates?" Xander grunted, turning to put his back to the pirate ship and heave it up a particularly uncooperative step on the stair case. "Cool. I guess... if you're sure we'll be okay..." Carter was the pirate expert. Maybe they wouldn't die after all.