The Number 12, Grimmauld Place Practical Joke War of the Summer of 1995

Sirius Black had exactly one day to himself in his old house at Number 12 Grimmauld Place before members of Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix began to move in.

Something seemed strange about the whole place almost right when he opened the door. He supposed that was to be expected, considering how strange it all was in its own right. Sirius could barely take two steps across the floor of the foyer for the clutter - papers and dishes and molded old curtains, books strewn from shelves and framed pictures dashed from the walls. The chandelier in the foyer had crumpled to the ground, and the wallpaper was peeling (though he'd never really cared for it, so he didn't mind too terribly). Everything smelled of things growing and rotting in it that shouldn't have been, which was especially remarkable given that nothing appeared to have seen sunlight for years.

If I had ever had a chance to be an Auror, Sirius thought to himself, I wouldn't ever have been the sort to ransack a man's entire house looking for him. Especially since they should have known he wouldn't be there, the great imbeciles.

Covering his nose to the musty stench, Sirius nudged his feet through the ankle-high mess to clear paths down the long hallway from the door to the staircase leading up, to the staircase leading down, to the dining room. The big glass cabinet that had once housed the family china looked oddly empty, and the lefthand pane of the door was cracked in several places, but Sirius decided he rather liked it that way. And at any rate, it would be worthless to try to start cleaning now. There was no way any headway would be made before the rest of the Order arrived; best to just wait until he could get some help (and by help, Sirius thought wryly, he meant Molly Weasley). He did halfheartedly right the troll-foot umbrella stand at the foot of the stairs.

That was when Sirius placed it, the thing that had been off. It wasn't the wallpaper, or the smell, or the inability to take two steps across the faded, worn-thin carpet without sloughing through mess like fallen leaves.

It was the silence.

"...Mother?" Sirius said softly - not too loud, just in case she actually was still here, for he didn't want to set her off. Slowly, Sirius crept toward the place along the wall where his mother's gigantic, ominous portrait was hanging. In front of it, someone had hung up a thick, sage-green set of curtains, moth-eaten and out of place (Sirius thought they might have come from Regulus's room originally). Even tattered as they were, they blocked the portrait from the rest of the house and kept Walburga Black silent - something Sirius, from the moment he'd been Sorted into Gryffindor House, had never quite managed to do on his own (be it portrait or the woman herself). And as he continued on up the stairs, he found that it was a bit easier to walk without tripping on things - that perhaps a path had been cleared here once before, by someone walking, just as Sirius was, toward his bedroom.

He opened the door to find it much the same as the rest of the house: half completely unchanged from when Sirius had last lived in it almost eighteen years ago, half ransacked by those who'd gone looking for him to toss him into Azkaban. There was a big stack of ripped-up motorcycle magazines piled in one corner; a sort of smear of maroon in another that had once been his proud, defiant Gryffindor paraphernalia; and in his bed, with a small bottle of aged firewhisky and two glasses set on the table beside, a book open across his lap that he seemed to be reading distractedly, and no shirt, was the lanky, fair-haired form of one Remus John Lupin, who was definitely not where Sirius had left him.

Remus looked up as Sirius entered, slipping the book aside as if he were quite glad to be done with it. "Hullo," he breathed, his soft smile reaching up to his eyes in a way Sirius hadn't seen it do in a long, long time.

Sirius Black had exactly one day in his old house at Number 12 Grimmauld Place before members of Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix began to move in, but he most certainly did not have that day to himself.

-xxx-

George Weasley scowled down at the paper in front of him, held in his right hand and Fred's left. The one, short sentence was written in a hand that even they recognized as Dumbledore's by now.

The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London.

"Got it memorized?" asked their father.

"Right," said Fred.

The strange house blossomed up like a particularly nasty weed between its two neighbors, and they all stumbled inside - first their mother, tugging Ginny inside just as quickly, then Ron holding tight to Hermione, George, Fred, and their father at the rear, shooing them all in, quicker, quieter. As they crossed the threshold George felt the slip of parchment in his hand disintegrate with a soft fizzle of painless fire, and soon he felt nothing but Fred's fingers against his own. That distraction gone, he raised his head to blink around at the house's insides as they crossed down the hallway.

"Bit like our house, isn't it," their father said, trying to be comforting, "lots of rooms to stay in, plenty of space - "

"Never in the history of my house has there been such a mess!" their mother cried. "Sirius Black, are you even here? What on earth - "

"No no no!" hissed a voice, accompanied by the soft thud of someone taking the stairs as quickly as possible. "Molly - "

"Remus!" she said, harshness leaving her voice (but only slightly). "Surely you wouldn't let him - "

"Not so loud, Molly, or - "

It was too late, George realized. When his mother was cross, not so loud was rather an impossibility. And apparently Grimmauld Place only had room for one loud, cross mother.

"What mess of Muggle-loving, bottom-feeding traitors have dared set foot inside my house?" screamed the portrait, curtains jolting sharply to one side of the rod supporting them. Ron, who'd been standing closest to the portrait, leapt about a foot in the air. "Scum and droppings, every last freckly one of you! Leave this place, you have no right, tarnishing my home with your stench and slime!"

"Oh, stuff it," said Hermione sharply. "My Muggleborn feet are going to go wherever they please, thank you very much."

"MUGGLEBORN?" the portrait shrieked. "A MUDBLOOD HAS TREAD WHERE NOBILITY ONCE TROD? HOW DARE - "

Remus had reached the ground floor now, with Sirius - looking as though he'd perhaps only awakened to the sound of his mother's voice - not too far behind. Together they grabbed onto the curtain and attempted to wrench it back into place, but they didn't seem to be having much luck on their own, and Mr. Weasley eventually leaned in to help.

George looked at Fred, raising one eyebrow and smirking slightly to the right. With one nod, Fred agreed, and the two of them Apparated up to the second floor, looking for a spare room where they could un-Shrink their luggage back to regular size and claim as their own.

Let everyone else deal with that nasty problem.

By the time Ron made it up past the portrait and to the landing of the second floor, a bit out of breath, George and Fred had already staked out the largest, nicest-looking spare room (on the third floor, in the back corner, with a wide bed they could share and the least amount of undesirable inhabitants) and were sitting there waiting for him.

"Thanks for all your help," Ron muttered with a glare.

"Don't mention it!" said Fred.

"Always happy to be of service," added George.

"Sirius's mum, I take it?"

"Yeah," said Ron. "Lupin at least had the sense to put up that curtain. Says if we keep quiet she usually can't tell we're around."

"None of your usual girlish squeals, then, Ronnykins," George warned him.

"Oi! If anyone's going to be squealing it's Ginny." Ron shot a glance back down the stairs. "Hermione insisted on taking the room on the first landing as close as possible to it out of spite - and you know Mum's put Ginny in there with her, safety in numbers and all that."

"Good thing we come with built-in roommates," George said, throwing an arm over Fred's shoulder.

"I'll say," Fred agreed, with a wink.

They both turned to their younger brother. "We don't snore."

-xxx-

Remus Lupin finished his morning cup of tea, reclining against a small strip of bare wall in the kitchen with a sigh.

The meeting the night before had taken quite a while, and it had been especially hard to orchestrate without arousing the suspicions of number twelve's five youngest occupants. Remus knew the secrecy wouldn't be effective for too much longer; and yet he didn't know which would be worse - pretending like there were no meetings at all, or letting the children find out about the meetings only to turn them away and spike their curiosity even more. There was no avoiding suspicious teenagers either way. But Remus had always been an early riser, and a light sleeper ever since he'd made an enemy out of the moon, so with meetings running so late at night, he could tell he'd be a bit exhausted for the next month or so.

He was going to need to buy some more chocolate.

As he set his faded teacup delicately in the sink, Remus began running a mental list of the rooms that needed cleaning still. Molly had done the dining room already, bless her, so the meeting could have a proper location. And he and Sirius had spent a bit of time making the rooms where they themselves were sleeping a bit more hospitable (Sirius had wanted his own bedroom especially clean for the...activities that had taken place in it). But the kitchen, as he surveyed it, was a mess, and as far as he could tell the house-elf didn't want to listen to anyone except Sirius, and not even him half the time. They were just going to have to do it themselves. And the front drawing room - large, dark, no doubt brimming with unwanted inhabitants - was going to take at least a whole day and probably four or five people. Remus was worried about what might spread from there into the rest of the house if it wasn't handled soon.

"Molly can do this down here too, then," he said to himself, "and we'll take that blasted drawing room."

"Molly can do what now - dear lord," the woman said, as she appeared at the bottom of the staircase and took stock of the ruinated kitchen. "What kind of household was being run here, gracious!"

"The kind that might be harboring a wanted criminal, and thus had to be heartily ransacked," Remus said glumly. "Apparently."

"Bloody Aurors," Molly muttered. "I wish any of them were capable of doing their job neatly as well as thoroughly! If I'm to make any sort of edible breakfast down here we shall have to clear this out too." She turned back toward the stairs and called up them. "Hermione dear! Would you wake my lazy fool of a daughter and bring her down here? We've got to get started on all of this or it'll be October before we finish!"

Remus smiled. "What would we do without you, Molly?"

"You'd begin growing mold on your very clothing, is what. Now run along, I'll need as much space as I can get amongst all this rubbish if I plan to make any sort of progress."

"Going to have a try at that drawing room myself, I think," Remus told her. "I think there's at least one boggart in there."

"Excellent idea! If you need any extra manpower, just rouse those great lumps I call sons. Honestly, I don't see how any of them are my children, the only one that inherited a scrap of motivation and work ethic was - "

She stopped, biting her lip and scrunching her face up as though she'd nearly brought herself to tears. Remus took this as his cue to leave, and nudged past her and back up the stairs to the main floor. He kept ascending, up and up and up to the very top, where he slipped silently into Sirius's room and eased himself onto the still-occupied bed.

"Sirius," Remus whispered, close enough to his ear that his lips brushed ever-so-slightly against it. "It's time to wake up, Sirius."

"Moooonnyyy," Sirius whined faintly, clutching at his quilt and drawing it halfway up over his face as if to block Remus out. Remus smiled and gently tugged the blanket away. He wasn't going to have any of that.

"Come on, lots of work to do," Remus insisted. "And sooner or later Molly will have made us breakfast."

"I've barely slept!" protested Sirius. "That late-night Order meeting, whose idea - "

But Remus, anxious to halt his complaints, leaned around overtop of him and silenced Sirius with a soft and almost effortless kiss. Eyes opening a good bit wider, Sirius returned it, and then slowly stirred and sat up, Remus giving him space to do so with a quiet chuckle.

"Damn you, Moony, exploiting my weaknesses," Sirius scolded. "I suppose you want me to come clean things with you?"

"That's the thought, yeah," Remus said, the laugh still in his voice. "And you are the only one that poor old house-elf listens to."

"Poor old house-elf," Sirius echoed snidely. "Miserable thing."

"Get on some clothes you don't mind dirtying and I'll meet you down in that wretched drawing room." Remus rose from the bed and headed to the door. "I'm going to go see if I can recruit Fred and George."

"Not going to stick around and watch me get undressed?" Sirius said with a leer.

Remus turned over his shoulder and flashed Sirius no insignificant look of his own. "Now Padfoot, surely you realize that that would hardly be conducive to getting anything clean."

Leaving Sirius to ponder that one, Remus headed back down the stairs and stopped on the next landing when he came face-to-face with the exact people he was looking for.

"Ah, you're awake."

"After a fashion," one of them grumbled.

"Rather hard to sleep with everyone shuffling about all of the sudden."

"Or with your sister screaming in your ear."

"Ahh," said Remus, studying on them. He could usually tell them apart, but only after he'd spent a good bit of time around them - it was a matter of distinguishing the one that reminded him more of Sirius (that would be Fred) from the one that reminded him of James (George). But perhaps it was rather too early in the morning.

"Breakfast on yet?"

"Your mother is working on cleaning up the kitchen, I believe," Remus said. "After that's done, at least partially, she'll probably have something for everyone to eat. Meanwhile I was hoping you two would help Sirius and myself clean out the drawing room on the first floor."

"Why start there?"

"Yeah, no one's sleeping in there."

"Room we're in could use a good scrubdown."

"And you'd best hope Ron doesn't find any spiders in his - "

"Or you'll never get the curtains shut over Dame Shriekington down there ever again." The twins grinned at each other.

Remus sighed. He was nervous about the parasites that could be crawling about in the drawing room, but he'd take those over Walburga Black calling him a filthy inhuman fiend any day of the week. "All right then. Breakfast first and your room second?"

"Now you're talking," the two redheads sang at once.

It took Molly Weasley a good hour to clean out a big enough portion of the kitchen to cook feasibly, and by then everyone was wide awake and talking about all sorts of things. Ron and Ginny were excited that their older brother Bill would soon be returning to the country, and were eager to tell Hermione all about him; Sirius and Arthur seemed to be discussing bits of Sirius's old flying motorbike that Remus had never quite understood. The Weasley twins, however, seemed to be keeping to themselves, and every so often one of them - Remus was sure at this point that it was Fred - would shoot him a funny look.

It took until after lunch, with their room and their younger brother's room as clean as they were getting and the girls' room just begun, for Remus to discover why. Slowly, one twin slipped over to stand next to Remus (at some point he'd lost track) as he Scoured mold from the inside of the wardrobe, and leaned in low so no one else could hear.

"Is it true, then, that you and Sirius are Moony and Padfoot?"

It was the last thing Remus had been expecting, but once the shock wore off it made him smile more than anything. "That's right," he answered. "Harry's shown you the Map, I take it?"

The twin scoffed. "Ha! We had that thing way before it fell into Harry's hands. It's bloody brilliant. George and I reckon it'd take us months to reproduce."

Remus raised an eyebrow at him. "Is that so?"

"No need, though, we've committed all the good bits to memory. Never would have turned it over to Harry otherwise." He paused, and turned his own wand on the mold as well. "But that's the thing. It almost seems far too brilliant."

"Go on?"

"Well, Sirius as Padfoot we could sort'f see," Fred continued. "He did manage to escape from Azkaban after all. But you as a Marauder? Doesn't quite seem to fit now, does it?"

The mold gone, Remus rounded on Fred. "What exactly are you getting at?"

"We want you to prove it." They spoke in unison again, George having appeared leaning on his twin's shoulder with one hand and hovering a thick lump of cleared-out spider web an inch or so from the tip of his wand with the other.

"Prove to us that you're Marauders, both of you."

"Since if you're not one, he's probably not one either."

"You two going kind of hand in hand and all."

"And how do you suggest I go about doing that?"

George rolled his eyes, and when they landed back on Remus there was an ominous gleam in them.

"If you really are the Marauders - "

" - you'll think of something!"

-xxx-

As it turned out at the end of the day, with the kitchen finally spotless from top to bottom, there were just enough plates left that were neither broken nor completely, disgustingly unusable for everyone in the house to have exactly one to eat from.

Fred looked around the dinner table at the people that constituted "everyone:" his entire family, minus his three older brothers, with his mum fussing over absolutely everything at one end of their ginger swathe and Ron shoveling in mouthful after mouthful at the other; Hermione, sitting next to Ron and trying absently to ladle food onto her plate with one hand and read a book with the other; Mundungus Fletcher, whom Fred hadn't quite decided yet if he liked or not; Sirius and Lupin, sitting together discussing something in hushed tones right across from Fred and George; Kingsley Shacklebolt, a tall imposing Ministry employee whom Fred had decided that he liked; and Dumbledore, who'd just stopped in briefly to discuss something with Fred's father and was going to be leaving almost immediately after dinner.

Fred had been waiting for a good ten minutes for his sister to pass him the gravy, and once she finally got the hint he poured it liberally onto his chicken and potatoes and began to dig in. As hungry as he had become, he was very surprised when the fork that entered his mouth had absolutely no food on it.

He frowned down at his plate. Had it just slipped back off? Fred tried again, this time with his vegetables. They, too, did not make it into his mouth, and indeed did not seem to have left his plate at all. He made a third attempt, and this time he was certain he'd skewered his chicken quite thoroughly. Something was amiss.

"Curious..." he muttered, but no one seemed to notice except for George - who, as it turned out, was having similar problems.

"Something off with your food, too?" he said. George took a big bite of potatoes, but the instant the fork reached his mouth Fred could see that they were back on his plate, in a lump that looked completely untouched.

"Something's fishy," said Fred. "I'm going to get a new fork, you want one?"

"I'll come with you." With the usual loud cracking sound - a sound that was still music to Fred's ears - they both vanished from the dinner table, Apparating down into the kitchen and landing practically on top of Kreacher.

"Blood traitors stomping on Kreacher!" the house-elf hissed, but it wasn't very menacing.

"We'll be out of here before you know it," said Fred.

"Go back to your hidey-hole," said George.

They rooted around in the drawers of an old chest carved through with serpents until they found the measly stack of spare forks. There were only three, and none of them proper dinner forks, but it would have to do. Hanging onto their new silverware, they Disapparated, and arrived in their seats at the dinner table once more.

"Did I excuse you two?" squawked their mother.

"We're inexcusable," they chimed in unison, mostly ignoring her. Fred, for one, was more focused on finally eating some dinner. Evicting the colony of rats from the baseboard of Hermione and Ginny's room had fallen solely on George and himself - Ron, Lupin and Sirius still weren't too fond of dealing with any kind of rat, understandably - and it had been a bit exhausting.

Unfortunately, his problem had not yet been solved. "Damn," Fred hissed as his empty fork met his lips once more.

"S'not the forks," George said.

"Well it can't be the food," said Fred. "Everyone else is tucking in quite heartily, isn't that right, Ronnie."

"Whuoh?" Ron said thickly, mouth full to bursting with half-chewed chicken.

"Well if it's not the forks and it's not the food - "

"Must be the plates!" Fred groaned.

"But we can't get new plates, there aren't any!" George said. "We'd have to un-jinx these."

"They've already got food all on them, though," said Fred. "I don't like un-jinxing things with food in the way - you remember what happened with that batch of you-know-whats we were making."

"Have to scrape it off onto something, then," said George. "I'm not wasting this much food, there won't be a lot left with this many people."

"Something wrong?" Lupin said lightly, emerging from his conversation with Sirius. Someone else had finally noticed their predicament.

"Yeah, something's wrong, I can't eat my bloody - oh, no," Fred hissed. No, it couldn't have been. But Lupin's face was suspiciously impassive, and Sirius was having a hard time making eye contact with either of them. Fred nudged George in the arm with his elbow and in seconds they had Apparated back into the kitchen and found bowls into which to scrape their food instead of plates, as they tried to remove whatever hex was keeping them from eating.

In the smears of gravy left on their jinxed, cracking plates, Fred could make out the forms of words.

Suppose this is proof enough? said his own. Love, Mr. Moony and Mr. Padfoot, said George's.

"Love," George spat. "Very funny."

"Not bad, though," said Fred. "You have to admit.

"We might should try this on Ron sometime," agreed George, "it'll no doubt infuriate a porker like him."

"Still..." Fred said.

"You don't come between a man and his food."

"Then we are in agreement."

"Absolutely."

"This means war."

And so the war began.