To Get Ice Cream

A/N: Thanks for clicking on "To Get Ice Cream," a very old HP fic I wrote in 2005. All I can remember about the origins of the fic is this: it was a prompt from the now-defunct livejournal community hp_glam. It had to have a couple items in the story: clowns, David Bowie, and I think it had to have Hermione/Ginny showering together (for real? But that might've just been my brain.)... additional items to be mentioned, "hair dye," the phrase "stuff you, you disgusting twat," birthday cake, nail polish (varnish)... and I think that's it.
Pairings: subtle Hermione/Ginny; less subtle Remus/Sirius, although it's pretty gen.

oOo

7 a.m.

A loud crash and a huge heap of wild, dissonant cackling woke the majority of the number twelve, Grimmauld Place household. The loud crash remained a mystery while Harry Potter shifted his round-rimmed glasses on his nose. The cackling, however, was something he'd grown used to over the last few weeks.

"Ron," Harry shouted across the room he shared with his best friend, Ronald Weasley. True to Ron's nature, the bright, red head remained stuck against the pillow. Not the loudest of noises could disturb Ron from a Saturday morning lie-in.

Mrs. Black's portrait went on screaming filthy, unbecoming things to whomever her beady, mean eyes could catch. Sometimes she didn't require a presence at all. Harry swore up and down that the woman just liked to hear the sound of her own insults ricocheting across the gloomy, old halls of "the noble and most ancient house of Black".

"Rubbish," muttered Harry to himself. He rummaged from bed and went to the bedroom door. Opened a crack, he could peer down the landing. At first all he saw was a bushy head of hair, then realized it was Hermione. A sleepy-eyed Ginny Weasley stood at her side. Harry ventured to the landing and met them. "What's all the noise?"

"What do you think?" snapped back Hermione, rarely in a cheerful morning mood, particularly when the alarm clock was Mrs. Black.

Ginny spoke through a yawn. "Too bad they can't get her off the wall and throw her in a place her screaming would be good for something."

Faintly, Hermione smiled. "I heard Sirius say yesterday that he wished he could donate the portrait to Hogwarts."

"Hogwarts?" asked Harry. "Why? I mean," he looked in the direction of subsisting profanity, "other than the fact that it would be brilliant to get her out of here."

"Black said he'd like to see her hang up in the Slytherin common room," Hermione continued. "She'd be among 'her own kind', as Sirius said." She then hesitated and threw awkward, shy glances at Harry and Ginny.

"And," prompted Harry, "what else?"

"I don't think I can say it. Your godfather, Harry, can get quite, er, colorful with his vocabulary when he chooses."

"Oh, Merlin's beard, Hermione!" Ginny arched her eyes and huffed. She, perhaps due to the influence of her elder twin brothers Fred and George, didn't have qualms repeating dirty words, so long as it wasn't within earshot of Mrs. Weasley. With a hand on her hip and her hair messed around her face, she lowered her voice to a rough imitation of Sirius Black. "That damn woman would be happy in Slytherin House, where she can pelt out insults to all gits and fuckwits who pass by, and be insulted back ten-fold. Would do the old hag some good, being around other people who think their shit doesn't stink."

Harry laughed. Uncertainly, Hermione joined him, more for Ginny's impression of Sirius than anything. When their laughter faded, Harry leaned over the banister to catch a glimpse of the house below, Hermione and Ginny on either side of him. Harry rubbed his eyes, thinking that the mist of sleep was messing with his vision. The ground floor looked cloudy.

"Vile creatures of filth! The worse nightmare of my life!" cried Mrs. Black's intimidating portrait.

Sirius Black, offspring of the figure in the portrait but barely looking it, had finally risen to the challenge. He yelled over her slur of insults like a professional Bad Seed. "SHUT UP, YOU INSOLENT PIECE OF WORM FOOD! SHUT UP!"

Another figure came up the stairs behind Sirius, moving slowly and smoothly. Remus Lupin, formerly Professor Lupin. "She needs to find additional clever invectives, Sirius," said Lupin. "These are getting very tiresome."

"YOU!" Mrs. Black had caught sight of Remus Lupin, werewolf. Her eyes enlarged and red flame of evil leapt into the fathomless pupils. "You mutant! Flea-infested vermin! How dare you enter here, you impure beast!"

Lupin took the insults well. It was Sirius who hated his mother's fiendish portrait.

"I told you to SHUT UP!" cried Black.

As the curtains were closing, Mrs. Black went on chanting in her uncouth manner, and Lupin, helping Sirius pull the drapes together in the middle, waved a free and congenial hand at her. "Until next time, Mrs. Black."

The other portraits in the main hall hadn't been roused like Mrs. Black, and all was quiet and still again. Ruffled emotionally, Sirius sighed and folded his arms tightly across his middle, grumbling ". . . tedious waste of time." Lupin shoved his hands in his trouser pockets. They traversed the length of the hall and vanished from sight.

"Poor Molly," Lupin could be heard saying. "Here she was hoping Harry and the kids could sleep in for a bit today. . . ."

Ginny turned to Hermione. "Well, I don't think they liked that very much. I wonder what happened. Why would Mrs. Black just go off like that?"

Hermione shrugged, as did Harry. "I heard a crash," he said. "It woke me up. Didn't wake up Ron though."

The three of them jumped when a CRACK! followed by a POP! brought George and Fred to the corridor. They stood there innocently, with invisible halos pinned above their angelic red heads. A flesh-colored string, Extendable Ears, told of their early monkey business.

"What have you two been up to?" asked their sister. Ginny tossed her hair as if she didn't want to admit interest. But Fred and George always seemed to get news ahead of everyone else, at least of those who weren't in the Order of the Phoenix.

"It's way too early," Harry said, stifling a yawn. "You've still got pajamas on."

"I know," said George. "Adventure waits for no man to don proper raiment. It's too damn early for so much excitement."

"Did you hear the crash?" asked Fred. He watched approvingly as only Harry nodded. "Well, so did we."

"And knew we should investigate at once," said George.

"Thought it might be Kreacher taking the piss from Dad before he's off to work."

"But it wasn't Kreacher."

"And so who do you think it was?"

George couldn't wait for them to answer. "It was Mum."

"Mum?" repeated Ginny, stunned.

Even Hermione didn't understand completely. Mrs. Weasley seemed plain unable to make mistakes. "We heard Lupin saying something to Black about it, just a second ago."

"Came up to close the drapes on Vieux Madame Toujours Pur, right?" George wiggled his eyebrows, delighted at the antics of Grimmauld Place. It was a great location to be as long as one thrived on fun and mischief and mystery, as the Weasley twins did. "Mum was in a right state."

"Think she burst into tears," said George.

Harry was exasperated at the twins' delay. "But what happened? What was the crash?"

The door to Harry and Ron's bedroom opened, and Ron stood there. "No sense in trying to sleep with all you jabber-mouths out here. What's going on? Harry looks peaky." He looked at his brothers. "And you two, you've been up to something." His own thought was perplexing. "This early in the morning? On a Saturday?"

"The Order never sleeps, little brother," threw in Fred with a wise glint in his brown eyes.

"Sleeping, yeah, I was doing that—and enjoying it, too. I think I'll slip off back to bed," murmured Ron.

George grabbed the back of Ron's striped pajama top and yanked him back. Ron made no protest but stood there, inches taller than Harry, already noticeably taller than upcoming Seventh Years Fred and George.

Fred was watching Harry, to get back to the question. "It isn't such an interesting story, Harry."

"But you know how careful Mum can get," added a nearly wistful George.

"So we were all of us shocked and horrified when she accidentally dropped the can of Doxycide too near the kitchen fireplace—"

"And it sorta, er, incinerated."

Fred thought George's choice of words rather lame. "Exploded, more like. And fancy that all you kids up here heard was a bit of a crash. You can still see the smoke and soot lingering in the main hall."

At first Harry was let down by the story, though he had seen the trace of smoke, then Fred and George started adding quick details.

"Too bad Kreacher wasn't a spot nearer when it exploded," Fred remarked, a daydream glow in his smile.

"That's what Sirius said, too," said George, smirking. "'Damn it, Molly,' Sirius said, 'you could've at least waited until that disgusting elf got in your way.' But Sirius laughed it off, and Kreacher was not in sight. Shame, shame."

"Dad had to rush off to the office. He hates working Saturdays, but what can he do?"

"And he left Lupin in charge of the fireplace repair."

"But of course that only made Sirius ripe with jealousy."

"He's not got to do much around here. It's making him sore."

"So then he stormed off—"

"Apparently up here to deal with Madame Toujours Pur—"

"And Lupin naturally went with him—"

"He soothes Sirius when he's upset, and it gave Mum a moment to forgive herself."

"Mum's terribly hard on herself."

George nodded and winked at Ron and Ginny. "Reckon we might get something good out of all this, though, if the guilt holds up well enough."

"George and I are on our way down now to test Mum's straits."

Before the rest of them, Hermione knew what they were plotting. She took a confident step forward and waved a commanding finger. "If the two of you even think of what I think you're thinking, I'll—I'll—"

Fred threw her hand back at her, albeit gently, playfully grinning. "Or you'll what, Hermione? Cast a spell on us?"

"Can't, you know," George said, "you're underage."

Fred tapped George on the arm and they headed toward the end of the landing, at the front corner where the staircase unfolded. "Woman's got to learn to accept gifts as they come to her," quipped Fred to his brother. Their voices halted once they Disapparated.

Hermione huffed and shoved her fisted hands against her hair-covered temples. "Pestilent sods!" was all she managed to verbalize before turning her back to them.

Shaking his head, Ron stared emptily into the floor. "Don't know what that was all about." He lifted his eyes to Ginny and Harry. "So Mum dropped some Doxycide in the fireplace and it exploded?"

"Yeah," answered Harry. "Er, I guess."

A slow grin enlivened Ron's droopy, freckled face. "Sweet! Wish I'd seen it! Would've been something to remember!" Ron disappeared into the bedroom. Harry squeezed sheaves of his thick, dark hair together on the top of his head, a quizzical glare at Ginny.

"Breakfast?" He began for the stairs but stopped at Ginny's gesture.

"I think I'll go check on Hermione. Careful down there, Harry, you wouldn't want to step on Fred and George's toes, metaphorically speaking." She rushed off. Harry lightly pondered the warning.

As soon as he was on the main floor, Harry caught the scent of damp limestone, and even noticed a dusty haze in the air. Granted, the Black mansion was absolutely filthy, despite Mrs. Weasley's and the visiting "underage" guests' best attempts to clean it. But this fog was different; it was black, brown and coarse: fireplace soot. Around the entrance to the basement kitchen, the soot was a thicket. Out of the blanket rose a straight figure, plain wardrobe of muted colors, void of wizard's robes. Harry halted where he was and watched Remus Lupin give his wand a "swish and flick" while saying the transfiguration invocation clearly.

"Ventus Fieri Saxos."

The dust and soot became activated, and before Harry's eyes it swirled into a tiny, midair cyclone. The spiral wound itself tighter and tighter, to an obsidian hue darker than Harry had ever seen. Then, all of the sudden, the small cyclone spun itself to the floor. Lupin picked up the deposit and tossed it in his palm. Harry saw that the soot had gathered to form a smooth pebble.

Lupin regarded Harry. "Good morning. You'll be wanting breakfast I suppose."

"My stomach had thought about it. Is it a mess in there?" The expression on Lupin's face smarted Harry. He shrugged and confessed. "Fred and George sort of, er, told me, er, us, what happened."

The former Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher struggled to keep from smiling. "And to think that Fred and George are in there now trying to acquire a gift from Molly—on account of her feeling guilty, and on account of their interrupted beauty sleep."

So that's what they were doing, Harry thought, and no wonder Hermione was upset. Fred and George were using their own mother's guilt to get something from it. One question remained: What could they possibly ask for?