It took James the good part of an hour to get the closet clean and by then Sirius had pretty much finished with the bug problem in their closet. The food, shoes, and bugs, both dead and alive, seemed like nothing more than a dream as Sirius looked into the closet after taking out all of the clothes. He went over to the window and saw that it was still raining, so he sat on the bed for a second, and only a second. The washer buzzed and he groaned as he got up to put the clothes in the dryer.

"What am I, a maid or something?" He put them on what seemed to be the only setting ever used since the buttons were black with dirt and put the first half of the pile of towels and miscellaneous items in. It was actually quite a bit, but the washer was huge and could hold almost twice as much as the dryer, so he only put what he knew the other machine could handle into it. James was leaning against the wall and panting when he left the room.

"I was thinking... We should run the stuff on the beds, too. Who knows how long that stuff's been on there, anyway," he said, kicking the door shut. "Did you get the other one done?"

"Just finished it. You know, I'm not sure how you get rid of whatever those things are in the mattress, but I think I have a good idea. Do you remember that Super Dungbomb Remus gave you for Christmas that only affected the person whose name you said? If we tell it we want to kill the bugs, do you think it'll work? If nothing else it'll make them run for dear life and we can use one of those cleaning things I got from that shop in Diagon Alley to clean the dead bugs out of it. It's not a bad bed if you take out the bugs, you know." James agreed and they did just that. After they activated the bomb and stuck it under the sheets to keep it in place, they moved the bed out of the way and cleaned under it, which was over 95 trash. Sirius looked at the clock and it was a quarter after one, which confirmed his belief that they had made good time.

"It's been almost twelve hours," James said, stretching and heading out to the kitchen, where he pulled the water filter out of a cupboard and attached it to the faucet, taking his time and triple checking the instructions. It worked pretty well, but it tasted a little strange. It took him a while to figure out that he'd forgotten to put the filter in and he was somewhere between a laugh and a gag. He filled his water bottle and sat on the couch, which smelled strongly of cat, waiting for whatever would happen next.

"It feels like twelve centuries," Sirius replied, collapsing next to the vacuum. "Do you want to get this over with?"

"We might as well. If we get this done early we can mess around until she gets back. So we just do those things and finish the clothes and dishes, then we're done?" James asked, crawling off of the couch and onto the floor.

"I think so, less than that if one of the machines won't work. The dishes should be done anytime now, so I'll put those away and start the last two loads if you'll take care of the laundry; there's only one more of those, anyway. After I get this group of dishes put away, I'll start the vacuum and you'll have to move the furniture." He fell over and just lay there as the dish washer started beeping like a bomb. "Why us?"

"The world may never know, but I'm going to get the stuff out of the dryer before it shrinks. Good luck to you!" James got up and removed the clothes from the dryer, then moved the others as necessary, folding the original clothes as best as he could. Sirius finished the dishes first and started the vacuum, which made James jump about a foot off of the ground. He saw this and pretended to be trying to run him over, getting nothing more of a reaction than a McGonagall-like glare.

"What was that for? You have absolutely no sense of humor, ickle Prongs! You better run, the evil Muggle machine's going to get you!" Sirius laughed, turning back to the living room. James picked up a pair of Estrella's underwear and threw it at his head. "That's disgusting, you demented little freak!" He tossed the wad of worn lace back at him and continued his job, which he was now regretting.

"I told you you were asking for it and you didn't listen, so I granted your request and gave you what you deserved!" he yelled over the roaring device he was tempted to permanently silence; he'd never thought that a mere Muggle invention could make so much noise! James began wishing to get back to his house where everything was cleaned by house elves and magic.

"I don't remember asking to be stuck with a perverted anti-intelligent and anti-Muggle freak whose mind lives in the sewer!"

"Well, would you rather be stuck with all of that, or with the mutants at Grimmauld? I can tell Mum to leave you there next summer and you'll get what you want."

"Don't EVEN get me started on THEM! Do you want to mess with this thing later or not? You seemed completely willing to drag it up the wall and do the ceiling earlier, but I'll gladly let your twisted, minuscule mind rest in peace with the knowledge that the job's already done," Sirius said, the vacuum sucking up a loose piece of carpet. He turned off the machine and started digging it back out of the many brushes on the bottom. "Bloody piece of trash, anyway. How can you live in a place like this?"

"Why don't you tell me. What are the chances of somebody with no hygiene having practically every kind of cleaning device you can imagine?" James asked, slamming the dryer shut behind the final load of laundry. "Where'd you think she went, anyway?" Sirius shrugged, throwing the strip of carpet aside and turning the vacuum back on. James covered his ears, realizing instantly that it did no good.

"You better get used to the noise because this is a new model, but the cleaner's about a century old. It's a freaking dinosaur machine!" James twitched at the thought of anything being louder than this contraption.

"You're absolutely kidding me." Sirius grinned and started toward the final room, theirs, where James had to move the bed and frame three times in order to finish.

"Do you think the bomb idea worked?" Sirius asked, peering at the mattress and not seeing any bugs. "I found a scorpion on it earlier; how you get a desert pest in the middle of England is just strange. Your guess is as good as mine as to why she had it here."

"She probably kept it as a pet. She had a bird of prey in her closet, for Merlin's sake!" James replied, dragging the vacuum unenthusiastically since he hadn't been able to see how it worked: Sirius had finished the house before he had had a chance to bug him about it. He decided he would knock over the plant later that day and insist on cleaning up the mess before he would have a chance to say otherwise. He stared at the giant vacuum-like contraption in the corner and couldn't help but wonder if it would actually work. He glanced down at the one in his hand and back at the cleaner and saw that it was similar to the difference between a spider and a full grown acromantula. "That's the carpet cleaner?"

"Yeah," Sirius answered glumly, taking the vacuum from him before he could get any ideas. "We get to drag that around and fill it with soap and water to clean this disaster of a house. You can do it if you want, but I'm going to follow you the entire time to make sure you don't blow it up."

"I won't blow it up, Padfoot. Does it blow bubbles or something?" James asked stupidly, reminding Sirius of Crabbe or Goyle all of a sudden. He remembered seeing one of the Muggle lawnmowers for little kids, the toy ones that blew bubbles and imagined James asking his parents for one that Christmas, then him pushing it around the Great Hall laughing like a maniac who had taken a poison of some sort.

"Somehow I don't believe that," he said, trying to keep him from noticing that he had said something extremely dimwitted. "You're thinking of those things for three year old Muggles that look like the things that cut the grass. Those blow bubbles, but this just makes the carpet wet."

"If it just makes it wet, then why did I have to repair the roof?" Sirius was running out of ideas of how to explain how to use the machine and what it did, considering the fact that he had actually never used one.

"James, it CLEANS the carpet with soap and water and it doesn't dry it, so it stays wet."

"It doesn't dry it? What a piece of junk! Is it broken or something?" He rolled his eyes at the look on James' face, confusion and frustration at the fact that he would spend all day walking on wet carpet when it was dried immediately after at his house.

"No, it isn't broken, but it is a piece of junk, I'll agree with you there. The only reason it doesn't stay wet at your house is because it's dried magically, but we can't use magic here." He unlocked the water chamber and carried it out to the kitchen sink, filling it as fast as he could in order to get back to watch James around the machine. He threw in half of a bottle of the nearly solid soap and handed him a fork to try to loosen it up, receiving a bent fork and nothing else.

"We have to clean with a chunk of that blue stuff in there? Will it work? Where's the soap?"

"That IS the soap, and it should work."

"Can't you put it in that white box out there in the kitchen and melt it?"

"Maybe, but I'm not going to try it!" Sirius made a mental not to put a do not touch sign outside the kitchen and try to find a leash to put on him.

"Why not? It might work and then we don't have to worry about the machine getting clogged up!" James seemed to think his plan was the best thing since sliced bread and was disappointed when he was told to read the label on the soap bottle. "It says here to let it sit if it's hard. How creative."

"Okay, here's a little thing for you to remember about Muggles and their world: if you get creative, you break something!" James took a second to think about this and shrugged.

"If you break something, can't you just fix it?" Sirius couldn't help but think this was a little simple minded, but he did seem to grasp the concept of not using magic for the most part.

"It's harder for Muggles to fix stuff because they can't use magic AT ALL. They have to do everything themselves, just like cleaning. They have to manually run the vacuum and pick up trash and all that wonderful stuff. Muggles don't have house elves." He replaced the water chamber and started to look for the power switch, then realizing that it needed to be plugged in. James took the cord and tried to put it into a telephone outlet, then saw what he was doing and struggled for a second with a power outlet, trying to figure out which way to put it in.

"That's got to get very old," he said simply, looking dully back at the plug. "Do they have to do that every time?"

"Yeah, as far as I know. If the cord's too short they have to put it in a different one that'll let it reach. That would get really old... How could Peter live like that for eleven years?" Sirius asked, checking to make sure that the clump of soap was completely dissolved before he turned the machine on.

"I don't know, but remind me to get him something good for Christmas this year. Is that thing ready yet?"

"I think so, but you should let me do the first room to make sure nothing's wrong with it. I know you'd rather I have my hand blown off that you would yours."

"That's not the reason; I know you like these Muggle things!"

"First, that didn't sound right. At all. Second, you can do it if you're willing to keep your mouth shut when it explodes and blows you to pieces, along with the house," Sirius added, giving him a severe look.

"Fine, but I'd like to let you know that you look like Filch when you do that." James grinned and started reading the instructions, pausing every few seconds to wonder what something was. "What's the 'Spin Brush 2000'?"

"That's what the Muggle company calls this pile of junk that we have to clean the carpet with. Any more questions?"

"Not yet; I'm not good at being a Muggle, I'll admit that right now. I mean, you have to give these people credit for being as determined as they are to make a decent world for themselves."

"I'll second that motion: you sound just like Peter in Potions every time you ask what something is or does," Sirius commented, flicking a piece of lint off of the top of the ancient carpet cleaner.

"Oh, shut it," he replied, sticking his tongue out.

"Where's that fork?"