Cleaning Continues

Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognise.

After lunch had ended, the time travellers seemed to be more subdued than they had been in the morning which puzzled everyone else though they weren't too bothered by it.

After the now clean dishes were put away, Mrs Weasley announced that they should continue with the cleaning so there was more room for everyone.

A lot of the kids grumbled at this, the loudest being the twins, James, Fred II and Louis. Mrs Weasley split them up and gave them instructions and then sent them on their way.

James, George and Roxanne all ended up cleaning out an old and mouldy cupboard in a bedroom on the third floor though the boys quickly got bored of this. Their minds began to wander and they began to think of other things they could be doing.

'This is boring, Rox,' James complained and Roxanne rolled her eyes.

'Really? I never noticed Captain Obvious,' she drawled.

'Oh, shut up, Sergeant Sarcastic,' he grumbled and George couldn't help but smirk slightly.

'Than stop complaining.'

'I'll complain all I want, thanks.'

'You won't if you wish to see tomorrow.'

'You wouldn't kill me.'

'Wanna bet? Cause it's very tempting right now.'

'You love me too much.'

'Not enough to stop me from poisoning your dinner tonight.'

'One, you don't have any poison and two, now I know you'll be poisoning my dinner I won't eat it.'

'Ah, we're in the House of Black; how hard do you think it would be to find some poison? And you would never skip dinner.'

James scowled and Roxanne smirked triumphantly before sighing and brushing her hair off of her face.

'Though I must admit this is getting very boring.'

'Ah, ha,' James grinned. 'So now you agree with me.'

'I thought I told you to shut up.'

'No, you told me to stop complaining. I am not complaining. I am gloating.'

'I distinctly remember telling you to shut up.'

'Even if you did, you should know by now I won't.'

Roxanne sighed again as George turned to look at them, amusement written clearly on his face.

'Do you two always bicker like this?' he asked and Roxanne groaned while James smirked.

'Yeah, a bit,' James said and George sat back.

'I agree with you both though, this is too boring to continue. Why don't we find something else to do?'

'What do you have in mind?' asked James, a knowing grin unfurling across his face.

'This place needs something to liven it up,' George said with a mischievous grin which had both James and Roxanne lean forward eagerly. 'And I'm sure I know just the thing to do the trick…'

Victoire slowly dried her hands on a towel in the bathroom before she left the room to head back to where she had left Lily and Sirius cleaning the small bathroom on the second floor.

She walked back along the corridor, fully intending to go straight back downstairs to where they were but instead something caught her eye.

A door ahead of her, near the staircase, was ajar and as Victoire approached she realised how dark it was inside.

She hesitated slightly outside the door, pulling out her wand as she went, but soon her curiosity overrode her common sense and she pushed open the black door and lit her wand.

She was standing in the entrance of what looked like a large library. Dark shelves were everywhere she looked and they were covered in thick, dusty volumes. Victoire's eyes widened and she knew there must be at least one book in here about time travel that could help them. Before she could look anymore she heard a shout from behind her and she reluctantly left the dark library to see what, or more likely who, was causing the ruckus.

Sirius, who had grown bored with the cleaning, was swinging a giggling Lily around the room when they heard the shout. He put the little girl who so resembled his fallen friend down and leading her by the hand, he headed out onto the landing just as Victoire came rushing down, her wand already drawn and lit for some reason.

'What happened?' asked Sirius but she shrugged.

'No idea,' she said and they headed towards the staircase that led down to the first floor.

'It was probably Jamie, Freddie or Uncle's Fred and George,' Lily said and Victoire nodded.

They reached the first floor and Victoire led the way over to where the drawing room was. She extinguished her wand and then pushed the door open. The sound of footsteps from behind them announced the arrival of Mrs Weasley, Scorpius, Albus, Harry, Hermione, Ron and Hugo.

All of them burst out laughing except Mrs Weasley when their eyes landed on what had happened in the drawing room. The whole room was drenched in green goo which was covered in glitter. As they were watching hot pink confetti fell from the ceiling and James, Roxanne and George joined the laughing group. Standing in the middle of the room stood Remus, Alice, Fred and Louis and all four of them were covered in the goo, glitter and confetti.

'Who did this?' asked Mrs Weasley as everyone else arrived on the scene and joined in the laughter.

Albus and Scorpius glanced at one another having a shrewd idea who it was and when they glanced over at James they both caught sight of the small, proud smirk fluttering around the edge of his lips. They smirked at one another and Scorpius cleared his throat.

'I think I have a good idea of who did this,' he said and James groaned slightly when he saw them smirking.

'Who?' demanded Fred but Alice and Louis both realised who had pranked them.

'Damn the three of you to hell,' Louis snapped as he tried to wipe the goo out of his silvery hair but only succeeded in rubbing it in. He groaned at this and then scowled at James, Roxanne and George. Alice joined him in with glaring at them. She'd known it was a bad idea to put the three of them together. Clearly her grandmother had thought Roxanne was sensible and didn't do pranks. Well, she was about to learn how wrong she had been with thinking that.

'Who did it?' asked Mrs Weasley.

'James, George and Roxanne,' Alice said and Fred looked at his twin in shock and Remus rolled his eyes while Sirius just laughed harder.

'Roxanne?' repeated Mrs Weasley and Roxanne smiled sheepishly while Rose rolled her eyes.

'Roxie escaped Uncle George's genes just as much as Fred did,' she explained. 'She just doesn't flaunt it about and is way subtler than Fred is.'

Remus just sighed, resigned and pulled out his wand while the others continued to laugh at their predicament. All the time travellers seemed to be particularly amused by Louis' problem as he continued to try and remove the goo from his hair.

'What's up with him?' asked Ron and Albus snorted.

'He's just a little bit aware of his own appearance,' he muttered.

'That's an understatement,' Rose said, shaking her head. 'He definitely knows he looks good, unfortunately.'

'That's why this is amusing,' Scorpius added on and Hermione glanced at the three of them.

'How long have you three been friends?' she asked and they glanced at each other.

'Er, only eleven months or so,' Rose said, clearly double checking her calculations in her head.

'Really?'

'Yeah, we met on the train going to Hogwarts, really awkward ,' Scorpius shook his head and the others smirked.

'How awkward?' inquired Harry and the three of them snickered.

'Incredibly,' Albus smirked. 'None of us were talking for half an hour or so.'

'Why?' frowned Hermione.

'Because, you're our parents and Draco is Scorp's dad. The four of you hated each other while at school. We'd all heard stories about it and now we were all sitting in a compartment and it was just the three of us,' he continued and Rose shook her head at the memory as Mrs Weasley told James, George and Roxanne off.

'Ah, that could get awkward,' Ron admitted and the three nodded.

'How did you get out of it?' asked Harry who looked amused.

'Quidditch,' Scorpius said.

'Yeah, he finally managed to spit something out,' Albus snickered.

'Why didn't you say something?' asked Hermione who was still frowning slightly.

'I already started by introductions,' Albus explained. 'It was his turn to say something.'

'Yeah, it's hard to think of something to say when all that's going through you head is "why this compartment? Of all the compartments,"' Scorpius grinned and Albus nodded in agreement.

'It is amazing that out of a whole trainful of compartments you sat with us.'

'Why didn't you just try and find another compartment?' asked Harry as the group began to make its way down into the kitchen except the four who had been pranked. Apparently the goo and confetti could be removed by magic but the glitter had to be removed manually so they went off to have a shower.

'One, I didn't realise who they were until I'd opened the door and it would have looked weird if I opened the door and then closed it before walking off. And two, I wanted to prove to them I wasn't my father,' Scorpius shrugged.

'You don't like your father?' asked Ron as they took seats at the table as Mrs Weasley, Victoire and Mr Weasley began to get dinner ready.

'No, I do, we get along great,' Scorpius insisted. 'He changed after the war. I mean my dad and Al's dad, you,' he nodded at Harry, 'get along after the war. I mean, you weren't great friends but you no longer hated each other and I know he spoke civilly with Rose's mum but I wasn't sure what the three of you would have told Al and Rose. And seeing as Rose wasn't all that cooperative it just made me want to prove myself even more.'

'You weren't cooperative?' questioned Harry and Rose shook her head.

'I don't know why but with what dad had told me about their earlier years and I guess I didn't want to trust him,' Rose shrugged. 'I don't even know why I gave you the cold shoulder.'

'Did you?' asked Hermione, looking at Al who shook his head.

'Nah, Al was decent to me from the beginning,' Scorpius said.

'I knew what it was like to be judged on your appearance and name alone,' Albus shrugged. 'It's incredibly annoying so I wasn't about to do it.'

'True,' Harry nodded, scowling slightly and Albus smiled.

'Yeah, then we just started talking and ended up getting along,' Rose shrugged and then looked around to where all the other were talking.

Soon enough dinner was served as Remus, Alice, Fred and Louis entered the room again with a little bit of glitter still on them and Bill asked a question that had crossed his mind earlier that day.

'So what do we all do, as jobs I mean?' he asked and the kids looked up.

'Well, you still work at the desk job for Gringotts but you don't mind,' Molly said as she put her goblet down.

'Uncle Charlie still works with dragons but he comes home every Christmas and summer,' she continued. 'Dad works as the Minister's Senior Undersecretary –'

'So he still works for the Ministry?' asked George, with a slight note of disgust in his voice.

'Yeah, he didn't want to,' Victoire interrupted, 'but Kingsley insisted on it.'

'Wait, Kingsley's Minister?' asked Sirius with a grin and the kids nodded, smiles spreading across their faces as well.

'Yeah, a really good one too,' James grinned. 'So we can literally say we have friends in high places.'

Sirius snorted and Remus shook his head while the time travellers grinned.

'It's true though,' James shrugged.

'Anyways,' Molly continued, rolling her eyes at her cousin. 'Uncle Ron is an Auror, second in command actually.'

'Wow,' Ron said. 'Really?'

'Uh huh,' Alice nodded as she reached for a bread roll.

'Yeah, Uncle Harry is the Head Auror so there's no problems there seeing as you two get along better then brilliantly,' Roxanne said smiling.

'Uncle Neville was an Auror but now he's the Herbology professor,' Albus said.

'Really good professor too and we're not just saying that either,' Teddy said.

'Uncle Rolf has written a few books,' Lily piped up and the others nodded slightly.

'Aunt Fleur doesn't work and neither does Aunt Audrey,' James put in.

'Aunt Angelina used to help teach kids how to fly,' Victoire said before taking a sip of pumpkin juice.

'Aunt Hermione works in the Department of Creature Rights and Laws,' Dominique said and a few frowned.

'The what?' asked Mr Weasley and Rose smiled.

'It's a department that Mum actually started up,' she explained. 'It's basically a department to help out half breeds and other creatures and fight for their rights.'

Remus looked up at this and couldn't stop the question from spilling forth.

'Half breed rights?' he asked sounding slightly hopeful and all the time travellers smiled and nodded.

'Yeah, Veela's, Centaurs, Werewolves,' Dominique said. 'And house-elves,' she added and Hermione beamed.

'I did that?' she asked, wonder clear in her voice as the others glanced at her.

'Not alone of course,' Louis said. 'I mean Uncle Harry and Lavender Brown helped with the werewolf laws and such but yeah, it was your brainchild.'

Hermione sat there looking stunned and Molly decided to move on.

'Aunt Ginny played for the Holyhead Harpies as Chaser for a few years before retiring and now you're a Quidditch correspondent for the Daily Prophet,' she said and Ginny's eyes widened.

'Ginny can't play Quidditch though,' Fred said confused.

'Ah, I wouldn't bet on that if I were you,' Teddy said, amusement colouring his voice.

'Aunt Hannah is the landlady at the Leaky Cauldron and Aunt Luna was a wizarding naturalist for a while but now she's the editor of the Quibbler,' Victoire said glancing slightly at Hermione to see what her reaction was knowing her opinion of the magazine when she was younger. Hermione seemed to notice this and wisely kept her mouth shut.

'I think that's it,' Rose said and Fred II nodded.

'So what do you all want to be?' asked Ginny.

'Quidditch player!' cried James and the others rolled their eyes and Sirius grinned.

'Follow in your mum's footsteps huh?' taunted George but James glared at him.

'I've wanted to play professionally since I was six,' he said.

'Really?' asked Mrs Weasley.

'Yep, since my first game,' he said happily and helped himself to seconds.

'Well, I'm training to be an Auror and Vic a Healer so I guess that gives us away huh,' Teddy said smiling slightly.

'I want to do something with gardening,' Molly said thoughtfully. 'I'm not sure exactly what yet though.'

'The joke shop,' Fred II said with a grin.

'Don't know. Something spontaneous,' Dominique said and the others smiled slightly.

'Of course,' Louis teased.

'Shut up Lou,' she said and he smirked.

'Something to do with food,' Roxanne said cheerfully.

'An author,' Rose said as she put her fork down on her now empty plate.

'No idea,' Albus said. 'Possibly a Healer, sounds interesting.'

'Don't know,' Scorpius shrugged. 'I'm too young to have figured it out,' he smirked.

'Something to do with art,' Lucy said brightly and Victoire smiled.

'Lucy's brilliant at drawing and painting for her age,' she explained.

'I have no idea,' Lorcan said.

'Probably the Quibbler,' Lysander said.

'I have no idea,' Louis said. 'Maybe Quidditch, the joke shop or possibly a journalist.'

'Curse Breaker,' Hugo grinned at Bill who smiled.

'It's definitely a great job,' he said and Hugo nodded,

'You've told me all about it,' he said enthusiastically.

'Herbology pathway,' Alice said before she stifled a yawn.

'Bed after this,' Mrs Weasley said, noticing this and the kids groaned.

'I don't know,' Pomona admitted. 'Maybe work with food.'

'Maybe writing or something similar,' Lily shrugged.

'Music or something,' Frank said quietly.

'Diverse,' Ron said and they all nodded.

'All right,' Mrs Weasley said getting to her feet. 'Bed all of you.'

The kids grumbled as they got to their feet and made their way out of the kitchen and up the stairs, remembering to be quiet around the portraits, and made their way into their bedrooms where they got changed and dropped off to sleep, one by one.

This chapter has now been edited! Two more to go before my new chapter…