It was two hours later. Rose, Lupin, Mr and Mrs Weasley, and the children were all in the living room. Fred and George were playing exploding snap on the table. Rose, Lupin, Ginny and Hermione were gathered round Ron and Harry watching them play wizard chess while Mr and Mrs Weasley were reading. They heard the occasional shout and banging of a door from the basement kitchen but it went unnoticed. After a while the shouting became less frequent and eventually there was silence. Rose looked over at Lupin to see if he had noticed.
"Give it 15 more minutes," he mouthed.
15 minutes later Rose and Lupin crept down the basement stairs to the kitchen door. There was no noise coming from inside. They looked at each other cautiously then Lupin raised his wand. He muttered a spell and the door slowly creaked open. The site that met their eyes almost made them break down into another fit of giggles. Sirius was at one end of the room, facing the wall and staring fixedly ahead of him. Clara was at the other looking at her feet and sulking. They both looked up as the door opened and got to their feet.
"About bloody time!" Clara almost ran to the door at the same time as Sirius. They jammed in the door. Both tried to squeeze their way out before the other but neither was making any difference. The other two stood back with smirks on their faces.
"Don't just stand there, help me!" cried Clara. She had just managed to squeeze her shoulder in front and was attempting to get out sideways. The next minute they had both fallen through the door and lay sprawled out at the bottom of the stairs. Clara scrambled to her feet and stood glaring at Lupin and Rose. Sirius got to his feet and held a hand over his nose. It was bleeding.
"Thangyou very buch!" He snarled to Clara, pushing past them on the stairs. Once he was out of site Clara turned on them again.
"Why did you have to go and do that for?" She snapped, "and stop laughing! This isn't funny!"
"Well, it looked quite funny from where I was," said Rose, "and anyway, why can't you two just give it a rest? You've been at each other's throats since we got here."
"He started it," grumbled Clara.
"You're acting like a pair of kids!"
"He's the one-"
"Leave it. Just leave it please," said Lupin.
"I bet you two have been plotting this," Clara said, shaking a finger at them both, "well," she carried on, turning to Rose, "I'll get you back, you know! I will!" As she reached the top of the kitchen stairs she turned, "You and your boyfriend." She disappeared out of sight. Rose gave a nervous laugh,
"I'll just, erm," she pointed to the top of the stairs, "talk to. yeah." She hurried off after Clara.

A week went by with much more arguing. Mainly by Clara and Sirius, or occasionally Fred and George and Mrs Weasley. By the end of the second Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson Rose had improved quite a lot and didn't break half as many ornaments as the first time.
There had been a few more Order meetings in which the adult occupants of the house had made sure that Clara and Sirius were sitting the furthest apart. Whenever it was apparent that another argument was going to erupt several Order members would raise their voices to change the subject. Luckily this seemed to be working, in the meetings at any rate. They were not so lucky in preventing the arguments during the day. Fred and George had attempted to lighten things up by bewitching the kitchen door so that, if it was slammed, a shrill, whining voice would call out,
"Temper, temper!" Which seemed to amuse the twins no end. After a few hours of this Mrs Weasley had made them take the spell off as it kept waking the portrait of Mrs Black.
As the third Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson approached Rose had strongly encouraged Ginny to ask Clara for guitar lessons, as Clara had brought it with her. This kept her fairly occupied and unable to start another argument. To solve the matter of Sirius starting more arguments over music Rose had put a sound-proofing spell on several of the doors, but hadn't told Clara. She had the feeling that if her friend knew that Sirius was now having peace and quiet from her music, she wouldn't be too happy about it.
The third Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson arrived a few days later.
"Well, that was a lot better than last time," said Lupin as, two hours later this time, they sat down on the sofa, "only two ornaments smashed. Must be a record," he laughed.
"I really don't know how you managed it," said Rose in an exasperated voice, "I'm completely exhausted and that was only after three lessons. You had to teach this ever day." She sunk further into the sofa.
"Well, not every day," corrected Lupin.
"Even so." Rose sighed, "I really don't know if I can do this," she said, looking worried, "and kids. I've never been very good with kids."
"I'm sure you'll do fine. Besides you get along with Harry and Hermione and the Weasleys ok," said Lupin.
"That's different."
"How?" Rose hesitated.
"I don't know," she said truthfully, "It just is. Why did I have to accept that teaching offer?" She added half to her self.
"You'll be ok," Lupin tried to reassure her, "trust me.. It's not as hard as you think."
"Hope you're right," yawned Rose. There was a moments silence as Lupin looked up at the ceiling. At length he said,
"Do you think Clara and Sirius are ever going to stop ar-" he stopped, catching sight of Rose. She had quietly sunk down on the sofa and was now asleep, her head on a cushion. He looked at her for a while and then smiled to him self. He rose from the sofa, making as little noise as possible and then, not wanting to wake her up by the creaking of the door, he settled him self into a near by chair and fell asleep.