Part the Second, In Which the Thot Plickens

It was the following night - after the third one of those Order of the Phoenix meetings that certainly hadn't started yet, not that we'd tell you if they had! - that they finally stopped Apparating everywhere, and actually snuck out of bed. As boisterous as they were in the daylight, Fred and George Weasley were perfectly capable of being quite stealthy when they chose to. They just rarely ever chose to.

Fred signaled to his brother, pointing up first and down second. The message was clear - upstairs or downstairs? Did they booby-trap Sirius's room first, or Lupin's? George's answer came with a thumb jerked toward the ceiling. Sirius was a sounder sleeper. Easier to do that first and get it out of the way, in case they messed up the first time. (Not that they would, of course.) They crept slowly down the hall with its heavily-worn carpet, tiptoed up the stairs, and came to a stop just outside the door of Sirius's bedroom.

George withdrew the parchment on which they'd written out their plans just as Fred was mouthing "Lumos," and lighting his wand to illuminate it. Slowly but surely, they laid in the necessary incantations: the original charm, plus several to ensure it couldn't be easily broken, another to guarantee that it was virtually undetectable, and preventing it from affecting anyone but their intended target (in case, for horrid example, their mother came knocking on Sirius's door the next morning to wake him up). Only when they got to the last one - the sort of signature they were going to leave - did Fred raise an eyebrow at George, wondering exactly what to...call themselves. They just had to be snide about it, didn't they?

"We don't exactly turn into animals," George whispered as soundlessly as possible.

"Got to use some other defining characteristic. Ginger, you reckon?"

"Doesn't really define us with over half the family in the house as well," George reminded him, tugging on a bit of Fred's hair. "Only thing we've truly got going for us is..."

"This," they realized in unison.

They laid in the last charm together, with a flicker of neon-pink specks trailing through the air, and then darted down to the room next door to Ron's to repeat the same in violent purple.

-xxx-

Sirius Black was quite pleased to discover that when he woke up in the morning, Remus was still curled tightly against him. He was obviously awake, of course, drawing nothing-patterns against the curve of Sirius's arm; Remus was always awake first. But he'd usually left to go back to his own room before the crack of dawn, always worried about suspicions, always worried about people will talk. Sirius, quite frankly, was ready to let them talk. He and Remus had spent thirteen years or more apart from one another, mistrusting, uncertain. Nowadays Sirius was always certain, damnit.

"You're here," was all he said, the faintest whisper into the dimness of his bedroom.

"You're awake," came Remus's surprised response.

"Well yeah...hang on a moment," said Sirius. "What time is it?"

"Not quite half past six," Remus informed him.

"What?"

"I was amazed myself," said Remus, pausing with a bit of a sad smile. "You're usually never awake when I'm doing this."

Both men lay with eyes fixated on the spot where the warm, callused tips of Remus's fingers were coasting over the slightly sallow skin of Sirius's shoulder. The touch didn't tickle enough to make Sirius squirm, though it was close - it just...relaxed him, somehow.

"Usually," he said faintly.

Remus didn't respond.

Sirius suddenly didn't care if they had to keep it secret well into his hundreds, as long as Remus would keep doing soft unprovoked things like that.

"I...should go back to my room," said Remus, after a bit.

"No sense leaving me alone, if we're both awake," said Sirius. "Let's go down and make some tea."

They both took the climb out of Sirius's bed at a slow crawl, neither one anxious to leave its warmth and comfort. (Strange, thought Sirius, and beautifully so - he didn't recall it being very warm and comfortable when he'd last slept in it regularly.) They tugged on robes and slacks and began the descent. As Remus passed through the doorway out of Sirius's bedroom, he paused, scrunching his nose a bit.

"Funny," he said, but he couldn't get in another word before Sirius had passed under the doorframe, too - and his robes had gone an absolutely vile shade of pink.

"What in the..." Sirius hissed. He darted back into his room to get a look at himself in the mirror, but the pink vanished. The transformation only remained if he tried to leave his room. "What is this?"

"Particularly nice bit of charms work, I'd say," Remus said casually.

"Easy for you to say, you're not the one who's gone all magenta." Sirius scowled, trying to turn over his shoulder and get a better look at his vivid robes - he could have sworn he'd seen something gold and twinkling in addition to the horrid color. "Go and grab me another one, will you?"

"No," said Remus. "I imagine any robe you try to wear out the door will just transfigure similarly...I'm afraid they'll have made it much like the plates from last night."

"Who will have done, you say?" Sirius said, with a sinking, frustrated feeling that he already knew the answer.

"'Gemini & Gemini, Esquire,'" read Remus from the across Sirius's back.

"Those brats!" Sirius growled...but his heart wasn't quite in it. He had to admit the magic was impressive - they'd obviously just picked up that Transferrable Charm from Remus and himself the evening before, and were already using it to their advantage. Quick studies, he would have to give them that.

And really, if they were going to insist on starting this little game...well, at least it would give Sirius something to do.

-xxx-

When George arrived at breakfast to see Sirius dressed only from the waist down, he could barely avoid the sniggering that threatened to escape him; but when he saw that Lupin stood beside him neither shirtless nor bright violet, he froze with a frown, causing Fred to collide with his back and stumble a bit.

"What's on?" Fred asked.

"It's what's not on," George said, gesturing.

"No way!" said Fred. "I know he's an ex-professor, and a bit of a sneak, but that was some damn good work."

"There's no way," George agreed.

"Can't you two shove off!" complained Ginny, prodding at both of them from behind where they stood on the threshold of the dining room. "Some of us are trying to get pancakes before Ron takes all of them."

"Some of us are watching our girlish figures," Fred shot back, but she just elbowed past them stubbornly to dive at the sparse remaining food.

"Bit of a lost cause with arms like that!" George added. Ginny poured syrup across her plate defiantly. Fred filed in behind her in their mother's crude assembly line and George, like always, was on his heels.

"The only way," he said, "is if Lupin wasn't in his room last night when we hexed it."

"And hasn't been since," said Fred. "Where would he be spending his nights instead?"

"Dunno," said George. "But let's not tell him, we could still hook him tomorrow."

Fred grinned. "Well, naturally. Why would we ever think of telling him?"

George sat elbow to elbow with Sirius at the breakfast table, relishing in the fact that his bites of egg ended up thoroughly inside his mouth. In between a couple of them he flashed grins first to Fred and then to the man beside him.

"Feeling a bit warm this morning, then?"

-xxx-

"I hate boggarts," Sirius whined.

Remus chuckled at him. "That's because yours turns into your cousin."

"Yours would too, if you had cousins like mine."

"Somehow I doubt that," said Remus, but he was still smiling. It was hard not to smile when you'd spent all day with a shirtless Sirius Black. "I'm just amazed yours isn't a dementor, like poor Harry's."

Sirius scowled. "It'll be a cold day in Hell when I'm afraid of those bloody things again. Lose their effect when you're staring at them day in and day out, they do. Bellatrix is much more terrifying."

"If you say so."

They'd cleaned out two more of the upstairs bedrooms, as well as a bathroom. The bathroom, in the rusted-shut medicine cabinet, was where they'd found the boggart. There wasn't much to do with the fake wailing form of Bellatrix Lestrange, so Remus had stepped in and Riddikulus-ed his damnable glowing full moon into a popped balloon, which had gone shooting out of the bathroom window as all the air rushed out of it. Then it had been a full afternoon of Scourgify. And, on Remus's part, staring at shirtless Sirius Black.

Alone together in Sirius's room at the end of the day, he had since let himself do a little bit more than staring.

"I hate cleaning," Sirius huffed, rolling over against Remus to frown at the ceiling.

"Broadening the spectrum of your loathing, are we?"

"Just doesn't really feel like my house," he said. "So it doesn't seem right that I should have to clean it."

"Don't give yourself all the credit," Remus scolded. "Molly's made miles of progress."

"And I miss Harry."

Remus fell silent. He shouldn't have mentioned his name - it always set Sirius off. It was practically every other sentence from Sirius's mouth any more. What's for breakfast? I miss Harry. Guess we ought to keep scrubbing upstairs. When's Harry getting here? Remus hardly thought it fair that Sirius had been able to spend less than twenty-four hours with his godson at once ever since his escape, and Remus, just an old family friend, had been his professor for an entire school year and seen him almost every day.

"You know it's not safe," he said after a bit.

"I hate," said Sirius, "being safe."

Remus could certainly agree with that.

"And that is why, Mister Moony," Sirius said extravagantly, draping his arm over Remus's stomach, "you do not get to go back to your room again tonight."

Remus bit his lip. "Oh, but twice in a row? Sirius, we - "

"Are not children any more, Moony," he said. "If anyone has a problem with us, it is precisely that: their problem. Now stay."

"Oi, who's the dog here and who isn't?" Remus teased. "Next you'll be telling me to play dead, or - "

"Roll over," Sirius said dangerously; and Remus was about to snap back - though he had every intention of obeying the command - when Sirius suddenly changed his mind and bounded out of the bed, slinking instead toward the window.

"Oh, that's it!"

"What's what?" Remus demanded, quite befuddled.

"I've been trying to come up with something to get those two ginger gits back all day," said Sirius. "Hold that thought, I'll be right back." He was climbing through the window now - on the fourth floor of his house, mind, and wearing only his trousers - and seemed very intent on whatever he was doing.

"Padfoot, have you gone mad?" Remus hissed, crossing to the window as well.

"They're in the room right under us, Moony," Sirius said. "And I've snuck out from this window a time or two before. Don't worry, I'll be back before you know it."

And he was, of course, grinning like a mad thing and giving Remus absolutely no answers beyond thick kisses and wandering hands, but Remus couldn't help but think that he would really like it if Sirius were safe, after all - no matter how much hatred Sirius himself harbored toward the idea.

-xxx-

Fred was having a pretty strange dream.

He'd run down a long, dark hallway, with bunches of open doors lining either side of it. Somehow, though, he knew that for whatever reason - if he were running from something and seeking shelter, or if he was running to something and trying desperately to reach his goal - that none of these doors and the dimly-lit rooms they opened into were the right one. No, the right answer was definitely to keep running down the hallway, wand at the ready, robe billowing behind him, prepared for whatever he had to be prepared for.

When he'd reached the end of the hallway, Fred had been a bit surprised to find not another door but a wide, thick windowpane of glass, letting him look through onto another hallway just like his own, or perhaps the continuation of it. And standing in this other hallway was George.

"George," he called, but his brother didn't do anything but just stand there, panting, as if he too had been running and running. Fred knew suddenly that he had to get to George, had to break this window and join up with him so they could keep going and find whatever it was they were running for. He kicked at the base of it, hoping to just bust through, but the glass was too strong. On the other side of it, George kicked, too. Even both of them at once wasn't breaking it.

The general feeling of tense anxiety that had been permeating the dream started to settle in on Fred, and he began to grow panicked. Why wasn't the glass breaking? Couldn't they see that he had to get to George? Frustrated, Fred tried a Stunning Spell, which definitely should have been strong enough to shatter glass.

"Stupefy!" But it bounced from the glass and did nothing, even as George, always of a like mind, had attempted the same thing from the other side. This glass must have been magical, or else that surely would have worked. Something was trying to keep him away from George, and that really was just not okay at all. The darkness of the hallway was becoming oppressive, and out of each of the wide-open doors there started to gush cold, caustic air that bore upon it a vile stench. Frantic, Fred started pounding on the glass window and screaming.

"George! George!"

But George was doing the exact same thing, and nothing was happening - and that was when Fred realized it. George was doing the exact same thing. Including the screaming, which from the looks of it - Fred could hear nothing through the glass but could read his lips moving - was his own name.

It wasn't a window through which Fred could see George. It was a mirror, in which Fred could only see himself. And he was alone.

Fred awoke with a shuddering gasp, his hand tensing and then relaxing in the thin sheet where in his dream, a moment ago, he'd been gripping his wand in a panic. One by one, the details of the real world started to seep back into him. He wasn't cold, not in early July. It wasn't dark in their room, either - though Grimmauld Place didn't let too much light in, it was probably well past nine in the morning and the sun was assuredly out and streaming pitifully through their window. And with George's arm slung over his waist from behind, his knee digging into Fred's thigh and his slack, sleeping mouth pressed wetly into the back of Fred's neck, he was definitely not alone.

The horrible smell was still there, though.

Screwing up his face at the odor, Fred rolled over to lie face up, dislodging George a little in the process, and tried to search around the room for whatever was producing it.

"Oi..." George mumbled faintly, trying to squirm back closer to Fred. Then he seemed to notice the smell too, and grimaced. "Oi."

Fred, unfortunately, had spotted it: in a pile on the quilt, right at the foot of their bed.

"Looks like Padfoot decided to leave us a gift, Georgey," he said, pointing.

George rolled over and looked at it. "Oh, bloody hell!" he said. "That's low, that is."

"Quite low," said Fred. "Best way to get back?"

"Go lower!" George said, as if it were the plainest thing in the world.

Fred caught a glance of himself in the mirror of the vanity that was against the opposite wall, sitting up against the bed's headboard with George sort of sprawled on the bed still, arm across his ribcage. He smiled, and gave himself a wink.

Nothing but a bad dream.

His reflection pinched his nose between his thumb and forefinger and started waving at the air.

-xxx-

Sirius returned to his room just before dinner to change into some clothes that weren't covered in soot - Arthur had decided that they really ought to clean out all the fireplaces, never mind that it was nearly July - to a sick, very recognizable smell.

"Remus!" he called down the stairs. "You'd better see this!"

The top sheet on Sirius's wide feather bed had been stained with a very particular substance, in very particular spots. Not wanting to touch it at all, he used his wand to raise it into the air and suspend it there like a banner. When Remus walked in, the first thing he saw was the words What we lack in potency we make up in style! Cheers, Gemini & Gemini, Esq., inscribed across the sheet in spots that were wet and just faintly yellower than the rest.

"That's repulsive," said Remus, shielding his mouth and nose from the smell.

"That's hilarious!" said Sirius, even though he was fairly disgusted too. "You know, I think I'm starting to quite like those prats. Could've been great Marauders if they'd been around in our day, don't you think?"

"What I think is that we're supposed to be cleaning up messes, not making them," Remus fussed. "I can guess from this what you did to them last night, Padfoot."

"And so what if I did?" said Sirius. He was grinning, reading the stained-in message over and over again - at least until Remus waved his wand and scrubbed it away.

But even Remus had to pause then. "There were no enchantments on it," he said, with a mortified frown. "They did all that by...er...hand."

Sirius cackled with laughter.