The Great Flood

After they had finally finished the washing, and after only a couple of mishaps with the clothesline hung everything out to dry, James and Sirius decided to wash up and try their hands at cleaning the bathroom.

"I'm going to take a bath," Sirius declared.

"A bubble bath?" Peter teased.

Sirius shot him a nasty look before sticking his nose in the air and bolting up the stairs.

"Have you got everything from the basement?" Remus asked James innocently.

"Yes," James replied easily.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Just wanting to make sure you haven't forgotten anything."

"I didn't."

"Only I thought I saw something down there that wasn't there before."

"You mean besides the blanket of bubbles?"

Remus's lip twitched. James clearly wasn't rising to the bait, even though he obviously knew what he was talking about. He decided a different tactic was in order.

"I think I'll go watch some telly with Wormtail," he said casually and went to join Peter in the living room.

About thirty seconds after he had sat down he saw James slipping back down into the cellar. Remus shot up from his seat and went to wait round the corner James would have to go round to get back upstairs to the bedroom.

James nearly dropped Ted as he turned the corner and saw Remus waiting there for him with a wide grin on his face.

"Got everything now?" Remus asked with a smirk.

"You knew, you git!" James accused.

Remus laughed and pulled out his wand. He tapped the bear on the head and instantly cleaned its mottled fur.

James gave Remus a sheepish smile as he passed him, the clean and sparkly Ted clutched tightly to his chest.

Remus returned to the living room and sat down beside Peter.

"Has he got his teddy bear?" Peter asked with a snicker.

"Yes."

"You know about James's bear?" Sirius suddenly asked from the doorway.

"Yeah," Remus admitted. "Saw it back in second year when he wasn't quick enough to hide it one morning."

"Why didn't anyone ever tell me about it?" Peter complained.

Sirius shrugged. "Most of us had some sort of cuddly toy with us back then. By the time we started leaving ours at home and James didn't we had enough to wind him up with over his crush on Lily and other stuff."

Remus agreed and he knew that he probably won't tease James about the bear again. At least not unless he really had to.

Sirius joined Remus and Peter on the sofa and put his feet up on the coffee table.

"Feet off the furniture," Peter barked, sounding scarily like his mother for a moment.

Remus chuckled as Sirius reacted instantaneously and put his feet on the floor.

"Why didn't you change your clothes?" Remus asked curiously. "These are still damp from the soapsuds."

"You're sitting on the sofa in wet clothes?" Peter leaned forward to look at Sirius before pointing at the doorway and ordering him out of the room.

"Didn't see the point of changing clothes before having a bath," Sirius explained.

"You haven't had a bath yet?"

"No. I'm waiting for the tub to fill up."

"Oh crap!" Remus and Peter bolted for the door with Sirius trailing after them with a confused look on his face.

That Sirius must have left the taps running on full before coming back downstairs was obvious as soon as they reached the pool of water on the landing at the top of the stairs.

"What happened?" Sirius asked with confusion.

"Muggle taps don't stop automatically when the bath gets full," Peter explained as he ran into the bathroom and turned the taps off.

It was probably too little too late. The tub was overflowing and the water had poured over the sides, covering the bathroom floor and stretching out into the hallway.

Remus pulled out his wand and started to clean up the water as Peter pulled the plug on the bath to let the water drain.

"Oops," Sirius said, his face bright red with embarrassment.

James joined them a moment later and squelched his way along the hall carpet, his nose scrunched up with distaste. "What happened?"

"We had a bit of an accident," Sirius said.

"We?" Remus echoed.

"Bit?" Peter added. "You practically flooded the entire house."

"There's no need to exaggerate," Sirius replied. "A bit of water never hurt anyone."

Remus mumbled something uncomplimentary under his breath. He hadn't failed to notice that while he and Peter were cleaning up the mess Sirius had made, they were also partially completing Sirius and James's task of cleaning the bathroom. He glanced at the toilet and saw it was looking quite grim. At least that would take some cleaning by the purebloods. An evil thought took root in his mind and he smiled to himself as he finished mopping up the water with his wand.

Once the water was all cleaned up and everything had been dried out Remus dug around in the bathroom cabinet until he found what he was looking for.

He turned to Sirius and passed him the new toothbrush. "By the way, you'll need this for cleaning the toilet."

Sirius took the toothbrush from him and frowned at it. "But it's tiny."

"Yeah, but to win the bet you have to do things the muggle way, and they use brushes to clean the loos."

"They use the same things to clean the toilets as they do their teeth?" James asked doubtfully.

Remus shrugged. "Muggles do things oddly. You've been saying that for years. Why would this surprise you?"

James accepted his words without argument and grabbed a toothbrush of his own from the cupboard.

"Maybe we should clean the room before we clean ourselves," Sirius suggested. "I think this might be a messy job."

James nodded and got down on his knees near the toilet. "Cor, what a pong!" he groaned as he waved his hand in front of his face. "Who went last?"

All four boys looked at each other, none of them willing to take the blame for the state of the toilet.

Sirius joined James on his knees and pinched his nose tightly.

Remus had to leave the room or else he knew he'd burst out laughing and give it away that there were easier muggle ways of cleaning a toilet. Peter on the other hand stuck around to make sure James and Sirius had the toilet shining like new, with comments like 'you missed a bit here' and 'it still looks a bit mucky right at the back'.

Like it or not, Sirius and James were going to leave the bathroom absolutely spotless by the time Peter had finished supervising them.

-o-x-o-

Once Sirius and James were cleaned up and the bathroom was sparkling they all re-grouped in the living room.

"So, are you going out to the park now?" Peter asked, reminding Sirius and James of their intention to go find a couple of girls to ask out.

Sirius shook his head. "Still got nothing to wear until our clothes are dry."

"You'll need to iron your shirts as well," Remus told him.

"Iron?" James replied with a groan. "How do muggles ever have time for fun if they have to do all this just to get one clean outfit to wear?"

"They plan things better," Remus said. "They make sure they have clean clothes spare all the time, and don't just leave the washing until they have nothing left in the wardrobe."

Sirius looked out of the window to where their clothes were hanging out on the washing line. "How long do you think it'll take them to dry?" he asked.

Peter laughed. "Hours at this rate. Haven't you noticed it's raining?"

Sirius practically fell over his feet as he ran for the door, hoping to rescue his clothes before they were soaked through again. James hurried to help him, but it was clear they were too late and it had been raining now for some time.

It didn't help that in their hurry to rescue the garments they didn't take the basket out with them and a large number of items fell to the muddy ground.

"More washing," James complained. "It's just not fair. We did it right the first time."

Remus, once he had finished laughing took pity on them and pulled out his wand to clean and dry the muddy shirts and jeans.

"You could have ironed them too," Sirius moaned.

"I'm not doing all your tasks for you."

Sirius tried the puppy dog eyes thing, but Remus stood his ground.

-o-x-o-

Watching James and Sirius set up the ironing board provided nearly an hour of entertainment for Remus and Peter.

"It's upside down."

"You need to pull that bit."

"You're doing it wrong."

"Aaarrrgh!"

"What's your problem?"

"You trapped my fingers in it."

"You shouldn't have had your fingers in the way."

Remus gave up trying to contain his mirth within a few minutes.

Finally they had the ironing board set up, albeit upside down.

"It looks wrong," Sirius said as he gave one of the legs a kick. "Sturdy enough though."

James picked up one of his shirts and started to drape it over the legs of the ironing board. Remus wasn't quite sure what his thinking was on that one, but when he tore the fabric stretching it out he decided to step in and with Peter's help he turned the ironing board the correct way up.

"Why not try it now?" Remus suggested as Peter dropped the iron on the straight end of the board.

"You'll need to plug it in," Peter commented with a nod to the iron.

"I know," James said with a sniff that would have been much more effective if he hadn't then spent a good ten minutes trying to find somewhere to fit the plug into the ironing board itself.

"The wall socket!" Remus eventually shouted.

"You shouldn't have told them," Peter said. "I was enjoying this."

"Yeah, but we'll be here all day otherwise."

"I don't see you doing your own ironing," Sirius commented with a smirk. "The shirt you're wearing is pretty creased as well. Maybe you should do some of your own ironing to show us how it's done."

"I'm not the one who doesn't know how to iron," Remus replied.

Sirius folded his arms across his chest. "Then why don't you prove it," he declared. "Let's see you iron a shirt and then we'll do ours."

"You just want me to show you what to do," Remus said.

"Obviously," Sirius admitted. "The list never said anything about not having demonstrations. It just said we had to do tasks the muggle way. We'll still be doing this like muggles, but you will too."

"But it's so much more entertaining watching you two clowns muck things up all the time."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Again, you're stating the obvious here. We can see how funny the two of you are finding this. Now, how about your put your money where your mouth is and prove you can do what you're asking us to."

James was grinning widely, happy to have got out of making even more of an idiot out of himself than he already had. He stepped back from the ironing board and gestured for Remus to take his place.

Remus sighed and stepped forward. "Fine," he said as he unbuttoned his shirt. "I'll show you once and then you can copy me. But watch carefully because this is your one and only chance to see how muggles iron things."

Sirius and James did watch Remus carefully, but not quite carefully enough. They saw what he did with the iron and the starch, but it was clearly too much to take in all at once.

"It's as stiff as a board," James said as he lifted the over starched shirt up. There was not the tiniest bit of give in the material. He had used way more starch than was necessary and had not stuck to the collar and cuffs, instead choosing to spray it all over the entire shirt, leaving not an inch untouched.

Sirius's attempt at ironing wasn't much better. He learned from James's lesson about how much starch to use, but he had taken little notice of the settings on the iron and as such the iron was far too hot when he tried to iron one of his best silk shirts. The material burnt at the first contact of the iron and Sirius screamed in horror. He dropped the iron like a hot potato, right on Peter's foot.

"Moony!"

Remus sat on the sofa watching and wondering just how they were ever going to finish all the tasks on the list. At the rate they were going it would take them the rest of the week to complete even half of the jobs.