“FRED! GEORGE! Get in here now!”
The sounds of Sirius Black’s voice bellowed around the kitchen of 12 Grimmauld Place and reverberated up the hall and staircase, which would no doubt reach the ears of those intended. Sirius struggled out of the green gooey mass whilst cursing and muttering under his breath, Remus Lupin stood a little further away sniggering childishly at his friend. The kitchen was a dull and dingy place, a long table stretched out in the middle, surrounded by various drawers and cabinets. A fire simmered at one end of the room where the Christmas tree sat sparkling in the dim light, whereas the sink, pantry and cooking equipment and utensils were at the other end of the room. Except that area of the room could not be seen since a swamp had sprouted from the oven and engulfed the surroundings, sending a fine green mist creeping across the floor and causing a pungent smell to grip the air.
“You could at least give me a hand Moony,” grumbled Sirius as he staggered from the clutches of some weed which had miraculously sprung up from around the cooker.
“But that sort of ruins the comical affect,” pointed out Remus raising an amused eyebrow.
Sirius looked infuriated for a moment but eventually his gaunt face cracked into a wide grin as he finally managed to pop free with a satisfying slurping noise. The two grown men grinned like idiots and turned to face the swamp that had engulfed the corner of the kitchen including the food that Sirius had just deposited on the cooker.
“And we wonder why Molly is always pulling her hair out,” smiled Remus. “I think we can both agree that having two of them under one roof must be strenuous.”
“Unless you hadn’t noticed Moony, I do have two of them under my roof,” barked Sirius before shaking his head and bellowing up the stairs to the hallway. “ARE YOU TWO DEAF?”
He strode back into the room, despite all of his shouting Remus could tell that he wasn’t angry in the slightest, he was more than likely worried about Molly coming back in a couple of hours and finding the kitchen infested with creatures from the murky depths of a swamp.
“You called,” chanted the twins in unison as they practically bounced down the stairs adopting faces of innocence.
“Oh my,” said George pretending to look horror stricken, “what seems to have happened to the kitchen? It appears that you’re cooking has gone terribly wrong once again Sirius.”
“Is that a confession of your antics, or do I have to worm it out of you,” smiled Sirius.
“That was what I was waiting to see,” said Fred. “You smiled, that means you don’t mind too much, besides we knew that you two were clever enough to find us out. We were merely testing the effectiveness of a rather amazing product, product research if you like. Nothing harmful, nothing spiteful as ever ...”
“But if Snape had been the next person to pop something in the oven,” interrupted George,” then it would have been a bonus to send the greasy git back to his pond with his fellow tadpoles.”
Sirius let out his bark like laugh again at George’s comment and Remus’ mouth twitched into a shadow of a smile.
“The years go by Snape becomes a teacher and still he is the most unpopular person at Hogwarts,” laughed Sirius, before turning to Remus. “Do you remember when Prongs levitated him at the lake and then pulled his trousers off? And the time Wormtail slipped him love potion and he pronounced his love for my no-good cousin Narcissa in the front of the whole Great Hall in second year, remember that? Oh and the time .....”
“Wait a minute.”
Sirius turned around and faced Fred who was looking at Sirius with suspicion written all over his face; George wore exactly the same expression upon his.
“You said Prongs and Wormtail,” said George slowly.
“That I did yes,” answered Sirius with the horrible feeling that he as going to be stuck in an awkward position very quickly.
“You knew Prongs and Wormtail?” asked Fred incredulously.
“Prongs was my best friend in the whole world,” answered Sirius calmly. “If I had been in Wormtail’s shoes I would have died for Prongs.”
“You always said that you were best friends with Harry’s father,” said George still looking suspicious and pointing a finger at him in an accusing manner.
“Yes I was, Prongs was James, my best friend in the whole world,” answered Sirius slowly, glancing from one twin to the other; unable to tell why mentioning nicknames had made them both go so uncharacteristically interested in his past.
“So who is Wormtail?” asked Fred.
“Wormtail was Peter Pettigrew, the secret keeper for the Potter household a traitor if ever I met one. He was the rat that Ron used to keep, you must have noticed him, I think Ron called him .... ‘Scabby’, no ... no ‘Scabbers’.”
“Ron told us that his rat just died at the end of third year,” said George, “something about Hermione’s cat and blood on the bed sheets, the typical murder mystery story.”
“Scabbers was Peter Pettigrew, he learnt how to become an animagus and turned into a rat, he faked his own death after betraying the Potter’s and took refuge with your family to lie low until his master returned. He actually escaped from Ron in third year and went to bring Voldemort back into human form.”
“So its Rons fault that You-know-who is back!” laughed Fred looking gleeful in a strange sort of way, “who’s the perfect Prefect now eh? How come the Prophet never said anything about it?”
“Because another Marauder escaped their clutches that night,” answered Sirius with a slight twinkle in his eye.
Fred and George stood silent for a moment, casting their minds back to their fifth year at Hogwarts when Ron had supposedly ‘lost’ his rat. At almost exactly the same time, realisation fell upon their faces and they both looked at Sirius with a new found respect.
“You are one of the Marauders,” said George as though confirming an earlier suspicion.
“You mean we are two of the Marauders,” grinned Sirius clapping Remus on the back.
Fred and George ogled at their past Professor for a moment, taking in all of the new found information, they seemed to be struggling with the fact that they had been living under the same roof as at least one Marauder for nearly their whole lives and never had the faintest idea.
“So let me get this straight,” said Fred finally. “Harry’s dad James was Prongs. Ron’s rat who we knew as Scabbers was in fact a traitor by the name of Peter Pettigrew who was also a Marauder under the name of Wormtail who now is a servant to You-know-who. Then it also turns out that you two are Moony and Padfoot.”
“It would make a good story for Muggles that wouldn’t it?” sniggered Sirius.
“That’s pretty much it, yes,” smiled Remus.
“You are having a giraffe!” proclaimed George, before bursting into joint laughter with Fred whilst the two adults looked on, understanding their confusion. “You mean to tell me, that we have known three of the great Marauders and we never even noticed a thing?”
“I think the question is,” said Sirius cutting George off, “how did you find out about us in the first place?”
“Your map of course! The handiest thing that we have ever managed to lay our hands upon in our time at Hogwarts, that thing was amazing. You guys wrote that! You were our idols for so many years!” Fred still sounded quite disbelieving.
“James, Sirius, Peter and myself were quite the pranksters in our day,” smiled Remus, “We were always in trouble, always up to mischief, we always managed to make people laugh. It’s amazing how we even managed to help you two a good fifteen, twenty years later with your pranking achievements. Now,” he said smiling warmly at the twins, “I believe Sirius wished to see you about a swamp.”
Fred and George gathered themselves immediately; though shot the two adults quick glances now and then as though checking that they were real. They stepped towards the gooey bubbling mass of swamp mud and plants, wrinkling their noses at the putrid smell that seemed to overcome all senses.
“How does this work?” asked Sirius, kneeling down and inspecting some of the finer details of the twins’ handiwork. “This is some really good magic here, nothing like we ever came up with at Hogwarts; we were rather crude a lot of the time. We were all so individual in our own rights and had so many different interests, worries and commitments that we took to the simplest way half the time. It looks as though you guys have really thought about this.”
“Well we weren’t planning to tell anyone...” started Fred.
“... But since you two are half of the Marauders ....” continued George.
“... I am sure that you will keep our trade secrets safe with your good selves,” finished Fred. “It was a tricky one to manage; basically we tweaked an environment charm and have managed to channel it into an almost completely element tight casing. We needed it to be ‘almost’ element tight for it to work.”
“When the casing is heated,” carried on George, from Fred’s introduction. “The heat causes the casing to disintegrate which releases an engorgement charm upon the miniature environment charm we planted within, causing it to shoot out of the box and latch onto whatever may be near it.”
Sirius nodded with understanding as the twins finished their explanation before saying: “It seems like a lot to me, you know, a lot of hardwork to be going to just to play a prank on someone as unfortunate as my goodself and the poor oven, which by the way had your dinner in it.”
“Well Padfoot, I don’t believe that it is just for a prank is it boys?” answered Remus, turning a knowing eye upon the twins, who in turn froze like rabbits before headlights.
“What do you mean Moony?” asked Sirius standing up and looking at the other three occupants of the room expectantly.
“What I mean, is that these two are more into the business of mass production and the selling of such pranking products.”
“You mean you’re going to sell these!” laughed Sirius. “You two are going to be millionaires.”
“For Merlin’s sake don’t tell Mum,” uttered Fred looking fearful. “It’s been hard enough hiding it from her when only four people know what we are doing.”
“On one condition,” replied Sirius loudly as the twins started to look as though they were going to protest. “We will not mention a word, not even a hint if ... you tell us and help us to clean this up so Molly doesn’t murder me, she cleaned the kitchen yesterday.”
Fred and George’s faces cracked into identical grins and George sidestepped him whilst withdrawing a potion from his robes. He uncorked the bottle and they all got a large whiff of what smelt like pine. He splashed the potion over the top of the swamp, it shrivelled and shrunk before their eyes, writhing and squirming about the floor whilst it retreated further and further into the corner from where it originated. George followed it occasionally splashing on some more of the potion, before long the entire swamp had disappeared, the only traces of it being there was the broken oven and smeared food spilling out of the sides. Fred stepped forward, whipped out his wand, cleaned up the food and fixed what needed fixing.
“Not a word,” he grinned.
“Not a word,” replied Sirius and Remus as they bade the twins out of the kitchen.
Mischief managed.
Story Notes:
All recognisable characters, places and plots associated with Harry Potter are owned by J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury and Warner Bros. No copyright infringement is intended.”
Author's Chapter Notes:
All recognisable characters, places and plots associated with Harry Potter are owned by J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury and Warner Bros. No copyright infringement is intended.”