Top 10 Pranks to Play While Staying at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place

February arrived, in all its cold and blustery dank glory. The weather outside merely served to underscore the gloominess of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place's interior.

Sirius Black had been trapped inside the house for nearly nine months.

He was going mad.

Thankfully, the Order gave him some small measure of company in his confinement. He was expecting his only remaining childhood friend, Remus Lupin, and his young cousin, who'd proven to be a great mate herself, Nymphadora Tonks, that evening. He'd spent the afternoon bathing and attempting to comb his overgrown black hair, which protested to the unfamiliar grooming assault, but eventually lay flat and vaguely resembled the glossy raven mass in which he'd once taken such pride.

These days, he was lucky to remember to brush his teeth.

Weekly.

However, there was only so much one could do inside four walls of Dark objects, complete with a portrait of his certifiable mum, that helped one to retain one's sanity.

He'd cracked open the Firewhiskey and dug some cheese from the icebox, and unwrapped a fresh loaf of bread from a threadbare but clean tea towel. Thank Merlin for Molly Weasley.

Throwing back one shot, then another, and with a shrug, a third for good luck, he settled down in the kitchen to wait for his visitors.

Four hours later, the bread was missing several slices and the cheese remained untouched, but the contents of the Ogden's Old bottle had certainly diminished a great deal.

Anyone peeking into the kitchen at that moment would have been able to tell at a glance that the Firewhiskey hadn't been used to water the plants.

(Well, they'd watered one plant, a Flitterbloom atop the icebox which was weaving erratically and occasionally letting forth a great belch, but that was on a double-dog dare, and accomplished by, of course, Padfoot.)

"I'm tellin' ya, this place gets creepier every time I walk in," Tonks said, her voice slurring as she wildly gestured around the gloomy basement kitchen.

"Stumble in, more like," Remus muttered, eyes at half-mast.

"Shaddup," Tonks shot back, chucking a crust of bread across the table.

Sirius scowled. "At least you two can leave."

Tonks and Remus exchanged a quick, surprisingly-alert look, and they quickly cast around for something to say.

"You know, Padfoot," Remus said, adding another measure of liquor to the large mug of tea in his hands (he'd found what was obviously an item of china left in the cupboard in case Hagrid dropped by), "what this house needs is some good pranking."

Tonks' eyes lit up. "Gimme a quill and some parchment, boys. Let's make a list."

Sirius grinned. "Good show, old mates."

Remus fetched a roll of parchment from a drawer, and a quill and ink bottle off the counter, but he hesitated before putting them on the table.

"D'you think we should write this down? Only we haven't found that paper we wrote about the Order at New Year's..."

Tonks laughed. "It'll show up eventually. We'd know if it had, because Dumbledore would most likely have hexed us in our sleep." She patted the table before her, and Remus gave an inward sigh, then set the writing materials down, knowing he was about to be implicated in yet another incriminating missive.

Tonks' scrawl soon sprawled across the top of the parchment, even untidier than usual in her inebriated state:

TOP TEN PRANKS TO PLAY WHILE STAYING AT

NUMBER TWELVE, GRIMMAULD PLACE

"Give that here," Remus said, reaching for the quill. "If I'm going to have a part in something, it's going to be neatly-written."

"Anal-retentive, you are," muttered Tonks, but passed everything to Remus nonetheless.

"So, what's first?" Remus asked, chewing on the end of the quill.

Sirius spoke first: "Let's trash the priceless heirlooms of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black. Any suggestions?"

Tonks giggled. "We don't know any four-legged creatures who'd enjoy wrecking some furniture, do we?"

"Beautiful," Remus said quietly, and he wrote:

Sirius gave a grin that looked, for a moment, like that of the Marauder of years past.

"What else?" he mused, glancing around.

Tonks grabbed back the quill. "Sod your obsession with neatness, Remus, I'm writing the next one."

She added the second idea:

(THEN, RUN.)

"Very nice," Remus said with a nod. "Now, it's my turn."

Tonks looked mystified. "I don't get it," she said.

Sirius was howling with laughter. "Oh, Great Godric, that's a good one. I'll have to dig out that essay..."

Remus joined in, chuckling and looking thoroughly bemused. "You kept that?" he asked.

"Oh, Merlin, yes. It's stuffed under my mattress somewhere. Oi, that reminds me! I've got a good one. You'll love this, Moony." Sirius took the quill, and added the next item.

"Yes, Padfoot, that's very amusing," Remus said, looking as though he was forcing himself to smile. She'd love that, she actually would...He's cracking up...

"No, Moony, you don't understand," Sirius snorted, looking right pleased with himself. "We'd charm the cover to say that. Open it up, and it's actually an issue of Playwizard."

Tonks squealed. "Brilliant! But where're we gonna find a Playwizard?"

"Under Moony's mattress," Sirius said.

Remus scowled and turned very red in the face. "I believe it's under yours now, you great bloody thief."

Tonks looked intrigued. "What're you doing with Playwizard?"

Remus shot her a heated glare.

"Poor bloke could use a good shag," Sirius said cheerfully, reaching over and ruffling his oldest mate's hair. "Shame he doesn't know any good-looking, randy young females who've had too much to drink tonight."

"Shame on you, Padfoot!" exclaimed Remus, suddenly looking a whole lot more sober. "Your cousin may be pissed out of her mind, but she is a good woman, and far too young for me, mind. If you're suggesting I'd ever take advantage of..."

He blushed an even more vivid red and wouldn't raise his eyes from the table top.

"Well, now," said Tonks in a voice of forced levity, also bearing a pair of very crimson cheeks, "I think we'd best add some more to the list, now, shall we?"

All three of them went quiet for a while. Then, Remus' face broke into a grin.

"Lady and gentleman..."

"Why?" Tonks queried, her brow furrowed.

"Why not?"

Sirius snickered, grabbing the quill. "Ta, Moony. And speaking of pink..."

"Magenta?" asked Remus, looking vaguely intrigued.

"It's my favorite color," Tonks said, looking a bit defensive. "And besides, Sirius, how'd you know they were mine?"

"Found 'em in my laundry," Sirius answered. He eyed her small bustline. "Besides, they were much too ickle to be mine."

Sirius put his arms behind his head and strutted around the kitchen, swaying his hips and throwing out his chest, ribs jutting every which way.

"Sod off!" Tonks snapped, crossing her arms over her shirt.

Remus watched Sirius parade around. "Ignore him. He's a prat. Besides..."

Tonks raised an eyebrow. "Besides, what?"

"Never mind. Just don't think he's right," he mumbled, picking up the quill and watching it with rapt attention as he twirled it in his fingers. Sirius had fetched one of the brassieres in question from the drying rack in the laundry room and put it on over his robes, and was doing an uncoordinated dance atop a chair.

Remus put the quill to parchment once more:

"Let's get him tonight," Tonks whispered, tearing her eyes from the rather odd sight of her cousin wearing bright pink lingerie and shaking his bum across the room.

"Agreed," Remus hissed back, rolling his eyes.

"So, where were we?" Sirius asked, finally climbing back down and trotting over to the table.

Remus hurriedly folded the parchment in half, obscuring the other items. "Erm, we're ready to add number eight," he said.

"Hmm, I thought we'd only done six. I guess time flies, y'know?...Either way, I've got a good one," said Sirius, grabbing the quill from Remus' hands.

"That'd be kind of fun, in a sick and twisted sort of way," giggled Tonks.

Sirius flipped back his hair. "Sick and twisted is what I do best, cousin mine."

Tonks stared at the parchment for a moment, then her eyes lit up. "Got it!" she cried, snatching the quill from her cousin.

"Shite. Make copies first, and I'll frame 'em for here at Headquarters," Sirius snorted. "Make certain you send some to the Prophet, too."

The three of them poured one last shot, effectively draining the bottle.

"Cheers," they chorused, clinking glasses, then throwing back the contents in one.

"That just leaves number ten," Remus said, and with a wicked gleam in his eyes, he added the final item:

"Cheers indeed, Moony," said Sirius with a grin, and he abruptly slumped over, his head thudding to the table. His snores reverberated through the kitchen within moments.

Tonks and Remus exchanged a glance.

"Begin the countown - it's eleven-twenty-seven," Remus murmured, checking his wristwatch.

Tonks reached into a back pocket of her jeans and pulled forth her permanent marker.

"Shall we begin with number seven?" she asked, biting her lip to control her giggles.

At half past eleven, two pairs of footsteps echoed up the stairwell, quiet laughter echoing behind them, and in the hall in which two doors faced one another, the conspirators shook hands, congratulated each other on a solid start to a day of pranking, and went their separate ways.

In the meantime, Sirius Black slept on, completely unaware that his forehead now bore a testament to the fact that he'd been a great sodding prat.

The meeting was scheduled for nine o'clock. With a day of rushed planning and frenzied preparations, it looked as though the three mischief-makers might just make their deadline.

"Post has gone out?" Tonks asked Remus, passing him in the hall.

"Copies made, fifty of them; Harry and his mates should be receiving twenty-five pictures of a naked baby Draco with pants on his head within the hour."

"Beautiful. I just charmed the magazine cover and left it in the downstairs loo." Tonks winked at Remus, who went red in the face once again.

Remus drew a great breath; upon exhaling, it turned into a breathless laugh. "I don't know about you, but I'm very glad Padfoot doesn't look in the mirror anymore."

"He really hasn't noticed?" Tonks whispered, eyes widening in glee.

"Nope." Remus glanced around her, down to the kitchen. "Did you get the Muggle goods?"

"In a bag, by Arthur's chair. I saw the potion on Minerva's. Well done."

They shook hands once again, this time for a sight longer, clasping one another's fingers and grinning broadly.

"Hey now, what's this?" Sirius asked, bounding down the stairs, his hair an unkempt mess once again.

They dropped their hands to their sides and whirled their heads to face Sirius.

"Nothing," Tonks and Remus said in unison.

"Well, kids," Sirius drawled, rolling his eyes, "I've just been upstairs...or rather, Snuffles has been. The worst of the furniture up there has been covered in dog piddle, and I'm off to wee on Snape's favorite armchair."

"I'll add to that next full moon. I feel bad that you had to drink a whole gallon of water in one go this morning, it's too big a job for one," Remus said. "What about Kreacher?"

Sirius held up two cans of paint. "Charmed the old olive green stuff. What do you think - bubble-gum pink or fuchsia?"

Tonks and Remus exchanged a glance. "Fuchsia," they agreed as one.

"Got it. Begin dressing the heads. Remus'll do that for you, cousin," Sirius added, heading down the stairs with the gallon of bright paint balanced on a bony hip.

Tonks reached into a deep pocket of her Auror's robes, pulled out a handful of magenta lace and underwire, and stuffed them into Remus' hand. "Have fun," she said brightly, and ran off to help Sirius to catch the house-elf.

Remus hung the brassieres as quickly as he could, hoping that he'd be done before anyone arrived. He didn't fancy having to explain just what he was doing with half a dozen of Tonks' brassieres in a stairwell lined with stuffed heads.

Everyone had arrived. The house was a bustling hive of activity. However, three people were conspicuously absent.

"Where are those young people?" Mad-Eye Moody growled. "Punctuality is a virtue second only to CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

The three Order members in question were, in fact, huddled together behind a pair of moth-eaten drab green curtains. Six hands held a fluffy pillow over Mrs. Black's mouth, and all of them were stifling laughter into one another's shoulders or hair.

Sure enough, right on schedule, all hell broke loose.

The door of the downstairs loo burst open, and Molly Weasley's voice rang through the house.

"Who - left - SMUT - IN - DISGUISE - atop - the - commode?" she shrieked, brandishing the altered copy of Playwizard.

"Molly, dear! Look at this fetching Muggle hat!" Arthur called, and several Order members audibly guffawed.

"What'd you put in there?" Remus whispered, lifting his head from Tonks' robes.

"A Muggle plunger," she gasped, tears of laughter streaming down her cheeks.

Remus leaned against the wall, biting his own sleeve, his shoulders shaking.

McGonagall simply gasped. "I will kill you, Sirius Black," she shouted from the kitchen. "This was over twenty years ago, young man!"

Sirius stuffed his face into the pillow which covered his mum's mouth.

The front door burst open without warning, and all three of them froze behind the thin velvet curtain. The prowling footsteps paused at the display of elf heads, then resumed, stalking down the basement stairs.

"Shite, it's Snape," Tonks hissed.

Sirius smirked. "Just wait till he sits in his chair."

They held their collective breaths.

"Would someone care to enlighten me as to why there is a display of lingerie in the ha-AAAAAAAAAGH!"

"Severus, what is it?" came Molly's concerned voice.

Snape didn't answer, simply stamped back up the stairs and slammed the front door on his way out, his robes dripping a yellow trail behind him.

"Brilliant," Sirius choked.

Just then, the silence was broken by the calm voice of Albus Dumbledore. "This might be the failings of an old man's eyes, but...is Kreacher magenta?"

Hestia Jones could be heard next. "No, that's fuchsia. The brassieres in the hall are magenta."

The basement door flew open once again, and there was a veritable stampede of footsteps.

"It MUST be them," McGonagall said. "Why else would they be absent from the meeting?"

"Minerva, we must allow them to find some amusement in these dark times..." Dumbledore trailed off.

"Not at our expense!" she shrieked, looking a bit mad.

An unmistakable step-thunk, step-thunk could be heard mere feet from where the three pranksters were hidden.

That's when Sirius let fly with Suggestion the Second.

He cast a Sonorous charm on his throat and, in a high-pitched voice, cried, "Ooooh, Auntie Bellatrix! So lovely of you to join us!"

Then, he ducked from behind the curtain and ran for it.

Remus and Tonks looked at one another. As one, they jammed their faces against the pillow, still muffling Mrs. Black's voice, and clutched each other hard around the waist.

The curtains flew open.

Moody didn't even glance at whom he was hexing.

"DIFFINDO!" he bellowed, making a slicing motion with his wand.

The pillow fell, and Mrs. Black began screaming.

However, she could barely be heard over the startled, pained yells of Remus and Tonks.

When they limped from the fireplace in the lobby of St. Mungo's, each clutching the seat of their pants, the Welcome Witch barely glanced at them.

"Spell Damage, Fourth Floor," she said in a bored voice, then went back to filing her nails.

"I can't believe it," whimpered Tonks, clutching her left buttock. "I simply can't believe it."

Remus, who was holding tightly to the right side of his own bum, grimaced. "Believe it."

They walked as gingerly as possibly into the Spell Damage ward.

"Got on the wrong side of Old Moody, did you?" the Mediwitch-on-call asked, chuckling.

Remus and Tonks exchanged startled glances.

"He's the only one I know who'll hex off a buttock," she explained, motioning for them to lie down on the examination beds.

"Okay, who's first?" she asked brightly. Remus made a gentlemanly gesture toward Tonks.

The witch yanked down Tonks' frayed jeans without preamble.

"Yikes!" she shrieked. She blindly threw out a hand, and Remus caught it.

"Let's set these aside, shall we? They're awfully nice lace to be ruined by this potion. It's nasty stuff," the Mediwitch said, giving another hearty tug to Tonks' knickers.

"Sweet Mother of Hufflepuff," she muttered, turning bright red.

Remus' wry voice came from the other bed. "Match the rest of the ensemble, do they?"

"Have a look," Tonks growled. "Anyone who wanders by right now will be able to join you."

"We're just going to apply this Securing Salve, which ought to hold you just fine," the Mediwitch said in her cheerful voice. "This'll sting a bit."

"You people only say that if it's going to hurt like a bit - AIEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Her hand clenched, nearly breaking Remus' fingers. Remus cringed and screwed shut his eyes. "That sounds pleasant. I can hardly wait."

Tonks was still gasping for breath five minutes later, when the Mediwitch moved on to heal her co-conspirator.

The irrepressible Healer applied the ointment, and Remus only let forth a bit of a startled gasp.

"You have a high tolerance for pain, young man," the Mediwitch said, a touch of awe creeping into her voice.

Remus sighed and reached back to pull his pants back to where he was certain Nature intended them to be. "You have no idea."

"Trousers up, young lady," chirped the Healer. Tonks fumbled behind her, trying to find the waistband of her knickers. Remus, who'd had his face buried in his pillow in some small attempt to give Tonks a modicum of privacy, peered over, figuring she'd be decent by that time.

Sweet Mother of Hufflepuff, indeed...

"Help your wife, will you, dear?" the Healer called.

"Erm...She's not my wife," Remus said, looking wildly around in a panic.

"Remus," snapped Tonks, "my arse hurts something wicked and I can't move. Not all of us have your strong constitution, after all. Now quit being a pansy and pull up my Godric-damned knickers."

"If you insist," he squeaked, and as carefully as he could, he replaced her pants over her bum. "Please pardon me for being improper."

Tonks rolled her eyes. "There's such thing as being too much of a gentleman, you know."

"What, exactly, do you mean by that?" he asked, averting his eyes (for the most part) as she struggled back into her jeans.

"You're a daft prat, Remus Lupin."

The Mediwitch returned bearing their release paperwork (Remus gritted his teeth much more than he had during the healing process when he saw the bill), and eyed the two of them appraisingly.

"Dear," she said to Remus, "could you please excuse us for a moment? Just wait outside, there's a good lad."

A bit bewildered, Remus left the room, surreptitiously touching the seat of his pants to make certain his buttock was still on. He leaned against the wall, and was able to catch the occasional snippet of the conversation Tonks was having with the Healer.

"...taken your potion?"

"...really no need...not...him, or anyone..."

"...safe side...way...looks at you..."

"...prat."

"...effective...one year..."

"...hasn't by that time...no hope...a full year?"

"...administer today, no side effects..."

There was the sound of bottles clinking against one another, the sound of a cork being drawn, then Tonks' voice making a disgusted noise.

She came staggering back out, pulling a face.

"What was that all about?" Remus asked, looking at the revolted expression on Tonks' face.

"Nasty stuff," she replied, picking up the pace down the hall.

Remus shrugged. It certainly was her business, and none of his.

Reaching the end of the hall, he motioned for Tonks to Floo out first from the fourth floor connection, hoping he wasn't being too much of a gentleman again (whatever that meant). She climbed over the hearth and was on her way to Grimmauld Place, but not before banging her shins, then treating him to a grin. He smiled back. She was something else, really.

Before Remus could Floo out, he was nearly bowled over by a young, frantic-looking wizard in lime green robes bearing the cauldron-and-vial insignia of the Potionists.

As he fumbled in his pocket for a packet of Floo powder, he heard a voice shriek down the hall, "What do you mean, you THINK several doses may have been DEFECTIVE?"

Remus raised his eyebrows. It sounded as though a fight was brewing. He clambered into the fireplace and announced his destination, figuring it was none of his concern what the Mediwizards found so alarming...It wasn't as though it could affect him.

In the meantime, Tonks had rushed upstairs from the fireplace and was washing her mouth out with mint-flavored rinse.

"Eurgh," she mumbled, pulling a face at her reflection. "With a taste like that, it's a good thing that stuff works."

Not that she'd be needing the Contraceptive Potion, at the rate things were going...but it was always good to play it on the safe side.....

The End.

(Or rather, The Beginning.)

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