In Which The Legend of Arcane is Re-told

George had only just sat down when Grimwald, his kestrel flew through the window and came to rest on the deep brown solid oak table. "How many times do I have to tell you?" George said with a stern voice. "Not on the table you'll scratch it, and you know what that means!"

George was referring to an incident only last year in which Grimwald had seen Wilbur, Ronnie's shrew, from some distance outside the common room window and had decided it was a good idea to dive-bomb through the window… an action which George, to this day, believes was motivated by little more than hunger! However the result of this call of nature was that Grimwald shot through the open window, and realised to his, and most notably Georges, utter dismay that he would simply not have the space to stop without taking some pretty dramatic precautions; otherwise the result would be to hit Professor McDonald fair and square in the midriff, as he had, by sheer misfortune, just burst through the door looking to be in an exceptionally foul mood! And so it was that Grimwald stretched out his legs and sunk his razor sharp talons straight into the previously perfect French polish finish adorning the surface of the table in the middle of the room.

Now that, as such would not have been quite so bad as George had just mastered the charm of rejuvenation, and had recently had cause to use it to prove his competence, but that's another story. However the fact that the table was literally under Professor McDonalds nose, and that he saw Grimwald impose the four and half foot scratches straight down the centre of the table, did little to improve his mood and, as is so often the case, someone was going to suffer the consequences!

After three weeks in detention, and missing out on two of the weekly social events held in the great hall, George had vowed never to allow that to happen ever again…. Not surprisingly, given that George had hoped to fan the flames of love with one of the girls from the next dormitory!

Grimwald held out one of his slender legs to allow George to untie a piece of parchment that had been fastened to it. George looked down at the parchment and saw it had been attached with a black ribbon, a sure sign that it was something official. "Probably an official warning" George thought to himself, referring to a slight indiscretion of his during the summer that resulted in his Aunt Priscilla being unable to control sixty percent of her bodily functions for something in the region of three weeks.

Having untied the ribbon, George was just about to unfurl the parchment when Ronnie came through the wall panel, "Wotcha George!" he said with a broad grin on his face, "Good summer?"

"Yeah not bad" George replied, and then added under his breath "in the end."

"Well yeah I did hear about your Aunt! Seemed a little harsh, has she recovered yet?" Ronnie said as he flopped down onto the leather settee, his chubby legs sprawling out in front of him.

Oh yeah she's fine, we just have to keep her close to a toilet!" Said George with an all too familiar mischievous grin.

"So what's that then? Your O.W.L.?" asked Ronnie referring to an Official Warning Letter from the Ministry of Magical Discretion Enforcement.

"Yeah probably…. Lets see what it says" and with that George unrolled the parchment.

It was with some surprise that they both looked at the parchment and after turning it around ninety degrees realised that it was in fact a map. It was a map of the school, not unusual in itself, except for the fact that this map seemed to be a living map… approximately A1 in size, it seemed to show a moving image of the school.

As George looked at the map he said "Bloody Hell Ronnie…." He tailed off as, to his astonishment he saw a small image of Ronnie appear on the map as the roof of the Dunstall dormitory opened up to reveal an image of the common room they were sat in

Ronnie looked up at George and said "George?" with that prompt, the image of the roof of the Dunstall dormitory opened for a second time and this time revealed George sat at the table.

Both Ronnie and George looked at each other and without saying another word, picked up the map and carefully rolled it up. They both turned on their heals and tore out of the common room and headed to the woods!

"What on earth is it?" Puffed George as they slumped down when they got to the clearing they had found two years ago. It was a totally covered area and even during the day there was little light penetrating through the dense canopy of foliage.

Even now during the mid afternoon the clearing was bathed in a twilight that gave the feeling that the trees were alive. As the trees moved in the uncharacteristically windy weather, at least for the time of year, they seemed to be trying to whisper an answer to Georges question.

"Well it's a map of some description but what I want to know is where it's come from and who sent it… and, more to the point, why?" Replied Ronnie who had sat down beside George. Ronnie was considerably more out of breath than George as he was not on his house broom racing team and was therefore more unfit, but he prided himself on his academic abilities, having got gold laurels in all his exams last year.

"It seems to work by saying the name of the person you want to locate!" Said George " but why send it to me?"

"One thing is for certain… we must keep this to ourselves, at least until we know more, otherwise we could end up letting it get in to McDonalds dirty bloody hands!" said Ronnie with a frown developing.

Both of the boys had fallen foul of the Charms Master on more than one occasion separately and considerably more than once together. The most recent occasion was when they had become curious about the girls training session for broom racing, and decided to do a little investigation on the matter. They had gone up to the west turret and hidden themselves in the back row of the spectator box. George had spotted Morgan, a senior girl from the next dormitory whom he had a considerable crush on, and was completely transfixed buy her shape which was being accentuated by the flowing robes being billowed in the breeze as she raced. So much so in fact, that they both lost track of time and were only distracted by Professor McDonald as he grasped them both by the shoulders and literally hauled them off to begin a month of detention cleaning out the Siberian Yak stables, quite probably the most foul job on the face of the planet… possibly any planet!

With that thought still haunting him, George gathered up the map and tucked it deep inside his deep maroon robes for safe keeping. They both sat in silence for some minutes trying to fathom out who… or what would send something like this… if only Grimwald could talk! It was Ronnie who broke the silence with a start as he reached into his robes and eventually, after a great deal of contortion, extracted Wilbur, who had suddenly decided to sink his teeth into one of Ronnie's roles of fat, probably because, as Ronnie had sat down, his considerable quantity had started to suffocate the poor creature.

"I thought I might find you two here!" said a very familiar voice. It was the voice of Jessie, their oldest friend at Hogwarts, very attractive girl who seemed to have as much talent for getting in to trouble as they did. "What ya up to?" she said as she flopped down, pulling her robes forward to loosen them away from her considerable bust.

As Jessie was such a close friend, so close in fact that she had joined them in enduring many of their detentions, they both started to tell her the story of the map. She sat quietly as the boys regurgitated the scant details and then showed her the map.

"Hmmm, why would anyone send you an Arcane map?" mused Jessie with a thoughtful look on her face.

"A what?" asked both of the boys in harmony.

"It's an Arcane map, a very old document which was supposed to protect its owner against perils and dangers. It helps the user to trace his enemies. Its sort of like a tracking device that muggles use in their spy movies, only far more sophisticated!" explained Jessie.

"How the hell do you know that?" asked Ronnie with a quizzical look creeping across his face.

With a very cute but devious grin on her face, Jessie began to mock Ronnie to the effect that, had he attended more of his lessons he would know this for himself. Despite the fact that Jessie had enlisted his help on a number of occasions, and did so on an annual basis in order to pass her exams.

"Legend has it that where an Arcane map falls into the hands of a new "owner", the owner would only be able to keep the map on completion of three magical tasks" continued Jessie, who was enjoying her moment of being able to get one over on her two best friends.

With that legend running through all their minds they got up and went up to the Great Hall for the Start of Term feast, which none of them would ever want to miss out on!