Beneath your skin, a harry potter fanfic

Title: Beneath your skin.
Rating: PG-13.
Disclaimer: I wish.
Prompt: 65. With the death of the last Marauder, the map begins revealing some of its creators secrets and stories.

Harry was sitting on his bed with the Marauder's Map cradled between his palms. It was starting. The burn behind his eyes and the thick, pounding pressure constantly digging in from the back of his head. The edges didn't crease, but they frayed - a perfect shape for his thumb to curl over and bite back when everyone else had their heads thrown over pillows.

He looked at it, out of the corner of his eye, from time to time. The moonlight would spill over them all like thin sheets in winter. And nobody would move.

Hundreds of flickering black dots and running ink.

'James tried to spell the seeds out of his jam'.

And it was there, twisted cursive printed with a messy slant.

Harry looked around the room then back again, shaking the piece of parchment in his hands until it finally faded, and he smiled.

He'd write to Sirius tomorrow.

Fred and George had it, hidden behind the stairs in Grimmauld Place, and they heard laughter looming down on them. They figured it out. Moony and Padfoot. They didn't say anything but they took it upon themselves to follow them sometimes, when there was nobody else, nothing else, and grand schemes indented themselves through every breath. All fruitless, because of the impending war, but great, nonetheless.

"Sssh!" George hissed, nudging Fred in the ribs and pushing them both further behind the wall, "They'll hear us!"

Muffled voices gave way to a slight crash and a door slammed shut, up ahead.

"What?" they both asked one another, and their lips quirked in identical places, with the odd freckle inches apart.

'James was confused for a doe after he shed his antlers'.

And they looked down at the thick, spiral scrawl.

'He refused to transform until they grew back'.

Their growing smirks drew into a chorus.

"Oh Harry--!"

'James and Sirius took polyjuice potion to transform themselves into girls' Harry's fingers fisted around the edges, 'They thought it was a brilliant way to gain access to the girl's dormitory'.

The bed covers went unmade for days and the letters smudged together before heavy eyes.

'Obviously, it didn't work. But rather than admit that, they transfigured a cushion into a pair of girl's panties to pretend. They were the most popular boys of Gryffindor for months after'.

He couldn't even find the energy to laugh.

He was gone.

"Remus?" Harry asked tentatively, sitting down at the kitchen table and letting his knuckles brush the empty coffee mugs in front of him.

"Yes? Is something wrong?"

He frowned and bit his lip, tapping his feet calmly, uncertainly, against the floor as he pulled a rather crumpled piece of parchment from his pocket and laid it out where they could both see.

Remus's eyes softened as he watched the small dots dance around one another in a way that still ached. Knowing the two names that he'd never see on there again. And the third he'd never want to.

"It keeps --" Harry started, and paused, thinking; "It keeps saying things."

Remus arched a brow.

"That's part of the charm we placed on it to ward off any --"

"No. No." he turned in his seat to face him before folding the map over, "On the front. It said. It told me Sirius and -- and my dad. Tried to get into the girl's dormitory with polyjuice. And that, well, before - you know. It said my dad tried to spell the seeds out of his jam."

Harry watched fitfully ahead while Remus let his gaze drop, amazed, to the map and he let the side of his hand slide over it reverently. Neither of them said anything for a moment until the dripping ink spelled itself across the page again.

'He still loves you.'

Remus darted his hands over it then, cupping the words and trying to fold it in a suitably composed manner. But Harry just stared.

"I don't like jam with seeds either." he blurted out, "Mrs. Weasley always makes it with seeds."

And neither of them had the heart to do anything but laugh.

'Sirius could never kiss his girlfriend after she ate marmalade' - Harry frowned before a sharp laugh echoed behind him.

"What's it saying that for?" Ron asked, settling beside him and brushing twists of red hair from his eyes. It was raining, if they looked out of the gap between the tent fastenings, it was slamming off the ground in a clatter of mud and stones.

Hermione was curled up under blankets, surrounded (quite happily in books. So they left her.

"I don't know." Harry answered honestly.

'James tried to spy on Lily under the Invisibility Cloak, not knowing Sirius had stolen it earlier and replaced it with a look-alike. She, quite clearly, saw him. And the black eye came from her, not from Quidditch injuries as he insisted'.

Ron grinned. And Harry grinned back.

"Quite the player, wasn't he, your dad?"

"You have no idea."

"I want to come with you." Remus had said, just as the map flickered black in front of them. His eyes dropped to the back of his head and his cheeks flushed, "You need someone who knows what they're doing. Who's --" he sighed in frustration and coiled his hands into his cloak, "Who has been there. Who knows what to expect."

"No." Harry had said, and shook his head firmly, "You need to be there for your son."

"Let me come." Remus had insisted, desperately, as thin printed words appeared before them.

'Sirius only ever had sex with two people.' they all looked down, 'One was Emilia Rockenhart. The other was --'.

"Me." Remus interrupted suddenly and they all tried not to stare.

He sighed. "Me."

"Let me come with you."

'Remus Lupin' appeared on the parchment and Harry met his eyes stonily.

"I've lost one godfather." He said after a dreary silence, "I don't want to make it two. Go to Tonks."

'Sirius only ever loved one person --'

The door slammed shut and neither of them felt it right to look then. They already knew.

They hadn't intended to take it with them, originally. They didn't need it, Hermione said. They weren't in Hogwarts anymore, it'd only interfere. They didn't need it. But Harry packed it anyway in the back of his pocket and he only dared look at it when it was quiet.

They'd bury themselves in books, in ideas, in possibilities. But he'd crease the parchment across the inner pages of texts and remember. Ron would sit with him sometimes and Hermione would smile - they'd flick pages and watch, wait, for it to say anything. And they'd slam covers closed when only the small black dots sped up or ran or slowed to a gentle, peaceful rest.

'James had a week long affair with a muggle boy.' it said, somewhere in the middle of England, and Harry didn't know what to do with that. He looked over at Ron with wide eyes, who just shrugged.

"Each to their own, mate."

They both glanced back to the paper.

'He wanted to know what was so great about it. All they did was kiss. And it only reaffirmed he wanted Lily. But he never breathed a word to anyone.'

'Sirius realised he liked boys when he found out Remus Lupin was a werewolf and wanted to see all of his scars a bit too much.'

'James was secretly jealous Sirius never fancied him.'

"Err - no offence, but this is getting a bit weird now." Ron whispered, smiling, "The big gay secrets of the Marauders."

"Maybe it's hinting." Hermione smirked, suddenly behind them.

They pushed their sleeping bags a little further apart after that.

'Peter thought he'd be bigger.' the map read in chunky black letters, 'He was always disappointed he could never keep up.'

'Peter was the only virgin. But he skilfully avoided all conversations regarding sex. Just in case.'

"I guess it's true then?"

"All in order." Harry nodded.

"Reverse order." Hermione chipped in, bowing her head, "Do you think that could mean--"

"Don't --" he snapped, under his breath, "I don't want to think that --"

"I understand."

'James charmed Peter's pen in first year to copy everything he wrote into dents on the table. Everyone laughed when they found doodles of James Potter on a desk in the potions lab. Fortunately, they all assumed he was so egotistical to have done them himself. He never said otherwise.'

'Peter never did so well on his own.'

'Sirius and Lily never liked one another at first. She thought it was because he was in love with James. They became friends when she found out it was because he was having feelings for Remus and found it difficult to spend much more time with him now James wasn't around. She walked in on Remus and Daniel Phillips. And, effectively, she broke Sirius's heart. James was oblivious to everything other than getting regular sex.'

They saw the body first, but it didn't register - a brief glimpse through the tragedies of war. It wasn't until it was all over, all tucked behind the things and the people they knew they'd lost, even if they hadn't really gone at all, that it hit them.

Harry was wrapped up on the couch in Grimmauld Place - still standing, barely.

Ron was sitting on the floor next to him.

'Remus had a brief affair with Lily whilst both trying to make their counterparts jealous. He got bruised ribs from James finding out. It ended when Sirius fought back by kissing Christopher Willow in front of him on Valentines Day.'

"Do you think it was worth it?" Ron asked, suddenly, trying to read the map upside down from where his head balanced precariously over the arm.

Harry stilled and stared at the letters unfurling into something else.

'Remus used his extra credit Arithmancy to work out the potential love numbers of every couple he knew of in the year. Most of the time it was him and Sirius. And he smiled when it said they'd be perfect.'

"I think --" Harry paused, "That the people who matter are happier knowing they made a difference. And that they're where they're supposed to be."

'Remus and Sirius first kissed on a dare from James who had no idea they were both harbouring secret feelings for one another. They spent months suggesting the game, on and off, for another chance. Until they got drunk and figured it out on their own. Lily didn't approve of the method, but she always said they were meant to be.'

'Remus fell in love with Sirius in precisely seventy three different ways. He started making a list to try and fall out of love with him but he didn't get past number one before realising it was hopeless'.

'James walked in on Remus and Sirius having sex on his bed and, for all he spent months complaining, he secretly thought it was pretty hot'.

Harry smiled, nudged up against Ron's side with Hermione at their feet.

"Yes." he spat out noisily with a huge smile, and they looked confused. He turned to Ron and nodded.

"Yes. I do think it was worth it."