The Marauders Map
The buzzing filled the room once again as the snitch flew into the air but barely managed a metre before it was expertly snatched out of the air by James. Remus smirked from behind his book as Peter beamed and broke into clumsy applause for that must have been the fiftieth time that day.
"Ugh, when is Sirius going to get here? We've been sitting here for ages." James moaned.
Just as he finished his sentence the door to the shack crashed open and a handsome boy with shaggy black hair burst into the room.
"Padfoot! Finally, what took you so long? You said you'd be here half an hour ago!" said James to the boy.
"Sorry Prongs, got distracted, but I've had a brilliant idea!"Sirius said excitedly as he took the seat next to James at the small shabby table in the middle of the room. This made Remus look up from his book, a concerned expression on his face.
"Not another one Padfoot, your plans never end well, don't you remember what nearly happened to Snape last time?! If James hadn't stopped him I don't know what I -"
"Oh, don't be so boring Moony!" Sirius cut him off. "Anyway who cares about Snivellus?!"
Remus was about to interrupt again when Sirius said: "This is nothing like that anyway, this only involves us" a mischievous grin on his face.
"What kind of thing?"James aid curiously. He was usually the only one that saw the funny side of Sirius' practical jokes, Peter was always too scared and Remus thought them stupid and immature.
"Well Prongs, you know how we've been finding all these secret passages, like the one-eyed witch to the Honeydukes cellar last week?"
They both stopped for a second, smiling, remembering the glorious moment they found themselves under the best sweet shop in the wizarding world.
"Anyway!"Sirius began again. "Well it seems like a lot of the time we try to go on the adventures someone turns up to catch us out, usually Dumbledore of course, and I just thought wouldn't it be great if we had a way of knowing where everyone in the castle was so we would know where was safe to go!" Sirius beamed, evidently proud of himself.
"It would be brilliant!" James said, imagining how much more mischief they could manage. Peter nodded energetically, feigning enthusiasm at a plan that clearly already terrified him like any other Sirius or James though of.
"How exactly would you manage that Padfoot?" said Remus.
The smile faded slightly from Sirius' face, but only for a second before his expression was once again full of optimism.
"If you'd let me finish I would have told you Moony. Well, I was thinking we draw a map, of the whole of the grounds of Hogwarts, and then bewitch it so that everyone's name appears wherever they are in the castle."
"Again, how exactly are you going to manage this? I don't think you've though this through properly."said Remus, an exasperated tone to his voice, he clearly wanted to be somewhere else reading rather than discussing Sirius' silly ideas that never got anywhere.
"Cynical as ever Moony?! We've just got to give it some thought that's all. It's obviously going to need a combination of spells – like that one to help you find people in a building, Homenum Revelio, we'll just need to find a way of adding names to it!" James said getting more excited.
"Exactly, thank you Prongs! I thought of that and a few other spells, I think we can really make this work!" Sirius said, grinning at his friend. "And once we've managed the basic stuff we can keep adding more – like all the passages!"
"But, um what if we got caught? Wouldn't we get into a lot of trouble for having something like that?" muttered Peter hesitantly,
James just laughed while Sirius said: "Oh, stop being such a wimp Wormtail! It's not like we haven't been in trouble before! And besides, this is designed to do exactly the opposite – keep us out of trouble!"
"B-but, what if someone found it?" Peter mumbled.
James and Sirius rolled their eyes, they got fed up of Pettigrew, he was always too nervous of everything! But they enjoyed his pathetic admiration far too much to get rid of him.
"He does have a point actually" Remus finally seemed to be taking an interest. "We should think of some way that only we can read it, a sort of password that only the four of us know."
"Great! You try and think of that and a way to do it then Moony! James and I will go to the library and look into spells that could be useful! Uh Wormtail you can, um, well I'm sure we'll find something." Sirius exclaimed getting up to leave the room.
"If only you'd out this much effort into your homework." Remus said despairingly. "I bet this will be the first time you've ever been in the library!"
"Of course it is! Homework is too dull! I'd much rather spend my time thinking up ways, well more ways, we can get up to no good!" Sirius said laughing.
Sirius, James and Remus left the room eagerly leaving Peter trailing behind, his permanent expression of worry clearer than ever before.