George turned the corner and spotted his brother kneeling on the floor with their newfound treasure.
"Why am I always the distraction?" he asked as he fell to his knees next to his twin in the abandoned corridor.
"What do you think it does?" Fred asked, ignoring his brother's question.
"It appears to be a blank piece of parchment. Are you telling me I risked getting detention for a blank piece of parchment?!"
"No, it has to have some purpose or Filch wouldn't have confiscated it in the first place, maybe if you write on it, it does something special…"
"That hardly seems dangerous," George said, summoning a quill anyway, "What should I write?"
"How about 'what do you do?' maybe it answers questions!" Fred suggested.
'What do you do?' George wrote on the paper, and watched in horror as it disappeared into the parchment and the paper itself made a hissing noise as if it was going to bite them.
"I don't think that was what we were supposed to do," George said after a while.
"Well, maybe that's why Filch thought it was dangerous," Fred said, moving the bottle of ink as far away from the parchment as possible.
Both brothers sat quietly, looking at the paper. It was just ordinary, nothing special, brown, wrinkled, even torn, but still, only paper. So why were they so interested in it? Because it had to do something! Filch was insane, but he wouldn't have confiscated it if it hadn't done something!
"Abracadabra!" Fred shouted at the piece of paper, "Well, it was worth a try."
"What do you do!?" George asked the piece of paper.
"Mr. Moony would like to ask if you are both too dumb to figure out that we keep secrets?"
"What the hell?" Fred asked picking up the map as the old words faded and new words took its place.
"Mr. Prongs would like to add that Mr. Fred and Mr. George are obviously both extremely inexperienced pranksters and would kindly ask them to stay out of our element since it is obviously too extreme for them."
"Mr. Padfoot could not have put it better himself, but is so stunned and is left with only one thing to say. More Weasleys?"
But before the message of Mr. Wormtail could appear and insult Fred and George even more a cold voice broke the silence in the abandoned corridor.
"Mr. Weasley, and… Mr. Weasley, what are you two up to?" Professor Snape asked as Fred stuffed the parchment in his back pocket and shoved his wand right next to it.
"We weren't doing anything, professor," George said.
"Yes, just sitting, having a brotherly chat," Fred agreed.
"You two are looking uncharacteristically innocent," Professor Snape said.
Suddenly Mr. Prongs' words came back to mind. George couldn't dare let a teacher think he was innocent, what kind of prankster would he be if he did?
"I assure you professor, we will never be innocent," George said, he would later regret these words when Professor Snape's supply of murtlap essence went missing, even though Fred and George wouldn't start stealing this particular ingredient until their seventh year, which was six years away.
"Yes professor," Fred said gripping his wand for courage, forgetting it was pressed up against the stolen parchment, " I don't know about George, but I solemnly swear I am up to no good."
"I'll keep that in mind boys," Snape said turning on his heels and walking away. And he would keep it in mind. Over the next seven years if anything went wrong he would come to Fred and George first.
"Well, at least he didn't give us detention," George said cheerfully, "Where did the paper go?"
"It's right here," Fred said, pulling it out of his pocket, "What the hell?"
While the boys had been talking with their potions master the paper had turned itself into something. Into a map.
"What is it doing?' George asked, looking at all the moving dots.
"They're labeled," Fred said, tracing his finger along the path of a dot labeled Cedric Diggory.
"They represent people!" George, "See! Here we are! It knows where we're standing Fred!"
"No, more importantly, it knows where everyone else is standing!" Fred said pointing to Snape's dot, heading back to his office.
"Well, how do we close it?" George asked, taking the map and looking it over in his hands.
"Why the hell would you want to close it?" Fred asked, trying to snatch the parchment back.
"Well, we wouldn't want anyone to find it, now would we?" George said, holding the map out of reach of his brother. "Now lets see, how did we open it?"
"We? I believe I was the one who opened it!" Fred snapped at the idea of getting rid of this wonderful tool. Why did George have to be so practical?
"That's right! You did open it! What did you say to Snape?"
"I said something about a brotherly chat…"
"Were you holding your wand when you said it?"
"No, but I was when I swore I was up to no good."
"Then maybe if we told the map we were done misbehaving it would close," George said thoughtfully pulling out his own wand and placing it on the parchment.
Suddenly he remembered last semester when he had cast a spell on a cursed object that only responded to the wand that cursed it.
"Maybe you better do it," he said passing the paper to Fred.
"Ok, um, well, Mr. Map, we are done being bad," Fred tried.
"No, it's simpler then that, try 'trouble achieved'!"
Fred tried it, but nothing happened. Fred was a bit relived to see the dots still moving, but George was worried. What if they couldn't close it? In the wrong hands this map could obviously be very dangerous.
"How about 'disobedience complete'."
"No, it's a map for pranksters, I doubt it would use a big word like disobedience," Fred said, perfectly happy with tucking the map away as it was.
"Oh, if you're so smart you do it then!" George complained.
"Alright then! Mischief managed!" Fred said, praying it wouldn't work. Unfortunately it did, at least it was a chance to give George the I-told-you-so look.
"All right then. So now that we know how it works I feel it's time we put it to good use!"
"And by good use you mean bad use?" Fred asked.
"Naturally," George said, pushing his wand to the blank paper and repeating, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good."
Fred was relieved when the map burst back to life.
"Do you realize Fred, that this map contains every conceivable pathway in and out of Hogwarts," George said, more a statement of awe then a serious question.
"It shows other things too," Fred said pointing to a spot on the path. "I believe that is a passageway into the Gryffindor girls dorms that seems like it hasn't been used in centuries. The entry from the tunnel seems to start in the fifth floor boys lavatory."
"Suddenly Fred, I feel as if I have to use the bathroom," George said standing up.
"Fifth floor?" Fred asked his brother.
"I think so, my brother," George said.
And with that the two twins high-fived and headed on their way to the fifth floor. They had just found one of the best things Hogwarts would ever give them.