A/N: Sorry for the long wait, I've lost some of my motivation/muse for this story. I won't ever abandon it, but updates will be a lot slower. Enjoy this chapter!

10th April 1975
8pm
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Gryffindor 4th Year Boys' Dormitory

"So where do we start?"

"Work our way up from the Dungeons?"

"No, with the map you imbecile, not where in the castle."

"Oh. Well. My idea still has merit."

Remus rolled his eyes, and lay a large piece of parchment across his bed carefully whilst James and Sirius paced back and forth in front of him and argued.

"Merit. What merit? It was a silly suggestion, why wouldn't we start with the grounds!?"

"Oh, shut up, both of you. We can start anywhere we want because we're going to do each floor as a separately accessible layer in the map." James and Sirius both looked at their sandy haired friend and then nodded their acceptance, sending daggers at each other playfully as they settled onto their beds.

"Where's Wormtail?" James suddenly asked, glancing around the dorm as though the fourth Marauder would suddenly pop up and shout 'surprise!'.

"He's getting some food from the feast, and trying to talk Frank into not coming back to the dorm for a while." Remus answered, not looking up at his friends as he was still focused on the parchment in front of him.

"I still want to find some kind of spell that tracks movements and shit." Sirius said, moving over to sit next to Remus and peruse the parchment. "Then we can avoid prefects, Professors, and Filch."

"I think I found one," James said casually, lying back on his bed and tossing his snitch between his hands.

Remus' head popped up and he stared in surprise at James, "You did?"

"Don't need to sound so surprised, Moony." James pouted.

"Oh, whatever, Prongs. What was the spell?"

"The Homonculous Charm." James recited, propping himself up with his elbows, "You heard of it?"

Remus and Sirius both shook their heads. James shrugged, leant over the side of his bed, and chucked the book he pulled out at Remus, who managed to snatch it out of the air before it hit him in the head. He scowled at James, who just grinned cheekily.

Just then the door swung open and Peter stepped through, his arms full of food, and a grin on his face, "Frank's gonna be revising with 'Mione for the next couple hours." He chuckled, and dropped the food at the end of Remus' bed, just avoiding the parchment. Remus scowled up at him, but Peter grinned unrepentantly.

"Brill!" Sirius crowed, shoving a pumpkin pasty in his mouth.

"Don't see how you're all still so hungry." Remus said with a raised eyebrow.

Sirius scoffed at him, "Says the man who eats ridiculous amounts of food for a week every month."

"Yes, but I have a reason other than just being a teenage boy for that." Remus griped. James and Peter both just laughed. "Anyway." Remus carried on, pointedly. "We know how we're gonna track everyone, but how the hell do we actually map the castle and grounds?" Remus pointed out, frowning.

They all sat in contemplative silence for a while, before James piped up triumphantly, "Well, we can do the grounds in our animagus forms. Pads and Wormtail are probably best for that cos they're less conspicuous than me." He grinned, and they all snorted at that - James' stag was huge, almost moose-like, and seemed to be getting bigger each time he grew. "Moony and I can map the castle under the cloak." He said decisively, and they all nodded.

"We can map each area onto a separate bit of parchment, and then spell them all together and cast the Homonculous Charm at the end." Remus tapped his quill against his bottom lip for a moment.

"Yea, and I bet there's more secret passageways, so we should go on a hunt for them on each floor." Sirius contributed, another pumpkin pasty making its way into his mouth. When he sprayed crumbs all over Remus and his bed, the werewolf scowled and pushed the animagus off his bed. Sirius hit the floor with a loud oof. "Bastard." He muttered when he'd pushed himself up, somehow his half-eaten pumpkin pasty still held in his hand.

"We should password protect it!" Peter piped up eagerly. They all grinned slowly. Anyone who'd been watching them at that moment would've felt a lot of trepidation over the upcoming mischief.

They spent the next couple hours working hard on their plans for the map, until Frank pushed his way into the room, and they scrambled to hide the still empty parchment and list of the plan that Remus had made from their dormmate. Frank raised a dark eyebrow at them, and rolled his eyes, "You guys are fucking weird." He muttered, and picked his way around the mess at the end of Sirius' bed to get to his own.

2nd May 1975
10am
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Gryffindor Common Room

The common room had emptied early that morning, nearly every Gryffindor making their way down to the Quidditch pitch for the continuation of the final game of the season - Gryffindor vs. Slytherin for the Quidditch Cup. Usually, in spite of her hatred for flying and indifference towards Quidditch, Hermione would go down and watch the game to support her friends. But this game had started the night before and was still going when the spectators had been forced to leave the pitch at 10pm. Madame Hooch and some Professors had stayed out on the pitch to supervise the reserve players who took over to keep the game going overnight.

James and Sirius had headed out of Gryffindor tower at 6am that morning to take back their spots as the game still hadn't ended. Classes had been cancelled that day because of the unprecedented Quidditch match. Most of the castle had celebrated that, but Hermione had been rather put out, so there she was, sulking in the common room because of it, and doing some studying for the end of year exams.

That's how Lily found her when she came searching for her not long later. "Hermione!" Hermione jerked a little in surprise, and looked up at her friend, she hadn't been expecting anyone else to be coming into Gryffindor common room until the game finished, and said as much to Lily.

Lily chuckled a little, and settled onto the couch next to Hermione, "Me and Sev aren't going to go to the game, it's gotten a little boring in all honesty." She said with a laugh. "Want to come join us by the Black Lake?"

Hermione looked back down at her book for a moment, and decided she could leave off studying for a little bit to join her friends. "Sure." Lily grinned happily, and bounced to her feet, her red hair swirling around her as she spun to face the exit.

"Come on then." She urged, holding her hand out to Hermione and wiggling her fingers. Hermione laughed and grabbed Lily's hand, letting her friend pull her to her feet and out of the common room. Though Hermione would definitely describe her and Snape as friends, they were nowhere near as close as him and Lily; they both still called each other by their surnames, and pretty much exclusively hung out in the library studying together or worked together in potions - anywhere, he said, that they wouldn't run into her idiotic friends. Hermione wasn't sure who her former potions Professor turned friend was referring to, but assumed it was everyone except Lily, she'd laughed and rolled her eyes when he said it.

They made their way quickly down to the Black Lake, not encountering any other Gryffindors on their way, only a few Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs who weren't interested in Quidditch seemed to be hanging around in the castle. There were more students outside, drawn out by the warm weather, but they were still the only Gryffindors, and Snape, sitting under a large tree near the Black Lake, was the only Slytherin they could see.

"Hey, Sev!" Lily called cheerfully when they got close enough. His lips twitched a little, but he didn't smile at them.

"Lily." The way he looked at Lily made Hermione suddenly feel sad, his was a love that had been doomed from the start - even though in this time it seemed like Lily and James would never end up together. "Prewett." He said next, offering her a short nod as she sat down near him.

"Snape." She said in the same tone, chuckling at his look.

"Oh, you two need to stop using your surnames! You're supposed to be friends." Lily insisted, grinning whilst Snape just rolled his eyes. Hermione snickered a little, but didn't say anything.

"No interest in cheering for your dunderhead friends, Prewett?" Snape inquired, accepting the pumpkin juice that Lily produced out of nowhere.

"I cheered enough for them yesterday, I think." Hermione said, laying back on the grass, and watching small white clouds glide slowly across the pale blue sky. "I'm not enough of a Quidditch fan to keep going back." She let out a small laugh.

Snape snorted slightly, "Your friend Black was going on and on about getting his older brother this morning in the common room."

"Regulus was?" Hermione asked, alarmed. She sat bolt upright. "What was he saying?" She demanded.

Snape eyed her a brief moment, and then rolled his eyes, "Gryffindors." He muttered under his breath derisively.

"Snape!" Hermione barked, frowning.

"I wouldn't know, Prewett. I wasn't listening."

Hermione's frown got deeper, and she stared off into nothing for a moment, "What if he does something?" She muttered to herself.

"Hermione, I'm sure it'll be fine." Lily soothed, "Black and his brother have a rivalry, sure, but almost all the Professors are there. They won't do anything stupid."

Hermione snorted a little, but relaxed back down to the grass, knowing Lily was right. "Those boys are going to be the death of me." She grumbled. She could almost feel Snape rolling his eyes, but he blessedly didn't say anything.

The trio whiled away the day together on the grass in the full blaze of the early May sunshine. It felt unseasonably hot for this time of year this far north in Scotland, but Hermione wasn't complaining, it felt nice to finally escape the rain and cold that plagued the highlands. Though Lily had dragged Hermione away from studying, and they did indeed waste a few hours just talking about nothing and ignoring schoolwork, eventually both Snape and Hermione insisted that they do some kind of homework or revision. Lily sighed and agreed on the condition that they could stay outside and do it.

Hermione and Snape had their heads bowed close together over her potions textbook going over the material for their upcoming exam, and Lily was practising some complex charm, when there was a shout near them, and they all glanced up to see the Marauders sauntering over to them. Snape sneered and Lily sighed aggravatedly. Hermione just watched her friends shrewdly.

"Kitten!" Sirius shouted from much too far away, catching the attention of a lot of students. Hermione winced, hating the nickname, and certainly not wanting half the school to hear it. She'd never bothered correcting him on it though, knowing it would just encourage him to use it more.

"He's an imbecile." Snape sneered, watching Sirius with undisguised disgust.

Hermione just sighed, knowing there was nothing, and never would be anything, that she could do about the two's antagonistic hatred-ship. "He's not that bad." Both Lily and Snape sent her disbelieving looks and she sighed again and rolled her eyes. Now wasn't the time to get in an argument about Sirius Black and his virtues and flaws.

"Kitten!" Sirius called again, much closer now, "You didn't come see our amazing win against the slimy snakes." Sirius sent Snape a look at that, sneered, and then proceeded to ignore him.

Hermione shook her head, and wrinkled her nose, "You know how I feel about Quidditch." She pointed out. She noticed the glare James was levelling at Snape out of the corner of her eye and huffed.

"But you couldn't even come watch your favourite people play?" Sirius pouted.

Snape snorted derisively, and Lily resolutely ignored the Marauders, going back to her charms work. James, curiously, didn't seem to notice or care that Lily wasn't paying him any attention, all of his attention was focused on glaring at Snape and how close he and Hermione were sitting.

"Oh!" Hermione exclaimed with false surprise, "Was Frank playing today? I didn't know he wanted to play Quidditch." She ignored the wounded noises James and Sirius made at that, and shared an amused look with Remus.

"'Mione. Words hurt!" James exclaimed, holding his hand to his chest dramatically.

"Oh, dear. I'm sure you'll get over it." She said with a straight face, not giving the game up.

Sirius and James made dramatic noises again, and Sirius fell to his knees near Hermione, "My dearest love, whatever have I done to earn such disdain from you." He moaned, pouting at her.

"Oh, for the love of Merlin!" Lily exclaimed, giving up on ignoring the Marauders. "Could you all please bugger off, we were having a lovely time revising together before you came along."

The Marauders turned their pouts on her, but she was even less swayed than Hermione. "You are a cruel mistress, Evans." Sirius complained, but got up off his knees. The Marauders left the trio to it when Lily pointedly shooed them away again. Though they didn't leave without glares thrown over their shoulders for Snape.

They thought they'd gotten away with not having too much trouble from them, when there was a sudden shout of something, and the Marauders were running away laughing with each other. Hermione looked down at herself, and didn't notice anything changed, so thought they'd missed until Lily let out a horrified gasp, "Oh no, Sev!" Hermione looked up and her eyes widened.

Said boy was suddenly sans hair, a look which actually suited him less than his normally stringy black hair. "I'm going to get those fuckers." He growled under his breath.

Hermione held her breath for a moment to keep from bursting out laughing, and let a little bit of anger for their treatment of Snape wash over her, "Here, Snape, I'll fix it." He sent her a narrow-eyed look, but there wasn't much she could do to make it worse, so he allowed her to reverse the hair removal charm.

He grunted his thanks, and after a moment of scowling in the direction the Marauders had left in, he bowed back over Hermione's potions book. Hermione and Lily shared a look, and bent back to their studies. They would do something to get back at the Marauders.

20th May 1975
6pm
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Gryffindor 4th Year Boys' Dormitory

"Do you like Hermione?"

"Huh?" Sirius glanced up from where he was flicking through the Muggle magazine he'd bought about motorbikes to find James' gaze fixed on him intently. They were the only ones in the dormitory, and had both been quietly getting on with their own thing for the last half an hour - a rare occurrence for the two boisterous Purebloods. "What do you mean, do I like Hermione? Of course I like Hermione, she's one of my closest friends outside of the Marauders."

James sighed, and sat up earnestly, leaning towards Sirius across the gap between their two beds. "No, I mean do you like Hermione?"

"What? Fancy, you mean?"

"Yes!" James snapped, obviously losing his patience a little with Sirius. Sirius was silent for a brief moment, trying desperately to not let his body respond to the thoughts of his birthday spent alone with her in the dormitory. "Padfoot!" James exclaimed, drawing Sirius from his lecherous thoughts.

Sirius shook his head slightly to rid himself of those thoughts. As fucking amazing as that night had been, neither of them fancied each other for anything more than that, and they'd agreed they were better as friends. Sirius had had quite a few amazing nights since then with various girls around the school, not that any of his mates were really aware of it. "No, Prongs. I don't like her like that. She's a great friend, but nothing more."

James narrowed his eyes at Sirius, and Sirius wondered where the hell this was coming from, "You're always flirting with her, though." James complained.

"Mate, I flirt with everyone. What in Merlin's name is this about?" James grumbled a little, and avoided Sirius' gaze. "Prongs? Do you fancy Hermione?" James flinched a little, but turned back to look at Sirius and nodded after a brief moment of contemplation. Sirius' eyes widened, and he realised he could definitely now never tell James about their casual sex. "You fancy 'Mione?"

"Yea." James admitted.

"Mate. How long?"

James winced a little, "I dunno," He muttered, "A couple years?"

"Years!?" Sirius exclaimed, wincing when James flinched, "Shit, sorry Prongs. Just shocked." Sirius took a moment to think, and the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. There'd been quite a few moments over their Hogwarts years that only made sense with this context. "Wait. Is that the reason you hated Diggory so much? Even before he turned into a complete knob?"

James scrunched his nose, "Yea, that guy was an arse."

"Fuck, Prongs. I had no idea."

"No one did." James admitted, picking at a scab on his knee from Quidditch.

"Really?" Sirius asked, not sure why he was surprised.

"Yea, course. You're my best mate. I told you first." James paused for a moment, "Though to be fair I think Remus may've figured it out." They both sat in an unusual silence for a while - it would've shocked any person in the castle to see the rambunctious Gryffindors being quiet for so long. "You're not gonna tell anyone?" James asked finally.

Sirius scowled at James, and chucked a pillow at him, "Who do you think I am, Prongs? 'Course I'm not gonna tell anyone."

James laughed a little and threw the pillow straight back at Sirius, hitting him with pin-point accuracy. Sirius barked a laugh and within minutes they'd devolved into a vicious pillow fight. Sirius transformed one of the pillows into a snowball and pinged it straight at James' face. The Potter heir ducked though, and when the door opened Remus got hit straight in the face with the snowball.

"What the fuck!?" Remus shouted, to a chorus of laughter from his friends. The night devolved from there until one of the sixth year prefects angrily banged on the door to tell them to shut up.

A/N: I have posted the information for where everything is on the Marauders map to the appendices.