CHAPTER TWELVE
The Marauders of the Round Coffee Table
"Are we sure about this?" Michael asked nervously.
Whenever he had asked that question over the last month, Harry had felt annoyed. They had all agreed to take the risk, so why continue to question it? But now he felt that his friend had a point. The Marauders were asking too much of them this time. This latest task was markedly different from the others, and it required them to risk expulsion with no guarantee that they would get what they desired. However, Harry felt that they had come too far to stop now.
"We just need to be careful." Harry said calmly, hoping his would soothe Michael's fears as well as his own. "Besides, I'll be the one taking the actual risk."
Michael's eyebrows scrunched together, clearly displeased, so Anthony quickly stepped in. "It'll just be like everything else we've done." He said confidently. "Completely reversible."
Michael let out a long breath from his nose and nodded. "Alright then. Which teacher do we go after?" Terry slumped. While he hadn't said anything, Harry knew that he had been hoping Michael would be able to talk Harry and Anthony out of it.
Harry only knew of one teacher who they could attack that would leave him feeling guilt free. "Professor Slughorn." The others stared at him, still unaware of the Potion Master's dark society. "If he catches me, he'll be a good sport about it. He wouldn't want to burn any bridges with the Boy Who Lived, now would he?" With shrugs and nods, the others accepted his reasoning, and the four began to plan their latest endeavour.
It had been like this for almost a month. The end of February and most of March had been spent planning and researching, all in the service of solving the clues the Marauders had left for them.
The first bit of correspondence they received since the initial notes had been left in their dorms arrived while they were eating breakfast on Leap Day, as a non-descript owl had dropped a letter between the four boys and took off. On the front, it was addressed:
Henry, Anthony, Trevor, and Michael
"Trevor?" Terry looked baffled. "Only gran calls me Trevor."
"I don't think your grandmother would be writing to all four of us." Harry poked the letter with his wand, while Anthony leaned forward in order to block his actions from the teacher's table.
"Yeah, she should only be writing to me!" Michael exclaimed.
"What?" Terry asked.
Michael sighed. "We didn't want you to find out this." Terry caught on to what he was suggesting and swore at him. "Now is that anyway to talk to your new grandfather?" Michael snickered, right until Terry elbowed him hard in the side.
Harry sighed, shaking his head in frustration. "Just like last time. None of my detection spells work."
"Maybe because they haven't put any spells on it." Anthony shrugged.
"What are you two talking about?" Michael asked through a groan. He was still rubbing his ribs where Terry had got him.
"The Marauders." Anthony said lowly.
Terry, who had been still scowling at Michael, now snapped his head in their direction. "How do you even know it's from them?"
Harry began to open the letter. "Same handwriting as last time."
"How can you recognise their handwriting?"
"How can you not?" Harry asked, as he read the letter. "We only got the last one a couple of days ago." Before either one of them could respond, he hastily passed the letter to Anthony as he went over what he had just read:
Complete a quest for the guardian of the lion's den.
"We're doing it right?" Terry was almost bouncing in his seat he was so excited. He wasn't the only one. They were all interested, albeit to varying degrees.
"Later." Harry stood, gathering his things. "After classes." Terry groaned but acquiesced.
That afternoon, after classes but before dinner, Harry showed his friends the way to the Gryffindor Tower. Perhaps The Marauders had expected them to struggle in finding the tower, but Harry had already found it during their campaign against the Gryffindor Quidditch team.
"The guardian of the lion's den is probably the painting." Harry said this while hiding with his friends in the nearest classroom to the Gryffindor common room. "I'll go under my Cloak and find out what this quest is supposed to be."
Michael sighed. "I wish the Cloak worked for us." Harry shrugged, although he was secretly pleased by this. For some reason, the Invisibility Cloak only revealed its true nature when Harry wore it. When he had given if to his friends so they could try (Terry was only allowed to do so in a locked dormitory with Anthony present) it remained a beautiful but unremarkable cloak.
Ducking out of the classroom, he made his way to the portrait of a fat lady in a pink silk dress. Waiting until a few First Years made their way inside, Harry lowered his hood, making the Fat Lady jump.
She was quick to tell him off. "Don't just pop out of nowhere like that!" Harry nodded, even as he wondered why someone would enchant the guardian of the House of the Brave to be so jumpy.
"Sorry. I'm here to complete a quest for the guardian of the lion's den." The Fat Lady's eyes widened in realisation.
"Oh, that's for you, is it?" She asked, but before she could explain, her portrait began to move forward. Harry quickly threw his hood back up, just as a pair of girls walked out chatting. Waiting until they had disappeared around the corner, the Fat Lady began to speak again.
A few minutes later, Harry re-entered the classroom in a confused state, and made himself visible once more. The moment he did so, his friends jumped up and started pestering him with questions.
Anthony went first. "Well? What did they want? Is it dangerous?"
"Did you see them? The Marauders?" Terry looked jealous at the possibility.
Michael got right to the point. "What's the quest?"
Harry shook his head, replying in the negative to all the questions but the last. When he relayed what the Fat Lady had asked of him, they all looked as confused as he did.
"I mean, I just don't get it. What was the point?" Anthony asked, as the four trudged their way back to Ravenclaw tower after completing the quest.
Michael shook his head. "I don't know. This might just be their brand of humour."
Terry smiled. "It was a nice thing to do, don't you think? The Fat Lady looked so happy."
Michael rolled his eyes. "She's just a painting, Terry. Who cares if she's happy?"
"I do!"
Harry remained silent. He had kept his eyes open for anything out of the ordinary while they completed the quest. Perhaps it was an ambush by Myrose or another child of Death Eaters? Or maybe someone just wanted to get them in trouble as they removed the Confundus Charm from a painting of a witch named Violet so that she and the Fat Lady could go out drinking tonight as they had planned.
Neither of those things came true. Harry had removed the spell and followed Violet back to Gryffindor Tower, where she thanked him for his help. Harry had waited, but when no new information presented itself, he left to re-join his friends.
It was only when they reached their dormitory landing, did Harry finally speak. "I haven't got a clue what they're planning, but we have to follow their instructions for now."
Michael, who was the most upset about wasting time he could have spent practising for the Quidditch Finals, said what they were all thinking. "Why? This whole thing is just a joke on us."
Harry nodded. "You're probably right about that," he admitted, "but these aren't just any old troublemakers. They managed to get in and out of our dorms without anyone noticing. So, they either have a Cloak like mine, or-"
"They're a teacher or a Prefect." Anthony finished for him.
Terry looked unusually daunted at this idea. "So, if we ignore them, they'll make life difficult for us?"
In contrast to Terry's fear, Michael looked enraged by this. "So what? We have the letters they sent! We'll just give it to Robert. He'll sort it out."
Harry shrugged helplessly. "The letters aren't signed by anyone, and they have no magic that can be traced and they have no threats in written form."
Anthony raised an eyebrow. "In written form?"
"Do you really think leaving a letter on each of our pillows, where we sleep, was just a coincidence? Today they sent us a letter by owl, so why not do that the first time?"
"You really think it was a threat?" Anthony looked doubtful.
Harry nodded. "It's like saying "Look at where I can reach you" all without uttering a single word." He knew it needed to be said but seeing the now alarmed expressions on his friend's faces, Harry wished he had never said a word.
The next day, at breakfast, another letter arrived with another task. As did the next day, and the day after that. Some days the tasks were mundane and repetitive such as stealing and then restoring missing paintings and suits of armour without the faculty even noticing they were gone. Other days, they were much too dangerous, such as the afternoon they were tasked with distracting Peeves. Being chased by a Poltergeist was no fun at the best of times, but some idiot had seen fit to give Peeves an enchanted fire hose, so the boys had ended up being told off for antagonising the demented jester by McGonagall while they were dripping wet.
Considering how often they were being tasked with distracting teachers or placing mysterious packages in specific places at certain times, it was obvious that they were being tasked to do the grunt work of The Marauders' mischief making.
It got to the point where the tasks were too numerous for them all to do together, so they began to split up the labour according to interests, abilities and who was even available.
"Who wants to "challenge the guardian of our true north""? Harry asked the group at large, going through the growing pile of Marauder quests.
"I'll do it!" Anthony said eagerly. Harry and Michael stared at him, while Terry rolled his eyes. "What? Joan used to read us the Tales of Sir Cadogan growing up." Harry was still staring, and Michael started to laugh.
"The "true north of Arthur's round table." Anthony elaborated. "You haven't heard of him?" Behind his back, Terry looked embarrassed on his behalf, which only seemed to make Michael laugh harder.
"That's a fairytale!" Anthony scrunched up his face, looking as though he were about to argue that statement, but Harry cut him off as he felt a headache beginning to form.
"Just take it." He sighed, thrusting the written quest and The Essential Guide to Hogwarts Portraiture into Anthony's eager hands.
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It was a good thing that they had begun to divvy the tasks amongst one another, as things were really starting to heat up amongst the Silver Spears. Duels after Slughorn's lessons were over had become common place, and it took all of Harry's cowardly skill to worm his way out of fighting, while still remaining close enough to observe.
He knew he had made the right choice when, on evening in the middle of March, someone challenged Robert across the hall. From the challenger's Scottish accent and muscular build, Harry suspected he knew who it was, and when a rumour went around school the next day of both Oliver Wood and Robert Hillard being in the Hospital Wing for duelling, Harry knew he had been right about both of them.
The duel itself had been a brutal one and no one, not even Slughorn, had stepped in when things began to get bloody. The Potions Master only brought the duel to an end when he seemed to remember that classes were tomorrow, and their injuries could not be explained away. Looking down at the two of them made Harry feel glad he hadn't stepped into the duelling circle.
"You should have seen it! It was awful. Blood was actually pooling on the ground, and I saw their bones sticking out." Harry paused his rant, as he remembered the awful sight. "I knew bones were white when cleaned, but I didn't expect it when it was sticking out of muscle and skin."
Quirrell was listening patiently, having paused his marking when Harry had entered his office. He spoke now, sounding concerned. "Are you alright?"
Harry frowned. "Weren't you listening? I said I haven't been taking part in the duels at all."
"I didn't mean your physical wellbeing." Quirrell sounded exasperated with him. "I can see with my own eyes that your uninjured."
"Then what did you-"
"How do you feel?" Quirrell asked, cutting him off. "It can't haven been very pleasant for you, witnessing that happen to a friend."
Harry froze for a moment, before turning to Quirrell with a scowl. "I didn't say either of them were my friends." He said coldly.
Quirrell looked a little amused. "I can't help what I see." He claimed. "You normally have such a firm grasp over your emotions, but you were broadcasting your anxiety so loudly that I would be remiss if I didn't check to see if you were alright."
Harry continued his pacing, now annoyed. Occlumency was impossible to learn by oneself, he had tried, but it required a trusted teacher to have intimate access to their students' thoughts, memories and emotions and Harry trusted no one to such a degree. He had been forced to carefully dodge Quirrell's offers on teaching him not wanting to alienate his mentor with his mistrust.
"I was worried at first, but Robert's alright, so I am too." He said, trying to get back to their original topic. "The high I had after the fight with the Hag is starting to wear off though." He felt awkward admitting that, feeling like an adrenaline junkie, but it needed to be said. "When I see the other Spears go at each other with Dark Magic, it makes my stomach turn."
"You're still thinking-"
"Like a Muggle, I know." Harry finished for him, unable to hide the frustration in his voice. "But just because we're harder to injure, and we can heal our wounds faster, doesn't mean we can't feel as much pain as they do in the moment." Robert had screamed when his arm had been broken, an awful, wretched sound, and Harry had been unable to get it out of his mind since.
"Do you know why Aurors are allowed to use Dark Magic?" Harry, frowning at the non sequitur, shook his head, and Quirrell proceeded to explain. "It's because they're fighting a losing war."
Harry furrowed his brow. "What do you mean?"
"We are fighting against a never-ending war for our survival. Against Muggles, Creatures and Beasts." Harry thought this sounded a little dramatic and he did not shy away from saying as much.
"That's a little dramatic." He said, bluntly.
Quirrell ignored him. "Every day, more and more Dark Beasts cross over the Hollow, all the way from Bedlam. They're attracted by the growing population, you see. It's a siren's song that calls out to them from across entire worlds, the lure of billions of untainted spirits, the emotions, the flesh and the very souls of human life. They hunger for it all."
"Muggles grow in their numbers, far more rapidly than we do. Instead of trying curb their growth, and reduce the Beast incursion, the Magister and his predecessors have seen fit to protect them as fiercely as if they were citizens of the Confederacy."
"It's only fair, isn't it? Because of us, because of the Veil, Muggles can't even see what's hunting them." Harry thought back to the Hogsmeade Incident. "If a Muggle child gets kidnapped by a Hag, they need the Aurors to save them."
Quirrell nodded. "Which is why many, even many Aurors, call for the end of the Veil. They feel as though Muggles have a right to protect themselves, and we should focus on doing the same."
"That's a horrible idea!"
"Really? You were raised amongst them. You should know that they are no longer as hateful towards witchcraft as they once were."
"Only because they aren't aware it's even real!" Harry thought back on the Dursleys, how they hated him for being born different, even when he had been blissfully ignorant. He thought about Sara, who had reacted with fear when she saw what he was capable of. "The system we have in place isn't perfect, but it works. It's worked for centuries."
"For centuries, yes!" Quirrell slapped his desk triumphantly, as though Harry had said something that supported his argument. "Magister Hoca created our current system in the fourteenth century! It worked for his time, but that does not mean it should continue forever, does it?"
Harry was rocked by this, enough to stop his pacing. He heard nothing but high praises for Magisters Akingbade, Dumbledore, and all of their predecessors, and Hoca was a step above all. Aside from Thoth, no wizard was given higher praise than the First Magister.
He finally sat at the chair in front of Quirrell's desk. "Wizards can live almost twice as long as Muggles." He said, too surprised to come up with a stronger rebuttal. "I just assumed it took longer for large scale changes to occur."
Quirrell smiled slightly and did Harry the decency of ignoring his weak argument. "I'm not in any way saying that Lord Hoca was a poor leader. In fact, just the opposite." A curious expression came across his face now, and it was only when he continued speaking that Harry could identify it as respect. "A penniless, uneducated Muggle-born who started from an orphanage, and with nothing but a loyal older brother, he united all the witches and wizards in the world under his rule."
While Harry had never seen him speak with such reverence before, he wasn't surprised by the story that had caused it. He too had been awestruck by Hoca's ascension when he had first read about it. "Did you know he changed his name?" Harry shook his head. "When Hoca was a little older than you are now, he and his brother learned what they really were, and made their way to Hogwarts to be educated." Harry knew that he had attended Hogwarts but had never found out why.
"Lord Hoca was born in the Ottoman Empire." Harry remembered. "Why not go to a nearer school?"
"Most schools aren't eager to advertise their less than inclusive histories. Hogwarts was the only established school at the time that made a point to accept Muggle-borns and treated them as well as Purebloods. Probably because they were founded in part by two Muggle-borns." Quirrell shrugged, before continuing. "That was where Hoca's legend truly began. He saw an injustice in the world, and saw to fix it, no matter what lines he had to cross."
"What do you mean?"
Quirrell deliberated for a moment, before standing and making his way to his shelves. He drew out a thin book before making his way back and handing it to Harry. The book was essentially a few dozen pages of parchment bound loosely by fragile leather covering. It was so old that the letterings on the front had longs since peeled away. "Feel free to read that in your own time. You'll want some semblance of proof of what I'm about to tell you."
Harry stared at him. "What is it?"
"An account of Hoca's true nature." Before Harry could ask exactly what he meant, Quirrell continued. "Not long after the First Great Wizarding War had ended, all established schools and newly made Citadels were forced to accept Muggle-born students among their ranks and provide them with both safety and a fair education."
None of this was unfamiliar to Harry. "That doesn't sound so bad."
Quirrell raised his hand. "I'm getting to it. With varying degrees of reluctance, all schools complied, except one. Durmstrang." He sighed. "They had a reputation for being unusually harsh with their students, even by the standards of the time, but they had only gotten worse under the headmaster of the day, Erik Backe. He defied the new Confederacy and refused to accept Muggle-borns as students. Worse, he had used the secrets Hoca had shared, the enchantments placed upon the Book of Admittance and the Quill of Acceptance, to find Muggle-born children and use them as servants to clean and maintain the school's stronghold."
Harry hissed before asking, "What did Hoca do?"
"What could he do? The Confederacy was still new and was only held together by the feelings his power inspired, loyalty for his followers and fear for his dissenters. If one sorcerer defied him, what was to stop another?"
Harry frowned. "Azkaban prison hadn't been founded yet, so where did he put him?"
"Put him?" Quirrell laughed humourlessly. "He didn't put him anywhere. When he learned what Backe was doing, he Apparated to the school, walked right through its defences with one of his War Trophies and executed Headmaster Backe in front of the entire school."
"What?!"
"Is that so hard for you to believe? He let the message get out at the time, allowed the students to go home to their parents and tell them what he had done. This is what happens to those who break my laws."
Harry was enraptured by the story Quirrell was spinning, but he thought it was just that. A story. "Why have I never read anything about this before?"
"Because Lord Hoca won the war. Haven't you heard? History is written by the victors."
Harry remained silent for a moment, before dragging them back to their original argument. "Even if Hoca was a cold-blooded killer, even if the Confederacy was built on a foundation of bodies, that doesn't mean the world he had built was a bad one. It works."
"I know it works, and I'm not saying it's foundations are either right or wrong. I'm saying that it could be better."
"How? By letting Muggles know about the Dark Beasts that are coming for them?"
Quirrell shrugged. "That could be a solution. A solution. There can be more than one right path to take. One theory suggests that Mana originates from Bedlam, the Infernal Realm. Perhaps the way forward is to stop using magic all together."
Harry had spent a lot of time quizzing Professor Archibald on the origins of Mana and was not impressed by this theory. "Another theory claims Mana comes from Halcyon, the Celestial Realm, but I don't see any evidence of that either."
Quirrell smiled thinly. "What I'm trying to say, is that we might need an out of the box solution to this issue. After all, Hoca was considered mad when he began his campaign. Uniting the sorcerers of one nation was considered a stretch, but the entire world?" He shook his head. "If he had lost the war, he would have been remembered as a mudblood with delusions of grandeur, or even a Dark Sage. But he won, so we, centuries later, revere him as the visionary who united us and changed our world."
It took a few moments for Harry to speak. "Do you really think Lord Hoca using Dark Magic, killing a man in cold blood, is justified because of the world he built afterward?"
Quirrell raised a brow. "Weren't you arguing the very same a minute ago?"
Harry shrugged, unabashed. "Only because I hate to lose."
Quirrell shook his head, a rueful smile playing across his lips. "I don't expect you to have to do anything nearly as serious, of course." He said, still smiling. "If Slughorn asks you to do anything that would leave permanent damage on you or another student, I want you to leave immediately and come and find me."
"Anything that would leave permanent damage." Harry repeated quietly. "So, anything aside from that is fair game?"
Quirrell nodded. "It's not as though such damage doesn't occur during school sponsored duels, or even in your future career." Harry sucked in a sharp breath, and Quirrell grinned. "I didn't even need Legilimency for that one."
"Then how'd you know?" Harry had not shared his aspirations with a single soul.
"I saw a peek of The Auror's Enchiridion sticking out of your bag once or twice. I've known actual Auror Initiates who haven't bothered reading that thing."
Harry shrugged, trying to be as nonchalant as possible. "It's interesting." In reality, Harry had read it back to front, all the way from the Three Auror Prohibitions, the Corps ranking system, to the on-duty dress code and even the correct way to send off a fallen comrade. It made for dry reading, but it kept him focused on his ultimate goal and somehow, Quirrell was able to guess that as well.
"You know, every child wishes the same at one time or another. After all, who wouldn't want to be a Dark Wizard Hunter?"
Harry didn't like the idea that his goal was reduced to a juvenile daydream. "I'm dead serious about this. I will become an Auror." He swore, expressing his goal for the first time.
This only seemed to please Quirrell, who proceeded to give him career advice. "It's good you're training so hard now, because the Auror Corps only take the best from the W.O.M.B.A.T results. If you manage to get a grip on your distaste for the Dark Arts, you'll be guaranteed a spot, I'm certain of it."
"Really?" Harry asked. "You're not just saying that?"
Quirrell laughed, catching him off guard. "I think you could give some current Cadets a run for their money. Believe me, you have nothing to worry about on that front."
Harry smiled at that as he imagined himself, less than two years from now, wearing the black and silver uniform of an Auror, cloak around his shoulders, as he took his oath. It was such a lovely image, that it managed to stay lodged in his mind, chasing the remnants of Robert's scream. Even the next morning, he kept zoning out, at least until Argos bit his finger at breakfast.
"Ow!" Harry sharply yanked his hand off the table, glaring at his owl. "What was that for?" He snapped, drawing his wand.
"Whoa! Easy, easy!" Michael practically dived in front of Argos as Anthony and Terry made to restrain Harry's arms.
Harry struggled against them. "What are you idiots doing?"
"He's just delivering a letter!" Anthony said, desperately.
Terry sounded just as panicked. "Yeah! There's no reason to hurt him!"
"What?! I'm not going to hurt him! I'm going to heal my finger!" Harry continued struggling until they released him, slowly. "Honestly, what do you gits think of me?"
Anthony shrugged, sounding abysmally out of breath. "Well, we all know from experience how detrimental it can be to disturb you when your lost in thought."
"Detrimental, deadly, same difference." Terry muttered.
"Episkey!" Harry carefully watched the small bite heal itself, before responding to that. "I really don't appreciate it when you guys exaggerate like this."
Michael snorted. "Exaggerate? You spilled ink all over my Arithmancy essay the last time I interrupted you. I had to start all over!"
Harry rolled his eyes as he opened his letter. "I spilled the ink when I jumped, and I only jumped because you startled me. So really, all that extra work was your own fault." Harry ignored his grumbling as he read the letter.
Harry,
After your lessons are over, come round my place. I've got something I need to show you.
Hagrid
"That's weird." Harry muttered.
"What is?" Anthony asked. Harry handed him the letter, and after he read it, he said, "We all can't go. Someone needs to solve that Road to Happiness clue The Marauders gave us."
"Forget about them." Terry groaned. "Those clues are never ending. They're just having a laugh at our expense."
Anthony retorted, quickly beginning another argument between the brothers. Normally, when they fought, he would exchange amused but exasperated expressions with Michael at their repetitive behaviour, but Michael was just as unenthusiastic as Terry. McGonagall was cracking down hard after the last Quidditch game, seemingly annoyed that no leads towards the Blood-Lust Potion brewer had presented itself, and Michael was afraid a detention happy Transfiguration Professor would ruin the end of his first Quidditch season if she caught them out of bounds and acting suspiciously.
Harry couldn't blame him. "One day off can't hurt, Anthony." Terry looked triumphant now that it was three against one, while Anthony slumped. "Besides," he continued before Terry could start bragging and ruin the delicate balance he was striking, "Hagrid's note sounds serious. He might need us all there." He couldn't imagine a reason why that might be true, but Anthony's weakness was how much he worried about his friends.
"Oh, alright then." He sighed, defeated. Terry actually cheered.
Hagrid greeted them, not with his usual cheer, but with a secretive air. After he had ushered them inside of his home, he stuck his head out of the doorway and looked around, as though he were afraid that they might have been followed.
"Are you alright, Hagrid?" Harry asked, as they were led further into the house.
"Yeah, of course. It's just-" Harry didn't hear what he said next. None of them did, as they were too busy reacting to the rapid change in temperature as they stepped into the sitting room. It was as if they had entered a furnace, the hearth, which always had a small fire merrily crackling away, had now been enlarged, turning it into a massive roaring fire.
"Why's it so hot in here?" Terry asked, his voice raised to be heard over the roar.
Anthony looked incredulous. "That's your only concern?" He looked up at Hagrid. "Is that safe to have indoors?"
Hagrid nodded, as he hurried to the hooks on the wall. He put on oven mitts and a thick, heavy apron as he responded. "I put up all the protective charms, don't you worry." He picked up a heavy pair of tongs and moved to adjust a particularly large piece of wood that was on the fire.
"But why do you even need this in the first place?" Michael glanced out of the fogged-up window. "It's not even that cold anymore."
Hagrid glanced back at them, catching Harry's eye. "That's what I wanted to show you. Don't you recognise this?" He gestured to the wood he had been rotating.
Harry moved closer, feeling the intensity of the flames against his face. It was only through squinted eyes that he finally saw that the unusually large piece of wood was an odd egg shape.
"Oh." Harry said, weakly.
"Yes, oh." Hagrid agreed. "You know I don't want you to get into trouble, Harry, but I need to know where you bought it."
Harry raised his hands. "I didn't actually buy it, I found it." Hagrid looked disbelieving, so Harry hurried to explain. "I was walking down this corridor, thinking about what I should get you, and then this door appeared, and it was sitting right there..." Harry trailed off as he realised how ridiculous it sounded. "I know it's hard to believe, but-"
"Was it a room somewhere high up in the castle? Did it have a lot of lost items?" Hagrid asked, looking thoughtful.
Harry was surprised. "Yeah. How'd you know?"
Hagrid smiled down at the egg. "I thought I recognised you. It's fine. I believe you." He waved him off. "Stranger things have happened at Hogwarts."
"I'm completely lost." Terry said, still lingering near the door along with the others. "What's happened? What did you find?"
Harry moved back to the door, where the heat was less intense, and he had an easier time breathing. Once there, he proceeded to explain about the Christmas gift he had given Hagrid. His friends were all interested in the strange tale, but for different reasons.
"You just found a Dragon egg, and decided to give it out as a gift?" Terry was laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world. "That's so illegal!"
"In my defence, I thought it was only a replica." Harry admitted. "I mean seriously, who just leaves a Dragon egg lying around a ...school..." He glanced back at Hagrid for a moment before sighing.
"You said the room appeared out of nowhere, with exactly what you were looking for?" Harry nodded and Anthony looked intrigued.
"There's a whole room full of lost stuff in Hogwarts? Things like Dragon eggs?" Michael seemed unusually interested in the idea.
"Yeah, and I think I saw some Quidditch stuff, but not anything safe."
Michael shook his head, for the first time since Harry had met him, completely ignoring something to do with his favourite sport. "If even half the stuff is as valuable as that egg, we're gonna be rich!"
Harry raised his eyebrows. "I haven't been able to find that room since, you know."
Michael was unconcerned. "You found it by accident the first time around. How hard can it be to find when we all look for it on purpose?" It was hard to argue against that logic.
Anthony had approached Hagrid. "So, what are you going to do with it?"
Hagrid looked confused. "What do you mean? I'm going to raise it of course!"
Harry was anxious now. "People are going to ask where you got a dragon from. What will you tell them?"
Hagrid drew himself up. "I'll tell them I'm a Master of the Beast Guild, and that they should mind their own business!" It was obvious he was talking about them. Harry raised his hands and backed off.
Later, as they made their way back to the castle for dinner, Harry asked what they all had to be thinking. "How much leeway does being a Beast Master give you?"
Anthony shrugged. "When it comes to raising any creatures of magic origin? There's next to no restrictions."
Harry smiled. "That's good."
Anthony continued. "As long as you can show where the creature originated from." He glanced at Harry. "Hagrid doesn't have any documents for the dragon, so..." The rest didn't need to be said.
Harry set his jaw. "I'll figure something out. I still have time before it's even born, don't I?" He looked to the others for confirmation, but all he got were shrugs in return. They knew as much about dragon rearing as he did.
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However, his attention was diverted from his new dragon problem to the latest task from The Marauders. The prank on Slughorn.
Once they had all agreed on their target, the boys proceeded their method of attack. It was more difficult than the last series of pranks on the Gryffindor team, as Slughorn was a Magisterium educated Sorcerer, a Potions Master, so they couldn't expect him to fall prey to the same tricks as a group of teenagers. It was so difficult in fact, that Anthony had to spend days learning an entirely new Runic Complex from an O.W.L textbook, as they couldn't find one among their own that suited their needs.
As always, Harry was the one who took on the most risk. He wasn't unhappy with this either. He had already learned that his friends could be too nervous or too excited at the worst times, and there wasn't a worse time than when they needed to sneak around a teacher's living quarters while they were asleep.
Getting in was rather easy. When it was almost half past eleven, hours after curfew, Terry knocked on Slughorn's door, shadowed by an invisible Harry. After a few moments, the door was opened revealing a purple pyjama wearing Slughorn. At the sight of Terry, he blinked underneath his low sleeping cap.
"Mr. Boot? What are you doing here at this hour?" Slughorn's voice quickly lost its sleepy quality as he grew visibly irritated at being woken by a student, after hours.
Terry thrust out the potions vial he had been carrying. "Could you double check my Shrinking Solution?" Terry asked, skipping all preamble.
Slughorn sighed, clearly trying to rein in his temper when he was dealing with the son of the highest ranked Auror in Britain. "Mr. Boot, it's been a long day. Bring it back to me tomorrow." Terry began to protest, but Slughorn shut the door in his face. It was alright though, as Harry had already slipped inside.
Harry stood silently in the corner of the sitting room, watching as Slughorn locked his door, and went into his bedroom. Mercifully, he didn't decide to read or work before going back to bed. His excuse to Terry didn't actually seem to be an excuse because he really did look drained.
Still, every minute felt like an hour, and Harry had to continually remind himself why he was even doing this. Eventually though, when he heard no sound coming from Slughorn's bedroom, Harry got to work.
"It better have been worth it." Harry said at breakfast, stifling a yawn. "Because it felt pointlessly stupid at the time."
"It'll work, trust me." Anthony promised. "We just have to wait for the perfect time to activate it."
"Now seems as good a time as any." Michael nodded at the teacher's table. Slughorn was conversing with Professor Archibald about something, as he was buttering a slice of toast.
Harry shrugged, and Anthony smiled. "Seqour!" He whispered, as he pointed his wand in Slughorn's vague direction.
Just as he was about to bite into his slice of toast, it slipped from his fingers and struck Archibald right on the nose, smearing him in butter.
There were a few chuckles around, from the students who had just so happened to be looking at the teacher's table at the right moment, and few more seconds later when they told their friends what they had just witnessed.
While Archibald was busy cleaning himself up, Anthony whispered, "Dissimulo!", underneath his breath, just as Slughorn reached for his fork. He was able to pick it up properly, but just when he brought a speared sausage to his mouth, Anthony activated the Runic Complex once more.
Both the fork and the sausage went flying out of his grip and landed right in McGonagall's porridge. Anthony deactivated it while more students were laughing this time, while McGonagall proceeded to berate Slughorn.
"Alright, that's enough for now." Harry said, straight faced amongst his friends. "We can keep it going for longer if it's played intermittently." The others agreed though their snickers.
Things continued in that same vein for a couple of days. They would activate and deactivate the Runic Complex intermittently, so that whatever Slughorn was holding or reaching for would be torn out of his grip. A couple of times they did it in the Great Hall, and others while they were in lessons, just hoping he made a fool of himself while teaching a class that had The Marauders in it.
"This is weird." Harry said, as he poured himself a bowl of cereal. "Every day they sent us something, but now it's been days and no word from them."
"Maybe it's because we did it wrong." Michael glanced up from his eggs to find that they were all staring at him. "Maybe we completed every other task properly, but this is the first time we messed up. Maybe they wanted another teacher."
"Or maybe they're just upset we got caught." Terry looked morose. He obviously hadn't forgotten being Ravenclaw's pariah.
"We did not get caught." Anthony looked annoyed. "We would have known if we had been caught, believe me. He probably just found the Runic Complex on the inside of his Ouroboros."
"So that's it? After almost a month, it's just over?" Harry didn't want to believe that their time had been wasted but it was looking like that was the case. At least it did until they went back to their dorms after classes.
Harry saw it the moment he entered. There, sitting innocently on his pillow, was a letter. Before he could decide whether he was happy that his time hadn't been wasted or annoyed that his privacy had been invaded again, Terry came running in through his still open door, holding an identical letter.
"You got one too then?" Before Harry could stop him, Terry snatched the letter off Harry's pillow, with no concern for any possible traps. Tearing it open, he nodded after giving it a quick scan. "Yup! They're identical!" Anthony and Michael came in now, holding letters of their own.
"Another clue! What do you make of it?" Anthony asked him.
Harry shrugged. "I wouldn't know. Terry hasn't let me read my letter, yet." Looking sheepish, Terry handed him back his letter. The envelope had the words, Quick! Before dinner! and the letter itself read:
Upholstery that holds hope for the impossible and pity for the mad,
The futile melding of graceful art and ungraceful artists.
"For Halcyon's sake, what does that even mean?" Michael huffed. "I thought we were past the pointless tasks, but now they want us to find upholstery, before dinner?"
"We should go now." Harry said, smiling.
"Why do you look so happy about this?" Anthony asked.
"Because I think I'm beginning to understand their intentions. Sort of." Before they could ask, Harry added, "Anyway, I know what they're talking about. We all do."
"See?" Harry had led them to a non-descript spot on the seventh floor. "While The Marauders had us running around the castle, we must have passed this tapestry a hundred times." Harry gestured to the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy and his crazy attempt to teach trolls ballet. "I'm starting to think the entire point was to force us to discover more about the castle."
"Well, that was a part of it." The four boys whirled around to find Marcus leaning against the frame of a large pair of burnished doors that hadn't been there a minute ago. "But we mostly do it because it's fun to watch Initiates run around like headless Hippogriffs." He smiled, a rare friendly smile. "Come in. You've more than earned it." He ducked back inside the room, leaving them alone in the silent corridor.
The four boys looked at each other for a long moment and then, without a word, hurried through the door.
For a room that needed such large doors, the chamber they had followed Marcus into was a small one. The place they had stepped into was a circular hall, like the common room, with squishy seats and tables for studying. It was all perfectly innocent, except for the three open archways that ran along the walls. The first revealing a small library, the second a potions lab, and the third a duelling arena. None of this made any kind of geographical sense as each room had large windows that looked over the lake, even though some were facing opposite directions.
However, that wasn't the first thing that Harry noticed. Waiting for them in the common area, sitting atop of large pillows arranged around a round coffee table, were nine other students and most of them Harry knew quite well.
"Seriously?! It was you guys?" Harry couldn't hide his irritation as he sat on an available pillow. "I came here half expecting a fight!"
Maria raised her eyebrows and spoke up from where she was sitting next to the other Third Year troublemakers around the large, table that took up most of the common room. "Why would you want to fight us?"
"Didn't you hear him? We obviously didn't know it was you lot." Michael was looking equally as annoyed as Harry. He turned to Marcus, who was only just taking his seat. "Is Robert involved with this? Is that how you got in and out of our dorms?"
Marcus shook his head, but before he could speak, Eddie was already taking credit. "Nah, that was me. My dorm is closest to yours."
Anthony blinked. "You're not a Prefect, so how'd you-" He was cut off by one of the present Seventh Years.
"Take a seat." Said Nymphadora Tonks. She sat on a chair, in between Charlie Weasley and Richard Watkins. Even though the table had no clear head, it was obvious that she was in charge.
As the four First Years took the only available seats at the polished mahogany table, Harry took a closer look at everyone present. Marcus, Eddie, Maria, Lee, Fred, George, Charlie, Nymphadora, Richard and Cedric. There isn't a single Prefect present, Harry realised, and he said as much to the room at large.
"Why would we let a Prefect join us?" Fred sounded baffled at Harry's observation. "They stop rule-breaking, they don't take part in it."
"He's wondering how we got in and out of their dorms without a badge." Cedric guessed accurately.
Terry, who had remained uncharacteristically silent until now, perked up at this. "All you need is a Perfect badge?"
Charlie chuckled. "No, that would make life too easy. The way we get in and out of restricted areas is with this." He stood from his seat and walked around the table to the First Years. In his hand he held a neat, but folded, length of vellum. Placing it on the table in front of them, he tapped it with his wand and said, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
Slowly, from the top of the parchment, words written in neat cursive began to appear:
Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs,
Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers,
Are proud to present:
THE MARAUDERS MAP
Lupin's fondness for Latin came in handy once more, as Harry read the neat little inscriptions that were written along the edges of the Map, carefully around the etched minute Runes. To be a Marauder is to be daring. Something about that struck Harry as familiar, but before he could think on it, Michael spoke.
"You broke into our rooms with a bit of parchment?" He didn't sound overly impressed. In fact, he was glaring up at Charlie as though the other boy had personally offended him. Harry wasn't all that surprised as Michael had carried a grudge against all Gryffindors since the brawl after their last match.
Fortunately, Charlie didn't take offence. "Take a closer look." Harry, sat in the middle of his friends, lifted the Map for closer inspection, the others crowding around him as he did so.
It was obvious what was so special about this bit of parchment from the second Harry unfolded it. It lived up to its classification as a navigational tool, as it more than surpassed the measly maps the school provided them with. With each fold came a different level of the school, from the deepest dungeon to the highest of tower, and each contained dozens of carefully drawn secret passageways, far outstripping Harry's previous knowledge of the school.
But that wasn't even what was so remarkable about it.
On every fold there was at least one set of drawn footprints, hundreds in total, and beside each one there was a neatly drawn label with the person's name.
"Is that really Dumbledore?" Harry asked in wonder. There, on the part of the Map that held the representation of the Headmaster's Tower, was a set of footprints with the name Albus Dumbledore floating next to it. He seemed to be pacing in a circle, around a still set of footprints named Severus Snape.
"Is he pacing again?" Richard snorted. "He does that a lot."
Harry's wonder was nothing in comparison to Anthony's, who gently tugged the Map out of his hands. "This is incredible! How did you even make it?"
"We didn't make it." Said Nymphadora, "It was given to us."
Terry, who had been practically salivating at the mere possibilities of the Map, was incredulous. "That's crazy! Who would give this up?"
"You will." Nymphadora said simply. "One day. But today, it's our turn." She indicated herself, Richard and the now seated Charlie.
Michael narrowed his eyes. "I don't follow."
Richard explained. "Each of us, at different times, was nominated by a previous Marauder to join the group. After the stunt you lot pulled at Slughorn's Christmas Party, we had you down to join."
The four boys froze. "What are you talking about?" Harry said calmly. "That wasn't us."
This seemed to set off the younger Marauders, as they all began laughing. "Pull the other one." George gasped. "We saw you four running away before everyone else."
"What do you-?"
A still chuckling Cedric cut Terry off. "On the map. I was at the party, and I asked someone to check."
Harry frowned. "If you were the only one at the party, then how did you-?"
Richard interrupted, looking annoyed that his little speech had been cut off. "As I was saying," he paused to glare at the younger Marauders, "when Seventh Years near graduation, they start looking for replacements." He waved his hand magnanimously at the four assembled First Years, as though he expected them to fall to their knees and exclaim how grateful they were.
They weren't.
Anthony, who had been examining the Map this entire time, spoke up, hotly. "You had us running around the castle for a month as some kind of twisted favour? We thought you were threatening us!"
The Marauders all looked astonished. "Why on earth would you think that?" Nymphadora asked. Anthony looked like he was about to start explaining Harry's theory about pillows and owls, but in retrospect, it all felt a little ridiculous, so he quickly cut him off.
"If the graduating Seventh Years keep replacing themselves with newcomers, then who started the group?" Harry asked, ignoring Anthony's quizzical look. "Who are Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs?"
"None of us know." Charlie shrugged, mercifully ignoring the whole "threatening" thing. "The Marauders go back ages, long before we got here, anyway."
"Those things we asked you to do? It's just a tradition, an initiation process we all had to go through." Marcus explained. "We give you the same clues and jobs that we all got, jobs that take you around the school and the grounds so that you start to learn Hogwarts' secrets for yourself."
"Be grateful no one asked you to sail out onto the lake to find the Giant Squid." Charlie muttered, and Tonks seemed to shudder at the memory.
"Why?" Michael asked.
"In part to weed out those who aren't smart or resourceful enough, or who just don't have the nerve to break a few school rules. But it's mostly done to give you a solid knowledge of the school." Richard told them, looking amused with his year-mates' memories of the squid.
"Why would we need that?" Terry didn't even look up from the Map that Anthony had given to him as he spoke. "I mean, just look at this thing! This holds more knowledge about the school than we can learn on our own."
"But there's only one Marauders Map." Lee informed them. "No one is able to recreate it."
"It shouldn't even exist in the first place." Anthony sounded impressed, but in a jealous sort of way. "No Ingenieur has ever been able to make an accurate map of an Unplottable location. It's why the school provided maps are so basic, they don't even show the grounds."
"Yup." Nymphadora said. "But every few years or so, one or two of us try but it always ends…err-"
"Explosively." Maria finished, running a hand across her brow, grimacing. Harry remembered a brief period in October when she had been without eyebrows. He had been too nervous then to ask why, but it was made obvious to him now.
"So, you picked the four of us to take your place in the group because we've caused a bit of trouble." Harry said, making sure he had things straight. "But what do the Marauders actually do?"
The Marauders exchanged nostalgic smiles, as though remembering a time when they had asked a similar question.