21 February 1976
"Oh, did I mention I found a new passageway out of the castle last week?" James asked, from where he was sprawled lazily across his customary armchair by the common room fireplace. "It's on the fourth floor, behind that huge mirror on the library corridor—"
"Prongs, we found that one together—months ago," Sirius rolled his eyes. "It's in the notebook already, isn't it, Wormy?"
Peter had already pulled his little gray day planner out of his schoolbag and flipped it to the bookmarked page. "Yeah, it's in here," he confirmed, squinting down at his scribbles. "I've got six passages to Hogsmeade written down here—well, seven if you count the Whomping Willow—"
"Which we don't," Remus said firmly. "So, six."
"Oh, come off it, Moony," James snorted. "There's no need to pretend like we don't all use that passageway once a month."
But Remus had stopped listening. The portrait hole had just swung open, admitting Lily Evans, Mary Macdonald, and Honora Griffiths. Lily smiled at Remus, giving him a friendly wave as she passed the four armchairs by the fireplace, but Mary determinedly avoided his eyes. Remus saw her jaw clench slightly.
About a month ago, Remus had finally sat down with Mary and told her they couldn't be together. Mary had, understandably, not taken the conversation well—especially when Remus couldn't exactly explain his reasons. Their relationship had not improved since.
"I—er—heard she's seeing someone else now," James said in a low voice, shooting a furtive, uncertain glance in Remus's direction.
"Who?" Peter asked with interest.
James hesitated. "Some Hufflepuff bloke in our year. I think his name's Cattermole—"
"You mean that nervous wreck of a ginger we saw her with in Hogsmeade last weekend?" Sirius snorted. "Please, it was one date. It hardly means anything—"
"Either way, it doesn't matter. She's free to date as she likes," Remus interrupted quietly. Sighing, he glanced in the direction of the girls' dormitory staircase, up which Lily, Mary, and Honora had just disappeared, presumably to freshen up before dinner. "I just wish there was some way I could avoid running into her. It's hard enough having to see her in classes—"
"Merlin's balls, what kind of Gryffindor are you?" James laughed, eyes gleaming. "She's a girl, not a dragon. She isn't going to set you on fire, you know."
"That's not…I didn't mean—" Remus broke off, embarrassed. "It's complicated—"
"That's it!" Sirius said suddenly, sitting bolt upright in his armchair and looking as though he'd just been struck by lightning.
James, Remus, and Peter all turned to stare at him.
"Er—what's 'it?'" James asked dubiously.
"A way for Moony to avoid Mary," Sirius said, his eyes alight with mischief. "I've got an idea."
"Oh, please don't tell me you're taking Moony's side on this," James groaned. "He's being ridiculous—"
"This doesn't have anything to do with Mary—not really," Sirius shook his head, leaning forward conspiratorially. "I've been thinking about this for a while, ever since we started sneaking out during the full moons, actually—and when Moony mentioned wishing he had a way to avoid her, it clicked."
Remus blinked. "What are you—?"
"A map," Sirius revealed in a hushed, excited voice. "We should make a map of the school—with all of the secret passageways we've found so far—that can tell us the exact location of every single person in the castle at a given time."
Remus gaped at Sirius. "Sirius, that's impossible."
"No, it isn't," Sirius interjected immediately. "I can draw the map, I'm decent with a quill—and a simple Homonculous Charm ought to take care of tracking people—"
"A simple Homonculous Charm?" Remus demanded. "Are you mad? That's N.E.W.T.-level magic—"
"And you're the best in our year at Charms," James put in, grinning hugely. "If anyone could figure it out, it's you." James looked at Sirius, practically floating with glee. "This is a brilliant idea, mate, how long have you been holding onto—?"
"This is never going to happen," Remus said flatly, leaning back in his armchair and crossing his arms. "You both are mad if you think I can master a Homonculous Charm on my own. And for the record, I'm not the best in our year at Charms—Lily is."
"Yeah, but Flitwick loves you," Peter piped up, his round face flushed with excitement. "I'm sure he'd be willing to give you a permission slip for the restricted section, if you asked."
"Of course he would," James nodded confidently. "Come on, Remus—say you'll help."
"It's not an impossible charm, mate," Sirius persisted. "If a dim, old hag like my mother could do it, you definitely can."
"What on Earth did your mum need a Homonculous Charm for?" James asked, raising his eyebrows at Sirius.
"Haven't I ever told you about the Black family tapestry?" Sirius asked darkly. "It keeps track of every single pure-blood even remotely related to us—I'll bet you anything she blasted my face off the moment I left home…"
Remus leaned back in his seat, his mind racing. A Homonculous Charm. It was impossible, ridiculous to even consider…
Remus glanced at Sirius, James, and Peter, who had already put their heads together over a piece of parchment. James was watching, eyebrows furrowed in concentration, as Sirius made broad strokes on the parchment with his quill. Remus wasn't stupid—he knew exactly what James and Sirius would commandeer this map for. Argus Filch was up to his elbows in the Marauders' antics as it was, but this map—it would make them undetectable.
But that wasn't the worst thing in the world, was it? Remus thought to himself. In the hours before a particularly bad full moon, when all Remus wanted was a quiet place to exist in this constantly suffocating castle, this map would provide him with exactly that. Not to mention how much safer it would make his friends' monthly escapades, being able to know exactly who was out and about on the grounds the mornings after. If by some miracle Remus did accomplish the Homonculous Charm, this map would be priceless, truly one-of-a-kind—an heirloom of sorts, the type of artifact passed down from one generation to the next…
Remus had a sudden vision of a much older version of himself on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, tucking the map into his young son's hand while Mary pretended not to notice. Grimacing, he quickly shook the memory away. There was no point dwelling on a future that didn't exist.
Remus looked at his friends one more time. He couldn't imagine any future child of either James or Sirius as the type to crave peace and quiet.
Perhaps Remus would have to be the voice of reason for the next generation, too.
Smiling slightly to himself, Remus shook his head and leaned forward to listen to his friends' discussion.
7 March 1976
James let out a low whistle, his eyes as round as saucers. "Bloody hell—you weren't kidding when you said you could draw, were you?"
Sirius snorted, though he looked pleased with himself. "It's not quite finished yet, it's just a first draft—"
"It's brilliant," Remus said in an awed voice, stepping forward to admire the enormous square-shaped parchment that was spread out across Sirius's bed. It truly was Hogwarts, in its entirety, represented in ink—every detail was spot-on, from the castle's complex network of staircases and bathrooms, to the very shape of the headmaster's seat at the staff table. Blinking rapidly, Remus gaped at Sirius. "Where on Earth did you learn to draw like this, and why is the first we're hearing of it?"
Sirius's smile faded slightly. "All pure-bloods are supposed to be proficient in the fine arts by the time they're eleven," he said stiffly. "At least in my family," he added, with a half-glance at James.
James shrugged. "My mum did put me in a theater class when I was seven, but the instructor begged her to pull me out after the first lesson," he said lightly. "I stuck to Quidditch after that."
Sirius snorted with laughter. Remus gave James an exasperated smile, shaking his head.
"'Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, purveyors of aids to magical mischief-makers, are proud to present the marauder's map,'" Peter read aloud from his perch on Sirius's footboard, his eyes shining. Then, he frowned. "Hang on—isn't the apostrophe in 'marauder's' supposed to be after the 's?' There are four of us."
"Ah, you make a clever observation, sly Wormtail," Sirius said shrewdly, swinging an arm around Peter's neck and ruffling his blond hair. "But believe it or not, that wasn't a mistake." Sirius looked at Remus, eyes twinkling. "Because we are neither the first marauders this castle has seen, nor will we be the last."
An inexplicable thrill of pride chased down Remus's spine. He grinned at Sirius.
19 March 1976
"Did it work?" James nearly toppled out of his bed with excitement as Remus walked into the dormitory, closely tailed by a weary-looking Sirius, who was carrying the Marauder's Map.
"No, it didn't," said Sirius before Remus could answer. "And don't ask Moony what went wrong, or he'll bite your head off."
Remus glowered at Sirius, opening his mouth to retort—before he realized that he was doing exactly what Sirius had just said he would. Clamping his mouth shut, Remus turned to James. "I won't bite your head off," he said stiffly, pulling back his covers and climbing into his bed.
James looked crestfallen. "So the charm still hasn't worked then?"
Remus shook his head.
"What's the problem?" Peter asked from his bed.
Remus released a heavy sigh. "I don't know," he said dully. "I've done everything I'm supposed to—"
"I think you're getting closer," Sirius said, tucking the map into his schoolbag. "Every time you say the incantation, I feel like something's going to happen—"
"But it never does," Remus muttered, burying his head in his pillow.
"Hey," James said, climbing out of his bed and walking over to Remus's. "C'mon, mate, don't be so hard on yourself—like you said, it's N.E.W.T.-level magic."
"Yeah, and think what we're trying to accomplish here," Sirius added encouragingly, walking over to Remus's bed as well, Peter in tow. "This map is so much more complex than my mum's stupid tapestry—we're trying to track every single bloody person on the castle grounds, not just within a family lineage."
Somewhere within the hazy, exhausted depths of Remus's brain, something flickered awake. He raised his head from his pillow, his mind racing. "Say that again," he told Sirius.
"Say—what?" Sirius asked, sounding bewildered. "The bit about my mum's tapestry?"
"Yes, yes, that," Remus said in a rush, sitting bolt upright in bed. "You said it tracks your lineage, right? The people in your family?"
"Er—yes, unfortunately."
Remus's heart was pounding, now. "We've been going about this the wrong way," he said slowly. "We've been trying to figure out how to apply the charm to people, because that's how it's traditionally used, but that's not what we're trying to do, is it? We're not trying to track a specific group of people…"
"We're trying to track people in a specific location," James finished, his eyes wide. "The people on the map would change every year! They could even change within a single day, if someone's visiting the campus—or during the holidays, when students and professors leave."
Sirius let out an excited sound, somewhere between a bark and a growl, clapping Peter's shoulder. "So, we change the way we cast the charm! Instead of applying it to individual people, we've got to apply it to a set of coordinates—so that everyone within those coordinates is tracked, by definition."
Remus frowned. "What do you mean by coordinates?"
Sirius hurried back to his bed and snatched up the map from where he'd left it in his bag. Then, sweeping back over to Remus's bed, he laid the map out on the sheets.
"We learned about this in Muggle Studies last year—remember, James?" Sirius pointed at the many locations that spanned the edges of the grounds on the map—the gates, the the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest, the shores of the Black Lake. "Every location in the entire world has a specific set of geographic coordinates—Muggles use them all the time, in all sorts of fields, but clearly, wizards haven't caught on yet. If we cast the Homonculous Charm several times, at specific places around the boundaries of the grounds, and then find a way to bind all the charms together, we can bind it back to the map, and—that's it. We would be able to track everyone within the grounds."
Peter gazed at Sirius, looking highly impressed. "So…we wouldn't be casting the spell on people at all, would we? We'd be putting the charm on…Hogwarts."
There was a significant pause as all four boys looked at each other.
"Isn't that…illegal?" Remus said finally.
James and Sirius let out identical shouts of laughter, pulling incredulous looks in Remus's direction.
Sirius took on an exaggeratedly posh accent, pretending to twirl a mustache. "Mr. Padfoot begs Mr. Moony to remember that he currently lives in a dormitory with three unregistered Animagi, and believe you me, things cannot and will not get more illegal than that."
"Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Padfoot and would also like to remind Mr. Moony that he is a rogue werewolf, living at Hogwarts in secrecy," James finished in the same pompous manner, giving Remus a flourishing bow. "His furry, little problem is not so little in the real world, now, is it?"
"All right, all right," Remus cut in, though he was grinning; Peter was doubled over with laughter. "We get it. We're not exactly law-abiding citizens. But we've got another problem—casting the Homonculous Charm all around the boundaries of the school is going to take us months—longer than the end of term, even."
"It would take humans months." James grinned, already shrugging his traveling cloak on over his robes. "But a stag, a dog, and a rat? I'd give us three weeks, tops."
16 April 1976
"I'm sweating. Is anyone else sweating?" James asked frantically. He was pacing back and forth in front of Remus, Sirius, and Peter—all of whom were hunched over the Marauder's Map, which was folded open on the rug in the center of the dormitory.
"Why don't you try sitting in one place?" Sirius suggested dryly, without looking up from the map. He was carefully tracing in the one-eyed witch statue on the third floor of the castle with fine dark green ink. "I've generally found that to aid in perspiration prevention."
"You're hilarious," James snapped, curling his hands into fists and glaring at Sirius—but only for a fleeting moment. The next second, he was back to pacing. "Merlin's beard, I think I might be sick…"
"What for?" Remus looked up at James, mildly amused. "You've placed the charms all over the grounds, we've bound them together—this is it. You don't even have to do anything this time."
James whirled around, his expression slightly manic. "Moony, I have to watch. D'you have any idea how nerve-racking that is—?"
"Cool it, Sir Melodrama," Sirius quipped, rolling his eyes, and James let out an indignant splutter. Frowning in concentration, Sirius leaned back, surveying the map intently.
"I think it's ready," Peter whispered, his eyes wide and his expression awed.
"I think you're right," Sirius nodded. He looked up at Remus, grinning. "Which means you're up, mate."
"Oh, Merlin, I can't watch," James groaned, covering his face with his hands.
"Prongs, I can do this," Remus quite wanted to laugh at the expression on James's face. "Really, I think we've managed it this time. We've figured it out."
James looked half-reassured, half-crazed. "Are you sure?" he asked.
"He solemnly swears," Sirius rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Prongs, if you want to see this map become a map, get your arse over here."
James hesitated for a moment, then sighed and walked over to join the group gathered on the rug.
Remus inhaled deeply, drawing his wand. Holding it tightly in his hand, Remus gazed down at the map of the castle before him, taking it in, honing his mind in on every detail, every crevice, every nook and cranny of the edges of the castle grounds. Closing his eyes and releasing his breath, he raised his wand and tapped the parchment. "Homonculo navigatio."
Remus opened his eyes—and his stomach plummeted to his feet. Nothing had happened. He dropped his wand, feeling ill. He could practically feel James's and Sirius's disappointment filling the space, the air was thick with it—
Peter gasped loudly, pointing at the parchment. "Look!" he cried.
Remus nearly stumbled and fell over from the shock—sure enough, tiny little black dots were appearing all over the parchment—inside classrooms, on staircases, on the grounds—each labeled with a name in Sirius's instantly recognizable, calligraphic handwriting. Remus felt his body grow numb as James and Sirius let out strangled shouts of happiness, slapping a resounding high-five. It was implausible, unreal…and yet…sure enough…there was Professor Dumbledore, pacing his office—and Professor McGonagall and Professor Sprout, standing together near the greenhouses—Catherine Deverill and Geoffrey Frobisher, closeted in a broom cupboard on the fifth floor—Severus Snape and Lily Evans, sitting by the Black Lake—Professor Slughorn, chatting with fourth year Ravenclaw Dirk Cresswell in the Charms corridor…
And there, in the fifth year boys' dormitory of Gryffindor Tower, was Remus Lupin, along with Sirius Black, James Potter, and Peter Pettigrew—just inches below the enormous heading that spanned the top of the parchment, blossoming and crisscrossing in great, curly green letters—
Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs
Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers
are proud to present
THE MARAUDER'S MAP
Author's Note:
I hope you all enjoyed this! I wanted to give y'all something lighter after the past few chapters.
Much love,
Ari
