September the Nineteenth was always a date that Harry circled in his diary. Or, at least, he would have, if he kept a diary. Which he didn't. He rather thought that the idea of keeping all his private musings, all his hopes and dreams and desires, written down and in easy access of four other mischievous teenage boys was pretty much the worst idea every dreamed up in the history of silly ideas. There were a thousand gossiping mouths at Hogwarts and, as far as Harry was concerned, that was a thousand perfectly terrifying reasons not to keep a diary in the first place.

But despite this, Harry had still grown to have a special place in heart for this date every year. The reason for this, of course, was that it was his best friend's birthday today. Hermione Granger had turned fourteen and Harry was determined to celebrate the occasion with her ... or, in this case, without her, on account of the fact that she was currently residing in a different universe to Harry altogether.

The question for him was, where was the best place to hold this party-for-one? In a sickly sweet part of Harry's mind, he had half an idea to sneak out of Hogwarts and catch a boat to the most Northerly point of the world that he could reach. He remembered a story that Lyra had told him about her and her friend, Will; that when they learned that they had to part from each other forever ... mere days after realising that they were deeply in love with one another ... they made a pact to visit a specific bench in each of their Oxfords, on the same date and time, just so they could pretend to be close to each other again, despite being worlds apart.

Harry had a lot of time for that idea just now. He recognised some of the similarities of Lyra and Will's story in his situation with Hermione ... though still being thick enough to somehow manage to avoid the most glaringly obvious one ... and thought that if he could reach a point geographically similar in this world to where Hermione would be in hers, maybe she would feel him close by.

It was a nice idea, but Harry didn't have the first clue as to where Lake Enara might be relative to a spot in this world, other than to know that it was vaguely at some point North of the city of Oslo. That left a huge expanse of potential locations to choose from and Harry soon gave up that insane plan as a bad job.

But the idea of somehow connecting to Hermione struck a chord, and Harry knew of one place in his world that had once joined directly to her. The link might have been broken now, but maybe there was just enough left to send some good wishes into the ether ... and hope that Dust was kind enough to Harry to deliver them to Hermione on her birthday for him.

So this was how it was that Harry Potter came to be spending the evening of Wednesday the Nineteenth of September deep under Hogwarts, with only his dæmon and pet basilisk for company.

"Happy Birthday, Hermione. Wish I could be with you."

Harry said the words out loud, before blowing out the candle on one of the two vanilla sponge and buttercream cupcakes that he'd brought with him to mark the occasion. He ate one himself and left the other on the ceremonial altar, thinking that maybe the essence of the cake might travel all the way to Papageno ... for he'd once spent time on the altar himself, of course, albeit under the devious hands of Lord Voldemort ... as he was the essence of Hermione, after all. It was the best Harry could think of under the circumstances.

"Do you think they know at all, Chi? Or am I just being a dunderhead down here?" Harry asked, sadly.

"There's a difference, Harry, between knowing and feeling," Marici replied, sagely. "Hermione and Papageno might not know exactly the good thoughts that we are sending them, but I'm sure they will know that we are thinking of them today ... as of course we would be, on their birthday ... and they'll feel it in that way."

"So, in a way, it's the same thing? If you look at it from a certain point of view."

"Yes, I think you could say that. Hermione knows you are thinking of her, and that will make her happy, even if she cant know the exact details because we are so far apart."

That cheered Harry up and, for just a moment, he did feel close to his best friend again, as if she'd just nipped to the loo, rather than hopped into a whole other world.

"Well, I hope you're having a great day, Hermione," Harry said into the air. "Or as good a day as you can have, considering everything. I hope that your parents are getting better and that you'll be planning your return any day now. I hope so, because you have a lot of classes to catch up on ... whereas I have a lot of sleep to catch up on! Not that I mind, honest. Anyway, Happy Birthday!"

And with that, Harry ate the last of the cupcake.

Marici got up as Harry chewed away, and moved to the giant, coiled serpent asleep at Harry's feet.

"You know, I think her eyes are getting better, Harry," Marici observed, looking down at the flickering eye hoods of the basilisk. "The skin is healing nicely."

"That's great!" Harry beamed. "But I think it's safer that we keep her sight away for now. She might hurt me without meaning to. She's just a baby, after all."

"Now that you've eaten, maybe we can leave her food around the Chamber," Marici suggested. "How many rats and mice did we manage to catch after? I forget."

"Twelve, in the end," Harry announced proudly, holding up the bulging, squirming bag of rodent vermin. "You're a much better hunter than me, Chi, I have to say. This is all you."

"I'm a cat, Harry, what do you expect?"

"A very big cat!" Harry grinned at his lioness. "Bit of a close call with Ron though, wasn't it? Good job he came back when he did or we'd have had a major falling out ... and it would have been our fault this time."

"Yes, very close," Marici agreed. "I still say it's his fault, really, for keeping a dirty rat as a pet anyway, as well as not keeping it in a hutch when he's not carrying it around. How were we to know it wasn't just another of Hogwarts' little pests? Anyone could have made that mistake. Besides, it's such a ragged little animal, if you ask me. Patches of his fur are falling out, his whiskers are grey and gnarled and he's missing a toe on his right paw . There's something not right about that rat, I'm telling you ..."

"Not all animals can be as beautiful and well groomed as you, Chi," Harry pacified his dæmon, silkily. "It's odd that you are, really, considering that I'm such a scruffy beggar most of the time!"

"Then smarten yourself up! You're letting our team down!" Marici teased, butting her great head against Harry's shoulder as she liked to do.

"So, where's the best place to release the rats, do you think?" Harry asking, looking around and stupidly hoping to find a 'Deposit Live Basilisk Feed Here' sign or something.

"Well, we don't want to them to escape, do we?" Marici mused. "I mean, she's blind, isn't she? We don't want to make it harder for ... Harry! We haven't given her a name!"

"No, you're right," Harry suddenly realised. "What shall we call her?"

"I don't know. What's a typical basilisk name, anyway?" Marici considered. "Rex, Fido and Mr Flibbles don't exactly seem to hit the mark for me!"

"Mr Flibbles! Can you imagine!" Harry chuckled. "Shall we? For a laugh?"

"No, Harry, let's stay a little less mental," Marici advised, sensibly.

"Spoilsport," Harry smirked. "We could name her Snape or Malfoy ... as they are two of the biggest snakes we ever met before her!"

"I think I'd prefer Mr Flibbles to either of those," Marici huffed. "What about Manasa? She was a Queen of the Serpents, I'm sure we read about that somewhere."

"Manasa? Mana? Hmm, I could get used to that," Harry tried out. "Alright, Chi. We'll go with that. Manasa it is."

"Good choice, Harry," Marici nodded in approval. "So, where shall we release her dinner?"

"Let's make sure it's somewhere with no holes," Harry suggested. "We don't want the little buggers running away, like you said."

So Harry and his dæmon began scouting around the Chamber, making sure that there were no little gaps or cracks anywhere. Harry was just about satisfied when he turned the corner in furthest, darkest recess of the place and found a single hole, only it wasn't a little one ...

... it was huge!

"Wow, look at this, Chi!" Harry exclaimed in a near-whisper. "This gap is nearly twice as big as me! I cant even touch the top!"

Just then, a series of hisses sounded from across the Chamber.

"Manasa says that this was how she got back into the Chamber last year, after that creep Lockhart set her loose through the girl's toilet," Marici explained, acting as serpent translator. "Most of the time he wasn't around to let her back in, so she had to slither through all the pipework and sewers to get back here where it was safe."

Harry ground his jaw angrily at the mention of that odious wizard. "It's a massive tunnel though, isn't it? I wonder where it goes?"

And then Harry was walking along it before he'd even given his feet the order to move. The tunnel was a roughly circular conduit, barely lit at all by the remnants of the green glow from the Chamber behind. Harry had only gone a dozen feet or so before he realised that he'd have a problem if he got lost, which it seemed very easy to do down here ... but then he came up with a rather ingenious solution.

"What are you doing?" Marici asked curiously, as she looked over Harry's shoulder. He had hurried back to his school bag in the Chamber, pulled out a fresh piece of parchment and a quill and started drawing.

"I was thinking about what you said, when we were at the Shrieking Shack," Harry replied, still sketching away. "You remember, about there being tunnels underground everywhere?"

"I remember," Marici agreed. "So why are you drawing a picture of a castle?"

"It's not any castle ... it's this one!" Harry explained in an excited voice. "Let's say this sheet of parchment is the basic floor plan of Hogwarts. Over here to the left we'll draw the Shrieking Shack ... because we are pretty sure that a tunnel runs from there to somewhere, we just haven't found the other exit yet ... and on the very far right corner we'll put Hogsmeade, because I remember Sirius telling me once that he used to sneak out along a secret passage to nick sweets from a shop there."

Harry drew another tunnel motif on his map and marked Hogsmeade with a large 'H'.

"And, we've heard the Weasley twins mention loads of times that there are other secret doors and passageways all over the school, and that's how they manage all their mischief. We'll have to ask them about it, get them to point them out to us ... actually, why didn't they try and find this place last year, if they know all these sorts of secret things? They could have easily cleared Hermione's name! We will definitely get them to explain that to us, pair of clowns!"

"Okay, Harry, but where are you going with this?"

"I just want to know where all these things lead," Harry replied, brightly. "It would be dead useful, wouldn't it? Shortcuts between classes, routes to the village and beyond ... and who knows what other sorts of amazing things we might find down here!"

"I don't know, Harry ..."

"Oh, come on, Chi! Where's your sense of adventure!" Harry cried incredulously.

"I'm not sure I have one," Marici fretted in reply.

"Well, mine's big enough for the both of us, so that'll just have to do!" Harry grinned. "Now if we start here, in the Chamber of Secrets, we can put that on the map, because we roughly know where the girl's bathroom is above us. It's not far from where the Main Staircase touches the Second Floor ... which is about here."

Harry drew it in carefully.

"You should put the staircase in, too," Marici advised, crawling close and sounding roused all of a sudden. "As that will give us a central point of reference. And from there we should be able to work out where the trapdoor was on the Third Floor corridor, the one that led down to the caverns where Dumbledore hid the Philosopher's Stone!"

"Great idea! That's the spirit!" Harry grinned, penning the staircase in at the very middle of the map. "Now, the castle is roughly a square and has seven floors, so we'll draw seven half-squares on each side of the parchment, one side for everything to the left of the Main Staircase and one for the right, then we can map out the room layout on each floor. Then we can add in the secret corridors and passageways as we go. Wow! This is going to takes ages! We'll probably still be doing it when Hermione gets back!"

"She wouldn't approve of this, Harry," Marici warned him. "You know that, don't you?"

"That's true, but we'll talk her round," Harry told her, confidently. "We have a way of bringing her round to our way of thinking, you know."

"I think you mean we're a bad influence on her!"

"Or that!" Harry chortled. "But she's a good influence on us, so we should make sure that this doesn't fall into the wrong hands. She'd want us to do that."

"Like to that Bellatrix Lestrange character or someone," Marici nodded.

"Yes, especially someone like her," Harry frowned. "I wonder how Neville is getting on with Madam Pomfrey tonight? I've never seen her do Mind Healing before. Maybe we should have stayed to watch."

"I think you should get some Mind Healing yourself, for starting a scheme like this!" Marici teased, nodding at the parchment between Harry's knees. "But how are we going to secure this little invention?"

"Simple privacy spell," Harry replied, drawing his wand again. "The one Flitwick taught us the other day should do just fine. But we should use some special words to open the Map, maybe a phrase that most people wouldn't think of, just to make it extra safe. Something clever and witty. Hmmm ... what would Hermione say about all this?"

"She'd say we were up to no good!"

"Brilliant, Chi! That's it!" Harry cried in glee. He cleared his throat, whispered the incantation for the Privacy Charm, then added his own personal security measure. "'I swear that I am up to no good!' ... no, we have to really mean it, show some intent ... ahem, ahem ... 'I solemnly swear that I am up to no good!"

There was a flash, a whoosh of magic, and the spell settled on the parchment with a gentle rustle.

"Done! Now ... what shall we call this?"

"How about naming it after Sirius, as he told you about one of the passages?" Marici suggested.

"Not a bad idea ... but Dad knew that the castle had as much space below ground as above, too. He told us that once, so we shouldn't really leave him out," Harry pondered. "Hey, Chi? What was the name that Dad and Sirius called their little gang when they were at school? Do you remember? Was it The Mavericks? The Mayhem Club? Something like that, wasn't it?"

"The Marauders!" Marici cried. "That was it!"

"Yes! The Marauders! Well done!" Harry echoed joyfully. "Then that's what we'll call it then ... The Marauder's Map!"

For the next two weeks Harry spent much of his free time making additions to his new map. Not wanting to trust himself from memory, Harry took to taking long, arduous walks along the school corridors, moving meticulously from floor to floor, making notes on the location of every classroom, dungeon, store closet and broom cupboard, which he would then add to the map later.

In addition to this, Harry coerced Fred and George Weasley into giving him detailed information on all the secret passageways around Hogwarts that they knew of. They had managed to find seven so far, and when they asked Harry why he wanted to know about such things, they interpreted his flimsy excuse as cover for his own plans to make mischief, which was all the incentive they needed to spill their secrets to him. The more brothers in mayhem there were, they told him, the happier a place Hogwarts would be.

But there were plenty of far more legitimate ways to learn things about Hogwarts, ones that didn't require such a level of stealth and subterfuge. For one thing, Harry had stumbled across an excess of Welcome Packs that were handed out to the first-years on their induction day, and these included a standard map of the school. It wasn't geographically precise, but it would give a general idea and was a good place to start.

The other source of knowledge was, of course, the Hogwarts library. Harry found that he had been subconsciously avoiding the place, robbed of its main jewel as it was, but he now could be found there more evenings than not, poring over old descriptions of the castle and paintings of the grounds, all of which would flesh out his ever-burgeoning knowledge of Europe's premier magical academy.

On the first day of October, however, Harry wasn't in the library making additions to his Marauder's Map. Today he was actually working his way through his homework tasks, which had been neglected during his fevered descent into domestic cartography. The pile of tasks was getting considerable now and he really needed to get some essays done.

His quill was paused over a fresh roll of parchment, that Harry had taken out for his alchemy assignment, and he had written the title (The Nigredo Stage - A Study in Black Death) when suddenly Neville Longbottom came skidding to his table. Red-faced and puffed out, Neville seemed beside himself with anguish.

"Harry! Harry! You have to help me!" Neville hissed lowly. "I'm in big trouble and I need you!"

From the far end of the long table, Hannah Abbott and Sally-Anne Perks looked up in alarm from where they were writing down the one hundred and one uses of Dittany for their Herbology homework.

"Sit down, Nev, and tell me what's wrong," Harry urged. "And keep your voice down while you're at it. What have you done?"

"I just saw Daphne Greengrass coming out from a meeting of the Art Society ... and I asked her to go to the next Hogsmeade weekend with me!" Neville groaned. "I didn't mean to ... but she looked really cute with paint all in her hair ... and I just blurted it out!"

Hannah and Sally-Anne giggled from the other end of the table, causing Harry to shoot them a warning look.

"Is that all this is?" Harry smirked back. "I would have thought that another troll was loose and that you'd let it in the way you're carrying on!"

"This is worse, Harry!" Neville fretted. "Stop laughing, will you! I'm dying over here!"

"So what did she say?" Harry pressed, trying to repress a snicker.

"She said she'd go with me!" Neville squeaked. "But only on the condition that another girl was there ... sort of like a back-up plan ... just in case it got all weird."

"Sounds fair," Harry nodded. "But I don't see how I can help. I'm not a girl, in case you haven't noticed."

"I don't know, the way your hair is growing so long, Harry ... you could pass for one, not a pretty one, but one nonetheless!" Neville mocked playfully, till Harry rolled his eyes dangerously at his friend. "Okay, Harry, I'm sorry, I was only joking. But what I meant was, you have to come with me, Harry, be my ... what do the Muggles call it? oh yeah ... my wingman. Get a girl and come and sit with me and Daphne for a few hours. That's all you'll have to do."

"As delightful as that sounds, mate, I think I'd rather listen to a recording of Ron singing in the shower on a perpetual loop than put myself through that torture," Harry grinned. "Besides, Hermione isn't here, is she? It wouldn't be right for me to go with anyone else."

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry's attention was drawn by Sally-Anne, who seemed to be having some sort of seizure. She kept lurching in his general direction from the other side of the table, and Harry wondered what was going on, until he saw Hannah subtly nudging her friend with her shoulder, causing the girl to blush hotly beneath her blonde tresses when Harry caught them at it. Not that he had any mind for that, as Neville was talking again.

"Look, Harry, Daphne's really shy. She doesn't get comfortable with people easily, but everyone is easy around you. Please, mate, I'm begging you. I'll owe you massively for doing this."

Harry sighed heavily. "I would, because I like people owing me favours, but who would I go with?"

There was a rough scraping of wood on flagstone, as Hannah stood up and physically dragged her friend's chair along the length of the table until it was directly opposite Harry, where she deposited it with a heavy thud. Then, blushing profusely, Sally-Anne looked up sheepishly at Harry.

"Hi, Harry."

"Hello," Harry replied, throwing a cautious look at Hannah as she retreated huffily to the far end of the table again.

"I, er, couldn't help but overhear about Neville's little, um, dilemma," Sally-Anne went on in a small voice.

"I bet you could, if you'd tried," Neville frowned, bitterly. "Girls are so gossipy!"

"But you were very loud. And in any case, I'm actually trying to help," Sally-Anne replied, humbly. "If you'll hear me out."

Neville looked at Harry, who surrendered with a shrug. "Go on then."

"I heard what you said, about your date," Sally-Anne went on with a wry grin. "And I might be able to help. I know Daphne a little bit, we often work together in Herbology."

"Yes! That's right!" Neville exclaimed, his eyes alight with fervour, as though he'd just discovered a brand new and wondrous thing. "You were feeding the Venus Fly Traps the other day with her, I remember."

"Yes, we were," Sally-Anne nodded. "And you're right, she is really shy, but nice when you get past that. I like her."

"So how does this help anything?" Harry asked with a frown.

Sally-Anne turned to him, her face all sorts of crimson. "Well, I know that Hermione isn't here ... and that I'm not her ... but if you needed someone to come with you, Harry, someone that could chat to you ... or Daphne if you needed it ... I could always do that. She's comfortable around me, so it would take the pressure off her and Neville on their big day, that's all I was thinking.

"There'd be no silly pressure, it wouldn't be a double-date or anything, but we could go as friends. I've been looking forward to seeing the village, and you and I always got on well, I thought, before all that ... um ... silliness last year, and I'd like to think we could get back to that. If you're willing, I mean."

"Yeah! Yeah, that's a great idea, Harry! Or Sally! Whoever!" Neville yelped eagerly. "What do you reckon, mate? Are you up for it?"

Harry thought about it a moment. There was no way out of this, that much was clear, so he would have to go with someone. And Sally-Anne was quite right that they used to get on fairly well. There were certainly worse people that Harry could think of spending an afternoon with. Last year had certainly made things awkward between them, but here was Sally-Anne, being mature about it all and offering an olive branch to help their mutual friends. Harry felt he owed her a little bit, having been indirectly responsible for her Petrification by the basilisk. Maybe this was how he could finally apologise for that, to clear his conscience if nothing else.

But then there was the absent Hermione, who Harry felt sure wouldn't best pleased if she knew what was going on. They'd always planned to visit Hogsmeade for the first time together, had both been thoroughly looking forward to doing it this year. Even in her forced absence, Harry couldn't shake a sense of betrayal at the thought of going without her. He had been seriously considering giving this first weekend visit a miss after all, and waiting until Hermione had returned before exploring the village with her next time.

Though Harry also knew that Hermione would want to help Neville if she could, or have Harry help him where she was unable, especially as she'd once promised his parents that she would look out for him. This seemed like the sort of thing that counted towards that, and was ultimately what made up Harry's mind for him. But he had to make totally sure of a few things first.

"It would just be as friends?" Harry clarified to Sally-Anne. "No other nonsense?"

"Absolutely," Sally-Anne nodded vigorously. "Friendzone all the way."

"And we are clear that this isn't a date?" Harry warned. "I don't like to be gossiped about, you know."

"Definitely not a date," Sally-Anne agreed, her eyes flashing mischievously. "We shall just be meeting as two plain and uncommon acquaintances!"

Sally-Anne flicked Harry a delicate smirk, which he found himself oddly returning.

"Oh, come on, Harry!" Neville urged. "It's perfect! Please!"

Harry sighed several times ... then finally gave in.

"Alright," Harry nodded, causing Neville to whoop and thump the table, which drew an admonishing Sshh from the stern librarian. Sally-Anne simply turned her eyes down coquettishly and seemed to smile to herself. Harry narrowed his own eyes at her as he began speaking again. "I'll do it. But it's not a date, and I want it clear that if I hear any silly chatter around the corridors about this over the next fortnight I'll call the whole thing off. These are my terms, so you'd both better stick to them ... or you might never know if the grass is greener on the Slytherin side, Nev!"