The Weasley children anticipated much excitement this summer. After all, they would be living in the Headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix. Ginny and the twins felt honored to finally be privy to the secrets that Ron has known for years. And being brave Griffyndors, they all wanted to take part in the workings of the Order.

"It would be a honor to serve the Great Order of the Phoenix," declared Fred as he stood from his seat at the table after the adults had told the children what little they could about the Order.

And serve the order they did.

By cleaning.

Their Only Mission: Make Headquarters Livable.

Their first night at Headquarters was a clear indication of what they would spend their entire summer doing. Upon entering their respective bedrooms, each person was enveloped in a fit of coughs. When the dust finally began to settle and they were able to see the room, it was clear that it would be a few hours before they would be able to sleep.

Thankfully the twins had just come of age and they were able to do preliminary cleaning of their bedroom within seconds. With some well-chosen charms the old bedspreads were washed and dried, the walls and floor were scourgified, and the creatures under the bed were banished outside. It wasn't completely clean; and it would be a few days (and four explosions) for the old murky smell to finally disappear.

After three days of cleaning Number Twelve, the Weasley children became resigned to the fact that their only purpose for the Order was to become maids. They quickly got bored. Freeing the Black House from the many pests that have accumulated over the past decade became much like degnoming the garden.

The work wasn't completely useless. The household pests soon became the inspiration for many of Fred and George's inventions. Since Harry had donated his funds to them, the twins worked tirelessly inventing more gags that proved more lethal than canary crèmes or anything they have made before.

But their main inspiration for the inventions didn't come from the creatures that lurked inside the toilets, but instead from Fred and George's now unmasked hero---Sirius Black.

On the second day of their stay at Grimmauld Place, the twins told Sirius of their aspirations to rival Zonko's as the premier magical joke shop. They asked the master himself if he had any ideas.

"Hmm, well," Sirius began thoughtfully, "It was hard to cause trouble while in class in front of the teacher. But class time was ideal for some serious pranking. Think about it, the halls are empty, the teachers are preoccupied. You could get a lot done. If you can create something to help you skivvy off from class then you could do some serious damage without anyone knowing.

The light bulb for the Skiving Snackboxes officially turned on.

Pocketing that idea in the back of their minds, the twins then asked Sirius what they've been dying to ask him about since the night before.

"Sirius, how exactly did you four go about making the Mauderer's Map?"

*******(22 years, 4 months, and 12 days ago)*******

"Wormtail, would you mind putting something on your feet. I can smell it from all the way over here and besides the sight of your big toe protruding from that hole isn't pleasing to the eye either," said James Potter as he sneered at Peter Pettigrew's feet that were propped on the table.

"I haven't got any shoes since you made me leave them in the corridor," Peter replied with a sneer of his own.

"Sorry if I thought saving our skins was more important than saving your shoes," said James sarcastically.

It was late on a Tuesday night and James Potter and his friends Peter Pettigrew, Sirius Black, and Remus Lupin were on their way back from one of the unused classrooms on the 3rd floor where they were working on becoming animagi. The trek from the 3rd floor all the way to the 7th floor went without a hitch, until the four got into the corridor leading towards the Fat Lady.

Argus Filch noticed that something was amiss immediately when his familiar beckoned his call. Mrs. Norris led him directly to the 7th floor through one of their secret passages. What he saw when he arrived on the 7th floor made him smile. In the hall in front of him were two shoes, seemingly independent of legs, walking directly toward the Griffyndor Tower entrance. Filch knew whom they belonged to. He had often wiped their scuffmarks from the floor. Those shoes belonged to the small and round 4th year that squeaked when he talked. Or was it the smart and sometimes ill blonde boy? Either way, it belonged to one of the four boys who made Filch desperately want to return to the days when whipping was an acceptable punishment. Those boys had managed to escape punishment far to easily lately. But not this time, Filch had caught them in the act.

He crossed his arms over his chest and tapped his foot saying, "I wonder where a pair of feetless shoes are off to?"

As soon as he spoke the shoes stopped dead in their track. Filch waited for the boys to remove Potter's invisibility cloak from over their heads, but they didn't. Instead, Filch heard a series of whispers, including: "Take off your shoes, hurry!"

Before they could escape, Filch hurriedly limped toward the shoes and picked them up. When he noticed that the shoes were empty, he instantly used the other hand not holding the shoes to feel the walls and he perked his ears hopping to hear where they were. No such luck. Filch spent almost a half on hour before picking up his cat and muttering, "Don't worry my sweet, we'll catch them next time, and they'll really pay!"

As soon as they could hear Filch's footsteps disappear, four teenage boys fell down from above. As soon as he heard Filch's voice James ordered Peter to take off his shoes and Sirius promptly levitated himself and his three friends up toward the ceiling. Now where the empty shoes once stood was a heap of Griffyndors, sore from a good fall.

"Did you have to let us fall so fast?" asked Remus, rubbing his head.

"Sorry, couldn't hold the spell any longer," said Sirius, getting up and smoothing his robes. "I wish we could've seen Filch coming sooner. It would have saved us a lot of pain."

"What I want to know is how he got here from his office so fast. He must know some secret passage," said James thoughtfully, snatching up the Invisibility cloak and heading toward the Fat Lady who was snoring in her sleep.

"Yeah, some secret passage that we have yet to find," said Peter, trailing behind him.

"I'll bet my house-elf he's got some map or something made by the founders. Unicorn Tail," said Sirius to the Fat Lady as she lazily opened up for them without saying anything. The four of them snuck out so often that it was hopeless for her to lecture them.

"You know," said James, plopping down on the couch in front of the fire, "It might be worth it to venture into his office to find this map."

"Yeah," said Remus, "And then we can charm it to show us where Filch is at, so we can steer clear of him."

"Let's not stop at Filch," said Peter, "I don't fancy getting caught by McGonagall either."

"We can make to show us the whereabouts of everyone in the castle!" Exclaimed Sirius loudly, a little too loudly.

The next day, the foursome divided in two. Remus and James set off toward Filch's office, while Sirius and Peter went to the dungeons to set off some dungbombs and lure Filch and Mrs. Norris away from his office. While the prank itself was quite funny (The dungeons stunk for days and to the delight of the Mauderer's and the dismay of Snape, managed to explode right in front of Snape on his way to the Slytherin Common Room), the venture was not successful. Remus and James went through every drawer and every cabinet, but only managed to find Peter's shoes and a collection of useful "items" in a drawer marked Confiscated and Highly Dangerous.

The four we're now in their dormitory, quite disappointed with not finding a map. Sirius was lying on his bed, when he suddenly got up. "You know we don't really need that map. We've been sneaking around this school long enough to know most of it already. We've already figured out four of the passages into Hogsmeade!"

"Filch is bound to know more than us though. He's been making students' lives miserable longer than we've been sneaking around," said Remus resentfully from his own bed.

"Well," said James, sitting up, also getting excited. "He may not have a map, but I'll be he knows all the passages by heart."

"And what are we supposed to do, James, just ask him nicely over a cup of tea?" asked Remus sarcastically.

"Not over tea, but over a nice, pleasant dose of Veritaserum."

"I don't fancy breaking into the Professor Lexing's potions cabinet again. That rash I got from spilling one of those purple vials wouldn't go away for weeks!" Said Peter.

The next day, James busted into Professor Lexing's potions cabinet while everyone was at dinner and rushed back to his friends in the Great Hall. He subtlety passed on the vial to Sirius under the Invisibility cloak who made his way to Filch's place at the Head table toward the end of dinner. He emptied the vial without a hitch and returned back to the Griffyndor table.

The four of them followed Filch into his office, shut the door, and made him promptly tell them all of the secret passages he knew. Some the boys knew, and some they didn't. When they were finished, Sirius hit Filch with a Memory charm and the four of them made their way up to the dormitory.

Remus had already begun making the map, using what they did know. Sirius and James used their charms (their manly charms, not their magical ones) to get the girls from other houses to describe where and what their common rooms looked like. Those too were depicted in the map. Sirius took the liberty to enchant the parchment so that it only reveals itself to students with the intention of rule breaking. That charm had the rather amusing side effect of taking on the personalities of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. All that was left was Filch's information.

After adding Filch's information, the piece of parchment that was affectionately christened "The Mauderer's Map" was ready for its final charm: the charm to show everyone's whereabouts. This bit proved to be the most difficult aspect of its making. While all of them were quite brilliant (well, all except Peter), none had enough knowledge about charms to know how to do this. As the four approached this minor glitch in the plan, James quickly (a little too quickly) volunteered himself to ask Lily Evans, the charms master of the 4th year. Unfortunately, Lily saw right through James and knew he was up to something. Lily, of course, adamantly refused. She very well couldn't become prefect next year if she was caught aiding James Potter on one of his pranks.

Instead the boys found themselves in the one room of the castle in which they would never haunt: the library. The four boys spent four hours going through charm books, trying to find the perfect spell. At last, in A Charming Spell, Remus found the answer to their silent prayers. They quickly returned all the books to the shelves and proceeded to their room to add the final touches to the map.

When they were finished, the boys allowed themselves a few moments to wallow in their success as they watch little tiny-labeled dots wander around the castle.

*******(Present)*******

"At the end of our seventh year, I considered taking it home with me. We worked so hard on it and it was a wrench leaving without it. But then I overheard a couple of first years plan a hex on one of the Slytherins and I'm not ashamed to admit that it made me a bit nostalgic. We left the map with them. It would have been no use to me in outside world, but it could continue to do a lot of damage at Hogwarts. And obviously it has with you two."

"Yes," said George in total agreement. "It wasn't easy for us to part with it either. But it served a greater good in the hands of Harry Potter. Did you hear how Snape almost confiscated it and it insulted him when he tried to reveal it?"

Laughing, Sirius replied, "Oh yes, Remus told me how Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs each took a swing at the slime ball. How you kids manage to sit through one of his classes is a miracle to me."

"Tell me about it," said the twins in unison.

"So how did you two come across it anyway?"

Fred and George exchanged grins. This was going to be a fun story to tell.