Disclaimer: Not mine. JKR's.
Author's Note: Let's just stop counting the months in between my updates, shall we? Thanks. Seriously, thanks to those of you who are still reading, and thanks to Yo for the beta-reading.
TSS
"Time speeds up in the fifth year," Seamus Finnigan said, apropos of nothing. At Harry's quizzical look, he elaborated, "It's the only reasonable explanation. When you're a fourth year, your days still have the right number of hours, and your weeks still have the right number of days, but once you hit the OWL year, time speeds up, and your world goes mad."
Seamus was advancing this theory as he, Harry, and their other teammates hauled themselves toward Gryffindor tower after a grueling Quidditch practise. Harry found himself inclined to agree; October was already half gone, and November was hurtling toward them at twice the usual speed. Homework levels ran high, tempers ran short, and the teachers all made ominous noises about practise OWLs. It was, as Justin Finch-Fletchley might say, "really all a bit much, old chap."
On the bright side, Hermione's OWL review sessions were going well (though Harry and Ron didn't say so too often, fearing that praise might encourage her to increase the sessions' frequency), the junior members of the Order of the Phoenix had all basically mastered the surveillance portion of the Bond, and the Quidditch team was really coming together. Harry and his friends were managing, even if their days seemed a few hours short.
The team arrived at the tower and went their separate ways, with Harry, Ron, and Ginny falling into chairs at their usual table, where Hermione sat rifling through books and taking notes at her customary frantic pace. Instead of glancing up, she held up a finger to indicate that the others should wait and muttered, "Two paragraphs." A few moments later, she jotted down one last note and closed the book with a sigh. "That finishes the outline for the Charms essay," she said. "How was practise?"
While Ron sputtered that the Charms essay had only been assigned today, for Merlin's sake, Harry and Ginny acknowledged that practise had been exhausting, but successful.
"The Chasers are doing great with Oliver's old plays. The Reserves have come together better than we really could have hoped," Harry said. "We may try to learn one or two new plays to run against Ravenclaw, if—." He broke off abruptly, startled by a surge of emotion along the Bond. "What was that?" he asked.
"First time I've ever felt anything when I wasn't, you know, trying," Ron said. Harry nodded; aside from the first few moments after the Bond was formed, he'd never felt such an intense feeling from it. He noticed that Fred and George had sat up abruptly and were now heading toward his table; they had felt it, too. He concentrated, trying to determine where the feeling had come from. It wasn't danger, he knew; Professor Dumbledore had said that danger warnings came with a bit more information. Skipping the junior Members, since they were all there in the room, he felt along his Bond with each Order member. Dumbledore, McGonagall, Sirius, Lupin….
"Lively," he and Ginny said in unison.
"She's really happy about something," Ron added. "Happy, and…."
"Relieved and satisfied, like she's just done something she wasn't sure she could do." That was from Hermione, in exaggeratedly low tones meant to remind the others to keep their voices down.
"Snape's with her…"
"…the greasy git," Fred finished his brother's thought and added, "and so is Krum. And Snape's either distracted or losing his touch if he's letting us know where he is."
Fred had a point, Harry thought; most days, Snape consciously blocked off the surveillance portion of the Bond.
"Well, that's it, then," Hermione said. "She's obviously figured it out."
Before the Bond, Hermione's statements like that had usually been met with confused stares from Harry and Ron (and, for that matter, anyone else who happened by). But, as Dumbledore had said it would, the Bond helped the Order members pick up one another's trains of thought, and everyone at the table cottoned on right away. Professor Lively's experiments with Barty Crouch's Dark Mark had finally worked out, and she had discovered a way to track the Death Eaters.
Harry and the Weasleys were all for rushing off to Lively's office right then to discuss the new development, but Hermione convinced them to wait. "We'll see her tomorrow for our Defence tutorial, and if they need us, they'll let us know. Besides," she added, with typical practicality, "there's not much we can do to help, and if we go barging in now, we'll probably just be in the way." So the Order's junior members waited until the next evening to have their curiosity satisfied.
When they arrived at Professor Lively's classroom, they found it full of people. Most were adult Order members, but a few were strangers. (Hermione, who had obviously been exploring the communication features of the Bond, sent the others a message not to ask questions until the strangers' presence was explained.) The walls had been covered with maps, and most of the desks had been replaced with—or more likely Transfigured into—long tables, which were also covered with maps. On one of the remaining desk, positioned in a corner a bit away from the action, a potion bubbled, and Snape loomed over it, adjusting the flame and muttering to himself. Around the tables, about ten people paced, checking maps, casting spells, and talking over one another. Professor Lively was one of them, of course, and Viktor Krum, and also Professors Flitwick and Vector. John Kimble was there, along with Rhun Croaker, Bill Weasley, Remus Lupin, and ….
"Sirius!" Harry said happily, causing everyone to look up.
Sirius grinned at his godson and made as if to speak, but Professor Lively spoke first. "Is it time already?" she asked, walking over to greet her young charges. "Merlin, how did it get so late? Come in. Never mind, you're already in. Sit down. I have no lesson planned for tonight, but stay around to watch. You might be useful. Black—no, not Black, I need Black—Krum, you explain to them what's happening." After delivering those observations without seeming to pause for breath, Lively turned on her heel and went back to the table where she and Sirius had been working. Sirius shrugged, amused and apologetic, and returned his attention to his work. The students goggled after Lively.
"She is a bit … highly stringed at the moment," Krum said. "I am thinking it makes her revert to her Auror days."
"Strung," Hermione said. "Highly strung."
Krum accepted this correction with good grace and went on to carry out Lively's instruction to explain what was going on. Professor Lively's Tracking Charm was working, but so far it was only in her head. "If she visualises a map of Britain, she can see in her mind vere the Death Eaters are. But it is only in her mind, and she can only see it ven she concentrates on it. Ven she needs to turn her attention to something else, the connection is lost. The people vith the maps are trying to find a vay to transfer the Charm from Arte- from Professor Lively's head to a map. If they can make the Charm show up on a map, anyvon can votch it, and it vill not all be up to Professor Lively.
"The people that you do not know," he continued, "are Atlas Netherfield, Iris Grizzle, and Guthrie Chesterfield. Netherfield is from your Ministry's Department of Cartography and Cartoromancy, and Grizzle and Chesterfield are Spellcrafters. Ve may speak freely in front of them; Legatus Kimble has assured us that they are trust-vorthy."
"Legatus?" Harry asked, unfamiliar with the word.
"That's the title given to the leader of the Aurors," Hermione answered. "It's the highest Auror rank, like "general" in Muggle armies."
Viktor nodded. "Anyvay, everyvon here is an expert at either maps, Charms, security, or Spell-crafting. Except for me, of course."
"And Sna- Professor Snape," Harry pointed out. Hermione gave him a reproving glance, to which Harry responded with a well-it's-true look.
"Indeed," Krum acknowledged. "I haff the impression that he has done a bit of spell-crafting, but he is not an expert in the field. He is here in his capacity as a Potions expert. The spells to make the information manifest itself on the map may reqvire potions to bind and stabalise them. I believe it is a Universal Binding Potion that he is vorking on at the moment."
"What are Sirius and Professor Lupin doing here?" Ginny asked. "Professor Lupin's specialty is Defence, and Sirius … well, I don't know him well enough to know for sure, but I'd have reckoned his area was Transfiguration, since he's an Animagus." Seeing knowing grins on the faces of Harry, Ron, and Hermione, she asked, "What?"
"You know that map that Fred and George gave me?" Harry said. Ginny nodded.
"How do you know about the Map?" Fred asked.
"I pay attention," Ginny said loftily. The twins muttered something under their breaths, and Ginny and Hermione shot them dirty looks.
"Anyway," Harry said, drawing the word out to get their attention back to the matter at hand, "Sirius and Remus are two of the makers of that map."
"Padfoot!" Fred exclaimed, just as George cried out, "Moony!" The twins' shouts were loud enough to make Sirius and Remus whip around, startled at hearing their Marauder nicknames. Harry waved them back to work.
"So who were Wormtail and Prongs?" George asked.
"Wormtail," Harry said, spitting the name out as if it were poison, "was Peter Pettigrew, filthy little rat, and Prongs was my dad."
"Your dad was a Marauder?" George's voice was full of awe. "Wow."
"Reckon they have got some experience with maps and Tracking Charms, then," Fred said, sounding equally impressed. "Never would've thought Lupin had it in him."
"Explains why we could never get away with anything in his class," George mused. "He'd seen it all before – and probably done half of it himself."
"Professor Lively said we might be useful," Hermione said, wrenching the conversation away from Remus Lupin's checkered past and back to the present. "What can we do?"
"Haff you learned Magnification Charms yet?" Viktor asked.
Fred and George nodded, and the others shook their heads. "They don't teach those at Hogwarts," Hermione said. "You only learn them in Apparation Workshops. I've read about them" (Here she glared at Ron and Harry for muttering "of course" in unison), "but I've never tried them."
"Then I vill teach some to you now," Viktor said. "They are not difficult, but I suppose they are a bit specialised to be included in the regular curriculum." Turning to Professor Lively, he called, "Artemis, do you haff a spare map?"
Without looking up, Lively Banished a piece of paper toward Krum, who caught it and spread it out on a nearby table for the students to see. Harry recognised it as an Ordnance Survey map. When Ron asked why nothing moved on it, Krum explained that they had to use Muggle maps for this project because the spells on magical maps might interfere with what they were trying to do. "Magical maps come vith so many charms already on them that they tend to be a bit temperamental if von tries to tamper vith them. Vith Muggle maps, ve can use only the Charms that ve need, and there is less risk of bad interactions betveen them."
With the slight switch in intonation that Harry recognised has his teaching persona, Krum continued, "There are three types of Magnification Charms. Von is an Unbounded Magnification Charm, and it produces an enlarged projection of the entire page. It is the least specific, and, for our purposes, the least useful. Next is the Static Bounded Magnification Charm. This enlarges only a particular part of the page, and the resulting projection is like an inset. There is a major disadvantage to the Static Charm if you are using the projection to track something – namely, that the thing you are tracking can move outside the boundaries of the charm. Thus, the third and most difficult charm, the Moving Bounded Magnification Charm. Vith this charm, the boundaries of the projected inset move along vith votever you are tracking. So it is this last charm that ve vill be using, but I vill need to teach you the others first in order to vork up to it. So let us begin."
Krum cast a Duplicating Spell on the map, producing six copies of it. He handed one to each of the junior Order members and kept the original for himself. "Ve vill start vith the Unbounded Charm. The incantation is 'Amplifico,' and the vand movement is a clockvise circle and then a sharp tap." He demonstrated the movement and motioned for the students to do the same. "Sharper on the tap, Ginny," he said. "Ron, try making your circle a bit smaller, and, Harry, make yours a bit larger." They tried the wand movement again, and Viktor was satisfied this time. "All right, try it vith the incantation this time. Amplifico!" A projection of Krum's map hovered above the table; the image was about five times the size of the original. The students followed suit, and six more projections appeared, overlapping one another.
"You see vy this spell is not so useful by itself," Krum said. "The resulting image is qvite large and unvieldy. Finite Incantatem!" Krum's projection disappeared; the students followed his example, cancelling their charms. "Excellent. Now, let us try the Static Bounded Charm. For this, ve use our vands to draw a boundary around the area that ve vish to enlarge. A round or oval boundary vorks best – something vithout corners. The incantation is 'Circumscriptonis.' Ve say the incantation and then draw the boundary." He demonstrated, and a silvery circle, with the slightly lopsided look of figures drawn free-hand, appeared on the map. "Make Marlboro the centre of your circle," Krum instructed. The students did, and soon they all had silvery circles on their maps. "Very good. Now, ve use the incantation and the vand movement from the Unbounded Charm, and ve tap in the middle of our circle. Amplifico!" When Krum brought his wand down onto the centre of his circle, a projection of the area appeared above the map, just as it was meant to do. The students tried their hands. Fred, George, and Hermione produced projections on their first try, and Harry, Ron, and Ginny got it on the second attempt.
"Excellent!" Krum said. "Now, ve need to do a few things before ve move on to the Moving Bounded charm. Can you see vot else ve need?"
"Something to track, obviously," Hermione offered. "But there's more, isn't there?" Krum nodded, indicating that there was more.
Harry looked at the projection hovering in the air. It ought, he reckoned, to look like the insets on road maps, but it didn't. Something was off. "It's only bigger," he said. "It doesn't show more roads or anything; it just shows us a bigger picture of what we already had."
Krum smiled at him. "Precisely, Harry. The projections do not yet show more detail. And getting the detail is the difficult part. It reqvires using an Embellishment Charm, and those are very temperamental. This von is said to vork best if you haff been to the place before, or at least seen a detailed map or a picture, but, vith proper preparation and concentration, you can make it vork even for places you do not know well. The key is … it is difficult to explain…." He trailed off, searching for the right words.
Hermione broke in almost immediately, "I've read about Embellishment Charms, and the book said that the key is to have all of the formal features that you want in your head without mentally filling in too many of the specifics."
Harry and the Weasleys looked confused, and Krum smiled. "That is an excellent summary … for somevon who already understands the spell. But I see that it is not much help as an introduction. Let me see if an example vill help. Imagine that you vant the map to tell you the geographical features of a place. You need to haff in your mind a general idea of geographical features, but you cannot be thinking only of specific features. If you are thinking too much about one specific feature—mountains, for instance, or trees—then your map may show you only that feature and leave out the rest. So you might get a map that shows you all of the mountains and trees but that leaves out the rivers. Or if you vant to see transportation routes and you think too hard about roads, you might get a map that shows you all of the roads but that leaves out railvays. To get an accurate representation, you must haff in your mind the general outlines for everything that you vant, but you cannot make assumptions about how those outlines vill be filled in. The spell gives us vot ve expect, and, if our expectations are too fixed, it vill give us vot ve think ve vant instead of vot ve really vant. Do you see?"
Harry wasn't sure whether it was Krum's example or the Bond causing him to catch on, but he did see. The Weasleys were nodding as well, so Krum moved on to a demonstration. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a few deep breaths. Harry tuned in to his Bond with Krum and picked up feelings of deep concentration. Then, he brought his wand down in a left-to-right diagonal, jabbed it sharply forward to aim at the centre of his projection, and said, "Elaboro!"
Slowly at first, then with increasing rapidity, the circle filled with detail. Roads, houses, topographical features—all appeared in the circle. Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys made impressed noises, and Krum smiled one of his brief, rare smiles.
"Why doesn't it show people?" Ginny asked.
"Two reasons," Krum replied. "Can any of you guess them?"
"Because there aren't any people there to show?" Ron suggested.
"Not a bad guess, but not the right one … at least, I would be surprised if it were the right one," Krum said.
Suddenly, and idea struck Harry, and he said, "Because you weren't thinking of people."
"Correct. Now, why was I not thinking of people?"
"The Apparation License bloke didn't come right out and say it, but he let on like the charm to make people appear on maps is dead difficult," Fred said.
"It is," Krum said. "And, in part, for a first demonstration, I vanted to avoid the difficulties. But there is another reason that has to do with what ve vant from these maps."
"We don't want to track everyone, do we?" Ginny said. "We only want to track Death Eaters. And you couldn't make just them show up on the map, could you, because we don't know who all of them are."
"Exactly, Ginny. The charm to show people at all is very difficult; a charm to show only a certain group of people, especially ven ve do not know all of the members of that group, is nearly impossible. I am not even certain that it has been done before. That is vy ve haff so many people here to help us try to get Professor Lively's tracking spell onto paper."
"But we'll want to know who they're meeting with and talking to … besides one another, I mean," Hermione said. "If we end up with a map that shows us only Death Eaters and not the people around them, won't there be big gaps in our knowledge of what they're doing?"
Krum nodded. "There vood be, if ve left it at that. Once we get Professor Lively's spell onto paper, ve can cast vot is called a Proximity Charm that vill show us people vithin a certain distance of the vons that ve are tracking. But that is for much later. For now, all of you should try the Embellishment Charm." He reminded them of the wand motion and the incantation, and they all closed their eyes to concentrate.
Harry tried to imagine just the right amount of detail. Krum had said that it was easier to perform the Embellishment Charm if you already knew the place, but Harry found himself doubting that; if you knew the place, the problem of getting what you expected instead of what was really there seemed more likely. Forcing other thoughts from his head, Harry concentrated on mentally picturing the general concepts of what he wanted to see on the map. When he thought he had them all, he opened his eyes, performed the wand motion, and said, "Elaboro!" He was gratified to see his projection start to add details, just as Krum's had done. He looked around to see that all of his friends' maps were adding details, too.
"Excellent! Very vell done," Krum said. "Now, ve should test our charms against von another. Compare your maps; do the details look the same?"
"Oi, mine doesn't have those little squiggly bits there," Ron said, examining Harry's projection. "Yours doesn't either, Vi- Viktor," he observed, managing to call Krum by name.
"No, mine does not have it, and neither do yours, Fred and George. But Harry, Hermione, and Ginny all have it, and it is unlikely that three maps vood show the same thing if it vere not there. I think the four of us must have made a mistake." He moved closer, peering at Harry's map. "Vot is that?" he muttered. He prodded the area lightly with his wand and said, "Titulo!" A marker with the words "Play Lot" appeared over the spot. "Vot is a play lot?" Hermione explained about things like swings and slides and roundabouts, and Krum nodded. "I haff seen those. They are mostly built by Muggles, yes?"
"Harry and Hermione grew up with Muggles, but not Ginny," Ron said, "so I don't see how that could explain it."
Krum thought for a moment and then answered, "I am thinking that perhaps the four of us vere concentrating too much on vizard landmarks and not enough on Muggle vons. Let us try again and haff the idea of Muggle markers in mind as vell this time."
"Told you lot you should have taken Muggle Studies," Ginny remarked. Her brothers glared at her, and then they and Krum tried the spell again. This time, the play lot appeared on their maps.
"Very vell," Krum said, "I think you haff mastered the Static Bounded Charm. Ve cannot move on yet to the Moving Bounded Charm because it reqvires haffing something to track. That vill haff to vait until…."
He was interrupted by a loud, incoherent sound of frustration from Professor Lively. "Why is nothing working?" she demanded.
"Because we can't get what's on your head onto the page, Artie," Sirius answered.
"Thank you for that extremely insightful observation, Black. I never would have figured that out. Call me 'Artie' again, and I'll turn your hair into Flobberworms." Turning away from Sirius, she said to the room at large, "Does anyone have anything useful to offer?"
Krum braved Lively's irritation to ask, "Haff you tried a variation on the Perspective-Sharing Spell?"
Professor Lively's aspect immediately shifted from frustrated to thoughtful. "I've only heard of using it to project what you see, not what you think. Do you know of a variation?"
"Only by reputation," Krum replied. "A friend of my father's, a Spellcrafter, vos vorking on a variation to show thoughts. The Bulgarian Ministry cut off funds for the project vonce they determined that it vos not useful for surveillance vork, but I heard my father and his friend discuss it a good bit. It sounds … very complicated." Turning to the Ministry employees, he asked, "Haff any of you heard of this spell?"
"I've heard of it, or something a lot like it," Rhun Croaker said. The Ministry employees looked surprised. "Chum of mine at Oxford works on Binding Spells between humans and inanimate objects. I don't know much about the practise, but he's explained the theory to me. Perhaps if we all put our heads together…."
The hour or so that followed was, Harry reckoned, like something out of Hermione's dreams. All of the wizards with any experience in Spellcrafting brainstormed, argued, experimented, and generally put on a formidable show of intellectual acrobatics. Harry and the Weasleys mostly alternated between fetching library books and trying to stay out of the way, but Hermione was right in the thick of it, arguing with Rhun and Bill about Image-Producing Charms.
Finally, Bill announced, "All right, let's do it."
"Lively, what person in this room knows you best?" John Kimble asked. At the startled expressions of his colleagues, he elaborated, "Spells like this usually work best when there's an established relationship and a high level of trust between the participants."
"Well, then … Viktor, I supposed," Lively answered. That response surprised Harry a bit, but he didn't really have time to think about it, for Krum was taking a seat across from Lively and looking into her eyes, preparing to cast the spell. The plan, as Harry understood it, was to try the spell first between Lively and Krum and then, if it worked, between Lively and a sheet of parchment.
Krum took a deep breath and then pronounced the incantation. Harry didn't recognise the words, but he knew from the discussion that they were Greek instead of the usual Latin and that they translated loosely to "show me what she sees in her mind's eye." A jet of white light shot from Krum's wand toward Lively, and the air between the two of them seemed to crackle as they held eye contact. Krum's eyes widened, and he drew in a sharp breath and tore his eyes away from Lively's. "Finite Incantatem," he said firmly. "It does not vork."
The room exploded with questions and protests. "Not at all?" "Did you see anything?" "The incantation did something or you wouldn't have had the light."
Krum glowered at the room. "It does not show vat it is meant to show. It does not vork, and ve vill not invade Professor Lively's mind vith it again." He spoke in a tone of such finality that no one seemed inclined to argue. "My apologies, Artemis," he said, so softly that Harry barely heard him.
"Back to the drawing board, then," Rhun said, apparently unfazed by the setback. "Any other suggestions for getting thoughts out of someone's head and onto paper?"
They argued and deliberated for another half an hour or so. Suddenly, Harry had an idea. "Could we use a Pensieve?"
Snape, who had been silent all evening, made a sound of derision. "And where would we get a Pensieve, Potter? Do you have any idea how rare they are?"
Willing himself not to sound triumphant, Harry said, "I think Professor Dumbledore has one, sir. He had one last year, anyway."
Harry had barely finished his reply before Lively was heading for her office. Through the open door, they heard her use the Floo to call the Headmaster's office. She returned a few minutes later, now with Dumbledore and his Pensieve in tow.
The headmaster greeted everyone with his usual twinkle and then set to work. Within five minutes, a revolving image of a map of Britain hovered over the basin. The room cheered.
"Now, how do we get it on paper?" Iris Grizzle asked.
"Do Pensieve images show up on photographs, Albus?" Professor Flitwick asked. When the Headmaster replied that he thought they did, Flitwick hurried off to borrow a camera from Professor Smith. He returned, took the picture, and started to leave again, but Lively stopped him. "We need a picture of another thought. Headmaster, can you take out another?" Dumbledore nodded, and Lively said, "Wait, I need to look at that atlas first—the book, not you, Netherfield." She studied the book for a moment, and then Dumbledore removed another memory. Lively called its image up from the Pensieve. This one showed a map of the world instead of a map of Britain. "Just in case any of them leave the country," Lively explained.
Flitwick left to return Smith's camera and to develop the pictures. A few minutes later, he was back with two wonderfully sharp, clear photographs of the Pensieve maps.
Lively muttered a few spells over the photographs, frowned thoughtfully, and took them over to the corner to consult with Professor Snape, who scowled and looked even more sour than usual as he pushed up the sleeve of his robe. Harry looked away, not wanting to give Snape a chance to catch him looking at Snape's Dark Mark. A few minutes later, a smiling Lively returned with the pictures. "It works," she said. "I'm just hoping the Engorgement Charm doesn't throw things off." She cast the Engorgement Charm, holding it until the photographs had become wall-sized maps. Now Harry could see little black dots representing the Death Eaters. No, not dots, he realised, looking closer. They were little…
"Oh, creepy!" Fred Weasley was saying enthusiastically. "They're little skulls!"
"Little Dark Marks," Lively affirmed, not sounding particularly pleased. "I didn't plan it that way; it's just how they showed up." Shifting back into her super-efficient mode, she said, indicating the map of Britain, "Now, here's what we need to do. I'm dividing this map into sections. Every section will have Dark Marks on it, and each Dark Mark, as you know, represents a known Death Eater. Around each Dark Mark, you need to cast a Moving Bounded Magnification Charm and a Proximity Charm. Oh, and a Labelling Charm to let us know who each mark is tracking. Once all the sections are charmed, I'll put the map together again, and we can all go to bed. Krum, how far did you get with the students?"
"Ve had gotten through the Static Bounded Charm and the Embellishment Charm," he said. "I did not teach them the Labelling Charm, but they saw me use it. And of course ve had not done the Moving Bounded von yet because ve had nothing to track."
"You made good progress, then—enough for them to help with the final touches. Show them the rest of the charms once I pass out the map sections." A few Severing Charms later, everyone except Lively had a section of the map. She set them all to work and then went away to do the world map on her own.
Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys worked side by side, learning the rest of the necessary charms from Krum. When they were finished, they turned in their sections to Professor Lively. Sirius, who, along with Remus, had finished his sections, was waiting nearby to talk to Harry.
"How's my godson?" he asked, pulling Harry into a brief hug. "Couldn't talk to you before we were finished; I was afraid Artie—I mean Artemis—would take my head off."
Lowering his voice so that the Defence professor wouldn't hear, Harry reported Krum's observation that all the activity made Lively revert to her Auror days. Sirius laughed his bark-like laugh and agreed that she had been rather "highly stringed."
"She's really great, though, Lively," George interjected. "Even when she bosses us around a bit."
"Where's she going to put those maps, anyway?" Ginny asked. "It'll have to be somewhere that not just anyone can see them, and they're huge."
"Professor Dumbledore has found a space," Remus said. "It's a very odd room—no doors, so you can only get in by Floo. We'll all probably take shifts there, keeping an eye on the map."
"And quite a map it is," Sirius said. "Lively's amazing. Any of you going in for Spellcrafting after tonight's demonstration?"
Ron shook his head vehemently. "They're mental. Nearly two hours on the wrong spell, and it barely even bothers them. All that work for nothing, and they just dive right on to the next thing. Mental."
"That work wasn't for nothing!" Hermione protested. "Now they know what doesn't work. And sometimes you can't know what does work until you find out what doesn't."
Ron's expression said clearly that the Spellcrafters weren't the only ones he considered "mental," but, before he could answer, George noted, "But it did work. Not the way they meant it to, of course, but Krum saw something from Lively's head when he cast that spell."
"Yeah, something that creeped him out right proper, too," Fred said. "Wonder what it was?" After a moment, he added, "Bet he'd tell you, Hermione, if you asked him."
This observation earned a death-glare from Ron and a rant from Hermione about how she certainly wouldn't ask him, since it was obviously private—precisely the reactions, Harry reckoned, that Fred had been aiming for. Sirius evidently thought so as well, for he changed the subject by remarking, "Speaking of stirring up trouble, did Remus and I hear our schoolboy nicknames being taken in vain?"
The twins suddenly threw themselves to the ground in front of Sirius and Remus. "We're not worthy!" Fred exclaimed.
"We abase ourselves at your Marauding feet!" George added.
"We kiss your Marauding shoes!" Fred continued.
"You do nothing of the sort, you young idiots," Sirius said, taking a step backward. "I just polished those Marauding shoes, and I'm not having lip prints on them. Now get up before you make a spectacle of yourselves."
"Bit late for not making a spectacle," Remus said, jutting his head in the direction of the Ministry workers, who were staring at Fred and George.
"You'll note that the professors don't even take notice any more," George said, hopping up from the floor.
"Built up a resistance, they have," Fred agreed, standing up as well. "Takes a pretty big spectacle to get a reaction." He grinned cheekily at the Ministry types, who shook their heads and went back to work.
Harry and his friends chatted with Remus and Sirius for a few more minutes. Remus, they discovered, had been attempting to make contact with a few werewolf communities, and Sirius had been lying low and doing research. "Mostly dead boring, but it keeps me out of trouble," he said.
"Don't believe him for a second," Remus said with a smile. "He's actually fascinated by the research, and nothing keeps him out of trouble. And, talking of trouble, you lot will probably be in it if you don't get back to Gryffindor Tower soon. I know you have permission to be here, but that probably won't matter much to Mr. Filch, should you run into him."
Reluctantly, Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys agreed that they should be getting back. Viktor Krum appeared to have had the same idea, for he appeared with an offer to escort them to their dormitory. They said goodnight to Remus and Sirius, waved to Lively (who was too deeply immersed in working on the maps to notice), and headed off to bed.
