The D.A

The dinky little library in his old High School looked quite pathetic compared to the one at Hogwarts. There must have been thousands of books on the hundreds of shelves. There was little dust collecting on all the parchments. There was a small door to the side with a sign saying, 'restricted section' on it. James wondered about what kinds of books would be in that section.

"But why'd you do it?" asked Felix as they walked to the library.

"The man's a wart, it makes sense he should look like one, too," she said, "You wanted to do it too, right."

The three boys nodded their head impressed with her audacity. The sat down on some comfortable looking chairs and Gwen dove headlong into a rather large looking book.

"How come you're in Gryffindor and not in Ravenclaw," inquired Felix, "Aren't Ravenclaws supposed to be the smart ones."

"Dunno," she answered not bothering to look up from her book, "both my parents were Ravenclaws and I figured I'd be one too, but you never know."

"So you're wizard born?" asked James.

"Yeah," answered Gwen, "but my parents don't hold to any of that pure-blood junk."

"Mine do," said Wolfgang, "They're quite a bit obsessed with it. Always talking about how muggle borns are ruining us with their ecclecticity."

"Electricity," corrected Luke, "I think that's what you mean."

"Whatever it is, my parents are idiots," said Felix.

"No you're the idiot," James heard someone say. It was Wolfgang, as always surrounded by his two bodyguards, Morder and Kriller.

"I'd like nothing more than giving you a nice hard kick," said James coolly. Felix was almost cowering in his chair, hoping for nothing more than to avoid any fights.

"So you want to fight Potter," said Lestrange, "My boys against will kill you."

"If only they had brains," sighed Gwen, "but I guess people like you can only have sycophantic friends."

"Shut up dork face," retorted Wolfgang, "at least I'm not a pathetic little loser book worm like you."

"You insult my friends and you insult me," said James more confidently than he felt, Morder and Kriller could have made mincemeat out of them, "slimy Slytherin git."

It was lucky Peeves made a visit or there could have been a nasty little fight in the library, (Madam Peznet, the librarian was out so there were no adults to stop them), and James knew that unless he got really lucky, he'd probably get killed.

As usual, Peeves was causing havoc knocking books off of shelves and throwing wastepaper around. Wolfgang and company took it as their cue to leave as Mary and her friends walked in.

"Having a nice chat with young Lestrange," said Mary, pulling up an extra chair, "I knew all of his brothers and you couldn't fin a more prissy bigheaded idiots."

"Hey," said Felix indignantly, "I'm a Lestrange too."

"Sorry," said Mary crisply.

"Well anyways," said Phil, continuing the story for her, "We decided to make amends with him and gave him a canary cream."

"He appreciated it quite a bit," said Peter, "It was the first time he'd ever been a bird."

The four first years stared at him blankly. What did creams have to do with turning into birds?

"Those canary creams turn you into birds," explained Mary, "You can by one for only a sickle. It's quite a good deal. We've got a huge store of them."

Peeves was still in the background making quite a racket when the bloody baron finally restrained him. Grabbing him by the collar of his shirt, the bloody baron grabbed a kicking and screaming Peeves out the room.

"Well there's a reason we came for you ickle firsties," explained Mary.

"We've been in the mayhem and madness business for a while," explained Phil.

"Oh and its been quite a wonderful business," said Peter, "I'm sure Slytherin prats like Nero, Augustus and now Wolfgang wouldn't agree but what do I care."

"But we're getting old wrinkled," said Mary, "and we'll be graduating soon."

"But we need to leave a legacy," said Phil.

"And that legacy, we've decided is you." said Peter.

"Tomorrow at midnight," said Mary, "Meet us in the kitchens tonight. The House-Elves down there won't really care."

"See you tonight," repeated Phil and Peter.

"Don't let the bed bugs bite." added Mary.

"Are you going," whispered Gwen, as Mary, Pete and Phil walked away.

"Of course," replied James. Whatever this whole D.A thing was, it sounded rather interesting. Plus any opportunity to bother Slytherins (James wasn't sure why, but this whole 'I hate Slytherin' thing was quite infectious) was more than welcome.

"Wonder why none of my brothers other than Wolfgang have bothered me," considered Felix, "They weren't really that much better than Wolfgang was."

"Dunno," answered Luke, "Hopefully they'll stay away."

The rest of the day went by quite slowly. There were the usual classes and the usual boredom. Nothing happened except for the fact James learned that clocks moved a little too slow for his taste.

The fire burned warmly by the cushy sofas as the four played an intense game of exploding snap. Exploding snap was quite a bit like cards, except the cards had a nasty tendency to explode when you messed up. Exploding snap had to stop eventually because the explosions were quite bothersome to the older students. Actually, Armondo Accondo, a fifth year, threatened to beat them to a pulp if they kept making an infernal racket so James surmised it was time to lay in bed and pointlessly stare into the ceiling.

Luke figured they'd be lying there for another hour before it was time to get moving. They kept quiet, the older students would much rather be sleeping than listening to their 'stupid first year' chatter.

It was a bit of a relief for James; a little peace and quiet. Almost everything (not including Crabbe's class) was quite wonderful here and he wasn't sure what to make of it. His luck couldn't actually hold up much longer could it? But in the magical world, maybe even the impossible was possible.

"Come on get," up whispered Gwen into his ears, "It's time to get moving."

James quickly got out of bed; he was only wearing his pajamas but he doubted formal dress would be required.

They slowly crept out of the Gryffindor common room, though they had been reassured that the caretaker didn't really care about what they did, there was no point taking any chances.

"If only we were allowed to ask Chump for directions," sighed Felix, "It's hard enough not getting lost in this place in the dark. Felix was quite right, the passages and corridors were already hard enough to navigate in the light; it was all too easy to run headlong into a wall in the pitch-black night. If only someone had been kind enough to leave behind a torch.

"Lumos," whispered Gwen, and a thin flashlight like beam flew out of her wand.

"Where'd you learn that," asked Luke.

"I read the textbooks like we were supposed to," hissed Gwen back.

"Why'd anyone do that," snapped Luke.

"Do you have any idea where we are?" asked Felix breaking up the mounting argument between the two.

"Not to far from the kitchens," James heard from a disembodied voice.

"Whose that," asked James turning around to see a friendly old codger, the Caretaker Mr. Chump, standing in the shadows behind them.

"Turn left and go down the stairs," he explained, "They should be waitin' for you there."

"Umm, thanks," said James; wasn't the caretaker supposed to keep them out of trouble, not help them make some but old Mr. Chump disappeared before James had the chance to ask him why he helped them. Chump was definitely a little strange, though quite a nice guy. They followed the directions and quickly found themselves at the kitchen doors.

A hundred or so little creatures with bulging eyes and bat like ears wearing assorted household items (pillow cases, tea cozies etc.) and a few normally (if you call something like mismatched socks, a bowler hat and a tunic normal) dressed creatures as well, were scurrying around cooking and cleaning. Mary, Peter and Phil were lounging on a table, with about a cows' worth of steak piled onto their plates.

"House Elves," explained Mary, "They do most of the cooking, cleaning and just about everything else around here."

"Anyways," said Phil, "we have important business to attend to."

"Many, many years ago, the D.A was formed." said Peter, "Just exactly why was it formed, Mary."

"Idiot," said Mary in mock anger, "Well, there once was a terrible wizard, a Dark Lord known as Voldemort."

Peter and Phil flinched violently and Phil whispered, "Can you please not say his name."

"A name's a name," said Mary, "Lupin always, being afraid of a name makes you afraid of the person or something along those lines."

"Well I am quite afraid of the You-Know-Who," said Peter, who still was flinching at the very thought of his name.

"Moving on," said Mary loudly clearing her throat, "Harry created the D.A as an organization to fight him. Harry trained a whole bunch of students so that they'd be better at fighting the dark arts" Mary shot Phil and Peter angry glares.

"Eventually, your dad made the You-Know-Who spontaneously discombust and the D.A kind of went away. But we couldn't let the D.A just die out. We decided it was time for the D.A to evolve a little bit. Everyone knows all dark wizards come from Slytherin and since the point of the whole D.A was to fight it makes perfect sense to start pranking Slytherins as much as possible."

James nodded his head, not quite following the reasoning but he had no trouble excepting the results. The candles were slowly getting dimmer as the House-Elves left to get some shuteye.

"We've been doing our share of annoying those Slytherin gits for seven years," explained Mary, "but it'll soon be time to leave Hogwarts for the real world and leave this school behind."

Although Mary didn't quite seem the emotional type, James could see tears welling up in her eyes.

"The four of you seem promising enough new recruits to the D.A so we'll let you in on a few of our secrets.:

"The Marauders Map," said Peter reverently handing him an old battered sheet of parchment. The map was doing a rather good job of hiding itself because it looked blank.

"We bequeath this to you," said Mary, "We don't really need this anymore. We've memorized it already."

"What is this?" asked James.

"This is one of the secrets to our success." said Phil.

"A long, long time ago," started Peter.

"When we were but ickle first years," continued Mary.

"We had accidentally went on a stroll through Hogsmeade," said Peter, "Entirely accidental you see."

Felix gave a derisive snort and an appreciative chuckle.

"While explaining that the whole thing was just a little mistake to good old Lupin," said Mary, "we found this little piece of parchment on the table and asked him if we could borrow it."

"Well we skipped the asking for permission part," said Phil.

"Oh, don't worry," said Mary, noticing the aghast look on Gwen's face, "Lupin had to know we took it. He's rather brilliant and I'm sure he'd notice the disappearance of something as useful as this."

With a quick tap of the wand, and the whispering of the words, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good," the blank piece of parchment transformed into a map of Hogwarts.

Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs

Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief Makers

are proud to present

The Marauders Map

The map contained every infinitesimal detail about Hogwarts, and gave the location of ever person within the castle.

"Quite amazing isn't it," said Phil, "Here are the secret passageways to Hogsmeade, the village. This one opens right above the whomping willow so you probably don't want to risk it."

"The whomping what!" asked James in surprise.

"Its an old tree outside Hogwarts," started Phil.

"It enjoys attacking anyone who gets anywhere near it," continued Peter.

"Attack isn't quite the word I would use," grimacing as if she had experienced it herself (and it was quite likely that she had), "I think hideous sadistic human mauling machine is a much better description of it."

"It sent Mary into the infirmary for three weeks," explained Pete.

"But the rest of exits are quite safe," said Phil, "except for this one that's kind of caved in."

"In addition to this map you four also get free access to the entire product line of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. I've no idea why he's giving in to you. I'm the twins nephew and I only get half off. Of course, your James Potter, son of the boy-who-lived, Golden Eyes, Potter."

"Golden eyes," said Gwen tilting her head, "I haven't heard that one before."

"I invented it myself," said Mary, "he only came back from the dead a few days ago so it'll take a while before it decides what his proper epitaph is."

"There's one other thing we should be getting you," said Phil, his face suddenly turning menacing.

"But Nero stole it from us." said Peter darkly.

"Probably because it wasn't yours," interjected James.

"No," said Mary, "It was yours James. Your father left it behind as a gift. We were supposed to keep it safe until we could give it to you, but we failed. Sorry mate, it isn't important how Nero filched it, but he did. We've been trying to get it back from him for a while now but we're closer to the moon than we are to finding the invisibility cloak. It was supposed to be yours, all you have to do is take it."

"The hour is late young fellows," said Phil in a mock dramatic voice, "It is time for a parting of the ways."

Mary reached into her pocket to find a large hubcap like coin in her pocket, "Keep this," she said, tossing it to them as they walked out the doors.