The map
"Ted! Marshall! Get up here!" Barney called as he and the twins ran up to their dorm.
Ted glanced at his best friend. "What now?" he wondered.
Marshall shrugged. "Better be something good."
"Knowing them," Ted said, "I don't think so."
They followed the boys upstairs into the dorm and sat down in the circle in the middle. The twins were taking out a piece of parchment that was at least ten years old, and folded up.
"We've been trying to figure this thing out for a month now," said Fred. "But we finally figured out the password."
"Password?" Marshall asked.
"Oh, yes," George said with a grin. "And it's more brilliant than we ever could've imagined."
"It's totally legen— wait for it— dary!" Barney said.
Ted and Marshall rolled their eyes. It was Barney's catchphrase, and he said it all the time. Even the twins seemed to be getting sick of it.
However, today they had no reaction to Barney saying it. Instead, Fred asked his brother, "Now, who shall do the honors?"
"Go ahead," George offered, still grinning.
Fred nodded and then pulled out his wand, tapping it against the parchment, then said, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good."
It would've looked silly if the parchment hadn't begun to change— from the tip of the wand, ink sprouted into lines like veins across the entire piece of parchment. Soon the lines crossed over each other and became rooms and corridors, and then dots appeared all over the parchment, and tiny print next to the dots.
At the top, the words, "Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, purveyors of aids to magical mischief-making, are proud to present The Marauder's Map."
Looking closer, it seemed that the tiny print next to the dots were names, and of people. And the entire piece of parchment was a map— was this used to track people?
"Holy…" Marshall's jaw dropped. "How on earth? How did they— they track people— the different rooms— how did they get access—"
"We have no idea," said George. "But these four people somehow did it— if they're even people."
"What else would they be?" Barney asked. "Hippogriffs?"
They all laughed a bit. "Probably not," Fred said, "but I can't believe they have access to all the common rooms. And the locked doors and stuff… I wonder how long it took them to make it. And how on earth do they track people?" He grinned, looking back up at them. "It's a masterpiece."
"I think that's an understatement," Marshall said, still amazed.
"I want to meet these people," Barney said. "It'd be like meeting your idol…"
"Well, think about it," Ted said. "The parchment is at least ten years old. Fifteen or sixteen years at most, so sometime from the 1970s. And this is complex magic, so probably someone past N.E.W.T. level— only if it was confiscated by Filch, maybe it was made by students? That seems unlikely. Maybe parents made it, sent it to their kids, and the kids got it confiscated, or maybe the kids stole it from their parents because giving a kid something like this would be terrible parenting—"
"Will you shut up?" Barney complained. "It was just an idea, geez."
"Maybe the parchment had a protection spell on it, and it's thousands of years old," Marshall said. "It could be anything."
"These four could be the founders!" Ted realized, but nobody was paying attention to him.
"Anyway," Fred said, "there are secret passages all over the place, and I say we have to go exploring."
"And go to Hogsmeade," George agreed. "I knew it was a smart idea not to spend all the money on the train."
"Now, though?" Ted asked. "You've still got work to do, you know—"
"Not now," Barney said, rolling his eyes. "It's gotta be tonight. We'll sneak out."
"And we can make sure nobody follows us with this," Fred said.
"You two in?" George asked.
Marshall and Ted looked at each other. "Alright," Marshall said. "Later tonight, we're going to Hogsmeade."
"Yes!" said the twins and Barney in unison.
