Author's note: I think this is one of the longest chapters you've all had in a while and, I think, one of the funniest ones. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns the canon, world, and characters portrayed below and you can tell I'm not J.K. Rowling because #transrights

Hogwarts: Assignment #12, Photography Task #11 Zoology Task #9 Write about someone being active outdoors at night.

Content Warnings: NA

The Fate of the Marauder's Map

There was a special look, similar but different from Remus's carefully cultivated "professor look," that he saved for when his son was the one who was up to no good.

"And what exactly are you doing out and about after hours?" Remus asked when he ran into his son in the Eastern courtyard—across the castle from where he should have been sleeping in the Hufflepuff Common Room.

"I was… walking…" Teddy asked.

"You just fancied a stroll in the moonlight?"

"I am half werewolf."

"Oh good, you're in a funny mood at 2:30 on this fine morning," Remus said. "Were you, by chance, trying to go check in on one Victoire Weasley in the infirmary after her fall during today's Quidditch game?"

"Is that why you're up and about?" Teddy asked hopefully.

"No Teddy, I work here," Remus said. "Besides, as Madam Pomfrey said, Victoire will be good as new in the morning. I know she's your friend, but you can't be out of bed after hours. Especially not wandering the courtyards, you know we've been having problems with the Gargoyles."

Yes, the Gargoyles had been coming to life and biting students. That was a fun new development. Magical historians were fascinated by the phenomenon; Hogwarts professors not so much since it had increased the amount of rounds and patrols they each had every week. It had been keeping Remus from sneaking away and going home to Dora, so he felt particularly slighted by the stone creatures who had chosen this year to develop sentience. Part of the joys, he supposed.

"I know, I know," Teddy bemoaned, exasperated and, as was typical for him, rather candid. "But there's that big flood that happened in the Transfigurations Corridor so I had to take this big detour through the passage behind the Chipped…"

Teddy trailed off, as if realizing he'd said something wrong.

Remus narrowed his eyes.

"How do you know about the passage behind the Chipped Warlock?" Remus asked.

"How do you know about the passage behind the Chipped Warlock?" Teddy countered. But Teddy was not an excellent liar, so Remus saw the panic in his eyes.

A terrible, terrible hypothesis started forming in the back of Remus's head.

"Turn out your pockets," Remus said.

Teddy hesitated and then turned out the pockets of his pajama pants. He only had his wand on him.

"And your jumper," Remus said. Teddy hesitated before obeying, and there it was. That inconspicuous piece of parchment…

"Well," Remus said. "What do you have there?"

"Just a piece of parchment," Teddy said, making a valiant effort of lying through his teeth.

"Do you think I don't know what it is?" Remus asked, arching an eyebrow.

Teddy opened his mouth but closed it again.

"When did your godfather give you this?" Remus asked.

"Christmas my first year," Teddy mumbled.

"I see," Remus said. "Well, you managed to hold onto it for at least one year."

He held out his hand and Teddy looked slightly terrified but mostly miserable as he handed it over. When the parchment touched Remus's fingertips, ink blossomed across its surface like some of the strange flowers that Sprout grew in her greenhouses. And then the ink arranged itself into words.

Remus arched an eyebrow as he pulled his hand away. Oh… really?

"I didn't open it," Teddy said, eyes wide with panic.

"What does it say?" Remus asked, suspiciously.

Teddy hesitated before reading it out.

"Mr Prongs salutes Professor Lupin most cordially, though he is disappointed to the utmost degree that Professor Lupin has decided to betray his own kind by becoming a professor. In exchange, he would encourage Mr Teddy Lupin to, as they say, give them hell."

Teddy looked up furtively.

"Go on," Remus said.

"Mr Padfoot agrees with Mr Prongs, but would like to add that it is not in the least surprising given how Professor Lupin was born with the soul of an eighty-year-old hermit," Teddy said, biting his lip.

"That's not the end of it, is it?" Remus asked. Teddy shook his head.

"Mr Wormtail bids Professor Lupin good day, and advises him to do something about all that grey hair coming in before he's mistaken for one of the castle ghosts and exorcized."

Teddy couldn't hold it in anymore; he roared with laughter. Remus took the map from him while he laughed. Meanwhile, Remus looked down at the parchment and read the fourth line of text that appeared before him.

Mr Moony would like to remind Professor Lupin that with or without the map, the son he has somehow managed to produce will never cause half the amount of trouble he did—though he does deserve the opportunity to try.

"I didn't tell it to say that," his son promised once he was able to speak again.

"Yes I know. I did," Remus said. He wanted to be annoyed, that would have been the mature response to finding his own child breaking school rules with an artefact he wasn't meant to have, but he apparently wasn't really mature because he had to bite back a smile of his own. He sighed. "Alright, 20 points from Hufflepuff. Actually, 25 because I'm apparently feeling nostalgic and letting you hold onto that thing."

"Really?" Teddy asked, jaw dropping. "You are?"

"This is against my better judgement, so don't push your luck," Remus said. "And don't let me catch you with it again; lesser men than me have confiscated it from better troublemakers than you."

"Right, understood." Teddy said, nodding enthusiastically.

Remus sighed.

"Five more points from Hufflepuff, actually," he said. "And I'll take more if you don't go straight back to your Common Room."

But Teddy wasn't really the problem, now was he?

He had managed to wiggle out of one of his patrols and make his way to the birthday party Sirius was throwing Kingsley in their penthouse off Downing Street. He spent most of the night with his hand on the small of Dora's back and a glass of wine in his hand, catching up with the other former Order Members mingling around the room with Kingsley's old school friends and sisters. But he did borrow Harry for a moment and pull him aside.

"I know what you did with the Marauder's Map," Remus said.

Harry tried feigning innocence, swirling the Firewhisky in his glass. He drank it neat, like James.

"I don't know what you…"

"I can't believe you gave it to Teddy," Remus said.

"Who else would I have given it to?" Harry asked.

"Jamie," Remus said. "Your son."

"Pfft," Harry scoffed. "No fucking way am I giving this to Jamie—have you met him? Absolutely not. We're passing that thing down by age."

"It was meant to be father to son," Remus said.

"This is more democratic," Harry shrugged.

"And conveniently it means that the map is not in your son's possession, I see," Remus said.

"Yes, which I believe makes it your problem now," Harry said. "Or should I ask Sirius to come weigh in as a tie-breaker to see what he could do? He'd be happy to know Teddy has it now, and I'm sure he'd have ideas to pass on…

"Do not," Remus said warningly.

"What are we asking Sirius?" Sirius asked, materializing behind Remus because of course he did.

Remus aged another few years, map's insults be damned.

But he was a patient man. A practical man. He knew his time would come. So he just smiled.

"Nothing," Remus told Sirius sweetly.

"Can you stop panicking for about twelve seconds?" Teddy asked, grabbing James by the arm.

"You… you were kissing Victoire!" Jamie said, jaw dropping once more.

"I know, I was there. And everybody else knows too because you've been telling the whole family," Teddy said, annoyed. "Seriously, Jamie, it's nothing serious—just a summer fling that's over now, so settle down. I have to tell you something."

"What do you mean it's nothing serious?" Jamie said.

"I have to give you something," Teddy said. This piqued Jamie's interest—typical.

"If you're going to kiss me too…"

"Merlin's beard," Teddy sighed. "No, look."

He looked around hurriedly to make sure the Potters weren't around before reaching into his back pocket for the map.

"Watch, I'm only going to show this to you once," Teddy said. He pressed the tip of his wand against the parchment. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

As it had a hundred times before, the map came to life.

"Who are Moony and Padfoot and Prongs and Wormtail?" Jamie asked, frowning. "Wait, is it Padfoot like..?"

"Like Uncle Sirius, yeah. Moony's my dad, Prongs is your grandpa, and Wormtail doesn't matter," Teddy said. "They're the ones who made it. Look."

Teddy unfolded it and gave Jamie a second to look at it.

"That's Hogwarts," he said. He pointed to a spot square in the middle of the parchment. "There's your dad and McGonagall, in the Great Hall."

"Probably getting it ready for the feast, yeah," Teddy said. "It shows all kinds of secret passages and shortcuts around the school too; it's really great to follow the staircases when they switch around too. But don't get caught."

He pressed the tip of his wand to the parchment. "Mischief managed."

The parchment cleared itself, as it had a hundred times before.

"Wicked," Jamie said. His brown eyes twinkled mischievously. If Prongs had once upon a time told Teddy to 'give them hell,' well, Jamie didn't need to be asked.

"Listen, my dad knows you have this," Teddy said.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, he's the one who told me I should give it to you," Teddy said. "And he's right, why do I need it now that I'm in Healer training? So give him a wide berth and plausible deniability, that way he doesn't confiscate it from you. And don't let your dad know you have it."

"I can do that," Jamie said, tucking the map into his back pocket. "Are you trying to tell me I've gone three years without having this?"

"Oh please, don't pretend it's stopped you from causing any kind of trouble," Teddy said.

Jamie grinned at that.

"Oh, but the possibilities are so, so sweet," he sighed dreamily.

Teddy smiled. Mischief managed indeed.

"I'm not used to this," Ginny said, putting down her copy of The Prophet.

"To what?" Harry asked, reading over the section of the paper she'd passed over to him. Lily was colouring in another section, since she always thought the black and white photos were terribly boring.

"To… to quiet mornings," Ginny said. She narrowed her eyes. "The boys have been at Hogwarts for a week. Shouldn't we have gotten a few owls from McGonagall by now?"

Harry put down the paper as well.

"I feel like we should have," Ginny said. "Unless Jamie's been… nevermind, there's no way he's been behaving."

"Absolutely none," Harry said. There was the possibility that Al was helping him, but Al had been sorted into Ravenclaw which would make the logistics more complicated…

"Has he gotten smarter, then?" Ginny asked.

"Not on his own," Lily mumbled from her spot. Ginny snorted.

"That's not nice," she said. "But you're probably right."

And that's when it dawned on Harry.

No, not on his own. But with help…

"I can't believe you gave up the map," Harry told Teddy the next time he saw his godson—ages later, since he was up to his neck in healer training. But he wouldn't miss his own mother's birthday party, would he?

"I didn't give it up," Teddy said with a frown. His eyebrows were bubblegum pink, in honour of his mum, but otherwise he was dressed in black and denim from head to toe.

"You know what I mean," Harry said. "Come off, now. I know Jamie has it."

"Well yeah, Jamie has it," Teddy shrugged. "Why would I have kept it? What good would it have done on my desk?"

"You could have held onto it and given it to your own children, if you had any one day," Harry said.

"Nah," Teddy said with a shrug. "It felt more right this way. And Dad agreed."

"Your father knows?" Harry frowned.

"Sure," Teddy said. "It was his idea, actually."

Harry turned around and saw Remus standing by the kitchen island, covered in snacks and cake and empty butterbeer bottles. He smiled at Harry, and Harry wandered over.

"Jamie having a good term?" Remus asked jovially.

"You know exactly how his term's going," Harry said. He frowned. "But… I don't understand. If this is some kind of revenge for my giving Teddy the map, what's the point? It's still your problem if Jamie gets up to no good, ultimately."

"No it's not," Remus said. He took a sip from his drink. "I stepped down as Head of Gryffindor House."

Harry's jaw dropped.

"You…"

Remus smiled.

"Mischief managed," he said.

WC: 2083