Chapter 23

Another challenge to the Marauders was in actually finding the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. The layout of the castle had changed and grown since the time of Salazar Slytherin, and the portrait told them to use the map of the original castle to be found in Hogwarts: a History, overlaid onto a map of the castle as it stood today.

"Only you'll have to make a map that morphs with the castle," he said. "The castle moves, you know, and changes."

"How can it do that?" asked Lily.

"Magic," said Slytherin. "Sometimes it adds rooms when more pupils are there. Sometimes it discourages pupils from going to certain places. And mostly it just breathes, in and out, changing the size and dynamics. It does so very slowly, one breath might take weeks. But it shifts the less stable elements like the stairs."

"Oh, I see, I think," said Lily.

"I have this one," said Sirius, his eyes glowing. "My dad got onto the subject of wizarding transport and maps, and he showed me a bit of geomancy. I really like the idea of making magical maps so I'm going to be studying geomancy in my spare time." He groaned. "And that means arithmancy. Phil, nice Phil!"

"I'll help," said Phil. "I know a bit of geomancy because I can see things that are hidden."

"Neat!" said Sirius.

School life went on as usual, of course. James and Sirius were keen quidditch fans, and were hoping to test for the team next year, which would have been more likely, as Severus said, if it hadn't come to the ears of the captain of the House team that James had managed to dream about chasing horcruces on little wings, eluding Voldemort, and managing to put a hurling hex on Sirius' bed. Naturally James could not speak about the nature of his dream, and he had been told off sharply that if that was a hex he could cast in his sleep, he had better never even try to cast it awake.

"He had a nightmare and cast the darkest magic he could think of, for goodness sake, Blunt," said Sirius, crossly. "Weasley has no business to go running off to tell you he's bound to cheat because he knows the hurling hex; we were using it to duel in DADA when Professor Prince told us to find ways of turning the environment on our opponent. It's not as though he was trying to cast an Unforgivable on Bethan Jones of the Holyhead Harpies, even if she does look like a troll."

"Miss Jones does not look like a troll," said Malcolm Blunt, the captain. He admired the Holyhead Harpies. Or at least he admired their top Chaser, Gwynneth Price. Sirius grinned.

"Grown-up women are as scary as trolls, anyway," he said.

"Oh, you kids are all loonies," said Blunt. He turned to James. "You were learning the hurling hex as a defence against dark arts? Are you serious?"

"No, he's Sirius," said James. "Yes, we were, Mr. Prince said we should use any and all means at our disposal short of the dark arts themselves if we found ourselves in a tricky situation. I mean, really, Blunt, if you were up against a redcap, and you had the opportunity to jab an elbow in its face and run away, would you seriously stop to think about whether you were cobbing? Be glad I'm not Lily Evans who has a neat line in fire spells, I might have set fire to Siri's bed not merely set it bucking like an untrained Granian."

"I'm glad of it, mate," said Sirius. "Some of us like quidditch fine well but contrary to popular belief, do not eat sleep and dream it. He's been reading dodgy thrillers again."

"Oh, very well," said Blunt.

"We need a jape to lighten up all this studying," grumbled James.

"Good idea!" Sirius brightened up. "Oy, Sev, what shall we do?"

"Why do you ask me?" Severus complained.

"You're the one with brains of course," Sirius smirked. "Why should we bother thinking when we have you to think for us?"

Severus rolled his eyes.

"I have a good one," said Remus, his amber eyes alight with unwonted mischief. "And it's all because of my own furry little problem!"

"What, turn everyone into werewolves?" quipped Sirius.

"Sort of," said Remus. "Petunia, didn't you say you knew a girl whose parents were hippies who made their own soap?"

"Yeah, she was a weirdo, but decent enough," said Petunia. "I had a nasty outbreak of acne and her soap cured them."

"Well I don't plan to cure anyone's festering spots, but to make soap with a hair-growing potion in it," said Remus, "But here's the catch! If Sev can come up with some clever runes to stamp into the soap, the hair won't grow until the full moon, so we catch everyone all together, not just the first few to use it!"

"Remus, mate, it's brilliant!" said James. "So now we need to brew the potion. Or, well, find out what potion to brew."

"I found a recipe already," said Remus. "I was thinking about what a bore it was having to be furry, last month, and how most people would have the heebie jeebies, either being me, or spending the night with me like the rest of you do. And I thought, well, why shouldn't they know a bit about it?"

"Good one," said Severus. "Shouldn't be hard, brewing up the soap will be hardest. And actually, rather than making soap from scratch, why don't we just grate school soap and reconstitute it with the potion in it?"

"Better plan," said Remus.

OoOoOo

The Marauders had set up a potions lab in the secret passage that started behind the statue of Gregory the Smarmy. It had several wider parts to it which were almost small rooms, with a spell designed to take fumes away enchanted into the roof, courtesy of Narcissa and Phil. They had also collected as much soap as they could without it being obvious that it was vanishing,

"Grating soap is really hard work," whined Peter.

"Just carry on grating," said James through gritted teeth. "At least you got to help with the potion making, because you're actually good enough. Siri, Cherry and I have grazed as much knuckle as soap here."

"It'll be worth it," said Sirius. "Why did you leave the potion making?"

Peter shuffled.

"I was bored," he said.

"Well pick bored or sore knuckles, I guess," said James. "At least Sev trusts you in charge of a cauldron. He told me my boil cure potion was more likely to turn someone into a bubotuber plant."

"They're learning Parseltongue off of Tuney while it brews, and I can't get my mouth round it," said Peter.

"I don't think us four are much kop at linguistics," said James.

"How are we supposed to control a ruddy basilisk, anyway?" asked Peter.

"I suppose Salazar is going to give us some words of command or something," said Sirius. "And I'd rather grate soap than learn to speak with snakes; they're hissing like tea kettles down the corridor in the potions part."

Severus was helping Lily to learn the language of snakes from her sister. Petunia was not the most patient of teachers, and Lily got upset when her sister was impatient, so Severus took it upon himself to ask the questions that Lily was too flustered to ask. It was not long before Lily was starting to find the aptitude within herself, but Severus did not stop. It would be useful. It helped that snakes were very formal about their forms of address; presumably when so many of them were poisonous, it helped to have formula and etiquette, and Severus began wondering whether the muggle poet and novelist Rudyard Kipling might have been a parselmouth.

It was not, perhaps, the most fortuitous occurrence that Severus was practising hissing some polite exchanges to himself when he ran, literally, into the headmaster, going the other way round a corner.

"Oof! Sorry, sir," said Severus.

"I didn't know you were a parselmouth, Mr. Prince," said Dumbeldore.

"I'm not. Well, not really; it's frightfully hard to learn," said Severus. "Are you a parselmouth, then, sir?"

"As you say, it's frightfully hard to learn," said Dumbledore, relaxing a little. "What prompted you to do so?"

"Runes are terrifically important," said Severus. "And my grandfather suggested it might not be a bad thing to study. He got a text by Herpo the Foul."

"Ah, I see," Dumbledore smiled. "Well, don't let me keep you, my boy."

OoOoOo

"Well, my dear fellow, I believe I found out how you got past Tom's little curse on Slytherin's portrait that you mentioned," Dumbledore wagged a playful finger at Tiberius.

"Really, Albus?"

"You persuaded your grandson to learn some parseltongue from Herpo the Foul."

"Tom Riddle is a parselmouth; having others understand the tongue might be an advantage," temporised Tiberius. He had told Dumbledore some of the conversation he had had with Salazar Slytherin, but not all of it, nor had he mentioned the children, and particularly not the gift Petunia Evans had. "I suppose you did the same when you realised that Tom was a parselmouth."

"As you say, it's a wise precaution," Dumbledore was no more going to make outright admissions than Tiberius was. "Keep an eye on the boy; Herpo's writings are not very pretty."

"No," said Tiberius. Severus had been quick to grasp that what Herpo had described as a 'soul splinter' was no more nor less than a horcrux; and Herpo must be the earliest documented wizard to have tried that foray into darkness. Twelve years old was very young to have to know about such things, but then knowledge was armour. And discussing horcruces freely had revealed one. And the sooner the youngsters could come up with the location of the Chamber of Secrets the better. He had told Dumbledore about the horcrux in the picture frame, but not the method Slytherin had recommended for destroying it. He was still, officially, working on that.

OoOoOo

Remus' only regret was that he would be stuck in the shrieking shack while the soap did its thing. Severus was his volunteer as all the other boys really wanted to see what happened. Severus would have liked to have seen it too, but he chose to be with his friend instead, though Phil had volunteered.

"You're our eyes in Ravenclaw, Phil, and you need a jape to cheer you up after years of being the butt of so-called jokes by nargles," he said.

"Yeah, and you enjoy getting some own-back on the bullying turds," said James.

Phil did not take much persuading. Even anticipating being hairy over the full moon did not deter him.

And it was worth it.

The moment the full moon rose above the horizon, everyone who had washed with the treated soap felt a tingling on their skin, which was followed by a rich eruption of hair.

The screams were balm to the ears of the Marauders. The staff were immune, as none of the Marauders had quite dared to treat the staff bathrooms, and some of the prefects appeared to have only bathed in the prefect bathrooms; and it was apparent who had skimped on their washing amongst the juniors. All the Marauders had gleefully bathed to have an all over furry experience, which was uncomfortable under clothes but at least was thorough.

"You rotten Marauders did this!" howled Weasley.

"Don't you beard us in our den," said Sirius.

"No, it bristles with difficulty," said James.

"Hair today, gone tomorrow," managed Peter.

"It'll put hairs on your chest," quipped Sirius.

"That's just splitting hairs," James followed up.

Albus Dumbledore rose.

"Can anyone shed any light on the, er, outbreak of hirsuteness?" he asked.

The Marauders stood up, and Sirius spoke out.

"It's the Marauder werewolf curse," he said. "We wanted to make everyone aware of how horrid it would be to be a werewolf and when the moon sets we thought we'd make a whip-round for a fund towards research into a cure."

"I see; an almost virtuous jape," Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "How did you effect this er, pilulous phenomenon?"

"We doctored the soap with a potion," said Sirius. "And that's why Sev isn't with us to take blame equally because he's the only poor sap in the world to come out allergic to the soap, and Remus has taken him to the hospital wing."

Dumbledore mentally applauded that piece of quick thinking, because the absence of Remus on full moon with the word werewolf actually bandied around might have been a dead giveaway.

"Is this effect, er, temporary?" he asked.

"Yes, the hair should all fall out when the moon sets," said Sirius. "I know, sir. Clear it up without magic because the elves will be put out. We'll need the passwords to other houses." As always the non-Gryffindor Marauders were not expected to take the blame, in case of being bullied.

"You anticipate my suggested punishment, and for your willingness to undertake it, I will ask the elves to deal with an excess of hair in the other houses," said Dumbledore. He had no intention of giving such efficient pranksters access to other houses.

Sirius bowed, and the Marauders sat down.

"I'm not contributing to your whip-round," growled Weasley.

"Oh, I wasn't expecting compassion for the afflicted from the mentally afflicted," said Sirius. "I don't know that I'd give a knut to help a wereweasel like you."

"Boys," one of the prefects chided. Sirius beamed at her, and Weasley fell on his food, muttering darkly.

It had been an excellent jape, although Fabian Prewett did remark to his brother Gideon that the hair and fur puns did get a little strained.

"Hairy old chestnuts, indeed," said Gideon, dryly.