Yeey! New chappie! A bit faster than I thought, but well, I got inspiration and it went so fast... Thanks to LEAD again, for her advise and editing!

Still not JK Rowing (although I have false hope I will be some day:P)

on with the story!

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"WHAT?"

"Black has tried to enter the Gryffindor tower again, and this time he succeeded!"

"What? But how? Is anybody injured? Who saw him?" Remus felt that his heart and head were suddenly racing.

"I don't know exactly, but Minerva has the whole story. Never seen her so scared . . ."

While Filius was talking, Remus put on a cloak and took his shoes to put them on also. All his sympathetic feelings towards Sirius the past days had disappeared, and he was totally agreeing with Harry and the rest of the world that that man deserved a Dementor's Kiss. How had he forgotten that Sirius had killed before, and was about to do it again?

When he got on his shoes (he tucked his shoe-laces in the sides: his hands were shaking to much from anger to tie them) he followed Flitwick towards the great Hall: there were most of the teachers standing, looking at Dumbledore, who gave them instructions as to which part of the school they had to search.

"Remus, you can search the dungeons with Severus."

As if Dumbledore wanted to punish him for the kinder thoughts he had had toward Sirius, Remus was linked to Severus, who was one of the few with all his normal clothes on.

They looked at each other with a deadly glare, and Remus followed his least-favourite colleague to the dark and cold dungeons, but the dungeons were nothing compared to the heavy silence between them. He had not very much confidence in finding Black. Snape, however, was walking very fast, constantly looking around, as if the few paintings that hung here had a trace of Black in their colours.

Remus followed Snape willingly, who but when he slowed down, Remus was forced to walk next to him, and soon, there was a conversation.

"So, have you heard the whole story yet?" Snape asked Remus in an arrogant tone.

"N-No, I haven't." He tried to tell himself that he was shaking because of the cold.

"Oh, did no one tell you? Well, apparently, the student who did so well in your first class, Longbottom, had all of this week's passwords written down on a little piece of paper, which he lost. Black, coincidentally, found it." At the word 'coincidentally', he paused to give more emphasis to the word. "And went to the tower tonight . . . He went up to the third-years' dormitory, opened the curtains, but found, instead of Potter, Weasley, who saw the knife in his hands and started screaming. Someone went for Minerva, but Black had already gone . . . probably through a secret passageway that leads out of the castle . . ."

"Oh," he said lamely. He felt more and more ill with every word Snape had said, but he really didn't know what to say. He promised himself that he would tell Dumbledore about the fact that Black was an Animagus the next morning, and that the Whomping Willow was probably the way Black entered the castle.

"So, where were you at that time, Moony?" Remus blinked at the sound of his old nickname, and he felt some anger about the accusation Snape made. However, he kept calm and said:

"I was sleeping, as were most of the persons in this castle. Filius woke me only half an hour ago."

"Oh," said Snape, mocking Remus' previous response.

There was some silence again, and it grew heavier and heavier.

When they had walked through what seemed to be all the dungeons in Hogwarts, Snape suddenly walked up a flight of stairs and they were standing in the Great Hall again, where Dumbledore was standing alone.

"The dungeons are clear," Snape said. "Black will have used the same way as last time: a way that almost no one knows about." At this remark he was glaring suspiciously to Remus, but neither Dumbledore nor Remus himself said anything. "Or he had help getting in. Perhaps Lupin knows . . ." He didn't get to finish his sentence, however. Dumbledore interrupted.

". . . more passages in this castle then any other of the teachers? Yes, I was thinking about that myself. Remus, could you do me a favour and inspect the castle with Mr. Filch tomorrow? I gave him the task of securing any passageways in or out of Hogwarts. You and your friends seemed to have a . . . particular ability for discovering them when you were in school. Perhaps you can be of use?" Remus nodded mutely; Snape was looking angry. "Thank you. Well, you two were the last of the staff to come back, so if you'll excuse me, I will go back to my office now. Goodnight."

With that, he turned around and strode out of the Hall, softly whistling a muggle song Remus had once heard when he was a kid. Remus looked at Snape, who said nothing, but whirled around and descended the stairs again. A few moments later, Remus heard the echoing slam of a dungeon door.

When he arrived back in his office, Remus sat at his desk, feeling oddly awake and knowing there was no chance at sleep. He conjured some hot chocolate (although he thought that making it the muggle way was actually better), and slowly sipped, thinking about the events these past hours. When the mug was empty, he pulled a piece of paper towards him and tried, thinking hard, to remember how the Marauders Map had looked. He doodled some pages that were etched into his mind from using them so often, but when he looked at them, he had his doubts . . . Well, perhaps he could do it more rationally. There were six, no, seven entrances into Hogwarts that the Marauders had found. One was obviously the Whomping Willow. In his time at school, Filch had known about three other entrances in the castle. That meant that there were four entrances Black could have used. With all his might, he tried to remember those passages. The Whomping Willow, the space behind the mirror on the fourth floor, a wall in the dungeons that you had to tap to open and . . . and . . . He really couldn't remember the last one. He tried again – after all, he'd used the passage for years, he ought to be able to remember it – but all he got was a mental image of himself and his friends making the Map. James and Sirius performing the spells and drawing the corridors, himself trying to look up the spells in a book that James had nicked from the library (nicked, because "It would hurt my reputation when I had just borrowed it,") and Peter looking on curiously, and handing quills and ink to the other three boys. "We are not going to tell the secrets on this Map to anyone," Sirius had said as they finished for the evening. Later, as they discovered more of the school's secrets, they added them in. The Map was never totally complete; after all, it didn't have the Slytherin common room on it.

Remus felt some guilt for giving the secrets away to Filch. James would turn over in his grave out of shame, he thought . . . But, at the same time, he would have wanted his son to be protected enough to go to school safely.

"I already knew that one," said Filch, when Remus took him to the wall in the dungeons. "Found it when someone locked Mrs. Norris in and she couldn't escape." He looked at Remus as if he was the perpetrator of such a monstrous crime.

"Well, okay…. What about the Mirror on the fourth floor?"

"The Mirror? Is that a passage?" Filch's reaction couldn't be more different; his eyes were almost popping out from happiness.

At least someone's happy about knowing our secrets, Remus thought, having trouble keeping up with Filch, who was almost sprinting to the fourth floor.

He showed Filch the spell, though Filch, being a Squib, was unable to use it. If only we'd known he was a Squib when we were here – we'd have driven him mad. Not that we didn't, but . . . Remus had trouble keeping a straight face thinking about the fun they might have had, but was brought back to reality by the caretaker.

"Do you have more?" he asked, almost begging.

"Well, there is the Whomping Willow," Remus said.

Filch reacted quite differently than he had to the previous two.

"The Whomping Willow?" he repeated suspiciously.

"Yes, there is a tunnel beneath it. It ends in . . ."

"But how could anyone enter or leave Hogwarts through that?" Filch interrupted. "Do you have to tap on the bark or something?"

"No, all you have to do is . . ."

"Well, I think it's useless to hurt myself blocking that entrance when Black can hardly enter because of the branches. And besides, the grounds are swarming with Dementors. If he tried to enter, he'd fall right into their hands . . .

It was obvious that Filch didn't want to go near the vicious tree.

"But I think he can come through it. Maybe you should just have a look…." Remus knew that Black had a way to fool the Dementors: becoming a big black dog. But at the same time, if he confessed that to Dumbledore, he would also have to confess that they had played around when he was a werewolf, while he was supposed to stay in the Shrieking Shack. He realised that even though he had yesterday promised himself that he would, Remus couldn't confess it to the man who have given him a job, and then would probably sack him. He loved this castle far too much to give it up because he hadn't been careful enough in his school time. Filch was shaking his head, while walking back towards his office: He probably thought that Remus wanted to prank him, with saying that the Whomping Willow was an entrance. Remus let him walk. For once he didn't feel like he had to intervene. He had made up his mind; there had been enough secrets revealed for today.

It was weird how easily life returned to normal at Hogwarts. Ron was telling everybody that Monday how Black had stood beside him, and Filch was busy with boarding up tiny cracks and things he believed were "entrances", but besides that, the next Monday was a normal one. Remus continued his lessons, and the nasty feeling of guilt in his stomach about not telling someone about Black's Animagus form only turned up when he heard the name of Sirius, or was reminded of last weekend's occurrences.

It was strange that more people seemed to talk about last Saturday's Quidditch game, instead of the breaking in by a mass murderer that same Saturday evening. Probably because Black had done it for the second time, while the Quidditch game of last Saturday had made the championship much more interesting. Only the teachers seemed to be more worried.

"I can't believe that Black escaped us again! And to make the matters even worse, he got further this time than last time; I mean, he stood beside a student with a knife! The boy must be emotionally scarred for life!" Remus had heard Professor Vector say to Madame Hooch, who nodded fervently.

The "emotionally scarred boy" didn't seem to mind the attention though, and Remus had to admit it was good to see Ron standing in the spotlights for a change.

" . . . I was asleep, and I heard this ripping noise, you know? I instantly knew that there was something wrong, of course. So I took my wand from under my pillow, and sat up on my knees, prepared to fight . . ."

Remus had noticed that Ron's story was changing every time he told it. Remus heard that Harry had told Ginny (when Ron had told her about his heroic fight, and letting Black flee) that Ron had screamed like hell instead. Ginny had blushed, giggled and trembled over her homework as a reply.

When Remus heard that there was a Hogsmeade day the next weekend, he was very surprised that Dumbledore had decided to allow the students into the town. However, the students were excited, and Remus caught Harry and Ron whispering during his class, while Hermione was eying them suspiciously and uncertainly.

He thought about going himself that Saturday, but there was a full moon coming up and he had a mass of tests to look through, so he decided to stay at Hogwarts.

That Saturday, while he was busy correcting the essays (a second year Hufflepuff had thought that a Pogrebin was black instead of red, a third year thought that you had to eat a wooden cross to protect yourself against vampires and a fourth year Slytherin tried used his essay to try and convince Remus that Imperio and Crucio were extremely important for them to learn), when the fireplace next to him was suddenly burned with green flames, and he heard Snape's voice come out of it.

"Lupin!" it boomed. "I want a word!"

Without knowing what else to do, but knowing that this couldn't be any good, he stepped into the fireplace and whirled around, until he saw Snape's office and stepped out.

There, along with a very, very pissed Snape, stood Harry, looking utterly bewildered and rather afraid. Remus tried to remain calm and brushed the ashes from his robes (as if they hadn't been shabby enough before the histrip through the fireplace), still confused as to what all this could mean.

"You called, Severus?"

"I certainly did." Snape marched back to his desk and pointed at a piece of parchment, adding, "I have just asked Potter to empty his pockets. He was carrying this."

Remus leaned over and saw, next to some Zonko's products, to his utter surprise, the thing for which he had been searching for months: the Marauder's Map.

Quick thinking, quick thinking, he thought, picking up the piece of parchment. It seemed to work exactly as they had planned when Snape tried to get past the password.

Mr Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape, and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people's business.

Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Moony, and would like to add that Professor Snape is an ugly git.

Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor.

Mr. Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his hair, the slimeball.

Yes, the charm had really worked – two of the Marauders had insulted Snape from beyond the grave. But how could Remus explain this now? Snape obviously knew who these people were, but with a look at Harry, he could see that Harry had never heard of these people. But if he didn't, how had he gotten the Map?

There were too many questions circling in his head; he needed to make his mind clear.

"Well?" Snape asked more impatiently.

Okay, Snape had probably brought Harry here after catching him in Hogsmeade. Remus could add those two together. He had to find a way to get Harry out of this, and preferably himself and the Map too.

"Well?" Snape asked, loudly. "This parchment is plainly full of Dark Magic. This is supposed to be your area of expertise, Lupin. Where do you imagine Potter got such a thing?"

Ouch. In one remark, Snape had made a sneer at his work, his past and had tried to tell Harry what that history was. Remus put the Map back on the desk and looked at Harry, who was looking directly at him. Remus gave him a look that said: Don't interrupt me, and started trying to get them both out of this mess.

"Full of Dark Magic? Do you really think so, Severus? It looks to me as though it is merely a piece of parchment that insults anybody who tries to read it. Childish, but surely not dangerous? I imagine Harry got it from a joke shop –"

That last sentence hadn't been smart, seeing as he also tried to prove that Harry hadn't been in Hogsmeade also, but Snape, now full of cold fury from the insults on the Map, hadn't noticed that he had an extra clue to show that Harry had been in Hogsmeade.

"Indeed? You think a joke-shope could supply him with such a thing? You don't think it more likely that he got it directly from the manufacturers?" Snape had a glint in his eye that really scared Remus, but he was able to remain calm and said, with well-acted surprise, "You mean, from Mr. Wormtail or one of these people?" He thought Peter's name had been the smartest to use, seeing as the other two would infuriate Snape more than anything else at the merest thought, and the last one was standing in front of him. To make his reaction more believable, he added, "Harry, do you know any of these men?"

"No," said Harry quickly. Remus knew they wouldn't be able to keep this up for long; he needed to get out of this room.

"You see Severus? It looks like a Zonko product to me –"

As if he were sent from heaven, Ron came stumbling into the office. Clutching a stitch in his side, he stopped in front of Snape's desk, looking as though he had run a few miles and had just stopped. In the few moments that Ron used to get back his ability to speak, Snape glared at Remus. Remus tried to stay calm, and looked neutrally back at Snape.

"I – gave – Harry – that – stuff. Bought – it – in Zonko – ages – ago . . ." Ron wanted to tell them more, but it seemed that he had a sharp pain in his stomach, and was now holding his hands against it. Remus interfered.

"Well," he clapped his hands to get everyone's attention, "that seems to clear that up! Severus, I'll take this back, shall I?" Before Snape could hear the mistake in his sentence (How could he be so stupid to use the word 'back'? As if he'd had it before!), he took the map from the desk and went on: "Harry, Ron, come with me, I need a word about my vampire essay. Excuse us, Severus."

With that, almost not believing that he had talked his way out of the situation, he rushed Harry and Ron towards the door, and followed them out.

But at the moment that he wanted to congratulate himself, he felt anger boiling up inside him. Harry had put himself in a very dangerous position, only to get to some things from Zonko's. And Ron had helped, while not even a week ago, he had been standing eye-to-eye with Black. However, he was the most angry at himself. He only now fully realised that the Map was a weapon in the wrong hands, and those wrong hands didn't belong only to Black, but to others as well. This thing was a remaining piece of the puzzle that – if people solved it – would reveal Remus' secret. He marched out of the dungeons. When they reached the empty entrance hall, he heard Harry speak. "Professor, I –"

"I don't want to hear explanations," he said shortly. He looked around and lowered his voice. "I happen to know that this map was confisticated by Mr. Filch many years ago. Yes, I know it's a map," he added, when he saw that Ron and Harry were looking surprised. His anger seemed to grow more and more. "I don't want to know how it felt in your possession. I am however, astounded that you didn't hand it in. Particularly after what happened the last time a student left information about the castle lying around. And I can't let you have it back, Harry." He was mad at the boy; if Harry had just given the map to Dumbledore, no one had to know about its history. Now, he was stuck with it, and he couldn't give it to the Headmaster – he was sure that if he tried the whole story would come out of his mouth. Dumbledore had a way of getting to the truth.

"Why did Snape think I'd got it from the manufacturers?" Harry asked.

"Because . . ." Remus hesitated. It would look suspicious to tell Harry nothing, but to tell him that he had helped make it would be going a bit too far. "Because these mapmakers would have wanted to lure you out of school," he suddenly said. "They'd think it extremely entertaining," Remus said, thinking back at the hoax Sirius had once done on Snape, almost uncovering Remus' secret also.

"Do you know them?" Harry asked impressed. It irritated Remus that Harry didn't seem to care about his warning, but only about the "mapmakers".

"We've met," he said, trying to impress upon Harry how dangerous it was to have the map. "Don't expect me to cover up for you again, Harry. I cannot make you take Sirius Black seriously. But I would have thought that what you have heard when the Dementors draw near you would have had more of an effect on you. Your parents gave their lives to keep you alive, Harry. A poor way to repay them – gambling their sacrifice for a bag of magic tricks."

It had seemed obvious that after his amazing success with the Patronus Charm during the Quidditch match, Harry didn't need tutoring anymore. But even if it had been necessary, Remus wasn't sure if he would have done it again.

He didn't understand himself anymore, though the question that immediately pooped into his head was, When did you ever? On one hand he was angry at Harry; Harry had put himself in danger for some candy and hadn't realised how dangerous the map could be in other peoples' hands.

But on the other hand: Remus now had the map, but he wasn't about to turn it in either. Of course that had to do with his own history with the map, but wasn't it also a little bit because he was glad he had it back?

When he got back to his office, he opened the Map and saw that nothing had changed. In fact, when he rolled out the parchment that he had doodled on before in his attempts to remember the secret passageways, he saw that some corridors were exactly the same. He had done a great job, without even knowing.

March glided through April into May, and suddenly the students seemed to realise that exams were unbelievably nearer than they had thought. Ron and Harry seemed to have made up with Hermione, who was a bit more relaxed than she had been, possibly because she had dropped Divination. However, Remus only noticed this when he saw her in the corridors or heard it from his colleagues; in his class, she was just as uptight and nervous as before.

Snape hadn't exchanged a word with Remus since the episode with Harry and the map. However, Remus was glad about it. Although Snape was still obeying Dumbledore by giving Remus his monthly Wolfsbane potion, now he did it without the usual sneers and remarks, which only seem to make the process more comfortable for Remus.

Because he'd had all his lessons and exams planned since the terrible lesson Snape had given last semester, Remus didn't feel too much pressure about the performances his students would make during exams; he knew that he was at least better than the previous Defence teacher (Since the guy had lost his memory before the exams) and that most students hadn't had made such a progress in any other lesson this year.

But before there could be any real exam stress, the year's Quidditch champion had to be decided. If there wasn't stress with the people who seemed to realise that finals were drawing near, there was stress enough about the final Quidditch-match. Little incidents between Slytherin and Gryffindor seemed to happen at least twice a day, including a lot of booing and pestering between the two teams, and Minerva's polite nod towards Snape seemed to get sterner by the day.

This time, knowing that he could expect a wonderful game, Remus heard more of the commentary on that sunny, bright Saturday. He hadn't expected, however, that his colleagues were also very "into" the game; Minerva had charmed her hat to be red with a gold rim, while holding a huge crimson flag in her hand. Hagrid had red rosettes everywhere and Filius suddenly had a red cloak instead of a black one. Remus himself had only a red scarf in his closet, but to wear that thing in May when it was already so hot was ridiculous.

"And here are the Gryffindors! Potter, Bell, Johnson, Spinnet, Weasley, Weasley and Wood. Widely acknowledged as the best team Hogwarts has seen in a good few years –" There was too much booing to hear what else Lee had to say.

"And here come the Slytherin team, led by Captain Flint. He's made some changes in the line-up and seems to be going for size, rather than skill –"

The players approached each other, the captains shook hands, and before Remus knew it, Madame Hooch had blown on her whistle and the players were off.

But the game was different than Remus expected; the Ravenclaw match had been exiting and tough, but this one was downright dirty. People flew into each other, Bludgers were aimed at players' heads, people grabbed each other by the head, not to mention all the swearing Lee Jordan was doing. Remus had seen a lot of Quidditch-matches, (Including one, where James and Sirius had glued their opponents – Slytherins of course- to their own brooms) but this one was definitely not fun to watch. The game became more and more dangerous, but when Malfoy caught the end of Harry's broom to prevent him from catching the Snitch, Remus didn't stand up, shouting boos as Filius now did next to him. Remus heard a noise that actually would have been impossible to hear among this crowd, yet he heard it. His eyes tried to find the source, and with a wave of shock and fear, they found it. There was a black dog downstairs, next to the tribune where Remus sat. The dog was huge, and looked quite scary as it barked like mad towards the broomsticks in the air. With another jolt of fear, Remus realised that the dog wasn't even half as scary as it would be in its true appearance. Remus felt the urge to pinch himself, or rub his eyes. Was Sirius Black really standing at this sideline of the Quidditch field? But if he was, why was he not trying to harm anyone?

Remus didn't know how long he was staring at the dog, but when the gigantic roar from the crowd told him that Harry had apparently caught the Snitch he saw that the black animal was wagging its tail, chasing a fly that was zooming through the air, and then, amid all the noise that now erupted from the side of the Gryffindors, disappeared.

Instead of sobbing as hard as Minerva, instead of grinning as wide as Harry, Remus walked straight to his office. There, pulling the Map out of his drawer and opening it with the charm, he sought Sirius' name hastily, but he found nothing. The Quidditch pitch lay next to the edge of the paper, and Black would probably have left the grounds since his appearance at the game.

But Remus also looked at the castle itself, in the hope that Black's name would be there. In the back of his mind, he knew that if he didn't occupy himself looking for the name "Sirius Black", he would have to answer the questions that had nagged him since the sight of the familiar black dog: Why didn't he make an attempt to kill Harry? Why did he seem excited, even happy, when Harry caught the Snitch?

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So, okay, the last thing didn't stand in the books, but I found that there had to be an extra reason for Remus to trust Sirius in the next chapter in the Shrieking Shack :P Oops, spoiler:P:P

By the way, thanks for al the wonderfull reviews! I mean, I should say more often that I think that the chapter is rubbish! I never had so many positive messages!

see you next time!

xxx-mokimik-xxx