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Chapter 9

The Marauders' Map

Lily's amazing potions and charms abilities proved able to get James through the the next two days. And then, when near mid-October, when Moony's monthly habit struck again, this time starting on a Tuesday night, Lily offered her services again, this time in advance. She had the potions ready for him when he was the only one of the Marauders to show up for breakfast Wednesday morning, as Sirius and Wormtail both tended to skip at least half their classes on the day after one of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs' midnight expeditions.

A good bit had changed since the last full-moon, James reflected, as he gazed happily at the face of Lily sitting across from him at the table. One thing was that Marietta and Chloe had taken to letting James and Lily sit alone at breakfast, though the whole group, Marauders, Lily, Chloe and Marietta, tended to eat lunch and dinner all together. At breakfast however, Chloe and Marietta usually sat with Peter, Sirius, and Remus at breakfasts, except for mornings like this when they skipped and the two girls were content to eat alone. James didn't know whose idea it was to give Lily and he one meal a day together, but he was grateful for it.

Another difference was that the hallways had become significantly safer, thanks to James and Sirius. According to the unofficial Hogwarts-gossip version of what had happened, both boys had written their parents the day after requesting them to send them replacement wands from Diagon Alley. Flint's parents had done so by so soon that he hardly fell behind in any of his classes.

Prewett, however, received a Howler from his parents (this part is not gossip, as the whole school heard it for themselves over breakfast one morning), exclaiming that whatever had happened to him was clearly his own fault. His cousins (of which he had quite a few, most of whom were in various years in Gryffindor, one even playing on the Quidditch team as a Chaser), according to the Howler, had all told Prewett's parents what sort of lot he had fallen into with in Slytherin. They suggested that he should drop out of school so he could come home and learn some proper morals before he learned any more magic. The next day, returning now to the realm of gossip, he did indeed drop out of school, but supposedly went to live with Mulciber, a former Slytherin who had graduated the year before and become a Death Eater.

Without his best friend around, Flint had gone back to staying in his room nights, likely in part because he was afraid of the Marauders, and in part because he had discovered that he couldn't do a proper Cruciatus curse on his own in any event.

"What are you thinking about, James," asked Lily, between bites of scrambled egg. "Potions working for you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm lucid and all, thanks to you. Just been thinking about how much has changed over the past month."

"Well... For one thing, you're up to 70 points now," said Lily.

"It'd be higher if you hadn't started getting stingy," said James.

"I'm not stingy. It just takes more to impress me now. You know, now that I know you're not a complete prat," she smiled cheekily at James.

"Right. Well. I'm a pretty impressive chap, after all. I'll win your heart by December, just you wait," said James.

"Oooh," said Lily. "There's the cocky prat I've known all these years. Shame I can't subtract points."

James thought back to the first time Lily had tried to subtract points, when James had turned her hair fluorescent pink one day at lunch and all of the Gryffindor table had laughed at her. Lily got embarrassed, even though she knew it was all just friendly laughter. All of Gryffindor loved their head-girl, after all. She tried to take three points away from James, after he had changed the color back to normal, but Marietta declared it to be against the rules. The assembled friends of both James and Lily agreed.

"I'm not a cocky prat. Just a confident prat," said James.

"Fair enough. Walk me to potions?" asked Lily.

"Can I hold your hand?" asked James.

"What a third year way to show affection!" exclaimed Lily.

"Still, can I?" asked James, grinning.

"It's not going to earn you any points," said Lily.

"Doesn't need to. I just want to hold your hand," said James.

Lily smiled. "All right then, Potter, you've got yourself a deal."

James blinked at the use of the name "Potter".

"Right," explained Lily. "You're also 'Potter' when we're making business arrangements. You walk with me to class for the right to hold my hand"

"Ah, said James. "Well, are there any other parts of your body that I can arrange to hold through similar 'business arrangements," James joked, with a wide grin to make sure that Lily knew he was joking.

"I've considered it," pointed out Lily, thinking back to that summer when she wished she'd 'prostituted' herself out to Potter for an owl.

James' jaw dropped and Lily giggled. "Not really, you dirty-minded prat. Besides. You know you'd rather have me as a girlfriend than grab any part of me through a 'business arrangement."

"Right you are, beautiful Lily, right you are," said James.

It was on Saturday night of that week, which Lupin spent in the Hospital Wing, recovering from his transformation into a werewolf, which always took a horrible toll on a man's body, that James noticed that Flint had apparently found a new friend to roam the hallways at night. The reason he was watching the map was that Lily was on patrol, and he wanted to make sure nothing bad happened to her. Flint's new friend was Marcus Vice, the same guy who had beat him in the first round of the dueling tournament in the first week of school, after getting boils and bruises.

James decided not to wake Sirius up. He could take care of a problem this simple by himself, even if perhaps not in the bravest way possible. But for the bravest way possible, he'd have to wake up Sirius, who was getting his first proper night's sleep since early that week. So he'd settle for the easy way out.

He grabbed his invisibility cloak, and brought the Marauder's Map with him. This was the best way to do things, because it meant Lily wouldn't have to look bad not taking points away from Gryffindor because of Sirius and James if they happened to have to pass each other. Besides, James did not feel too bad using the element of surprise against Flint, given that he had already tried to use the Cruciatus curse on James. And that was the sort of thing that James tended to hold somewhat of a grudge over.

He raced through the corridors as fast as he could with the cloak wrapped tightly around him, and he used all the secret-passages he knew about to make sure that he would get to the Slytherins before Lily and her Hufflepuff partner on the watch. He figured Lily and the other prefect could probably take them if necessary, but why risk it?

As he entered the corridor, he slowed down, and tiptoed on the floor so that the only noise he could hear, aside from his pounding heart, was the whispering of the two Slytherin boys.

"I heard two embarrassed Ravenclaw 3rd years making plans to meet in the hallway this afternoon. Apparently it's been long enough since the last attack that they've forgotten," said Vice.

"Yeah, and aren't they supposed to be the clever house?" asked Flint with a cruel chuckle.

James rolled his eyes. He looked at the map to make sure that Lily was far away enought that he had time to do what he wanted to do. Indeed he did.

He took off his cloak, which didn't matter since he was behind his prey anyway. "Petrificus Totalus," he said, almost bored, his wand pointed at Flint.

"Now you," he said, as Vice turned around, shocked and with his wand pointed in the wrong direction, "I challenge you to a duel!"

James dodged Vice's first spell, a mishandled petrificus totalus.

James yelled expelliarmus, and flicked his wrist in such a way that the wand scuttled across the floor in his direction. He bent down and picked it up.

James tucked the extra wand in his pocket and very carefully gave Vice three shallow cuts across his torso. Not enough to cause any danger to him, but enough to hurt pretty bad. Then he used the petrificus totalus.

"Now let me explain a couple things to you, my dear Marcus," said James, in the tone of a patient school teacher. "First of all, what I just did to you was not dark magic. It is a spell that is usually used to cut small vegetables into pieces. I am aware that you are in pain, and I regret that you put yourself in a situation like this. But remember, this is nothing compared to the way you wanted to hurt those two little Ravenclaws. There's a war coming, and I want you to think very hard about what side you want to be on. Now I'm going to stop your bleeding and heal your wounds, because I'm a nice guy. Most people who aren't future death eaters are."

James fulfilled his promise, so that Marcus was no longer in pain. He had thought long and hard about whether what he was about to do to Marcus amounted to torture, but he decided that it was so short, and so mild, it didn't. He still didn't want Lily to see his bloody cloak before he had a chance to explain his reasoning himself, so he levitated the two paralyzed Slytherins to a closet down in the dungeons where they wouldn't be found until morning.

"So, Lily, I've got a serious question for you," said James, the next morning, partway through breakfast. All the other Marauders, including Remus, who was now out of the hospital wing, were sleeping in in the dorms.

"Go ahead," said Lily, in a soothing voice. She could tell that James was nervous about asking the question. She rather hoped he would ask her out. The point system said nothing about the two being unable to go out on dates before they were officially boyfriend and girlfriend.

"Do you think that there's any circumstances when it's ok to hurt someone?" asked James.

Lily paused, jarred by how wrong she had been about what the conversation was about. "What, you mean, like, physically?" asked Lily. "I, er... I suppose if you're in a battle or something, it's got to be, right?"

"Let me give you a concrete example," said James, who still sounded hesitant. And he proceeded to tell her the story of what had gone on the night before, leaving out only the Marauders' Map, and the cloak.

"Well, yeah, I guess I can see your point," said Lily, who was awfully hesitant to say so. "But it sounds so much like 'the ends justify the means.' It's something a death-eater would say," said Lily quietly, almost shyly. "I'm not saying you're like a death-eater, I just wonder if maybe you made a mistake."

James nodded. "Yeah, I wonder, too. But remember, I healed him, and I didn't have to... could have left him scratched up and hurting all night. But I didn't. And I'd have never given him the Cruciatus curse."

"Well, how about this," said Lily. "If he's reformed, and never hangs out with another death-eater again, then we'll know you were right. If he doesn't become reformed, then you should only use necessary force in battle."

"Sounds fair," said James. "Thanks for not judging me about this."

"Look, you're my friend. One of my three best friends now. You can tell me anything. I just really appreciate you taking my thoughts into account," said Lily. "I used to have a best friend who wouldn't take my thoughts into account." They both knew she was talking about Snape.

"There's a couple things about your story I don't understand, though. How did you sneak up on them without them seeing you? And how did you know where they were in the first place?" asked Lily.

"I can't tell-" James was cut off by the look of disappointment on Lily's face. He was sure he could tell what she was thinking. They had been friends for a month and a half, she had just declared that he was one of her three best friends, and yet he couldn't trust her enough to answer two simple questions. "Oh, for Merlin's sake!" James raised his voice in aggravation at himself. "Maybe I can tell you, I'll see what I can do. You done with breakfast?"

"Er, yeah," said Lily, whose expression had gone from disappointed to confused.

"Let's walk back to Gryffindor tower together," said James, "and then I'll see what I can do about maybe telling you the answers to your questions."

Lily's face brightened again. "Hold hands again this time?" she asked.

James smiled and complied.

When they got to the tower, James left Lily to sit and chat with Marietta and Chloe while he went upstairs to the seventh year boys' dormitory.

James noticed that the only boys still in the room were Remus, Sirius, and Peter.

"Oi! You lot! Time for a Marauders' Conference!"

Sirius was the first to stir. "What, are we finally going to pull a proper prank?" he asked.

"No, although: At some point this month, I'm thinking we figure out a way to make the Slytherin common room, and the dungeons around it, impossible to walk on. Like, every time someone tries to walk on it, they fall down. Going to take some work to figure out the magic. But I'm about 90% it can be done," said James.

"Motion seconded," said Sirius. "Shit, I'm the only one awake, we can't even vote." He threw a pillow at Peter. "Wormtail!"

"What? Is somebody trying to attack us?" asked Peter, once he was startled awake.

"Petey, we're in the Gryffindor common-room. Who's going to attack us? The sixth years that idolize us?" asked Sirius.

"Sorry, bad dream," explained Peter. Peter seemed to be having a lot of bad dreams lately.

"So are you for or against the idea of making the Slytherin common room and surrounding hallway a magical slip-and-slide 'sometime this month'? asked Sirius.

"You two are both or it, I assume?" asked Peter.

"Of course," said Sirius.

"Then I suppose I'm on board. Won't be too dangerous, will it?" asked Peter.

"Give us some credit, we've got the invisibility cloak and the Marauders' Map. We can't screw this up," said Sirius.

"Yeah, speaking of those things, said James. "Oy! Remus, wake up!"

"Give a werewolf a break, would you?" asked Remus drowsily. "I've had a few days, you know."

"Yes, I know, and we all helped you through the nights. Now I have a big decision we have to make," said James.

"What is it?" asked Remus, who was becoming nicer as he woke up more and more.

James tried to think of the best way to phrase this. "Well, it involves Lily," said James.

Sirius threw his remaining pillow at him. "Of course it does!" said Sirius. "Half the conversations we've had for the past year have!"

"I want to show her the Marauders' Map and the invisibility cloak," said James.

"No, you can't," said Peter immediately. "What if she tells on us?"

"Okay, first of all, she won't, second of all, what's the worst that could happen if she did?" asked James.

"Well, we could get a load of detentions, maybe," said Lupin. "But that's happened to all of us before. The Marauders' Map isn't illegal in and of itself. It's not even technically against school rules to know a lot about the school. It's only the way that we found out the information that could get us into trouble, and you can't prove how we got it just by looking at the map. But if you tell her, I want you to tell her we all helped. Well. Except for Peter over there who's apparently too modest. Absolute worst that could happen, in my opinion is that the cloak and the map get confiscated. But the odds of her telling and you not getting a chance to hide the evidence are slim"

"So that's two votes for, and one against," said James. "Sirius."

"Fine, what can I say, I'm a romantic. Show her the map if you want, but no telling her about the Animagus stuff until she's really really proven she's loyal. Could take months. And I want credit on the map, too. Just know that in the unlikely event that she rats us out, I'm claiming it was all you. But I don't think she'd rat you out. Marietta wouldn't be friends with her if she wasn't loyal."

"Fine, I'll change my vote and stop being modest," said Peter with a grin.

"Perfect. I love it when these meetings end unanimously. Sirius, explain the slippery floor plan to Remus while I go tell Lily I've got a surprise for her tonight," said James.

"Well that sounded awfully dirty," pointed out Sirius, as James made his way down the stairs.

That night, at 11:00, James and Lily, under the cover of the invisibility cloak, left the empty Common Room.

"I'm just saying, who in the name of Merlin owns an invisibility cloak?" whispered Lily, who still couldn't get over the fact that they were invisible.

"Well, my father, apparently," whispered James. "But wait, you still haven't seen the coolest thing. Be silent and come with me to the abandoned class room one floor down."

"Yes, sir," said Lily with mock formality before grabbing hold of James' hand.

When they got down to the classroom, James opened the door and led Lily into the room. After they closed the door, he used his wand and a spell to light the torches in the room, one at a time. The door to the classroom was pure wood, so no one would know they were here unless they opened the door. He took off the cloak, leaving it on Lily.

"You can stay invisible if you like, until I show you how I know we're safe," said James.

Lily decided that that plan made sense. She was rather impressed that he had showed her the invisibility cloak. She was quite sure it was something that no one but the Marauders knew about. It took a lot of trust to show her that, but she wasn't going to start giving points until she saw the rest of what James wanted to show her tonight. She came near to the teacher's desk, where James had spread out a piece of parchment. It was white, seemingly made relatively recently, but it had clearly been well-used.

"What's that?" asked Lily, who wrapped her arm around James' shoulder. She told herself that the reason she did this was to let him know where she was, what with her being invisible and all. But she knew that that wasn't the only reason.

"Okay, can I trust you never to tell a soul?" asked James. "Even Marietta and Chloe? They might find out someday, if they stay such good friends with us, but you can't be the one who tells them."

"Fine, not a soul on Earth," said Lily.

"Okay." He tapped the map with his wand. "I solemnly swear I am up to no good."

Writing scrolled across the parchment. Lily gasped. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs purveyors of magical mischief supplies, are proud to present The Marauders' Map.

"Who're Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs?" asked Lily.

"We four Marauders," said James. "But watch close. You don't want to miss this next part."

And he was right. Lines poured across the parchment, like ink spilling into hundreds of tiny riverbeds. After an outline of what Lily quickly realized was the different floors of the school appeared, as well as the surrounding grounds, little dots appeared on the map, each with a tiny name beside it. "See where we are?" asked James, pointing to the classroom they were in. "And see how there's no one around us?"

"Yeah," said Lily, relaxing and taking off the invisibility cloak. "That thing really works?"

"Absolutely. It's how I caught Flint and Vice last night," said James.

"Shall we see if they're behaving tonight? Wait, how's this thing work? Where's the dungeons?" asked Lily.

James took Lily's hand and traced her fingers across the map, showing her where each floor was, which way was north, south, east, west. It was mostly an excuse to hold her hand.

"Got it," said Lily, although she did not remove her hand from James' grip. "So that mean the Slytherin dormitories are..." she led James' hand now, "...here."

"Right. And the seventh years sleep in this room," he moved Lily's hand a couple inches left. And, shit, actually, Vice and Flint seem to be out of bed again."

"Really? Who's on patrol tonight?" asked Lily.

"Ravenclaw 6th year boy, Hufflepuff 5th year girl," said James.

"Well, we need to make sure we run into the bastards first then. I mean, isn't that what you Marauder types do?" asked Lily, with a half-serious smile.

"Er, yeah, but we've got to see where they're at first," James said, scanning the map. He found them, for some reason, in a broom closet.

"They're not... gay, are they?" asked Lily.

"I don't know one way or the other on that," said James. "And frankly I don't care. That is however, along the route I came by last night when I dueled them. Maybe they're waiting to see if I come back that way again, so they can ambush me."

"How would they know it was you and not a professor," asked Lily.

"All the broom closets have a couple holes in the door. Small ones, but enough to press an eye up against. It's kept Sirius out of trouble quite a few times," said James.

"Fair enough. I think Marietta would like to be in a broom closet with Sirius. Don't tell her I told you though. Maybe try to feel out how receptive Sirius would be, though. And... Maybe make it clear we're not just talking about broom closet stuff here."

"I'll let him know," said James.

"Good. Now are we going to go take care of these two prats?" asked Lily?

"Er... you're sure you want to get into a duel?" asked James.

"Look, James, you're already getting 20 points for trusting me enough to show me all your cool stuff tonight. But you can get 10 more if you trust me enough to be your dueling partner."

"Of course I do, but-" said James.

"But you want to protect me, eh? Well James, I can take care of myself. And keep in mind that since you've just made it to a hundred points, when we kick those future-death-eaters' asses, I'll give you a nice big victory snog. How's that sound?" asked Lily.

"Sounds good to me," said James with a grin. If he loved this girl, he was going to have to trust her enough to let her fight alongside him. Especially if the opponents were two such idiotic prats as Vice and Flint. "You want to go in with the cloak or without."

"Without. Keep it in your pocket or something. We'll be able to see them, it wouldn't be brave to hide from them, now would it," asked Lily.

"Not when we're equally matched, no," admitted James.

"Right then," said Lily.

They began walking toward the broom closet. "You nervous?" James asked.

"Not really. Kind of excited. Dueling's fun," said Lily. "I mean, I think we'll win, for sure. And if not, we'll end up in the hospital wing. Neither of these guys are powerful enough to use Avada Kedavra, I'm sure."

"Geez, you're morbid," said James. "I think more-so that neither of them would kill someone in the school, whether they had the power to or not. Everyone knows I'm on the top of their hit list."

"You're morbid, too," said Lily with a laugh. "It's ok, though. We're going to live long, happy lives. We're just going to teach a lot of death-eaters a lot of lessons beforehand."

"Sounds like a plan," said James.

By this point, they were close enough to the broom closet for James to shout, "Come out you filthy pure-bloods!"

The closet door opened hesitantly. Two wands were the first thing James and Lily saw. Then Vice and Flint were in the corridor.

"Expelliarmus!" shouted James, pointing his wand at Flint, who he was now standing across from.

"Petrificus totalus!" Lily yelled at Vice, who blocked the spell with a defensive charm.

Flint's wand went flying out of his hand and scuttled down the hallway. James pointed his wand at Flint's getting ready to say, "Accio Wand!"

At the same time, Flint, who had pulled a second wand from out of his pocket, yelled "Petrificus Totalus! A third year Slytherin let me borrow his wand, which is why I let you get rid of it. Now I can do this: Cruciatus!"

Flint, it seemed, had gotten better at the Cruciatus curse. James felt immense pain in his chest, his stomach, his arms, his legs, and above all, a splitting headache. He tried to point his wand at Flint but couldn't muster the energy to do so. He could barely register the fact that Lily was still dueling Vice.

He heard her yell "Petrificus Totalus" again, and this time, Vice did not reply. It had only been ten seconds that he had been under the Cruciatus curse, but it felt like ten minutes. He kept trying desperately to point his wand at Vice.

Lily said "Petrificus Totalus!" once more, which snapped Flint's wand into a downward position, where it was no threat to James.

It took James a moment to recover from the pain, after which, Lily and James put their immobile forms back into the broom closet.

"You know," said James, as they were walking away. "If they're going to fight dirty, we should at least get to use the invisibility cloak."

"Or else you let me take the cleverer one next time," retorted Lily with a smile. "Sorry that you got tortured for so long, but Vice and I were having quite a fight ourselves."

"Don't worry about it. Thanks for saving my ass," said James, sheepishly.

"You'd have done the same for me. By the way, I owe you this," said Lily, who stopped James in the middle of the hallway and gave him a long, wonderful, passionate kiss with just a hint of tongue.

A/N: Please review and/or donate rice through free-rice dot com, and tell me how much you get. Thanks!