Chapter 5
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter and the Harry Potter universe. I'm just playing with it.
The woman stared suspiciously down at the parchment in her hand. Literally glaring at it when it failed to respond to her pass phrase. She started it again, "I solemnly swear …"
Harry had had enough. He wanted answers himself. And he suddenly realized that the only way to get them would be to give some of his own. "That's wrong," he said.
"What?" the woman demanded.
"The pass phrase. It's 'I solemnly swear that I am …" he paused to swallow causing her to glare at him. "… a prankster born."
She stared at him in disbelief. The man suddenly appeared beside her. He held the wand in his right hand to the parchment and repeated Harry's pass phrase and, incidentally, repeating Harry's own pause at the different words.
Instantly, thin ink lines appeared on the parchment, spreading out like a spider's web, joining, crisscrossing and fanning out to every corner of the parchment. Words blossomed across the top in large curly blue letters, proclaiming:
Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mayhem-Makers are proud to present THE MARAUDER'S MAP
As the map detailing the castle Harry knew so well and loved, finished filling in, he realized that the man was glaring fiercely at the MAP. "It's wrong." He said hotly. "What did you do to it?"
"Nothing," Harry replied. "It's the same as it's always been."
"It's wrong," the man insisted, pointing to the top. "The colors wrong, the words should be green. And that word should be mischief, not mayhem. How did you change it?"
"I didn't," Harry replied back just as hotly. "It's always been that way."
The man jabbed his wand at the map causing it to expand and shift showing other sections of the castle. Harry noticed it showing Filch and Mrs. Norris moving down a corridor by the great Hall. The man must have noticed it too, because he froze.
"That's not … that can't be right," he croaked.
"What?" demanded the woman with Ginny's face.
In answer, he pointed to the dots labeled Filch and Mrs. Norris.
The woman paled. "But he … he … died … five years ago."
The man suddenly jabbed his wand at Gryffindor tower, frantically searching through the map. "The children," he muttered, "where are the children?"
Abruptly stopping, he whispered, "Ginny."
"What?" the woman demanded.
The man pointed to a dot in the 4th year girl's dorm. A dot clearly labeled Ginny Weasley.
He continued his frantic searching. Harry saw names pop up and then disappear as he repeatedly jabbed his wand around the map: Fred, Neville, Colin Creevey, Snape, Dumbledore, and Crabbe to name few. Finally the man just stopped, frozenly staring at the map.
The man shuddered, dropping the map to the floor. He gazed sightlessly for a moment into the distance and then turned away to march toward a drinks cabinet. He pulled out a bottle of firewhiskey and a whiskey glass. He stared at the bottle and glass a moment, then shrugged, popped the cap off the bottle with his thumb and simply upended the bottle into his mouth. Harry could hear a glug glug sound as the man swallowed an unhealthy amount of whiskey.
This seemed to shock the woman, who had been in a daze of her own at the names appearing on the map. She screamed out "HARRY!" at the man.
The man visibly flinched and stopped chugging the firewhiskey, spilling some down his shirt. Then looking at the bottle and glass again, he poured a large amount into the glass and handed it to the woman.
The woman glared at him for a moment, but then taking the glass, she turned away and walked towards the pictures on the wall. A moment later Harry heard the sounds of soft weeping coming from her direction.
The man turned towards him. Speaking in a low flat tone he stated, "You are going to tell me where you came from. You are going to tell me how you got here. You will not leave anything out. Is … that … clear?"
His eyes were hard, demanding, unyielding.
Harry nodded numbly and started talking.