"When do we start the attack?"

"Soon, my dear. Soon."

"How much longer? I can't stand that damn Root sitting in that damn chair for any longer!"

"Quit your bellowing. Attack too rashly, and it'll be all over for us. Don't you remember? There's that Mud Boy…and wizards that we have to take care of. No loose ends. You know that. If word gets out that Haven is in trouble he might run back and try to stop us."

"Well, I want to take him out quickly."

"We must gather enough forces to attack at the same time, Cudgeon. He dies, and the LEP will get suspicious and come after us. The LEP dies, and he will come after us."

"You're trying my patience, Koboi."

"Yes, but it will be worth it in the end."

Hogwarts

The match against Ravenclaw was rather unentertaining. It was a bit obvious that Potter was going to win, anyway. His behavior during the game, however, was rather amusing.

Normally, he would be a rather vicious fighter despite his size – Draco had complained several times already about their great experiences in "cobbing" (according to Quidditch Through the Ages: "excessive use of elbows"). Same thing with Hufflepuff: although their relationship was more fair, it was still a bit violent (what would Quidditch be without conflict?). This was another reason why Artemis hated sports. He saw no practical purpose in deliberately putting himself in danger. No matter how much "fun" people claimed it was, Artemis would not be fooled. There were less painful ways to achieve happiness, thank you very much.

During the Ravenclaw match, Artemis noted with amusement, Potter was actually extremely yielding to the other Seeker. Artemis did not know whatever "pep talks" the Gryffindor captain would give his team, but if it involved playing to the death and shoving the other Seeker off her broom to win, it was definitely not working because Potter was doing the exact opposite. And from his rather airy expression during the game –

"I think Potter has feelings of a rather romantic nature on the Ravenclaw Seeker," he whispered to Blaise, smirking.

"You could just call it a crush, you know."

"I prefer my sophisticated vocabulary. Using big words automatically makes you more credible in the presence of the uneducated because it sounds more 'scientific.'"

"Are you calling me uneducated?" Blaise exploded.

Artemis looked away with a smirk. "You're only uneducated if you think you are."

"Whatever. But seriously? Cho Chang?" Blaise crossed his arms.

"Oh, is that her name?"

"How do you know he likes her, anyway?"

"See how he is always letting her go first. His eyes are rather glazed over. Wood is yelling at him to… 'push her off her broom if you have to!' " Artemis explained, reading Wood's lips. "Harsh. And he's not even listening. This has nothing to do with chivalry or being a gentleman."

Blaise's eyes grew wide. "I am going to have a lot of fun with this."

"Doesn't she already have a boyfriend, though?" Theodore asked. "That one Hufflepuff guy."

"Like I care. Potter better watch out," Blaise said, pulling out his book of insulting jokes.

"Dear lord."

The Gryffindors won the game quite easily.

"There will definitely be a huge party in their common room later," Draco said. "How they survive like that…"

"Hey, they're Gryffindors. What do you expect?"

The next day

There was a muted buzz of excitement and nervousness zooming around the entire school. "What's going on?" Everywhere, there was furious talk and gossip, though about what was rather sketchy due to the fact that a story evolves each time it is told. The only time the grapevine had been this active was the last time Black had been sighted in Hogwarts, when the picture of the Fat Lady had been slashed. Which meant…

"Let me guess – more news on Black?"

"Not just any news – he actually got into Gryffindor Tower this time! He's getting closer and closer!" Weasley yelled.

"How would he have done that?" Artemis asked.

"You know how Sir Cadogan replaced the Fat Lady and kept changing the passwords every day?" Weasley said.

"Since I am not in Gryffindor House and that does not concern me, no, I do not know," Artemis said. "But pray, continue."

If Weasley seemed slightly taken aback by the higher level of language, but he did not show it. "Yeah, well, Neville Longbottom wrote them down because he couldn't remember them…"

"I'll wager that he lost the paper, and Black, who is probably still sneaking around in the castle, by the way, found them. And Sir Cadogan, being an incompetent fool, let him in, even though he was obviously the madman from the posters all around England," Artemis deadpanned.

"Yeah! He probably nearly killed Harry, too, except he got the wrong bed! He was just standing over my bed with a knife in his hand, and scarpered as soon as I began screaming." Weasley was telling the story with fascination.

Well. That was odd. Black was supposed to be a former friend of the Potters – he definitely knew what Harry would look like. "How would he have mistaken the beds? He was smart enough to escape from Azkaban, was he not?"

"There were curtains around our beds…maybe he couldn't see."

"I thought all of the beds in the school were the same," Artemis pointed out. "The curtains are translucent. Even if it was dark, the shade of your hair would stand out too clearly. Why didn't he go after a boy with dark hair instead?"

"Maybe all those years in Azkaban left him colorblind," Weasley said, shrugging. "Maybe he was checking each bed separately. Who knows how his mind works."

"Maybe."

Hogsmeade

Artemis stood by the Shrieking Shack, observing the dingy scenery. The weather was warming up somewhat, leaving the snow to melt into a muddy slush. He had to cast a repelling charm on his good pair of shoes.

"Nice place, isn't it?" Weasley said lightly.

"If you were a particularly violent, disembodied, earth-bound spirit, then sure," Artemis responded. Weasley was alone. "Are you seriously still shunning Hermione over your rat?"

Weasley frowned. "Listen, it's none of your business."

"I am simply providing an outsider's point of view," Artemis said. "I think that you are behaving rather unreasonably towards her. I know that you are upset over your pet, Weasley, but think about it – your rat has lived nine years longer than it should have, and the only useful thing he ever did was bite Gregory Goyle – once. Surely, you can put that aside for now, considering all of the other times Hermione has saved your hide."

Weasley looked a bit uncomfortable. He sighed. "Hagrid told me the same thing. I don't know, Fowl. I want to be her friend again, but I'm still so mad about Scabbers."

"Then get a new rat and rename it Scabbers II."

"Scabbers was special to me, though. He was the first thing I actually had to my own. I mean, he used to be Percy's, but he got an owl for being a Prefect, so I got Scabbers, and even though he was just another hand-me-down like everything else it made me feel good that I was actually trusted to take care of something on my own, you know?"

"Well, some things you simply have to accept, Weasley. A lot of people out there have it much worse. For example," Artemis suddenly noticed a slight haze next to Weasley's head, only it was more of a smooth shimmer rather than the vibrating shine of the fairy shield. "For example, Potter is not allowed to go to Hogsmeade, so he has to walk around under his Invisibility Cloak instead of walking freely."

Weasley jumped around, and bumped into something solid. "Harry?"

Potter opened a crack in his cloak and peeked out. "How did you know I was here?"

Artemis simply graced them with a vampire smile. "I am used to looking for invisible things." There was no need to tell them exactly what those invisible things were. Speaking of the fairies, he hoped that they had caught the smugglers by now, because if they hadn't…Artemis had the nastiest little feeling in his gut that they would be calling upon him again. He didn't know why he knew, but he knew. "And – there are footprints in the mud, right next to Weasley's, that lead up exactly to your current location."

"Please don't tell the teachers," Potter begged.

"I won't," Artemis promised. "I don't exactly follow the rules, myself. However, I am rather curious as to how you found your way out of Hogwarts. There are Dementors everywhere, and since they can sense a living being, it would not have mattered whether or not you had an Invisibility Cloak."

Harry looked from side to side, reluctant about telling Artemis his secret.

"Or if you don't want to tell me, suit yourself," Artemis said, walking away. "I'm sure the teachers would love to know - "

"Wait!" Harry looked around. "I'll show you later. I should get going now. Bye." He ducked back under the folds of the cloak and wandered off. Weasley followed him.

"There are a bunch of secret passageways in and out of Hogwarts," Potter explained. "Fred and George showed me one. The teachers guard them, but there are some that the teachers don't know about. They're all on this map, actually." He took out a seemingly blank piece of parchment and held up his wand. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." As soon as touched his wand to the map, ink began snaking around the surface of the paper, curling and dripping until the lines solidified into a definite shape.

MESSRS. MOONY, WORMTAIL, PADFOOT, AND PRONGS

PROUDLY PRESENT

THE MARAUDERS' MAP

"Neat, huh? It gets even better – look." Potter opened the map and pointed to the empty corridor where they were standing. There were three dots labeled "Harry Potter", "Ronald Weasley", and "Artemis Fowl". "It shows everyone in this school – where they are and what they're doing every minute of the day. It can see through anything – even Invisibility Cloaks, Polyjuice Potion…"

"That is quite amazing. I applaud these Marauders. I suppose Fred and George gave you this?"

"Yeah. They said they found it in one of Filch's drawers – the one labeled 'Highly Dangerous Confiscated Items'."

"To Filch, anything magical is dangerous, the Squib," Artemis sneered.

"Anything student-related, more like. He hates kids," Weasley put in.

Artemis smiled. He looked at the map for another few seconds. Suddenly, in the corner, where the open grounds were, he saw Hagrid's cabin. There were two dots there labeled "Rubeus Hagrid" and "Peter Pettigrew."

"Does this map show ghosts as well?" Artemis asked.

"No…"

"So why does it show the name of a dead person?" Artemis asked, pointing to Hagrid's cabin.

Potter and Weasley stared at his finger blankly. "Wait – let me see that!" Potter snatched the paper back. "How is this even supposed to be possible? The map never lies…"

Artemis put his hand on his chin. "And yet…eyewitneses accounts say they saw Sirius Black blast apart an entire street, killing twelve unlucky Muggles and Peter Pettigrew…and all that was left of him was a finger. Odd, isn't it? But no magic, no matter how powerful, can truly bring back the dead."

"Then why is Peter Pettigrew on here?"

"Well, let us go over our options, shall we?" Artemis suggested. "One – Pettigrew is dead. That is impossible, since the dead are not registered by the map. Two – the map is faulty. That is unlikely, since the map is supposed to never lie, and it registers everyone else correctly, even leaving off the multitudes of ghosts that we know are everywhere around Hogwarts. Three - somehow, someone has tampered with Pettigrew's spirit so that it would show up. Unless Black is so powerful that he can mess with death, also extremely unlikely. And, if all other options fail, the last option, no matter how unlikely, must be the truth – meaning Pettigrew is still alive."

"But – he got blown to bits! All they found left was a finger!" Weasley protested.

"And yet…did they ever recover a body? What if Pettigrew faked his own death by cutting off a finger and then Disapparating away, leaving Black at the crime scene and living in hiding ever since?" Artemis reasoned. "It would not exactly be impossible now, would it?"

"This is surreal," Potter said.

"Would you mind if I told my friends this? Perhaps they would be of more help, having known more background information," Artemis said.

"What, tell your Slytherin group? I'm okay with Zabini and Nott, but Malfoy…" Potter began.

"Draco is perfectly trustworthy. He apologizes for his bad behavior, but that was not intended to hurt you, but rather, to please his father," Artemis said coldly. "I have given him a sufficient lecture on that topic – you have noticed that he has mellowed down over the past few months."

Potter sighed. "Sure…I guess."

"Meanwhile, you should go visit your friend Hagrid and see what he knows. Personally, I think that Pettigrew is hiding inside, or maybe under his cabin, without his knowledge."

"All right."

"And you might want to reconcile with your good friend. I have a feeling that Ms. Granger will be very helpful in this case."

"I think…I think that I know when would be a good time…"

"Then snap to it! I don't want to stand around anymore while Root smokes another damned cigar!"

"Patience, dear Cudgeon."

"You always tell me that. How come I never see anything result from it?"

"Oh, you will. Just trust me."