The Missing Marauder's Map Chapter Two
The four Marauders ran down the stairs , past the new librarian, Madam Pince, and came to a stop.
"Okay," James panted, "lets split up. Moony, go with Wormtail, start at the left and work your way in. Padfoot and I will go from the right. Use whatever excuse you can think of, but get the parchments. We'll figure out which one it is later. And above all: Don't let Frank know why we want the parchments."
They went their separate ways and searched the library. It was a large library, and it took over an hour to look. They met up rather close to where James and Sirius had started, because Lily Evans was sitting with a group of her friends, and James and Sirius just had to watch them from behind a bookcase. Remus smacked the two of them when he found them.
"Please tell me you found him," James said, rubbing the side of his head. Who knew Remus had such an arm? Why didn't he ever try-out to be a Beater on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, James would never know.
"No, he wasn't," Remus said, despairingly. "And Wormtail ditched me half-way through our search, and we met up again just before we met you two Peeping Toms."
" I went to go see Madam Pince. She said that she kicked Frank out about five minutes before we got here. He was snogging Alice, and they didn't find a good place to hide from her-"
"Studying for O.W.L's, my ass," Sirius snorted.
"Only if they've started offering an introduction to broom closets course," James snickered.
"-so I went looking for Alice, and she said that Frank was going to the lake, to practice some Transfiguration. THAT, Moony, is why I left you," Peter finished.
There was silence for almost a full minute as the other three stood there with their mouths gaping open, letting the full meaning of what he had said sink in.
"Uh, guys? Say something, please," Peter begged.
"Wormtail, that was bloody brilliant!" Sirius yelled, overcoming his shock. "Come on, you lot, lets go. To the lake!"
The four raced down to the lake, knocking down Mr. Filch and careening off Hagrid before making it out the doors, Filch's angry yells echoing behind them. After a sprint down the lawn that would have made any Olympic athelete proud, they arrived, breathless, at the lake's edge.
There was no one there, except a fifth year Slytherin, by the name of Severus Snape. Even with their mouths open, gulping down air as thought they hadn't been breathing for five minutes ( which, thinking about it, they not have been), James and Siroius traded identical, evil grins. Snape looked up.
"Oh, shit," he muttered. Louder, so the four Gryffindors could hear him, he added," What do you lot want?" This reminded Sirius about his reason for being there. James was still thinking about the joys of not having any teacher around to see him pranking Snape, and the disappointment that there were no stdents around to see him pranking Snape.
"Normally, Prongs, I would never consider this, but…" Sirius didn't finish his sentence, and James finally remember why he was down at the lake instead of sitting in the tower.
" I know, Padfoot, I know," he sighed.
"Snape," Remus said, ignoring the other two, who were now griping about how the world was so unfair, to give them perfect Snivellus pranking time, but no way to enjoy it. " We were wondering if you had seen Frank Longbottom recently. And before you ask," he continued, cutting Snape off as he opened his mouth, "yes, I will keep Black and Potter firmly leashed for two weeks. Do we have a deal?"
Snape regarded him with his black eyes.
" One month, and you have a deal."
"Fine."
"Longbottom was here, but Hagrid told him that his owl was doing poorly, so he went up to the Owlery. This was about half an hour ago. He should still be there."
"Thank you, Snape. I'll keep my side of this bargain. Come on, you two," he added to Sirius and James, both of whom were looking very pale. "Lets get up to the Owlery."
On the way back to the castle, James regained the power of speech and began yelling at his friend.
"What the hell did you do that for?! You promised Snivellus that we wouldn't prank him for a whole month! How are we supposed to do that?"
Sirius was equally livid.
"How could you do that to us, Moony? Do you have any idea how hard that is going to that?"
Remus grabbed the backs of their robes, and pulled them around to face him.
"Look, we need to get the Map back. Which means we need to know where Frank. Therefore we needed to get on Snape's good side. So which would you rather do, leave Snape alone for a month and focus on Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff with the aid of the Map, or spend all of your time making another Map, in which case you wouldn't be able to prank Snape anyway? Besides, if you leave him alone, then Evans may give James a chance. Plus, " Remus grinned, " this is payback for making me and Wormtail search the whole library while you stared at Evans."
James flushed a deep red, and started muttering to himself. Sirius sighed.
"Well, "he drawled, "when you put it that way…"
"That's what I thought," Remus smiled. "Come on. To the Owlery!"
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