The Final Chapter.

Okay, it's done now, so enjoy! Oh, and just as a recap, I don't own anything to do with Harry Potter. But I will admit, it would be fun to!!

As the Marauders ran inside the castle, they knocked over five buckets of soapy water that Mr. Filch, the caretaker, was using to clean the Entrance Hall. With his yells following them, they raced up the stairs –

And ran smack-bang into Professor McGonagall, the Transfigurations teacher, and Head of Gryffindor House.

"What are you four up to?" she asked icily.

"Trying to catch up to Frank," Peter told her.

"Unfortunately, Mr. Lupin, that is not an acceptable excuse for running over Mr. Filch, Hagrid, and myself. Fifty points will be taken from Gryffindor, and you will each be serving a detention with Mr. Filch at a later date. I'm sure he can come up with something appropriate."

"Okay, Professor, we get it, we won't do it again, can we go find Frank now?" James asked anxiously. Without waiting for a reply, the Marauders took off again towards the Owlery.

Halfway up to the tower, they encountered Frank Longbottom.

"Frank!" Sirius yelled, coming to a panting halt just short of running into the other fifth year. "Frank, we need something."

"What do you need?" Frank asked warily. Sometimes what the Marauders needed was a scapegoat for a prank, materials for a prank, or an alibi for a prank. Since it was rarely something that didn't have to do with a prank, most students just turned and ran when one of the four asked for something. Frank, however, didn't have that luxury, since he shared a dorm room with the Marauders, and therefore couldn't avoid them forever.

"We need a piece of parchment. One of yours, specifically."

"WHAT!!"

"We need one of your parchments. Well, it's actually one of ours. We left it on your bedside table by accident, and now we need it back." Peter was rather calm about all of this.

"All I have is blank parchments, so what's so important about this one?" Frank was rather suspicious about all of this. He had been on the wrong end of one of these favors before, and had no desire to be in that position again.

"James wrote a love letter for Evans on one of the parchments in invisible ink, but the ink he used was experimental, so it could reveal itself at anytime, so we need it back. It just wouldn't be funny if he made a fool of himself before Evans could laugh at him." Peter had a gift for lying that the other Marauders had never seen on anyone else. He could tell someone that the sky was a bright purple with pink polka-dots and yellow stripes and they would believe him, but even he could only barely keep a straight face as he spun this particular web of lies. The look on James' face wasn't helping either.

"We've tried telling him to just talk to the girl, but…" Remus shook his head, trying very hard not to laugh. Sirius had already gone past the point of no return, and was laughing his head off.

"So," James said through clenched teeth as he restrained himself from killing his three best friends, "can you give us the parchment or not?"

"Sure," Frank grinned, "I haven't used any of them, so I'll just leave the lot with you. You can give the others back after lunch." He handed the parchments over to James, and sauntered off to the Great Hall, chuckling as he did so. Peter looked longingly after him.

"We're not going down to lunch, are we." He sighed.

"Nope," James told him. "We need to go upstairs and figure out which one is the Map. Plus, you all need to have a detention for betraying me like that."

They began the climb to their dormitory, and locked the door behind them. Sirius finally got his laughter under control and, wiping the tears from his eyes, took out his wand to perform the spells that would tell them which parchment was the Map. James spread the parchments out on the floor.

"Well," Sirius said, not looking at the others, for fear of laughing some more "wish me luck." With a deep breath, to calm himself, he cast his wand over the parchments. When he was done, he frowned.

"Maybe you should turn them over and check, Padfoot," Remus told him, noticing that none of the parchments had the Map on them. Then he got a funny look in his eyes.

"What is it, Moony?" James asked. Sirius looked at Remus in confusion, while Peter had a look of understanding dawn in his eyes. Remus walked over to the bed where the first parchment was spread out, and flipped it onto the other side. The others walked over, and peered over his shoulders and read: 'Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs are proud …' they refused to look any further.

"All this time," Sirius whispered. "It was here all this time. Do you know what this means?"

"That we are a bunch of bloody idiots?" Remus asked, still in a state of shock.

"No," James answered. "It means that we got detention, lost fifty House points, ran all over the castle, and have to stop pranking Snape for nothing!" His voice was getting louder and louder, until he was shouting the last bit.

"AND we missed breakfast and lunch," Peter groused.

"You know what we got to do now?" Remus asked the others.

"Hang ourselves," was Sirius' answer. Peter figured they should go to the kitchen for food, and James' response cannot be repeated, but it involved some Nifflers and Snape's broom.

"No, and James, that is highly inappropriate," Remus informed him. "We have to find a spell that lets us use the Map, no matter what side of parchment we are looking at."

"OOOOOHHH!!"

So, it's done now. Hope it was good!!