Early attempt at creating the marauder's map. Enjoy.
"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Remus asked with the usual intelligent skepticism in his voice, leaning over the spell book, nose nearly touching the page as he held the lamp as close to the book as he could.
"Certainly" James and Sirius answered as one, holding the parchment between them. Their friend's skepticism was matched only by their never wavering confidence in their own abilities.
"You wanna see the book again?" Remus asked, holding it out for them, but they both scoffed at the offering, shaking their heads. Shrugging out of the cloak for convenience sake, they let it pool to the ground as they cleared the table and lay the map carefully out in front of them all as though it was a priceless relic, which it was about to become if all went as planned.
"Ready?" Sirius whispered mysteriously, glancing first around at the dark rows of books and empty tables, and then at each of his friends.
"Wait!" Peter hissed. "Do you hear something?"
They all fell silent for a precautionary moment, but the only sound was their own breathing.
"Come on Wormtail" Sirius mocked. "If you don't stop hearing things we'll never get this done."
"I did hear something" the smaller boy whispered back defiantly, looking to the others for support.
James shook his head. "Just keep a lookout for Mrs. Norris. Let's do this already" he said impatiently. "Do we all understand how this works?" he asked. Everyone looked to Peter. He nodded, but took the offered spell book once again, burying his nose in it as the others sighed in frustration.
"Alright, alright" he said finally. "I'm ready."
"Are you sure?" James asked. The other boy nodded, and the four of them exchanged glances, circling tightly around the table. As one, they pulled their wands from the pockets of their robes and touched them first to the map, and then to each other in the center of the parchment.
"3…2…1…" James counted down so that they all knew when to begin. Warm light began to glow at the end of each of the four wands where they touched the parchment, joining them together. It began to flow out, illuminating the carefully hand drawn lines on the parchment, that mapped out every corner and passageway in the castle.
"It's working" Peter said in excitement… and then the whole thing went up in flames.
Cursing loudly and forgetting where they were they proceeded to douse the flames with their wands before it managed to jump to the table or the pile of books that they had spread out around them on their table in the restricted section.
And then, as the fire sputtered and died, they all heard it. The quiet patter of small feet, and then an eager and satisfied "Meeoow!" as a pair of golden eyes peered at them from the end of the aisle.
"Run!" Sirius shouted at them all.
"Cloak!" Remus corrected quickly before they had all panicked and taken off in opposite directions. He waved his wand, and the mess of burnt parchment disappeared, the smoke cleared and the table was wiped clean as the books they had been using flew back to their places on the shelves. James fished the invisibility cloak from its resting place on the floor and threw it over them all as they heard the door to the library opening nearby. They didn't need to see or hear him to know that it was Filch, though he began to coo to his cat as they slid as silently as possible in his direction, resisting their urges to kick Mrs. Norris as her eyes followed them even through their disguise.
"Who's in here? Show yourselves!" Filch yelled into the darkness of the library, framed in the doorway, completely unaware that they were within arms reach. As he moved farther into the room they took their chance, sliding through the gap of the open door as it began to swing shut. They just made it before it slammed shut, separating them from the caretaker, with them on the outside. They looked at each, repressing their laughter, then took off up the corridor in the direction of the Gryffindor common room, hunched over so that their feet didn't stick out the bottom of the cloak.