The Map

As Sev revealed to Lily his Secret Haven, two floors above, in Gryffindor house…

After classes on Friday, Moony apologized, saying that he still hadn't fully recovered from the recent full moon and was going to rest until dinner, locking himself in with the curtains drawn on his bed in the Gryffindor fifth-year boys' dormitory, knowing that the other three wouldn't bother him.

Lily had told him on Wednesday that she was going to meet Snape that afternoon, so on Friday morning he'd taken the Marauder's Map out of its hiding place and carried it with him all day, making sure the others couldn't use it.

He had managed to finish it after many investigations and failed attempts in the last days of the previous year, after the exams. The first thing Prongs wanted to do when it was ready was to look for Snape to ambush him.

"Look at him, there's the scoundrel, in the corridor on the fifth floor."

"He's alone, let's go get him," Padfoot said.

"Why don't you leave him alone? He's not doing anything to you," Moony tried to discourage them.

"It may be the last chance we have to give him a good scare before the holidays." James was already leaving through the portrait of the Fat Lady.

"That's it, that's it, let him go home warm," Sirius replied, leaving behind him.

Wormtail followed them excited at the 'adventure' of harassing a single boy among several. "Aren't you coming?" Peter turned to Remus.

The latter, resigned, also headed toward the exit, although with a very different intention, that of avoiding, as far as possible, Snape being harmed.

They were already running down the stairs, Prongs with the Map next to Padfoot in the lead, Wormtail barely following, so Moony caughtup with him soon.

"Look, he's turned down the second corridor to the right and then to the left," James told Sirius, pointing his wand at the Map.

"Didn't you have enough with what happened in the Shrieking Shack?" Moony reproached them.

"He asked for it, and now you're not in phase," James replied. "We're not going to hurt him, just scare him, remember that I saved his life myself."

'And since then you think you have the right to make it bitter whenever you feel like it,' Moony thought.

They had already reached the fifth floor. "He has turned right again and that corridor has no exit. We got him, we got him!" Now it was Padfoot who was carrying the Map, and he looked away from it to move faster down the main corridor. Moony caught up with the other two, while Wormtail followed several steps behind, panting.

When they reached the second hallway on the right, Sirius stopped. "He was around here," looking at the Map again. "Where is he?"

James stood next to him looking too. "You've lost him? Didn't he get into a classroom?"

"I don't see him, he's gone. And he's not in the passageway to the second floor either, besides, I've seen him turn right."

"Leave him alone," Remus tried to dissuade them. "Surely the Map still doesn't work well."

"I don't think so, everyone appears, including us," Sirius replied.

"Maybe he is hiding with a disillusioner, we don't know if you disappear from the Map like that. We're going to look for him anyway," James led. "Left and right, right Padfoot?"

"Yes, yes, sure."

When they reached the first dark corridor, Wormtail lit his wand.

"Turn that off, if he's hidden he'll see us and we won't see him," Prongs ordered, in a low voice.

But when they reached the hall of armor they couldn't see anything and had to turn on their Lumos to look at the Map again.

"He still doesn't show up?" James asked Sirius.

"No. Did he realize that we were chasing him and he is waiting for us?" Sirius asked James.

"But now he will ambush us," Peter said with a trembling voice.

"We are four against one, Wormtail, don't be a chicken," Prongs replied with contempt.

"Stop it, the Map doesn't work…" It was Moony, as if bored, his left fist resting on his waist.

"It does," James cut him off, "he must have entered through one of these doors."

And he and Sirius began to open them and inspect the classrooms, while Peter stood at the confluence of the corridors, cowering, and Remus followed them to the threshold of each one, weary, arms crossed.

When they had opened a couple of classrooms on each side of the corridor, Remus told them, fed up. "Doesn't he appear on the Map yet?"

"No," Sirius said looking at him.

"Well, let's go, he will have gone through the passageway to the second floor."

Prongs went over to Padfoot to inspect too, for a long time. "He doesn't appear in the entire castle," he commented.

"By now he'll be out, we'll catch him another time," Moony said.

And they turned back the way they had come in frustration, while Remus, behind them so they wouldn't see him, gave a smug smile thinking, 'What the hell did Snape do to disappear like that?'

At the end of September, when Lily told him that she had managed to appoint Snape at the Library, Remus kept the Map while the four of them went to Hogsmeade, simply so the others wouldn't see them together now that they preferred to see each other on the quiet.

He hid several times during the day to find where they were. He saw first Lily alone in the Library and Snape under the beech tree, and then both of them there. And later he never found them again on the Map even after dinner, because evidently the Gryffindor girls' dormitory and Slytherin house, places to which the quartet did not have access, did not appear on the Map, and he thought that during the day they had been disillusioned, because by then they had already verified that by casting that spell they would disappear from the Map. He was calmer, because he had come to think that he should steal it every time they met so they wouldn't be discovered.

But the next day Lily told him that they had been in the Forest, with which he did not solve anything. That's why he told her at the Library to let him know when they met again, giving her the excuse that he would keep an eye on James in the meantime so he wouldn't bother them.

But what he actually did that Friday while Lily waited for Snape in the entrance hall was lock himself in with the Marauder's Map, to find out once and for all where they were going and if they were safe.

"I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good," he pronounced the spell touching the parchment with the wand, although he was up to the best.

The lines of the cover drew slowly and he unfolded it, searching the castle anxiously for their names, finally spotting Snape reaching the fifth floor and Lily reaching the second. He saw how he waited for her at every turn in the way, but they weren't together. Good. They were heading to the same place where he disappeared the year before.

He guessed that in the dark corridors he led her with a Lumos, because she didn't join him until they reached a classroom door in the hall of armor. He saw Lily peek into the classroom without entering, then Snape disappear and reappear in motion twice, later the two of them back into the gap by the armor of the door across the corridor and disappear. 'That was disillusioner but… what about before?'

It took a few minutes, he thought he was kissing her and felt nosy. They reappeared and stood in the center of the corridor for a couple of minutes. And then he watched them both disappear, just as Snape had at first, taking a step toward the door. 'That's not a disilluisoner, it's another spell.' And he understood that when they had hidden behind the armor, Snape had been explaining to Lily how to do it.

He took a break from looking at the Map, sure it would be a while before they reappeared, they must have gotten into the classroom Lily had peeked into at first. Still he kept an eye on it from time to time looking for them around the castle. After that, he already looked every half minute at the corridor on the fifth floor. At last he saw them walking slowly, Snape ahead of her and Lily right behind him, he must be teaching her to navigate in the dark. They parted in the main corridor, which led to the stairs and was already lit. He closed the Map.

"Mischief done."

Very well. They only risked a few minutes as they walked the halls together, but that would be only at first, until Lily learned to go alone.

He could have left it there, but his curiosity was piqued. What the hell would Snape have invented to disappear into the school without a disillusioner? He wanted to find out the secret of the corridor of the fifth floor and kept the Map until the next day.

He woke up very early to meet no one and checked with the Map that Lily and Snape didn't appear in it, imagining they would be sleeping.

He took it with him, watching from time to time that they still did not appear, and he arrived at the door of the corridor of armor where they had disappeared.

He opened it, it was full of dusty dingy desks, dirty windows, he doubted Snape would have taken Lily to such an unwelcoming place. And besides, there was no sign that anyone had entered there in a long time and he himself kept appearing on the Map. He checked the two adjoining classrooms in case he had gotten it wrong, though he was sure he hadn't, and same thing.

He realized that at first Snape disappeared and Lily did not, then they had been disillusioned to explain how to do it and later they stood in front of the door for a couple of minutes... a Fidelius!

It had to be that, there was a classroom that didn't exist for anyone but them, he had no idea it could be done except in the dwellings, and besides, they didn't vanish when they entered the door, but in the space in front of it, so they could watch from there. Certainly this Snape was a wonder.

He could rest easy now, a Fidelius was the safest protective spell, only the Secret's Keeper, Snape himself, could undo it, not even Lily would be able to reveal it. He wouldn't have to destroy the Map or warn them, it would be bad luck if in the few minutes they were out in the open it happened James or Sirius to be looking for them.

And even if they did, they would hardly be able to reach them before they reached the Fidelius, as happened the first time with Snape. And even if they discovered the exact place where they disappeared, as he had, they would only find the abandoned classroom he was in right now.

His friend, his friends, because even though he didn't deal with Snape he already had a certain appreciation for him, were safe. After making sure that both of them still didn't appear on the Map, he retraced his steps, promising himself, unless it was an emergency, not to spy on them again.

A little while later, after breakfast, he asked Lily, just to cover it up, since it would have been strange not to, "How about yesterday, did you fix the Potions thing?"

"Yes, yes, all arranged."

"I'm glad." He felt her reluctance to continue talking and did not insist more, respecting his friend's privacy.