A new POV to continue the conversation that started last chapter. And we get to know how the Marauder's Map ended up in Filch's office.

REMUS I

"Do you know what this is?"

Remus' heart stopped beating an instant after he saw the worn piece of parchment Harry showed him. For a blink of a moment, he didn't know what Harry was talking about, but then his mind brought him back more than fifteen years ago. He was back to Hogwarts, not as a teacher, but a student. He was looking at the map with his friends James, Sirius and Peter, preparing their next gag, verifying that there were more than enough people at the place where the Dungbombs would explode.

It lasted an instant. For a glorious instant, he was back at the time of innocence and wonder, when he and his friends could cause trouble one day, get in detention the next day and start all over again on the third day. But he was back to the present immediately, back to staring at a worn piece of parchment that the son and godson of his two best friends was showing him.

"Where did you find this?" was all that Remus could ask in return.

"That's not important. You know what this is?" Harry asked again, almost on an accusing tone.

Remus didn't answer. He was confused. That couldn't be possible. Not only was it impossible that Harry had this parchment in hand, but it was also impossible that this parchment was here, under his eyes, right now. He stared at it, searching for any sign revealing that this was a copy, or simply a worn piece of parchment without anything special. As if to deny his doubts, Harry touched the parchment with his wand at this moment.

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

And the map took life. Remus' eyes grew wide open. He unceremoniously snatched away the parchment from Harry's hand and pointed his own wand at it.

"Mischief managed! Harry, what are you thinking? In my office, right now!"

He rushed to his office, Harry on his tails. What did Harry think, showing the map like this, in broad daylight? Remus shut the door behind the two of them, then waved the map in front of Harry's eyes.

"Harry, where did you find this?" he asked him again on an urgent tone.

Harry didn't answer immediately. Lily's son looked… afraid of him. Remus decided it was better to calm down. He was agitated because he believed the map had been destroyed years ago. But no matter how Harry found the parchment, it wasn't his fault if it was still intact. Remus slowly went behind his desk and sat in his chair.

"Okay, Harry, sit down," he asked on a calmer voice. The boy did as he was told. "Please, tell me how you came upon this map?"

"So, you know what this is?"

"Of course, I know what this is," Remus replied, irritated.

"Because you're Moony." Remus froze an instant at the mention of that name. He looked to Harry, and for a moment he saw James in front of him. It was as if his old friend was back and said this name again, after so many years. But despite Harry's resemblance to James, their eyes could not be confounded. Harry's were green, reminding Remus immediately that he was not in front of his old friend, but of Lily's son. "And Sirius is Padfoot. My father is Prongs. And Wormtail, it's…"

"Peter," Remus ruefully completed.

"You made this map together? Pettigrew helped you to make it?"

"Yes, he did," Remus replied just as low. "Back in the time we were friends. If I had known what he would do later…"

Remus didn't complete his sentence. He didn't know what he would have done. Probably he would never have been friends with Peter if he had any suspicion about him. Though he believed that Sirius could be Voldemort's spy within the Order before it was revealed Peter was. These times had been so hard. It was difficult back then to distinguish the truth from the lies, your friends from your enemies. Remus had come to doubt James' best friend, even thinking, after the twelve Muggles were murdered, that he should have done something to stop Sirius before he delivered James and Lily to Voldemort. This guilt was nowhere as powerful as the one he felt when Lily told them it was actually Peter who had been the Secret Keeper, the spy, the traitor all this time, and when they found out that Peter was the one who murdered all these people the same night his master killed James. Remus had felt so guilty not only about failing to protect James, but also doubting Sirius, while he never thought for a single moment that Peter might be the one on Voldemort's payroll.

He kept staring at the map, reminiscing about the past, but he ultimately came back to the reality.

"Harry, how did you get this?"

He knew that Lily gave Harry the Invisibility Cloak of his father at the beginning of the year, just in case it might be useful to escape Peter. Did she also give him the Maurauder's Map? James was supposed to have destroyed it a few days before they left Hogwarts at the end of their last year. It was a decision they took together, the four of them. They were children no more. They were men. James was already thinking about asking Lily to marry him. All of them decided that they would fight Voldemort once out of school, join the Order of the Phoenix. The map would no longer be of any use to them since they were leaving school, and they didn't want to risk it falling into the wrong hands. So they decided to destroy it. James said he would do it before they would leave Hogwarts. It was true that Remus didn't see him destroy it. Perhaps he kept it, and Lily gave it to Harry so he could use it this year. The map could be useful after all, in case Peter would try to attack Harry on the school grounds. It was a shame that the map didn't cover the Hogwarts Express. Though, if Lily gave it to Harry, why didn't she tell Remus about it like she did for the Invisibility Cloak.

"Someone gave it to me," Harry replied.

"Who?"

"Fred and George," he reluctantly answered.

"Fred and George Weasley?" Remus asked to confirm. How did the Weasley twins got their hands on it.

"Look, they gave it to me because they saw Pettigrew in Hogwarts."

Remus jumped on his feet. "Peter is in Hogwarts?"

"He was on the grounds, outside, the day before we left on the Hogwarts Express. The day before he attacked me. They saw Pettigrew and they followed me everywhere after that. That's why they were close to intervene when Pettigrew bit me in the foot on the train."

Remus listened carefully to Harry. Maybe it had been a good thing if James didn't destroy the map, finally. If what Harry said was true, the map saved his life. But if Peter was on the school grounds on that day, if he managed to get past the Dementors…

Remus laid down the map on his desk and touched it with his wand. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

The map appeared right in front of him. Remus unfolded it and looked through the castle and the surrounding grounds. Peter was nowhere to be found. He sighed in relief at seeing that, for now, Peter was nowhere in the vicinity. He could still be in Hogsmeade or outside the limits of the school, but at least he wasn't in Hogwarts properly.

"Peter is not in Hogwarts. For now," he summarized aloud, sighing in relief. He looked up to Harry, who looked at him strangely.

"Pettigrew helped you to create this map?"

"Yes," Remus answered. Harry sounded almost accusing. "Look, Harry. We all considered him a friend back then. We were children. We had no idea that he would betray us later. Even Dumbledore didn't see this coming. No one did." He sighed again. "We were all friends. My best memories are with them. Your father. Sirius. And yes, even Peter."

"Because you were all Animagi?"

"Yes." He recalled the times when he turned into a werewolf, and his friends turned into animals. They would wander in Hogsmeade and on the school grounds. It was by visiting all the places in Hogwarts during the night that they got to know the castle so well and could create the Marauder's Map together.

"But not you?"

Remus was confused for a moment by Harry's question. And then, he realized what Harry said earlier. "No, not me. I… never decided to become an Animagus. I was more compliant with rules than the others. Including your father, I'm afraid," he said on a sorry excuse.

Looking to Harry, Remus noticed immediately that the boy didn't believe him. He knew it because he had the exact same facial expression his mother had when she caught someone lying.

"Are you a werewolf?"

Time seemed to freeze in the office. For a very long moment, no one said a thing as Harry's question seemed to hang on in the air.

Are you a werewolf?

Remus knew that this day would come, sooner or later. He couldn't hope to hide it forever from Harry. He was even surprised that the boy didn't find out sooner.

"How long have you known?" Remus simply asked, not trying to refute Harry's words. It would be useless.

The conversation that followed was probably one of the longest Remus ever had, or so he had the impression. It wasn't the first time someone discovered the truth about him. The first who did, and who actually confronted him about it, were his friends, James, Sirius and Peter, back when they were all students. Remus had hidden the truth away from them for as long as he could, but a point was reached one day when his excuses for his absences didn't convince them. James and Sirius had looked intrigued, even curious when they finally confronted him about it. Peter was more afraid.

But to the contrary of what Remus feared, his friends didn't abandon him. Instead, they sought ways to help him, going as far as to become Animagi to keep him company during his transformations. Remus had been against the idea at the very beginning, not wanting to embark his friends into something illegal and dangerous. But James and Sirius began teaching themselves to become Animagi all the same, and Peter followed them. In the end, Remus decided it was better to help them, if they were to become Animagi with or without his help. At least, with his contribution, the risks they faced would be reduced.

And then there had been Lily. She was probably the one who took it the best way possible. James hid the truth away from her at the beginning, but after they left Hogwarts, he told her everything one day. Perhaps Remus would have memories of a worse reaction from her if he had been present when James revealed the truth to her, but the first time he saw his friend's wife after she learned that he was a werewolf, she behaved just like she always behaved with him. It was only many years later, after James was dead, that Lily told him she had known about his condition for years, long before she started dating James. Severus had told her back then about his suspicions. She didn't give too much credit to them at the beginning, but she couldn't ignore the fact he was absent during full moons. She just didn't care because Remus never caused any harm to anybody, and because she thought he was one of the few people who could help James keep his head on his shoulders, in all senses of the expression.

And now it was with Harry that he ended up having that delicate conversation. Harry told him that he found out a few days ago, when he realized that Remus was one of the Marauders, the one they called Moony. Then he had realized that Remus was absent during days of full moon, and finally he realized that his Boggart was a full moon. Remus marvelled at Harry's capacity for deduction. Maybe if he had completed the essay Severus gave them in November, he would have come to the same conclusions as Hermione a lot sooner. Remus confirmed everything Harry said. He explained how he became infected when he was a kid, that Dumbledore welcomed him at Hogwarts all the same and hid him in the Shrieking Shack during his transformations. The rumors of the haunted house came from the screams and roars he used to push at night. He explained to Harry how his father, his godfather and the man who would eventually betray them became Animagi to help him, and how they conceived the Marauder's Map together. He told him everything, even about the precautions Dumbledore took when he offered him the position of professor, but apparently Harry was already aware of these. He had spoken with Hermione about it.

Remus dared to timidly ask Harry if he told anybody about who he was, to which he replied by the negative. Hermione was the only person with whom he discussed about it, and he didn't intend to tell anybody else. But then came the hardest part of the conversation.

"I thank you, Harry." Still, James' son kept looking at him as if Remus betrayed him. "Look, I understand if you are angry…"

"I'm not angry!" he shouted, which obviously showed Harry was wrong about his own emotions. "I'm just… Why didn't you just tell me? Why all the lies? And this map… Pettigrew? How could you be friends with someone like that? He killed my father!"

Remus could have berated Harry for speaking in such a way to a teacher. But it wasn't to his professor that he talked right now. It was to a family friend he had known for years, or who at least he believed he knew. Remus knew they should have told him the truth before. When he was a kid, he lived in the Muggle world with Lily, unaware that magic existed. Then at the age of nine, Lily finally told him about their world. Remus had a discussion with her not long after, when he said it might be better if they told Harry right away that he was a werewolf. He was still a kid, but he just learned of the magical world, and he didn't have all the prejudices against werewolves that most people who grew up in the magical world had. Remus thought it might be the best time to tell him. But Lily refused. She didn't want to burden her son with such a secret, not when he just discovered about the magical world. Then Harry had come to Hogwarts. Remus had thought that the time was probably right to share the truth with him, but somehow he didn't dare to discuss it with his mother this time. Then the events of the Philosopher's Stone and the Chamber of Secrets happened, and Remus was asked by Dumbledore to be Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts. During each summer between two years at Hogwarts, Remus told Lily at some time that they should tell Harry the truth, especially after Peter was caught, but her refusal was definitive in all cases. Remus could have told Harry without Lily's consent, but he couldn't bear himself to do it, out of respect for her. Harry was her son after all. He wasn't James. Remus had no right and no authority over him.

All this, Remus didn't tell Harry. Instead, he just told him that he wanted to tell him on several occasions, but couldn't find the strength to tell him, out of fear that he might reject him. This wasn't entirely false, for each time Lily refused that they reveal the truth, a part of Remus was relieved that he didn't have to say something to Harry that might bring the boy to look at him in a very different light. Remus offered various excuses for his silence, none of them involving Lily. The last thing he wanted was to create a rift between her and her son. However, Harry still asked him the fateful question in the end.

"My mother? Does she know about it?"

Remus couldn't lie on this. Yes, Lily knew the whole time. She probably knew before she and his father were together. Remus offered some awkward explanations that his mother just didn't want Harry to look at Remus like he was werewolf or someone different, and she kept his secret out of concern for him.

All in all, Harry was mainly disappointed, and also angry, that they didn't trust him with the truth. He then asked many questions about Pettigrew and their friendship. This forced Remus to go back in the past, to memories that were both pleasant and painful, trying to explain how they all became friends with Peter, and how none of them saw his betrayal coming. In truth, they took pity on Peter. They never imagined who he could really be. Remus even confessed to Harry that he had thought Sirius might be the traitor who fed Voldemort with information, long before James was killed, because Sirius came from a pure-blood family with an obsession for purity that went even farther than with families like the Malfoys. His brother was even a Death Eater.

It was a very long discussion, very exhausting. The only good thing that seemed to come out of this was that, at the end, Harry didn't seem to care that much about the fact that Remus was a werewolf. He promised again that he wouldn't tell anybody when he left the office. The thing that had seemed to make Harry angry was mostly the fact they hid it from him. He felt they didn't trust him with the truth. And most of all, the discovery of the Marauder's Map made him realize how close Remus, Sirius, James and Peter had been back then, and Harry didn't seem to understand how it was possible. Remus himself didn't completely understand how it had been possible at all.

A few hours later, when night had fallen, Remus was in Dumbledore's office. Sirius was there. Dumbledore had summoned him to discuss a very serious matter. They were waiting for the fourth participant to their meeting to arrive. She did about fifteen minutes after Dumbledore sent her a message. Lily emerged from the fireplace, covered in soot that she removed immediately with her wand.

"Dumbledore." She stopped when she noticed Remus and Sirius' presences. "Oh… Well, it's good that you're here. I needed to talk to you as well. We have a problem."

"What problem is that, Lily?" Dumbledore asked right away, before Remus could tell it had to wait.

"This." She took a letter in her pocket and laid it down on Dumbledore's desk. Then she looked at Remus. "Harry knows. He knows that you're a werewolf."

Remus was stupefied for a moment. Dumbledore was reading the letter with a lot of attention. Still, Remus decided it was better to tell her the truth right away. "Yes, we know. He came to my office and confronted me about it today."

Lily seemed to panic all of a sudden. "What did you tell him?"

"The truth, of course."

"Lily, everything is right," Dumbledore assured her. "It seems that Harry took it quite well, considering the circumstances, and he swore that he didn't tell anybody, and that he wasn't going to tell anybody."

Lily seemed uncertain for a moment, then she closed her eyes before opening them again. "It's fine, then. If Harry says he's not going to talk about it, I believe him," she answered.

"Still, considering the situation, I think it would be better if Professor McGonagall had a discussion with him…"

"No!" Lily's refusal shot through the office like a spell. "Harry must not know that I told you about it. If he learns that I told you about his letter again, I don't think he's ever going to trust me anymore. And this is the worst time for this to happen, with everything around Wormtail going on."

"Lily," Remus began, "if he talks to McGonagall, it will be because I told her about the discussion I had with him. There's no need for your name to appear anywhere in this story."

He looked at Dumbledore, who nodded in approval. Lily calmed down. "Okay. That's fine."

"But I don't believe it is necessary for McGonagall to discuss with Harry," he continued, this time talking to Dumbledore. "Look, I spoke in length with Harry about this, he promised that he wouldn't tell anybody, and I believe him too. And he already knows that the staff is aware of my situation, and that we took measures to ensure the safety of students."

Dumbledore looked at him. Remus, as always, and like many other people, he was sure of that, had the impression that Dumbledore was scrutinizing his mind.

"This is your decision, Remus. If the truth comes out, you will be the one paying the price, you know that?" the Headmaster said, concerned.

"I accept the risk. We should have told the truth to Harry a long time ago, anyway."

Dumbledore opened his hand, showing this was Remus' decision. "Very well. But this isn't the reason why we brought the two of you here," he said, looking at both Lily and Sirius. "This is about a certain thing that Harry somehow managed to get his hands on, despite the fact that, according to Remus, this thing was destroyed years ago, before Harry was even born."

Remus turned to look at Lily, turning his back on Dumbledore and Sirius. He produced the map from his pocket and showed it to Lily. "Have you ever seen this?"

James' wife looked at the worm piece of parchment, which showed nothing for now, and shook her head. "No. What is it? It looks like some old parchment."

There had been no surprise in Lily's reaction. She really never saw the Marauder's Map. So Remus turned to Sirius. The moment his friend saw it, his eyes grew wide.

"Sirius, I know that you recognize it. Do you have any idea how Harry could have ended up with it? Because, in my memories are exact, we decided it was better to destroy it before we left Hogwarts." Sirius didn't answer. Instead, he looked at Dumbledore, who still looked very calm. "I told everything to Dumbledore. He knows all about it."

"What are you talking about?" Lily asked. It was obvious that she was the only one to ignore what they were talking about right now.

Remus laid down the map on Dumbledore's desk and touched it with his wand.

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

The map draw itself on the spot. Lily looked at it. "Wait. Is that… This is the Marauder's Map?"

Remus looked at her, surprised. "You know about it?"

"James told me about it, one day, after we had left Hogwarts. He told me about a map that you used and that showed everything in Hogwarts."

"Everything and everyone," Dumbledore said. "It even indicates our presence in my office right now."

Indeed, the four of them appeared at this location.

"Harry brought it to me when he asked me whether or not I was a werewolf. He deduced that Moony was my nickname, and that's how he came to the conclusion that I was a werewolf," Remus explained, while he turned towards Lily. "I thought that perhaps you gave it to him at the beginning of the year, like James' Invisibility Cloak, to help him…"

"I never saw this map before today," Lily assured. "James told me about it, but that's all. I never saw it. He told me that he got rid of it before he left Hogwarts, because it was no longer useful."

"He got rid of it? That's what he told you?"

"Yes. He got rid of it. I have… I don't know what he did with it, really. He never told me."

Remus turned towards his friend. "Sirius, before we left Hogwarts, we agreed to destroy the map, to make sure that no one with bad intentions would get his hands on it. James was supposed to destroy it. You were his best friend. What did he do?"

Sirius didn't reply for a moment. Then he did. "Remus… We didn't agree to destroy the map. You wanted it destroyed, Peter agreed with you, and James… You almost coerced him into destroying it."

"He hesitated, but he agreed in the end. So tell me. What did you do? Why didn't James destroy the map?"

Sirius didn't reply immediately, but he did. "Look, I went to talk to him after you kind of decided to destroy it. We had worked so hard to draw it. It was… The map was linked to some of our best memories at Hogwarts. I didn't want to destroy it. So James and I we discussed, and… Well…" Sirius laughed a little at this moment. "That's when James got the idea. To do our last mischief before we left the school for good."

"What kind of mischief?" Lily asked, suspicious.

"We broke into Filch's office and we hid the Marauder's Map into the drawer where he kept the most dangerous stuff he confiscated."

For a long moment, no one reacted. It was Dumbledore who answered first, while Remus was still processing the information Sirius just gave them. And the Headmaster spoke in a voice from which amusement pierced through. "If I understand correctly, you violated the rules of the school to give a dangerous object to Filch."

Sirius shrugged while smiling. "We thought it would be funny for our last mischief to be somewhat following the rules while breaking them at the same time. And this way, it wouldn't end into the wrong hands. Filch is a Squib. There's no way he could have found out how to use the map."

Lily shook her head. She looked exasperated. This wasn't the first time Remus saw her react that way when she heard of the stupidities her husband committed.

"That explains how the Fred and George Weasley got their hands on this map. They must have stolen it in Filch's office while he wasn't looking," Dumbledore said.

"Fred and George Weasley?" both Lily and Sirius asked at the same time.

"Yes. It's from them that Harry got the map," Remus explained. "In fact, in some way, we might be lucky that they had it. They saw Peter on the map the day before they left on the Hogwarts Express."

Remus then explained how Fred and George had spotted Peter, and then followed Harry closely, which explained why they intervened so quickly when Peter attacked Harry on the train.

"Why didn't they just tell a professor about it?" Lily asked.

Remus totally agreed with her, but he knew very well why they didn't. "Because they are just like we were at their age."

"Well, still, it is better that the Weasley twins had this map rather than Peter Pettigrew." Dumbledore turned to Sirius. "I wish you told me about this map, Sirius. If Pettigrew had found a way to get this map…"

"No way," Sirius replied immediately. "Only James and I knew where the map was and that it still existed. Peter thinks it was destroyed. We never told him that we didn't destroy it."

"Are you sure? Are you certain that James never told your former friend about this, without you knowing it?"

Sirius hesitated this time before he answered. "I would highly doubt it. I mean, even Lily thought that the map was gone."

"We can really see everyone in Hogwarts thanks to this map?" Harry's mother asked them. She was looking at the map in question closely. Remus noticed that her eyes had stopped on a point with the name of Harry on it. He was in the library, sitting alone in a corner with Hermione.

"Yes," Remus confirmed.

"But… Peter managed to get inside the limits of the school?"

"We're already enhancing the defenses of the school, Lily," Dumbledore ensured. "Remus and I have already gone through it, and it seems unlikely that Pettigrew got to the school grounds through one of the secret passages on the map. We added protection spells around them at the beginning of the year, when Remus informed me of their existence. It seems more likely that Pettigrew managed to get past the Dementors."

Lily seemed to be seething. "Are these things helpful for something else than making our children lose consciousness?"

"They remain outside the school grounds, and I'm not going to allow them inside. Still, since you are part of the team that works on finding Pettigrew, Lily, I thought you might want to know that he was actually on the school grounds that day. Also, you must know that we're going to keep this map working all time now. Remus is going to verify it regularly to make sure that Pettigrew is not inside the limits of the grounds."

Lily stared at Dumbledore, then to the map. "I could also use it. We work to find Pettigrew. If we spot him in Hogwarts…"

"You will not be able to react as quickly as we can, Lily," Dumbledore interrupted. "We are in the school, but you're not. It is better if this map remains here."

Lily seemed reluctant, but she agreed in the end.

Remus later had a discussion with both Sirius and Lily in his office. He made sure that they wouldn't fall on Harry by chance by verifying where he was using the map. Harry's mother seemed exhausted. She really had to be working hard at the Ministry.

Remus assured her that he didn't tell Harry it was her who didn't want to tell him about Remus being a werewolf. However, she was more concerned with how Harry reacted to the fact he was a werewolf. The truth was, Harry was more disappointed than anything else about the fact that he wasn't told about it. He wasn't angry at Remus because he was a werewolf, nor was he afraid or disgusted.

"I think he just wished that we told him before. He must feel that somehow we didn't trust him. And also, discovering the Marauder's Map, it kind of threw him at the face again how Peter had been close not only to his father, but also to Sirius and I."

"He was going to discover the truth anyway," Sirius said. "I mean, with Peter's arrest and you teaching him, Moony, it was a matter of time." He turned to Lily. "We should have told him before the year started. It was certain that Harry was going to find out about Remus."

"What did you want me to do?" Her voice was tired, but irritated as well. "You wanted me to tell my thirteen-years-old son that one of his father's friends, a man he's known since his birth, is a werewolf? How do you tell that to a child?"

"He's not really a child anymore, Lily. He's practically an adolescent," Remus said.

"Who's already seen his fair share of horrors," Sirius added in the background.

"No need to remind me. I was there, remember. Not you," she said sharply.

Remus noticed how irritable Lily seemed to be this evening. Perhaps it was as a result of her obvious tiredness.

"I just wish my son could have a normal childhood, sometimes. Now, excuse me, but I've got work to do. Remus, you keep an eye on Harry, or I'll hold you responsible for whatever happens next."

She left them on this. Remus and Sirius both looked at each other.

"She's not in a good mood, tonight," Sirius commented.

"Don't be too harsh on her, Padfoot. These recent times have been hard on her. It's probably the worst first half of the year she's had so far. Wormtail's escape, the Dementors, Harry's accident at his Quidditch game, then the attack on the train. Now this. It's just another thing to worry about for her."

Sirius nodded. "Did you start teaching Harry how to repel Dementors?"

"We begin next week."

"You think Harry will succeed? That he will manage to create a Patronus?"

"I think he could." In fact, Remus was really not convinced. Conjuring a Patronus was already hard for an experimented wizard, so a boy of thirteen… Still, he had hopes. "Harry is very good in my class. I think he's even better than Hermione when it comes to Defence Against the Dark Arts, and that's something."

"Hermione? It's the girl who's his best friend?"

Remus nodded. "Yes. Probably the most clever witch of her age I ever met. She was the first to discover that I was a werewolf. And so far, she, Harry and another girl of their age are the only students who know about my condition."

"Let's hope it will remain that way," Sirius said.

The number of people knowing about Remus' secret keeps increasing. And I hope you liked my explanation as to how the Marauder's Map ended where Fred and George found it.

Please review.

Next chapter: Harry