The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part Two

LIII: 11 April 1994

Messer Moony has nothing to say to you, Mr. Lupin, that he hasn't said already. This is the one-hundred and eighty-third time you have done this.

Messer Wormtail is astonished the count is that high - Mr. Lupin really ought to get a life! And he could use a shave while he's at it - the five o'clock shadow is NOT becoming you!

Messer Padfoot disagrees whole heartedly - keep the hair on your chinny-chin-chin, wolf.

Messer Prongs congratulates Mr. Lupin on his dedication of 183 attempts at looking at the map, but he does rather encourage him to go on and use the Map for what it's made for as well.

Remus stared at the spindly ink as it blazoned bright against the parchment. He leaned back in the chair, feeling rather confused. What was that supposed to mean? Use the map for what it's made for? They'd made it for getting about the castle when they didn't know where to go, and for finding their way in the corridors and making a notation of the secret passageways, and locating one another anywhere in the castle.

Well, he thought off-handedly, nearly anywhere in the castle - anywhere that wasn't unplottable, like the Room Where Things Are Hidden.

There was a jolt in his stomach.

"Mr. Lupin would do good to remember that when one wishes to find something, they are best done by to look for the thing in the place where it is hidden," Remus quoted what Padfoot's magic had said to him at least half of the 183 times he'd tried to make the map speak to him.

Remus stood up so abruptly he nearly knocked over the chair and he cleared his throat, pressing the wand to the center of the parchment.

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

Time seemed to stand still for a moment.

Then James's handwriting scrawled over the page.

It's about damn time, Moony.

From that sentence burst an outpouring of ink that began to spread and pool around the parchment sheets, scrawling around the entire folded page.

Messers Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs... are proud to present... the Marauders's Map.

And there was the castle on the cover.

There was the whomping willow.

There was the bed sheet flag that Sirius had hung up ages ago clutching the extended turret of Gryffindor Tower. There were the pathways, the outline of the black lake, all drawn in words made up of his own handwriting, his own ink-sketched details... windows, bricks, shingles, doorways... a banner across the top... Itinerarium Marauduntium.

His hands were shaking.

His knees gave out and he sat down very hard onto the seat before the desk.

Was he actually crying?

Oh gods he was actually crying.

Remus put down his wand beside the Map and he covered his eyes, feeling the hot tears pouring onto his palms. For a moment, he couldn't catch his breath. When he finally caught it again, he swept the sleeve of his tweed jacket over his eyes, and then reached for the page of the map, flipping it open.

His eyes roved over the corridors, over the little rooms, over marks for various portraits and tiny suits of armor. He watched footprints shift wand walk about the halls, all neatly labelled. He ran his hands over the Gryffindor common room, over the room that used to be theirs and he saw Dean Thomas in the bed that used to be his, Neville Longbottom in one that used to be Sirius's. He wondered who had James's bed, and Peter's and he felt a thrill of hope that maybe Harry had his own father's old bed...