James finally figured out the Homonculous charm, and it was this that caused his friends to find out that he had been sneaking off in the early hours of the morning to practise it. He rushed into the dorm room at about six o'clock, flustered but beaming. He was too distracted to notice Remus and Sirius emerge from the same bed; all he cared about was dragging them downstairs and laying the map out in full across the table. The others stared at it, immediately noticing tiny dots moving all over the paper like ants. Looking closer, they saw names scrawled above each dot, labelling each of them and their whereabouts within the castle.
"James, you brilliant bastard," exclaimed Remus. "I can't believe you actually did it."
"Don't sound so surprised, I told you I was good at charms."
"Yeah, but bloody hell," continued Sirius. "To achieve this charm? I'm impressed, mate." He thumped James on the back. "Really I am." James looked incredibly proud of himself, which was well-deserved in Remus's opinion. The four of them sat studying the map for ages before classes started, fascinated by the ability to see what everyone was up to. The other members of their dorm room had finally woken up and were milling around. Jethro and Myfanwy were clearly chatting with each other, with their two dots being close together and unmoving. The teachers were in their respective classrooms preparing for the day's lessons, and most of the students were still in their common rooms. James opened the map further and pointed out Dumbledore's office.
"What's he pacing around for?" observed Peter. James shrugged.
"Dunno, he's been doing that ever since I got the spell to work."
"What are the Slytherins up to?" asked Sirius, turning the map to where the dungeons had been drawn.
"Nothing nefarious," remarked James. "They're all in their dorms still." The bell rang as they continued searching, playing a sort of game of hide and seek. One of them named a specific person and whomever found them first on the map won. Remus excelled at the game.
"This is going to be extremely useful for full moons," he finally acknowledged, as they folded up the map, wiped it clean of any evidence and headed to their charms lesson.
"Good," replied James. "Cos that's the main reason I did it."
"It's great, I'll never have to worry about running into a teacher again."
"Yeah and we can all sneak out the castle whenever we want now," said Sirius. "I mean, we could anyway but at least now we can avoid Mrs Norris... does the map show Mrs Norris?"
"Yeah, course."
"I thought it wouldn't track animals."
"It doesn't really, but Mrs Norris seems to be an exception. Which is lucky, because can you imagine how crowded the map would be if it showed every owl and cat in the castle?" Remus was quite excited to use the map for the full moon, but he had to wait a few weeks before the next one.
In the meantime, the map was used to make sure no one ever saw Remus leaving the castle to travel to Selene's pub each night. His friends sometimes joined him whenever they fancied it, mostly Sirius and James. Peter was largely unbothered and only came when he was bored. James wasn't always in the mood, but when he was, he usually sought out the guy he'd been chatting with the first day he'd visited, and strike up another conversation with him. The two were clearly getting along well and James was beaming at the prospect of a new friend. Remus was particularly keen for Sirius to visit as much as possible, to show him that life beyond his family and his upbringing wasn't as scary as Sirius seemed to think. Of course, nothing in the pub could change the fact that Sirius's family would be absolutely livid at the idea of their son being gay, but at least Remus could introduce him to other gay people, so he could see that being gay as a whole wasn't the scary part. Sirius seemed content in just watching Remus instead, learning all the bartending tricks while Remus himself was still learning. The two learnt together, but Remus could still feel like he was a mentor when he instructed which ingredients to use for which drinks. Remus had memorised almost every ingredient he needed for each drink, a feat that was impressive until he remembered that he was still falling a little behind everyone else in his school lessons.
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Boys Will Be Bugs
Fanfiction[REUPLOAD] Remus Lupin has more than one secret, and there's no way of knowing who he can trust. All he has are his parents, but they can't protect him when he goes off to Hogwarts. But then Remus meets a boy and his two other friends, and soon real...
