Marauders 1971 - 1978

31st January 1972

"I've never even seen any kitchens - I just assumed they conjured the food out of nowhere."

Peter, James and Sirius sat in the first year boys' dormitory - plotting. Since Sirius had found confirmation of the existence of the Hogwarts kitchens (a fleeting mention within Hogwarts; A History cross referenced with I'll Take the Rest! An Homage to Hufflepuff House) they had decided that they could do better than filling their pockets after the feast. It had all been wistful talk until Remus had disappeared again from their dormitory, this time for two nights in a row. Initially, they had assumed another visit home but they had later heard whispers around the common room that a first year was in the hospital wing looking like "they'd had their face painted gold and rammed in a niffler cage". McGonagall had confirmed for them that afternoon in Transfiguration that Remus was to remain there "until Madame Pomfrey deems it so, Pettigrew", so naturally there was nothing to do other than take a late night trip to the fabled kitchens and try and find something to cheer him up.

"No, you can't conjure food out of nothing - even house elves can't do that," James corrected him absently. "My mum says you can only change what you have, or multiply it. But it's really hard - she doesn't bother most of the time."

"Well, we would have seen it, surely. A kitchen big enough to cater a school can't be missed." Peter reasoned. Sirius rolled his eyes.

"Come on, Peter. It'll be hidden. Try to remember you're in a magical school."

Sirius didn't even look up at Peter as he dismissed him, but Peter's face turned pink in badly masked embarrassment.

"Right..."

James ignored the two of them, he was skim-reading through Sirius' copy of I'll Take the Rest! Trying to find a hint to the location.

"See, it does say here that Hufflepuff herself added the kitchens 'in the natural location' but what does that even mean, in a castle? See, you would think that it would be off the Great Hall, but we know that there's only the main doors and that side door off from the Great Hall - we saw that first term!"

Sirius opened the tower window and leaned his whole head and shoulders out of it. "Well, in a house, that'd be backing onto the garden, but that hardly narrows it down, does it?"

Peter leaned over the foot of his bed, reaching into his trunk to pull out a roll of parchment. He then dug in his pocket for a muggle pen and lay the paper out on his nightstand.

"Okay, so we have the Great Hall, yeah?" he said, drawing a rectangle, "Then the main doors and the side door, behind the Teacher's table." He added door signifiers, and smaller rectangles for the tables. James and Sirius stood around his drawing to watch.

"We don't know where the side door goes, right? We've seen into the room beyond, and we know it's not a kitchen. Unless you two have been through there?" Peter looked up at them questioningly. They shook their heads.

"Right. So we know that the first room behind the door isn't a kitchen." He drew an X. "So, entrance hall..." He made another large, rectangular room, with staircase notations to depict the two routes on either side of the Great Hall doors. "We know this one goes towards the dungeons." He labeled it.

"Well, I can be sure that the Kitchen can't be through the dungeon doorway route," Sirius offered. "It tunnels outwards, towards the lake," he borrowed Peter's pen and clumsily drew the lake off to the far right of the Great Hall. "So Perhaps the other staircase goes under the Great Hall?"

"Oh, yeah!" James leaned in and turned the drawing so that it was right-way-up for him. "'Cause the greenhouses are over here to the left, right?" Sirius handed him the pen and he drew some small sheds off to the left. "And I'm pretty sure the Hufflepuff common room is down there-"