The Marauders: Year One | #Wattys2016

Dark Magic Detectors

"You know what this place needs is a bloody map!" exclaimed Sirius.

It was Monday, and they were lost trying to find their way to their Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson. Remus had no idea as he'd never been, having been "ill" the week before, and none of the other boys seemed to have a clue where they'd gone. They'd just followed Lily before.

"A map would be spiffing about now," James agreed, looking agitatedly up and down the corridor. "Blimey, they all look the same, don't they?" he asked.

"I think we've seen that portrait before," said Remus, pointing at a small square on the wall featuring a knight with a fat pony. The knight had just been thrown from his steed and he was trying to climb back on but kept getting his armor stuck in the horse's saddle footholds.

Peter looked up at it, "Yeah. Sir Cadogan."

"Sir Cadogan the Lame," muttered Sirius. "Oi! Seriously!" They'd just rounded a corner and found themselves at the mouth of the stairs that led down to the entrance hall again. They'd been back to this point several times.

James looked at his watch. "We're quite late."

Remus frowned. "I'm never going to learn any defensive theory at this rate."

"There you are!" The boys turned around to find Professor Tutman coming up behind them, Lily Evans in tow, carrying a box under one arm. "We've been looking for you," he said jovially.

"We've been looking for you, too," James said.

Professor Tutman waved them along, "Our class is outside today," he said, leading the way.

The boys charged down the stairs with Professor Tutman and Lily, across the entrance hall and out onto the grounds. It was a crisp early autumn day, one that promised a cold winter ahead. Lily pulled the sleeves of her sweater down over her hands and Sirius rubbed his palms together. Professor Tutman led them all down to the lake where there was a big oak tree and they set themselves down under it on the grass and Professor Tutman set the trunk he'd been carrying down on the ground.

"The reason I've brought you out here is so that I can show you some of the dark magic detectors I've got that simply won't work in such close quarters of the other students within the castle," he said. He reached into the trunk and pulled out a bunch of shiny instruments, some of which Remus recognized from having seen them before in Dumbledore's office. Professor Tutman set them up on the trunk for them to see. There was a great big silver thing that looked like a top that seemed to levitate on its spindle, a mirror, a set of scales, and a couple other odd shaped things that James was keen to crane his neck to see from where he sat slightly behind Peter Pettigrew who had combed his ashy blonde hair upwards that morning, trying to make it look messier, like James, but had only succeeded in making it bushier.

Once all the instruments were laid out on the trunk, Professor Tutman waved his wand to activate them and they started to move and flash. The top-like thing spun, blurring with it's wobbling speed, and the mirror fogged up with shadowy figures while another thing that looked like a long rectangular box with lights on it blinked madly. "Well, either we are not far enough from the school as I had thought or else someone here has a very dark secret," Tutman said, looking around at them.

Remus furrowed his brows, trying to look as concerned as the others, but under his Hogwarts robes he felt very hot indeed. Were Professor Tutman's tools sensing that he was a werewolf?

"Well blimey everybody's got a secret!" Sirius said with indignation.

Professor Tutman chuckled, "Perhaps. But these are special tools and won't pick up on things like shirking off homework to play gobstones. They are tools used by aurors at the Ministry of Magic."