James Potter and the Year of Chasing

A week passed. Gryffindor beat Ravenclaw, but only barely; the final score was 170 to 130. Kit berated his team thoroughly for putting all the pressure on their poor Seeker (namely, Kit) and doubled the number of practices. The team took this fairly well, though Rhys and Cassie went above and beyond the call of duty by throwing things at their teammates in the halls, in the interests of ‘improving general awareness and concentration.’ James would have preferred to not have to duck flying objects, but years of being friends with Sirius had made such chaos practically commonplace. Truthfully, he was glad for the distraction of Quidditch; he’d been in a foul mood ever since the incident in the library. He tried not to be upset or disappointed that Lily was so obviously uninterested in him, but it was difficult, particularly since he still caught himself looking for her in the Great Hall or in class.

It didn’t help that Gwen Delacroix had taken Ravenclaw’s defeat badly, and as a result was hounding James more than ever. "It makes sense, in a warped sort of way, Remus said as James ducked under a desk in the library to avoid being seen by the determined girl. "She didn’t capture the Snitch, so she’s going to capture you instead."

"Why me?" James groaned from his hiding place. "There are other boys on the team."

"But Kit’s been with Mariah King for ages," Peter pointed out. "And everyone knows that Rhys and Cassie are snogging, even if they say they aren’t."

"Well, what about Jonathan?"

"Probably too young for her," Remus mused. Jonathan was a fourth year. "Gwen’s the fussy type."

"I’m flattered, really," James said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Maybe if we give him an aging potion she’d stalk him instead. Is it safe for me to come out yet?"

"It’s all clear," Peter reassured him. "And I still say we should whip up a love potion to make her fall for me."

Remus grinned across the table as James reclaimed his seat by Peter. "You’re welcome to try anytime, mate. Warn us first, so that we can be far away when it explodes."

"Sod off and die, Remus."

"We could make a love potion, though," Sirius said consideringly. "It’d be dead useful. Gwen would fall for Peter, Tamatha Davis would go for Remus, Lily Evans would swoon over James--"

James scowled. "The next person who mentions Lily Evans is getting hexed. I’m not kidding."

Sirius continued without missing a beat. "--we could slip some to James’ fan club and convince them to be the Sirius Black fan club instead--"

Peter was almost choking with laughter. "You wish, Padfoot."

"Damn straight I do, Wormtail."

"No love potions," James said firmly. "We wouldn’t get away with that one. You know how McGonagall feels about love potions, she wouldn’t rest until she’d found the culprits. Which wouldn't be hard, given that all the girls in Hogwarts would suddenly be after us."

"You mean they aren't already?"

"You should be so lucky, Sirius."

"You’re no fun at all, James," Sirius complained.

"And doing detention every week for the rest of the year would be fun?" James retorted. Truth be told, the idea of making a love potion bothered him. It was one thing to steal Snape’s underwear or dye the Quidditch pitch blue; it was quite another to use magic to control someone’s thoughts or feelings. That wouldn’t be a prank, it’d be manipulation, and he didn’t want to use anyone like that. Particularly not Lily Evans.

"I’d rather get back to exploring," Remus said, smoothly pushing aside the question of love potions. "We haven’t done much of that this year, and there’s loads of places we haven’t been yet."

"Amen to that," Peter agreed fervently. "I’m sure there’s a passage behind that statue of the one-eyed witch on the third floor. I can feel a breeze whenever I'm near it, it’s impossible to miss when you’re rat-sized. But I still don’t know how to open it. You prats could help me figure it out, if you’d ever stop mooning over girls."

"That’s rich coming from you," Sirius retorted. "You’re the one who keeps bringing up Gwendolyn Delacroix."

Peter waved a hand dismissively. "My point is that you lot always send me to explore the castle by myself. Which makes sense, as a rat is rather less conspicuous than a dog or a bloody great stag, but you could at least make yourselves useful by helping me make sense of what I find."

"The statue of the one-eyed witch," James repeated, picturing it in his head. "What have you tried?"

"Everything," Peter groaned, laying his arms on the table and resting his head on them. "I’ve poked and prodded every inch of the bloody thing, but no luck yet. I think this one wants a password."

"I’ll help with that," Remus offered. "If nothing else we can sit in front of it for a week talking. Sooner or later we’ll find the right word."

"Are you mad? Filch would catch us for sure."

"Not if we’re under the Invisibility Cloak."

Peter chuckled at that. "We could pretend to be ghosts," he suggested, eyes glinting. "The disembodied voices on the third floor. It’d probably drive the real ghosts wild, wondering where we’d come from. Would you loan us the Cloak, James?"

"Well, let’s see. You want it in order to perplex Filch, terrify the house ghosts, and sneak out of the castle if at all possible." James grinned broadly. "With such worthy goals in mind, how can I possibly refuse?"

"Know what we should do?" Sirius said suddenly. "We should pass on our knowledge to other worthy mischief-makers."

They all considered this for a minute. "How?" Remus wanted to know.

"Dunno. A list of all the things we’ve discovered, at least. Future miscreants might not have our advantages; we wouldn’t know half as much as we do if we hadn’t been able to follow Filch around in James’ cloak. It’d be a shame if everything we’ve found out was forgotten after we left. We could write it down in a book, or a map, or something."

The four boys looked at each other. "A map," Remus mused.

"It’s brilliant!" Peter said with enthusiasm. "We could show all the secret passages and how to get into them."

Remus leaned forward. "We could enchant the paper so that you have to say a password to look at it; I know a charm for that."

Sirius’ eyes glinted. "Better, we could set it up to insult anyone who isn’t supposed to be looking at it."

"A marauder’s map," James said, thinking hard. The possibilities were overwhelming.

"It’s brilliant," Peter said again, firmly. "We should get on it right away."

"Right," Sirius agreed. "Peter, you’ve got the best memory of any of us, so you make up a list of all the passages we’ve found and how to work them. James, you do some research into how we can enchant the thing. Remus, you’d better look for charms that’ll help protect the map once we’ve made it."

"What about you?" James wanted to know.

Sirius began gathering his things together hurriedly. "I’ve got to send an owl."

"An owl?" Peter sounded incredulous. "Now?"

"Yes, now. I’ll meet you later. Get to work!"

He sprang out of his seat and bolted from the library, earning himself a stern glare from Madam Pince. James, Remus, and Peter exchanged glances. "What d'you reckon he’s up to?" Peter wondered.

"Nothing good, I’m sure," Remus said. "Here, hand me some parchment and I’ll practice that Secrecy Charm, then you can write up that list. If you write it on any scrap of paper, Merlin only knows what prat might find it and steal our secrets."

*

Sirius didn’t reappear until dinner that evening, and he was completely closemouthed about what he was up to; no matter what means they used to pester him for information, the best they managed to get out of him was an anticipatory smile and the words, "You’ll see." While the three of them talked about the map and all its possibilities, Sirius stared out the window as though waiting for something, only occassionally offering up suggestions.

Sirius' preoccupation went unexplained until four days later, when a large screech owl dropped a thick package into Sirius’ scrambled eggs at breakfast. A smaller tawny owl dropped an envelope, which floated down until it rested on the package. Sirius let out a whoop of excitement and tore open the letter, his eyes glinting. James peered over Sirius’ shoulder; Remus and Peter leaned across the table, and all four boys read the paper at the same time.

Sirius--

Here’s the book you wanted. Sorry for the delay; couldn’t remember where I’d left it, then found I was using it to prop up a table leg. The thing you want is on page eighty-four. Good luck getting the formula to work properly; I never managed it, you’ll see why. I want to hear all about this map. See if you can find a copy of

Singularly Slippery Spells by Maxmillian Minchin, there’s a number of charms in there you might find useful. (I’d loan you mine, but it’s under the other table leg)

--A.B.

P.S. Send the book back as soon as you’re done, my table’s lopsided without it; none of my other books are the right size, and it’s damned hard to measure out Streeler venom on an unbalanced surface.

"Who’s A.B.?" Remus asked at once.

"What’s on page eighty-four?" James wanted to know.

"What’s he doing with Streeler venom?" Peter demanded.

Sirius ignored all of them, instead grabbing at the package and ripping the brown paper off. Inside was a book. Sirius looked delighted; the other three boys eyed it warily. The book was very thick, and bound in black leather. James shivered despite himself. Six years at Hogwarts is enough to harden anyone’s spine, and it was hard to get under James’ skin in any case, but something about this book was downright creepy.

"Sirius," Remus said, voice stern. "Who’d you borrow this from? It looks like a book of dark magic."

"Oh, it is," Sirius said airily.

A long moment of silence followed this pronouncement. "Dark magic?" James asked finally. "What exactly is this?"

"Mysterious Mixes and Uncanny Compounds!" Sirius intoned in his lowest, spookiest voice, showing them the spine of the book; sure enough, Mysterious Mixes and Uncanny Compounds was written in dull bronze letters on the heavy leather cover. Sirius grinned at their wary expressions. "It’s not serious dark magic, just a bit dodgy. I wrote to my uncle Alioth to ask if I could have it for a bit."

James, who had known Sirius longer than the other two and had more experience with the other boy’s family, groaned. Remus and Peter looked confused, so James explained. "Alioth’s the black sheep of Sirius’ family. I met him when I stayed with the Blacks for the summer holidays before coming to Hogwarts. You wouldn’t believe how much trouble he got us into; if my father knew about half the things the three of us got up to, I’d never be allowed to visit Sirius again."

"He’s got a wicked sense of humor," Sirius said with pride. "He was in Slytherin, but we try not to hold that against him. He was a holy terror when he went here; to hear him tell it, he holds the record for sneaking into the Restricted Section of the library. He knows all sorts of dark magic. Works for the Gringotts in Glasgow, setting nasty curses on some of the upper vaults."

Peter was looking impressed. "And he loaned you this?"

"Obviously. I knew he would, our map is exactly the sort of thing he’d come up with." Sirius was flipping through the pages, presumably looking for page eighty-four. "Here, this is what we want: Reality Reflecting Ink. Alioth told me about it once."

"What’s it do?" James asked.

"It’s a formula to mix up a particular type of ink. Whatever’s written in it changes to reflect what’s happening in reality around it. For example, if you used it to write out a list of items resting on a table and then took one of the items off the table, it’d disappear from the list as well. "

James was perplexed. "But that’s not so unusual. There’s other charms and objects that can do that sort of thing. Why do we need this one?"

Sirius smirked. "Because this one can keep track of people. That’s what’s unusual about it; usually semi-intelligent inks only track inanimate objects. But if we use this ink to draw the map, then the map will show what’s actually going on at Hogwarts." He looked at their blank, suspicious expressions and sighed. "Think about it, mates. We’d be able to tell where all the teachers were. If we could see them coming, we’d never get caught at anything."

Peter was amazed. "Ink can do that? How does it know?"

"Beats me. Probably it’s got a bit of a mind of it’s own; that’d explain why it’s dark magic. Most things that can think for themselves are."

Remus looked dubious. "Can we trust it?"

Sirius snorted. "It’s just ink, Remus."

"Yes, but it’s..." Remus floundered for words, then smiled helplessly. "It’s evil ink!"

As James and Peter dissolved into laughter, Sirius clouted Remus on the side of the head. "It is not, idiot. Like I said, this isn’t really dark magic; just dodgy. And it’s not as though we’re going to use it for anything wrong."

"Oh, no," James said dryly. "We’re just going to use it to make a map that will show anyone who reads it how best to break school rules and not get caught, thereby corrupting entire future generations of Hogwarts students by turning them into mischief-makers."

"Practically our civic duty then." Peter grinned. "If we pull this off, we should all get medals."

"Somehow I doubt the teachers would agree with you." Remus leaned over and grabbed the letter out of Sirius’ hands and examined it. "Why does he say it won’t work, though?"

"Who knows?" Sirius shrugged. "Probably he just didn’t mix it properly. I’m telling you mates, this is it. It’ll be brilliant."

James meanwhile had grabbed the book, and was going through the list of ingredients. It was written in small crabbed letters, covered a page and a half, and had tiny instructions scribbled in the margins. "To make a cauldron of ink," he mumbled under his breath, reading the bizarre script with difficulty, "mix together one cup shredded flutterby roots, three tablespoons diluted Bundimun secretion, ten hairs from an Abyssinian tomcat (Persian acceptable in a pinch), three sets of hameh wings--" He stopped. "What’s a hameh?"

"Type of bird," Peter said. "Arabic. Chases around murderers and drinks their blood. Technically a dark creature, but mostly it’s just annoying."

James continued reading. "One handful of feverfew (picked during a half-moon and boiled in oil for three days), six drops molasses, half a pint of ink from a giant squid--"

Remus was shaking his head in disbelief. "Sirius, how exactly do you intend to get your hands on all these ingredients? We won’t be finding Hameh wings anywhere outside of Knockturn Alley, and I doubt the giant squid will just hand us a bucket of ink."

Sirius took the book back from James and glanced over the list, his brow furrowing. "Some of this we can find in the school cabinets," he said finally. "And MacCavity’s bound to have some of the stranger things hidden away in his office."

"If you think for one minute that we’re going to break into MacCavity’s office--" James started. Professor Ebon MacCavity was the Potions Master, and very few students were willing to trifle with him. It was rumored that he was a descendent of the Bloody Baron; it was certainly true that he was one of the only people the Bloody Baron treated with respect. He had dark skin and a bald head, and his eyes were almost entirely drained of color, which gave him a blank, crazed expression. Even on ordinary days he looked as though he’d like nothing better than to tear his students limb from limb. He almost never spoke, which somehow made him even more terrifying. Not even Sirius messed about in MacCavity’s class.

But now Sirius seemed to think that even facing MacCavity’s wrath was worth the risk. "I’ll do that if you’re squeamish, my Potions marks are better than yours anyway. As for the hameh wings, why not go to Knockturn Alley? You live in London, Peter; you could go at Christmas."

"Knockturn Alley?" Peter said in disbelief. "By myself? Not on your life. I’ve heard about the things they sell in there. I like my eyeballs and fingernails right where they are, thank you."

Sirius grinned. "Only teasing, Wormtail. I’ll ask Alioth to go for us. You’ll all have to help chip in, mind; we won't be gathering together this lot cheaply."

"Or quickly," Remus pointed out; he was glancing over Sirius’ shoulder at the list. "This will take months to put together. Are you sure it’s worth it? Just for the possibility of being able to tell where all the teachers are at any given moment?"

The three boys looked at him.

"All right, that was a daft question." Remus grinned. "Where do we begin?"

Sirius and Peter started arguing about the best way to get ink from the giant squid, and James smiled. He was getting to like the idea of an enchanted map more and more, and it was fun to have a project all four of them could be involved with. It was unlikely that he’d have any free time for a while, between the map, homework, and Quidditch, but that was all right. James liked to keep busy, particularly when he had other things he’d rather not be thinking about. And if the ink worked, he’d have a much easier time avoiding Gwendolyn Delacroix. All in all, things were looking up.

"But it’s obvious how we convince the giant squid to help," Sirius stated. "We just send James down to convince it. Weren’t we saying just the other day that he should have a go at dating fish?"

"A squid isn’t a fish, you git. It’s a cephalopod," Peter corrected.

"Even so, we could feed James some gillyweed and send him down with a dozen roses..."

James groaned. Well, mostly things were looking up.

---

Brief notes:

Alioth is the name of one of the stars in the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear. The Arabic name for Alioth is Al-Jawn, which means "the black horse." It seemed appropriate somehow for the black dog to have an uncle named the black horse.

A hameh really is a mythological bird. When someone is murdered, the hameh springs forth from the blood of the victim and chases the attacker. It doesn't rest until it has drained the murderer of his own blood, whereupon the hameh flies to the land of the dead and announces that the original victim has been avenged. It's something like an Arabic version of the Furies. For some reason I find this funny.

Speaking of funny, why yes, Ebon MacCavity is a dark wizard; why do you ask? *gryn* Fun to have or two blatantly obvious ones. But more importantly, yes, his name is taken from T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, as are the names of several other teachers you'll run into along the line.

Apologies for the Lack O'Lily action in this one. I guarantee, it's the last chapter where that will be a problem. *wicked gryn*

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