The Marauder's Map

Chapter 1

(George's POV)

It'd started out innocently enough... All right, maybe not knowing Fred and me. Come to think of it, I don't think we've ever been innocent. At least not since we were a year old.

Anyway, one night we were hiding on either side of the Charms Corridor entrance, waiting for Slytherin Prefect Kevin Frary to finish making his rounds. He'd given us hell a few times in the past, and this was payback.

Hearing footsteps, we peered around our respective corners. Bingo. There he was, prefect badge pinned above the Slytherin Symbol on his black robes.

'Ready Forge?' We'd switched Christmas sweaters this morning to drive Percy and the teachers up the wall.

'You know I am, Gred.'

We stepped out into the open and each tossed a dungbomb at Frary. *BOOM-SPLAT!!!* He was instantly covered in dung, as were large portions of the surrounding walls; more than enough reason for us to burst out laughing. But if I'd only glanced down the corridor a bit longer, I would've realized that Frary wouldn't be our only victim that night...

"MRRRROOOOOWWWW!!!!" Mrs. Norris, pet cat and deputy to Hogwarts' Squib of a janitor, Argus Filch.

Her yowling brought us back to our senses in an instant. "What's SHE doing here?!"

"Doesn't matter now," I replied. "Let's get out of here before-"

"WHAT HAVE YOU TWO HOOLIGANS DONE TO MY SWEET?!" Filch bellowed, suddenly appearing behind us. We gave him our best innocent looks and a hasty "explanation," but he was unconvinced. "My office. NOW!"

Satisfied that we'd at least gotten our revenge on Kevin and harassed Mrs. Norris in the process, we followed Filch to his office. Much to our further amusement, she tracked dung all the way there, making even more of a mess.

Having gotten into plenty of trouble (hell, it's our middle names, second if you count that Mum middle-named us after each other) since the beginning of the year (our first), we knew the drill. Filch marched us in, we sat down at the desk, he got out the usual form. He picked up a quill, turned his back to us, and ranted as he scribbled.

"Names... Frederick and George Weasley..." Knowing how this usually went, I mimicked Filch as he went along. "Crimes... Befouling the castle, roaming the castle late at night, harassing a prefect, and giving Mrs. Norris a dung bath." Fred and I both sniggered at the latter. "Find this funny, do you?! Suggested sentence... Detention, disembowelment..." He listed a whole load of things all three of us knew Dumbledore would never approve of.

I was really getting into my mockery when Fred elbowed me in the ribs. 'What? '

'Take a look over there.' He motioned toward a file cabinet marked "Confiscated and Highly Dangerous". 'You thinking what I'm thinking?' His maniacal grin matched my own.

'As always. Got another dungbomb?'

'You may do the honors, dear brother.' Fred produced a particularly large dungbomb from his robes and passed it to me.

Aiming for his head, I lobbed the dungbomb at Filch. Fred and I barely managed to dive under the desk in time before it went off, giving our "favorite" caretaker and most of his office a healthy coating of Zonko's finest dragon dung.

"AAAAAGGGGHH!!! Blast both of you!!" Filch roared, stumbling around blindly.

We quickly scrambled out from under the desk, and Fred dashed to the file cabinet. Sadly, he only had a moment or two to rifle through it as Filch bungled near. So, prize in hand, we wordlessly high-tailed it out of there and dashed up to Gryffindor Tower.

"Po... Polaris..." I panted upon reaching the Fat Lady.

"And just what have you two been up to now?" she asked as the portrait swung forward to admit us. Laughing and panting, we climbed inside and flopped down on the nearest couch. Thankfully it was late, so we were alone.

"So, what'd you find?"

"Don't know, I didn't have time to see exactly what was in there so I nicked whatever I grabbed first." Fred pulled out a lone blank, square piece of parchment that looked pretty old, and scowled. "What's an old piece of parchment doing in a drawer marked Confiscated and Highly Dangerous?" he pondered out loud, prodding it with his wand.

In response to his question, words appeared on the parchment as if being written by an invisible hand:

What you hold is more than what it seems. As you were sneaky enough to recover this masterpiece, we deem you worthy of the words that reveal its secret: 'I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.'
~Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs

Fred and I looked at the words, then at each other, and nodded. I pointed my wand at the parchment as well. "I solemnly swear that-"

"-I am up to no good."

Immediately, thin ink lines spread out across the parchment from the point our wands had touched. They crisscrossed, joined together, and formed words and shapes. On the top were great, curly green words proclaiming:

Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs
Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers
are proud to present
THE MARAUDER'S MAP

We just sat there in amazement, for we held in our hands a map showing every single detail of the castle and grounds! We recognized a few of the secret passageways on it, but there were several others we had yet to locate. I traced my finger down a couple of them. "Fred, look at this! This one, and those over there lead-"

"-right into Hogsmeade! Pure genius!"

"A dream come true, no more waiting until our third year!" I agreed.

Even more remarkable were the tiny ink dots moving around the map, all of them labeled with a miniscule name. We pulled it closer to be sure of what we were seeing. Frary was currently mucking up the Prefects' Bathroom; Filch was attempting to clean his office and fend off Peeves the Poltergeist at the same time; and sure enough, up in the Gryffindor Common Room were two dots labeled "Frederick Weasley" and "George Weasley."

"This is the one time I'm glad Filch caught us in the act."

"Think we'll still get detention once he finds the forms?"

Fred shrugged casually. "We might, but it was well worth it, in more ways than one."

"Definitely. But now that we know how to activate it, how do we wipe it blank so no one else knows?"

Again, the map gave us an answer. My dot-self was poking his miniscule wand at something (presumably the map), and a barely visible word bubble appeared with the words "Mischief Managed" in it.

Shrugging, I pointed my wand at the map. "Mischief Managed!" At once, the map returned to its blank parchment state. I yawned and stretched. "Time for bed..."

Fred nodded and pocketed the map. "We'll start putting this thing to good use in the morning."

With that, we headed up to our dormitory, pulled off our robes, and flopped down into each other's beds. The bed-swapping bit was nothing new, sweaters aside. We'd been doing it for years to confuse Mum. "G'night Fred," I whispered.

"G'night George. Tomorrow, the adventure begins..."