The Marauder's Map

Chapter 3

(George's POV)

"To think the whole thing started here..." Fred muttered as we headed down the Charms Corridor. Only I knew he was mostly referring to our discovery of the map.

"We can tell," Angelina remarked, holding her nose.

The smell of dung still lingered where we had teamed up on Frary. No doubt Filch had been up the rest of the night just trying to remove the mess, let alone the stench. I almost felt sorry for the magicless old bugger. Almost. Ah, who am I kidding, he deserved what he got! Besides, if not for his Squibdom, knowing Filch he'd probably be ten times as worse, even if that is why he hates students in the first place.

Inside, Flitwick was busy putting large feathers on the desks, which meant we'd be learning Wingardium Leviosa like he'd hinted during the last lesson. As we started to pass his desk, I noticed that he'd conveniently left his wand out in the open.

'Shall I?' I jerked my thumb toward the wand, and nodded to Flitwick's turned back.

'Go for it!' Fred sniggered and nonchalantly headed for his desk.

Biting my tongue, I quickly nudged the wand so that it rolled under a pile of extra feathers. This done, I sneakily replaced it with another wand and blended into the other Gryffindors filing in.

'All set!' I sat down at my usual desk toward the back beside Fred, who had been keeping an eye on Flitwick.

'Which one is it?'

'Not sure, but given Flitwick it'll be a riot one way or the other.'

Grinning evilly, we watched him take the wand and climb up onto his stack of books. "Good morning, Class. Today we will be learning a most uplifting spell, Wingardium Leviosa. You of course remember the little wrist movement we've been practicing, the Swish and Fli-"

*SQUAWK!*

"AAH!!!"

*CRASH!*

On those last three words, Flitwick had demonstrated, only to find that he was conducting class with a rubber chicken. The resulting noise had scared him out of his wits, and, consequently, made him topple off the books. The lot of us burst out laughing, and Fred and I low-fived under the desks.

Lee turned around and gave us a knowing look. "What was that?"

I glanced around the room for a second, then whispered, "Let's just say-"

"-Fake Wand Test Number One-"

"-was a complete success!"

Lee grinned and nodded; he knew we'd been toying with the idea of our own line of joke products. Being only First Years, we hadn't made much beyond the fake wands or come up with a name yet, but that would change soon enough. Mum had no idea, of course. She would probably skin us alive if she ever found out...

Flitwick got to his feet and located his real wand as the laughter died down. "Yes, yes, very amusing." He examined the wand for a moment, then climbed back onto his stack. "Now, as I was saying..."

One hour of flying and exploding feathers later, it was time for lunch. I sat down next to Charlie, and Fred was across the table next to Percy. Most of the other Third Years at the four House tables were abuzz with excitement. "What's all the fuss about, Perce?" I asked.

"Time for the 'Geek Awards' already?"

Percy scowled. "There is no such thing!"

"You're probably right. It's too early in the year and the Ravenclaws would win every time." Several loud fits of sneezing could be heard two tables away.

"Ravenclaw House is NOT full of geeks!" he exclaimed a little too loudly, resulting in indignant stares all aimed at him.

I looked at Fred, then back at Percy curiously. "And just how would you-"

"-know something like that?"

"That's... that's none of your business!" Percy was attempting to remain calm, but his pink face gave him away.

"It's the first Hogsmeade weekend tomorrow," Charlie explained, bringing up the original topic before the teasing could begin. "Everyone gets excited a day or so before their first visit." He didn't need to elaborate further, as he'd told us as well as Percy about it when the latter's permission slip had come this past summer.

"Pathetic really. None of them care that it's the only non-Muggle village in all Great Britain, or of its grand history dating back to..."

Of course, no one was listening. Fred and I learned how to tune him out the way we do Binns a long time ago. I swear, if Dumbledore ever decides to give Binns the boot, Percy would be the perfect replacement in terms of teaching a class to sleep through.

Fred grinned at me from across the table. 'A Hogsmeade weekend! It's the perfect time to slip out and explore the village! There'll be too many other students for anyone to notice a couple of First Years running amuck!'

'My sentiments exactly, but we're not exactly tall for our age. We still might stick out enough for someone to notice.'

'Yeah, but what can we do...?'

Surprisingly, the answer came in Double Potions with the Slytherins afterwards. We'd decided to do our passage hunt after detention, when the risk of getting caught would be lowest. While Snape wrote ingredients on the blackboard, Fred copied them down and I stole glances at the Dungeons section of the map so we'd have some idea of where to look later.

"...Though I doubt that some of you are ready," Snape glanced toward our side of the room, "your assignment is to make the Aging Potion. Its effects depend on how much is taken as well as its strength. The instructions on the board are for a weaker, temporary version. Therefore, any of you thinking of using it outside of class will find it quite useless."

I almost expected him to glare at Fred and me on that last comment, but he didn't. 'An Aging Potion, of course!'

'Who'd think we'd actually make something useful in Potions? We'll just make ours a tad stronger than everyone else's.'

"Mischief Managed." I pocketed the map, fished out Magical Drafts and Potions, and searched for the original recipe. Thankfully, we wouldn't have to fully improvise, as there were notes on how to make it stronger or weaker according to need. "Here we go, just need to double this and throw in a dash of that... Actually, just to be safe, you do Snape's version, I'll make the one we need for tomorrow," I whispered.

I added to the notes accordingly, but not fast enough. "Better get started, Snape's headed this way." I quickly finished and we got to work. Snape, however, spotted the open book, which I shut at once.

"Misters Weasley, I thought I made it quite clear at the start of class that you would not need your textbook for today's lesson. Are you that hard of hearing or are you simply eager to have points taken from your House? More of which should have been taken off for your harassment of a Slytherin Prefect last night, I might add." We simply shrugged and followed our respective recipes, barely acknowledging his slimey presence. "Well?! Don't you have anything to say for yourselves?!"

'Not for us... HIM on the other hand...'

I nearly squashed the bits of chopped dragon liver I was holding as I held in a laugh. Yech... I tossed them into the cauldron and casually glanced up at Snape. "We were just curious about the original-"

"-nothing wrong with that, is there?"

"Curiosity killed the Gryffindor. Five points will be taken for your cheek." With that, he swooped away toward his bit- er, House charges. Kinda makes you wonder sometimes, the way he favors them and all...

"Curiosity killed the Gryffindor!" I mimicked half under my breath, scrunching up my nose. "Pity we can't force feed him some of this. Think it'd be enough to turn his hair gray?"

"Who can tell under all that grease?" Fred chuckled.

"Good point."

By the time we'd finished, class was nearly over and Snape was scrutinizing workstations. He was about to examine my cauldron when the bell thankfully rang. "You will store your potions in the student cabinet, and I will examine them more thoroughly next class." He then glared at Fred and me. "As for you two troublemakers, I will see you in this room tonight at nine o'clock sharp and not a minute later!"

"Right."

'See us, yes. Hearing us is a different matter...' Fred grinned and dipped a pair of empty flasks into his cauldron after Snape had left.

'Nyaha, I know!' I dipped two empty phials into my own cauldron, stoppered them, stowed one in my rucksack, and handed the other to Fred. 'This should be enough, we just need to be at least two years older.' We put our names on the flasks and put them in the cabinet on our way out.

'Then it's just a matter of which passageway gets the honor of us going through it first...'

* * * * * *

Author's Notes: Timelinewise, this story takes place around late October, as suggested by the Charms lesson, though the use of Christmas sweaters in Chapter 1 probably made it sound like it was later in the school year. True, I could have corrected the problem, but it was easier plotwise to leave it as-is. And besides, in HBP, students were bundled up during an October Hogsmeade trip anyway.