The Marauder's Map

Lily gritted her teeth as a loud burst of whispering reached her ears. She was in the library doing homework and studying for the upcoming O.W.L.s, and it was very irritating to have her reading interrupted. The sound of voices died down quickly, and after letting out a sight of relief, Lily resumed her studying.

She was taking notes on her least favorite subject, History of Magic, and the slightest distraction made it nearly impossible to concentrate. Musty old books lay open in front of her and Lily scanned the dry, yellow pages for information that might be useful in the upcoming O.W.L.s.

Suppressing a yawn, Lily glanced down at her watch. She wasn't surprised to see that it was lunchtime. She had been in the library all morning, trying to cram in as much research as she could before the weekend was over. Lily had completed her Charms homework first because it was the easiest and most fun. The rest of the morning had been devoted to taking notes about Transfiguration for the roll of parchment that was due at the end of the week, and also jotting down useful facts about the subject that might come in handy for the O.W.L.s.

With a sigh, Lily returned to the mind-numbingly boring book about goblin wars. Somehow, she couldn't bring herself to care why the goblin Rugbug the Bad had challenged his rival Skeeter the Fraud to a duel. Dipping her quill into the small pot of ink near her bag, she skimmed over the words, stopping every few minutes to scratch down several sentences in her slanted handwriting.

Lily reached the end of the page and turned it over, looking unhappily at the three-hundred pages that she still had left to read. She was tempted to shut the book and be done with it, but she knew that she couldn't afford to stop reading. Professor Binns had hinted more than once that the subject of goblin wars would come up in the O.W.L.s.

Resting her head in one hand and holding her quill in the other, she had just started to read the first sentence on the page when the whispering started up again, this time even louder than before. Lily felt a flare of annoyance as the voices continued, quickly growing in volume and intensity.

The noise the people were creating made it impossible to concentrate. Lily waited hopefully for a few moments before she realized that the whispering was not going to stop any time soon. She felt like shouting at them to be quiet, but this was a library after all, and she didn't want to break the no-noise rule.

Lily decided that this was a job for Madam Pince, whose specialty was keeping the library free from noisy people. But after glancing around for a sign of the librarian, she deducted that the normally vigilant woman had gone to lunch. She knew that if Madam Pince had been anywhere near the library, she would have swooped down on the offensively loud people long ago and kicked them out.

Lily had been irritated in the past by Madam Pince's extremely close watch on the Hogwarts library and her less than polite way of dealing with offenders. But now she found herself wishing that the formidable librarian would show up and make the people in the row over quiet down.

The previously whispered voices had become quite loud in the few moments that Lily had been thinking, and were now almost at a normal conversational volume.

"Do you really think that this will work?" The words were loud and sounded a bit anxious, as if the person who uttered them didn't know that libraries were a place for quiet reading.

"Of course, Wormtail, why shouldn't it?" This was said in an even louder, more arrogant tone. The voice sounded awfully familiar, and Lily had a sinking feeling in her stomach that she knew who was behind all the noise that was disrupting her note-taking.

"After all, it was my idea, so it should work perfectly... if Moony ever finishes sketching it out." Lily bit back a groan. She would recognize that voice anywhere. James asked her out at least three times a week, so she was quite accustomed to his loud, superior tone. She had never met anyone so conceited in her entire life, and it was just her luck that he seemed to be obsessed with her.

"Patience, James," someone remarked, sounding amused. "The art of cartography takes time. I should be finished in the next ten years or so."

"Ten years?" James exclaimed, sounding anguished. "I thought you said that you were good at drawing!"

There was a sound of rustling paper. "Here, let me see that!" another voice demanded. Lily recognized it as Sirius Black's.

"Watch it, the ink isn't dry yet," Remus protested.

"It's okay, Prongs," Sirius announced. "Moony's just joking, the map's finished."

Lily heard a distinct sigh of relief. "Thank goodness," James said. "You had me worried there for a minute, Moony."

"I'm glad to know that my friends have such confidence in my skills," Remus remarked dryly.

"Now, for the final touch," James sounded excited. "Do you have the spell we found, Wormtail?" Lily could hear the shuffling of papers and imagined Peter's beady little eyes searching frantically.

"Ah, yes. Here it is," said Peter, with unmistakable relief in his voice.

Despite herself, Lily was feeling intrigued by the conversation that she was hearing. What could the Marauders be up to now? She knew that she should stop them before they did any real damage, but her curiosity was getting the better of her. Much to her chagrin she found herself wanting to know what they were planning to do.

"You found it, Wormtail? Good. Now go ahead and set it on the table where we can all see it," James ordered. Lily was certain that she heard a note of apprehension in his voice.

"Are you sure you don't want me to say the incantation too?" Peter sounded a little forlorn.

"No, you don't need to do anything. Sirius, Remus and I can handle it," James confidently assured him.

"Don't poke at it with your wand, Sirius!" Lily heard Remus exclaim. "The ink isn't dry yet. It might smudge, and then I'd have to make a whole new one!"

"You'd better listen to him, Padfoot," James hastily interjected. "He took long enough drawing this one, and I don't want to wait another two weeks to see if the spell works."

"Fine, but can we get on with it?"

"On the count of five, we say the incantation," James announced. Lily suddenly realized that she should probably get to a safer location; the Marauders weren't known for practicing harmless spells.

"One."

For example, there was that one time in third year when James had insisted that he knew how to turn his hair purple, and on trying it, ended up in the hospital wing for a week.

"Two."

And just last week Sirius had poured a singing potion, for a joke, into the soup being served for dinner. Every person who ate the soup had not burst into song, as supposed to, but immediately doubled over with stomach pains that lasted for nearly three days. Lily should know, being one of the unlucky few who had consumed a bowl of the tainted soup.

"Three."

Peter had also had his share of magical mishaps. Last year at Hogwarts, after being goaded by Sirius and James, Peter had tried to perform a hex on Snape, only to have it backfire and leave everyone around him covered in shiny green welts. Snape was the only one left unscathed.

"Four."

Even Remus, who seemed to be the most rational of the Marauders, was not above performing the occasional prank. Lily didn't have proof, but she was positive that it was Remus who had enchanted the suits of armor in the fourth corridor to shout out very imaginative insults whenever a Slytherin walked by. Lily had to admit it was quite funny, until one of the metal suits exploded by accident, showering the nearby students with large pieces of heavy armor.

"Five!"

Lily's time to escape had run out. She ducked down, expecting to hear a large explosion. To her great surprise, after she heard the three voices shout the incantation, nothing seemed to happen. She cracked open one eye and looked around. Everything looked normal. No books had been knocked off of the shelves; no smoke was in the air.

She looked around. Actually, everything was extremely quiet. Lily suddenly wanted to find out what had happened. She slowly stood up and tiptoed over to the shelf that separated her from the scheming Marauders. She peered through a gap in the musty books and saw all four boys huddled over a table.

There was a hushed silence as the Marauders stared down at something lying in front of them. Lily wanted to see what they were all so engrossed by, but her view was blocked. "It works," Sirius breathed in amazement, staring downwards.

"Of course it works!" James exclaimed in delight. "With me to plan it out, Moony to put it on paper, and you to find the incantation, how could it possibly fail?"

"Didn't I help at all?" Peter inquired, looking hurt.

"Not that I can think of," Sirius replied, still gazing downwards at what was lying on the table.

"Don't listen to Sirius," Remus told Peter kindly. "Of course you helped make it; in fact, we couldn't have done it without you."

Sirius shot a quick glance at Peter and let out a snort of disbelief. Remus ignored him. "You helped find the parchment that we put it on, didn't you?" he asked Peter, who slowly nodded his head. "There you go. If we didn't have the parchment we wouldn't have the map."

Peter looked considerably cheered up as he viewed the thing on the table before him. The boys shifted slightly and Lily caught a glimpse of a piece of parchment lying open in front of them. "Look!" Peter pointed at the parchment. "There's Filch, up by the Gryffindor Tower!"

"I'll bet that he's waiting for us to walk by. Filch has been trying to catch us all day for setting off those dungbombs in the hallway near his office," Sirius smirked. "But now, thanks to our newest invention, we know to avoid that corridor until he leaves."

James nodded his head. "I knew that this was a good idea," he declared with a triumphant grin. "This way, we'll never run into anyone we don't want to see."

"Look, here's the library," Remus pointed something out to the others. "And we're on here too; those little black dots have our names. This one says Remus Lupin, and by that dot it says James Potter, there's Peter Pettigrew and Sirius Black..." his voice trailed off as he stared downwards. "We're not alone in here," Remus spoke more quietly.

"How do you know?" asked Peter nervously.

Remus pointed. "Look at this dot right next to us," he said. "It's labeled Lily Evans."

"Lily Evans!" James burst out in astonishment. "Are you sure?" Before Remus could answer, James grabbed the parchment that was on the table, and stared down at it with an expression of disbelief on his face.

"She's been spying on us!" Sirius looked incredulous as he stared over James' shoulder at the parchment. Lily didn't know how they had figured out that she was in the library, but she definitely didn't want to be caught gawking at them through the bookshelf.

She stumbled backwards and leapt into her seat just as the Marauders came around the corner. Lifting her quill from the parchment in front of her, Lily raised her eyebrows as they came to stand in front her table. "Hello, Evans," said James, giving her what he must have thought to be a winning smile. He lifted up his hand to rumple his already messy looking hair, but lowered it again after Sirius gave him a warning glance.

"Were you the ones making all that noise?" Lily asked crossly. "This is a library, you know." She saw the Marauders exchange glances. After shooting them an irritable glare, she returned her gaze to the book in front of her. Inwardly she let out a sigh of relief. That had been close.

"Actually," James began, his eyes skimming over the open books on Lily's table, "we were just studying for the O.W.L.s."

Liar, thought Lily.

"We're sorry that we disturbed you, Lily," Remus told her, looking a bit pale. "It won't happen again."

"It better not," Lily grumbled. She looked at the books spread out on the table. She thought about the History of Magic book she still had to read, and decided that she didn't feel like studying anymore. After all that excitement she didn't think that she could go back to the boring goblin wars without falling asleep. She would just bring the book back to the dormitories and finish reading it that evening.

"I'm finished in here anyway," she announced, standing up. "I'd better put these books back where they belong."

"I'll help!" James enthusiastically bounded over to the table and grabbed several books. Lily was about to stop him, but then cut herself off. So what if he wanted to help? It didn't really matter, and it meant was less work for her.

Crash! James had accidentally dropped a book, and it hit against the open bottle of ink on the table, knocking it over. Lily stared in horror as a pool of black ink spread, splattering several books, spilling over the side of the table and dripping onto the floor. "Potter!" shouted Lily angrily, "Look what you've done!"

James stared down in dismay at the spreading ink. "Oh no!" he cried, and promptly dropped all the books he was holding onto the floor so he could rush to try and staunch the flow of ink. As Lily hurriedly gathered up the remaining books so the spill wouldn't ruin them, she saw James grab her bag off of the table and start blotting up the ink with it.

"What do you think you're doing, Potter?" she cried furiously. "That's my only bag!" James froze, still in the middle of trying to wipe up the spilled ink.

"I'm so sorry!" he apologized, looking down at the now badly stained bag in his hands. "I'll give you mine!"

Lily resisted the urge to hurl all the books she was holding at James' head. "I don't want your bag!" she shouted.

"I think that I might know a spell that will clean this all up," said Remus, hurrying over to the table. "Do you mind if I try?"

Lily shook her head unhappily. "I don't see how it could get any worse," she groaned. Just as Remus took out his wand, a high-pitched screech started behind them.

"What's this?" Madam Pince shrieked, obviously back from her lunch break. "Wands, in the library?"

Remus looked taken aback at the librarian's quick appearance and quickly slid his wand back into his pocket. "I'm sorry," he began, "I was just--" Remus never got to finish his sentence, because Madam Pince had spotted the ink-stained table behind him.

Her pinched face turned a deathly white color and she stood as if glued to the floor. "Wh-what is that?" Madam Pince looked as if she was about to start hyperventilating. Lily began to feel worried about the librarian's health.

"By mistake, um, some ink got spilled..." she stammered.

The librarian turned her threatening gaze towards her, eyes narrowed. "You -- spilled -- ink," she hissed. Lily nodded mutely.

"Actually, it was my fau--" James began to say, with a worried glance at Lily, but Madam Pince broke in.

"Have you no respect for the books in here?" she shrieked, suddenly finding her voice again. "These volumes have been carefully preserved for hundreds of years, and then you ruin them in a single instant!"

"I think that they can be fix--" said James, trying again, but the librarian ignored him.

"I shall definitely speak to your Head of House about this!" Madam Pince shouted at Lily. "I'll see that you have detention for a month!" Lily felt outraged at this; it wasn't her fault! If Potter hadn't insisted on helping her, none of this would have happened.

James suddenly raised his hand and waved it in the air, as if he was in class and wanted to volunteer information. Madam Pince stopped mid-rant and looked at James. "Yes?" she inquired icily, a frightening expression on her pinched, white face.

"I don't mean to interrupt," James began, "but I need to tell you that I was the one who knocked over the ink bottle, not Evans."

Madam Pince eyed him with a fearsome glare. "Whose ink was it?" she demanded.

"Well, the ink belonged to Evans, but it was my fault that the books are ruined," James told her.

The librarian's temper flared up again. "Then I'll make sure that you both have detention together!" she screeched.

Lily felt all the blood drain out of her face. A detention with... Potter? That was the worst punishment imaginable. James however, was looking as if his birthday had come a month early. "A detention with Evans?" he asked in delight.

"That's right, if I have anything to say about it," hissed Madam Pince, who had obviously missed the thrilled expression on James's face.

"We're very sorry," said James, not looking sorry at all. He gave Lily a delighted glance that she was to deeply in shock to notice.

"Being sorry doesn't fix the books that you just ruined!" Madam Pince shrieked. "Just get out! Leave the library right now!" The librarian pulled out her wand and brandished it at them.

Lily's ink-soaked bag suddenly rose into the air and smacked against James' astonished face, leaving it covered with black ink. The bag pulled back for another go and James, seeing his chance, started running for the library exit, with the rest of the Marauders following close behind. Before Lily ducked through the door, she glanced back to see a muttering Madam Pince wave her wand at the stained books lying on the table. The ink vanished immediately, and with another impatient wave of her wand, the table and floor were instantly clean.

The library door swung shut behind her as Lily paused in the outside hall to catch her breath. Her ruined bag was lying in a crumpled heap on the floor. She bent down and picked it up. "I really will replace that," James promised.

"Don't bother, I'll just get a new one at Hogsmeade next weekend," Lily replied coldly.

James looked at her with a sly expression. "Speaking of Hogsmeade," he began, "I was wondering if you would like to go--" Having heard it many times before, Lily knew exactly what he was about to say.

"For the last time, Potter," she snapped, cutting him off, "I do not want to go to Hogsmeade with you next weekend. I did not want to go with you last time you asked, and I will not want to go with you the next time either." Lily took a deep breath. "Let me make myself perfectly clear," she continued, "I never want to go anywhere with you. Can you get that through your thick head?"

James looked stunned by her reply, although Lily couldn't imagine why. He should be used to hearing it by now; it was the same thing she said to him every time he asked her out. "And," Lily continued, growing angrier, "You got me a detention! If it hadn't of been for you, my ink never would have spilled."

Instead of appearing distressed by this news, a slow smile spread across James' ink-covered face. "Oh yeah, detention," he said. "I had almost forgotten about that."

Lily felt slightly alarmed at the expression on his face. "Well, I hadn't," she said, crossing her arms. "And I have other things I'd rather do."

"Like what?" Sirius broke in, looking amused. "Studying?"

Lily glared at him. "Yes, studying. It's something that you should try sometime. Then maybe you would get higher marks on your schoolwork."

Sirius smirked. "For your information, I don't need to waste my time in the library," he said. Lily refrained from pointing out that he had just been in it several minutes earlier. "I'm naturally smart."

"Yeah, that must be why I've been getting better marks than you in Charms and Transfiguration this year," Lily retorted.

Sirius looked at her condescendingly. "I'm five times better at Transfiguration than you are," he declared scornfully. "The only reason that I've been a little behind in schoolwork is because I've been busy becoming a... something," he finished lamely; perhaps the reason was because James had kicked him in the shins and was glaring furiously at him. Peter let out a frightened squeak and suddenly Remus looked quite a bit paler as he shot an apprehensive glance at Sirius.

"Oh really?" Lily was puzzled by the other Marauders' reactions at what Sirius had been about to say. "If you don't want to tell me what you're becoming, then let me guess. Perhaps an idiot who's going to fail his O.W.L.s?"

Sirius gave her an extremely superior look, as if he knew something that she didn't. "Actually, I don't think that it's anything that you'd be interested in," he declared, a haughty smile on his handsome face.

Lily wasn't satisfied by Sirius' answer, and was about to demand that he give her a decent explanation when James broke in. "Well, I think that we should all go and get lunch," he announced. "What we need is some food." Lily eyed him suspiciously, certain that he was trying to change the subject.

James caught her incredulous glance and asked quickly, "Would you mind telling us the time, Evans?"

Lily couldn't think of a valid reason to refuse his request, so she grudgingly looked down at her watch. "Lunch is over by now," she told him, feeling a small spark of satisfaction at ruining his plans.

James appeared unperturbed. "Shall we go down to the kitchens, then?" he asked the other Marauders. Everyone immediately agreed, and then he turned to Lily. "Would you like to join us?" he inquired hopefully.

"No, I'm not hungry," Lily hastily replied. Sharing a meal with James would be torture. "Besides, I have to finish reading this book," she said, holding up the one on goblin wars that she had managed to smuggle of the library.

"Have fun then," said James doubtfully, looking at the thick book Lily held in her hands. He started walking away and then suddenly brightened. "I'll see you in detention," he called over his shoulder as he walked down the corridor. Lily couldn't see his face, but she was certain that he was wearing his trademark smirk.

"No, you won't," she muttered. Professor McGonagall would never make her serve a detention with that conceited jerk...would she?