The Marauder's Map

"Come in." Dumbledore's voice rebounded round the small, stone staircase. Double-checking that James wouldn't be visible through the open door, Harry pushed on the griffin-shaped handle and entered the circular room. Dumbledore was sat at his desk in the middle, holding one of the delicate silver instruments that had been there in Harry's second year. But he gazed up at Harry with a look that made him feel as if the headmaster would like nothing better than to sit there all day and listen to what he had to say.

Harry hesitated. What was he going to say? He decided to start from what Dumbledore could relate to from the Chamber of Secrets. It may not have been a particularly fitting analogy, but it was the best he had.

"Professor, do you remember back in my second year, with the diary - I mean, Riddle's diary - I mean..." He was stumbling. He pulled himself together, and went on, "How he managed to lock his thoughts, and memories, and personality into the parchment. How he could escape from it and come back into his body."

He paused. The subject was broached, but was it safe to just come out and say that his father did the same thing?

Dumbledore sensed his pause, and looked quizzically up at Harry, a look of slight worry on his ancient face. His bright blue eyes drilled into Harry's bright green ones, making Harry feel as if he could see right through him. "Has someone else done the same thing?"

This gave Harry the impetus to continue. "Yes, professor. I... When my Father, Sirius, Professor Lupin and Wormtail were at school, they made a map of Hogwarts."

There was a crash. Dumbledore had dropped the silver instrument he was holding, and it lay shattered on his desk. And though his expression did not change, he was looking at Harry with a new intensity in his eyes. "You brought back your Father?," He questioned, his voice tense.

"Yes." Harry nearly felt relief that Dumbledore had worked it out, but that was crushed by the look on the latter's face.

"Where did the animanavitas needed come from?" He spoke urgently.

"The what?" Harry was puzzled for a moment.

"The animanavitas - the magical energy that gives wizards their power," Dumbledore said impatiently. Harry was taken aback, Dumbledore was never impatient. "You mentioned Riddle's diary, his came from Ginny Weasley. Where did James's come from?"

Harry almost sighed with relief; this was exactly the discussion he had had with Sirius in the map. "They each put a quarter of theirs into the map. There was enough to create a new person." He had the strange feeling that he was not doing the explanation justice; Sirius had been able to explain it much more clearly. Dumbledore, however, seemed to have understood. A look of relief flickered across his face, but it was overshadowed by the sheer intensity of the way he was looking at Harry now.

"Did it work?"

He was answered by a creak at the door. As it opened, James stepped into the room.

Dumbledore stood up abruptly. His face had gone a shade whiter, and when he spoke, it was a whisper.

"James..."

James looked up at him. "Yes, sir?"

Harry was suddenly struck with the strangeness of the situation. Dumbledore had not seen James for fourteen years, and knew him as a twenty year old man who had died protecting his family. James, on the other hand, having had his memories resurrected as a copy of what they last were nineteen years ago, would have last seen Dumbledore only a few days ago, from his perspective. How bizarre must it be from his point of view? Dumbledore must have realised this too from James' last reply, for he pulled himself together, resuming his normal composure as if nothing had happened. His eyes, however, betrayed him, glistening with a strange combination of joy and sadness.

He started pacing the room, thinking hard. "We should tell Sirius and Remus immediately. It will take a day or two to reach Sirius, he is hiding up North again." He stopped suddenly, a look of alarm on his face, and glanced at Harry. "Have you..."

"I told him everything," Harry replied.

Dumbledore nodded, and continued pacing, but not before glancing at James to see his reaction. "Remus, however, we can bring immediately; he arrived late last night."

Harry remembered the welcoming feast, there was no teacher sitting in the DADA seat. "Is he teaching Defence again this year, then?"

Dumbledore nodded, but James had glanced up at these words, and a grin started spreading over his face. "Moony? Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher?" He chuckled. "I should have known..." He trailed off.

Harry motioned towards the invisibility cloak. "You'd better put that on, or he'll have a heart attack when he sees you." James began looking for a chair in the corner to sit on whilst Harry was talking to Remus. Being a circular room, this was rather a problem, so he settled for one quite far away from the fireplace, where Remus would come out, but positioned so that he could see what was happening. James threw the cloak over himself, and settled down to watch.

Dumbledore took a pinch of floo powder from an ornate jar over the fireplace threw it into the flames, and declared, "Remus Lupin". There was a pause, and with a pop, Remus's head appeared in the centre of the flames. Dumbledore regarded him gravely. "Could you come into my office for a moment, please, Remus."

The defence professor nodded, and climbed up out of the fireplace. Brushing himself off, he looked around, and alighted on Harry. "Nice to see you again, Harry," he exclaimed. He glanced at Dumbledore, then back to him. Harry had an expression of great trepidation. "What's wrong," he queried, looking worriedly between them.

Harry glanced at Dumbledore for support, who merely nodded.

"Go on."

He gulped, and sat for a moment. He couldn't approach from the same angle with Lupin as he had with Dumbledore. He took a deep breath.

"Professor, you know the Marauder's Map?"

He nodded.

"Well - how did you make it?"

Remus looked surprised. He glanced at Dumbledore, who nodded again. "Well - first Sirius drew the layout, and I charmed all of the moving staircases and disappearing rooms to emulate those in the actual castle. Then we all performed a charm together to show the locations of everyone in the castle. We ran into a problem because that needed so much magic that it would only work whilst one of use was actually saying the incantation, but then Sirius discovered a spell that could let us trap some of our inherent magic into the parchment, so we each contributed a bit, and that solved that. I then wrote out the header, because I had the neatest handwriting. Then it worked for a while, but we kept having problems because there was nothing to control all the magical energy that we put into it, so I found a spell that would let us keep a copy of each of our personalities in it, and that worked fine. Finally, James transfigured the ink to appear and disappear only with the passwords, and there you have it."

Harry hesitated. "How much of your personalities are trapped in it?"

Lupin frowned. "I used the repono charm. I wasn't sure of which part needed to be used - I seem to remember the book said something about a choice between id, ego, and a third one, superid or superego or something like that, so I just played it safe and used repono totalus. I've never worked out how much of us that put in, but I don't think it was much." He stood, thinking for a moment, then looked up at Harry worriedly: "I doubt it was enough to - to be able to communicate with your Father, Harry, if that's what you were thinking. I never saw any evidence that all our memories and thoughts were in there, only a tiny echo of our personalities. I'm sorry."

There was a long pause, broken by Dumbledore. "The repono charm does store memories and thoughts; it is designed to keep them dormant until needed. Repono totalus causes a complete copy of that person, minus physical body and magical powers, to be transferred for storage into the vessel. That it also allows an echo of the personality of the person stored to show through at times seems to be a side effect that you have discovered when it is used on parchment."

Remus was staring, transfixed. "Then - then - but that means - complete copy - James - we can bring back James." He paused, then suddenly swung round to face Harry, horrified. "I - I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that, I wasn't thinking... It was just..."

Harry quickly interrupted. "It's OK, professor," he said in a calm voice.

Professor Lupin shook his head, starting to regain his usual demeanour. "No, no... I shouldn't have got your hopes up like that. I apologise."

Harry replied, in the same, calm voice, "It's OK. You didn't."

It took a few seconds for Remus to comprehend what Harry was saying. When he spoke, it was a whisper. "You mean..."

"Yes," James answered. He had pulled off the cloak, it lay on the ground beside him.

Remus swung around to face him, in shock. He stared. Then suddenly he ran towards his old friend and embraced him, crying tears of joy. Finally, they broke apart, staring at each other. James broke the silence first.

"Well, you've grown a bit since I last saw you, Moony."

Remus Smiled. Then grinned. Then they both simultaneously broke into laughter, which rang throughout the circular study like heavenly church bells.