The Marauder's Map

They were interrupted by a bright flash coming from Dumbledore's desk. Harry glanced at it from his vantage point where he was watching James and Remus's reunion, and was just in time to see a letter attached to a phoenix feather disappear into thin air. Dumbledore looked up at them.

"I have sent a letter to Sirius requesting that he come down to Hogwarts as soon as he can. It may take a day or two for him to come back undercover, but I attached a portable disillusionment charm, which should help..."

James, who was looking ecstatic at the possibility of seeing Sirius, interrupted. "Can't you send a portkey?"

"I would, but the Ministry is keeping a close watch on portkeys at the moment - for exactly this reason. I would be able to prevent them from detecting it arriving at Hogwarts, but they would sense it leaving Iceland."

"Oh, well." James looked a little downcast.

Dumbledore smiled at him, his eyes twinkling. "It has just turned Sunday, so he should arrive on Monday or Tuesday. You will need to be sorted tonight - a mere formality, I can assure you. You should stay hidden for today, but if anyone asks, you are Harry's twin brother, who was sent to America to avoid Voldemort, and is now returning. I suggest that you use the time by going to Diagon Alley to buy your school things." He pointed his wand at his desk, muttered something under his breath, and an envelope appeared. Harry recognised it as a Hogwarts acceptance letter. "And now, Remus and I must be one our way; it is nearly time for breakfast. I daresay that you can ask Ron or Hermione to bring something up for you two. Good luck." And with that, he strode out of the room, closely followed by Professor Lupin.

Harry looked at James for a few moments. "Well, I suppose we'd better get back to our dorm then."

"What? ...Oh, yeah," James replied, and threw the invisibility cloak over the two of them.

As they walked that to the Gryffindor tower, Harry was thinking. "Do you think he's going to tell the other teachers?," he whispered.

"Yeah - the students might not recognise me, but the professors certainly will. If I had anything to do with it." He grinned.

"How do you think he'll tell them?"

"They'll have a staff meeting. They always do. I should know, they've had about five about me."

"How do you know?"

"You'll see."

"Now?"

"Yup, whilst the teachers are all at breakfast."

He led Harry into one of the bathrooms, which, luckily, was empty. "Can I borrow your wand? You know, just until I get my own."

"Yeah, sure," Harry replied, and handed it to him. Taking it, James pointed it at one of the mirrors above the sinks, and muttered,

"Wingardium Leviosa".

A crack appeared in the centre of the mirror. It did not move. James looked at the wand in puzzlement.

"What a weird wand. You'd think that it'd at least work for me. What's it made of?"

"Holly and phoenix feather."

"Strange. Mine was mahogany and unicorn hair."

Harry suddenly remembered that his wand was Voldemort's wand's brother. That would be why. He reminded James of this.

"Oh yeah." He paused. "Well, get one of the other mirrors down."

Harry muttered the flying charm, and gently lowered the mirror to the floor in front of them.

"Cut it in two." A quick mutter of the severing charm, and it was done.

"Now you need to make them two-way. The incantation is defero inter speculum."

Harry tried it. Nothing happened,

"You need to think about the mirrors. Imagine them as doorways between each other. Imagine yourself walking into one mirror and out of the other. Imagine them fused together as a window, then pulled apart, but still remaining as a window. Try it again."

Concentrating on the vivid image that James had given, he tried the incantation again. "defero inter speculum".

Suddenly, a ripple appeared in the middle of both mirrors. As they spread across them, the reflection changed: the first mirror was reflecting what the second one should, and vice versa. Harry looked up at James in surprise.

"I've never learnt a spell that quickly before, not even when Hermione was teaching it."

"It's all a matter of having the right mental image," James answered with a grin. "Now, shrink them both." Harry did so, then put them in his pocket. "Now, quickly to the staff room, before the teachers come back up for breakfast."

They raced to the staff room as quickly as they could considering that they had to remain invisible and silent, but luckily there were not many students in the corridor. Finally, they reached the staff room. Harry put his ear to the door to see if there was anyone in there, but James pushed him aside.

"There's an easier way," he whispered. He took a corner of the invisibility cloak, and held it so that the inside of it was up against the staff room door. To his surprise, Harry found that he could see through the door.

"I thought you had to have the cloak on both sides of something to make it invisible."

James grinned. "Then how do your feet remain invisible to someone close to you when you're wearing it? You don't have the cloak below your feet. At least, I hope you don't." He peered into the triangular 'hole' that the invisibility cloak had made in the door. "There's no-one in there. Come on." He pushed open the door, and went inside, glancing at the clock over the mantelpiece. "We've got half an hour." Harry handed him one of the mirrors.

"Oh - I nearly forgot. Cut a corner off the invisibility cloak. Just a tiny bit." Harry did so, though he couldn't see why. "Now enlarge it so it's big enough to cover the mirror. And shrink the mirror a bit more. Make it thinner." He waited for Harry to finish, then took both of them and, pushing one of the portraits to one side, put the mirror on the wall, and the piece of invisibility cloak on that, facing outwards, in the same way as he had with the door. Catching on, Harry did a sticking charm on both of them, and James let the portrait slide back into place. "Let's see if it worked, then."

Harry got out the other piece of mirror, and muttered an engorgement charm, so they could see it better. It was perfect, showing nearly the whole of the staffroom as if it had been a hidden camera. Which, Harry reflected, it nearly was. James looked at it, grinned, and muttered, "One more thing to do. One-way silencing charm on the portrait, so we can hear them but they can't hear us." This done, he threw the invisibility cloak over themselves once more, and crept back outside, shutting the door behind them. Harry shrunk the mirror again, and put it back into his pocket. They stole back up to the Gryffindor common room, with quarter of an hour to spare.

First checking that there was no-one in sight, Harry ducked out from under the cloak and went through the portrait hole first, leaving James following in his wake with the invisibility cloak covering him. There was no-one in the common room, so they walked up to the dormitory. They could hear talking inside. James held up the cloak to the door, and they saw that Ron was in there, with Hermione (which wasn't common, she hardly ever came into the boys' dormitories) but not Seamus or Neville. Ron was sitting on his bed, looking bored, but Hermione was frantically looking around Harry's bed to see if there were any clues as to where he was. Quickly, he made sure that James was completely covered by the cloak, and whispered to him, "Follow me in, and sit on that bed over there," (he pointed to Seamus's bed), "whilst I explain to Ron and Hermione.

He stepped into the room slowly, so as to allow time for James to slip behind him and onto Seamus's bed. "Morning Ron, Morning Hermione." Hermione abandoned his bed, and dashed over him.

"There you are! Where have you been? We've been looking all morning."

"Yeah, and missing breakfast," Ron muttered. Harry grinned: Ron was not a morning person.

"Never mind that now, I've got something I need to explain to you." He prepared the explanation in his mind, and paused. This was the third time that morning he'd had to explain the same thing, and he was getting slightly tired of it. He decided to junk his prepared explanation, and come straight to the point. "I've brought my Dad back."

There was a long silence. Harry began to have second thoughts - this was not a good way to tell them. However, he'd started now, and he had to finish. However, Hermione was looking at him with concern.

"Harry, what do you mean, you've brought him back?"

"Through the Marauder's Map. They'd all put their memories and personalities into it, and one of them could come out of it. Like Riddle's diary."

But the expression of concern on Hermione's face grew stronger. "Harry, are you sure you're feeling OK?" Ron was looking at him worriedly.

Harry was getting annoyed. They didn't believe him! He started to snap at Hermione, but then thought better of it. Would he have believed it if their positions were reversed? He tried to explain it a bit better.

"James, Sirius, Remus and Wormtail all put a copy of themselves into the map, to keep control of all the magical energy they'd put there. James was able to use that energy to create a new body, which he put the copy of himself into. I brought him back."

Hermione was looking extremely worried by now. "I - I'm not sure what to say..."

But Harry could tell that they still didn't believe him. He decided to show them.

"If you still don't believe me, here's the proof!" He went over to Seamus's bed, and reached out his hand. He grasped at air. He moved his hand over the bed, but James was no-where to be found.

Ron spoke up. "Harry, do you want me to take you down to the hospital wing?"

Now they thought he was crazy. He started to get angry, but then stopped and smiled. He raised his wand.

"Accio inviaability cloak!"

A silver cloak came flying out from behind Ron, and flew over his head to land in Harry's hand. James made a grab for it, but he was too late. Ron and Hermione swung around, to be confronted with a grinning boy, who looked exactly the same as Harry, except for the lack of a scar and the hazel-coloured eyes.

They stared.

"Err... Hi," said James.

They continued staring.

Finally, Ron spoke. "Are you really Harry's Dad?"

James nodded.

Ron continued. "You're a bit... young to be his Dad, aren't you?"

James burst out laughing. "I wasn't his Dad at the age I am now, you idiot. This is just the age I was when we made the Map."

Ron looked a bit taken aback, but grinned back. Hermione, however, was still staring, but at Ron's grin, she pulled herself together; Ron seemed to have broken the ice. She shook herself, then took a stride towards James, and held out her hand, and opened her mouth.

"Hello, My name's Hermione Granger, I'm fifteen years old and best friends with Harry, and I'm so happy to meet you at last, and I hope we can become friends too."

Now it was James' turn to be taken aback, but he returned the smile. "Pleased to meet you too. You're the studious one, right? The intellectual of the group."

Harry didn't remember telling James this, but he supposed he must have. Hermione flushed with pleasure, but Ron nodded his head. "You bet she is. She got three hundred and twelve percent in one exam last year." Hermione Flushed with embarrassment. James, however, didn't look fazed.

"Which one?"

"Muggle studies."

"Muggle studies is easy," James countered. "What did you get in transfiguration?"

"One hundred and forty-five percent."

"A hundred and sixty-two. Well, see you in a few hours then, Harry and I have got to go down to Diagon Alley to get my school stuff."

Ron looked downcast. "Can't we come?"

This time it was Harry who answered. "I don't think you should - people will notice we're not at school. If you two stay behind, you can cover up for us. Remember, don't tell anyone about James; Dumbledore's going to announce him at supper tonight as my twin brother from America. See you this afternoon."

"See you," Ron replied.

After grabbing the key to his vault at Gringotts, Harry and James walked up to the fireplace, and each grabbed a pinch of floo powder from the pot on the mantelpiece. Harry turned to James. "I'm assuming that Dumbledore's opened the connection for us, they're usually kept closed." James shrugged, and tossed the powder into the flames.

"Only one way to find out. Diagon Alley!"

He was gone. Harry threw his handful in as well, and followed after him.