Means to an End

"Tell me again why this is so important?"

They were three days into the dig, and all they had found was the piece of parchment. Hermi was doing a good job of driving Morgan up the wall, though.

"Parchment needs to be charmed to last such a long time," explained Andrea before Morgan went ballistic. "An average piece wouldn't have lasted from 1976 to 1998, and it certainly wouldn't have lasted from 1976 to 2500, without a bit of magical help from the creators. A bookmaker could explain the process easier than me; there are a lot of potions and charms that go into it. I can only presume they did it the same way pre-Upheaval."

"My question to everyone is: how exactly do we have all this knowledge when it had to have been lost during those two years?" Dinah inquired. "Diary entries surviving from Miss Weasley's ancestor, Fleur, absolutely bemoan the loss of countless texts and histories. No offence, Miss Weasley, but your ancestress was a drama queen."

Hermi shook her head. "You can't read too far into what she writes most of the time. It's always been my personal belief that the Ministry saved many of the school texts; they would then loan the books to the early research teams who then created the guidelines for home schooling."

"Conspiracy theory?" chuckled Connor from a corner of the tent. Morgan hid a grin at this.

"I need some air," Andrea groused. "Dinah, let's go see if Marcus is back from London yet." Connor looked down at his watch and sighed.

"My turn to make tea," he said. The three graduate students left the tent. Morgan continued to stare at the parchment, still determined after three days to find something out about it. Hermi shook her head at him but returned to her reading instead of saying anything further.

Two hours and five chapters of The Year 2000: Wizarding England's Comeback into Power (quite possibly the silliest book she'd ever read), Hermi was startled out of her bored stupor by a yelp of excitement.

Morgan had had an epiphany then.

"Have you figured it out?" she asked him.

"No!" replied the archaeologist with a dazed grin on his lips. "But I've finally remembered where I'd read about something like this. Did you ever read a series of books called Pranks when you were younger? They were old children's books, written around 2030."

"Of course I read them!" Hermi said indignantly. "Every self-respecting child takes a peek into those--those characters had the best fun!"

"Yes, yes," Morgan dismissed. "But weren't there seven of them? One for each of their school years?"

"Yes."

"Wasn't Hogwarts supposed to have graduated their students after seven years?"

"Yes, but I'm not quite sure what you're getting at."

Morgan shot her a glare. "Could we go with my thought process for a moment, please? If it's not too much trouble for you? What was the name of the school in the books?"

Hermi furrowed her brow in thought. "It was something ridiculous, like Pigtarts, or...no, it was definitely Pigtarts. I also remember that there were two authors cooperating on the project."

"Hermi, what if those authors were basing it on Hogwarts? What if those four pranksters had existed pre-Upheaval? What if..."

"I think you're getting ahead of yourself," interjected Hermi. "What does this have to do with the parchment?"

"Don't you remember?" Morgan asked. "In the sixth book, the four main characters created a map of Pigtarts, which showed every passageway, secret room, password, and person in the school. They created a password to access the map's information and another one to erase it so no one would think it something other than a simple piece of parchment."

Hermi's mouth was gaping wide.

"Do you remember what those passwords were?" demanded Morgan of the heiress. Her mouth snapped shut.

"To be honest, no," she replied. "But we can find out."

She ran from the tent and returned ten minutes later out of breath. "You're going to help me straighten my books after this," she growled. "Never have I lived in such a mess..."

"Then go home," he said absently and ripped the two books from her hands. Morgan thumbed through the book marked 6 rapidly. "Chapter index...yes! Just a moment..."

Hermi was shaking by the time he stopped flipping pages and began reading a passage desperately. "This is insane," she murmured anxiously. "We don't even know if the authors were just really imaginative. What if we're wrong?"

Morgan didn't answer her. Instead, he grabbed his wand from the table and, with a shaking hand, tapped the parchment once.

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good," he intoned solemnly.

Ink began spreading on the parchment. Words blossomed out from underneath Morgan's wand, and both he and Hermi were struck speechless.

Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs

Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers are proud to present

THE MARAUDER'S MAP

After staring in complete silence at the greeting, Hermi slowly reached over to unfold the parchment.

It was indeed a map. Rooms and corridors were spread out before them, each marked with a different title: Charms classroom, Gryffindor Tower, Moaning Myrtle's Toilet; the names went on and on. The most spectacular feature was not the names of each room, nor was it the passwords to secret hallways which appeared when Morgan tapped on a representation of a hump-backed witch. Oh, no, it was none of these.

It was the dots.

It was the names listed next to each and every dot.

It was the dots...which were frozen in place throughout the entire map.

A map which was labelled Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

"I don't believe it," Hermi breathed.

"You have to," answered her companion in a matching tone. "It's here, right in front of us. I don't know who these people were who wrote these stories, but they had to have been there. They knew, knew all about Hogwarts and disguised their knowledge with what might have been a little-known story."

"'Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs,'" she recited. "Those were the nicknames given to the four main characters of the series. They must've been real people. Is it possible that two of them survived the Upheaval and wanted people to remember the good old times?"

Morgan shook his head. "Those books were riddled with what seemed like despair for each character, remember? There were allusions to their fates, as if the authors had known of them, or perhaps met them, and were making these a sort of in memoriam."

Hermi glanced at the books lying next to the map. Gred and Forge Prewett...

Prewett.

Why did that name seem familiar to her?

Late that evening, after everyone had had a look at the map and gone to sleep, Hermi was still replacing the books she'd torn off the shelves in the frantic search for her childhood books. Her mind was racing, trying to recall the names of children the map said were still located inside the old castle.

Hey, Connor, I see a Malfoy here! Lucius...Merlin, I'm glad your family has normal-sounding names now!

Laura, there's a green dot named Blaise Zabini right next to a room called 'Slytherin'.

Yeah, I wonder why those four names keep showing up. Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin--maybe the students were divided into dormitories?

How were they sorted, and when? Was it some sort of magical test?

Miss Weasley, I see a Ron and a Ginny Weasley. Are they relatives of yours?

What about this Seamus Finnegan character? I wonder if he looks anything like you, Doc!

Hermi paused with Mockridge's A Comprehensive History of the 2200s in her fist. Prewett.

There weren't any dots labelled 'Prewett' on the map, so who could those authors be? Of course, there was always the possibility of them being graduates of an earlier year, as Cho Chang and Oliver Wood had been. Still, someone who had lived in the times between Voldemort's initial rule and his second coming probably would have been a bit more outspoken about the earlier searches for Hogwarts. Unless they...no, the books were written circa 2030--they had to have known those characters personally!

Why she was so convinced on this matter, Hermi wasn't sure. She had been surprised to have found battered old copies of the Pranks series stowed away in the library when she was little (her mother wouldn't allow her to buy them new). The seven volumes had been carefully placed on the top shelf with the family records and diaries dated 2000 and onwards, closer to Ronald Alexander's wife's diary...

Prewett.

Why did that name continue to haunt her?

The very next morning found Morgan, Connor Malfoy, Joseph Chang, and Agnes Flint seated around a work table. The Marauder's Map was spread out in full across the surface.

"Look," said Morgan. "There's a passageway located here, leading out into a candy store called Honeydukes. The corridor extends underground and directly into the school."

"It seems like the most likely candidate for checking out," mused Joseph. Morgan nodded in agreement.

"Agnes, take Marcus and Xander with you into Hogsmeade and try to figure out which building most likely housed Honeydukes," ordered Morgan. The young woman nodded and left the tent. "The three of us" he motioned to the other two men "are going to investigate this 'Shrieking Shack'--there's another underground tunnel noted here leading onto the grounds."

"Umm, sir?"

"Yes, Connor?"

"What's a Whomping Willow?"

"...didn't your parents ever teach you Herbology?"

"Malfoys are known for spellcrafting, Doc, not herbal lore."

"Then why are you in magical archaeology?"

"Mum wanted me in a safer profession than my Dad."

"Which was what exactly?"

"Curse-creator, sir. He was one of the best, before he got on the wrong end of a bowel-removing hex."

"She's a smart witch, your mum," murmured Joseph. Connor merely grinned.

By lunch time, Agnes and her group had yet to discover the location of Honeydukes. Morgan, though disappointed, understood that out of the hundreds of decrepit buildings surrounding them, not one had its store sign intact.

"It's not a complete waste of time, sir," Xander stated. "We still have a good third of the village to go over--we'll be on the lookout for a place with lots of shelves and possibly glass jars."

"It'd be much easier if we were allowed to use memory-echo charms," said Marcus. Morgan shook his head.

"The Ministry forbids those in all the older sits," he replied. "I doubt Miss Weasley could successfully get us an exemption, no matter how influential her family is."

"Have you seen her, sir?" inquired Dinah. "We've been calling her all morning, but she seems to have left the area."

"Maybe she finally took my hint and went home," Morgan said delicately, though he knew (even from only a few days' acquaintance) she wouldn't give up her supervision that easily. Dinah rolled her eyes. "She was up pretty late putting away her books," he continued seriously. "Perhaps she went home to retrieve some other texts she thought might be useful after reviewing what we had here."

"Maybe," said Dinah. "But don't you think she'd let us know, even if she is our patron? She's been more like one of the team and less like the rich brat you think she is."

"Dinah?"

"Yes, Doc?"

"Go research something."

"...Sure thing."

Morgan wondered how her previous superiors had dealt with her attitude, but this method seemed to work.

"We still haven't found that passage to the grounds, Morgan," Joseph reminded the other archaeologist after the prissy graduate had gone. "The shack seems very unstable--it'd be extremely dangerous to try and explore it without the use of magic."

Morgan rubbed his face and sighed. "I hate the Ministry's stupid laws on digs," he complained. "Really, what harm could a simple structure-strengthening charm do to a building?"

"For one, it could disrupt the magic surrounding the area and inadvertently cause a breakdown of the spell holding said structure up in the first place," came a voice from behind them. Hermi sat down next to Joseph and yawned. "And who knows what casting spells on millennia-old buildings could wake up? Ghosts may not be visible now, but the magic could allow them to materialize."

"Nonsense," Morgan sniffed. "Ghosts haven't been seen in centuries. Modern magic simply doesn't allow for that phenomenon to occur nowadays. And where have you been?"

"Don't be a skeptic, Morgan, it doesn't become you," snapped Hermi. "And I've been to my house and to the Ministry."

"Is something wrong?" asked Joseph, who watched Agnes, Marcus, and Xander quietly enter the village to finish their sweep. Hermi shook her head.

"Everything's fine," she replied. "I just had to figure out where I'd seen the surname 'Prewett' before."

"Those authors' last name?" Morgan was puzzled. "Why is that so important?"

"Because the Prewetts were a very old wizarding family pre-Upheaval," explained Hermi with another yawn. "The last of them were killed off during Voldemort's initial reign of terror, except for one."

"And you just had to find this out for...what reason?"

"The only one left alive was a Molly Prewett--she was married to Arthur Weasley, father of my direct ancestor, Bill Weasley."

Joseph and Morgan exchanged looks.

"Are we supposed to be impressed?" Morgan asked crossly. Hermi scowled at him.

"You're supposed to be intelligent, Dr. Finnegan," she said. "There shouldn't have been any Prewetts left to survive into the third millennium, yet there were two of them. How, and why?"

"Have you considered the possibility of them being Muggle-born?" inquired Joseph.

"No--they knew their characters personally, they had to have!" insisted Hermi. "And they wouldn't have even known of them if they were born Muggle because the books were written circa 2030--the characters of Pranks lived during the 1970s."

The two archaeologists cast disbelieving looks at her.

"As interesting as this is," began Morgan, "it doesn't have much to do with what we're working towards right now. Why don't you go back to your books while Joseph and I find Connor and finish exploring the Shrieking Shack without getting killed?"

Hermi huffed and ran off to her tent.

"Let's go, Joseph," the older man said. "Something tells me Hermi has begun an entirely different quest than the one she originally started out on. We should try picking up the pieces of the first while she's still funding us."