Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and events from J.K. Rowling's wonderful Harry Potter books. I am writing this for my own enjoyment and hopefully for the enjoyment of readers. Anything you recognize belongs to JKR. The rest belongs to me.
Chapter 56: Mapping Out an Idea
"So what topic did you pick for your history paper, Prongs?" asked Remus.
James picked up a book and replied, "I'm writing about the history of Gryffindor and its founder. What about you?"
Before Remus could reply the door to the common room opened and Sirius stormed in, looking furious. He slumped onto the couch where James was sitting and crossed his arms.
Noticing his empty arms, James asked, "No luck getting to Hogsmeade, Padfoot?"
"Oh, I got to Hogsmeade alright, but after I got back Filch caught me walking through the corridors with an armful of Zonko's products!" replied Sirius. "I got two detentions and he took away house points. I swear that guy has a sixth sense or something."
James nodded. It was the third time they had been caught that year. There had been a few other close calls however they had had the invisibility cloak to shield their presence from the caretaker.
"Wish there was some way to know where he was so we could avoid running into him in the corridors," said Peter.
They all silently agreed although Remus looked thoughtful.
"What is it, Moony?" asked James.
After a moment, Remus said, "Nothing, really. I just remembered I need to find a book in the library on my History of Magic project. See you guys later." He rushed out of the portrait hole, leaving the other Marauders looking bewildered.
"He needs another book? He has a dozen already!" exclaimed Sirius.
"You know Moony," said James. "If he can think of a way to make his paper longer and more detailed than necessary he will find it."
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"Remus?"
Remus looked up from his book to see Lily standing in front of him. "Hi, Lily."
"What are you doing in here?" she asked.
Remus smiled and said, "Just a little extra reading. What about you?"
Lily smiled back and said, "Same. I wanted to work on that DADA assignment. Professor Dover wants everything so detailed."
"Usually you have no problem with that," said Remus.
"I know, but this is a bit too much for what I'm used to," she admitted.
"I agree. Professor Dover wants to find the most complicated and detailed way to teach us. According to our subject list we should be three chapters ahead by now. At this rate we'll never get the subjects we need finished by the time we take our O.W.L.'s next year," said Remus.
Lily glanced at the book sitting in front of Remus. "What are you working on?" She lifted up the book enough to glance at the title. "Is that a Charms book?"
Remus nodded. "It's, erm…for an extra assignment Professor Flitwick gave me to make up for my last absence." He didn't want to tell her what the research was really for.
Lily nodded, accepting his explanation. Remus thought that was odd, considering she always asked about his absences the previous year. This year she had accepted his words without question.
"Can I help?" she asked.
Remus thought for a moment. Lily was good at Charms, and perhaps she could give him some hints without knowing what she was helping him with. "Maybe you can. I'm looking up identification charms."
"In what way would they be used?" asked Lily.
Remus pondered how to answer that without giving too much away. "For instance, if I was at home and wanted to know what room my mother was in, then I would be able to look at a diagram of the house and see where she was. The identification charm would have to be fool proof - I wouldn't want the diagram to mistake her for my dad, for instance."
"Hmmm, that's interesting. I think I remember reading that each person has a specific magical signature, like a fingerprint. There must be a charm to identify that signature and track it," said Lily.
They spent the next few hours looking through different Charms texts, searching for the appropriate spell. Finally, Remus found something.
"Lily," he said, "I think you were right. There's a charm in this text about identifying a person based on his or her magical signature." He looked up and smiled at her. "Bloody brilliant, you are!"
Lily blushed and said, "No, I'm not. Is that what you needed for your project?"
Remus nodded. "Yeah, I think I can take it from here. Thanks for your help."
Lily gathered her things and stood up, preparing to leave. Before she walked away she turned back to him and said, "Oh, Remus? You might want to think of a Proteus charm or the use of magical invisible ink for this project of yours. I wouldn't want you getting caught and getting into trouble." Seeing Remus' shocked face, she smiled and walked away.
Remus shook his head in wonderment. He thought he had managed to fool Lily but she had seen right through him. He shouldn't have been surprised. He had learned to lie to many people about his lycanthropy but she had always looked at him like she had known there was something he was hiding. Now that she no longer probed him about his monthly absences, he wondered if she knew more about him than she was saying. He thought about asking her, but if she didn't know about his being a werewolf then he risked their friendship. If she did know, then she was already keeping his secret and she was still treating him like a friend. He decided to leave well enough alone and not broach the subject with her.
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"Moony, where've you been?" asked Peter.
"Yeah," said Sirius. "Did it take you that long to find a book?"
Remus settled himself onto the floor by his friends. "Actually, that was a bit of a fib I said earlier."
"A fib?" asked James. He chuckled and asked, "Were you sneaking away to meet a girl?"
"No. Actually," started Remus, "Wormtail gave me an idea."
Peter looked befuddled and said, "I did?"
James and Sirius glanced at each other and shrugged.
Remus said, "It was when you said you wished there was a way to keep track of Filch."
"Oh," said Peter, not really remembering saying that.
Sirius and James suddenly looked interested in what Remus had to say. "Are you saying you figured out a way?" asked Sirius.
"I think so," replied Remus. He pulled out his notes and launched into the idea of using the identification charm with a map of the school. He described the charm needed to perform the task and then said, "That way, we wouldn't have to worry only about Filch. We could keep track of where the professors and prefects are as well."
"That's amazing!" exclaimed James. "I knew you were a genius!"
"Actually," said Remus, "the initial idea of the identification charm was mine, but I couldn't figure out how to find the appropriate spell."
"What do you mean?" asked Sirius. "Are you saying that someone helped you?"
Remus nodded and said, "Lily came up with the correct spell and helped me find it."
"Evans helped you?!" exclaimed James.
"Wait a minute," said Sirius. "You lied to us about why you were going to the library but you had
Evans help you?"
"I didn't seek out her help," explained Remus. "She approached me and asked what I was doing. I had to lie and say it was extra charms work Flitwick had given me for my absences. She wanted to help so I gave her no details about why I wanted this spell."
"So she has no idea why we want it?" asked Sirius.
"I didn't tell her anything, but I got the impression she knows why I want it," said Remus.
Sirius shook his head and said, "That's just great, Moony! What if she turns us in?"
"I don't think she will," said Remus. "As she was leaving she suggested using magical invisible ink to keep others from finding out what we're up to. That doesn't sound like someone who would turn us in."
"Maybe…" muttered Sirius.
James finally spoke up, saying, "I think it's a great idea, this identification charm. We could make up a map of the school including the secret passageways we know about. And the invisible ink Evans suggested is also a good idea. We could make up a set of passwords to make the map appear and disappear so if we're caught with it nobody would know it was anything more than a blank piece of parchment."
"With the map and Prongs' invisibility cloak we would be unstoppable," said Peter.
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Over the next few months each of the Marauders studied the castle, mapping out the different corridors as well as the offices and quarters of the professors. James followed the Hufflepuffs and the Ravenclaws in his invisibility cloak until he found the locations of their quarters. By the end of November they had a rough draft of the castle and the grounds. Sirius snuck off to Hogsmeade one Saturday and bought some magical invisible ink from Zonko's Joke Shop. They decided that with all of their projects due before the Christmas holiday they would have to wait until afterward to design the final draft.
Besides, with all of their school and Quidditch projects they didn't want to neglect their Animagus studies. The final step was progressing well, although the boys realized how difficult practicing the spell on themselves was compared to the previous year's step of practicing on inanimate objects.
Peter had finally managed to grow a tail, though he had to hide it for a few days until the others could figure out how to help him get rid of it.
James had perfected his antlers and had even been able to form most of his stag's head.
Sirius had the knack of forming his dog's legs, both front and back. He was currently working on the shaggy fur, trying to control its growth. He wanted to be able to leave some on his face to show he could 'grow a beard at fourteen years of age.' James joked saying all it would do was attract fleas.
Each time the boys practiced the transformations they found them easier to perform. James hoped that by the end of the year they would be able to do the full transformation. For the time being, the boys were all plagued by the amount of homework they were assigned.
James was still working on the research for his History of Magic paper. One night, after the others had retired to bed, James sat up in the common room flipping through another text on Godric Gryffindor. He was having a difficult time making his paper six feet in length, even if he used large writing. After writing another few sentences he turned back to the book and, even though his eyelids felt heavy, kept searching for more information to add.
After turning a few pages, James paused. He suddenly sat up straight, feeling more alert than he had been in the past few hours. On the page in front of him was a picture of his subject, Godric Gryffindor. That was not what had drawn James to it, though. By that point, he had seen more pictures of Gryffindor than he had ever thought possible. What drew James' attention was Godric's hand. On one of his fingers sat a ring - a very familiar ring.
"It can't be…" he muttered. He ran upstairs and tiptoed into his dorm room, trying not to wake anyone. He knew Peter had one, but had to search for it. As he searched through his friend's trunk, he found a magnifying glass and grabbed it before silently creeping out of the room and back into the common room.
He again found the picture that had caught his attention and studied it closely with the magnifying glass. The ring was gold with a large ruby in the center. On either side of the ruby, carved into the gold, was a lion.
James sat back, wondering what this could mean. He had seen that ring on many occasions. He had grown up seeing that ring or one just like it on his dad's finger. He remembered their last Christmas together when James was eleven. That was the Christmas that his father had given him the ring. He had told James to guard it well, that it had been in the family for a long time.
Several ideas floated into James' mind, each seeming more ridiculous than the rest. 'Could this be the same ring my father gave me?' he wondered. 'Nah, it can't be. Why wouldn't my dad have told me?'
James spent the rest of the night searching his texts for information on the ring. He had no luck. There was no mention of a ring and in the other portraits of Godric the ring in question was nowhere to be found.
The next morning Sirius found James in the common room, asleep with his face resting on one of his texts. A small puddle of drool was seeping out onto the pages. Sirius smirked and shook James' shoulder. "Oy, Prongs! You'd better wake up before you completely saturate that book. Madame Pince will hex you into next week."
James groaned and sat up, his body aching from sleeping in that position. He mopped up the book and closed it.
"What kept you up all night?" asked Sirius.
James wondered whether he should tell Sirius about his discovery, but decided to wait until he found more information. "Nothing important. Must have fallen asleep while writing my paper."
As they walked to breakfast, James thought back to how he had found nothing else about the ring other than that one picture, and realized that he would have a lot of questions for his dad's portrait when he went home for the holidays in a few weeks.
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A/N: So, for all of you who were going nuts about James' dad's ring earlier in the story - I told you it (or at least a picture of it) would make another appearance.
What do you think about the idea for the Marauder's Map? Did you like how I stuck Lily into the planning of it? (FYI, that was the small twist I mentioned at the end of the last chapter.)
Thanks to the latest reviewers: Alicia, sista7 (x2), Anu, Nyscat, nanopy, DreamAngel, inzaghina (x2), delpheena, Golden Phoenix, Granger1191 (x2), Mani12191, Anonymous (x2), likediamondrain, hpfreak, Jo Bob, spanish gurl (x3), and A New Reader.
Next chapter: Sirius gets some mail.