Part One: A Brilliant Idea

Sirius, James, Remus, and Peter were relaxing in the Gryffindor Common Room. No one else was there, as it was the holidays. The only other Gryffindor’s that had stayed for the break were younger, and they were already asleep in Gryffindor Tower. It was close to midnight, but none of them wanted to go to sleep.

“Let’s go explore the castle!” said Peter, as he turned to the others. He was sitting near the window, and had been watching the snow slowly drift to the ground.

“We’ve already explored it all! We know every room, every corridor, every everything,” said Sirius, close to the fire. He had two chairs facing each other. One chair held his slouching body and the other had his feet resting upon it. Sirius had his arms folded across his chest.

“Its Hogwarts, there are always new rooms to find,” said James. He was sitting in a chair closest to the fire.

“If you want to go, Prongs, you can go right ahead,” said Sirius. “If you find something new, tell me. I’ll be there in half a second, because there’s nothing to do here.”

“What a cheerful person you are,” said James.

“Hey, Padfoot, you say you know all the rooms and corridors of Hogwarts. So, do you think you could draw it?” asked Remus. He was sitting on one of the couches in the middle of the Common Room, reading a book. There were two more books piled by his side.

“Why? What do you have up your sleeve, Moony?” asked Sirius.

Peter got up fro near the window and walked to the couch opposite Remus.

“Well, since Padfoot here says he knows Hogwarts by heart, I thought we could make a map of Hogwarts,” said Remus.

“I never said I knew Hogwarts 'by heart,’” said Sirius. “I just said there isn’t a room we haven’t been to.”

“I think it’s bloody brilliant! Do you have any extra parchment, Moony?” asked James.

“Yeah, there’s some in my bag. It’s near the table,” said Remus to James. Then he turned, mostly to Sirius, and said, “Think about it, if we put our knowledge together, we could make a magnificent map of Hogwarts. There will be all the rooms that everyone knows about, the rooms that we have found on our own, and the tunnels in and out of Hogsmeade. ” Remus was thrilled to be making such a map. He loved the idea of having to use his wit. James and Sirius were keen to create the map, as well. Peter, on the other hand, was a bit worried.

“What is someone finds this map? They will know all the places we’ve found, and we could get into trouble,” said Peter.

“We’re not going to put our names on it! How stupid would we be if we did that?” said Sirius.

“Don’t worry, I’ve already thought of that,” said Remus to Peter. (“Of course he has,” said Sirius, who was given a look by Remus.) “I’ve actually been thinking of making a map for a while, so I’ve found some spells that would conceal the map.”

“How so?” asked James, who was at the table picking up a quill and ink someone had forgotten. He then bent down to look through Remus’ bag for parchment.

“Well, it's two spells. One that could make the parchment look like there’s nothing written on it, and another spell that we can use that would recover the map, so that we could see it again. Both say that we have to come up with a phrase of some sort,” said Remus.

“We can think of the lines later. Who’s going to do the drawing?” asked James. After retrieving the items, he took a seat next to Peter, putting what they needed on the cocktail-like table that was between the couches.

“I think you should do it, Moony,” said Sirius. He got up from his chairs, moved the books beside Remus, and sat down. He then changed his voice to higher, girly voice. “Because you’ve just got the nicest handwriting I’ve ever seen!”

“Oh, shut up,” said Remus, hitting Sirius in the shoulder.

“Ouch,” said Sirius. He rubbed his shoulder.

“Alright, what should go on the map? Should we just draw Hogwarts or put in some of the lands outside?” asked James.

“We should draw the Womping Willow and the tunnel that leads to the Shrieking Shack,” said Peter.

“Oh, good idea!” exclaimed Remus. “Wonder why I didn’t think of that?” he said, mostly, to himself. Peter looked pleased with himself.

“We should add a bit of the Forbidden Forest and the Quidditch field, so that we have a bit of a border,” said James.

“Okay. So, lets get to work on this map,” said Remus.

They worked on the map for hours, well into the night. But none of them cared, or even noticed. Remus drew small sketches on bits of parchment of one room or another, until the others approved. When they did, he redrew it on the larger piece of parchment. He labeled the known places of Hogwarts. Such as the Great Hall, the Womping Willow, and Dumbledore’s Office.

When they had drawn all known places of Hogwarts, they all looked at it with pleasure. “Looks brilliant, Moony!” exclaimed James.

“I agree!” said Peter.

“I think its missing some bits and pieces,” said Sirius, leaning back to think. Strands of his long black hair dropped into face, so he shook his head to get it out of the way.

“What ‘bits and pieces?’ I think it looks amazing,” said Remus.

“Well, I think you should write in a compass,” said Sirius.

“Oh, right,” said Remus, as he leaned over.

While Remus drew in the compass in the top right corner of the parchment, Sirius, casually, picked up the book that Remus had been reading. He skimmed through the book, looking and occasionally reading whatever happened to catch his eye.

As Sirius was looking through the book, he came across another spell for a map. “Mates, look at this,” said Sirius. “I found a great spell for the map. Something that would really make it unique.”

“Well, come on. What is it?” asked James.

“It’s a spell to show people on the map. Where they are; where they are walking or running to. If we added this spell, we could see ourselves walking down the corridors, and other people. We could anyways know where rotten Snape is! Bloody brilliant!” exclaimed Sirius, his face lighting up with a huge smile on it.

“Let me see the book,” said Remus, in a serious tone, as he held out his hand. Sirius gave it to him.

“What’s wrong?” asked Sirius.

“Aha. Nothing! I just wanted to see if it was a complicated spell, and its not at all. So we can use it,” said Remus. He too had a smile on his face.

“You see, my boredom can be put to use,” said Sirius.

“First, lets try the spell to see if it works,” said Peter. Remus took out his wand and held it to the parchment.

“Okayvideo vidi visium populi!” said Remus.

It was as if someone had taken a cup of water and thrown it onto the parchment, for it looked as if the words and pictures had been washed away. (“What the…?” asked Sirius to no one.) But then the words appeared again, with new additions. There were small dots all over the parchment with a name attached to every dot.

“Oh, bloody hell! That scared me,” said Sirius, with a sigh of relief. There was relief written on everyone’s face, especially Remus’.

“I’m just pleased it worked, because I wasnot going to draw all that again,” said Remus.

“I know. You would have made me do it, Moony!” said Sirius.

“That’s it!” exclaimed James.

“What’s it?” asked Sirius.

“Mooney, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs,” said James.

“Those are our nicknames,” said Peter. “What about them?”

“We should add them to the map, so we know that we created it, but no one else will!” said James, excited.

“Clever! I like it,” said Remus. At the top he wrote down their names, but then stopped. “What are we going to call this map? Its only right that it has a name.”

“What are we going to call this map? Its only right that it has a name,” said Remus.

They all thought on it for a while. “How about ‘The Many Ways of Hogwarts?’” asked Peter.

“Nah, too obvious. We need something better,” said James.

“Okay, well lets think. Why did we want this map in the first place?” asked Remus to the others.

“To help us get around the school,” said Peter.

“Yeah. Well, what do we do when we go around the school?” asked Remus.

“Cause mischief!” said Sirius, laughing.

“True,” Remus supposed.

“We look around Hogwarts for new places to explore,” said James.

“Hey, do you remember when we were in Filch’s office last year and he left, so I took that weird object from the top of his desk,” said Sirius, as he looked back.

“Yeah. Why did you steal that?” asked James.

“Wanted to see the look on his face when he couldn’t find it,” said Sirius.

“He found it, though, and you got two weeks detention,” said James, smiling.

“Oh yeah. Forgot about that,” said Sirius.

“You stole from Filch? Are you mad, Padfoot?” asked Peter, disbelief on his face.

“Oh. That’s right you weren’t there,” said James.

“Stealing,” said Remus, almost in a whisper.

“Moony, what are you ranting on about?” asked Sirius.

“I know what to call the map. The Marauders Map,” said Remus, pleased with himself.

“Brilliant name!” said James. “Now there’s only one thing left to do… actually two things.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Sirius.

“He means the two spells I mentioned earlier. We just have to think of two phrases. One to open the map and one to close it,” said Remus.

“I promise…no. I swear that I am here to do dire things,” said Sirius. “Or something like that to open it.”

“I think its pretty good,” said Peter.

“Lets make it more…clean cut,” said Remus.

“If we must,” said Sirius.

“I… solemnly swear…that…” said Remus, the sentence left hanging.

“…that I am up to no good?” asked Peter.

“ ‘I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.’ Brilliant. We’re keeping that,” said Sirius.

Remus took a bit of parchment and quickly wrote down the words. “Now we just need another,” muttered Remus.

“I know. Padfoot, you said that we cause mischief, so what if the closing words are ‘mischief managed?’” asked James.

“That’ll work,” said Remus. He wrote those simple words down, as well.

“How do you do the spell?” asked James.

“The book said that we have to write down what we are going to say to close it on parchment, so I did that. Now I have to place it on the map, point my wand, and say… concealto!”

They all waited for something to happen and then finally the words, drawings, all vanished from sight, as did the small bit of parchment. It looked like an unhindered-with piece of parchment; thee was absolutely nothing written on it. Remus placed the second bit of parchment on top of the larger one. Once again, he out his wand to the parchment.

“Recupero!” Remus called out. The second piece of parchment vanished just like the first, but the drawings didn’t come back.

James was the one that decided to do something. He took out his wand and put it to the empty parchment. “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good!” he said, trying to space out his words as he spoke them. As they watched, the words and lines seemed to have slowly crept onto the paper. They all exhaled loudly, relieved.

“Hey, look who’s taking a stroll outside near the Quidditch field,” said Sirius, smiling widely, but maliciously. They all watched as the little dot marked “Severus Snape” slowly made its way to the Quidditch field. “Lets go have a bit of fun!”

“Yeah!” the rest of them said, with amusement. They all got up and headed for the back of the portrait of the Fat Lady to leave. But then Remus ran back to the table, “Mischief managed!” After he saw the parchment go blank, he grabbed it, and they all exited Gryffindor Tower, for some fun.