At the end of the Gryffindors’ Transfiguration lesson on Monday, McGonagall addressed two members of her class.
“Potter and Evans, please stay behind for a bit. I need to arrange your last detentions.”
Lily and James looked at each other confused, and then remembered. They had only served four of their detentions; cleaning McGonagall’s office and three classrooms: Transfiguration, Potions and Charms. Potter and Evans groaned softly but hung back.
“Well, because of the terrible little first years, you have yet to serve your last detentions,” started McGonagall, arranging a stack of essays that had just been turned in. “And I say they are terrible meaning that they have been taking your detention slots.”
“Thanks, mates,” muttered James, softly.
McGonagall glared at him. “Meet me tonight here, and I will bring you to your task. Good day.” McGonagall sat down and started looking over the essays with a barely audible sigh. James and Lily turned around dejectedly and left the class room.
James and Lily met outside the Transfiguration classroom later that night, and waited a few minutes for their Deputy Headmistress. She walked right past them, gesturing for them to follow, and follow they did. They walked up a few flights of stairs and down a corridor, until they stopped outside Filch’s office. He was just walking out of it as the trio came to the doorway.
With a nasty glance toward James, who he secretly thought was a large one-quarter of the bane of his existence as Caretaker, Filch spoke in his snarling voice.
“Good evening, Professor.” Filch raised a corner of his lip in disgust at James, who met his gaze unfalteringly. “I would ask you once again, is there anyway that they could serve their detention in some other room? I don’t like the idea of that scoundrel in my office.”
“Mr. Filch,” spoke McGonagall in her commanding voice. “I don’t think Potter will do anything untoward to your precious room. And Miss Evans will be with him so you shouldn’t have to worry. Potter and Miss Evans have been assigned to their task, and they will stick to it. They are our top students. And it’s not as if your room is spotlessly clean anyway.” McGonagall looked past Filch into his room, and then back to the caretaker with a hard look on her face.
Filch’s face contorted slightly, but with a loud, angry sigh, he moved out of the doorway, and started to stalk through the hallways. Before McGonagall stepped into his room, the caretaker’s cat, Mrs. Norris, walked out, giving a cat-eyed glare to James. How he wished he could just...
Filch’s office was quite disheveled and James groaned inwardly at the idea of scrubbing everything out. But, their detention was of a different nature.
“Now, Mr. Filch has notes of every wrongdoing that has ever gone on in Hogwarts. The records are quite extensive.” Here she threw a meaningful glance to James, as if meaning that he was the reason for the magnitude, and he definitely was part of the problem. “The cards are also getting worn, and we”the staff and I”would like you to rewrite any cards which are unreadable or close to it, and reorganize the files. Start with these files first-” She pointed to a few boxes, all two levels high, full of yellowing cards- “and then tomorrow you can do some more. And, if you are lucky, James, maybe you and your friends can steal a few ideas and get your names on a few more cards, hmm?”
From a drawer near Filch’s desk, McGonagall pulled a bottle of ink, a quill, and a great amount of cards and set them on a desk in the middle of the office. Then she nodded and walked of the room.
James looked to Lily and smiled weakly. “Well, since you have the better handwriting, how about you rewrite the cards while I read them off to you, and then we can switch if your hand gets tired. Is that alright?” he asked, and in response, Lily sat down and took up the quill. “Brilliant. Okay, first card...” James pulled out a card and read off the contents to Lily. “’Hanson, Timothy; two detentions and five points deducted; use of forged note to get a book from the restricted section.’ Well that was stupid, why he would even think of doing that? Just sneak into the library after dark. Duh!” He looked to Lily who raised an eyebrow. James continued. “’Malfoy, Lucius,’ oh, I remember him! Evil Slytherin, two, maybe three years above us, right?” he asked Lily, who nodded, raising three fingers.
“He had a tendency to call me... well... you know.”
“Ah.” James looked back down at the card and gave a shout of laughter. “Listen to this: ‘One detention; use of foul language in the classroom.’” Lily smiled. “Wonder what he said?” she asked sarcastically. James chuckled.
He looked around at the tall filing cabinets full of the misdeeds of the wrongdoers, and “Hmm”-ed.
“What is it?” asked Lily.
“I wonder… do these go all the way back to the founders? I mean… wouldn’t that be rather interesting? To see what the troublemakers from the beginning did? What the pranks were like? How the punishments have changed?” He moved toward the cabinets, but Lily called out, “Potter!”
“What?” he asked, whining slightly.
“Focus. Next card, please,” Lily said.
James saw that she was trying not to smile. He exhaled softly in laughter, and went back to the cards.
So the list went on, naming the names of the offenders”sometimes victims”and the punishment they received for the “crime”. James and Lily enjoyed their detention; they couldn’t believe some of the things past students had done. As the reached the start of the second level of the first box, they came to a few names that made James smile.
“’Potter, James and Black, Sirius: two detentions and twenty points; rude impersonation of a teacher (Professor Slughorn)’.” James laughed hard remembering when they had done that. It was right in front of Slughorn, though they didn’t know that until they heard their names shouted.
Lily, too, chuckled as she remembered it. Naturally, that was not the only card for the Marauders. The second level, it seemed, was devoted solely to these four boys. Over the past seven years, they had been accused, and nearly always rightly, of numerous things. From throwing crocodile hearts to turning a boy into an elephant to starting fireworks in the library, their crimes ranged far and wide. However, there were also many incidents that had gone unpunished when no one could prove it was the Marauders.
After a particularly funny card”‘Potter, James; Lupin, Remus; Black, Sirius; Pettigrew, Peter; two weeks of detentions, fifty points; discoloration of professors’ attire and hair’”they needed a few minutes to calm down after their fit of laughter. They had vivid pictures of McGonagall in bright orange robes, Flitwick in sunshine-yellow and Slughorn in a red polka-dot pair of trousers and a pin-striped pink and orange shirt floating around their heads. When they had finally caught their breath, James reminded Lily of the incident of a few days ago. Even now there were still Slytherins walking around in pink robes and red hair. They were sniggered at and everyone smiled jovially when they remembered the enchantment.
After the laughter once again subsided, James spoke, tears in his eyes. “You know, Lily, one day, you’re gonna have your name in here, too; ‘Potter, James and Evans, Lily; six detentions and fifty points; assault of a student (Snape, Severus) in the corridor, under teacher’s eye.’” He chuckled, but stopped at Lily’s face.
“I still can’t believe I did that!” cried Lily, slapping her forehead gently. “It was so stupid! I am so ashamed of myself!”
“Oh, but Lily, no one cared!” James spoke forcefully. “Watching and hearing about Snape getting what was coming to him was enough to make up for it. It was so funny and amazing that no one cared! Lily, I will never forget the look on Snivellus’s face when”WHAM”you smacked him. It was... priceless.” He smiled goofily. “And think of it this way; now, whoever is so unfortunate to get this job in the future will see your name right next to mine and the other Marauders’!”
“James, I don’t mean to offend, but that isn’t very comforting,” Lily said with a sigh. James’s shoulders drooped slightly and he continued to read the offenses that he and his friends had committed.
James then found one a few cards later that caused his brow to furrow. Through his mind ran thoughts of what had happened that day.
“James, can you read me that card please?” asked Lily from the spot she had cleaned on the floor on which to stretch out.
“What? Oh, sorry,” James admitted, flustered. “Group of young men hereinafter known as the Marauders; confiscation of illegally enchanted parchment and attempt to leave school grounds; three detentions each, fifty points.”
“Thank you,” muttered Lily, and then she looked up to see James’s wondering face. “What’s wrong?”
“Well, I was just wondering if they kept that ‘illegally enchanted parchment’.” He then looked over to a set of filing cabinets sitting behind Filch’s desk. He walked over to them and started pulling out drawers and looking through the contents. Ignoring Lily’s gasp of indignation, he merely continued to search through the drawers.
“James! What in the world do you think you are doing?” cried Lily. “We have a job to do! Come on! Stop that!” Lily had by now stood up and tried to pull James back. It worked, or so she thought. In fact, James had just spotted the title of one of the other drawers: “Confiscated and Highly Dangerous”, written in spidery handwriting.
“Ah ha!” he shouted, closing one drawer and moving to the other. “So that is where it is!”
“Potter!”
James didn’t listen, of course. He opened the drawer, and after looking through the contents for only an instant, laughed again.
“This, Lily,” he said to her angry, but questioning gaze, “is the ‘illegally enchanted parchment’. It isn’t, in fact, illegal to enchant the parchment”it’s what is on it that is rather dangerous, though also not really illegal… It is the secret”or one of them anyway”to the success of the Marauders!” With a highly dramatized flourish, he threw the parchment onto the table. Lily stared at it.
“If that is highly dangerous, I’m the Queen.”
“Oh, but you’re the queen of my heart,” whispered James, suavely. Lily narrowed her eyes as she raised an eyebrow, even as she fought hard to keep her smile back at James’s cheesy statement.
James continued. “But Lily, this, in the hands of someone bad-”
Here, Lily interjected with: “Like you?”
James gave her a short glare, and continued, “someone else, someone like... Voldemort, is extremely dangerous!”
“Really? Why?” she asked, still thinking that the staff must’ve had a few too many drinks from the Three Broomsticks to confiscate a piece of parchment. To her surprise, James smiled dangerously.
“Tap it with your wand and say, “Reveal your secrets.”
Lily did as she was told, and then did a double-take between James and the parchment, finally staring wide-eyed at the parchment. For on it, words were forming in a jagged, but neat, hand.
Mr. Prongs would like to say ‘Good Evening’ to the beautiful Miss Evans.
Then, after this sentence vanished, another one showed, this time in a neat writing.
Mr. Moony, too, would like to say ‘Good Evening’. He would also like to say that this is an incredibly offensive piece of parchment and that Miss Evans may not enjoy reading it, for it in itself is the object of many-a-loss of points.
Once more, another scrawl showed. It was quite untidy and rather loopy.
Mr. Padfoot would also like to say ‘Good Evening’ and agree with Mr. Moony. Stay away, Miss Evans!
The writing vanished again, and then the first untidy scrawl appeared. In fact... now that she saw it again, she would almost say this it looked quite a bit like- Mr. Prongs would like to express his anger towards Mr. Padfoot, and Mr. Moony. They are being quite rude and Mr. Prongs would like to invite Miss Evans into the world of the Marauders.
The parchment went blank. Lily stared wide-eyed once again.
“Prongs! Why, that’s you! James, what is this parchment and what did you do to it?” asked Lily in a very fast breath.
“Well, we just enchanted it… slightly… to show a few little things.” He was evading the function of the parchment, she knew, and she was quite frustrated. She also had to admit she was interested. The sentences that formed on the top were in the handwriting of James, Remus and Sirius. Lily leaned forward and kissed James on the cheek. Then, she spoke in a forced calm voice.
“James, please tell me about his parchment. Please.”
James put on a face of mock thought and finally spoke.
“Alright, but-” he took out his wand, unbeknownst to Lily, and placed the tip of it on the parchment, “but I solemnly swear I am up to no good.” As he spoke this, he leaned very close to Lily, so that she was sorely tempted to kiss him.
Instead of doing that, she said, “Well, when aren’t you up to any good?”
James smirked, and nodded his head towards the parchment. She looked down to the parchment and nearly screamed. There, scrawled in the top, were written words in the penmanship of the first “Mr”:
Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers
Are proud to present
The Marauder’s Map
Lily gasped. She looked to James and he smiled mischievously. He then leaned down and opened the parchment. There, scrawled across the page was a map of the first floor of Hogwarts. Lily gasped again. James pulled open another fold of the parchment and another floor of Hogwarts appeared. Lily’s eyes were wide and she was thoroughly astonished. Even more amazing were the number of dots splattered over the parchment. Each had a name assigned to them and moved with what seemed to be the same movement of the owner of that name. Currently, most students, for that was what the dots represented, (with the exception of the prefects and a few miscreants) were in their dormitories. James looked on with a smile on his face.
“James... how did you manage this? This is pretty advanced magic!”
“Well, Lils; Sirius, Remus and I are rather smart young men. We also know all of the shortcuts in Hogwarts, including some which lead to the library. And with our stealth, we can get any type of information we want. So, using our brains, our knowledge of the castle, and the help of the library and dear old Madam Pince, not that she really knew what she was doing, we created this map. Originally, it was only for a reminder of passages and short-cuts. But then, as we got more troublesome, we changed it to ‘aide for mischief-makers’.” He smiled ruefully at Lily, who was staring at him with wide eyes.
For a while, she was speechless. Then she managed to commend James and the other Marauders on their accomplishment. But then she remembered something. With a smile, she relayed her question.
“How did you manage to get caught with this ‘illegally enchanted parchment’, hmm?”
“Well,” started James, seeming a bit flustered with having to remember that occasion, “we, even though Moony was quite against it, snuck out of school one night. Using this passageway here-” he pointed to a spot on the parchment where Lily knew to be a statue of a one-eyed witch; it was a pretty gruesome statue- “we traipsed to the cellar of Honeydukes’ and using… uh, another bit of magic, we got out to the Three Broomsticks. Madam Rosmerta was quite kind to us; she always did like Sirius and his ‘dashing good humor’, as she called it. We got our drinks and then, the horror struck.
“Standing right next to us in a heartbeat was Professor McGonagall. She looked at us as if we were...well, I don’t know, but it wasn’t a good look. She escorted us by our ears”I’m serious; she did! I don’t know she managed to get four ears in two hands, but she did. Anyway, she brought us back to the castle and gave us our punishment. Then, she had to notice the odd shape of my pocket.” He took a deep breath and frowned. “Well, it wrote some not very nice things to her and we got more punishment. And that, Lily, is the story of the Marauder’s Map.”
Lily nodded, finding it a plausible story, as sneaking out seemed to be right up James’s alley. She glanced once more at the Map and couldn’t help herself: she scrutinized it quite closely. She was amazed at the accuracy of all of the corridors and the moving dots. Then, she noticed Professor McGonagall coming towards Filch’s office. Even though her dot was on the floor above, and far down the hall, a glance at the clock told Lily that it was time to stop their detention. She told all of this to James, who quickly muttered “Mischief managed” and refolded the Map. He was about to put it back in his pocket, but Lily stopped him. “James! You are going to put that back in that drawer where it belongs!”
“But Lily! Why would I want to put it back!? It’s mine by right, anyway!”
Lily thought quickly, for she didn’t have a good reason. “Ah! I know! If you put it back in that drawer, some future mischief maker will be able to find it one day when they are getting threatened with hanging from the ceiling by their knuckles! Or toes, or whatever it is that Filch finds most terrifying. They just might find it amusing to raid Filch’s cabinets and discover this map. You’d be securing the future of trouble-making within Hogwarts.”
Lily couldn’t believe she actually encouraged that. But if it meant James wouldn’t get caught again, then…
James paused for a second, and then spoke.
“Good thinking, Evans!” And with that, he very quickly shoved the parchment back into the drawer and assumed his position in front of the files boxes, pretending to be reading a card off to Lily, who resumed her own spot in front of the parchment cards with quill in hand.
And sure enough, a quarter of a minute later, Professor McGonagall walked in, looking slightly tired.
“Potter, Evans; I believe that this is enough for tonight. I will escort you back to your dormitory; your duties were taken over by Remus and one of the sixth year Gryffindor prefects”Kayla, I believe her name is.”
She stood aside from the door to allow the two Gryffindors to walk out of the office and into the hallway. As soon as the lights in the room were turned down and the door closed and locked”Peeves was fond of Filch’s office”McGonagall walked a ways with Lily and James.
“I trust you had a fine time with the files?” she asked, with a bit of sarcasm apparent in her words.
“Oh yes,” replied James, smiling, “I had a great time reading off all of my accomplishments to my dear friend Lily.”
McGonagall gave a stiff sort of chuckle.
“Yes, dear, they were certainly plenty of ‘accomplishments’ to be told of. I just hope you didn’t bore Miss Evans into next Tuesday.”
“Of course not! We had many-a-laugh over some of the accomplishments.” James and Lily turned at the bottom of the flight of stairs where they would be parting ways with the Professor.
She bade the two Heads ‘good night’ and walked down the hallway leading to the professor’s wing. Returning the goodbye, Lily and James turned and walked up to their dormitory.
They fell asleep nearly as soon as their heads hit their own pillows.