Losing Game/// James Potter

Chapter 53

As soon as Elsie ran out of the classroom after receiving the letter, the other 4 Marauders sent each other gazes of concern for their brunette friend. Not only had she abruptly left class, but she also looked as if she was about to completely fall apart. And as soon as her friends noticed that, they too stood up and ran out of the door in hopes of comforting Elsie. However, when they stepped out of the room, she was nowhere in sight.

James immediately went into a panic, knowing that he needed to be there for Elsie. He wouldn't let her go through whatever it was that she was going through alone. He's messed up far too many times to not go after her, he's been a terrible best friend far too long for him to leave her be.

"The map," James worriedly said, turning and leading the boys back to Gryffindor Tower.

Peter, who was slightly jogging to keep up with his other 3 friends, shouted out, "Wait, but doesn't she not want us to use it on her?"

"This is different, Wormtail," Remus responded with a concerned tone, almost surpassing James due to how large his strides were, "She needs us, we have to find her."

With that being said, the 4 worried boys quickly ran up to the Marauders dorm in order to find out where Elsie is. But when they walked in, they all drew a blank.

"Where's the bloody map?!" James exasperatedly asked his friends after seeing that the map wasn't in its usual place.

"It should be right there," Sirius rushed over to where James was standing and noticed that the map wasn't there.

James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus all looked at each other anxiously, not remembering who had the map last. Not even a second later, the boys wordlessly began turning their room upside down. For the next few hours, they searched the dorm from top to bottom for the missing map, unfortunately with no avail.

"Alright, whichever one of you gits had the map last is going to be a bloody goner," Sirius grumpily groaned while plopping down on his bed and resting his head on his pillow, "Making us search for it for 4 hours."

"C-can't we just accio it?" Peter yawned, tired from looking for so long.

"Already tried that," Remus pointed out while slumping onto his bed in frustration, "Something must be weighing it down."

James threw his hands up in the air dramatically before running them through his hair and exclaiming, "Well, I have fucking patrol duty with Lily in 10 minutes so you lot are going to have to find it. I'll come back after I'm done."

Sirius laid his head down further into his pillow as Remus, Peter, and James continued to flip out about where the map was. He took a deep breath and rolled onto his side. I'll kill whatever prat lost-

He cut his own thought off and let his eyes widen as he heard a crinkling noise sound from his pillow as he turned over. Don't fucking tell me...

The long-haired boy let out a groan as he reached his hand under his pillow and pulled out what had made the noise...the Marauders Map. As the other 3 boys were arguing still, Sirius opened it up and whispered, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good."

James was mid-sentence when he heard Sirius softly speak, "They're okay."

He quickly turned around to see the Black boy sitting up in his bed hovering over the map they've been searching for.

"Oi, where was it?!" He dramatically exclaimed while running over to Sirius' side.

"Doesn't matter," Sirius quickly shut down his question as he smiled at the map in front of him, "They-...erm...she's okay. She's at the Astronomy Tower."