The Losing One || Sirius Black

38. Saved

Remus Lupin

Saturday, 23rd September 1972.

Hogwarts

The map making was in its full swing from the moment when the Trophy Room secret passageway was discovered. Remus was thankful for the fact that second year, at least this far, seemed quite a lot easier than his first so there wasn't really any reason to skip on the fun.

Almost every night, the Marauders would throw James' invisibility cloak on and walk across the castle. They decided to even search the corridors they already did one more time just to be sure. Everyone had parchment and quills, which they charmed with ink, to do part of the work.

First boy wrote all the names of every single portrait they passed, second one of every single tapestry while also looking behind them. If there was some secret alcove or passageway, the third boy would write it down on his parchment since his job was to look out for the armors and everything that wasn't a tapestry or a painting so he had more time. Forth one was the lookout.

The Marauders always switched rolls because one night Peter would beg to write down portrait names, but the next, he would want to look at the tapestries. Sirius and James both wanted to check the armors and everything else besides the artwork while Remus didn't really mind any of the mentioned jobs. Of course, nobody wanted to be the lookout.

It soon proved just how tedious and difficult the task actually was. One corridor, which wasn't even that big, took them at least two hours to do. Granted, the job would go way more quickly if the portraits weren't giving them such hard time.

Every time the Marauders lit their wand lights and got near the plaques underneath the portraits, the people in them would cuss them off and threaten how they will scream if the light wasn't immediately turned off. So the Marauders were left to read and write the names in the complete darkness.

When the four of them discussed all of this, they all agreed that it just made the work that much more fun.

"Imagine if some of them actually screamed!", Sirius exclaimed excitedly one day in the dorm after a lot of the map missions, "The running from Filch will be so much fun!"

"Maybe James will discover another secret passageway!", Peter chimed in while they were sorting through all of the notes they had taken the night before.

James and Remus both laughed at that, sprawled on the floor while comparing notes to make sure they didn't miss anything. Remus' head already hurt from the reading and rereading silly portrait names and the full moon being tonight didn't help the cause either.

He looked at all of their sketches pinned on the widest wall in the dorm which happened to be the wall behind James and Peter's beds. Pieces of parchment with different handwritings were slowly starting to fit together. Granted, it would have been easier to understand them if boys didn't always miss something.

Due to their lack of concentration, at least three portrait names would be misspelled every night along with armors ending up on the opposite sides of the corridor in comparison to the real castle and alcoves being behind wrong tapestries. This resulted in their already complex wall having a lot smaller parchment pieces pinned to bigger ones, correcting their mistakes. It almost look like some huge origami hanging in their dorm.

Whenever he looked at the monstrosity they were creating, Remus thought how if someone walked in and saw it, they would think that the Marauders had officially lost it. Although, it was really cool to him how all of them understood every single line, text and name on the unfinished map.

Remus glanced at his watch. 05:45pm. He needed to leave now if he wanted to be at the Hospital Wing in fifteen minutes. In truth, Remus was getting quite sloppy when it came to his little secret, but that was due to the pure obliviousness his friends had been showing.