Patrick Stump and the Flying Car Brigade

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

"What's a Marauder's Map?" I asked.

Tyler rolled his eyes. "You should know. You have it."

"I don't even know what it is!" I argued. "How could I possibly have it?"

"Have you never read the Harry Potter books?" Josh asked. "I thought those were compulsory reading material for fifth year History of Magic classes."

"I read the first one and skimmed the others," I said. "It's not fair that Professor Binns makes us read all seven books in one term, especially when so much of it is common knowledge."

"You would know this if you had read Prisoner of Azkaban," Josh said.

I was falling apart to halftime, but I had to get my friends out of the common room. None of them were supposed to be there in the first place. I was about to tell them to leave, but Tyler reached into my nightstand and took the piece of parchment that Gerard had given me out of it. "Here it is!" he exclaimed. Tyler then tapped his wand on the parchment. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

Writing began to appear of the parchment once again, and Joe, Andy, Pete, and I all looked over in awe. I got up on my tiptoes to look over Tyler's shoulder and read the curly script.

Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers, are proud to present

The Marauder's Map

Tyler then opened up the parchment, revealing a map of all of Hogwarts. The most amazing part was all of the miniscule dots moving around it, representing all of the students and professors at Hogwarts. In fact, I managed to spot Pete, Joe, Andy, Tyler, Josh, and I standing in the Hufflepuff Common Room. "Holy smokes," I whispered.

"So this is what the parchment does," Pete said. "I wish I had known this earlier."

"Me too," Joe said. "This is amazing."

"So why did you all burst into my house's common room at three o'clock in the morning?" I asked everyone.

"I was just about to explain that," Tyler said. "We're trying to get Butterbeer into the Gryffindor Common Room, and we need the map if we're going to do that."

"Why?" I asked. "Don't you know how to get from the kitchens to the Gryffindor Common Room?"

"Yes, but we're using a new method," Tyler said.

"What is it?" I asked. "Also, if this is for the Gryffindors, then why is Andy here?"

"I can answer your second question," Andy said. "I can perform a rather excellent Confundus Charm, so I get to do that if we run into Filch."

"It's really a difficult spell, so we're glad that we have Andy," Tyler said. "Anyways, we're planning to go down to the kitchens, take some Butterbeer, load it into the Flying Car..."

"Wait, you have a flying car?!" I exclaimed. "Isn't that illegal?"

"We found it in the Forbidden Forest during first year," Josh said. "It's ours now, and we fixed the invisibility booster, so we won't get caught."

"I also replaced the car radio, so now we won't have to just sit in silence!" Tyler exclaimed. "We're going to load it into the Flying Car, use the map to find the Gryffindor Common Room window, and then we'll take the Butterbeer out of the Flying Car and bring it into the common room."

"You're going to lose so many house points for this if you get caught," I said.

"Come on Patrick," Joe said. "Swear to shake it up."