The Marauders: Year Four

Weird Feelings

Weird Feelings

Sirius's plan was a simple one - once Remus calmed down and actually listened to it, even he had to agree there was very little room for error within it - and so they enacted it first thing in the morning. Sirius and Remus waited about at the end of the corridor that Filch's office was located on, pretending to be waiting for James and Peter to go down to breakfast. The story was that they'd had to go back to the Gryffindor common room for a textbook they'd forgotten... but in reality, Peter had gone to tell Peeves about the shiny clean entrance hall floor while James got into position, going the long way through the castle to hide beside a suit of armor just down the hall from Filch's office door...

Within no time at all, Peeves had mussed up the freshly cleaned floor, Filch had gone for the bucket and mop, James used Sirius's knife and an adept accio charm to collect the map and they'd all run together down to the entrance hall, ducking away from Peeves' balls of ectoplasm that he was tossing about tall over the entrance hall, much to the caretaker's dismay.

"All in all, that was one of the smoother schemes you've hatched," Remus said to Sirius solemnly. "Good job."

Sirius grinned, tucking the Map safely into his bookbag. "Well thank you, my dear Moony, and what do I get for that?" Sirius puffed his cheek out and tapped it in Remus's direction.

Turning red, Remus looked around, "We're in the Great Hall. You'll get your payment later."

"Hear that, mates," Sirius said, sitting down opposite Peter, who'd already arrived and was waiting for them with a plate full of sausages, "I'll be getting paid later so you may want to keep to the common room." He winked at James as he sat, too.

James started pulling food toward himself, "Now that we've got that taken care of, we can start worrying about the real issue. Like what Mopsus was thinking getting us off from Filch like that."

"And also how we're gonna keep a repeat of this happening again. We need to figure out a way to keep the Map a secret. Maybe smaller or - or so it self destructs or... or maybe it goes invisible so nobody that isn't meant to see it can...." He looked at Remus.

"Hang on, am I the only person in the world that can come up with spells?" Remus asked, but he was smiling even as he said it.

"You're the only one that comes up with brilliant spells," Sirius replied.

James shook his head, "I doubt there's a spell to make it invisible only to certain people..."

"It could go invisible when one of us isn't touching it," Sirius suggested. "Maybe it can tell it's us touching it somehow and it goes invisible otherwise."

"We'd lose it," James pointed out.

Peter looked up, "We could put some sort of tracking device on it."

"Or maybe the whole thing doesn't go invisible, maybe just the words, like invisible ink," Remus murmured, remembering an idea he'd had back at Christmas, when they'd received the ink from Lily.

Sirius perked up, "That would be bloody brilliant. You can do that?"

"I dunno. Maybe. I haven't researched the theory yet. But I will. After the full moon."

Next day was the full moon and Sirius gave Peter and James very strict instructions to stay in Gryffindor Tower until the other two boys got back so that nothing fishy would go on with Mopsus while they were gone. "We'll deal with him and his odd behavior when we get back - and we'll get the map fixed, too," Sirius said.