The Marauders: Year Five #Wattys2017

The Password

The Password

Filch shoved James into his office roughly, his fist balled around the back of James's oxford shirt, which was messy, and he had a leaf stuck up in his hair and dirt across his face. "Out of bed after hours," he muttered, grabbing one of his offense cards from the other side of the table, and his quill, scribbling across the card with a bottle of scarlet ink, "Sneaking off into the Forbidden Forest, which is strictly off of limits..."

"Reckon that's why they call it that?" James asked. "Forbidden?"

Filch looked up at him, glaring, eyes narrow, his old jaw quivering. "Showing cheek!" he added this to the list of offenses.

"Oh come now, I'm just asking a question," James said with a chuckle. "You're really going to add cheekiness to my permanent record?"

Filch's hand shook as he wrote out the details of the card - the date and time and all - and James laughed. "Bloody hell, you're ridiculous old man."

Angry, Filch slapped the table, making James jump. "I AM NOT RIDICULOUS!" he shouted.

"Bloody hell, I'm sorry," James hadn't expected that reaction. He blinked in surprise at Filch's glaring eyes.

Then... "What is that?" Filch looked at the map James was still clutching, along with his wand.

"That? That's my wand, sir," James answered, quickly folding the map.

"No. No, that parchment. Let me see it."

"It's just a spare - notes from class - it's --"

But Filch had reached across the desk and snapped it from James's hands, laying it across the desk, his eyes widening hungrily. "It's a map!" he exclaimed, "A map of the school!" He looked up at James, his eyes very suspicious. "And - and you can see people on it!?"

James forced a laugh, "Of course not! It's a bit of rubbish from Zonko's..." James lied weakly.

Filch's finger pressed to the page, "No - look, see here, here we are! In my office! And Mrs. Norris, too! And --" A wicked grin crossed his lips and he stood up and quickly crossed the room and wrenched open the door.

Remus Lupin tumbled in, having been trying to listen through from the other side. He sprawled across the floor, having not expected the door to open then, and his wand rolled from his grasp and he looked up at Filch, red faced. "Hullo," he said lowly.

Filch grabbed him by the back of the robes, tugging him to his feet, and slammed the door shut behind him so hard the chains hanging on the walls of the caretaker's office rattled. He shoved Remus into the second chair before his desk and greedily clapped his hands, "Two of you! Two of you! Yes, yes, blimey this map does come in handy, dunnit?" He grinned down at it, "Oh the students I'll capture with it!" His eyes were bright with rapture.

James shivered. This was exactly the opposite of the purpose for the Map's creation! Their masterpiece had become a curse in the wrong hands!

Filch pushed the map aside, though, keen on filling out Remus's offense card before he studied the map too much - after all, the permanent records of his students' offenses were very important. "Out of bed after hours," he began, "Listening at doors..."

"Wait!" Remus cried.

Filch looked up.

"Prefect. I'm a prefect!"

Filch's eyes narrowed. "So what?"

"So as a prefect I'm given clearance to be in the halls if I'm doing prefect's duties and I was - I was following James Potter to catch him at his misdeeds!" Remus's voice shook with uncertainty even as he said it. He was a terrible liar. But Filch was terrible at telling when somebody was a terrible liar, so they just stared at one another for a long moment - Remus trying to keep his face straight, Filch trying to decide if Remus was lying or not...