The End Of Term.
Harrison knew he jinked himself when he said he was lucky Dumbledore had been leaving him alone. The trio were walking towards the library when they very thoroughly got ambushed by Dumbledore.
"Ah, Harry, my boy!" Dumbledore's twinkling eyes found them almost immediately, and Harrison had to take a deep breath. He knew this would of happened sooner or later.
In his best fake enthusiastic voice as he could get, he said, "Morning, Sir!"
"Ah, good to see you, and Ron and Hermione as well."
"Nice to see you as well, Professor," The other two parroted, a complete utter lie.
"Where are you off to? Perhaps I shall walk with you. Wouldn't want Sirius Black to get you now, would we?" His smile was anything but comforting.
"We were heading to the library," Ron spoke up. It wasn't a total lie. They were going to the library... But only to pick up a book, they had to go to Moaning Myrtle's Bathroom to continue cleaning and brewing as soon as possible. By the end of the year, that bathroom would probably become their own private one at this rate.
They'd been using the time turner every second day to brew, for Harrison, clean and study, between all three.
The potion was about half way done. They'd could take the leaves out today, but the potion needed to be about a quarter way done. And the next part was most difficult during the potion making process.
"Ah, not too far then," His eyes twinkled disturbingly brighter, "I shall walk you there then. Tell me, how are classes?" His eyes flickered briefly to Hermione, as if expecting her to rant on about her lessons. And so, being just amazing, she did.
She ranted the entire way about Ancient Runes, Ron and Harrison saying a comment every other sentence. Dumbledore looked pleased. The journey was about twice as long as it should of been.
"Well, I shall be off then, have a good day," And with that, he left them standing at the library doors.
"Daft bloke isn't he?" Ron commented as they walked in, having waited until he had turned a corner and was out of sight.
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"Harry! You're back!" Myrtle's usual high pitched voice greeted the trio when they walked through the doors, completely ignoring the other two.
"Hello Myrtle," he greeted evenly, walking over to the window sill which the cauldron was placed on.
"So what topic did you want to cover Hermione?" Ron asked, sitting down against the sinks which covered the entrance to the Secret Chamber.
"History of Magic." She stated, "It's been so long since we have actually done any course work."
They usually covered homework in History of Magic, or whatever books they had on them.
Ron groaned, and reluctantly took out his History of Magic textbook, "Harry, you're so lucky you get to miss out on this."
Harrison, who had placed the cauldron in its usual place on the floor and began rolling up his sleeves, snorted, "I've already done the coursework study this week Ron."
"Yeah yeah yeah," He grumbled, flicking through the pages.
"Ooooh! You're doing Centaur Wars!" Myrtle giggled, half her body sticking out of the sink Ron was leaning against.
Ron, who still hadn't gotten used to Myrtle just appearing, jumped and banged his head, letting out a yelp of pain. Hermione burst out laughing.
==============
It was now two weeks before term, the first half of December having flown by. Ron and Hermione decided on staying, a mixture of the work/study-load, the potion, and not wanting Harrison to be alone.
There was a Hogsmeade weekend, in which the three needed a bit done. They all obviously had to buy presents, Harrison needed to buy a broom, in which he had completely forgotten he needed, and for some reason, Hermione wanted to buy a plant for Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. A 'thank you', apparently.
And so, Harrison found himself wandering around the school, whilst the rest of his and the upper years were at Hogsmeade.
Snow had started to fall outside, very lightly, and the castle was still and quiet compared to its usual liveliness. Until, of course, he head a faint whisper.
"Psst! Harry!"
Harrison turned to find Fred and George peering out at him from behind a statue of the humpbacked, one-eyed witch. It was actually the only statue with one eye in the entire castle. He spent most of his first year wandering around, looking for all kind of hidden corridors, or counting portraits.
"What're you two doing? Thought you'd be going to Hogsmeade?" He asked, taking a few steps towards them.
"We've come to give you a bit of festive cheer before we go," Fred stated, mock seriousness as he straightened up, "Come with us."
Harrison blinked before slowly following them into an empty classroom to the left of the statue. He gave the statue a lingering look. It was magical, but why?
He shook his head slightly. Everything in Hogwarts was at least touched with magic. Being able to feel it was a blessing and a curse, he supposed. Suspicious of bloody statues now.
George closed the door quietly, before turning and beaming at Harrison. Oh Merlin.
"Early Christmas present for you, dear ol' Harry."
"You're not gonna do some weird prank on me and turn me into a snowman, are you?"
The twins laughed, doubling over.
"No no, nothing like that," Fred denied, pausing for a moment in thought, "Good idea though..."
George cleared his throat, and Fred snapped out of his thinking, pulling something from inside his cloak the most theatrical way possible, and laid it out on a desk.
It was a large, square, very worn, black piece of parchment.
"What a gift," He drawled. Though, he supposed it was, because he could feel the magic coming off of it, familiar yet foreign in a way.
The twins gasped, "Why it is, Harold!" Harrison, actually, but close enough.
"This, Harrikins, is the secret of our successes," George said, patting the parchment as fond as he would a child.
"It's a wrench, giving it to you," Fred continued, "but we decided last night-"
"Your need's greater than ours."
"Anyway, we know it by heart-"
"We no longer have need of it."
"What's its purpose then?" Harrison asked, taking a step towards the desk to look down at it.
"Well, dear Harry, when we were little first years-" George started.
"Young, carefree, innocent-"
Harrison snorted.
"Well, more than now-"
"We upset Filch for some reason-"
"Hauled us into his office-"
"Threatened us, the usual of course-"
"We noticed this cabinet-"
"Marked as 'Confiscated and Highly Dangerous'-"
"And you know us-"
"Had to see what was going on-"
"So we set off a Dungbomb-"
"I whipped it open and grabbed...."
"The parchment?" Harrison guessed.
"Yup!" The twins agreed in unison.
"Right. Its a magical object, right? Hence the drawer. What's it do? Tell you your future or something equally ridiculous?"
"This little beauty has taught us more than the teachers combined," Fred sighed dramatically.
"Right.."
At Harrison's dubious look, George took his wand, pressed it to the parchment, and said, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
At once, thin ink lines spread across the page from where the wand was touching the page. They joined together, crisscrossed. fanned into every corner. Then, the words appeared, blooming across the top in great, curly, green words.
Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs,
Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers are proud to present
THE MARAUDERS MAP
Fred opened the parchment up a bit, revealing details of the Hogwarts castle and grounds. There were ink dots, each labelled with a name, moving through the corridors. A dot in the top left corner showed Dumbledore pacing in his study, and Mrs. Norris prowling the second floor on another. Peeves was currently in the trophy room. The map showed passages he never realised were there.
"Do these lead into-"
"Hogsmeade." Fred confirmed, tracing once that was right next to them. The one-eyed witch statue.
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Now, Harrison could of used the map to sneak into Hogsmeade. In another life, he probably did. However, here, he didn't. He was curious with the map, and spent the rest of the time people were at Hogsmeade using the map, and his cloak, to see just how well the map worked. There was a lingering thought at the back of his mind, nagging him about the four names. They sounded familiar. The last time he thought something- well someone- was familiar, it turned out his teacher was best friends with his parents and was most likely an uncle figure to him before their murder.
But, he didn't exactly want any of those kinds of discoveries again. Too much change in his opinion. So, he explored, heading to the secret passageways to see if they all felt different.
They didn't, all the magic behind them felt the same, so they were most likely done by the same person. However, he thought the one by The Whomping Willow was... strange. The map looked over 10 years old, but the tree was planted and grew during Remus' and his parents' first year at Hogwarts. So whoever these guys were, Remus might know of them. Maybe he'll ask about them.
Harrison returned back to Gryffindor Tower 18 minutes before students started filing back into the school for dinner, and decided to tell Ron and Hermione either in the library after, or in the library the next day.
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"How come Fred and George never mentioned it to me," Ron sighed, looking down at the map.
Harrison decided to tell them in the library so he could actually show them.
"This could be useful," Hermione said, opening up part of the map to reveal the 7th floor, showing a bunch of Ravenclaws going into the tower.
"You recon this is how Sirius Black is getting into the castle?" Ron asked.
"Most likely. Lupin said that The Whomping Willow was planted in his first year there, wouldn't surprise me if Black found out about it as it was growing, or even found the map itself," Harrison shrugged, stretching his arms out.
"But," he continued, "Filch knows of four already, and ones caved in. One's under a murderous tree and the other you need to break into a shop to get into. The four he knows of are most likely guarded by dementors now, if not before, because of the break in."
Hermione hummed in agreement, "Well, do you think this has the whole of Hogwarts on?"
He shook his head, "No, the Chamber isn't here, and there's a few corridors with just massive empty spaces between, so there could be hidden rooms or even hidden short-cuts these 'Marauders' didn't manage to find."
Ron hummed, "Don't stay up too late looking around at them." His face had a knowing look.
"I'll look around during Easter," He shrugged, not denying he was going to look around. It would be a very unconvincing lie.
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The last two weeks of term flew by. Everyone was too excited during lessons, and so were some of the teachers, so everyone was able to slack off a bit. The school was decorated on the last week of term, and the snow began to intensify, the castle grew colder and the torches were now permanently lit everywhere.
Crookshanks continued hunting Scabbers. Harrison honestly felt bad for the poor cat, and was tempted to buy another one for him to eat. Scabbers just wouldn't die.
Ron had actually picked the rat up and given him to Crookshanks at one point, but the rat made a surprisingly quick getaway. This made Crookshanks angry, and he swiped at Ron. He now had a cut on his cheek.
"Animals are odd."