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The Gods of Hogwarts


The only place Lily could go without hearing her name whispered along with James Potter’s that night was her dormitory, and so that’s where she was determined to stay. She set herself down on the bench by her window and braided her hair over one shoulder absently as she read her History of Magic assignment. It was after nine o’clock when there came a knock upon her door and she lowered the book to her lap. She waved her wand, “Alohamora,” she declared and the locks clicked open.

Ali Prewitt stepped inside and closed the door behind her, hurrying across the room to join Lily at the window bench. She climbed up and they sat toe-to-toe. “Missed you down in the common room,” Ali said thoughtfully.

“Sorry, I just couldn’t face them - or him, for that matter,” Lily apologized.

Ali nodded, “I understand.”

Lily sighed and slipped a marker in her book so as not to lose her place. “I shouldn’t have been so hard on poor Pandora,” she admitted, “It really does feel like everyone in the whole castle is talking about what Potter’s done. Of course, probably half of them are.”

Ali shrugged, “I mean, gossip is slow this week so it’s nice they’ve got something to talk about now, at least?”

Lily sighed.

“At least it keeps them from talking about me and Frank…” Ali murmured, blushing.

Lily looked up. “You and Frank? What about you and Frank?” Her eyes twinkled.

Ali smiled, “Well Frank stayed back from Hogsmeade on the weekend to help me with some homework and after we finished, we were talking a little bit, because we were the only ones still at Hogwarts, you know…”

Lily’s eyes went soft, “Well that was sweet of him to help you.”

Ali nodded, “Yes. Then we were talking of Quidditch and I mentioned I was thinking of having a go at one of the spots on the team this year and Frank offered to help me at practicing for try outs. So we went out on the pitch to practice a bit and it was really fun. We were laughing and really enjoying ourselves, and then when it was starting to get dark, we landed and I thanked him for everything and --” Ali’s tiny, pixie-like body shook with excitement as she blurted, “I think I fancy him!” She turned pink.

“Did he kiss you?” Lily asked, frantic.

Ali was pink, “Nooo!” she squealed.

“But you want to kiss him, don’t you?” Lily asked.

“Of course!” Ali answered, “He’s so handsome, who wouldn’t?!”

Honestly, Frank Longbottom wasn’t a standard sort of handsome, and Lily couldn’t help but think she wouldn’t have personally ever used the adjective to speak of him. He wasn’t a bad looking fellow, he was just sort of long and gangly for her taste. But it was clear by the wide-eyed twinkle on Ali’s face that she saw Frank in a whole other light.

“You must keep me updated and tell me everything,” Lily said, clutching her friend’s hands in her own. She smiled, “I’m so very happy for you.”

Ali smiled back, “I’m so very happy, too.” She searched Lily’s eyes a moment, then said, “Why did you say no to the Potter boy today?”

Lily groaned. “Aliiii,” she whined, “You know why! He’s deplorable.”

Ali shrugged, “He doesn’t seem so awful, really.”

“Not you, too,” Lily said, “I get this enough from Annalee.”

“Oh Annalee is absolutely heartbroken that he’s gone and pledged himself to you,” Ali said, “You should’ve seen her earlier, moping about like that ghost in the girl’s toilet downstairs, all weepy and pathetic.”

Lily sighed, “I told Potter Annalee liked him but he sort of ignored me.”

Ali laughed, “Well if he likes you, then of course he’s going to ignore you about Annalee!”

“He doesn’t like me,” Lily said quickly, “He’s my partner in Divination and he’s decided to be a prat about it and started teasing me. That’s all it is. James Potter doesn’t even have a heart in that chest of his to love me with; I swear it’s an empty cavity in there if you break him open. Like those chocolate Easter rabbits.”

Ali giggled.

“He’s just a bully. That whole display he did today, he was just making fun of what happened to Pandora with Xenophilius down at the Three Broomsticks is all. He knew saying he was going to marry me would turn my buttons because I’ve let it bother me in Divination when he says it.” Lily rolled her eyes, “He’s just an awful boy with a terrible sense of humor.”

Ali was smirking, “Okay.”

“He is.”

She nodded.

Lily hugged her knees to her chest and stared out the window. It was dark now, the moon painting the tree tops silver and wispy clouds moving in to give it that mysterious feeling.

“So who do you like, then?” Ali asked conversationally.

Lily shrugged. “Nobody, really.”

“Nobody at all?” Ali asked, surprised.

Lily shook her head, “Not particularly. There’s a lot of very handsome boys but there’s nobody I’m particularly into right now.”

They sat quietly, watching the clouds take over the forest, and they started talking about the quidditch try-outs and what Frank had taught Ali to prepare. Soon it was getting quite late and they had to go to bed, so they said goodnight and Ali went to her dormitory, leaving Lily quite alone in hers once more. She put her pyjamas on and crawled into bed, pulling the blankets up ‘round her chin, smiling to herself at the thought of Frank and Ali.




Meanwhile, across Gryffindor tower in their own dormitory, the Marauders were busy devising a plan to figure out more about the centaurs words and what Professor Veigler was up to with Fenrir Greyback. They were to have their first Defense Against the Dark Arts class since the incident in the woods in the morning and Sirius was insisting that they begin their investigation the next morning in class. “If we ask him questions about Defense, but make them sort of oriented to some of the questions we have, then maybe we can trick him into saying something about it,” Sirius suggested, “Sort of lead him into the topic, you know?”

“I doubt if Veigler’s stupid enough to just start chatting about his secret plans working for You-Know-Who with the whole class,” said Remus.

“Perhaps one of us hangs back and asks questions, like we did with Professor McGonagall for the information on animagi?” James suggested.

“I don’t want to be alone with Veigler!” squeaked Peter, looking at the others, “Do any of you?”

Sirius rubbed his chin, “No… Remus is right, Veigler’s too sly to be tricked into telling us students much of anything. What we really need is information about Veigler, like we need to see the stuff he’s up to. We need to know where he’s at 24-7!”

James shrugged, “We can’t keep an eye on him 24-7, mate, it’s impossible. We’ve got classes and I’ll have Quidditch soon and there’s, you know, eating and sleeping and we’ve got to finish the map…”

“Too bad we couldn’t put Veigler on the map,” said Peter.

They all looked at him.

Peter was red. “You know, like a trace…” he stammered, thinking they were looking at him thinking he was stupid.

Remus’s eyes had gone funny, sort of squinty. Then he pointed frantically to the pile of books on his desk, “Quick! Quick - someone grab that one, that old nasty looking green one… Charms For Tactical Defense!” James jumped up and rolled off the end of his bed, leaning ‘round Remus’s chair to grab the book he meant. He handed it to Remus quickly. “I was using this for looking up advanced versions of the shield charms that Flitwick was teaching us the other day,” he said, frantically flipping through the pages as James, Sirius and Peter looked on eagerly, “And I think -- let me find it here -- yes, here it is. Look.” He held the book up.

“The Homonulous charm,” read Sirius outloud, looking over the weathered old page, “Tracks movements of every person in a mapped area.” His eyes went wide. “BLOODY HELL!” he shouted, “Wait, you mean, if we cast this charm on the Marauder’s Map, we’ll be able to see where Veigler is?”

“So long as he’s in the areas we’ve mapped, yes,” Remus replied. “It’s a fairly uncomplicated spell, too,” he added, having turned the book about and reading through it. “Basically, we walk the perimeter and make the map, which we’ve largely done already, and then we cast this charm on the parchment.”

James looked at Peter, “You’re a ruddy genius!”

Peter turned red, “I thought it might be helpful,” he said.

Remus pointed at his bed, “Someone get the map. It’s under the foot of my mattress.”

James dove, somersaulting over Peter’s bed and landing on the floor by the foot of Remus’s bed, where he quickly reached under for the Marauder’s Map, the parchment was neatly folded in an intricate pattern, various floors marked on each fold to give the map an almost three dimensional sort of quality. James marvelled once more about how bloody brilliant the artwork Remus had created in the making of the map really was. Handing the map over to Remus, James hastened as the three of them crowded about the foot of James’s bed as Remus rolled over and stretched the map out.

Remus drew a deep breath. “Homonculous tabula,” he said, waving his wand in the complicated circle-swish that Charms for Tactical Defense described and bringing the point down on the map.

For a moment, they all held their breaths. It seemed as though nothing had happened. And then a small rippling circle in the ink issued from the very spot that they stood on the map… and then four little feet prints appeared, each labeled. Sirius Black, James Potter, Peter Pettigrew, Remus Lupin. And it continued to grow, adding labels as it went. Frank Longbottom. Andrew Woodhouse. Both in their dormitory, it showed, and Woodhouse was walking from his desk to his bed. As the circle widened they saw Meg Johnson and Annalee McKinnon in the common room and then there was Lily Evans in her dormitory talking to Alice Prewitt and the circle widened and widened until they saw names of Ravenclaws clustered together in Ravenclaw tower and the Hufflepuffs in their common room far below, near the kitchens Peter noticed, and the Slytherins down in the dungeons. There was Professor Flitwick in his office. Professors Veigler and Professor McGonagall were making a visit to Dumbledore’s office and indeed, even Dumbledore was on the map, pacing about before them. Professor Zosma was on the astronomy tower and Professor Viridi on the grounds by Green House 5 with Hagrid. Even Mr. Filch, who was down on the fourth floor showed, and an ickle little speck beside him wove about from side to side of the corridor was labeled Mrs. Norris.

The boys stared down at the map with wide eyes as the ripple effect reached the very edges of the parchment and the spell was complete.

“Whoa,” murmured James.

None of them could say anything else for a very long time. They just stood there about the map, staring down at it, each of them looking over the names and watching the movement for a long time as little footsteps moved about, leaving a fading trail behind each labeled dot.

Finally, Sirius looked up and he said, “You guys. This is single-handedly the most coolest thing that anybody has ever made. This map is the bloody holy grail. And we are its authors.”

Peter nodded vigorously in agreement.

Remus said, “I’m just - wow.” James let out his excitement by doing a quick run about the room, hooting and Remus pointed as the little dot labelled James Potter followed him around the room. “Look how accurate it is! It’s in real time, there’s no lag or delay. Bloody hell. This is insane.”

“Good thinking, Peter,” Sirius said.

Peter puffed up, proud of himself. Two of them had told him he’d done well now. That was twice as many of them usually did.

Remus shook his head, “Wow. Wow.” He couldn’t get over it.

Sirius pointed to Veigler’s dot up in Dumbledore’s tower. “So now we’ll always know where he’s at. We can keep checking on this 24-7. And if Veigler looks like he’s up to no good and getting into some muckery we can go track him down and see what he’s up to.”

James said, “On a slightly unrelated note, we’re sort of free to roam about wherever we like in this castle now, aren’t we? I mean… We can go anywhere we like and know exactly where Mr. Filch and Mrs. Norris are at all times.”

Sirius looked positively thrilled. “NOTHING CAN STOP US,” he declared.

“WE’RE INVINCIBLE!” cried James.

“WE’RE GODS OF HOGWARTS!” shouted Sirius.

“THEY SHALL ALL MARVEL AT US AND WONDER AT WHAT OUR SECRETS TO SUCCESS ARE!” James bellowed.

“NOBODY WILL KNOW OUR SECRETS!!” Sirius cried.

“Uh - excuse me - gods of Hogwarts?” Remus said, and they both looked at him. “You might want to keep it down before you’ve told everyone in the entire school your secrets.”

“Oh, right,” said Sirius.

“WE HAVE NO SECRETS!” James shouted for good measure, and they all laughed uproariously.