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The Insulting Parchment


Over the next two weeks, the Marauders guarded the Map very carefully, finding new hiding places for it each time they left the dorms, checking back between classes to be sure Filch hadn’t raided their dormitory for it. Just as they’d suspected, Filch did indeed make them turn out their pockets every time he saw them - especially James, who he seemed to be trying to seek out about the castle for the express purpose of checking for the Map. He got more and more frustrated every time he commanded them to empty out and there was no map, only bits of chocolate bars and actual notes they’d passed about in classes and odds and ends. He got a few dungbombs off Sirius one day, but nothing was seen of the Map.

Meanwhile, the boys were practicing their skills at making insulting parchments. They’d set insulting charms on a bit of paper and carry it about, making random students command it to reveal its secrets, telling them it was a funny joke product from Zonko’s and wasn’t it brilliant how it came up with terribly insulting things?

Messer Moony recommends you run a comb through your hair!
Messer Wormtail adds that you ought to iron your clothes now and then as well, you wrinkle-robed prat.
Messer Padfoot thinks you ought to stop being a bloody git and sod off!
Messer Prongs believes you’re descended from an ogre, I mean really what IS that smell??

Each time someone tapped it, the magic worked to randomize the insult, and sometimes even personalized it for the reader…

Messer Padfoot would like Frank Longbottom to know that he looks a bit like a crane or a flamingo when he stands on one foot…

“Hey now,” Frank said, punching Sirius in the shoulder.

“It was the parchment, not me!” Sirius reminded him, though he laughed because there were times he had thought that of Frank, though he never would’ve said it outloud. “Blame Zonko!”

Of all the tests they ran - and they ran a great many before they actually set the spell on the Map itself, not wanting to do something to damage their masterpiece - the only one that didn’t work entirely on was Lily Evans.

Messer Moony thinks Lily Evans needs to stop being so quick to anger!
Messer Wormtail agrees and would like Lily Evans to know that her sass can be quite off putting at times!
Messer Padfoot think Lily Evans ought to stop butting in everywhere and mind her own business now and then!
Messer Prongs should like to add that Lily Evans smells like a lovely bouquet of roses today and hopes that she’s having a lovely one!

It seemed James's magic just didn't have it in it to insult Lily Evans.

Sirius scowled, “No, that’s not right, what’s it doing that for?” He shook the parchment out and the letters disappeared and he looked at James in disapproval, who shrugged, and shoved the parchment back across the table in the common room at Lily. “Here, give it another go.”

“What is this for again?” Lily demanded.

“It’s a prank from the joke shop. Just try to make it show you its secrets,” Sirius commanded.

The boys watched as she rolled her eyes and raised her wand, “Reveal your secrets.”

Messer Moony would appreciate it if Lily Evans would keep her prying eyes out of other people’s business.
Messer Wormtail should like to agree and remind Lily Evans that she isn’t our mum and therefore needs to stop acting like it!
Messer Padfoot cordially invites Lily Evans to bugger off.
Messer Prongs thinks Lily Evans is quite beautiful and should like to congratulate her on perfectly styling her hair today. It’s a 10, Evans. An absolute 10.

James flushed and snapped the parchment up hurriedly.

“Doesn’t work very well, does it?” Lily asked, pushing the parchment back across the table at them. “And are you sure you got this from Zonko’s? Look, it’s on James’s Gryffindor stationary…”

Sirius said, “What do you think, Evans, that we made it ourselves? Bloody hell, we aren’t geniuses. We’re barely passing our classes…” And they scurried off the four of them clutching the parchment to their dormitory.




James was just thankful to have something to distract him. Working on the Map was his main focus, and he used it to keep his mind off Maryrose Jenkins. Every time he had free time, he found his mind wandering off to her and he’d forget now and then that they’d broken up and he’d start to go over to the Hufflepuff table in the morning at breakfast, only to be caught ‘round the shoulders by Sirius or Peter, and steered away. He missed her, and his heart ached and he wished he could talk to her again. He was sorry that he’d never had those conversations with her that she’d wanted.

Of course he also knew that whatever he was going through with the break up, Maryrose was going through it ten times worse.

“I feel like I ought to send her a card or something,” James said one night, “Mum always sends people cards when they’re going through hard times. To cheer them up.”

“I don’t reckon a card from you would help her about now, mate,” Sirius said, “I think you need to leave her alone.”

James knew he was right, of course, but he felt like a miser and he was very careful to keep his eyes averted from her during the classes they had to gether - Care for Magical Creatures, Divination and, worst of all, Herbology. Professor Virdi had refused to let them switch work partners, even after James had pleadingly explained that they’d broken up and Viridi had said, “If I let every student who snogged their Herbology partner split apart when they broke up, the entire seventh year would need separate tables!” So they were forced to work together during all their Herbology classes and Maryrose’s voice shook every time she had to speak to James and he still couldn’t quite look at her, and both of their grades suffered greatly in the class as a result.

Divination class was hard for a whole other reason.

The new Divination teacher, Professor Clearwater, had turned out to be quite an interesting person, really. At first, James had really thought she was interesting. She was the daughter of a Native American Shaman, who taught divination at Ilvermorny (it had turned out that Meg Johnson actually recalled Professor Clearwater’s mum once she’d been reminded - her brother had taken the Divination course at Ilvermorny, though she’d opted out of the elective herself), and now Professor Clearwater was here in the UK and Dumbledore had asked her to fill in for the open position that Kostos Mopsus had vacated by dying.

Native American mysticism, it turned out, involved a good deal of dancing and singing and burning of sage, which made James sneeze quite a lot. And he never quite understood exactly what it was Professor Clearwater was pointing out in the tendrils of smoke that rose up from fires that she set in a great brass plate that sat in the center of the Divination room’s floor. Sirius had a bloody blast, though, jumping about around the fire as Professor Clearwater instructed them. He looked wild and insane as he did it and many of the other students whispered that Sirius Black was positively mental while they watched him at it.

“Your boyfriend looks mad,” said a Ravenclaw girl, leaning over to speak lowly to Remus.

“That’s because he is,” Remus replied solemnly.




It was that third week - just before the Full Moon - when the first big success since the appointment of Harold Minchum as Minister for Magic happened.

Remus was laying in bed on Thursday, having decided to skip breakfast because his lower back was in such a lot of pain that he could barely move, his face pressed against the pillows, whimpering in agony. He was wondering how in bloody hell he was going to get downstairs to his classes when the door of the dormitory burst opened, followed by the other three Marauders, James in the lead, waving a cpy of the Daily Prophet.

“Minchum’s going to crush him!! He’s going to crush him!” James yelled, his voice passionate, “Send the ruddy bastard to Azkaban where he belongs, let the dementors snog him wildly!”

“What’s happened?” Remus murmured, wincing as he turned his head to look at them.

“It’s brilliant, Rey,” Sirius said as he quickly perched beside Rey and started rubbing the base of his spine without saying a word. He could tell by the dried tracks on Remus’s face that he’d been crying, and Sirius started working at the knots that filled the muscles all along the back of Remus’s torso, making Remus sigh in relief as some of the pain subsided.

Peter shivered, “That auror with the mad eye -- Moody -- he’s captured Fenrir Greyback!”

“What?” Remus’s eyes widened and if his back hadn’t been such a mess, he would’ve jumped to his feet. “No way. Has he seriously?”

“He has!” Sirius said, “James, show him the photo!”

James folded back the paper and held it up for Remus to see - a wizarding photograph on the paper’s front page showed Alastor Moody gripping Fenrir Greyback’s shoulders, flanked by Gideon Prewett (who they recognized by his long ponytail) and Kingsley Shacklebolt. The headline read, WEREWOLF, KNOWN SUPPORTER OF HE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED, FENRIR GREYBACK, APPREHENDED.

Remus felt like he might cry. He’d dreamed of seeing those words on a paper since he was small and he’d heard heard the name of the man who had bitten him. He shivered and Sirius felt the tremble go through him and bent forward, laying over Remus’s back and hugging him from behind, “He’s captured, Rey, he can’t hurt you anymore.”

“I know,” Remus said as the tears started to fall and his voice went thick.

“Then why are you crying?” Sirius asked.

“Yeah, you ought to be happy!” Peter exclaimed.

“I am,” Remus said, “I’m so bloody happy!” he could barely breathe with the emotion tightening up his chest, “Oh -- this is -- thank Merlin…”

James looked at Peter in confusion.

Sirius hugged his Moony all the harder. “He has trial next month. They’ll kiss him for sure, Rey… Dumbledore and Scamander are both on the Wizengamot. They know what he did to you, you know they’ll both vote him dead. And Moody hates that chap and he’s on the Wizengamot, too, and it’s going to be okay. He can’t hurt you ever, ever again, Rey!”

Remus trembled with the relief of it.




They decided to bring the Marauder’s Map with them after classes to the Shrieking Shack on Friday, the night of the full moon. They lit the upstairs bedroom with candles and propped Remus up with a load of pillows at the desk and lay the Map before him ceremoniously, Sirius making grand music with his mouth, “DaaahH Duuuh DuUUUUHHH!” he sang as they lowered it, then all four gathered around.

“Alright. First, we need to set the insulting spell.”

One at a time, they cast the spell.

Maledicto randomus,” Moony went first.

Next was Wormtail. “Maledicto randomus.”

Maledicto randomus”,” said Padfoot, touching the parchment with his wand. He nodded to James, “Go on Prongs.”

Maledicto randomus,” Prongs said solemnly.

The map seemed to shimmer and Remus took a deep breath, “Alright. Next… we set the passwords.” He touched the parchment with his wand gently, “Celavermius en secrato,” he said.

Te parchment seemed to glisten for a moment, all the intricate lines and drawings and words and footprints and labels all seemed to lift up off the page and pool, the ink all gathered together to form a key in the center. To Lock? a spindley text asked beneath the key.

“What do we want to use to wipe the map clear?” he asked, looking up at the other three.

“How about mischief managed?” James suggested.

“Good one James,” Sirius agreed heartily.

Peter nodded.

“Alright.” Remus pressed his wand to the key. “Mischief Managed,” he announced.

The inky key spun and sank into the parchment and it was perfectly blank. They stared at the parchment, their hearts all racing, all their hard work… all the time they’d spent, all their secrets… gone. Sirius felt a bit of panic. What if they couldn’t unlock it? What if all of that was lost forever? But then Remus raised his wand again.

Revelabit en secrato….” Remus announced.

Amoment later, a keyhole appeared, like a brown stain upon the otherwise blank page, very faint. And to open? the same faint letters asked beneath the keyhole.

I solemnly swear that I am up to no good!” he declared.

The ink spread back out across the page in a burst, like a firework, swirling back to exactly where it had been before they started.

“YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!” Sirius bellowed and he leaped about the room as Remus laughed in relief and clapped eagerly.

“Mischief managed!” James announced, tapping the parchment with his wand… it went blank, the ink fading into the parchment. “I solemnly swear I am up to no good!” and it was back, fading into view again. He grinned, “Mischief managed! I solemnly swear I am up to no good! Mischief managed! I solemnly swear I am up to no good!” The ink faded in and out and in and out as he said the words, like turning on and off a light switch, their spells having worked perfectly, and their masterpiece forever protected from prying eyes.