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Can’t Find the Map


MINISTRY OFFICIALS ISSUE CALL FOR COUNTRY-WIDE REGISTRATION OF WIZARDING FAMILIES OF MUGGLE AND HALF-BLOOD HERITAGE
Standing Minister for Magic, Bartemius Crouch has pushed the bill for the registration of all muggle-born wizarding families in the United Kingdom. Muggle-born witches and wizards will be required to appear at the Ministry for Magic in London, or to one of the thirteen designated Registration Offices throughout the country, to present and register their wands.
A mandate has been issued as well, giving Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry no less than fifteen days to present the Ministry of Magic with a full record of the registration of students currently attending Hogwarts, including all applicable information about the witch or wizard’s wand.
The Registration shall begin promptly at 7h, on 1 May, 1976, and run through 20h, 31 May. Any witches and wizards that are not registered by 20h on 31 May will be issued a penalty of a minimum fine of 1000 galleons and a maximum of up to five years in Azkaban Prison, regardless of circumstance. Muggle-born witches and wizards of all ages and nationalities, races, and religions are required to register. The Registration, Crouch assures us, is for safety of the families, and should not be looked at as an attack against their heritage, but rather an opportunity to be welcomed into the wizarding world. Pamphlets with further information about the registration can be obtained by owl to the Ministry of Magic, Muggle Registrations Office.


James stared at the paper in disbelief.

“How can he say that! How can he say it’s not an attack against my heritage!?” Lily Evans was spitting angry, reading the paper over James’s shoulder. She had tears in her eyes. “It is an attack on my heritage, otherwise they’d have registered wizarding families too.”

Remus looked sick across the table, too, having already read the the article while James was paying for the paper. “This isn’t good. Something’s happened to make them expedite it.”

“There wasn’t anything in the paper that would’ve done,” James said, “There hasn’t been much of anything in the paper as far as attacks go lately, though…” he realised it as he’d said it and he looked at the others with a nervous expression. “You lot… you lot don’t reckon there’s a reason for it, do you?”

They shrugged.

James decided, “I’m going to write my Dad. See what’s going on, see if there’s something the Prophet isn’t reporting about.”

Sirius looked across the Hall to the staff table, where Fabian and Gideon Prewett were talking to Dumbledore, leaning over the table, one on each side of his chair, looking at the papers. “We could ask the Prewetts,” Sirius pointed out.

“Yeah,” James nodded. But he’d realised something in the seconds since he’d said he was going to write to Charlus… he’d written his father over a week prior and not yet received a reply. Usually, Charlus was rather prompt with his owls, and always wrote James at least once a week anyway.

Probably just busy, he told himself.

But he could still see Dora’s pale face, back at holiday, when she’d pulled him aside in the kitchen and told him in a whispered conversation - punctuated by Charlus’s coughing upstairs - that she was worried…

James said, “I’m still gonna write my dad.”

Lily had taken the paper and was staring at it still and tears in her eyes. “I’m scared,” she said.

James started to put his arm around her, but before he could, she moved, putting the paper down, and said, “I’ve got to go and talk to the first years about this. They’re so young, they won’t understand. They’ll be frightened. Remus, can you help me, please?” Remus nodded and got up from the other side of the table, and he and Lily went to talk to the first years.

James took up the paper and folded it down, and as he did, he spotted a small article in the corner of the front page.


AUROR ALASTOR MOODY SET ON ADDITIONAL MONTH OF MEDICAL LEAVE TO RECOVER AFTER SEVERE BURNS IN HOUSE FIRE
The auror Alastor Moody, currently on medical leave following the incident which took his leg at the Ministry in January, is now recovering from the house fire that nearly killed him during the night on 14 April. Moody is expected to make a full recovery following skin treatment at St. Mungo’s, but has been given an additional month of Medical Leave from his position at the Ministry for Magic.


James frowned, “Poor Mad-Eye, he’s had a tough year.”

“What’s happened to him now?” Sirius asked.

“House fire, he got burned, nearly died, apparently.” James’s eyes flicked over the text. “On the full moon night.”

“Bummer,” Sirius said. “Poor bloke. So much for constant vigilance.”




That afternoon, James drafted a letter to Charlus and Dora Potter and sent it off from Hogwarts tied to Bubo’s leg, watching her as she flew out of the owlery.

Peter had gone for the walk out to the owlery with James and he stood feeding a school owl some treats - it was a small owl that he’d found, one he suspected didn’t get a lot of attention because of how the poor thing had set herself alone in the corner and he had spent the entire time James wrote his letter to stroke her feathers and sneak her nuts so the other owls wouldn’t try to steal away the attention she was getting. She clicked her beat appreciatively ‘round his fingers before he left to follow James back to the Gryffindor dormitory.

When they got there it was to find Sirius tearing apart the dormitory.

“What are you doing?” James asked, ducking as Sirius chucked a textbook over his shoulder. He was digging beneath James’s bed.

“The Map,” Sirius said, “I can’t find the Map.”

“What do you need the Map for?”

“Well originally I was looking to see where you two were, but now I just can’t find it.”

“Well it has to be somewhere in here… Who had it last?” James asked.

“Remus says you did,” Sirius replied.

James shook his head, “No I didn’t. You did last I knew, I had it to watch Evans at Valentine’s.”

“Yes, then Remus had it, then I had it, then you and Pete had it for the Full Moon.”

“And you had it for yours and Frank’s little adventure to put the damned measuring stick on the spire,” James said in an accusatory tone.

“But then you took it to watch Evans again.”

“I didn’t. I don’t just sit about watching Evans move about the Map like you seem to think I do.”

Peter squeaked, “Sometimes you do.”

“I don’t -- and I didn’t. I didn’t have the Map last.”

“Well somebody has misplaced it then, unless you reckon bleedin’ Peeves came in here and took it himself,” Sirius snapped sarcastically.

“You know that’s impossible,” James replied.

“More or less impossible than you having been the one to have lost it?” Sirius pressed.

“I told you I didn’t have it last, for Merlin’s sake.”

Peter sighed and climbed onto his bed and reached underneath for a bar of Honeydukes as they fought and he sat munching the candy, staring nervously over at them as their faces got redder and redder the more they argued about which of them had last had the Marauder’s Map and where each of them might have put it.

“Well when we do find it, you can shove it up your ass if you can find any space beside the great stick you’ve got up there already!” Sirius shouted.

“Use it to go to the toilet so you can shave the hair across your own!” James yelled back.

Sirius’s face was red, “I’ll bleedin’ use it to know where you are, so I can fucking avoid being around you!!”

“Please do, you insufferable arsehole!” James shouted. Then he paused, the anger melting off his face. “Wait. It’s in the pocket of the invisibility cloak, you’re right, I did use it last. I went to the Trophy Room Passageway to see if my favorite jumper was there, but it wasn’t and I put the map in the pocket on the cloak. So look there.”

The anger melted off Sirius’s face, too, and he said, “I told you that you had it last, you git.”

James pushed open the lid of his trunk and bent down, pushing aside his quidditch gear and old textbooks, a few broken quills, a couple extra pairs of trousers, his socks… loads of socks, mostly dirty single ones whose mates were long missing… “Where’s the cloak?”

“Dunno, where’d you put it?”

“In here, I always put it in here,” James answered. “I always fold it and put it in here. I mean you never fold it and put it away --”

“I always drape it over your bedpost, though,” Sirius said.

“Well obviously I wasn’t the last one to use it.”

“You’ve only just decided you were!”

“But if I had been, I would have folded it and put it in the trunk!”

Peter chomped even harder on the candy bar.

“Obviously not, as it’s not there,” Sirius hissed through grit teeth.

“No. Obviously I was not the last person to use it,” James said.

The door opened and Remus came in, carrying a load of books in his arms, just coming from the homework table in the common room. He kicked the door shut behind himself and put the books down on the desk.

“Why are you so fucking stubborn? You always have to be right, even when you’re wrong, you fucking twatwaffle!”

“I always have to be right? What are you on about? You always have to be right. And ninety-nine percent of the time, you are wrong! Yet we all humor your sorry arse about it and go along with you because you’re too blasted stupid to figure out that you’re wrong!”

Remus looked at Peter, “What’d I miss?”

“Looking for the Marauder’s Map; James had it last, put it in the invisibility cloak’s pocket and now the invisibility cloak’s missing and neither of them want to admit to being the last one to have it,” Peter answered.

Remus shook his head, unbuttoning his cardigan.

“You would’ve known if I had it, because I would have asked to use it!” Sirius shouted.

“Bullshit!” James cried, “You take my stuff all the time.”

“I DON’T JUST TAKE YOUR STUFF WITHOUT ASKING YOU FIRST!” Sirius shouted.

“YOU NEVER ASK!”

“NAME ONE TIME!”

Remus shrugged his cardigan off and started changing into his pyjamas, half watching the fight from his trunk, frowning.

“Full moon night, hanging a duvet on the spire with Evans. My broom was used, was it not? DID YOU ASK ME ABOUT THAT?”

“You weren’t here to ask.”

“Okay but you take things without asking that’s the point.”

“I was drunk.”

“You’re always drunk!”

“I am not.”

“Yeah you are! So you could’ve taken it any of the times you’ve been drunk.”

“I wouldn’t take the invisibility cloak when I was drunk! I’m not that smart when I’m drunk!”

Peter wrung his hands.

“You aren’t that smart when you’re sober, either,” James said.

“Fuck you!” Sirius announced.

“No fuck you,” James replied.

“Fuck you rather!” Sirius’s shouted.

“Fuck yourself!” James answered, matching Sirius’s volume.

“FUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOU!” Sirius sang like he was in a Broadway play and he did jazz hands and the whole bit.

“Ooookay, that’s enough,” Remus said, breaking in and holding up his hands to cover both of their mouths before they could continue on with the theatrical fuck yous. “Regardless of who had it last, the thing is missing, so let’s think of places it could be in.”

“It’s up his arse with the aforementioned stick,” Sirius said into Remus’s hand, his voice muffled.

“Fuck you,” James said.

Remus sighed, “Seriously guys? Enough.”

Peter nodded, “Yes, shut up with the fighting.”

“Let’s make a list of places it could be and we’ll look for it. It can’t have left the castle, and there’s only so many places we could’ve left it, so c’mon. We’ll find it, we just need to be practical about it.” Remus went for a bit of parchment.

Sirius glared at James.

James glared back.




Upstairs in the first year dormitory, meanwhile, Dexter was staring in wide-eyed disbelief as Wally’s disembodied head floated about the room as he tried on the invisibility cloak, laughing at the expression on Dexter’s face. “Whoaaaaa,” whispered Dexter.