Chapter Text
“Hey Harry-”
“We know you’ve been down lately-”
“And we have a proposition.”
Harry looks up, staring at the twins with narrowed eyes. They’re wearing matching impish grins, as per usual, but there's a shrewd glint in their eyes as well- Harry is instantly on guard, but he’s intrigued too.
“I’m listening,” he says.
Apparently, that’s all the twins needed- they each grab an arm and hoist him out of his chair, pulling him behind them until they’re safely ensconced in what seems to be a secret room hidden behind a tapestry.
“Guys,” Harry says, taking a couple deep breaths to calm his racing heart. “No touching, remember?”
“Shit, sorry-”
“We got excited.”
To their credit, the twins look genuinely chagrined.
“Don’t worry about it,” Harry says, waving them off. “What’s your proposition?”
The grins are back. With a flourish, Fred pulls out a… tattered piece of paper.
“What is it?” Harry asks, eyeing the paper with some trepidation.
“It’s an incredible work of art, the likes of which you’ve never seen before.” Fred says, looking at the parchment with a fond expression on his face.
“It’s our most prized possession- and after careful consideration and much deliberation, we thought we’d lend it out to you this year.” George says, eyes twinkling.
“What’s the catch?” Harry asks, raising an eyebrow and leaning back against the wall.
“Not a catch, per-se-”
“We just wanted to know what you could lend us in return.”
“I’m going to need to know what it does first,” Harry counters.
“Of course,” George says, smoothly procuring his wand from out of nowhere and tapping it up to the parchment. Harry watches, bemused, as George says, “I solemnly swear I’m up to no good.”
Bemusement turns to awe as ink spreads across the paper, in thin spidery lines. Harry watches as words form across the page: ‘Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs; Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers, are proud to present: THE MARAUDER'S MAP’
“Woah,” Harry says, but they’re not done yet.
Fred wordlessly unfolds the pages, revealing- Harry’s jaw drops and he grabs for the paper, holding it up to his face.
“Is this- is this a real-time map of Hogwarts?”
“That it is, little brother,” George says, lips twitching in a grin.
“Secret passages and all,” Fred adds, pointing to a little star, labeled: ‘Hag’s Hogsmeade Hallway’.
“This- this is amazing!” Harry says, pushing his glasses up his nose and peering even closer at it. Then he looks up at the twins. “It also explains, like, so many things.”
George shrugs, unperturbed. “Many things, maybe- but not all.”
“Where’d you get it?” Harry asks.
Fred pulls the paper from Harry’s hands. “That kind of information is classified.”
“Nicked it from Filch’s office,” George says at the same time.
Fred elbows him and without missing a beat George repeats, "that kind of information is classified."
“Well? Are you interested?” Fred asks, holding the map up enticingly.
Harry considers it. On the one hand- who is he kidding, of course he’s interested. The secret passageways alone make it worth it. Not to mention, the map might be able to warn Harry of Sirius Black, should he try something like Halloween again.
“What do you want for it?” Harry asks.
“Invisibility cloak,” the twins say at the same time.
“Absolutely not,” Harry responds immediately.
Not only is that cloak one of the only things he has left of his dad, there’s something inside him that tells him that giving the cloak away, even on a temporary basis, is wrong.
The twins look at Harry consideringly.
“You’re welcome to try and offer us something else,” George starts.
“But this map is sort of a big deal to us- so it’d better be good,” Fred finishes.
Harry furrows his brow, thinking hard. He doesn’t own a whole lot of things- maybe if he’d made Dumbledore let him keep the sword of Gryffindor… Well, no, he doesn’t think the twins want a sword. But they might want…
“Ah!” Harry says, standing up straight. “I have just the thing, hold on-”
The twins watch, amused, as Harry digs his hand into one of the inner pockets he’d sewed onto his robe- Harry has a couple things he doesn’t dare leave in the dorms, and this is one of those things.
(The extra pockets trick is one he’d learned several years back, after Petunia had had him do a couple big sewing projects. He’d used the extra scraps to sew pockets into his clothes, so he could squirrel food and assorted knick-knacks away. It’s come in handy to hide things here at Hogwarts too- in Harry’s experience, wizards don’t usually look for muggle explanations for things.)
“Here you go,” Harry says, tossing his prize over at the twins. Fred catches it, and looks down with a puzzled expression.
“A rock?”
“It glows,” Harry points out, feeling a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“What else does it do? Because if that's all, we can tell you right now that that’s not going to cut it.”
“Nothing much,” Harry shrugs. "The glowing is kind of the main selling point."
The twins look at him, expressions flat and unimpressed.
“Well that and,” Harry continues, gesturing at the glowing rock, “a couple other, fairly minor things. It's called the Philosopher’s Stone, ever heard of it?”
Fred and George stare down at the rock for a long moment.
“Ah,” George says. His voice sounds a bit strangled.
“Huh,” Fred says. His eyes are gleaming.
Then they look at each other, and back to Harry.
“This’ll work,” they say simultaneously.
Harry smiles brightly. “I thought it might.”
“Here,” Fred says, going to hand the map over to Harry. As he does, the corner of it brushes up against the rock he’s holding in his other hand.
“Thanks,” Harry says, going to grab the parchment. His hand has barely closed around it when the map suddenly starts glowing a bright red- not unlike the stone itself.
Harry and Fred drop the map at the same time, and all three find themselves leaping away from it as the glow becomes more and more intense. It’s so bright that Harry is surprised it hasn’t lit itself on fire when, with a loud cracking sound, the glow stops.
Harry blinks, trying to clear away the afterimage from his retinas.
“Ow,” says a voice. “What happened?”
“Did something go wrong?” asks another.
“No way, we triple-checked our math,” says a third.
“Should have gone for a fourth,” says the final, shakiest voice.
Harry’s vision has cleared enough to see the room again, but he rubs his eyes anyways, unable to believe what it is he’s seeing.
There, in the middle of the room, where the map (now nowhere to be seen) had fallen, are four boys- all in various heaps on the ground. They look to be only a couple years older than Harry.
Harry watches, frozen in place, as the four struggle to their feet.
One is sandy-haired, pink-skinned, and has a round face. Another has long black curling hair, skin a shade too dark to be a suntan, and aristocratic features. The third is lanky, pale, and covered in scars. The final boy, the one who first spoke- with his dark skin, wild hair, and crooked glasses- is the spitting image of Harry himself.
Harry finds himself completely speechless as he stares right into the hazel eyes of James Potter.
“Oh,” James says, running his hand through his hair and smiling widely at Harry. “Hello there- sorry, didn’t mean to drop in on you like this.”
The other three boys are staring, wide-eyed, at the two. Harry distantly registers that the twins are in the corner, whispering furiously. Fred is gesturing wildly with the rock still in his hand.
“Hang on-” James says, taking another look at Harry. He reaches up and adjusts his glasses. Then he turns to the other three boys. “Lads, are you seeing this? Uncanny, right?”
The three nod in tandem.
James turns back to look at Harry, shaking his head in amazement. “You are the spitting image of this girl I know- say, you related to a Lily?”
One of the boys, the scarred one, smacks his forehead. The other two burst into laughter- it sounds a bit hysterical.
“What did I say? You see it too, right?”
Harry is feeling light-headed. He thinks he might be on the verge of a panic attack.
“Oh, hey,” James says, suddenly right next to Harry. “You don’t look so good- here, let’s…”
James grabs Harry’s shoulders, gently guiding him down to the floor. The sudden contact is too much for Harry, and the panic attack he’s been trying desperately to stave off finally gets the upper hand.
“Ah, shit,” James says, stepping back a bit.
The other three mysterious boys have made their way over to where Harry is now sitting with his head between his knees. They look worried- and Harry needs them to back the fuck off. They’re much, much too close, and looming in a way that has Harry’s heart trying to jump out of his chest.
Suddenly, blessedly, the twins are right there. George has placed himself in between Harry and the other four, and Fred is crouched near Harry.
“Breathe with me, Harry-” Fred says, face pale and drawn. He takes in a deep breath, holds it, and then lets it out again.
It takes a couple repetitions, but Harry manages to catch up with Fred’s breathing. As he breathes, Harry tunes back into what the others are saying.
“Is he alright?” James asks, nervously.
“Um, no, obviously not,” the black-haired one says. He strikes Harry as familiar for some reason, but he has more important things to do right now then place him. “Your ugly mug probably scared him to death.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” the sandy-haired one points out. “They have the same face.”
“Don’t kid, Wormy- we look nothing alike,” James says, shooting a glare at ‘Wormy’.
The scarred one (who looks even more familiar than the black-haired one- where has Harry seen him before?) is folding his arms in front of him. He’s shaking, and his eyes are… golden?
Harry blinks. This year is just full of werewolves.
Hold up.
“Lupin?” Harry asks.
The boy- and he is Lupin, no doubt about it, turns his gaze on Harry. Harry thinks he’d be scared if he wasn’t already maxed out on that particular emotion- he can almost see the wolf pacing behind Lupin’s eyes.
“Yes,” Lupin says tightly.
“How about,” the black-haired one says, shooting Lupin a concerned glance, “we sit down and figure out what’s happening.”
“Uh,” George says. “No need- we know what’s happening.”
Harry, Lupin, James, and the other two turn to look at George.
“We do?” Fred asks, confused, going to stand up and give Harry some space, which he distantly appreciates.
“I have a pretty good idea,” George amends.
Harry blinks again, still reeling from everything that’s going on. However, he does know one thing- everyone here is much too tall, and they need to stop looming.
“I second the sitting idea,” Harry decides, still feeling a bit detached from reality.
Harry is suddenly on the receiving end of six worried looks. On the bright side, everyone does go to sit down.
“Well? What’s the theory?” the black-haired one says after they’ve all arranged themselves in a rough circle.
“Padfoot,” James says, shaking his head. “Where are your manners? We ought to introduce ourselves.”
Then, he turns to Fred, George, and Harry and with a dramatic flourish, says, “the Marauders, at your service.”