IF THEY LIVED (Harry Potter)

28|THE MARAUDERS MAP

"Prongs," Remus managed to say as James took off his cloak of invisibility to reveal himself and a sleeping Harry. Remus seemed to be struggling to form a sentence.

 "I-I thought you didn't have the cloak..." he finally managed to say.

"Went to Dumbledore and asked him, if I could have it back," James shrugged. "So Moony, what brings you to Filch's office?"

"I was..." Remus started to speak, but decided not to continue as he saw a smirk appear on James's face.

"I knew you were going to try and get back the map eventually," James said cheekily and approached the door. He pulled out his wand and whispered: "Alohamora." They heard a click and the door unlocked itself. James looked at Remus, grinned and pushed open the door. He was so happy to have a fellow Marauder help him with this mission.

"Isn't it a bit early for Harry to be introduced to rule breaking?" Remus asked James, as the smell of fish from Filch's office reached their nostrils. James turned around to look at him.

"It is never too early for that," he said very seriously.

James entered the office very slowly and carefully. He looked around to see that it hadn't changed a bit: two walls of the room were covered with tall filing cabinets, there was a table in the middle of the room and the rest of the space was mostly filled with various boxes. He turned back to look at Remus.

"Do you think he kept all our records?" he asked nostalgically, "I remember having a whole drawer to myself."

"So did Padfoot," Remus said quietly.

"Yes," James laughed, remembering the time when they had detention together and had to sort out their drawers. He approached the filing cabinets and started looking for the letter 'P', "you and Wormtail never really reached - oh, look Moony! He kept them!"

James pulled out the entire drawer, which had been dedicated to him, and handed it to Remus, who offered him a confused expression.

"I'm making space for Harry," James explained casually. He then turned around again to face the room. He decided to try his luck and pointed his wand at the air and said: "Accio map!" 

Nothing happened. James sighed and tried performing the spell again, but with no success. He looked at Remus, who placed James' drawer on Filch's desk.

"I think we have tried that already," he said, with a sense of cheek twinkling in his voice. James offered him a 'funny, but not funny' look and approached the boxes.

"Well come on then," he said, "grab one and look through it!"

James opened the first box and stuck his head inside it, throwing out all the contents one by one, if they were not the piece of parchment he was looking for. Remus meanwhile stood at the desk and watched his friend getting obsessed over the idea of getting the map back into their possession.

"Come on Moony," James exclaimed, as he noticed that Remus was not helping him, "don't just stand there like a lemon and help me!"

"How are you so sure it's in the boxes?" Remus asked, "we have checked those boxes three times already."

"Well we probably didn't see it," James said, "in case you haven't noticed, it's not that big."

"So you don't think this piece of parchment in his drawer could be the map?" James heard the sarcasm in his friend's voice and snapped his head around to look at him. He gasped as he saw Remus standing in front of him, leaning against Filch's desk and waving the map at him. James jumped to his feet and picked up a very grumpy Harry.