Countess

14. Not Sure if Hermione Granger or Rose Tyler...

𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘍𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘦𝘯: 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘚𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘧 𝘏𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘎𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘳 𝘙𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘛𝘺𝘭𝘦𝘳...

« 𝙼𝚊𝚐𝚗𝚞𝚜 » 

When I was sure I was far enough away from Professor Lupin and the Gryffin-dorks, I pulled the paper I'd stolen from him out to look at it; something was written on it again, but this time it wasn't insulting our potions teacher. Instead, in the same writing used by Mr. Prongs, it read: 

𝑈𝑝 𝑡𝑜 𝑛𝑜 𝑔𝑜𝑜𝑑? 

"Uh, yeah, I guess so." I suppose I should have been more cautious. The last time someone in this school started talking to an inanimate object… well, it didn't go over very well, let's put it that way. But I also really wanted to know what else this thing could do. Why did Professor Snape think it was so bad?  

Mr. Padfoot wrote to me next, followed shortly by Wormtail and Moony (seriously what was with those names?). 

YOᑌ ᕼᗩᐯᗴ TO Տᗯᗴᗩᖇ IT 

ʙᴜᴛ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴊᴜsᴛ sᴡᴇᴀʀ ɪᴛ

𝒮ℴ𝓁ℯ𝓂𝓃𝓁𝓎 𝓈𝓌ℯ𝒶𝓇 𝒾𝓉. 

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, fine, alright. I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good."

What happened next was one of the strangest things I'd ever seen at Hogwarts. The paper slowly started filling out, until every inch was covered in ink: a map of the school. Here and there, little dots were sprinkled over the parchment, labeled with the names of, what I guessed was every person in the school, including Mrs. Norris and Filch. Over the front it said: Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot & Prongs are Proud to Present the Marauders' Map, which I had, at first, accidently read as 'The Murderer's Map.'

It was a very concerning five minutes before I was finally able to understand.

"Whoa! Is this in real time?" I held the map closer to get a better look. Most people were still coming back from the Hogsmeade trip, so there were a bunch of little dots and scribbled names in one place. I spotted Foggie among them, and Tilly, according to the map, was on the move to meet her friends. I couldn't find Nina, but maybe she was hidden in the crowd somewhere. "Cool! Potentially problematic in the wrong hands, but cool!" 

I wondered what to do now that I had this "Marauders' Map." Obviously, I was meant to use it to cause trouble. But what sort of trouble would these horribly named individuals have had in mind? It sort of reminded me of something the Weasley Twins might have gotten into (who knew maybe they were two of the Marauders?), so I imagined they intended it to be used for, like, pranks and stuff. But I wasn't very good at that, so I'd have to think about it a bit. 

The map must have somehow sensed I was done with it, because the image of Hogwarts castle was replaced with the words: Mischief Managed? 

"Yeah," I said. "Mischief managed. For now at least." And just like that, it was an old, blank piece of parchment again. 

◎━━━━━━◎━━━━━━◎

The next day was pretty hectic. First off, Nina was very bad at listening to her father and kept hanging around me even though he said not to. Which was both cool and scary, because I didn't want her dad to kill me. She'd been spending most of her time with Fin Hagrid though. Apparently the Hippogriff that had broken The Rich Twit's arm had lost his trail and now he was being sentenced to death. Nina was trying her best to comfort her friend, or at the very least keep the very tall, very angry, very scary girl away from The Rich Twit, who kept running his mouth every two seconds.