23 February 1977. Hogwarts, Forbidden Forest.
Crouched at the foot of the majestic cypress where she and James had rendezvoused for that evening, Alya was waiting for the unfailingly late Gryffindor boy.
To beguile the wait, the girl decided to read the little book with a cerulean cover inlaid with words in the ancient language, which had been lent to her by Professor Ghalil.
As the old professor of Divination had assured her, despite the Latin title, the text appeared completely comprehensible and Alya was immediately sucked into an absorbed reading.
Among the porous pages of the ancient manuscript, illuminated by the small bubble of light emanating from her wand, Alya found many useful notions about the mysterious dream seers, the Somnia Videns, whom Ghalil had told her about months ago in his cramped office.
The girl's grey eyes were frantically devouring an important passage that explained, in archaic and complex language, how the complicated process behind the dream power of these unknown seers worked.
"An In Somniis Omnia Videns - or more vulgarly called Somnia Videns - is a 'sleeping' seer attracted by thoughts and emotions of strong impact and energy, which still wander in the reality around him. The sleeper, during sleep or in a state of semi-consciousness, is actually able to travel via his astral body to those who have given rise to such thoughts, which are then transformed into sources of energy.
The aforementioned astral body is the third of the subtle envelopes of which human beings are composed. It is the vehicle of the soul and knowledge, as well as the seat and engine of a person's feelings, desires and emotional state. The Somnia Videns possesses by nature and by birth a more developed and sensitive astral body than other individuals and is, therefore, especially susceptible to the influence of thought-currents that brush against it, and when the mind is not actively guarding it, it continually receives these stimuli from all sides and responds to them eagerly.
The Somnia Videns, through his dream-vision, can in some cases simply witness the unfolding of various events that are foreign to him. In others, however, he may not only visit places distant both in space and time, and sometimes of astonishing beauty and custodians of memories, but he may also find himself and exchange ideas with others of his kind, persons of the same power, both living and dead, who are equally awake on the astral plane in which the sleeper finds himself. He may be fortunate enough to meet those who know far more than he does, and be able to receive from them warnings or instructions; he may, on the other hand, have the privilege of helping and comforting some who are more in need than he is.
In general, he may come into contact with non-human entities of various species, with nature spirits, artificial elementals.
He will be subject to all sorts of influences, good or bad, fortifying or devastating..."
A sudden crunch made Alya's concentrated face emerge from the pages of the book.
James had finally arrived.
The girl closed the cerulean little book and slipped it inside her own school bag, along with other books she was in the habit of carrying with her at all times: a couple of Advanced Charms manuals (on the off-chance that she would need them to consult in case of need), a reading for her personal taste, so as to kill time in moments of boredom (in this case, it had been the turn of the manuscript lent to her by Ghalil) and finally the old copy of a non-magic children's tale, The Treasure Island, which Alya was very fond of, as it was linked to an important episode of her childhood.
Alya had kept that Muggle-born book since before she entered Hogwarts and never parted with it, although it was now very rare for her to read it. Besides, she had memorised every passage in the various chapters of that volume of adventure: as a young girl, she had devoured it over and over again. However, Alya had never stopped carrying it around with her, hidden in her bag among her other school books, as if it had become a precious heirloom for her to jealously guard.
When she saw the brown-haired, dishevelled Gryffindor standing in front of her, Alya rose from the cold, damp ground, greeting him with a disapproving look.
"About bloody time, Potter! Being on time is not definitely your strong suit," complained the maiden, approaching James, who shook his head sneeringly.
"Tell the truth, Black, you've been dying to see me!" he teased her, playfully.
But the girl didn't retort. In fact, Potter had hit the nail on the head. It was true that Alya was looking forward to meeting him again and, more importantly, to briefing him on the latest events she had witnessed in the Slytherin common room the night before.
Caught up in a rush of enthusiasm, Alya shook off her heavy mask of rigid haughtiness and threw herself into James' arms, kissing him ardently.
For a long, intense minute, they both enjoyed the moist contact of their lips, the sensual meeting of their tongues, which could not help but seek each other impatiently.
It was Alya who broke off the kiss, leaving James momentarily bewildered, his hands still lost in her soft raven hair.
"I have news", announced Alya, in a smiling whisper. "I'm done with Nott", she added without preamble, keeping her grey irises firmly focused on James' pointed face, to catch every single nuance of the boy's reaction.
Potter's eyes instantly lit up and his mouth widened into a victorious smile.
"Great! Good shot, Black!" he congratulated, enthusiastically. "Tell me all about it."
Alya told James about the insomnia that had struck her the night before and how it had led her to the sordid spectacle that was taking place on the wooden surface of the table in the Slytherin library.
The Gryffindor, incredulous and a little scandalised, squinted his eyes.
"By all the Pluffes! You've caught Nott together with that jolly goose Travers!" he exclaimed, with a vague hint of unease in his voice.
"Between her legs, if I have to be honest," Alya pointed out simply, embarrassing James even more.
"I knew that the common room of you Slytherins was a place of sin and perdition!" commented the Gryffindor, appealing to all his irony.
Alya glowered at him in annoyance.
"Anyway, it's a betrayal in the fullest sense of the word, and this has allowed me to leave Maynard without affecting my honour. After all, I should be grateful to Philippa for facilitating me to end the engagement", Alya observed, with icy satisfaction.
"A break-up in style", commented James sarcastically. "How did your mates take the news?"
"They don't know yet. I imagine Nott has intimated to Philippa to keep her mouth shut and is working out how to keep the matter secret for as long as possible. That would be a scandal! But someone already suspects something. Today Philippa did nothing but trot around me all day, begging for my forgiveness. Which of course I was very careful not to grant her. And it didn't go unnoticed,' Alya explained, giving herself airs of a proud noblewoman.
"You are ruthless", sneered James, amused by the whole thing.
"In a few days the news will be on everyone's lips. But I wanted to break the news to you in person. I wanted you to be the first to know." concluded Alya, shooting the Gryffindor a complicit look.
"News that makes me more than happy..." said James, drawing Alya back to him. "You know, Black, I had reached the end of my rope. I don't know how much longer I'd have been able to hold back the urge to lunge at that Nott hottie and hang him somewhere in the middle of a corridor", he admitted, with an oblique smirk.
"That would have been a very romantic gesture on your part." replied Alya in a whisper, laughing smugly as she entwined her hands behind the back of his head.
James could resist no longer and plunged into her mouth, kissing her again. He longed to savour every millimetre of those shameless lips that had not hesitated to recount every indecent detail of the betrayal he had suffered; to make his own that sharp tongue that with cold indifference had dismissed the pleas of a friend who had dared to wrong her.
James surrendered to the evidence that everything in that merciless Slytherin attracted him. Even the ruthlessness with which the girl decided who was truly worthy to become part of her life and to whom to grant the privilege of really getting to know her. A privilege that James had already realised he intensely desired. And with that desire in his body, the boy with the round glasses sank his tongue into Alya's mouth with greedy determination, hoping, at the same time, to penetrate that cryptic soul of hers unknown to most.
Above them, a silver of moonlight peeped out amidst the ink-black mantle that spread beyond the leafy treetops. A dim pale light bathed the pair, but it was more than enough for both of them to look into each other's faces.
Suddenly, Alya ended the kiss, seized by a question which had been on her mind for some time.
"Is something wrong?" asked James.
"There's something I can't explain... Tell me, Potter, how do you always know where I am?" asked Alya, with intense curiosity.
"I don't know what you mean," he tergiversed, feigning puzzlement.
"Don't play dumb!" she reprimanded him, annoyed. "You possess the uncanny ability to guess with absolute certainty where and when I am alone. It can't be a coincidence!"
"You really don't miss a thing, do you!" sneered the Gryffindor.
"Do you think you are dealing with a fool?" she scolded him, looking down on him with superiority.
"No, of course not", Potter murmured, returning her gaze with an intensity that made her glow. Alya tried not to let it show.
James was silent for a matter of seconds, looking thoughtful, as if weighing the pros and cons of what he was about to reveal.
Finally, he relented. He grabbed his school bag and began to fumble inside it.
"I won't hide the fact that I've been wanting to talk to you about this for a long time... I just didn't know if I could trust you. It's a secret, but since you haven't opened your mouth about Remus and his, shall we say - furry little problem, I'd say I can rest easy." the Gryffindor exclaimed, as he rummaged through the bag with one hand.
He pulled out a large, square sheet of parchment and with a theatrical gesture showed it to Alya, as if it were something very rare and precious.
Alya pasted her silver eyes on the porous surface of the paper, but all she saw was how worn and absolutely empty it was.
"An old clipboard parchment - are you kidding me?" she commented suspiciously and visibly disappointed.
"An old parchment!" echoed James outragedly, as if Alya had just insulted him to death. "This, dear my innocent and naive Slytherin, is much more than just a parchment. I can claim that it's my most ingenious invention!" proclaimed the Gryffindor proudly, puffing out his chest.
Alya shifted her gaze from the paper to James with an increasingly unconvinced air.
"If you say so," she mocked him haughtily.
"Just watch me!"
James gripped his wand and pointed it at the paper, brushing its pristine surface.
He cleared his throat blatantly and pronounced in a deep voice:
"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good"
Suddenly, at the point touched by James' wand, thin ink lines appeared and expanded gradually and fluidly along the paper, like long branches of a tree.
Large green words appeared in all their elegance, proclaiming:
Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs
Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers
are proud to present
THE MARAUDER'S MAP
And it was indeed a map that appeared under Alya's incredulous gaze. A map that depicted the Hogwarts castle and grounds in every detail.
But what totally captured the girl's curiosity were the numerous ink specks which hovered like ants on the paper, inside the perimeters of the school. Each of them had a small cartouche stating its name: Alya saw a dot named Regulus standing motionless in the area where the Slytherin men's dormitory was drawn; then there was the old caretaker, Mr. Filch, wandering up and down a corridor on the fourth floor; finally, Alya read her own name, next to James's, in the part of the map that depicted the Forbidden Forest, exactly where they were in physical reality.
"Amazing!" chirped Alya, with spontaneous admiration.
James in response smiled blissfully, running his hand through his unruly dark hair.
"Not bad, is it?" he gloated, growing more and more strutting.
"Don't be modest! This map is amazing!" the girl exclaimed, grabbing the paper with her tapered fingers, curving over it to study it more carefully. "It's full of advanced magic, certainly not that nonsense they teach us in class! What spells did you use to make it?" questioned Alya, her voice brimming with fervent curiosity.
"You ask too many questions, Black! Remember, a wizard never reveals his tricks!" scolded James, waving his index finger in midair.
Alya curled her mouth into a disappointed pout, but didn't insist.
"Besides, I certainly didn't create it all by myself. The basic idea was mine, yes, but we all participated: Remus, Peter, Sirius and me." pointed out Potter loyally.
"That is... Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs?"
"Exactly! Those are our code names."
"Just like real criminals!", commented Alya, sardonically.
"I prefer to refer to us more as Marauders", sneered James, proudly.
Alya shook her head, looking at him with amused condescension.
James was indeed an eccentric boy, one of a kind. The girl wondered how he could so naturally come up with such ingenious, out-of-the-ordinary ideas.
"How did you come up with such a map? It's incredible!", she asked, unable to contain herself.
James, once again, couldn't help but smile smugly. Being the centre of attention had always sent him into a swoon, all the more so if it was a cold Slytherin who was impossible to impress, like Alya Merope Black. He basked in her incredulous and admiring glances, like a thirsty man immersed in a fountain.
"If I must be honest, it wasn't a sudden idea, had overnight. I've been wanting to make a magic map ever since I was a child: it was all my mother and the stories she read to me as a child," the boy explained, as a veil of nostalgia fell swiftly over his thin face.
"I don't recall any mention of a magic map in The Tales of Beedle the Bard", pondered Alya, recalling the stories she had read during her childhood. The Tales of Beedle the Bard were known to all the full-blooded wizarding children of Britain, like her and James. Although, unlike the Gryffindor, Alya hadn't enjoyed the privilege of hearing them told by the loving voice of a caring parent. Walburga Black, cold and aloof, was certainly not the kind of mother to read bedtime stories to her children. Alya, Sirius and Regulus had been forced to read them to themselves.
For a moment, Alya found herself secretly envying Potter and his muffled childhood, full of warmth and attention; quite the opposite of what she and her siblings had experienced in Grimmauld Place number twelve, a place of iron rigour and icy discipline.
"I didn't take inspiration from a fairy tale by old Bede, actually", Potter corrected her, rousing Alya from her aseptic childhood memories. "In fact, it's not even a wizard story. You see, my mother has always had a particular fondness for Muggle markets. She finds a lot of interesting stuff there every time. When I was still a child, she had insisted that she had to find something Muggle to read to me; she wanted me to grow up with the knowledge that there was something more out of our wizarding world. One day, browsing through a stand of old used books, she found an adventure story which immediately caught her attention. It was a real children's book, not a collection of fairy tales. A pirate tale, to be exact. My mother was convinced to buy it when she saw that the main character in the story was named after me, James. James Hawkins. Although throughout the book he is always nicknamed Jim..."
Alya's heart stopped for a moment, before quickening its beat to a frenzied pace. A light bulb went on in her memory. Pirates... Jim Hawkins... She turned towards James, staring at him with wide eyes, in the grip of an emotion that was impossible for her to define.
But James took no notice, immersed as he was in his tale, filled with his happy childhood memories.
"Every night, to put me to sleep, my mother read me a chapter from the book and I dove into this strange reality, so different from my own, full of adventurous pirates, sailing ships, new worlds to discover and treasures to be found, with mysterious maps designating the place where they were hidden. And from there, slowly, the project of creating my own map came to life, describing the arcane mysteries of a place known to all - as Hogwarts. And so the Marauder's Map was born. I'd have liked to call it the Filibuster's Map, but your brother and the others know nothing about pirates, so I had to readjust the name..."
Alya's heart kept drumming so loudly that at any moment she feared it would jump out of her chest.
"You know Black, I'd like you to read it too. I'm sure you'd love it, even if it's of Muggle origin. Maybe I'll send an owl to my parents to send me the copy I have at home to lend to you... "
"No need." murmured Alya, in a slightly choked voice.
James frowned.
"Oh, come on! Open your mind a bit and..."
Alya interrupted him again, a strange expression on her face.
"You don't understand! I said I don't need to read it!" she exclaimed resolutely, as she slipped a hand into her own bag.
Alya pulled out a slightly worn-looking book, which gave the impression of having been read through countless times.
With a solemn gesture, she handed it to James.
"I know your pirate story well, Potter. It's The Treasure Island."
The Gryffindor squared her with a stupefied expression, unable to comprehend what a Muggle book was doing in the hands of that Slytherin and proud pureblood.
"And it's my favourite book", proclaimed Alya proudly, as her eyes, despite herself, grew moist with emotion.