JPATNM ~ Chapter 13: In Which Hidden Things Are Dug Up in the Burrow

Don’t trust anyone over 30.

- Pat Boone

Chapter 13:

In Which Hidden Things Are Dug Up in the Burrow

~ James ~

Besides the fact that Teddy had not joined them at the Burrow, this was the best part of James’s holidays. Endless hours of plotting and scheming with Fred, consuming endless quantities of Grandma Molly’s cooking and Quidditch in the snow against the rest of the family. It was pure bliss.

“We need to find it,” James insisted, tapping his finger on the notebook. On the page he had drawn a square with dashed lines and an X, to symbolise the Marauder’s Map.

“But we have looked everywhere we could think of!” Fred complained. He wanted it equally as much, but that subject was old as dust. The Map was hidden better than Rowenna Ravenclaw’s diadem. “Maybe they hid it in a vault in Gringotts, with a dragon and an army of Cornwall pixies guarding it,” he offered.

“I hope not. It sounds a bit farfetched though. It is just a map after all.”

Fred raised his arms in defeat. “I’m open to suggestions then!”

James glared at him. “I’m thinking, alright?”

Things had gotten better between them. James’s anger about Fred’s past unkind remark had been quelled and adding to the fact that Albus had forgiven Fred… he wanted his friend back and after all this time, he only needed the slightest excuse to accept his apology. The silent agreement of never speaking of the events of that night again hung in the air between them.

“Where would I be, if I were a magical map that has been used by the most notorious pranksters to ever set foot on our school?”

“After us,” Fred corrected.

“After us,” James agreed.

They were in Fred’s room, at the Burrow. Uncle George and Aunt Angelica lived there with their two children together with their grandparents. How Grandma Molly could stand having the most impish of all her sons under the same roof all year round, was something James could not understand.

“If I were a magical map…” he continued. “I would be someplace out of reach from the likes of you and me.”

“That’s quite obvious.”

“So what if your Dad had it instead? To keep it so I wouldn’t find it?” James asked. He already knew it wasn’t any of the probable, or in some highly improbable, hiding spots of 12 Grimmauld Place, since he turned the house upside down for one more time the day after Christmas.

“And who would keep it so I wouldn’t find it?”

James nodded miserably. “How about Grandma Molly’s room? Maybe they’d think we’d be afraid to look there; Grandma Molly would be scary as Cemola if she found us snooping around.”

“If you thought it, they thought it. Can’t be this.”

He sighed. “If that’s the case, it will be nearly impossible to find it.”

“I’m afraid that was the point,” Fred retorted. He fell back on his bed disappointed.

James’s eyes grew huge as an idea came to him. He scrambled to his feet and snapped the door open, nearly hanging over the wooden railing of the Burrow’s unusual staircase. “Lils! Lils!” he called down. His sister’s head peeked out from two levels below. “Come here for a sec.”

She crossed her arms in front of her chest and looked at him seriously. “I will. But if you even think of doing anything to my hair, James, you’ll regret it. Grandma just braided it for me.”

He nodded solemnly. “I wouldn’t dream of ruining your hair. Now come.”

Lily joined them, her eyes darting from her brother to her cousin as they led her in, suspiciously welcoming. They urged her to sit on the bed next to Fred. “We have an important question for you. We want the first thing that comes to your mind.”

She nodded. “So,” James said. “If you wanted to hide something from our reach, where would you put it?”

She frowned. “There are too many places in the world. It’s a difficult question.”

“What if we narrowed it down? Home or here?” James urged.

“Easy. Here. You spend less time here and you’ve searched every nook and cranny of our home anyway.”

Fred nodded approvingly. “But I live here. So isn’t it the same thing?” he asked.

“Not quite. If I really didn’t want you to find it, I would go for Mom’s old bedroom. It holds no interest to you two whatsoever, nobody sleeps in it anymore and it isn’t suspicious either.” The boys looked at each other. This could be it! They didn’t have to speak out the words, they thought the same thing.

James grabbed his sister and kissed her cheek. “You’re a genius, Lils! Definitely Ravenclaw material!” He let her go as suddenly as he had hugged her and with Fred on his heels, he stomped down the stairs. His fingers itched when they reached for the doorknob. “Maybe we should wait. Go in the middle of the night?”

“And do what until then?”

“Go sit down and act inconspicuously?” he offered.

Fred shook his head. “There is nothing more suspicious than the two of us not acting suspiciously.”

“You’re right. Let’s go now.” He turned the doorknob and the door gave in.

“It is a fact that I have never gone in Aunt Ginny’s bedroom. But I’m surprised Lily had noticed that.” Fred looked around curiously. He hadn’t even wondered how Ginny had decorated her room as a teenager.

“I think it’s just because she is here a lot. That’s how she knows we are not,” James explained.

“Where do we start looking?” Fred took out his wand, apparently considering which spell would remove everything from the shelves faster.

“Put that in. We need to be subtle. If we don’t find it, we don’t want them to suspect we searched and move it, or then we’ll have to start all over. We’re right on top of the kitchen, so be quiet.”

James calculated the possibilities. The room was small, but there were plenty of places to check, cupboards and shelves, drawers beneath the bed and on the nightstand, as well as a closet, of which the upper section was shaped like a frowning face. He hoped it wasn’t a talking wardrobe, because that could get them in a lot of trouble. The window over the bed had a great view of the orchard, completely covered in snow, where they had played Quidditch. The walls were a shade of pink that James found somewhat nauseating, but the posters of Gwenog Jones, a former Beater and Captain for the Holyhead Harpies and another of the Weird Sisters, made it slightly better.

Fred took the drawers beneath the bed, where he chuckled at the sight of old panties with hearts and pajamas with kittens, while James pulled out books and flipped the pages one by one. Sometimes old notes exchanged with classmates came out the pages, but nothing that resembled a map.

“Are we sure it will look like a map? For all we know, it could be in a picture frame.”

“The map doesn’t reveal itself to everyone. So it might just look like a piece of paper.” James said.

“But I’ve ignored a bunch of pieces of paper already!” Fred exclaimed.

“A big piece of paper, I expect. Folded many times perhaps. It can’t be too small if it has all of Hogwarts on it.”

“Oh, the ones I’ve seen were little snippets. We’re good,” said Fred in relief.

“But that frame idea could be good. Hiding it in plain sight. Quite crafty; I’d expect it from someone who has lived with me as long as Mum and Dad.” He placed the book in his hand back and began investigating the picture frames on them. Family pictures since Uncle Fred was still alive, with Charlie and Bill before they graduated and his Mum being still a toddler, one of the students of Dumbledore’s army and one more of Ginny and Harry after they graduated, but before getting married. He removed them from the frames and checked the back, in case something else was hidden behind them. “Nothing.”

Something jingled from Fred’s side. “Do you think it could fit in a jewelry box?”

“Not really. But check, you never know.”

Music came from the jewelry box as Fred cracked it open. A winged pixie was glued inside, frozen but its eyes flicking left and right, a sign she was real and spun in slow circles. “Cool! How do you think it stays that way?” Fred wondered.

James stopped to watch at the pixie. “No idea. But now is not the time.” He snapped out of the trance he had sunk into and returned to searching beneath the desk, for anything taped to its bottom. “I think it kind of hypnotizes you if you stare for too long. Stop looking at it, Fred.”

Fred shut it and looked on the outside. “There’s a dedication. Uncle Charlie sent it to her from Romania. Cool, I’ll ask him to find me one!”

“A jewelry box?” James shot back, disgusted. “What are you, some little ninny?”

“C’mon, it is cool, even if it’s a girly object! Actually I just want the petrified pixie. Do you think they sell those on their own?”

“You can ask him, after we find the map!” James let out a frustrated breath and slumped on the chair. “This is too difficult. Let’s look underneath the carpet.” They lifted it together and discovered all kinds of forgotten filth underneath, but no map. They sat back to back on the carpet, on the verge of admitting defeat. James stared at the door, while Fred faced the window. “This is so disheartening.”

“Tell me about it. And I think I’m traumatized for life! I most certainly did not need to see what kind of panties your mum used to wear!”

“Nobody told you to start from there!”

“Well, excuse me I wouldn’t guess girls put their underwear in their bed drawers! I always put mine in my wardrobe!”

James rolled his eyes. He could not believe they were having a discussion about Fred’s and Mom’s undies. He looked at a little frame hanging at the back of the door. Something was written in little calligraphic letters and there was Hogwarts’s crest printed at the top of the page. As he stood up to investigate, Fred fell back, having lost support. He sounded like a sack of potatoes as he hit the floor.

A strange chuckle shook the bedroom whole. It was followed by a soft “Mmmmm…” and more chuckling. James turned around, flicking his head right and left, searching whom the voice belonged to. It wasn’t Fred. It was a woman’s voice, with quite a lot of bass in it, unlike any he recognized.

“It’s the closet!” Fred whispered, pointing at it.

James took a step back, to look at the closet closer. Its wooden eyes stared back at James’s blue ones, blinking a few times. “My, my, you’ve got the exact same eyes!”

“With whom?” he asked.

“Ginny of course! The other two don’t. One has the voice, the other the hair. None the eyes.” The closet’s wooden lips moved in perfect sync with the sound coming out. Just how was it, that Ginny had never mentioned she used to have a talking closet?

“Thank you,” James said. “What were you laughing about?” The closet knew something. And it liked James’s eyes, so it might be willing to help.

The closet squeaked, as if in complain, and its doors snapped open, giving a glimpse of Ginny’s collection of Hogwarts uniforms and old cloaks. “Why, the map of course!”

“I don’t see a map.” James looked around, somewhat theatrically, looking even more frustrated than he actually was. He had a feeling he could make use of the closet if it felt enough pity for his situation.

The closet squeaked and grunted something to itself and rattled her drawers some. Then she began to hum impatiently.

"Good gracious, those children are so dense!

Apparently they have no common sense!" she cried.

"For this I'll try to give you a hint,

And if you find it on your own I'll bear no guilt,

But this and no more expect from me,

For I'm just a closet made out of a cherry tree!"

James rolled his eyes. The closet said all this willingly, although none made much sense.

"So listen now and listen well,

Because these words only once will be said,

You're seeking left, you're seeking right,

But you are missing what's before your eye!

To find the object of mischief you're yearning for,

You may look in the right direction,

But you look down when it is up,

And you look for white when it is black!"

"If the map has turned black, how would we read it?" Fred complained, his eyes desperate.

James shrugged, trying not to forget the things he had heard so far.

"Oh, heavens, the boys don't get the gist of it,

The metaphor embedded and the mystery!"

"She sounds surprisingly like the Sorting Hat," James commented with a grin.

"Focus, James, she said it is not literal!"

"You're not listening and you'll regret,

The chance you had and have misspent,

So now, the object that you seek,

Is not square and does not gleam.

Errata on it you shan't find,

Only accomplishments of witches' time!"

James skipped to the bookcase, certain he knew where it was. He scanned the spines of the books, until he found a book about magical history. It fit the description perfectly. It spoke of accomplishments of witches’ time alright.

"Oh, you are running out of time,

Think hard, think right!"

"I'm on the verge of calling Lily," James said with a sigh and fell on the bed. The book bounced on the mattress, splaying itself lifelessly on the patchwork quilt.

“There was a thought,

A while before,

Quite right,

But if you stall it will be night,

You know already how this will be,

If you don’t find it long after New Year’s Eve!”

“So we have thought of that place…” James mused. “We just didn’t look hard enough.”

“Could she mean it’s under your mum’s undies?” Fred asked, horrified.

James rolled his eyes. “I think not!” He shot a bewildered glare at his cousin. “But what could it be…?”

An unexpected moment of enlightenment showed on Fred’s eyes. He shook his head and chuckled to darkly to himself, feeling quite brilliant at that moment. For a strange reason the closet joined his chuckling with her own. “Oh, James, sometimes you’re so dense sometimes!” Fred got to his feet and attacked the old frame of Ginny’s diploma from the nail on the door. He cracked it open and at the back rested a tick pack of yellowed paper, distinctively smelling of stale air. “Eureka!”

“But… I can’t believe… talking closets… was so close… It crossed my mind just before...” he fumbled his words. Accomplishments of witch's time… Ginny’s accomplishments in Hogwarts. So obvious! James growled in his head. “I almost had it!” he said to the closet. “You interrupted my train of thought with your riddle!” The closet let out a sound of exasperation. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if the closet talked. Holy rats, they found it! They had it! He cleared his throat, trying to hold back his enthusiasm. He reconsidered, realising he had offended the closet’s feelings. “Thank you, Mum’s talking closet.” James did a deep bow and winked at the closet.

She squeaked again and shook one door. “Oh, stop it you!” she said, letting out one strange, wooden giggle. “Take care and don’t be too reckless. Or be, but don’t get caught!” the closet called behind them, as they left the room.

“No wonder Mum was so shy as a kid. Makes sense, if you take advice from a closet.”

“I bet we’re the last ones to learn about it though,” Fred said. “It knew Lily and Albus.”

James sighed. “Indeed, there is one thing where my siblings were ahead of me.”

They returned triumphantly to Fred’s room and pulled out the map. “Whom should we look for first?” Fred said, his voice dripping excitement.

“We can decide after you make it work,” James said.

“Wait…” Fred looked up. “I thought you knew the words to make it work.”

James shook his head. “Of course not! Dad very conveniently didn’t mention them every time he spoke of the map.”

“Then if none of us knows the words…”

“We’re screwed.”

* * * * *

All the way on the ride back to Hogwarts, Fred had been contemplating asking Roxanne for help with the map. An endless rambling in front of the old piece of parchment had gotten them nowhere and it was for sure that Ginny’s closet would be laughing her drawers off if she knew how much they struggled. They had agreed that the map was safer in James’s trunk for now, because his lock combination was less well-known and predictable than Fred’s; it was the date he had gotten his broom.

“The answer will emerge eventually,” James said hopefully. “We just have to be patient.”

“Yes, the answer emerged from the lips of your little sister last time. I hope we don’t have to wait until she boards Hogwarts to reveal the Map’s secrets.”

“There is plenty to do without the map, just like we planned during Christmas. The map would have just made them slightly better.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Fred quietly took out a handbook about Welsh Green. When Fred read, even if it was about dragons, it was obvious some kind of terrible fate had befallen him and he was in the depths of misery.

It took a few attempts to bring him back to his impish, lively self, which included a slippery floor, a Squib professor, a hedgehog that glowed in the dark and some string, but James succeeded at last. Fred had not been as idle as his cousin thought in the meantime. He had spent his hours of melancholy organizing strategies to evade Filtch and Crubs most effectively once the prank reached their ears, as well as a backup plan in case their unfortunate victim came after them. At times like this, they wished they were not Gryffindors, having to run to the seventh floor to get in their dorm, but to be somewhere around the ground floor, or the basements, like the Hufflepuffs and Slytherins.

“I can’t get it out of my mind that I’m missing something,” Fred insisted as James tried to drag him up, to get going. By the time Fred would calculate everything, everything would be right, except the time, because it would be dark long before he figured it out.

They followed the wooden passage to the gardens, hopping over a recently open hole in the wooden boards. Rumor had it, Quincy Goyle was to be credited for its creation, stumbling as he chased after a Hufflepuff boy. No confirmation had come from James’s knowing sources though, meaning Albus and Rose. The air outside the castle was chilling them to the bone and they stood for a bit, mittens in front of their mouths and shoulders raised as if to push their red and yellow scarves tighter to their neck.

Down along the grounds a little puff of continuous smoke came from Hagrid’s hut and the lake stood frozen, flat and hazy as aged glass. “Come on, before we become breathing snowmen,” Fred called and ran ahead, his feet plunging into the deep snow with each step. James followed, but there was something about the day… The cold, his mind retorted. It was as if there was something, watching him from the forest. Maybe the thestrals… But he wouldn’t know; he could not see them. He pursed his lips together and proceeded.

A crack of branches made his head snap anxiously. He could not locate the source of the sound.

“Don’t be so jumpy, it’s not that bad of a prank. As a matter of fact, the planning is so perfect that maybe they won’t even know we were there. James glanced at the trail they left, half-walking half-pushing past the snow, and doubted it.

“It’s like there’s someone watching, can’t you feel it? It brings chill bumps to my arms.”

“That’s because of the weather. There’s not a soul here.”

James searched again around them. “I’ll go insane…” he muttered under his breath.

The Quidditch pitch came into view. It looked like someone had been there recently. Footprints and drag marks from the brooms’ tails were written on the snow, but no one was in sight. “Do you think they wrapped it up early?” he asked.

“No, everyone is inside,” said a boy who had come, presumably out of nowhere.

James vaguely remembered the face; he was a first year, and the House badge sewn in his clothes suggested he was a Hufflepuff. He was quite the most ordinary, forgettable person he had ever seen, brown hair, brown eyes, a face full of freckles, short and out of his sight if he looked straight ahead instead of down at him.

“Oh, thanks,” James said. He wondered what they should do to get rid of him; a prank needed no witnesses other than the doers and the targets.

“You came to watch? It’s been a while since older students came for Firsties Quidditch.”

“Yeah, well, just take a look and we’ll be on our way,” Fred said and put an arm over his cousin’s shoulder, steering him away.

The boy turned around and trotted closely behind them, like some lost puppy. “I am also just watching. Flight does not agree very much with me, it gives me a bit of a stomachache. I don’t do well with flying by airplane either really, so I was expecting it. Others are quicker to catch up, and there are already a whole lot of great players amongst the first years, I think that the old players will face quite the competition next year at the tryouts. I’m really glad to hang around and cheer them on. Even if they’re from other Houses, cheering is important, don’t you think?”

“Uh… yeah, yeah it is,” James said absently. He didn’t even hear half of the mumble jumble the little Hufflepuff had said.

“The entrance is right this way,” he continued, taking the lead and standing by it helpfully.

“We know,” Fred said, annoyance tinting his voice. “We’ve been here before, we have family in Gryffindor’s team.” It was a bit of a thorn in their side; they hadn’t made the team that year, because half the applicants were seasoned players, seventh years and with a whole lot more experience, but next year their time was coming; a whole lot of positions would clear out in the team. James wasn’t going to let his broomstick gather cobwebs in a corner for another year.

“Oh, you do? That’s so wonderful! Must be so nice, having family to cheer for, not just regular Housemates. Must make you get really involved.”

“Yeah,” Fred and James said in unison. Just when is he going to leave?

“Can we help you with something?” James said, unable to hold it in any longer. That little leech would be ripped off if needed, because he couldn’t stand him.

The boy’s eyes widened with surprise. He shrugged. “No, I don’t need anything. Just thought I should keep you company until we got here, we were going to the same destination after all.”

“And now we’re all here…” Fred said with a bit of finality in his tone.

It seemed like the boy was slowly taking the hint. “We’re here…” he agreed. “I will let you go on your business and I’ll go to my friends. It was very nice seeing you, James. And you are…?”

James blinked in surprise as Fred offered his name.

“I am Timothy Milton,” the Hufflepuff replied. “Have a nice time!” he called over his shoulder as he skipped away.

“You two know each other?” Fred asked. “He’s such a strange fellow. Somewhat stupid I think.”

James was starting to feel a new kind of numb. He didn’t dare move, for fear his feet would give way, and land him ridiculously on his butt. “Um… uh…”

“You look like Aunt Grizelda while she had her fifteenth stroke,” Fred said. And I kind of feel like it too, James thought, unable to voice the words.

“I sort of do… By name. The name is familiar.”

“Ah. Kids like him, it’s better to know them just by name. Looks like a bit of a leech.”

“He does…” he agreed numbly. I hope being a leech is the worst he can do… He held on to the thought desperately, until he almost believed it. Flashes of the events in Knockturn alley raced back to him, recalling all the things he had by then discarded as a distant memory, or an unpleasant daydream. If they were a daydream though, he would not have guessed the name. The name was the same, that’s the kid… Or is it? He could not imagine him being associated with a shady wizard speaking Snake in the most notorious corner of London’s wizarding marketplace. He’d actually bet his head that Hufflepuff was muggleborn. Or… perhaps not his head, but maybe he’d bet a hand, or just a couple of fingers…

He inhaled deeply, once, twice. The scent of brooms’ polishing wax and hay broom tails filled his nostrils, bringing a sense of calm in him. He could not back down from the prank now, or who knew what Fred would assume. He could not tell him about it, if he didn’t remember… And it was confirmed he had no idea who Timothy Milton was.

Suddenly the second semester of his second year felt considerably more ominous.