Change the Future

*POA 8*

"Psst -- Harry!" He turned, halfway along the third-floor corridor, to see Rory, Fred and George peering out at him from behind a statue of a humpbacked, one-eyed witch.

"What are they up to now?" McGonagall asks looking at the screen.

"What are you doing?" Harry asks curiously. "How come you're not going to Hogsmeade?"

"We've come to give you a bit of festive cheer before we go," Fred said giving him a wink.

"Come in here" Rory pulls him toward an empty classroom to the left of the one-eyed statue followed by Fred and George. George closes the door quietly and then turns, beaming at Harry.

"Early Christmas present for you, Harry," he said as Fred pulls the map from inside his cloak with a flourish and laid it on one of the desks. It was a large, square, very worn piece of parchment with nothing written on it. Harry looks at it thinking it's some sort of joke.

The Marauders all look at the screen with wide eyes now the map was being fully shown.

"Sorry" Rory mutters to them.

"What's that supposed to be?"

"This, Harry, is the secret of our success," George said, patting the parchment fondly.

"It's a wrench, giving it to you," Fred said,

"but we decided last night, your need's greater than ours." Rory adds smiling at him.

"Anyway, we know it by heart," George told him proudly. "We bequeath it to you. We don't really need it anymore."

"And what do I need with a bit of old parchment?" Rory rolls her eyes as Fred answers him.

"Old parchment" James looks at him shocked.

"A bit of old parchment!" Fred says closing his eyes with a grimace as though Harry had mortally offended him. "Explain, George."

"Well... when we were in our first year, Harry -- young, carefree, and innocent --"Harry snorted. "Well, more innocent than we are now -- we got into a spot of bother with Filch."

"We let off a Dungbomb in the corridor and it upset him for some reason--" Fred adds "So he hauled us off to his office and started threatening us with the usual"

"detention disembowelment" Rory say mocking Filch

"Aurora Potter" Lily scolds.

"Knew I'd prefer her memories" Sirius says smirking.

"and we couldn't help noticing a drawer in one of his filing cabinets marked Confiscated and Highly Dangerous" George finishes.

"Don't tell me --" Harry says starting to grin at them.

"Well, what would you've done?" Fred says smirking "George caused a diversion by dropping another Dungbomb, I whipped the drawer open, and grabbed this."

"So that's how you got it Miss Potter" Professor McGonagall says looking at her.

"It's not as bad as it sounds, you know," Rory adds looking at Harry's face before George finishes.

"How is that not as bad as it sounds" Molly asks.

"We don't reckon Filch ever found out how to work it. He probably suspected what it was though, or he wouldn't have confiscated it."