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The descent from Gryffindor Tower to the dungeons was a journey through thermal layers. Harry left behind the residual warmth of the fire-lit common room and entered the damp, bone-chilling cold of the subterranean levels.
Under the Invisibility Cloak, Harry moved silently, his eyes fixed on the stolen piece of parchment in his hand. The ink dot labeled Severus Snape was stationary now, deep in a corridor that Harry knew mostly for its disused storage cupboards and the lingering smell of stagnant water.
He's not in the common room, Harry thought, watching the dot. It's 1:20 AM. Even for a swot like Snape, this is late.
Harry turned a corner, the stone walls sweating moisture. The torches down here burned with a greenish hue, casting long, sickly shadows.
He slowed his pace. According to the map, Snape was just behind the third door on the left—an old potions storage room that Slughorn rarely used because of the draft.
Harry approached the door. He didn't need to cast Alohomora; the door was slightly ajar, a sliver of flickering orange light spilling out onto the flagstones.
Harry pressed himself against the wall, holding his breath. He eased the door open another inch with the tip of his wand, peering into the gloom.
The room was cluttered with dusty jars of pickled toad organs and stacks of unused cauldrons. In the center, cleared of cobwebs, sat a small pewter cauldron over a controlled blue flame.
Severus Snape stood over it.
He looked painfully young. His hair was greasy curtains framing a sallow face, his nose hooked and sharp in the firelight. He wore his school trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing thin, pale forearms not yet marred by the Dark Mark.
Harry watched, fascinated and repulsed.
Snape was adding ingredients. Harry sniffed the air. A pungent, acrid smell drifted out. Monkshood. Wolfsbane.
Harry's eyes narrowed. He's trying to brew the Wolfsbane Potion?
It didn't make sense. The Wolfsbane Potion hadn't been invented yet, Damocles Belby wouldn't perfect it for another few years. But looking at the color of the steam, a thick, spiraling violet, Harry realized Snape wasn't trying to cure lycanthropy. He was deconstructing it. He was looking for the markers.
He's trying to find a reagent that reacts to werewolf blood.
It was petty. It was vindictive. It was classic Snape.
But then...
Snape stopped stirring. The potion had reached a rolling boil, the fumes thickening into a heavy fog that hovered over the cauldron rather than dissipating.
Snape reached into his pocket and pulled out not a potion ingredient, but a small roll of parchment. He unrolled it on the dusty table, dipped a quill in ink, and wrote rapidly. His hand moved with jagged, frantic strokes.
Harry strained to see, but the angle was wrong.
Snape finished writing. He didn't roll the parchment up to send via owl. He didn't fold it into his pocket.
Instead, he picked up the parchment with a pair of silver tongs and held it directly over the cauldron.
" Evanesco Communicatum," Snape whispered.
He dropped the parchment into the potion.
The liquid didn't splash. It hissed violently, turning from violet to a deep, ominous black. The parchment didn't just burn; it dissolved into smoke. The smoke shot upward in a concentrated column, vanishing into the stone ceiling as if sucked through a straw.
That wasn't schoolboy magic. That was a communication ward, using the fumes of a specific potion to bypass standard interception wards. It was how Death Eaters communicated before the Dark Mark was fully linked to their minds.
He's not just bullying Remus, Harry thought, his grip on his wand tightening. He's reporting in.
To whom? Some insider or Tom himself?
Snape vanished the contents of the cauldron with a quick scourging charm, packing his equipment into a satchel. He looked nervous, wiping sweat from his forehead, his eyes darting to the door.
Harry stepped back from the door, his mind racing. He could stun him. He could drag him to Dumbledore.
But what proof did he have? 'I saw him burn a letter'? Snape would claim it was a failed experiment. And Dumbledore... Dumbledore was naive and believed that all students could be saved.
Harry wasn't so sure. But he knew he couldn't blow his cover as a time-traveler by revealing he knew exactly what that spell was.
Harry moved away from the door, stepping into the deep shadows of an alcove about ten feet down the corridor. He pulled the Invisibility Cloak off, stuffing it quickly into his expanded pocket.
He leaned against the cold stone wall, crossed his arms, and waited.
A moment later, the door creaked open. Severus Snape stepped out, clutching his bag, looking left and right.
He turned left, walking briskly.
"Out for a stroll, Mr. Snape?"
Snape flinched so violently he nearly dropped his bag. His hand flew to his wand pocket, half-drawing the hawthorn wood before his brain caught up with his reflexes. He spun around, his black eyes wide with terror that instantly hardened into a mask of sneering defiance.
He saw Harry leaning casually against the wall, looking for all the world like he owned the darkness.
"Professor," Snape said, his voice cracking slightly before he smoothed it out. He didn't sheath his wand, but he lowered it. "I... I didn't see you."
"Clearly," Harry said dryly. He pushed himself off the wall and walked slowly toward the boy. He made sure his footsteps echoed. "It is nearly one-thirty in the morning. Curfew was three hours ago."
Snape straightened his spine. He was good, Harry had to give him that. The panic was gone, replaced by a sullen, calculated intellect.
"I was working on a project for Professor Slughorn," Snape lied smoothly. "Extra credit. The brewing requires a specific lunar alignment that only occurs tonight. I lost track of time."
"Is that so?" Harry stopped a few feet from him. He loomed slightly, he was taller than Snape at this age, broader in the shoulders. "I wasn't aware Professor Slughorn's extra credit involved brewing monkshood in a broom closet. The ventilation is terrible. One might think you were trying to hide the fumes."
Snape's eyes narrowed. He realized Harry knew what he'd been brewing. "It is a sensitive compound. Light degradation affects the potency. The closet was necessary."
Harry, for a moment, wanted to bring up the letter he burned, but he decided against it; it was better that Snape, right now, thought he had no idea about the letter.
Harry took another step closer, invading Snape's personal space.
"You are a talented wizard, Severus," Harry said, using his first name intentionally. It made Snape flinch again. "But talent without caution is just a target painted on your back."
"I don't know what you mean," Snape sneered, though his grip on his bag was white-knuckled. "I am merely a student pursuing academic excellence. I thought you, of all people, would appreciate initiative. After what you did to Greyback."
Harry's expression didn't change. "I appreciate competence. I appreciate survival. What I don't appreciate is students thinking they are clever enough to play games they don't understand."
He leaned in, dropping his voice to a whisper that echoed louder than a shout in the empty corridor.
"You should be more careful, Mr. Snape. People might think you are... up to something. And in times like these, looking suspicious can be just as deadly as being guilty."
Snape stared at him. He was searching Harry's face, looking for the angle, the threat, the political alignment. He looked terrified, not of detention, but of being known.
Harry held his gaze until Snape looked away.
"Ten points from Slytherin," Harry said, stepping back and breaking the tension like a snapped twig. "For being out of bed. And for lying to a teacher."
Snape blinked, clearly expecting worse. "Professor?"
"Go to bed," Harry commanded, pointing down the corridor. "If I see you again tonight, it's detention."
Snape didn't say another word. He turned and fled, his robes billowing behind him like bat wings, disappearing around the corner toward the Slytherin common room entrance.
Harry watched him go.
Once the footsteps faded, Harry let out a long, slow breath. He reached into his robe and pulled out the stolen Map.
He tapped it with his wand. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
The ink swirled. He found the dungeon level.
Severus Snape was moving rapidly into the Slytherin dorms. Safe. For now.
Harry looked at his own dot, labeled simply Harry, standing alone in the dark corridor.
He had secured the Map. He had the password. He had terrified Snape.
But as he looked at the sprawling ink castle, seeing the hundreds of sleeping students—future Death Eaters, future Order members, future corpses—Harry felt the weight of the lie he was living.
"The war isn't coming," Harry whispered to the empty stone walls. "It's already here."
He folded the map, extinguished his wand, and let the darkness swallow him whole.
The heavy oak door to the DADA office loomed at the end of the corridor like a judgment he wasn't ready to face. Harry stood in the shadows of an alcove, the Invisibility Cloak draped over his arm like spilled water, staring down at the piece of parchment in his hands.
It felt warm. Alive.
He traced the ink line that represented the corridor he was standing in. There was his dot. Just Harry. No Potter. No legacy. Just a man out of time standing in the dark.
If he kept it, he would be safe. He could track Snape. He could avoid Dumbledore when he needed to sneak out to the Chamber. He could ensure that no one, not even the Marauders, ever found out who he really was. It was the tactical choice. The smart choice. The choice Mad-Eye Moody would have barked at him to make without hesitation.
But then his thumb brushed against the worn edge of the paper, the spot where he knew, from years of use in his own timeline, that Remus always folded it.
This wasn't his map. Not yet.
It belonged to four boys sleeping in a tower above him. Boys who used it to sneak into the kitchens for food, not to hunt Death Eaters. If he kept it, he wasn't just stealing a tool. He was stealing the weekends they spent huddled under a cloak, laughing at Filch. He was stealing a piece of his father's joy before the war stripped it all away.
Harry closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the cold stone.
He could keep it. He should keep it. He had the weight of the future on his shoulders, and he needed every advantage he could get. Snape was already moving pieces on the board. Voldemort was watching. A schoolboy map was a small price to pay for the safety of the mission.
But if James woke up and found it gone...He knew there was a chance that the Marauders would try to make another map, and this time, Harry would have no way of knowing if they are doing that or not, and Harry had never really bothered to ask neither Sirius nor Lupin how they made this map, and how long it took for them to make it, but they made one, they could make another one, and this new one would show his full name 'Harry Potter'
Harry looked at the map one last time. He saw the dot of Severus Snape safely in the Slytherin dungeons. He saw the dot of Albus Dumbledore pacing in his office.
He folded the parchment. The magic hummed against his fingertips, waiting for a decision.
He pushed off the wall and began to walk. He didn't know until the very last second which way his feet were taking him, toward the safety of his own quarters or the lion's den of Gryffindor Tower.
The Next Day - James Potter
The Monday evening air in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom was thick enough to chew. It wasn't just the air, but the Slytherins and the Gryffindors were in the same class.
James Potter leaned back in his chair, twirling his wand between his fingers. He was trying to look bored, the picture of effortless cool that he and Sirius had perfected over the last five years, but his leg was bouncing under the desk.
At the front of the room, Professor Harry was pacing.
He really was irritatingly handsome. James wouldn't admit it out loud, mostly because Sirius had already made enough jokes about it to last a lifetime, but the man had a jawline that could cut glass and eyes that seemed to burn with a green fire. It was annoying. It was especially annoying because half the girls in the class, including Mary MacDonald and, James noted with a grimace, Dorcas Meadowes, were tracking the Professor's movements with expressions that were definitely not purely academic.
"Perception," Professor Harry said, and everyone was paying attention to him. "In a duel, your eyes are your first line of defense. They are also your greatest liability."
He stopped in the center of the room, rolling up the sleeves of his white shirt. A few sighs echoed from the left side of the room. James rolled his eyes so hard it hurt.
"The killing curse is unblockable," Harry continued, looking at Bellatrix Black, who was sitting in the front row with perfect, terrifying posture. "But it is not unavoidable. To avoid it, you must know where it is coming from. But what if you cannot trust what you see?"
Lily Evans raised her hand. "You mean illusions, Professor? Like the Bedazzling Hex?"
Harry smiled at her. It was a small, genuine smile, and James felt a sudden, irrational urge to hex the professor.
"Close, Miss Evans. But the Bedazzling Hex is a blunt instrument. It blinds. It conceals. I am talking about something more subtle. I am talking about displacement."
Harry raised his wand. He didn't take a combat stance. He just stood there, relaxed, looking like he was waiting for a bus.
"Observe," he said. "The incantation is Lumen Fallax."
He flicked his wand in a tight, complex spiral.
Nothing happened.
James frowned. He exchanged a look with Sirius, who shrugged. Peter leaned forward, squinting.
Harry was just standing there. The air shimmered slightly around him, like heat rising off pavement on a summer day, but that was it.
"Sir?" Sirius called out, grinning. "Did you mispronounce it? Happens to the best of us."
"Does it, Mr. Black?"
The voice didn't come from the Harry standing in the center of the room.
It came from directly behind James's left ear.
James yelped, a very uncool sound that was somewhere between a bark and a squeak, and nearly fell out of his chair. He spun around, wand raised.
Professor Harry was standing right behind him, leaning against the back wall, arms crossed, looking amused.
James whipped his head back to the front of the room.
Professor Harry was also standing in the center of the room.
The class erupted. Chairs scraped against stone as students jumped up.
"What is this?" Bellatrix demanded, standing up, her wand drawn. She looked between the two Harrys with hungry fascination, which was quite disturbing.
"Light Touch," the Harry in the center said. But as he spoke, his image flickered like a candle in a draft. "Or, properly, a Phantasmal Displacement. It bends the light around the caster while projecting a residual image to the previous location."
"You're invisible," Lily breathed, her eyes darting between the two figures. "But you're projecting an image of yourself to where you were."
"Not just where I was," said a third voice.
The class gasped.
A third Harry was sitting on top of the teacher's desk, swinging his legs casually.
Now there were three of them. The one in the center, the one behind James, and the one on the desk. They all looked solid. They all looked real. They all had that same messy black hair and those piercing green eyes.
"Three targets," the Harry on the desk said. "One wizard. In a fight, you have a split second to decide which one to curse. If you choose wrong, you die."
"That's wicked," Sirius whispered, staring. "Prongs, that is wicked."
James swallowed. It was wicked. It was also terrifying. He looked at the Harry behind him. He reached out a hand to poke the professor's shoulder.
His hand passed straight through the black robes as if they were made of smoke. The image wavered, ripples spreading out from where James touched it, then stabilized.
"Hard light projection," the Harry on the desk explained. "Combined with a sensory charm. It fools the eye and the ear. It does not fool the nose, and it certainly doesn't fool a stray curse."
He snapped his fingers.
The Harry behind James vanished into mist. The Harry in the center dissolved into sparkles of light.
Only the Harry on the desk remained. He hopped down, landing with a solid thud.
"This is not a spell you will find in your textbooks," Harry said, walking back to the center of the room. "It is something I... developed. During my travels. It requires immense concentration. If your mind wanders for a second, the illusion shatters."
He looked around the room.
"Mr. Potter," Harry said.
James straightened up, trying to recover his dignity after the yelp. "Sir?"
"You have good reflexes," Harry said. "But you froze. You turned to look at the voice. In a duel, if you hear a voice behind you, you don't turn your head. You cast a shield behind your back and roll away. Turning your head presents your throat."
James felt the heat rise in his neck. "I was surprised."
"Surprise gets you killed," Harry said simply. He didn't say it meanly. He said it like a fact, like saying water makes you wet. "Next time, don't look. Act."
"Yes, sir," James muttered.
"Right," Harry clapped his hands. "Pair up. We aren't going to try the full illusion today, that's too much. We are going to start with auditory displacement. Throwing your voice using the Ventrilo charm. I want you to confuse your partner so thoroughly they don't know which way is up."
The class descended into chaos. Within ten minutes, voices were bouncing off the walls. Mary MacDonald shrieked when Lily's voice whispered in her ear from across the room. Sirius managed to make his voice come out of a suit of armor, shouting insults at Snape, which earned Gryffindor a five-point deduction but was entirely worth it.
James practiced the charm, but his mind wasn't on it. He kept watching Professor Harry.
The man moved through the room like a panther. He corrected stances, adjusted wand grips, and offered quiet praise that made the girls blush and the boys stand taller. He was brilliant.
And it drove James absolutely mad.
"He's hiding something," James muttered to Sirius as they packed up their bags at the end of the lesson.
"He's hiding his last name," Sirius grinned, swinging his bag over his shoulder. "We know that already. Come on. You got the thing?"
James patted his pocket. "Yeah."
"Good. Let's go."
They grabbed Remus and Peter and bolted out of the classroom the second Harry dismissed them. They wove through the crowded corridor, dodging a group of first years who looked like they were about to be trampled, and ducked behind a heavy tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy on the fourth floor.
It was a small, dusty alcove that they had used since second year.
"Alright," Sirius said, practically vibrating with energy. "Let's see who this mystery man really is. I bet you ten galleons he's a Diggory. He's got that pretty-boy look."
"He doesn't look like a Diggory," Remus said, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms. He looked tired, but curious. "He looks... familiar. I can't place it."
"Maybe he's a secret Black," Sirius laughed. "Disowned for being too handsome and charming. My mother would hate him."
"Just open it," Peter said, bouncing on his toes.
James pulled the Marauder's Map from his pocket. He felt a weird surge of relief that it was actually there. When he had woken up this morning, his bag had felt slightly lighter, and for a terrifying second, he thought he'd lost it. But it had been there, tucked right at the bottom under his socks.
He smoothed the parchment out against the stone wall.
"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," James whispered.
The familiar ink rushed out to meet them. The castle materialized.
"Okay," James muttered, his finger tracing the lines. "Defense classroom. Third floor."
He found the room they had just left. It was emptying out. He saw the dots of students streaming into the hallway.
And there, standing by the teacher's desk, was a single dot.
James leaned in. Sirius crowded his shoulder. Peter tried to look under James's arm.
The label next to the dot was perfectly clear.
Harry.
James blinked. He rubbed his eyes and looked again.
Harry.
"What?" Sirius said, his voice flat. "Is the map broken?"
"The map isn't broken," Remus said, frowning at the parchment. "Look. There's Professor Dumbledore's full long name in his office. There's Filch on the second floor. It's working fine."
"Then why does it just say Harry?" Sirius demanded. "That's not a name. That's half a name. Where's the rest of it?"
"Maybe he doesn't have one," Peter suggested.
They all looked at him.
"Don't be thick, Wormtail," Sirius said. "Everyone has a last name. Even Muggles have last names. You can't just be 'Harry'. It's illegal. Probably."
"Maybe his parents were hippies?" Peter tried again. "You know, like... free spirits? They just named him Harry and left it at that."
"He's a pureblood or a half-blood," James said, his eyes glued to the dot. "You saw how he moves. You saw that spell. That's old magic. You don't learn that being a hippie."
"Then why isn't it showing up?" Sirius poked the dot with his wand, as if he could force the ink to reveal more. "Come on, map. Show me the goods."
The map did not respond. The dot labeled Harry began to move, walking toward the door of the classroom.
"This is impossible," James said, frustration bubbling up in his chest. "The map doesn't lie. It shows everyone. It shows their true names. It showed Snivellus even when he was wearing that disguise kit in third year."
"Maybe he's royalty?" Peter offered. "Like... Prince Harry? Do princes have last names?"
"He's not a prince, Peter," Remus sighed, though he looked troubled. "James is right. This is strange. The map pulls from the Hogwarts registry and the magical signature. If it's only showing 'Harry', then either the registry is blank..."
"Or he's blocked it," James finished darkly.
"Blocked the map?" Sirius looked skeptical. "Prongs, we made this map. Nobody knows about it. How could he block a map he doesn't know exists?"
"He knows things," James said. "You heard what he did to Greyback, and his idiots, you saw him in the classroom. He's... he's too good."
"You're just jealous because Evans stared at him for the entire lesson," Sirius teased, nudging James in the ribs.
"I am not," James snapped, though his ears went pink. "I'm telling you, Padfoot. It's not right. A man with no past? No name? Who shows up out of nowhere with spells we've never seen and kills a werewolf warlord on his first day?"
James watched the dot of Harry merge with the crowd of students in the corridor. It was just a word. Five letters. But it felt like a mockery.
"He's hiding something big," James whispered.
"Well," Sirius said, straightening up and brushing dust off his robes. "Then I guess we have a new project. We can't let a mystery like this go unsolved. It would be a disservice to the school."
"A disservice," Remus repeated dryly. "Right. It has nothing to do with you being nosy."
"I am a concerned citizen," Sirius declared with a grin. "And our dear Professor Harry just became target number one."
James folded the map slowly. He didn't return Sirius's grin. He was thinking about the way Harry had looked at him in class. There had been something in those green eyes. Not just amusement.
Sadness.
It was the look you gave someone you missed, and Professor Harry's eyes...they were too much like Lily's eyes, which was strange...very strange.
"Yeah," James said quietly, tucking the map back into his pocket. "Target number one."
He pushed past the tapestry and back into the corridor, the mystery of the nameless professor burning a hole in his pocket. He didn't know who Harry was, but James Potter had never backed down from a challenge in his life.
He was going to find out the truth. Even if he had to annoy the man to death to get it.
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