marauders' map

My wide eyes kept staring at that ancient piece of parchment. Another change from the cannon has happened and it's a weird one. The Weasley twins never gets their hands on the marauders map. This change wasn't particularly cannon shattering, but it surprised me for a different reason. Til now every change that occurred had a rhyme and rhythm. Every change ensured cannon happened one way or the other.

But what does the twins getting the map or not matter in the grand scheme of things? Why of all things this? A thousand questions filled my mind but I pushed them all out of my mind.

I had a very small window and I had to make it count.

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good."

Beautiful black patterns started slithering around forming designs on the map. The sight took my breath away. But I had no time to explore it's wonders. My eyes immediately moved to the gryffindor sector. The students names moved randomly moved around in various directions. But my eyes were searching for only one.

Peter Pettigrew.

...

...

...

My eyes scrunched up but soon widened in panic. Doubt and confusion immediately followed by panic washed over me. It-it wasn't here. Peter Pettigrew wasn't here.

"DAMMIT!"

My head snapped around immediately in alert. Filch was in the corridor.

"those DAMNED kids. They are slippery."

My body immediately went into emergency mode. My hands rushed into my pocket retrieving a blank parchment from it. I switched it out with the map within seconds. Then my head turned around to my brush lying a few steps away. I squinted looking at it and summoned arcane from within. I took a crouched pose and let out the built up arcane from my soles, all within seconds.

A silent boom echoed as I landed next to the brush the exact moment filch returned. I kept my head down not daring to look up, and scrubbed forcefully.

I could almost PHYSICALLY feel filch frowning at me. But I forcefully stared down at the ground scrubbing. Filch took slow steps towards me squinting at me in suspicion. I forcefully calmed by quickening breath. I could feel a sweat drop slithering down my head.

"get out! "

I blinked and looked up in surprise. What? :"what? "

"I said that's enough. GET out!"

For a second I forgot everything about the map:"why? "

Filch smiled and knelt down coming inches away from my nose:"because, I, FRICKING, said, so."

His demeanor immediately changed to scowl and he shouted:"OUT! "

__________________________________________

Very later that night, room of requirements, room of reading

I laid down in the middle of the empty hall of the room of reading looking up at the ceiling frowning. My sole companion, the raven, was staring at me blankly.

I, for the thousandth time reopened, the marauders' map expecting to finally spot that name. But though I scoured the entire map, nowhere did it mention a Peter Pettigrew anywhere!

My frown continued to widen as more questions filled my mind. Where the hell is Peter Pettigrew and Why was he not on this map?

After filch had thrown me out of his office after his little tantrum, (whatever the hell that was about), I had pondered this question far and wide. Many, many crazy theories were theorized and thrown out, though none seemed to fit.

Initially I had thought maybe Pettigrew was just not IN Hogwarts, but had IMMEDIATELY thrown out that theory as I had first hand seen Pettigrew in Ron's hand. Then why wasn't the map showing him?

Till today I had seen many instances where time tried to preserve itself through various means. The ron and Neville friendship, Neville broom incident, the chaser formation etc. If Pettigrew gets caught this year it can cause catastrophic consequences to the timeline. So I had formulated a theory that maybe time itself had erased Pettigrew's name from the map. Without it I had no source to give when presenting information to Dumbledore and as much as I wanted that rat Pettigrew to be suffer in azkaban, I would never risk, my possession of future knowledge for it.

I was too much selfish to sacrifice the existence of future knowledge in my head to another person and risk my own safety.

Even though this theory seemed to cover all bases, it just didn't fit. The reason was that, till now, time had caused subtle changes to appear, which lead to certain events occurring. But this was direct manipulation of reality. This hasn't happened before and I had no reason to believe it would suddenly happen now.

I kept staring at the map over and over again until I realized its futility. I sighed and laid the map down. Then I looked towards the ceiling frowning. Where the hell was that rat bastard.

Suddenly my eyes widened. I had a crazy idea. What if by some butterfly effect, Pettigrew had remembered about the map, and decided to hide his name?

I quickly sat up alerted and opened the map. Was something like that even possible. Can someone even hide from the map. I suppose it could be possible since Pettigrew was one of the four who designed it and might be familiar with the enchantments. All he would need to do is sneak into filch's office as a rat and take erase his name from the map.

The more I thought about it the more it made sense. In the original timeline, the map was in the weasley twin's hand. Which means even if Pettigrew had remembered to erase his name in the original timeline he couldn't have, as the map wasn't in filch's office.

I suddenly placed my palm on the parchment and frowned. Time to test this theory. I summoned arcane and extended it into the parchment. Suddenly my eyes widened as I felt an almost orgasmic feeling. Thousands upon thousands of charms and wards and spells all bundled into a single paper piece. It was a compact, magical marvel.

I washed off this feeling and focused. I searched the wards for a weak spot. Some sign of tampering. My magic spreaded thinly over the parchment in search for something, anything different from the ordinary. The magic went deeper and deeper and deeper and finally....

*gasp*

My eyes went wide open as I gasped. My eyes went to the point, A single spot where magic flowed unusually. A single tiny dark red spot, which I had initially assumed, was mark of age came into vision. I squinted my eyes as I contemplated.

"is that...? "

I sniffed it but any scent it had was long gone. It was all dried up. But still I didn't need scent as I recognized it almost instinctively.

"yup, that's blood."

So I was right after all. Pettigrew must have accessed the map with his blood and erased his name from it. And I had no way of erasing whatever he had done to the map as my understanding of this magic was low.

I sighed. but still a win was a win.

Suddenly I frowned and lifted the parchment up. If Pettigrew can use his blood to open the map, then maybe...

I took out a toothpick from my pocket and closed my eyes (yeah, I carry a toothpick around in my pocket. Got a problem with that?). Soon the toothpick glinted, being replaced by a beautifully carved silver needle. I held it between my fingers and plunged it into my left hand thumb. I winced as drops of blood slithered down my hand and fell on the parchment.

Immediately ink materialised as words swirled into formation.

WELCOME PRONGS