"Marauder's Map?"
"How do you know we have that thing?" George and Fred shouted in surprise.
Link smiled cheerfully without speaking.
Beside him, Harry and the other two had utterly confused faces.
After a long while, Emily finally frowned and said, "What is the Marauder's Map?"
"A magical map that displays all the information of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It can not only show the user every classroom, corridor, and corner of the castle, but also display hidden secret passageways."
"In addition, the location information of everyone in the castle will also appear on it in the form of a moving dot plus their name."
Link explained very seriously, "Of course, the most powerful part of the Marauder's Map is that the name magic attached to it can ignore most of the concealment methods in this world, including Polyjuice Potion and Transfiguration."
Hearing this, a hint of surprise finally appeared on Emily's face. As the only daughter of the Victoria family and a dominant figure of Slytherin, she clearly understood the role the Marauder's Map could play.
In fact, in a past interview, Ms. Rowling herself had admitted that she deeply regretted creating such an item as the Marauder's Map, because its abilities were just too bug-like.
The reason she later took the Marauder's Map from Harry's hands was exactly because with the Marauder's Map around, the plot afterwards couldn't progress anymore.
On the other side, after hearing Link's explanation, the trio of Harry were also shocked.
Ron looked at his two older brothers in disbelief and said,
"You actually have such a good thing? And you never told me! We're brothers! Real brothers!"
"Shut up, Ron!"
George and Fred scolded Ron in unison, then bared their teeth as they looked at Link and said, "What do you want to do with the Marauder's Map?"
Link said, "Of course, to help your little brother find his pet rat, Scabbers."
"Link…"
Ron muttered, moved nearly to tears, he really hadn't expected Link to go to such lengths all for him.
Then his gaze moved between George, Fred, and Hermione, and he said, "Looks like, Link, you're my real friend. Compared to you, certain people who don't want to share treasures with their own brother and some who let their pets run loose irresponsibly are just awful!"
"What did you say! Ron!" ×3
Ron was so startled by the three shouting at once that he immediately shrank behind Harry.
Harry was loyal enough, not only did he not dodge in the face of the trio's fury, but stood there awkwardly smiling while shielding Ron.
Fortunately, George and Fred didn't really plan to beat Ron up. After scaring him for a while, the two turned their heads and looked at Link with a scrutinizing gaze and said,
"Link, as far as I know, you and Ron aren't very close, right? Why help him?"
"Because Harry came to me a while ago asking for help." Link spread his hands and said, "He said Ron and Hermione's relationship got really tense because of the rat Scabbers and hoped I could think of a way."
Hearing this, George looked at Harry again. Seeing the latter nod frantically, he finally breathed a sigh of relief and said with a smile, "Looks like we were overthinking. But sorry, I'm afraid we can't give you the Marauder's Map."
"Why not!"
This was spoken by Ron, who stuck his head out from behind Harry and shouted angrily, only to be glared back by Fred.
George continued, "Because the Marauder's Map is gone."
"Gone!?"
"Yeah, last night after we came back from Hogsmeade, we were afraid of being searched, so we hid the Marauder's Map behind the portrait of Buckthorn on the second floor."
George and Fred spoke one after the other with helpless expressions. "But when we went to get it this morning, the map was gone."
Hearing this, Ron and Harry were disheartened again,
the Marauder's Map disappearing meant Scabbers might be impossible to find again.
But Link's expression became serious.
After all, he clearly knew that George and Fred were probably not lying.
They had never had a strong sense of possession toward the Marauder's Map. Otherwise, in the original story, they wouldn't have given it to Harry.
And Link only intended to borrow it temporarily, he didn't say he wouldn't return it.
If that's the case, then the situation was more serious.
The Marauder's Map disappearing at the same time as Black's first infiltration into Hogwarts most likely meant it had been found and taken by Black.
Because the Marauder's Map was originally made by Black and Harry's father and them, he knew too well what this map could do.
Of course, there was also the possibility that the map had been taken by Dumbledore during the big search last night.
But that possibility wasn't high, because if that were the case, he wouldn't have needed Link to prove anything, he could have just used the Marauder's Map directly.
Silently going through most possibilities in his mind, Link raised his head and said, "Don't worry, even without the Marauder's Map, I have a Plan B."
"Really?!"
"Mm, give me something that Scabbers wears closely."
As soon as Link finished speaking, Ron quickly rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a dirty handkerchief.
"This is Scabbers' little blanket, is it okay?"
Faced with Ron handing over the handkerchief, Link didn't take it by hand, instead casting a Levitation Charm and letting it fall into a kraft paper bag on its own.
"This will do. Just wait for my good news."
So said Link, ready to leave with Emily.
His goal achieved, he had no interest in continuing to chat with George and the others.
Only Emily didn't think so.
She grabbed Link, then swept her eyes over George and the others opposite and said, "I have a question I'm very curious about. You two are here to clean, but why are Harry Potter and the others here?"
"They came to watch the excitement!" George and Fred immediately stood up straight.
"They absolutely didn't help us clean!"
As soon as these words were out, Harry and the others finally reacted too, hurriedly hiding the mops and rags they were holding behind their backs, awkwardly saying, "Y-Yeah! That's right! Haha!"
Emily let out a cold laugh and said, "You all sure are close! But… do you know what those two did to be punished?"
At those words, Harry and Ron's expressions turned awkward.
George and Fred had told them that it was because Emily Victoria didn't like them and deliberately had Snape frame them.
Only, Victoria belonged to Link, and just now Link had even said he would help them.
So now they really couldn't bring themselves to say those things aloud.
Just then, Hermione moved.
She stepped forward two paces under George and Fred's despairing gazes, and faced off against Emily and said, "Of course I know. Isn't it just because you didn't like them?"
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