20 Questions We Have About the Marauders’ Era

We dive into 20 things Potterheads want to know about the Marauders’ Era, from their time at Hogwarts to the First Wizarding War.

With Harry Potter and the Cursed Child drawing ever nearer to its official July 31st release, fans may have their questions regarding what happened “Nineteen Years Later” answered. Whether or not you choose to take Cursed Child as canon, this much-anticipated epilogue isn’t the only side of the story fans are waiting for, as the other half of Harry’s world remains as shrouded in mystery as ever.

Since perhaps Prisoner of Azkaban, when the Marauders’ Map fell into Harry’s possession and he met three of its four creators, Potterheads have become enthralled with Hogwarts’ class of ‘78, a fascination that only grew with Order of the Phoenix. No longer were Lily and James Potter one-dimensional martyrs of a war, but fully-fledged characters who were more than their sacrifice, thereby making that sacrifice all the more heartbreaking. They had friends and history all their own, and fans have been waiting for that history to be expanded upon as much as Harry’s through his seven-book series—we want to come to know those in Harry’s past as well as we know those in his present.

J.K. Rowling may have kept more or less mum on this subject, but she has offered us insight into Remus Lupin as well as the Dursleys (and by extension, some Lily and James), not to mention her 800-word prequel released in 2008, so hope prevails that sooner or later she’ll spill the very detailed beans on the Marauders’ Era and First Wizarding War.

Until then, we’ve collected twenty popular need-to-know questions that we can mull over while Rowling decides whether to confirm, deny, or keep the intrigue alive by not saying a word either way.

Next: Bowie, Blondie, and the Bee Gees

20. Who was disco, who was pop, who was punk?

Submitted by Tumblr user @snapslikethis, this question has gained more traction amongst the fandom than you may think. The seventies were a breeding ground for new music and genre rivalries (see Freaks and Geeks for the ever-prevalent showdown between disco and rock ‘n’ roll), and Potterheads have applied this to discussions of the Marauders’ respective characters and preferences.

Now, we know from Goblet of Fire that the Wizarding world has its own brand of music, as cited by the appearances of Celestina Warbeck and the Weird Sisters. However, it stands to reason that Muggle music would still permeate the divide between these two worlds, especially during the era in question when we consider that Lily was Muggle-born and Remus a half-blood, meaning they may have been more involved in Muggle culture than purebloods James and Sirius (Peter’s blood status is unconfirmed). Sirius indulged in such culture to irk his prejudiced parents and James never flouted any illusions of pureblood superiority, so it’s likely they may have jammed to a little Cheap Trick in their down time, too.

Depending on your personal headcanons, it’s a toss-up as to what these characters would prize most in their record collections, but my own opinion is that Sirius was a Rolling Stones fan, James had a proclivity for the Beatles and Remus for the Temptations, Peter was a sucker for any and all disco, and Lily papered her bedroom walls with Billy Joel posters. I couldn’t begin to explain it all; it just feels right this way.

Next: The Come and Go Room

19. Why doesn’t the Room of Requirement appear on the Marauders’ Map?

We know next to nothing about the Room of Requirement’s origins, only that it appears when it’s needed, fully equipped to serve whoever’s asked for it. For the sake of the Harry Potter series and the Room’s narrative use within, that’s quite enough information to go by, but surely that’s not all there is to it.

Dumbledore himself claims, while referencing the room for the first time during the Yule Ball in Goblet of Fire, that not even he knows all that Hogwarts has to hide. From that perspective, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that the Marauders never came across the Room of Requirement during their time at Hogwarts, and so it doesn’t make it on the map due to pure ignorance of its existence. Not even Fred and George Weasley knew what the room was when they first used it as a broom cupboard in which to hide from Filch’s wrath, so their troublemaking predecessors may have fared the same in the likely event they used the room similarly, by simple chance.

That explanation doesn’t, however, suit all fans’ curiosity of both the Marauders and the Room of Requirement. Exceedingly clever enough to become Animagi by the ages of fifteen and fashion such a detailed and complex map, it would seem that the Marauders could make short work of discovering all the castle’s nooks and crannies. We know that certain locations in the Wizarding world can be Unplottable—that is, they are magically concealed, whether that means they’re hidden from plain sight or removed entirely from maps or any directionals.

So did the Marauders simply remain unaware of the Room, or were they unable to include it on the map due to its possible Unplottability? The answer is unclear, but one thing’s for sure: the boys surely could have gotten some good use out of the room, so I like to imagine that they did.

Next: I Shouldn't've Told You That

18. Did Hagrid unwittingly help the Marauders solve mysteries during their time at Hogwarts?

As early as Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were able to wheedle information out of Hagrid that he wouldn’t give of his own volition without such relentless prompting. It’s a good thing Hagrid turned out to be so loose-lipped when the occasion called for it, as it assisted the trio in all their world-saving endeavors, however regrettable he may have found it initially.

What with Voldemort’s continued attempts to rise again throughout the series, Harry’s time at Hogwarts may have been filled with more mystery and intrigue than the Marauders’, who tangoed with Voldemort the first time around without any worry over his Horcruxes or stabs at resurrection. In this respect, the First Wizarding World seems to be more straightforward than the Second: the big baddie was precisely that, not hiding behind a turban or locked away in a diary. There was plenty of panic in the face of the Unforgivable Curses and the anxiety of not knowing who could be trusted, but the main threat that was Voldemort was known.

All the same, the Marauders may have taken on the occasional mystery, even if it was less Scooby-Doo and more Hogwarts gossip. Since Hagrid often tells Harry how he knew Lily and James during their schooldays and all three were in the Order of the Phoenix the first time around, it’s likely that the two made frequent visits to Hagrid’s cabin for a cup of tea just as their son does years later.

Mayhaps Hagrid knew a little something about the trouble Sirius’ younger brother was getting mixed up in, or had some insight for Remus on how to deal with being a “half-breed.” Surely he understood Peter’s academic struggles, and maybe he helped all three talk James down from a ledge when he’d done something else to annoy Lily.

All conjecture, of course, but Hagrid’s nature seems to suggest some carelessness when it comes to should-be-kept secrets. Maybe that’s why he so regretted spilling the beans to Harry, Ron, and Hermione as often as he did—because he remembers the sort of hijinks the Marauders pulled whenever he let his guard slip a little too low, and god help him if he has to clean up another mess like those ones.

Next: Four-Eyes

17. What shape were James Potter’s glasses?

It may arguably be a silly and shallow detail, but we’ve had so much time to mull over every little aspect of this era that we’re bound to come up with questions like this. The heart wants what it wants, and we want to know the make of James Potter’s specs.

Considering all the details the films mucked up, we can’t trust their portrayal of James in round glasses like Harry’s, and most Harry Potter fanart features James in rectangular frames to help differentiate father from son. But without any official clarification, fans continue to suffer beneath the weight of a perhaps inconsequential detail, but one that nonetheless haunts a fair number of us.

While most devotees of the Marauders’ Era are inclined to canonize the rectangular frames over the round ones, there are more options than just those standard two. We can debate about it endlessly, but in all likelihood the guy was probably sporting a chunky pair of aviators, or anything else you might find via a quick Google search of ‘70s eyewear.

Oftentimes we tend to bypass the fact that the Marauders lived through the seventies, and as such we miss opportunities to explore that decade’s fashions. It’s something of a crime to deny ourselves a Remus Lupin in bellbottoms and a Lily Evans with Farah Fawcett hair, and it all starts with admitting that James Potter may have indulged in the stereotypical ‘70s glasses.

#JamesPotterWoreAviators2k16. Let’s start the revolution.

Next: A Furry Little Problem

16. How did James, Sirius, and Peter break the news to Remus that they knew about his lycanthropy?

Although Remus may have gone to as great of lengths as any eleven-year-old could to hide his werewolf status, his friends uncovered the truth once and for all in their second year at Hogwarts. They didn’t, as Remus had feared, abandon him out of fear or disgust, but rather began their three-year journey in becoming Animagi in order to help make his monthly transformations more bearable—because when James, Sirius, and Peter looked at Remus, they saw him for who he was as a person, not who he was as a werewolf.

Of course, it’s unlikely that such a sentiment would have been spoken aloud. We’re talking about a group of twelve-year-old miscreants here, and as such it’s more likely they treated the whole thing as a great joke, as further evidenced by the fact that James referred to Remus’ lycanthropy as his “furry little problem.” Remus may have had some misgivings about breaking these particular rules in his later life, but at the time they were just a group of kids out for adventure without thinking about the consequences. Lucky there were none to face, but regardless it wasn’t something the Marauders concerned themselves with.

Still, James, Sirius, and Peter had to tell Remus they knew about his condition before they could set about helping him with it. The question, then, becomes how did they break it to Remus that his efforts had been all for naught, and they’d found what he’d been trying so hard to hide? A nice, mature sit-down would have been far and away the least likely option, so we can have fun speculating other likelihoods.

Were there puns involved? (Probably.) Explosions? (Most definitely.) A get-well card that sang Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf” when you opened it? (If only the song had been around prior to its 1982 release. What a waste.)

In any case, this is one of our questions that Rowling could certainly have some fun with if she so chose.

Next: Spy vs. Spy

15. Why did Remus and Sirius each suspect the other of being the spy?

When the pair are reunited after twelve years apart in Prisoner of Azkaban, they make amends by forgiving each other of their suspicions during the First Wizarding War, when they believed the other to be the spy in the Order’s midst. Why, though, did they each suspect the other as they did? While such times of war and uncertainty are bound to cause strife amongst loved ones as much as it inspires further intolerance of enemies, surely both Remus and Sirius alike had to have some foundation for their doubts in each other.

In Deathly Hallows, Remus tells Harry that James “would have regarded it as the height of dishonor to mistrust his friends,” a fact that’s proven when Lily and James named Peter their Secret-Keeper at Sirius’ suggestion, because they trusted both men wholeheartedly. Their faith in Peter was to their detriment, but all the same that faith was unwavering in a way that Remus’ and Sirius’ weren’t. Why could Lily and James trust their friends so unequivocally, but two of those friends suspected each other more than anyone else?

Perhaps we don’t have enough information to properly guess at this, but many fans believe that some of the distrust between the two is due to Sirius’ prank on Severus Snape during their fifth year at Hogwarts, when he encouraged Snape to seek out Remus following his transformation. Had it not been for James’ interference, Snape would have died at Remus’ hands—a fact which Sirius had to know, but even years later believed was justified. Sirius’ hatred of Snape blinded him to what the latter’s death would have meant to Remus, should he have caused it.

While this may not explain why Sirius wouldn’t trust Remus, it’s possible that a rift formed between the two friends as early as their fifth year because of the prank, and those lingering feelings affected Remus’ ability to trust Sirius later on. There are still too many blanks to know for sure, but this is a popular jumping-off point in the Marauders’ fandom.

Next: What I Want to Be When I Grow Up

14. What were the Marauders’ and Lily’s aspirations that were set aside in order to fight full-time for the war?

Although mere teenagers when they joined the war effort, it’s likely that Lily, James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter all had goals they gave up so they could join the Order of the Phoenix. We don’t quite know enough about any of them to accurately suppose what those goals were—indeed, James and Sirius especially appear to have been made for rebellion, and it’s difficult to imagine them in any other pursuit. But what might these heroes and martyrs and traitors (ahem, Peter) have been in a world not ravaged by war?

Remus would have continued to struggle in the job market due to his lycanthropy, but he may have done well as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor had Voldemort not cursed the position, or had Snape not been on staff to reveal Remus’ secret and send parents into a frenzy. From what we know of Peter, it seems he may have tripped over his own ineptitude, but he could have easily found a position in Cornelius Fudge’s staff, since the Wizarding government proved to be pretty inept in and of itself.

We know from contextual information that Sirius lived off a small fortune left to him by his great-uncle Alphard, and from Pottermore that Lily and James could live comfortably off the money the Potters amassed in their invention of Sleekeazy’s Hair Potion; so for them, at least, there was no financial need for a career, but it’s unlikely that any of them would have been content to do nothing.

Even in times of peace rather than war, Aurors were a hot-button career, and Lily, James, and Sirius alike had the talent to pass such arduous exams and make the cut. There would be strife and injustice with or without Voldemort, and these three in particular seem to have been concerned with righting a world of wrongs. What better way to achieve these ends than to join up with those who battle the Dark Arts on a professional level?

Next: Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey

13. What is the timeline for the Potters going into hiding?

Now, here’s where we have to pull the ultimate educated guesswork, as the timeline as it’s presented in the books is contradictory and therefore unreliable. Tumblr’s @fetchalgernon does her best to break it down as follows:

• Fall 1979-spring 1980: The Potters go into hiding sometime during the pregnancy. The reasons are unspecified, as Voldemort doesn’t decide to go after them until he knows about the prophecy and Lily’s pregnancy, which is why he targets them in the first place.
• Spring 1980: Dumbledore and an eavesdropping Snape hear Sybill Trelawney’s prophecy, and Snape tells Voldemort.
• Sometime after July 1980: Voldemort decides that Harry is the foretold enemy, and so targets the Potters.
• Fall-winter 1980: Snape switches sides so Dumbledore will help to protect Lily from Voldemort’s murderous rampage.
• October 1981: The Potters use the Fidelius Charm with Peter as their Secret-Keeper.
• We all know what happens next. Don’t make me say it.

Admittedly, this timeline isn’t necessarily more foolproof than what we’re given in context, but ti does help to offer some clarification where the books lack it. When we attempt to piece it together to make sense of it, though, it tends to raise more questions in place of those it tentatively answers (for example, why the Potters would go into hiding before it’s known that Voldemort is targeting them).

Check out @fetchalgernon’s full post and other timeline tidbits to try and put it together for yourself. Good luck—it’s still a doozy.

Next: The Prophecy

12. Did Dumbledore tell the Potters about the prophecy?

This one goes hand-in-hand with #11 on our list. We know that Dumbledore is the one who encouraged Lily and James to go into hiding, but why he did so remains largely unknown to fans, and may have been so to the Potters as well.

Dumbledore is infamous for withholding information as he sees fit, so he may have deemed it prudent to give Lily and James the bare minimum: that Voldemort was seeking them out. Since the two fought so openly for the Order and had so often defied Voldemort and his cause, they may have needed no other reason to believe that Voldemort was after them, and therefore they would take Dumbledore at his word.

Then again, if Lily and James were as strong-willed as their son—and there’s every indication that the couple was precisely that—Dumbledore would have been hard-pressed to soothe their ruffled feathers with so little intel. From what we know of James, he was inclined to trust his friends completely and without question, but something tells me that the man who jumped wandless in front of Voldemort to protect his family would squeeze every last drop of information that Dumbledore tried to hide away if it meant keeping Lily and Harry safe.

It’s always difficult to really ascertain Dumbledore’s motivations; he’s driven by a desire to achieve the “greater good,” and he would sacrifice anything along the way, no matter how he came to care about those things or people. If he thought there was something to be gained from keeping the Potters in the dark—even if that would result in their deaths—he would have gone with his own gut, just as he always did with Harry later on.

What could Dumbledore gain or lose either way? We can’t say for sure, but this question is certainly up for some pretty heavy debate.

Next: Ratted Out

11. What was the catalyst, if any, that pushed Peter to betray his friends?

Considering his Animagus form is a rat, it seems to indicate symbolically that Peter’s very nature is unsavory, and as such he should have been rather suspect all along (at least more so than Sirius, who transformed into a dog, aka the most traditionally loyal animal that could possibly come to mind). Since this wasn’t enough to convince his friends that Peter was more devious and traitorous than he apparently seemed, we have to wonder if there was some exterior force that compelled Peter to turn his back on his loved ones in favor of the force they were fighting.

Perhaps it was just as Sirius said in Prisoner of Azkaban: “When did I ever sneak around people who were stronger and more powerful than myself? But you, Peter—I’ll never understand why I didn’t see you were the spy from the start. You always liked big friends who’d look after you, didn’t you? It used to be us… me and Remus… and James,” and, later: “You’d want to be quite sure [Voldemort] was the biggest bully on the playground before you went back to him, wouldn’t you?”

Judging by this, we can surmise that Peter was always looking to align himself with those who could protect him, those who were the most powerful and had the most to gain. Peter, clumsy and talentless, always knew whose coattails he could ride, and he made good on those character judgments; his objective was to survive, and to do so by any means necessary. At the end of the day, Peter Pettigrew was his own number-one priority.

There is no indication that any breach of trust occurred between Peter and his friends prior to his betrayal but, still, fans wonder at his thought process. Was it simply his fear that drove him, his desire for power? Had he so lost faith in the Order’s cause that he could be manipulated by Voldemort so fully? Or had there always been a devil on Peter’s shoulder that encouraged him to look out for himself first, without any regard to those who protected him and called him a friend?

Between Lily and the other Marauders, we have the littlest information on Peter, and as such it’s difficult to get a proper feel for him. No character in Harry Potter is clear-cut good or bad, so the question becomes, what makes Peter more than the traitor he grew to be?

Next: Fight Like a Girl

10. What had Lily done in the past to make James and Sirius eye her wand “warily” in “Snape’s Worst Memory”?

Before Lily storms onto the scene, nothing gives James and Sirius pause in their humiliation of Snape. As Remus tells Harry later on in Order of the Phoenix, and as Dumbledore points out, James and Snape’s rivalry was immediate and very much like Harry and Malfoy’s. It was instant dislike at first sight, and neither of them ever missed an opportunity to give the other hell.

When Lily shows up to reprimand the two for their treatment of Snape in this instance, James and Sirius are both on edge when she whips out her wand and aims it at them. It’s unclear how well they know Lily at this point, but they know enough to perhaps reconsider what had been a good time up until they had to face down Lily’s annoyance. I like to think that it isn’t just Lily’s prowess with wandwork that makes James and Sirius hesitate to continue their humiliation of their nemesis, but rather that they’d found themselves in this position before and came out of it worse for wear.

One book later, in Half-Blood Prince, Slughorn describes Lily as “a singularly gifted witch,” and references her easygoing nature and cheeky humor as well. Clearly, the woman is a force to be reckoned with, and careless rebels James and Sirius knew it as surely as they didn’t know if they could take her when she pulled her wand on them.

I for one could go for a detailed list of how many times Lily made tentacles sprout from their faces, or perhaps hit them with a too-strong Cheering Charm that had them giggling for half an hour, and why she decided that was adequate punishment. Much as I adore them, teenage James and Sirius certainly could have been taken down a peg or two, and Lily was absolutely the girl for the job.

Next: Friends Don't Let Friends Get Expelled

9. How did Remus react to Sirius’ “prank” on Snape?

We speculate on this a little in #15, but still don’t come up with any surefire conclusion. While we may be able to assume that generally tolerant, reasonable, and kind-hearted Remus wouldn’t approve of the murder of a classmate, he certainly wouldn’t be on board if he were the one doing the murdering, for no other reason than he couldn’t control himself in his wolf form. (We can equally assume that Remus got a few kills in during his time with the Order, but fifteen-year-old Snape’s death by his hands—or paws, as it were—would have no greater purpose or justification, and would have come about merely because Sirius was sick of Snape creeping around.)

We see throughout the series how Remus deals with his own self-loathing in light of his lycanthropy, and it never goes well. He never hurt anyone during his transformations, but the possibility that he could plagued him so that it prevented him from seeking happiness and solace with friends and, later, his romantic relationship with Tonks. Remus demonized himself, and his greatest fear was that those he loved would do the same.

Knowing that Sirius would have used Remus’ condition as a way to meet his own ends couldn’t have sat well with Remus at the time. He trusted his friends to keep his secret and they had never done anything but help him cope with it, until Sirius had had enough of Snape and figured he could use Remus to end this otherwise endless feud once and for all.

Since we know that Sirius’ prank took place some time between “The Prince’s Tale” in Deathly Hallows and “Snape’s Worst Memory” in Order of the Phoenix, whatever ill feelings Remus may have harbored towards Sirius had dissipated in the interim. Still, I can’t imagine that Remus took it lightly from the start, and he may have at least turned a cold shoulder on Sirius for awhile before things went back to normal.

Next: Mary Had a Little Curse

8. What did Mulciber do to Mary MacDonald?

This one makes it so high on our list not only for its specifics, but for what it means for the general atmosphere of Hogwarts during the First Wizarding War. Aspiring Death Eaters roamed the halls alongside future Order members, all under the eye of Albus Dumbledore, who—let’s face it—didn’t always step in when things got rough for his students, preferring harsh lessons to befall them rather than protect them from everything that would rise up in challenge.

The first hint of this discourse doesn’t, however, show up until Deathly Hallows, when Harry once more walks through Snape’s memories. Within, Lily says to Snape, “What do you see in [Mulciber], Sev, he’s creepy! D’you know what he tried to do to Mary MacDonald the other day? […] It was Dark magic… Mulciber’s and Avery’s idea of humor is just evil.”

Whatever Mulciber attempted, it would appear that he didn’t succeed, as Lily describes it as something he “tried to do.” But his failure doesn’t diminish Potterheads’ curiosity—whatever Mulciber’s intention, it couldn’t be mistaken for an accident; was it an Unforgivable Curse, Sectumsempra, Levicorpus, or something unknown to readers? What stopped Mulciber from achieving his crime? Was he sufficiently punished, or did he get away without any teachers taking notice? Should any of them have seen their students practicing the Dark Arts on their peers, especially during a time of war, surely the student in question would have much to answer to. Dumbledore may have allowed a lot of shenanigans—both harmless and otherwise—slide during his time as headmaster, but Dark magic can’t be something he could have ignored.

This question raises even more: How often did such discretions transpire? Did the students handle it themselves, or did Hogwarts’ staff intervene? Did Dumbledore know who among his students planned to join Voldemort’s ranks after school, and did he do anything to try and dissuade them from such a path? What was Hogwarts during the First War, if not a breeding ground for the war outside?

Next: Rebel, Rebel

7. What other Order members were at Hogwarts with the Marauders and Lily?

We meet the Order of the Phoenix in the book of the same name, and we learn bits and pieces about the organization during its first stint in the 1970s-80s, but there’s nothing specific to satiate our curiosity.

Alastor Moody was a veteran in the fight against the Dark Arts, Tonks only joined the Order during the Second War, and so did most of the Weasleys, despite the fact that Arthur and Molly were well of age during the First War. We also know that Frank and Alice Longbottom, both celebrated Aurors by the time they’re tortured into insanity after Voldemort’s downfall, were too old to have attended Hogwarts alongside the Marauders (judging by the Auror training program, Frank and Alice were likely at least five years the group’s seniors).

But what of Kingsley Shacklebolt, Emmeline Vance, and Hestia Jones, all of whom we meet during the Order’s revival? What of those in the original Order who Moody points out to Harry in that old photograph? Benjy Fenwick, who was so destroyed they only found “bits” of him? Dorcas Meadowes, who, like the Potters, was killed by Voldemort directly? Marlene McKinnon, who was killed alongside her entire family? Caradoc Dearborn, who disappeared and was presumed dead? Fabian and Gideon Prewett, Molly’s brothers who took on five Death Eaters and died in the attempt? Did these people lose their youth to the cause, as Lily and the Marauders did, or were they seasoned soldiers fighting for a better future?

It’s important, I think, to learn about these characters as more than the martyrs they’re known as. Lily, James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter all became so much more when we gained insight into who they were outside of the war, and as such it seems only right that we learn more about their fellow fighters beyond the cause for which they died. We root for characters because of who they are, and how that compels them to do what they do and how they do it. Heroes are more than just heroes, and certainly more than casualties of the war they gave up their lives for.

Next: Grim Old Place

6. What happened the night Sirius ran away from home?

In Order of the Phoenix, Sirius reveals to Harry that he’d simply “had enough” of his family’s obsession with the Dark Arts, so he blew that popsicle stand at sixteen, his mother blasted him off the family tree, and that was that.

Despite the simplicity of this explanation, Sirius’ home life is a fascination across the fandom. How was he raised, and how did he overcome his family’s long-standing tradition of blood superiority and Muggle-hating? Did his parents attempt to sway his more tolerant worldview, or did they mark him as a lost cause and hate him for it? Did he have a posh, aristocratic accent? What was his relationship like with his younger brother, Regulus, before their opposite ideologies put them on either side of a war they were both fighting in? Did the two ever face each other in battle? Did their cousins Bellatrix and Narcissa have any influence over Regulus’ decision to join the Death Eaters? How was Andromeda—who was also stricken from the family tree when she married Muggle-born Ted Tonks—affected by Sirius’ eventual imprisonment?

Considering all this and more, truly, Sirius could take up a seven-book series all his own. But since it doesn’t look like Potter fans will be getting that any time soon (or ever), we’ll have to content ourselves with questions that might garner easier answers, like what precisely happened the night Sirius decided to ditch home in favor of the Potters’? Was there a full-on row between Sirius and his parents, or perhaps Sirius and Regulus? Or was it just another uttered “Mudblood” that tipped the scales and had Sirius getting the hell outta Dodge?

Sirius Black has some major layers to him, and he’d definitely be worth a series of his own if his life is half the drama parade it’s made out to be.

Next: It's the Thrill of the Fight

5. How did Order members prepare for battle?

We know that aspiring Aurors undergo a further three years of education and training, but there was no time for new Order members to gain any official certification during the organization’s inception. Not to mention, joining up with the Ministry wouldn’t have been a favorable move when the government was suffering under the pains of war, and Dumbledore was never much of a player in the political game to begin with. It’s not likely he would have approved of all his charges getting mixed up in office when they were capable of fighting without a license to kill—they’d just have to suck it up and kill, anyway.

It’s said that the Unforgivable Curses couldn’t be cast by just anyone; you have to be particularly powerful and in control, and you have to want to cause the pain the curses are known for. While the Order may have found something like the Cruciatus Curse to be distasteful and gratuitous, we have to assume that they made use of Avada Kedavra, at least, and that’s not something they would have learned at Hogwarts.

It wouldn’t seem that an undergraduate education would be quite enough to prepare the Marauders, Lily, and any other school-age rebels for the wars to come. We don’t know how arduous their Defense Against the Dark Arts classes were, but a school-appropriate program probably wouldn’t have been enough to ensure their survival on the battlefield. There was still much to learn, so how did they learn it? Did Moody provide unofficial Auror lessons to hone their skills in cursing, defending, poisons, what-have-you? Did they run drills and trial runs, as Harry had his peers do in Dumbledore’s Army?

Furthermore, what did “missions” during the First Wizarding War entail? Remus had to parlay with the werewolves, and we know from Rowling’s 800-word prequel that James and Sirius made use of Sirius’ motorbike when they needed to make a quick getaway from Death Eaters on their tail, but that’s really as specific as it gets. It doesn’t satiate our curiosity so much as piques it further.

Speaking of that prequel… What’s with the matching T-shirts? Whose idea was that? They were emblazoned with a golden phoenix, no less, so apparently some missions didn’t require a subtle approach. See, it’s this sort of throwaway detail that makes fans demand more.

Next: Face-offs and Fist Fights

4. How high did tensions run between the Marauders and their future Death Eater peers?

We touch upon this in #8, but it warrants a deep-dive all its own. We see how the animosity between James and Snape stood the test of time, and even get a taste of it at its prime in “Snape’s Worst Memory,” as well as references to it in “The Prince’s Tale.” The hatred ran deep, and as such we can imagine how often it came to a head, especially when the two were in close quarters at Hogwarts and deliberately went out of their way to get in each other’s business.

But James vs. Snape is only the tip of the iceberg; those two certainly weren’t the only ones simmering with unapologetic hatred, especially not when there was a war on the horizon. Tensions ran high all across the board, and while Hogwarts may have been a safer haven than anywhere else, it wasn’t without its incidents.

Sirius may have dealt with the worst of this, considering his family ties to Voldemort’s side. His parents were Voldemort sympathizers, his brother Regulus and cousin Bellatrix Death Eaters, and his cousin Narcissa married to a Death Eater, so there may have been a fair few unpleasant family reunions during the war. While Bellatrix (class of ‘69) didn’t attend Hogwarts at the same time as the Marauders, Narcissa’s (‘73) time at school overlapped with theirs, as did Regulus’ (‘79), who directly followed Sirius (‘78) into the castle; while I’m inclined to believe that Narcissa and Sirius avoided each other like the plague, the Black brothers may have had a fair few run-ins.

While Order members and Death Eaters alike could fight as they wished on the battlefield, what they could get away with at school is less clear. We know that the Marauders, Lily, Snape, Avery, and Mulciber all attended Hogwarts at the same time, when the war was rolling in and spreading strife, and we’ve only gotten a taste of how they went at each other’s throats. Was it all hexes and public humiliation, or were there any underhanded, dirty pranks, too? Was it all Dark magic and retaliation, or were there more lighthearted approaches to their rivalries—perhaps an exploding cauldron or two, itching powder in socks, bad jokes about the state of Snape’s hair?

Judging by the the Marauder’s Map’s partiality for insults when insults are due, we can assume that Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs found ways to lighten up even the darkest of showdowns between themselves and their nemeses, just as Fred and George fought fear with laughs in Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows. Rowling has a talent for balancing the bad with the good, and as such it’s rather safe to say that she would employ this technique in a prequel.

Next: Quite the Double Act

3. What did the Marauders do to land their detention record?

Considering how fondly the likes of Hagrid, McGonagall, Flitwick, Fudge, and Madam Rosmerta recall the Marauders’ penchant for troublemaking in Prisoner of Azkaban, it would seem that whatever tended to land them in trouble was some virtually harmless rule-breaking, rather than a neverending parade of unprovoked hexes in the corridors.

We get a hint of the details in Half-Blood Prince when Harry serves his own detention by refiling old records; the process is described as “useless, boring work, punctuated (as Snape had clearly planned) with the regular jolt in the stomach that meant he had just read his father or Sirius’s names, usually coupled together in various petty misdeeds, occasionally accompanied by those of Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew.”

“Various petty misdeeds” certainly doesn’t sound like anything anyone but Argus Filch would bust a capillary over, so it stands to reason that the Marauders played much to the same tune as Fred and George Weasley would years later. Of course, we all have our limits that may cause us to step a toe or two out of line, and such is the case with the aforementioned double trouble dream teams: One of James and Sirius’ joint detention slips reads, “James Potter and Sirius Black. Apprehended using an illegal hex upon Bertram Aubrey. Aubrey’s head twice normal size. Double detention.” This is not unlike the time the Weasley twins shoved Montague into a Vanishing Cabinet and he disappeared for weeks (provided that Aubrey deserved to have his head inflated, that is).

Fred and George became the stuff of Hogwarts legend with their fireworks display, swamp kit, and spectacular exit from the school, so we have to wonder if the Marauders ever achieved similar leaps and bounds. We may not have heard of anything within the context of the narrative, but there’s always room for some fun and frivolous additions to the canon. Personally, I like to think that after the Second War, McGonagall told Harry some such stories about his parents and their friends; that being said, now we just wait for Rowling to confirm or deny it.

Next: Third Time's the Charm

2. What are the specifics of “thrice defied”?

Sybill Trelawney’s prophecy describes Voldemort’s oncoming enemy to be “born to those who have thrice defied him,” a tidbit that has had Potterheads guessing since we, along with Harry, first heard the prophecy in Order of the Phoenix. We know that Lily and James fought in the war effort, but having confirmation of some close calls has made us hungry for the details as to what, exactly, those close calls consisted of.

J.K. Rowling has said that these instances weren’t necessarily anything grand or special, and could be as vague as a couple of escapes from Death Eaters, but that hasn’t dampened fans’ interest. We know, too, that both Lily and James vehemently declined Voldemort’s offer to join his ranks—now there’s a short story we’re all dying to read; might as well throw in the other defiances for good measure, hmmm?

If we assume that the first defiance was indeed the Potters’ refusal to get matching tattoos, that still begs the question of what happened the remaining two times. Did Lily and James narrowly escape death during an Order mission? If so, what was the mission, how were they found out, from whom did they escape? Did they foil some sinister Death Eater plot—what was it, and how did they flip it on its head? Did James mock Voldemort’s noselessness, or did Lily lament the man’s former good looks that he voluntarily destroyed in his efforts to live to be as insufferable as possible for an eternity? (Hey, Lily’s got a sharp tongue on her; she could throw some serious shade, and I think we’d all like to see her do it straight to Voldemort’s face.)

Whatever Lily and James did to make their son fit to fulfill a world-changing prophecy, we know it’s gotta be good. Speculation is fun, but an official description of events might be even better, should we ever get one.

Next: Lily and the Giant Squid

1. How did Lily and James get together?

Let’s face it—we can debate politics and timelines and blood feuds all we like, but what we really want is the love story. Lily and James are just too Lizzie Bennet and Mr. Darcy to resist. It’s not an exact parallel or anything, but enough of the pieces are there—mostly Lily’s quick wit and James’ flustered confusion—to get us hooked, and the mystery of it all keeps us coming back for more. It certainly didn’t help when Rowling teased that Lily never hated James, and perhaps had a thing for him all along, despite what fans may headcanon.

It would also be a relief to learn how many times, exactly, James Potter asked out Lily Evans, since another popular headcanon rounds it out to about a million. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but the Marauders’ Era fandom does tend to overindulge when it comes to James’ pursuit of Lily (even I’m guilty of this), despite what the text suggests. In “The Prince’s Tale,” Snape tells Lily, “He fancies you, James Potter fancies you!” which indicates that Lily didn’t already know, and as such James probably hadn’t made his affections known. For all we know canonically, James only asked Lily out the once, during the events of “Snape’s Worst Memory.”

This is the sort of detail fans need cleared up, along with questions like who officially asked the other out? Did the teachers have a running bet on this, or what? What was up with their first kiss? Was James ever unduly jealous of how well Lily and Remus got along? Did Lily and Peter talk Doctor Who? How long did it take Sirius to warm up to the broad who was monopolizing all of his best friend’s time? How many times did Lily and James get busted making out when they were supposed to be fulfilling Head Boy and Girl duties? Why couldn’t that have been a detention slip Harry came across in our #3?

We’re suckers for romantic intrigue, but this has been going on for years and still Rowling hasn’t budged. To borrow and bend the words of Ron Weasley, I could dance naked in front of JKR in nothing but Dobby’s tea cozy and she still wouldn’t give up the deets on Lily/James.

Not that I’ve ever seriously considered doing so, mind, because I would do anything for love… but I won’t do that.

Next: Warner Bros. Files Trademark for Cursed Child Film

What are some things you’d like to know about Harry’s parents and their friends, their time at Hogwarts, and their fight in the First Wizarding War? Sound off in the comments!