It's nearly been a year but we're still working a little on the fic. I, mr. Padfoot only have some time to spare in Hollidays see, so I'm ruining the project for us! (Sorry Prongsie!). We've started HIgh School, and I attend in another town so I have to travell, an hour or so every day. (Just because I wanted to study music...)

All creds to Mr. Prongsie for this chapter!! You've done great pal!! (though I read through, corrected, posted and wrote the end.....)

"Mom, I'll be leaving now!" Everything was ready for their plan to begin. Sirius was waiting outside the front door under the invisibility cloak. When James came outside he walked to the closest place he knew there would be no other sole that his, and Sirius'. Obviously Sirius had followed him there, it was a part of the plan.

Sirius took off the cloak and placed it in his bag. With a nod they both got on their brooms and took off. They were glad it was a rainy day, so the clouds would easily cover them. Earlier they had found a nice spot to camp while looking at a map. It would take some time to get there, but the boys enjoyed the flight.

The tent was up, miraculously, the beds ready to sleep in and midnight. James and Sirius had had a hard time putting up the tent, neither had done it before. Both were tired and the beds didn't look less sleepable, there was just one problem: they were hungry.

"Sirius, did you bring some food?"

"No, I thought your mother would send some with you, just like she did last time we went to the park." A moment later an "ouch" was heard in the tent as James hit Sirius in the head. "So you think my mother would make food for us when were going on a trip she doesn't even know about?" It took Sirius some time to figure out what James had meant.

"We need to find a shop or a mall." Sirius said in a tone as he knew everything. James just shook his head. "It's the middle of the night, and there's a long way to the mall, which by the way closed several hours ago." They had a bit of a trouble, and tomorrow was no other day than a Sunday. "Let's go to sleep and figure it out when we wake up, it's too dark outside anyway."

It was going to be a long night.

They had been trying to sleep for about half an hour and both stomachs had begun to make a lot of noise. (Prongs/N: Whonder why...) "Psst, Sirius, you awake?"

"Whit all the noise coming from my bed, isn't it obvious?" James thought for a while and found out that his friend had a point, which he told. "I'm not as stupid as you, James, remember that," was the comment he received.

James knew it was right not to doubt his friend, so he didn't say anything. In his bed Sirius grinned despite the fact that he was hungry. He knew James was a smart fellow, he just had a personality and looks which made you think differently about him.

"Did we check the cupboards in the kitchens whether there were some leftovers there or not?"

In a matter of seconds they were both on their feet and headed towards said room. After going through almost every single one they began to slightly lose their hopes.

James fell on his butt, hard. He had been standing on a chair to reach up to some of the higher cupboards when he found some metal boxes. At first he hadn't understood what they were, but when he turned one of them and read the word "soup" he had tripped. Now he was standing paralysed towards the box.

Sirius on the other hand had moved out of the kitchens and into the master bedroom, where he had found a chest. He'd opened it and honestly expected it to be either empty or full of clothes; he found round metal things that he most likely would have thrown away if he hadn't read the word: food. Now his stomach wouldn't shut up. Neither would James'.

"Sirius, want to eat?" James had found his friend and was now standing in front of him with a box in his hand. "Sure, mate," Sirius answered and hold up an identical box.

They found plates to eat off, something to eat with and put the boxes on the plates. "And now we eat," James said, but when he was ready to dig in he found a new problem.

"These metal boxes, we need to open them... you know how to do it?" James wondered. "As if I know anything about the way muggles lives." Sirius said.

"We need to find a box opener," Sirius looked strangely at his friend, "It's a metal thing." Sirius began to laugh, partly because he was tired, partly because he found what James said quite funny. "Muggles makes a lot of metal things, how can I know which one you mean?"

James had to agree with his friend. Muggles really used metal to a lot of things. Like cars and bikes and a lot more he didn't even know the name of, nor what they were.

Then James remembered that he didn't know how a boxopener looked like himself. "Sirius, we'll just see if we find something to open the boxes with. After they had tried to open the quite annoying boxes with various things, knives, scissors, spoons, and what not, what they had left was weird looking things with food inside.

Now they were really hungry, they had food but couldn't eat it. they talked for a while and found out that they had to find some people who were able to help them. The clock had turned four am., they were tired and it was still dark. "Let's find a house!" There was a pause, "Or at least someone who can help us."

If you happened to be in the forest and awake for some reason or and other in the middle of the night/early morning, you could be the lucky person finding two rather tired twelve year old boys wandering around not knowing where they were heading. By the way, they were talking really loud, or should we say; they screamed to another. They weren't more than one metre apart.

To walk in the middle of the night without light wasn't the easiest thing to do, expecially when your in the middle of the forest. Anyone else would have just waited for the light from the sun first. But the boys hadn't thought, at least not with their brains.

It didn't take them longer than twenty minutes before they found a cabin with lights. When they got closer they found a lot of noise also coming from the cabin, but they ignored it an knoked on the door.

"What!?" A strong voice shouted from inside, sounding more than slightly pissed. "Ehm, you don't have a box opener, do you?" While he said it, James found the question sounding stupid. Who asked a complete stranger, not to mention, angry stranger, about a box opener in the middle of the night?

"Are you stupid!?" Was heard from the inside. "My mate is, yes. But we're hungry." Sirius said before James even got to open his mouth. "Get your own, what was it you needed again!"

"Well, we first thought of that, but we couldn't find one and the shops're obviously not open."

While Sirius was speaking, James for an unknown reason found out that he wanted to go around the cabin. And half way around he found another door. But not just a door, an open door, with a hand sticking out of it, and a thing was in the hand. "Take it," a voice whispered and the hand began to shake.

James just stood there as a question mark. "It's a box opener, stupid. Now take it, hurry!" James did as he was told and walked the rest of the way around the small house and met Sirius.

"Oh," Sirius hadn't even bothered to look at their surroundings as they walked. They came to the tent and found it as cold as outside. Luckily they knew how to heat the tent up. "Why were you so eager to get away James? It's not like we have a way to open those damn boxes now!" James grinned despise what Sirius thought he would.

"Who said we didn't?" James hold a weird looking metal thing in front of his friends face. "Then what is this?"

"I don't know James, and I'm too hungry and tired to think."

"Well, you go to sleep while I'll take some night food. Happy?"

"Yeah, I'm happy." Sirius went to the bed and lied down. Just when he was about to sleep, what James had said finally reached his mind. "Did you say food?" Sirius asked desperately. James grinned even larger. "I thought you were going to sleep."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you mate, but when I'm hungry like I am now, I get desperate when it comes to food. You understand me?" Despise the threatening sound in Sirius' voice, James grinned as if he'd gotten the best Christmas gift ever.

---

"Then I hope you're able to open this box, Sirius, because I have already tried and I didn't manage it." The light which had been in Sirius' eyes vanished as if the last food had been eaten in front of his eyes and he didn't get any. "Let me try!"

"It's just hopeless, the box just won't open." You wonder how long they had been trying to get the food out of the box after they had gotten the box opener, and I will tell you, just not yet.

-

Not too far away from the boys, who couldn't figure out an easy thing as a box-opener, the person who had given it to them was lying in the bed, satisfied. The person now knew that there had to be a camp not too far from where the person now was itself. 'Sadly' the person thought, 'I have to hide and run for all I've got to get away from here.'

Mr. and Mrs. Potter had no idea that their beloved son wasn't at Sirius', neither that said son was out of the city and rather hungry. If they had known such facts they would have ran out of the house and searched for him, just to get him food so he wouldn't be hungry.

---

If they had also known that Sirius was with him, then they would also give him as much food as he liked. Sure they would be angry and might ask their son why he had done such thing, but hey would be more happy about the fact that he was alive. But they didn't know such facts and they had a house to clean before the important guests arrived. In truth they hardly thought about their son at all.

-

And here's the exiting answer, how long had Sirius and James tried to open the box? Five minutes? Ten minutes? After another half an hour they finally found out that they had to push the sharp end into the top of the box and then turn the wheel thing. How come they hadn't figured it out earlier? Well, half of the time they had been trying to figure out what the wheel thing had to do with the box opener at all.

No one in their right mind would ever think that the Blacks would actually trust their eldest son. Sirius hadn't been gone for many hours before they sent Regulus to tail his back. And Regulus did as his parents told him, as usual.

He went to the Potters. After walking up and down the street for about half an hour, he decided that it wouldn't hurt if he called the doorbell. After all, he was Sirius' brother, and he could lie and say that Sirius forgot his jacket or something. Regulus could just take off his own, since the brothers were about the same size.

When he called the doorbell a rather stressed Mrs. Potter opened the door. "Oh, it's just you. I thought you were a guest or something." Sirius hadn't said anything about a party, but then again, he didn't tell them too much about what he spent his time doing other than play all those stupid instruments.

"I'm sorry to interrupt you ma'am, but could I talk to my brother for a second?" Regulus could easily see that the lady didn't understand what he meant. "My brother, Sirius."

"I...I don't quite understand what you're talking about. I thought James was with Sirius at your place." 'That son of a bastard,' thought Regulus. "Oh, strange that I didn't notice the two of them for dinner then. And-," he said before Mrs. Potter could ask, "-the family always eats dinner together."

Now the husband also appeared, behind his wife. "Are you telling us that our son isn't where he told us he would be?" Regulus nodded. "I don't have time for this! My boss will be here any minute now." A car drove into the neighbourhood. "Speaking about the devil."

With that he closed the door, and Regulus was left alone at the doorstep. He'd gotten some interesting news. As Mr. Potter and his father's boss stepped out of the car, he gave the man a deep bow before running home.

--

"Sirius, can you cook?" Sirius sent his friend a look which obviously said: Are you totally out of your mind!?

"James I'm form a pureblood family," James made a sound, "which isn't, sorry the word, bloodtraitors as your family is. If you had seen our staircase you would have seen that we've had plenty of house elves, how could I possibly know how to make my own food?"

Again James found what Sirius said wise and didn't question a thing about it. He just said: "Then we've got yet another problem if we don't want to eat cold tomato soup," he looked into the box, "and that's not very tempting." Sirius couldn't agree more.

The person, still not given any other name than "You" or "Boy" had finally found a chance to escape the cottage. "You" ran with all his might hoping that he would find the boys soon. He ran to the place he knew would look like a good place to camp, though not so great.

He smirked to himself when he found a tent there. "Knock, knock, anyone in there?" He asked out of breath. "Yeah," a childish voice answered, "who's there?"

"James, are you crazy!? You shouldn't talk to strangers, especially not in the middle of the night!"

"Oh, come on Sirius. We could easily get away from here if something dangerous happened."

"Boy" heard voices from the inside of the tent. "I'm sorry, but it's pretty cold outside here." It didn't take long before he was standing inside. "How the hell did the tent grow so large!?" was the first thing he asked.

"See?" Sirius whispered to James. "It wasn't such a good idea to let him in." To the boy he said: "Your eyes must play you a trick."

--

Regulus had run home with all his might. Finally inside he found his mum and said: "You will not believe what I just found out. Sirius isn't at the Potters!" Then hell broke out.

--

Mrs. and Mrs. Potter didn't like the fact that their son had lied to them. But they agreed that he probably wasn't far away, probably just visiting another friend together with Sirius. For the next hours they had to think about their guests.

--

Sirius and James had let the boy stay at one condition: that he would help them make some food. James, who actually didn't like tomato soup that much found out that nothing tasted better, at least not now when he finally got something into his stomach. Sirius felt the same way, though he hadn't tasted this sort of food before.

Sirius was about to sleep when he heard it. Dunk. It sounded as if something had fallen down on the tent sealing. But when he didn't hear it again, he thought it was his imagination. He closed his eyes. Dunk. There it was again. No mistake about it. Dunk. Again?! Dunk... Dunk, dunk. Even more of them, and the sound just got faster and faster. "James, "boy", do you hear that sound?"

"It's just the rain", come the answer. The rain got more intense and soon Sirius felt as if the nature was using all its power to destroy their tent. But the other boys told him tiredly that it was only his imagination and that he should go to sleep. The next day they woke up in the middle of the lake.

His clothes were wet, but Sirius couldn't recall wearing them in the shower. He looked around. James and the boy were there also. They were all drifting slowly on the water. He used his hands to paddle his way over to James who was the one he would reach fastest.

"James mate, wake up." Carefully Sirius tried to wake his sleeping friend. "Mhm," James said not waking up. After yet another five minutes Sirius began to wonder how long it would take before his friend woke up. A splash later he didn't have to wonder any longer.

James woke up with water surrounding him. It was everywhere. Beneath him he saw light. Under him there was darkness. He figured out that he liked light better. The first thing he did when he came to the surface was to take a deep breath.

He praised his parents for sending him to swimming classes when he was younger. James didn't remember much of that time, but he remembered that his reward for learning everything he had to learn was his beloved flute.

His mother and father had taken him to the music shop and told him that he could pick any instrument he wanted. The owner had showed him a lot of different instruments and the flute was the one which got his attention.

When he spotted a grinning Sirius he found the reason he had been under water first hand. "Why did you to that?"

"For fun?" Sirius couldn't place the tone in James' voice. "I could have drowned mate! Do you call that fun?"

"No of course not." Sirius hadn't thought about what could have happened if his friend had died. James swam to his madras and after a bit of struggle he was lying on it once again. "Why did you wake me Sirius? Did something happen? You didn't have a nightmare did you?" That moment Sirius began to wonder why he even woke up his friend.

"If you call the fact that we're in the middle of the lake nothing, then I have to agree with you. I had absolutely no good reason to wake you at all."

James kept quiet. It was too early in the morning to think about the meaning of what Sirius had told him. Too bad he was wet, if not he would have gone back to sleep for sure.

They got out of the lake. Luckily Sirius used his dog-instincts to swim. 'All animals can swim' he thought to himself. Humans are no exception!

He was happy he'd managed to get James up. Dam it! Why couldn't minors use magic outside school? This was an emergency, in Sirius' life at least. All the boys managed to get to the shore, and from there they watched the tent sink into the water.

"Dad's gonna kill me!" James cried upset. "No, he's not. He's too nice…" Sirius muttered. "But what do we do now? I don't even know where we are! The rain got our tent out in the river which took us…. where?"

Sirius started to walk in circles.

"Stop panicking, bloody pureblood-rich-townsboy!" James called. He'd realised the problem, but managed to stay calm. He needed Sirius to do so too.

Sirius became upset by James' words, but stopped and drew his breath. Regaining control.

"Where's the boy?" he suddenly asked.

They looked around. Both had been certain he'd been there just a minute before. They started to call for him, though it's hard to call properly for someone you don't even know what's called. "Why didn't we ask for his name again?" both boys said grumpily to the other.

-----------

After a couple of minutes "boy" came out of the forest with something that looked like a drowned cat. It was black all right, and wet, but it was a human, and he was alive.

"Regulus, what the hell are you doing here!?" Sirius called and ran over to his little brother.

"I was ordered to find you by Dad, but it started raining and blowing and I lost control over the broom and fell," he said.

"Should we tie him up like a hostage?" James asked. "We'll have to live like Indians from now. The tent gone and all…."

Right… So the last 400 words were written by Padfoot the almighty, but the 3000others were all sent by mail from Prongsie to me so I give Prongs all credit for this chapter.

We're just about to take a hike together to find out who "boy" is, so stay tuned…

With all due respect,

Messers Padfoot and Prongs.