THE MISSED FEAST

"You comin'?" Sirius called out from the back of the open carriage, impatiently waiting for James to climb in.

"I erm, I might walk it this year" James hesitantly replied, not knowing his friends reply. A puzzled look crossed Sirius face, "Are you crazy, it'll take you half the nigh?" he exclaimed.

"I could do with the exercise." he explained, hoping his sorry excuse will be sufficient enough, but from there worrying look his friends shared, said that it wasn't. But before anyone could say anything, Peter, who was sat at the very front of the carriage and hadn't notice the worry of his friends, spoke up, "Are you even allowed to do that?"

Looking almost offended for the question, James grabbed a handful of his robes below a red and gold badge, the H gleaming in the moon light, "Cos I can, I'm Head Boy!" he boasted, a smug smile on his lips. This, more than anything, seemed to reassure James friends.

"All right, if your sure, we'll see you tomorrow." Remus finished, and with a wave of his hands the carriage door shut, leaving James to watch as the last carriage roll away, his smile slowly falling from his face.

Pulling up his cloak's collar, James trudged up the hill, following after the tracks made by the carriages. Keeping his head down he tried concentrating on each step, clearing his mind of every thought. Unfortunately this was a trait he had never managed to master, his head was always full of ideas, if it was a new prank or away to impress Lily. And so it wasn't before long that James' thoughts finally turned to the issue he had tried to avoid since arriving at Kings Cross.

His Aunt Abbey. Missing for 24 days with no trace. Although it was no secret that she would disappear for a few days once in a while, claiming she was bored, she had never left for this long without telling anyone. And so, after five days of not answering her owls, people stared to panic, and slowly a full on search was being organised. And they found nothing. Not a thing. It was just like she popped into thin air, which is possible using apparition, but that still didn't help.

Subconsciously, James had been steadily increases his pace, his frustration and anger being taken out through his feet. Consequently he was out of breath by the time he got to the school gates, his breath coming out in short clouds of mist. Leaning against one of the winged boar topped pillar, James tried to catch his breath.

Turning around, James wonder how he was going to get past the chained gate, because surely there was enchantments and jinxes to stop intruders, after all there was a war going on. But to his surprise, as soon as he touched the chain, the padlock broke and the chain dropped to the floor.

Guess its true that Dumbledore is the only who scares You-Know-W...Voldemort! James wasn't scarred to say his name, especially as it was most likely his faulty Abbey had gone missing. She didn't exactly keep under wraps her hate for Voldemort and his Death Eaters, or her love for Muggles , in fact she had often declared she wish she was one.

Angry at himself and the world, James slammed the gate shut, the loud bang echoing in the night air. As soon as it was shut the chain curled and coiled up one of the gates bars, wrapping its self around the gate before the padlock shot up from the grass, locking the gate shut.

The welcoming sight of Hogwarts seemed to calm James straight away, the feeling of warmth and safety instinctively taking hold of him. But instead of walking further up the hill towards it, James veered left, hoping to get some time alone before explaining himself to his friends, and Lily. Lily, who already was angry at him just for being Head Boy, would now be furious that he won't be helping the perfects after the feast. It was bad enough the perfect meeting he had to host with Lily on the train, the scowls he received when he had nothing to add, and once everyone left the lecture on setting a good example. He finally made an excuse of having to get changed in to his robes and saving her the decency not seeing him getting undressed, leaving a shocked Lily in the Head Boy and Girl s cabin.

After chucking two third years out of a cabin, James hid under his invisibility cloak in the now empty cabin. Only ten minutes pasted before Sirius entered, sitting down without saying a word, but James knew that Sirius knew he was there. Whilst starring out of the window James had fell in and out of sleep, only hearing snippets of the conversation between Sirius and Remus, who most have entered when he was sleeping with Peter. Sirius filling them in on what had gone on during the holidays which wasn't covered in the Daily Prophet.

He hadn't talked to anyone about it, not even his mother and father. But he couldn't help feel that it was his fault, he and Abbey had been close, always planning a new prank, he should have know something was wrong. And the worst thing was that when he know looked back he knew something must have been wrong, she seemed more distant, even if she was involved celebrating him becoming Head Boy and Sirius moving in with him.

James had finally reached the lake, and made towards the tree that him and the rest of the Marunders usually sat. Leaning against the tree, James thought of the up coming year. He'd be lying if he said he was happy to be leaving Hogwarts, he'd had the time of his life there, but all things came to an end, and he was going to make sure he left with a bang.

With new enthusiasm, James pushed himself off the tree and approached the water edge, hoping to get a good view of the moon lit lake before he left. And just as he got close enough for the water to lick at his feet did he a tremendous BANG echoing through the still night. After getting over the shock, James looked around, wondering if any one had heard it too. But within the main hall the conversation and scrapping of knife and forks drowned out any noise from the outside world.

Therefore, with the courage and curiosity only of that of a Marauder did James go to investigate the noise. Pulling his wand out of his robes, James walked to where he thought the noise came from. He carried out his pursuit until a he spotted a body sprawled on the floor, silhouetted against the moon light. Cautiously walking over, water squelched under his feet as he got closer to the body and lake edge, did James see that the body was in fact a girl, and at the sight of blood James ran the rest of the way only pausing when he heard her exhale the word "Harry".

Deciding to worry about that later, James kneeled in front of her, the lakes water lapping up against his knees, and pushed away a piece of her extremely bushy brown her, which was matted and tangled in blood. Taking in a count of her pale face James drew one of her arms closer to check up pulse, but before he could even reach her wrist, a warm, sticky liquid filled his arms, drawing his eyes to her sleeve, that even in the moonlight he could see was stained a deep, unforgiving red. Ever so gently, James rolled the sleeve up up arm, careful not to irritate the wound too much. MUDBLOOD. Carved in disjointed lettering, the sight of the word sent flashes of newspaper reports across James eyes, muggle borns who were missing, attacked or worse, murdered.

Swallowing the bile which rose from his throat, James spanned in to action. Half bent of the body, he gather her in his arms, and carrying her bridle style ran as fast as he could to the castle, hoping to who ever was out there that he wasn't too late.

In his rush to get help he never noticed the glint of moonlight by the shore, which was soon drowned by a particularly large wave, sent by the giant squid, which was splashing near by.