The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part One

Trunk

James lay on his bed in the flat in East London, curled so that his knees were against his chest, staring at the wall, where his invisibility cloak hung from a peg. The flat felt terribly empty without Sirius and Remus there, and although Lily was there, she was by nature much quieter than Sirius.

She had gone to the kitchen to make him something to eat. He didn't really want to eat. He felt queasy in a subtle way, as though if he moved or ate he might spin out and lose control. Everything felt rather tedious and unnecessary to him, as though even something as simple as breathing was too much to do in a world where his father was not included. He wished he could pull that invisibility cloak over himself and disappear completely.

Charlus had been so excited when he gave James that cloak. He could remember the flush to Charlus's face, the joy at sharing something that he had with his son. James remembered the way his father had opened his old Hogwarts trunk with such pride and awe, as though it were a holy grail of sorts, and how sacred each time had felt.

Suddenly, James sat up.

Hurrying, he rushed to pull on his trainers and his jumper - the one that had once belonged to Charlus - and went down the hallway of the flat, nearly running into Lily, who was coming back to the bedroom, carrying a tray of bacon and eggs. "James?" she turned about, following him in his rush back to the living room. She put the plate down on the coffee table. "Honey, what're you doing?"

"I've just remembered, my dad's trunk," he said.

"His trunk?" Lily asked.

"Yeah, I need to go look at it." He paused. "You want to come along, then?"

Lily nodded, "Yeah, I'll come with you. Let me get my shoes." She went down the hallway quickly, shouting over her shoulder, "Eat some of that bacon while I'm getting them!"

James went over and absently grabbed a piece of bacon from the plate. He ate the piece slowly, letting the taste of it fill his mouth. Even bacon didn't taste as good and after he'd eaten half the piece, he broke up what was left of it and tossed it to Roger, who lay sprawled across the seat of a chair by the fire.

When Lily came back from getting her shoes - and apparently changing, for she was wearing a different shirt and her hair was up in a ponytail when she returned - James took up the floo powder and pinched a handful out, tossing it into the fire. "The Lupin House," he declared, then waved his palm. "After you, Evans."

Lily stepped into the fire and disappeared with a crack.

James glanced at the left over bacon on the table, then over at Roger. "Oi, if you want to finish that up, you're welcome to it," he said, pinching more powder and stepping into the fire himself - "Lupin House!" he called, and with a pop he was gone.

Roger sat staring at the fire as it turned back to orange after their disappearance. Sunlight was coming through the windows on the other side of the flat, and he had been thinking about getting up anyway to go lay in the bright, warm gashes that the light made across the floor. He stretched, curling his back into a wide arch, and then inverting the stretch as well. Now limber, he jumped down from the chair, walking languidly across the room to the coffee table, and leaped up, eagerly grabbing onto the strips of bacon that James had left behind.

Charlus's trunk was old and banged up from years of use, a bit burned on one side from when the old Potter house in Godric's Hollow had been ruined a couple years before. It sat in the corner of the bedroom that Charlus and Dora shared in the Lupin house, a stack of cheap science fiction novels sat on top of it, along with an old quaffle signed by the entire quidditch team that had player the year Charlus had graduated from Hogwarts, and a framed photograph of a smiling James, seated on his broomstick in the air high over the pitch during the Tourney in second year.