James Potter and the Radical Revivalists

Chapter Fifteen

Lyra, Alex, Fred, and Lily stared at James in silence. James looked away, his eyes burning with tears. He looked over the side of the building to see the afternoon traffic. Everyone in those cars was living a normal, care-free life. James, on the other hand, had just lost one of his best friends.

“D-dead?” Alex stammered after a pause, his voice cracking. James nodded once, and Lyra choked out a sob. James turned back to his friends to find Fred and Lily sitting close to each other, holding hands. Fred held a hand against his ribs; the Apparating didn’t help the injury at all.

“Hate to make this any worse,” Fred began cautiously, “but we forgot to find Shacklebolt. That was our- mine and Lily’s- mission; to find him and get him back to the Ministry as soon as possible to get Kaftan out of office. As long as that git’s sitting behind that desk, we’re not going to get anywhere with the Radicals.”

“Baker’s dead, too,” Lily offered, wiping tears from her eyes. “That has to count for something.”

“True. But who do you think will take over now that he’s gone?” Alex said. 

Everyone lowered their heads in dread. Of course they knew who was now first-in-command.  The same Radical that had killed Molly.

“Gibbert,” James said, his voice hoarse. 

“She’s going to be a lot harder to take down than Baker,” Lily shrugged.

“Yeah, but he wasn’t too easy himself. Molly took him by surprise,” Alex replied. “Molly was…brave to do that.”

“She was more than that. Anyway,” James continued gruffly, standing up and wiping his coat off from dust that had fallen at the Radicals’ hideout, “Gibbert’s not going to be too happy that we killed her boyfriend. I’m no idiot, she’s going to come after us, and if she’s smart, she’ll start around the town. She saw us Apparate, but she doesn’t know where to. We have to go somewhere safe.”

“Hogwarts,” Lyra said immediately, regaining self-control, her eyes still teary. 

“Exactly.”

“What about Eric?” Alex said. “We were looking for him, weren’t we?”

“And we found him. Didn’t you see how he was tailing Baker and Gibbert around? He follows the strongest in the group. Wherever Gibbert is now, Eric’s there to,” James explained. He was focusing on not thinking about Molly in order to keep his friends motivated, but he was fading.

“So you’re saying we want Gibbert to find us?” Lyra asked. 

“Unfortunately, that’s the case. If she tries to find us at Hogwarts- well, first of all, she won’t be able to break the enchantments guarding the school and Hogsmeade.  Secondly, we’ll have the rest of Hogwarts there with us, and the Radicals will be outnumbered,” James continued. 

“We’ll have the advantage,” Fred affirmed.

“But there’s no way we can get there,” Lily finally pointed out. “No one can Apparate, dig under, charm, curse, or anything else into Hogwarts. It’s impossible to break into. Besides, you can’t even you a Vanishing Cabinet.”

“The Ministry is just over that way,” Lyra pointed over various buildings. “Since it’s infiltrated, we can’t go there.”

“What if we went to Uncle Bill’s place?” Fred suggested. “Shell Cottage is in the middle of nowhere, practically.”

“We’d be endangering the family,” James shook his head.

“It’s the only thing we’ve got,” Fred said, standing up slowly, clutching his ribcage. He stared at James for a moment before James nodded in agreement.