James Potter and the Radical Revivalists

Chapter Sixteen

“Blimey, you’d think he’d have more sense not to Apparate so much in one day! I mean, seriously!” 

“Oh, shut it. How ‘bout you try it? Anyway, it’s nearly midnight. They just got in this evening.”

“Sure, sure. Still, he was only gone for what, a day?”

“Two, you twit!”

“Oh, whatever.”

James groaned, and he squinted his eyes together before opening them to a bright light. As his eyes adjusted to the warm illumination of the sitting room in the Burrow, he looked around the room, realizing that it was Fred’s. Loads of gifts from his father from Weasley’s Wizards Wheezes were strewn across the floor, along with old clothes and letters, books, quills, and the occasional Quidditch newspapers. James was flat on his back with the fuzzy blankets of Fred’s bed wrapped around him, his wand on the nightstand nearby and broomstick leaning in the corner.

“Ah, he’s awake!” jeered a voice. James squinted his eyes and found a tired-looking Alex sitting in a rocking chair by the window. His eyes were gleaming, and he was wearing an old Weasley sweater, although he was not related to the family at all. Beside him sat Lyra, with her usual wavy blonde hair and blue eyes, smiling gently as she looked at James. James himself immediately grinned.

“Yeah, one or two days away from us and you’d think he would have been a little more safe,” Lyra laughed. “Whenever he’s with us, something bad always happens.”

“I think it’s whenever we’re with him,” Alex joked. “So! Who are all these Resistance blokes?”

“They’re on our side,” James replied, sitting upright. There was a strange silence as Lyra and Alex exchanged glances.

“What- exactly- happened in those two days?” Alex asked warily. The mood of the room seemed to shift quickly, and James looked down at the knotty blanket that was covering the bedspread. 

“I decided to leave to protect you,” James answered with a sigh. “Molly had…died, and I didn’t want anything to happen to you two. I went to Marcia Popping- she wrote an article about me a while back- and asked her to write this piece on how more wizards and witches should start fighting back. She wrote it; anyway, then I went to this alley- long story short, I found this group of people who’ve been fighting the Radicals for years, now. We discovered that the Radicals are trying to bring back Voldemort by using the remnants of his wand- we used ‘Lumos’ on the letter from F.A.E, that’s how we know- and in order to defeat them, we’ve got to fight the Radicals at certain places. Then, we went to Clovelly and fought the Radicals there, and searched the mansion. Nothing there. Anyway, that’s virtually it.”

Alex and Lyra sat in silence for a few moments longer, before Lyra shook her head, and began fiddling with her wand in her hands.

“We’ve been looking for you. Nothing new, with us. Your mum and dad were worried,” she said. Her face darkened; her mother probably didn’t know what she was up to of late and probably didn’t care, and her father had disappeared when she was young into the Ministry of Magic just when the Radicals were starting to become a threat. There was no one to worry for her. 

“By the way,” James said, breaking another silence, “how did I get here?”

“The old man that was with you was talking to that friend of Roxanne’s- Lenius, it is?- and he Apparated here seconds after your Uncle Bill decided to bring Lyra and I here,” Alex explained. “We were taking day trips to look for you from here.”

“That Lenius and the girl- Victoria- they flew to St. Mungo’s Hospital, she got hurt with some nasty curse,” Lyra added. “He sent us a letter though; Victoria’s fine.”