Carry On

Chapter Seven

James looked at Albus like he was crazy. Leave Hogwarts? As much as James complained about school, he never wanted to leave Hogwarts; it was basically his second home. Hell, it was his first home.

"Leave...Hogwarts!" He said after a moment of silence.  "Albus, are you okay?"

Albus looked at James like he belonged in the mental section of St. Mungo's.  "Of course I'm okay.  But Lily's not!  We need to figure out how to save Lily!"

James stared at Albus for a moment.  "Are you sure?  Because the Albus I know would never want to leave Hogwarts."

Albus cried out as if he were in pain.  "James!!  Don't you get it?  This is our sister we're talking about!  Her life is a lot more important than our school work!"

James knew he had a point, but he was still a bit skeptical.  "Albus, you need to calm down for a minute and take a step back.  We don't even know if that really is Lily trying to contact us.  This could be someone trying to play a trick on us.  I mean, thousands of people have seen the missing posters around the entire city of London.  Someone probably thought it would be funny to send us a letter pretending to be her."

"They got her exact handwriting, James.  How would they know her handwriting?"

"I don't know," James admitted, "But there has to be some kind of spell or bewitched quill that has that ability.  I bet they're even banned for exams.  We can go ask Professor McGonagall right now."

Albus looked skeptical as his eyebrows knit together; he was clearly deep in thought.

"James..." he finally started slowly, "I know you're not going to like what I am about to say, but you have to promise not to yell at me.  Okay?"

James rolled his eyes.  "Okay, I promise not to yell at you," he sighed in annoyance.

"I know that we don't know for certain whether this was actually sent from Lily or not, but if there is a chance of saving her, we have to take it.  Even if it does turn out to be a wild goose chase.  Because there is still that small chance that Lily is alive out there."

"We don't know that for sure!" James yelled.

"James, you promised you wouldn't yell at me!" Albus whined in a way that he would when James took his toy broomstick when he was seven.

"Well, that was before you said something so utterly stupid!  Think about it.  How would Lily get that piece of paper and the quill if she had been kidnapped?  Where would she have gotten the owl?  It just doesn't make any sense."

"So you would rather Lily be dead than go looking for her?"

"No, Albus, I've just moved on.  Lily has been out of our lives for two years now.  Why would she choose now to contact us?"

"You don't even want to try?" Albus asked sadly.

"I think it would be a waste of our time.  Carry on with your life, Albus.  We just have to accept the fact that she is not coming back.  I think deep down, we've both known that for a while now.

~

Even hours after Albus left the Room of Requirements and sat back down in the Gryffindor common room, James's words kept playing over and over again in his head.  He just did not understand how James was taking this whole matter like it was all one big joke.  It was true that there was a lot of evidence against the letter being sent by Lily, but it was also true that Lily was their sister and they should be doing everything they could to save her.

He finally stopped thinking about it when Thomas and Arthur came stomping down the stairs of the boys' dormitories, snapping Albus out of his half-daze.