Take Time (a Harry Potter fan fiction)

3: Rumors/The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix

Chapter Three:

Rumours

[James]

James was no Ravenclaw.

Even though he got reasonably good grades- somewhere oft along the line of ‘Exceeds Expectations’- he regarded rules as something that would simply hinder him from making the most of his years in Hogwarts. Fred always joked that rules were the bane of James’s existence and that in the end his vanquisher would be a library.

If so, James thought, he was surely shortening his own life, sitting here in the library for the entirety of the afternoon looking up whatever might occur to him, as if sifting through these old books would yield some information on the recent activities of his brother Albus, wherever he was.

It made sense, he reasoned to himself, that Al might be mentioned somewhere; for instance, he might be stuck in Ireland and had been penned down on the constantly being updated list of Wizarding names he was reading as of the moment. It itched somewhere at the back of his mind that the logical Al Potter would not give away his name for sake of privacy, but James did his utter best to ignore that thought.

Or perhaps he was just thirsting for something to hope for. There had been little developments since Harry was informed of the sudden disappearance.

An image surfaced to James’s mind: Ginny crying hysterically, Harry comforting her, his face remarkably empty of emotion.

He shook his head vigorously and shut the book in utter irritation. He had no inkling where Al had ended up; there was no point, even Lily had pointed out the exact same thing.

On a remotely related topic, Lily had recently been avoiding the library like the plague. James had linked her sudden turn from one of her favourite spots in Hogwarts to the disappearance of the boy who haunted the restricted section’s shelves every time he got a chance, for the sole purpose of irritating Madame Pince; or so James believed, Al would deny that he ever wanted to irk the librarian, with whom he was generally on good terms. James, of course, did his earnest best to ruin the image of Al in the doyenne’s mind, while Lily used Al’s good name to her advantage, e.g. getting a decent spot in the circle of Ravenclaw-worthy Gryffindors that dotted the common room per night and the hard-to-earn respect of Rose Weasley.

“Ah, Rose,” James sighed cynically. “You seem to have wasted all your respect on Malfoy.”

“Shut up, Potter,” said a disdainful voice.

James twisted around to see the aforementioned girl behind him.

“Hey, cousin,” he greeted.

Rose smirked at him condescendingly. “Trust me, James; you don’t want to see my wand.”

James cocked an eyebrow at her. “So, in essence, you are admitting that you do have a crush on Scorpius?”

Rose flushed a shade of scarlet a bit brighter than her red hair; it clashed splendidly with her blue eyes. “Shut up,” she repeated, her hands poised to smack the back of his head.

The older cousin grinned, triumphant.

“Well,” said Rose in a mock disappointed intonation, “Lily asked me to tell you something she overheard from a Slytherin during Herbology, but, oh well; you don’t seem to be interested…”

“Lily got you to talk to me?” questioned James, startled.

“Apparently,” said Rose, her voice heavy with acerbity. “And she said it might help you find Al.” She dropped the sarcasm and took an abruptly more sombre tone. “She doesn’t seem to want to get close to the library.”