~Albus~

The morning in early August that I was supposed to meet Ciara, Scorpius, Colette, and Poppy in Hogsmeade, Mum got an owl. That wasn't so weird, in and of itself; in fact, Lily and I hardly paid it any attention as it settled on our breakfast table and allowed Mum to take the letter tied to its leg. Though the DA didn't use owls often anymore (too easy to intercept), Grandma owled her at least once a week.

It took me a full minute to realize that wasn't Mildred, the owl Grandma had had since I was six or seven and the old family owl had died. This one was large and brown and regal. I stared at the bird for a moment, then glanced at Mum. "Who...?"

I trailed off, because she was reading the letter with her mouth pressed into a grim line. Most of the color had left her face.

"Mum, what is it?" Lily asked.

She didn't answer. Instead, when she'd finished reading, she passed the letter to Lily, then closed her eyes and rested her head in her hands. I leaned over so I could read over Lily's shoulder, filled with a sort of dread curiosity that made my stomach turn. The letter didn't help settle it at all.

Dear Mum,

I am writing to let you know that I have decided to step away for a few months. I am in France, staying with François and Amélie Dubois. Please don't come after me. I want some time to try to move on from all this in my own way. I don't want anything to do with the DA, or the war, or anything else. Please, just give me some space.

The past few weeks have been incredibly difficult for me, and I decided that the best thing for my personal mental health was to leave. Clearly, the DA is powerless, and I'm pretty fed up with them. And no, this isn't an impulsive decision. I'm done reconsidering. The DA is the reason Dad is gone, and Wren is gone, and I'm done with it. They were completely under-prepared, and out of line, and I don't want to be involved with any of this anymore.

I apologize for not telling you when I left, of course, but I had a feeling you'd try to stop me. Of course, you might still be upset, but I hope that you respect my decision. Please leave me alone until you can keep the DA out of our relationship. I ask that of Albus and Lily, too. Hope you're all doing well.

With much love,

James Sirius

"What the hell?" I asked.

"Does this mean he's not with Astra?" Lily added.

"What's wrong with him?"

"We're going after him, right?"

"Is he out of his mind?"

Mum reached over to take the letter back. She wasn't looking at either of us, but I could tell she was hurt. I was, too. What on earth was James thinking? He was done with the DA? He'd run off to France to take care of his mental health? What about his family? Didn't we matter?

"He can't be serious, Mum," Lily said, her voice small. "Is he actually serious?"

Mum sighed. Closed her eyes. Picked the letter up. Then crumpled it up as tightly as possible and threw it across the room.

"I think he's serious, Lils," I said darkly.

"I don't know," Mum said, shaking her head. "I don't know what to think, honestly."

"So he's not with Astra?"

"Apparently not." Mum pursed her lips and finally looked up at us. She wasn't just hurt. She was angry. Fire flashing in her eyes, like I'd seen in Lily's and James's when I'd made them really upset.

"Are you going to follow him?" Lily asked.

"I'm thinking about it."

"If you don't, I will," I announced. "He's completely out of his mind! And he has the guts to say he loves us at the end? When he's leaving us behind and betraying everything we've ever stood for? What's wrong with him?"

"Albus, slow down."

"No!" I stood up so forcefully that my chair fell over. "He should know better! You can't just decide you're done with the DA, not when there's a bloody war going on! That's siding with Stillens!"

Lily's eyes widened. "James is siding with Stillens?"

"No." Mum shot me a glare that made me shut my mouth before I contradicted her. "We don't really know what this letter means, all right? It's definitely from James. This is his handwriting. But there's a good chance he's just not thinking things through. He'll come to his senses."

"He said he'd thought things through," I pointed out.

"So did you," Lily said sourly. "Look how that turned out."

I blinked, her words slicing open a wound that had only barely begun to heal. As my stomach flipped with guilt, I felt my anger rising up even higher to mask it. "Hey! That's not fair!"

"I'm just saying!"

"Screw you! You little—"

"Enough!" Mum was glaring at both of us now, and we fell silent, though I was still seething. Not at Lily, I'm not mad at Lily. I shot a glance at her, and she seemed to be struggling through the same emotions. We were lashing out at each other because James wasn't here to lash out at.

Mum took a deep breath, like she was trying to calm down, too. "We can't turn on each other, all right? I don't know what's going on with James. I don't know if he's being serious, but if he is, we're going to have to live with that. It's his choice. Trying to force him to do the right thing isn't going to make him want to. Honestly, I do understand his frustration. We all lost a lot, and we all have to deal with that in our own way." She paused, searching for words. "If the pain was too much for him, and he's given up, there's not a lot we can do about it, now."

"So we're not going to do anything?" I snapped.

"I didn't say that."

"Then what are we going to do?"

"You aren't going to do anything. I think I'm going to go pay him a visit." Mum raised an eyebrow at me, daring me to argue. I wanted to, very badly; I wanted to go see James, to scream at him and fight him and figure out what on earth he was thinking. This seemed so unlike him, but I couldn't think of any other reason he would've run off to France. Apparently James's convictions only applied when life was relatively all right; as soon as things got hard, he gave up.

"How could he give up on the DA?" Lily asked softly.

"I don't know, love." Mum smiled sadly and patted Lily's hand. "I don't know."

Colette was coming over so we could apparate to Hogsmeade together. By the time she arrived, Mum had already left. Lily had retrieved James's letter from the floor and smoothed it out, then reread it a few times, and retreated to her room. I could hear quiet sobs from outside her door, but had hesitated before going in; I was too angry to comfort her, and I didn't know what to say, anyway. I couldn't make it better.

Colette was furious, luckily, because I wanted someone to be furious with who wouldn't try to talk me out of my feelings, like Mum. She nearly convinced me to apparate over to France with her right then and chew out the Dubois twins and James ourselves. If I hadn't been nervous about what Mum might do, I might've agreed to it.

After that, she was far more reasonable about it all than I was, at least. She pointed out that Astra had definitely mentioned James in the letter she'd left, so this didn't make a lot of sense. Mum would be asking about that, I was sure. Colette also thought it was weird (and annoying) that François and Amélie hadn't owled her about any of it. To be fair, they'd just written to her a few days before Astra and James had disappeared, so there was a chance they simply hadn't had a chance yet (though it had been over three weeks now), but it was frustrating all the same that they were apparently James's accomplices in all of this.

I really wanted to do nothing except wander around the house aimlessly and occasionally punch a pillow until Mum got back (hopefully with a fully repentant James in tow), but we did need to go meet up with our friends. I shoved down all the anger and frustration, determined not to let this ruin our day.

I supposed we didn't really need to meet up before, but I'd gotten used to doing things with her, and honestly I still wasn't super confident apparating. She'd been practicing since we were fourth years. Even better, she was more than capable of fixing any splinching accidents. I hadn't had any yet, but I was sure it would happen eventually.

Poppy was sitting at the Three Broomsticks Bar when we walked in, talking to Madam Rosmerta. When she noticed us, she leaped up and flew over to give me a hug. "I've missed you so much!" After she let me go, she gave Colette a hug, too. To my surprise, Colette didn't even threaten to hex her, just grudgingly allowed it. That was impressive.

"How're you doing?" I asked as we walked over to one of the booths. We'd video chatted a few days ago, but somehow that was nowhere close to the same as actually seeing her in person. I wanted to hug her again, take her hand and never let go, feel that she was actually here.

Her smile faded. "All right, I guess. I'm glad Jack's around, and I love my grandparents. But everything's weird. I'm sure you both understand."

Colette nodded stiffly, and I sighed. "Yeah. Really weird."

"Have you heard anything about Astra and James yet?" she asked, her brow scrunching up in worry. She was almost cute enough to make me forget how absolutely furious with my brother I was. I just groaned and closed my eyes.

"I'll take that as a yes?"

"They got a letter from James this morning," Colette explained. I could hear the eye roll in her tone.

"A letter from James?" Scorpius's voice. I opened my eyes to see him and Ciara standing at the end of the table. Poppy and I scooted down a bit so Scorpius could slide into the seat next to me, while Ciara sat down next to Colette. "What'd he say?"

"He's run off to France," Colette said.

"What?" Ciara glanced at me, eyes wide, then back at Colette. "With Astra, you mean?"

"Didn't sound like it," I said.

"But I thought they were together," Poppy said. "Didn't Astra say they were?"

"Yeah," Colette said, frowning darkly. "She did."

"Okay, weird," Scorpius said. He shook his head. "All right, what do we know for sure? Did he say what he was doing in France? Did he mention Astra at all?"

I sighed and launched into a brief explanation of James's letter, trying to avoid sounding as angry about it as I really was. Not that I didn't think they would understand; Ciara's eyes were flashing by the time I was done, and even Scorpius and Poppy seemed frustrated and confused. I was just more angry than I'd ever been in my life, and I didn't really want to admit it. Astra and James leaving had hurt because I'd been left behind, I hadn't been included, they'd run off to go chase some impossibly optimistic goal. Now, though, learning James wasn't even with her? He'd run off to France and decided none of this mattered anymore? That was worse. That was something like betrayal. That wasn't just James saying he didn't care enough about me to include me in their little adventure. It was James saying he didn't care about anything our family stood for, any of the values we'd been fighting for all this time. It was James saying he cared more about himself than us, more about himself than the wizarding world. How could he do that?

After a few minutes, Ciara mentioned that we really needed to be going, or we were going to be late. Reluctantly, I scooted out of the booth and waved goodbye to the rest of our friends, then follow Ciara to the door.

"You seemed calm in there," she commented as we started toward the castle.

"Should I not be calm?"

Ciara shrugged. "I wouldn't be." She gave me a sideways glance. "Are you really doing all right?"

I looked down to avoid meeting her eyes. "I mean, no. Of course not. Turns out my brother is the most idiotic prat in the world. Where did this come from?" I gestured vaguely toward the south, toward where James was, probably frolicking around the French countryside without a care in the world. "Wren's the person he cares most about, and she put up with so much to fight against Stillens. And he always supported her! But he's going to give up now? We've lost so much, and he decides to just give in?"

"Yeah, it doesn't seem very much like him." Ciara sighed, and lapsed into a silence for a second. Doesn't seem like him, I thought. I was beginning to think I just hadn't known him like I'd thought.

Ciara was glancing at me again. "I really am sorry, Albus. Your family's been through a lot lately, and I'm sorry that James is making it worse."

"You'd think, out of everyone, he'd know how much that would hurt."

"It doesn't make sense," she agreed, shaking her head.

I sighed and shook my head. "Can we talk about something else? I don't want to still be in this bad of a mood when we're talking to Kimmel." I cast her a sideways glance. "How's everything going with Fred?"

Ciara looked down, pursing her lips. "Um... not great, exactly. Well, no, I suppose it's good with him..." She sighed. "It's mainly his family. His mum's very kind, at least. But his dad refused to meet me. And Roxanne's still trying to convince him to dump me..."

"I'm sorry." I sighed, feeling guilty even though it wasn't my fault. These people were my family, too, after all. I felt horrible that they were acting like that. "I could talk to them, if you want?"

She shook her head. "That's okay. Fred said to just give them time. He thinks his dad might be coming around..."

"Uncle George gets over things pretty well," I agreed, nodding. "I'm sure once he gets over the initial shock..." I trailed off, not sure I really knew enough to predict what Uncle George might do. I suppose this was a bit of a touchier subject than James and Fred making a mess at the shop, or Roxanne blowing up her bedroom on accident.

"Do you think Roxanne will... I don't know, be okay with it, eventually?"

My instinct was to say yes automatically, because that was the most comforting thing to say, and any reasonable person would of course be perfectly fine with their brother dating Ciara, once they'd gotten to know her a little. Roxanne wasn't exactly a reasonable person, though. She, James, and Fred had always been the most headstrong, unwaveringly stubborn ones in our family, and while James and Fred had both had chances to get to know Ciara in spite of that, Roxanne hadn't. And now that she was so adamantly against the idea, I wasn't entirely sure that she ever would let that happen. "I... I don't know, honestly."

Ciara nodded, seeming resigned. "Right."

"It won't matter to Fred, you know. He'd pick you, if Roxanne was being unreasonable about it."

I glanced at her. She was studying the ground as we walked, and her troubled expression told me she didn't quite believe me. "Even if he did," she said, "I don't think I'd want him to."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't want to be the reason Fred doesn't talk to his sister anymore. What if he came to resent me for it? Even if he didn't, I'd feel horrible."

I pursed my lips, not sure how to argue that. "Well... let's hope it doesn't come to that, then. It hasn't been that long, after all. Who knows? Maybe Roxanne'll come around if you give her time to cool down and think about it for a while."

"Maybe," Ciara echoed, though she sounded unconvinced. I quickly changed the subject to Quidditch, which lightened the mood considerably. By the time we reached the castle, no one would've been able to tell that either of us had anything weighing us down more than usual.

In all the years my dad had taught at Hogwarts, I'd never been here during the summer. Even walking up to the castle, it seemed strangely empty, without the faint sound of first year flying classes or movement in the windows. I was glad Ciara and I had walked together. Of course, the castle was haunted, but it seemed almost eerie with no one here but the ghosts.

We had to dodge Peeves on our way upstairs. He threw some mothballs at us and laughed about "Potty and Malfoy, the couple of the century." I stuck my tongue out at him. Ciara calmly threatened him with the Bloody Baron, which had a much greater effect.

Kimmel really just wanted to talk about our duties as Headboy and girl. There were all the regular prefect duties, of course: patrolling and monitoring detention and taking points for minor infractions. We were also in charge of creating patrol schedules, scheduling and leading meetings, and "being upstanding members of our Houses and inspiring leaders for the school, exhibiting the unity we wish to impart to all students." I had to struggle to not roll my eyes at that. Basically, it meant we were the ones she would call when there wasn't unity among the Houses, it sounded like.

I didn't know all of the new fifth year prefects, and the ones I did know, I'd already heard about. Elmer Poe and Eviana Clausen were the Gryffindors, and my cousin, Oliver Dursley, was the one for Hufflepuff. Ciara knew the Slytherins, and neither of us knew the Ravenclaws or the other Hufflepuff. Kimmel asked us to write them all letters of welcome to the world of prefects, to explain their duties and let them know about the meeting on the train on the way to school.

We talked business on the way back, planning partners for the first term and what we needed to talk about at the first meeting. It was good to have something else to think about. When we reached the Three Broomsticks, our friends seemed to have decided that talking about James was a bad idea, too, and we managed to go the whole day without bringing him up again.

It didn't last, of course. I had to go home eventually. The Malfoys had to leave midafternoon, since Scorpius had promised Elcie he'd help her write a letter to some society for the protection of dragons. Colette left a little before six, claiming that Mrs. Tonks would be very upset if she missed dinner. I lingered with Poppy as long as possible, but even she finally had to leave, too, or Jack and her grandmother would be worried. She gave me a quick final kiss, then apparated off. I didn't have any more excuses to not go home.

Mum was back, no James in sight. I sank into a chair at the kitchen table without a word. She was staring into space, hardly seemed to know I was there. I'd never thought of my mum as old, necessarily, but as my eyes darted across her face, I noticed the lines, the gray hairs, the exhaustion.

She finally turned her eyes to me, and her eyes were watery. "He's not coming back."

"What do you mean?" I asked hoarsely.

"He's done, Al. I can't say I really blame him." Mum chuckled bitterly. "We're all reeling, I know. I just didn't think he would actually give up..."

I blinked, my throat growing tighter. I didn't need to cry, not right now when Mum needed support. "Maybe he just needs some time?"

She shook her head. "I don't think so. He swore up and down that the DA had ruined his life, that he was done with the war, with the DA, with fighting Stillens. He doesn't care anymore."

I'd been so angry before, but maybe I hadn't quite believed it all. But Mum wasn't lying. He... he'd actually turned his back on everything we believed in. Which meant he'd turned his back on us. I blinked quickly, feeling like I'd had the breath knocked out of me even though I was still just sitting in my chair.

Mum smiled sadly at me. "Don't worry about him, love. Maybe he'll come to his senses after a while."

I didn't think he would. If he could make up his mind enough to withstand Mum, then he'd really committed to this. It would take a lot more than time to change his mind. Mum took a shuddery breath, and I reached out to take her hand. "It's not your fault, Mum."

She opened her eyes to stare curiously at me, and I managed a sad smile. "James is an idiot, but it's not your fault, or Dad's. It's his. You did everything right."

"I wouldn't go that far." Mum smiled at me, patted my hand. "Thank you for the encouragement, though, Al. I'm very grateful for you, and your commitment to what's right."

"I love you, Mum. I'm not going anywhere."

"I love you, too." She sighed, then nodded. "That's the most important thing. You and Lily and I have each other, and that's not changing. Even when I go into hiding, it's not changing. Remember that, okay?"

"I will."

Mum looked at me thoughtfully for a moment, smiling softly. "I'm very proud of you, Albus. I know your father would be, too."

My heart fluttered a little, soaring at the thought. Mum's proud. Dad would be proud. That's all I wanted.

~~~~

Cedric Rogers owled me a few days later, frantic because he'd gotten an owl from Madam Hooch that he'd been offered the position of Gryffindor Quidditch Captain and he was absolutely sure it was a mistake, because surely it should have been me, right? Of course, it shouldn't have been me; I was pretty sure Madam Hooch would've offered it to Astra, if she hadn't disappeared, and Cedric made more sense as a second choice than I did. He was a little more committed than me, after all; I think nearly anyone could tell Quidditch was the least important thing to me at the moment, except maybe schoolwork.

I wrote him back, explaining all that and congratulating him. I thought he would make an amazing captain. If he was really that pressed, I was happy to help him out if he needed, but he really was more than capable of doing it all on his own. Cedric took that offer to mean meeting up multiple times over the summer to figure out what the plan was for next year. I spent most of the time just affirming that he did really have good ideas (like moving Elcie to Seeker and looking for just a new Beater and Chaser instead? I wouldn't have thought of that). I was a little annoyed at first, but it turned out to be a nice distraction from everything, especially in the later part of August when things got even worse.

Ciara and I had been writing back and forth daily, figuring out the last details for our duties, when suddenly she stopped replying. It took about a day for the news to filter through Mrs. Tonks to Colette, who apparated over to tell me immediately.

The Malfoy twins had disappeared. And not just run off, either. Elcie had seen it happen.

They'd been surrounded.

Disarmed.

Kidnapped.

Just like that, I'd lost two more of my friends. 

~~~~

Yes, I'm sorry, okay? I swear, this was necessary for the plot.

Question of the Day: Which magical school would you want to go to?

Answer: I want to say Ilvermorney, but it's because I imagine it to be much different than JKR's description. I think it's common knowledge that her conception of wizards in America is pretty racist towards Native Americans (as well as being kind of ridiculous in general; I mean, come on, one school for all of the American wizarding students? Come on, that's incredibly dumb). I know I haven't delved deeply into what the American wizarding world is like in my fanon universe, but I'd much rather go to the Ilvermorney that produced the Prophet's own Vinnie Briar than JKR's absolute monstrosity. 

Vote and comment!

~Elli

Word count: 4066