A/N: Raaandom Alice&Frank fic. Inspired by talking to Sophie, ha.
Anyways.
It has a really abrupt ending, but whatever.
Disclaimer: I wish I owned Frank and Alice, but I don't. They belong to JKR, but if I did own them, I'd have Alice and then give Frank to Sophie. Because we love Frank and Alice much more than you.
Alice isn't really a fan of cold weather. Admittedly, she loves the way the snow settles over the grounds, giving them such an ethereal look, and she loves the fact that she can just loll around in the common room with her friends, chatting by the fire, but still. She isn't a fan of cold weather. Cold weather meant snow, and snow meant snowballs fights, and snowball fights meant unpleasant, cold sensations running down your spine whenever someone aimed for the back of your neck.
Alice is the somewhat unfortunate recipient of many of these kinds of sensations, and also a practised giver of these kinds of sensation. This is the sixth year she is spending in a place with mountain loads of snow, and she's adapted well to the climate, and has become quite skilled with the art of snowball throwing. Of course, she still isn't a fan of cold weather, and all, as I've said about sixty times already or whatever, I'm just reiterating because you should now that she isn't, and probably never will be.
So basically, there she is, loitering around by a window in the library. Despite her usual enjoyment of reading, the library isn't one of her regular haunts. She thinks it's way too quiet, and that makes it really creepy. She has a book, and it lies forgotten on her lap as she dreamily watches the snowflakes drift lazily from the fluffy, off-white cloud to the untouched ivory ground.
She doesn't notice that someone is trying to get her attention until she feels a hand on her elbow and another at her waist, followed by a gentle pressure on her head. It felt like a kiss. She momentarily wants to turn around and slap the person standing behind her for scaring her shitless, but she changes her mind, because if she did that, the person behind her was slapped, he'd make an indignant sound and then Madam Pince would get all freaky on them. So instead, Alice turns around, giving the boy behind her a reproachful look.
"Thanks, I love having the living daylights scared out of me," she says gently, her lips twitching a little as she fights off a smile. "What're you in here for? You rarely frequent the library."
"I had to find a book on the Goblin peace talks of 1489," replies Frank in an equally soft voice, fixing her with a boyish grin. "Or whichever year it was. Professor Binns makes it really difficult to remember anything he says." He speaks absently, deciding instead that he wants to play a little with Alice's hair.
"Not to mention you spent most of yesterday's lesson passing notes to me," Alice reminds him, raising her brows haughtily.
"That too."
Alice giggles, and Frank just continues to grin and fiddle with her curls. Soon he stops though, his expression becoming a little irritable.
"We should go. Madam Pince is giving us the evil eye through one of the spaces between books, and it's scaring me. You know what she's like about romance being expressed in her precious library." Frank takes Alice's hand and hastily leads her away from the prying eyes of the librarian, seeming eager to get her somewhere on her own. Then again, there are few times that Frank doesn't want to get Alice somewhere on her own. "Hey Al, what were you thinking about in there? I kept saying your name over and over, as quietly as possible and you were somewhat dead to the world.
"I was looking at the snow," Alice says, not quite sure what else she should say. "And thinking. I was thinking about things. I don't really know what, but I do know that I was definitely thinking."
"That's helpful. Looking at the snow, you say? You want to have a snowball fight again?" There is a mischievous tone to Frank's voice. They are now strolling down a more or less empty corridor, not actually thinking about where they were going. "I'd love to hear you make all those funny little squeaky sounds that you were making yesterday again."
"So you really want another pile of snow shoved down the back of your shirt?"
"Point taken and noted in back of mind."
Alice snorts, but says nothing in reply. This is was she likes doing. Wandering around aimlessly, hand in hand with Frank. It's relaxing, and quite fun, because they both tend to go off on some random tangent when talking about whatever, and end up moving from discussing sugar quills to Charms within the space of twenty seconds. She matches Frank's pace with considerable ease, her hand warm in his. When she first started to realised she liked Frank, and when she first started dating him after that fateful night in the kitchens - an incident that occurred two months ago, and involved pots, pans, house elves, tea and fire whiskey - Alice became acutely aware of how much larger Frank's hands are compared to hers. Her hands are literally swallowed by his, and though this is comforting and amusing at the same time, it strikes her as odd. She never knew hands could be so big.
Oh well.
At least it's a gentle hand.