Summary: Alicia loves her. The way her dark hair falls down her back like a curtain, the wicked look in her blue eyes when they played Quidditch, her pale skin, she loves it all but it's never mattered, has it?
Alicia Spinnet looked around the Hog's Head. She smiled to herself as she thought of how terrified she had once been of the pub. The first time she had ever been in the pub was in her seventh year of Hogwarts. They had come for the meeting about starting the Defense Against the Dark Arts club that eventually became Dumbledore's Army. She could remember being disgusted by the place because of the dim light and grime that covered everything. The pub had been cleaned up since Aberforth took Roger Davies as an assistant. It didn't matter much to Alicia anymore.
Maybe it was an analogy for her life, when she was younger she thought that life was supposed to be perfect and as far as she had been concerned, it was. Then the war hit and it was hard on everyone. Alicia didn't know when but at sometime during the war, she came to the painful realization that life wasn't perfect. It hurt and it was messy. Bad things happened, really bad things. Things like what was happening to the muggle-borns. Things like George loosing an ear. She thought that the worst part was not knowing when it was all over. Because the war was still going on, no matter how much she tried to pretend that it was already over. She found herself wondering if she really was similar to the Hog's Head. After all of this, would she find someone who cleaned her up a bit and make her better? A certain person with dark hair and blue eyes came to mind.
Just as she thought of her, she walked through the door. Alicia watched the girl with a look of longing mixed with adoration. The way her dark, perfectly straight hair feel just past her shoulders in a curtain, was tantalizing. She turned around and smiled at Alicia. Her usually pale skin was slightly flushed making her even more beautiful and full of life. She wasn't pale in the sickly way that some people were, it was more like the creamy pale of a porcelain doll. Her skin made her dark blue eyes stand out even more like blueberries and cream.
"Licy!" She threw her arms around Alicia.
"Hi Katie." Katie wore an orange dress that showed off her sculpted long legs that she folded neatly underneath her chair as they sat down. "How was breakfast with Fred?"
At the mention of his name, her eyes grew brighter and her smile wider. "You will never guess what happened!"
"He grew wings and flew off to find his kind?" Alicia smiled sarcastically. Katie's laughter was like bubbles, it started small and quiet and then got louder. It was biggest reward for Alicia.
But then she did the worst thing she could do, the thing that had been Alicia's worst nightmare for so long. She held out her left hand to reveal a large diamond ring.
Alicia felt her heart shatter into a million pieces. She took a sharp breath that must have sounded like a gasp because Katie launched into a speech about how shocked she was and all of the plans they had to make. But Alicia didn't hear a word of it. Her ears shut off. The only think she could feel was the pain. The blinding, bone aching pain that radiated from the center of her chest.
She had loved her for so long. She had always been there for everything. For all of the tears, the late night study sessions, the joy of life but it didn't matter did it? Katie hadn't paid attention to any of it. She went off and fell in love with a boy. A boy who was just going to break her heart. Alicia would never hurt her but it was a moot point. She would only be the person who knew her better than anyone else.
Angelina and Katie would both be ashamed if they found out. Not because of what Alicia was but because she hadn't ever told them. The three of them loved to watch chick flicks and make fun of the best friend character who inevitably was going to fall in love with the main character. They mocked how pathetic the idea was that they didn't want to lose the,. Now that she was faced with the same situation, Alicia realized why they had those characters. It wasn't for the people in love who watched the movie, they were for the people like her. To try and give the falsse hope that the person they were in love with might one day realize all that they were missing out on and fall in love with them too. It was the cruelest thing that Alicia had ever heard of. Things like that only happened in the movies because life wasn't a movie. It wasn't perfect and no one got a truly happy ending.
"And of course you and Angie will be be my bridesmaids."
"Yeah," she smiled mechanically. What else was she going to say? 'No, I can't be my best friend's bridesmaid because I don't want everyone to see me lose you forever.'
"Oh, Licy, it'll be just like at Hogwarts because Fred will have George and Lee as his groomsmen!" She forced a smile but it felt more like a grimace. Angie and Katie had decided in their fifth year that Fred and Katie would be the first to get married, followed by George and Angie and finally Alicia and Lee. The only problem was that Alicia had never even considered Lee, even back when she considered boys. He had always just been the kind of mate you talked Quidditch with or did homework with.
Roger brought coffee over to the girls but Alicia couldn't touch hers. She wasn't confident that she could keep anything down because of the way that her stomach was churning. The entire time Katie talked about Fred and the wedding, Alicia couldn't do much more than nod.
Alicia was still in shock when Katie stood up. Her eyes hungrily slide across Katie's body, wishing to savour every last moment of this meting because this would be the last time that Alicia would be able to disillusion herself. The last time she would ever be able to think of being Katie's Alicia. The last time she would ever think of her as her Katie.
Because Katie was his, she had always really belonged to theWeasley twin. She was always Fred's and somewhere, Alicia had always known that but it hurt. It hurt more vividly than anything she had ever felt before.
Alicia walked Katie; Fred's Katie, she reminded herself, to the door. Katie's long, slender arms wrapped around Alicia's body and this time, for the first time, Alicia didn't think that there was any feeling behind the hug other than friendship.
"Bye, Licy." Katie chirped as she walked out of the door. Alicia raised her hand in a wave but long after Katie had disappeared, she still stood there. One word still hovering on her lips, "Mine".