That's my girl
Alice has always been Neville's favourite child, in the same way that his wife Chloe doted on the baby of the family, Lena, or the way Gran always had an extra sweet or galleon for Jace or even in the way that his Great Uncle always said Rosa would go far.
They were using the children as substitutes for those that they'd lost or never known. Lena was named for Marlene, Chloe's mother, who had been killed by death eaters when Chloe was only a few weeks old. He also knew that in his only son, Jace, despite the fact that Neville could see no physical resemblance, his Gran seen the son she had lost, when Frank had been tortured out of his mind by death eaters. Rosa's cunning and ambition had always reminded Neville's Great Uncle of his younger self and all his failed ambitions and that was why he always concerned himself with his Great Great Niece's well-being.
At the start, that was the only real hope Neville had for Alice, that she would live up to his mother's legacy but really she surpassed all he knew about his mother and made a legacy of her own. Alice was bright but not in the study-and-get-an-O way her twin Rosa a was, she was smart in the street sense and the I-don't-care-about-school way. Most of all though, she found the thing that he had cherished so much in his own school days, friendship. She always had been and he suspected, always would be, inseparable from James Sirius Potter.
Well that was why he was here, on his way to a Church because {bloody hell} his little girl was getting married but she wasn't a little girl anymore and she wouldn't be his girl for much longer.
He was positive this was the most frightening day of his life. Worse than his seventh year at Hogwarts or chopping off Nagini's head.
He looked over at his daughter sitting beside him, a long simple white dress that pooled on the floor of the car contrasting with her darkdark hair, the exact colour it had been on the day she was born. Surely that hadn't been so long ago, in fact he could remember it like it was yesterday, just as he could remember the adventures of the intervening years, the baby photos and a childhood playing with his friend's children, watching her play her first Quidditch match for Gryffindor right up until the her very last Quidditch match, when she had won the cup as captain and the whole Gryffindor end up {somehow} having a mud fight.
The car stopped and he didn't need to look out the window to see that they had reached their destination. Alice bit her lip and Neville took his daughter's hand {just like when she first learned to walk} and led her out of the car, "You look beautiful, Alice" he told his daughter as he led her up to the front steps, chuckling at the roll of her eyes and the exasperated, "But you have to say that!"
They continued up the aisle, neither of them managing to fall over one of the {non-existent} bumps on the floor that they both always seem to find. The walk up the aisle seemed to take forever but yet no more than a minute and before he knew it Neville was placing Alice's hand on James' and all three of them speak almost simultaneously, in whispers;
"Take care of her James"
"I love you, daddy"
"I will"
;
It's one of the saddest moments of Neville's life and he doesn't cheer up until the photos are being taken and Alice sticks two fingers up behind James' head, the same trick she used to infuriate Rosa {and everyone else} with when she was a kid. At that moment Neville realises just because Alice is married it doesn't mean his little girl is gone.
That's why he looks at that photo and smiles.
"That's my girl"
a/n: So this is for the Dad's and Daughter's challenge at HPFC.
Lena is pronounced Lean-a in case anyone was wondering and she is named after Marlene Mckinnon who is Chloe's (my OC and Neville's wife) mum.