A/N: Well, this didn't take nearly as long as I had thought it would. Based on the song "You Belong With Me" by Taylor Swift, written for honeybeebeauty's Love Song Challenge.
Alice Prewett sat in the Gryffindor common room, listening to music and waiting for her friend—just a friend, of course—Frank Longbottom, who had apparently stood her up. Not that it was a date, no, his girlfriend would kill her. But they had made plans, and he hadn't shown up yet, and he was over an hour late.
Lately it was always like this. Frank's girlfriend, Amanda Paulson, hated Alice, and—if Lily was to be believed—was jealous of Alice's friendship with Frank. And, as Frank was always with Amanda, Alice didn't see nearly as much of him these days.
Suddenly, someone pulled a chair up to the other side of the table and sat down heavily. The first thing that Alice noticed was that he looked tired. Or maybe that wasn't the right word. He looked, well, weary, as if he was sick of his life at the moment.
"Are you alright?" Alice asked, all her anger about him being late dissolving as she saw the sad look on his face.
"I'm fine, I just…" he stopped mid-sentence when he glanced at the clock, his eyes widening in mortification as he looked at her again. "Oh, no, Alice, I'm so sorry! I didn't realize it was so late. I just lost track of the time."
"It's alright, I understand," she said, a phrase she was becoming quite accustomed to using lately, and she wondered how many more times she would have to say that to him.
"I do this to you all the time, and it is so unfair," he said, almost whining.
"It's really alright. So where's Amanda?" she asked, a coolness in her voice that she hoped he hadn't noticed.
He sighed. "We got in another fight."
Alice smiled and shook her head. "What was it this time?"
"I don't know. She always gets so upset when Slughorn tells her how badly she's doing in potions class." He was almost half-smirking.
"Well, at least we know that if all else fails, she can still get a job working with the muggles in cosmetics," Alice said with a grin. Amanda was known for her excessive use of muggle make-up, and her apparent need to re-apply it during certain classes, potions in particular.
Frank's face lit up in a smile so wide and vibrant that Alice was sure the room got much brighter because of it. Alice couldn't help but smile back.
And then the shining moment was gone as Amanda herself was suddenly standing next to him. She laid a hand on his shoulder, as if to show that she had claimed him. "Can I talk to you?" she asked in a sweet, whiny, childlike voice. Frank looked up at her and for one short, hopeful moment, Alice thought he was going to say no.
But then he turned back to her and said, "Can we finish this conversation another time, Alice?" She nodded, her mind slightly numb. She knew she shouldn't have expected anything different; it wasn't as if he was her boyfriend. And then he stood up, and she just watched him walk away.
Alice thought back to the times when they had been the best of friends, always together. He used to have the worst nightmares, and there were some nights when they would send his owl back and forth across the short distance between their houses just so that she could comfort him without breaking any rules. During this past summer, he had been able to Apparate, and he did, leading to long conversations on her back porch on more summer nights than she had ever bothered to count.
They had talked about everything those nights. She knew everything about him, as did he about her. It was so easy to talk to him, and so easy to laugh in his presence, even though she hated her own laugh. It didn't seem to bother him, and it even made him laugh a few times as well.
Alice hadn't fallen in love with him over that summer. She had been in love long before that. It was highly expected from nearly everyone that Alice and Frank would be a couple before long. But to her dismay, it hadn't turned out that way.
And when she saw him sitting with Amanda in front of the fire like a cozy little couple, Alice's heart sank a little. And so she refused to look at them right then, examining a knot in the wood of the table. She was so lost in thought, in fact, that she didn't notice when Frank came back to the table alone a few minutes later. She was even oblivious to the fact that the couple had been fighting a moment ago.
"I hadn't realized that the table was so interesting," he said, sitting next to her now instead of opposite. He smiled a little, looking into her eyes. Alice leaned away from him, mostly because she was shocked that he was suddenly so close.
He chuckled, moving his chair a little bit away from hers. "So, that was fun," he said with another vibrant smile. Alice looked around and saw that Amanda had seemingly disappeared, and they were alone in the common room.
"You certainly are smiling quite a bit," she said, almost surprised, but his smiles were contagious, and so she had to smile too.
"Well, most people may not think it was such good news, but Amanda and I just split."
Alice couldn't hide the shock on her face. Her shock quickly turned to excitement, and although she tried to hide it, a smile broke out on her face. And then she was laughing, and Frank was laughing too, and things were just as they had been before.
And then Frank leaned towards her and kissed her lips gently, the only difference between then and now, and it didn't make things feel different at all. This was how it was always supposed to be.
A/N:Please review, cause we all need a little fan love...