Alice dressed quickly in the neglected department store. She went into the dressing room, hung her robes over the door, and pulled on a plain midnight blue maternity dress. Reporters and spectators swarmed the place, and she wiped her tears hastily away with her hand. Months ago, she would have simply walked away and trudged through another Wednesday, but this assignment sapped all energy from her.
The old-fashioned lift collapsed. The little girl, Annabelle, got crushed like a flower, and her bones lay underneath the Muggle contraption with the rest of her; her twin sister, Elisabeth, had disappeared. Alice, who had reached out a hand to help a Muggle single mother of two, paid the price. She wanted to help, and she hadn't been able to raise a wand to slow the horrifying scene as it played out in front of her.
The door opened. Labored breathing greeted her with uneven steps. Alice rolled her eyes, thinking Mad-Eye could stop and at least pretend to observe common curtesy, but she'd been with the old Auror long enough to know this was simply wishful thinking. She cracked her neck, readying herself for Mad-Eye to tell her off for the umpteenth time: she had no business handling such matters amongst Muggles; the magical world had its fair share of problems at the moment.
Mad-Eye waited a couple minutes before banging on the stall door. "Alice."
"I'm indecent." The price tag lay on the floor. "Just a moment."
"I can see you." Mad-Eye had a smile in his voice; she heard it. He opened the door and mended the dress with a wave of his wand so it fit better. He zipped it. For some strange reason, he spat out a compliment, and Alice, thinking he feared yet another onset of tears, smiled. "You look nice."
"Thank you." Alice squeezed past him. She stuffed her robes in a rucksack, catching Mad-Eye's pained expression in the mirror before he nodded at his mismatched feet. "Frank told you to say something, didn't he?"
"No, well, yeah. You look like hell." Going with the truth, Mad-Eye dropped the rehearsed flattery and took the rucksack, steering her out of the shop after paying with Muggle money. He opened the large umbrella and held it over them."I don't need my common courtesies taught to me by some pampered schoolboy, thank you very much. I jump through fire to get you leave whilst the rest of us are working like house-elves, and what do you do, miss? I'm not delivering your bastard."
Alice fought back laughter. "Really, Mad-Eye?"
"Not a bastard," said Frank, standing off to the side. "And Dewey's already offered to do that, thanks."
Frank and Alice had been married for ten years. After a handful of false starts, and miscarriages, and stillborns, they were finally getting what they wanted; this had been sealed by a prophecy. Professor Dumbledore had showed up at their place in the dead of night last week to tell them about some strange woman he'd met at the Hog's Head.
The Professor didn't go into painstaking detail, for he certainly didn't spell out the prophecy, yet Alice caught on something along the lines of "the seventh month dying". Frank didn't believe it because he placed no stock in such nonsense, though he kindly told Professor Dumbledore to leave after Alice burst into tears. Professor Dumbledore promised not to share a word of this, especially not to the Potters, who expected a baby, too. It would come any day now. Alice, gripped by fear and despair, couldn't sleep.
Frank refused to talk about it; nothing would happen. Alice, the furthest thing from a housewife, wandered into the London precinct, bored to death. She found Margery, a radiology student who begged for help when her girls went missing. They were a target of a Muggle attack because their disappearances sent a message.
"Alice, sit this one out." Frank made to grab Alice's arm as she walked back towards the scene. Alice, determined and undeterred, flashed a fake I.D. badge, ignoring the sergeants and inspectors who reminded Alice she shouldn't be on the scene.
"Come on, miss, you've got desk duty. And the other girl's probably dead. It's been three days," said a tired sergeant,"and when did you get here? Go home. This'll sort itself out. We can't do anything."
"You want to tell her that?" Alice jerked her head at Margery, a wreck. The sergeant winced. "Nobody tells her about Annabelle."
Alice jumped lightly into the lift shaft. Alecto Carrow claimed responsibility for this, though the Muggles saw it as nothing more than an unfortunate accident. The contraption shook, swaying precariously underneath her, startling Alice, and she turned her head when she heard Frank shouting at her.
"Alice? Alice!" Frank had shoved people out of the way. An officer told him to back off. Frank, not thinking, pulled out his wand and pointed it threateningly at the officers. "Are you kidding me? That's my wife! Alice, have you lost your mind?"
Alice swore she saw something. Maybe Margery's sorrow and fear pushed her over the edge. The girls' father wasn't in the picture, and without her daughters, she, Margery, had no one left. Alice's mind went back to this so-called soothsayer, or Seer, or whatever Sybil Trelawney claimed to be. Alice imagined losing her own son.
"Choice or fate, Alice," she whispered, steeling herself as she spotted a figure below.
What did she want? She and Frank surely had an endless hit list with all the Death Eaters they'd captured. She could have this baby and walk away like nothing happened. With their connections, they could hide somewhere in Europe, and she could be the housewife who crocheted, or made jam, or whatever. If they simply erased You-Know-Who from their lives, what harm would come of it?
Their boy could live as a Muggle. Alice could breathe again, and Frank could be a banker or an enlisted officer. This flashed in her mind for a heartbeat until she saw the girl move. She definitely saw it! Without thinking, she jumped again, slipping as the baby kicked her.
Alice reached out the the girl as she fell. Alice gripped a cable as she landed next to Elisabeth. Something in Alice's leg snapped. Elisabeth, pale and feeble, took her hand. Alice looked up, refusing to let go, drained, and listened to Frank's screams overhead. She saw nothing.
"Elisabeth," said Alice, looking into the girl's hazel eyes. The girl mirrored her sister. "It's okay. You're all right."
"Not Elisabeth."
With dread, Alice wondered if this was Annabelle. Perhaps she'd gotten the names wrong? The girl smiled when Alice crawled over, blinded by pain, and cradled the lost little girl. "It's Bette. Where's Belle? Have you seen her?"
Bette and Belle. Alice shook her head, thought about this as she lingered on it, and changed her mind. She nodded, blinking furiously and fixed her blank expression, although the girl couldn't see her in the darkness.
"She's waiting for you," said Alice, blocking out a sudden sensation creeping up her spine. She closed her eyes, counting, hating herself for not heeding Frank's or Mad-Eye's words. Bette said something she missed. "What?"
"You're hurt. What's your name?"
"Alice." Masquerading as a Muggle, she'd foolishly left her wand at home. Augusta would be a nightmare when she heard of this misadventure, for Alice had definitely crossed the line from bravery to stupidity. "Help is coming, darling. You're so brave."
"You can't get us out?" Bette sounded exhausted, but she was thankfully a talker, which helped Alice focus on other things. Alice got to her feet shakily and swore when she turned the wrong way and got a swift kick to the kidney. "Mum says you shouldn't say that."
"No." Alice looked up, trying to figure out a solution to this problem. Hadn't Mad-Eye said there was always a way out? Scared as something dripped down her legs, Alice reached under her dress and felt blood on her fingers. "Oh, God."
"What?" Bette turned towards her.
"Nothing."
It was everything. Fear escalated in her voice, yet Alice found laughed in spite of everything. You-Know-Who couldn't mark a dead person; it seemed like a cruel twist of fate. Problem solved. Confined in this lift, Alice imagined giving birth to a dead boy, and the walls seemed to shift as they closed in around her.
Her father-in-law, Dewey, a Healer trained in Herbology, had recently earned his certification as a trained midwife. Augusta had berated her husband after he took up this dual speciality. But he'd looked forward to this. He'd been Alice's counselor and friend, her father, and she fought back paralyzing fear as his kind face swam into her thoughts.
"You are fine. Don't panic." Alice recited what Dewey had told her the day she'd lost a child, a girl. Dewey had climbed into bed with her and held her for hours as she recovered. "Life happens for a reason, Alice, we pick up the pieces and we move on. We move on."
Bette looked over her shoulder. "Who are you talking to?"
"No one." Alice, relieved the pain had passed, wiped her hands on her dress and focused again on the task at hand. She kept Bette talking. "Is Belle your best friend?"
"Yes."
"It must be cool to come in the world with your best friend," said Alice brightly. She nodded, slipping back into casual and chatty. She'd had child charges before, of course, yet she knew this would haunt her forever. "She loves you. Don't you ever forget that."
"Miss Alice?" Bette registered something was wrong.
Alice hated herself for slipping up. Why hadn't she referred Margery to the precinct and let the Muggle authorities handle this? Alice had been an only child. A fat, shy little girl with strict upbringing, Alice didn't have many friends and fell in love Frank while on assignment somewhere in Ireland. She fell for a stranger, a pretender, as Mad-Eye had put it. In her early-thirties, Alice dreamed now of a family. She wanted this boy to have a friend.
"I'm hungry."
"Me, too." Alice stayed hungry.
"Who's your best friend?"
Alice jumped a little when a beam of light shown through the darkness. Frank came down latched to a harness and head a torch in his mouth. Taking the torch out so he could talk properly, Frank beamed at Alice and introduced himself himself to Bette like an old friend.
"That man's my best friend," said Alice.
"Yeah, I'm also her husband. Hello, Little Bit." Frank returned Bette's radiant smile as he beckoned her forward. Bette hugged him around neck and Frank nodded when Bette said her mother called her that. He touched a finger to her nose. He pointed upwards with his other hand before he gripped the harness, looking as though he seriously doubted whether this Muggle machine really worked. "Guess who's waiting for you up there?"
"Belle?" Bette beamed when Frank winked at her.
"She's as pretty as you are." Frank kissed her on her forehead and shouted at the operators to pull them up. As he got pulled away, he turned to Alice. "You're all right?"
"I'm fine," she lied.
She frowned, confused as to why he lied about Belle. Of course, she hadn't exactly told the truth, either. Frank disappeared. Alice guessed she'd been down here for some time because it was getting hard to breathe. Frank came back down. He offered her a hand, but she stopped as something stabbed in her side.
"Francis."
Frank rolled his eyes. "You know I hate when you call me that. You sound like Mother."
Alice didn't exactly take this as a compliment. Her legs shook as the lift lurched beneath her. "No, Frank."
"That's not good." Frank leapt onto the shaky surface, unhooked the harness and held her close as he started to Apparate.
Frank tangled himself in the harness as he ambled over to her. He caught onto her serious tone and showed the light on the floor. Alice took a misstep and her injured leg caused her to lose her balance.
Alice panicked as she fell again. "Francis!"
"Alice, no, don't look down. You keep your eyes on me!" Frank wrapped his arms around her after he unhooked the harness. They Disapparated as the lift crashed to the ground. They Apparated a moment later beside Margery and her girls by the ambulance.
"Mummy, look!" Belle, wearing a green dress, pointed at Frank. Bette stopped crying when she saw Alice. The lift frightened the girl and everyone else. "That man and lady appeared out nowhere!"
After setting Alice down, Frank checked to make sure the coast was clear, took out his wand, and conjured two identical teddy bears out of midair before Margery turned around. Frank, hurriedly stowing his wand away, winked at Alice as she frowned and Mad-Eye came over. The girls hugged Frank when he knelt and offered them the toys.
"I saw that," growled Mad-Eye, not facing them. He no doubt caught this infraction with the Statue of Secrecy with his magical eye. The girls shrank from Mad-Eye's frightening appearance, though this hardly seemed to bother him as the old man leaned on his umbrella.
"Where did you find the girl?" Alice relaxed when Mad-Eye draped his traveling cloak over her shoulders. She looked from Frank, to Mad-Eye, and back again.
"She was hiding back there," said Mad-Eye, pointing towards a red telephone box with a gnarled hand. Belle beamed at him and Mad-Eye smiled lopsidedly as she rushed into his arms to thank him again.
"Thank you, thank you," said Margery, turning around and embracing Frank and Alice.
"You like it," said Frank, smirking at Mad-Eye as Bette walked over to Mad-Eye. When they left the scene, Mad-Eye held both girls' hands as they crossed the street. Frank exchanged a look with Alice. "You see this?"
"Shut up, Francis," growled Mad-Eye.
"I don't like you," said Frank, frowning.
"You keep saying that. I suggest you don't call that son of yours Francis Dominic." Mad-Eye turned from Frank to Alice. Frightening as he was, Margery looked past Mad-Eye's appearance, relieved to have her family back.
"Yeah, he'll get picked on a lot. Trust me." Frank shot down this suggestion ages ago.
"You got picked on, Mr. Longbottom? A fellow like you?" Margery sounded doubtful. Frank had fed her some story about his station as an officer.
"The kid everyone ganged up on in study hall? Me." Frank draped his arm over Alice's shoulder. He'd grown out of it and acquired a body along with his brain during Auror training. Alice pulled a skeptical look. "Why do you think I learned how to fight and duel? Dewey calls me Doughboy."
"I like Neville," said Margery, throwing the name out there.
"Oh. You're just begging for it. The sorry kid. See there? Alice." Frank appealed to his wife for support. Alice smiled, her face lighting up. Frank threw up his hands. "Really, Alice, really? You're not ... Neville?"
"Yeah." Alice kissed him and smiled when Bette, Belle, and Mad-Eye rolled their eyes and groaned. She patted Frank's cheek. "Neville."
Frank pulled a face. "I hate you."
"Your kid, Alice? Spoiled." Mad-Eye saw the girls safety to sweetshop with their mother and left. He turned back and pointed at her. "Don't think this isn't getting documented. No more work. Go home."
"We found them," Frank pointed out.
Mad-Eye ignored him and turned the corner. Alice sat down next to Margery.
"You two are amazing." Margery waved away their Muggle money. Alice smiled, saying it was nothing. Alice, relaxing as she watched the girls, gripped Frank's hand as the twinge took her again. "What's wrong?"
"We should get in touch with Dewey," said Alice, strangely calm after being locked in the underground lift.
"Why? Damnit." Frank waved his hand at the girls, dismissing his foul language with a wave of his hand. The twins told him off as he switched instantly to frantic father mode and jumped to his feet, fretting over Alice like a porcelain doll. Margery snorted and offered to call the ambulance again. Frank got worse within minutes. "Are you all right? You didn't even say anything, Alice! Are you sure you're all right?"
"Frank, I want you to get out out my face, and I want Dewey. Now." Alice plastered a smile on her face as he leaned in closer. Frank asked her the same question again. Alice realized nothing registered. She spoke slowly, enunciating carefully. "Francis, I can't breathe. Get away from me, or I swear I will kill you. Are we clear?"
"I'm going to get Dewey, yeah," said Frank.
He got to his feet and running off in the opposite direction. He ran into a brick wall and complained he'd broken his nose. Margery lost it, laughing her head off. Alice draped her hand over her face. Frank only ever lost his head whenever she was in pain. Alice found the threat of prophecy laughable as she rode on this strange adrenaline rush. Alice wished to see her son and knew she'd never forget this day.
The lost little girl and her bones stayed behind.