A/N: Character Versatility Challenge - prompts: Frank Longbottom, Alice Longbottom

Lily smirked as a charmed snowball smacked James in the arm. As much as she adored her husband, she had to admit that he still got excessively cocky when it came to anything even remotely sporty, so she always enjoyed watching other people put up a good fight against him. And Frank, for all of his insistence that he was poor at winter sports, never failed to do just that. Skiing might not be his thing, and he was atrocious at Quidditch, but he was a formidable adversary when it came to snowball fights.

Wincing at the impact, yet still grinning from the thrill of the challenge, James hunched down as he ran to take cover behind the nearest tree. As soon as he had reached temporary safety, he crouched down and peeked around the thick trunk as he tried to locate his opponent.

A sharp whistle pierced the air beside her, and Alice, her voice filled with mirth, called out, "He's near the back of the garage!"

"OI!" Frank yelled back as James, finally spotting him, called out a thank you. "Whose wife are you, anyway?"

Alice blew him an exaggerated kiss. "Love you!"

Laughter bubbled out of Lily at the sight of their antics. "You two are so adorable together."

"Well, that's good to hear, seeing as how we're married and all."

Noticing the way Alice's gaze followed the action enviously, Lily felt a flush of guilt run through her. The girls usually joined in on the festivities, but Lily had told Alice that she was feeling under the weather that day and so would rather watch the three of them play. Alice, of course, being the absolute dear that she was, had decided to stay with and, despite Lily's protests, fuss over her instead. Unbeknownst to her, however, the real reason that Lily had decided to forgo the game wasn't so much a stomach bug as it was a different kind of 'delicate condition'. Lily was actually feeling perfectly fine; she just didn't want to risk taking a magically propelled speeding snowball to her uterine area. "Are you sure you don't want to join them?" she asked Alice. "I wouldn't mind."

"I'm happier staying with you."

Even though she knew Alice well enough to know that that was true, she felt like the older witch was concealing something from her, as if she were telling Lily only part of the truth. But Lily couldn't work out what Alice's motive for keeping something as simple as that from her might be.

Her ponderings were cut short by the sound of a window creaking open behind them. A voice that Lily immediately recognised as belonging to one of the Prewett twins called out, "Girls! Do either of you want a firewhiskey?"

Alice and Lily shook their heads at one another, and Alice twisted around in her chair and shouted back, "We're fine!"

"You sure? …Fine then, suit yourselves."

"You know," Lily observed, examining her friend carefully for any of her tells, "I've never known you to turn down firewhiskey before."

"I could say the same about you." As Alice started to turn back around in her chair, she flippantly added, "I guess the whole settling down thing is changing – "

The older girl seemed to freeze in place. Had she been coated in white, she might have even resembled one of the snowwomen the two friends had built earlier that same day. As Lily's mind quickly fit the pieces together, she stared at the back of Alice's still form in shock.

After a moment, Alice turned to face her again, gaping at her with wide eyes.

"No way," Lily said.

"You too?"

"We just found out the other week."

Alice shuffled her lounge chair closer to the redhead before leaning in and whispering conspiratorially, "Was yours planned?"

"Kind of. Well, mostly. James' parents aren't planning on having any more children, so he's the last direct descendant of the House of Potter. As his family have historically had trouble falling pregnant, we thought it would take us a few years to actually conceive, so we thought we might as well start early. We knew there was a chance I'd fall pregnant right away, and we were alright with that, but we were hoping it wouldn't happen for a year or two."

"Ours wasn't," Alice admitted. "We both got sloshed on Halloween and we forgot to take the potions. Then, a few weeks later…"

Lily's gaze flicked over to their warring husbands before making its way back to Alice. "Have you talked to Frank about it?"

"Yeah, he knows. He's excited at the idea, even if the timing has left a lot to be desired. We wanted to wait until the war was over."

"It's not a good time to have a child," Lily agreed. "Plus, we'll both be out of the action for a few months, at least, which sucks."

"We'll be the women sitting at home while the menfolk fight," Alice said with faux seriousness, before scrunching up her face in abject distaste.

"Vive les gender roles," Lily said dryly before raising her glass in a mock toast. Snickering, Alice clinked her own glass against it.

They both took a drink of their water but, within moments, Alice whined, "You know what the worst part is? It's that you can't just get blind drunk to forget about it for a night. Frank got pissed after I told him. Not immediately after, mind you – he was supportive and lovely and all of that first – but a few days later. Meanwhile, here I am, unable to have even one measly little alcoholic beverage."

"Yeah," Lily agreed. "There's that, too. It sure made Sirius' birthday week awkward – you know how he gets when he's drunk; he feels like he's on top of the world and he wants everyone else to be that way too – until I just blurted out that I was pregnant and that that was why I didn't want to have anything to drink."

Alice grinned appreciatively. "I bet he took that well."

"He was ecstatic. As soon as we told him that we wanted him to be the godfather, he started bounding around everywhere and kissing everyone. Speaking of godparents," Lily said, carefully placing her cup of water on the small table they'd conjured to sit between them, "would you and Frank do us the honour of being our child's second set? James and I wanted to wait to ask you until I was further along, but given that you already know…"

Alice grinned and leapt towards her friend, narrowly avoiding the table in her rush to get to her.

Throwing her arms around the younger witch, she hugged her tightly as she said, her wavering voice belying the technical harshness of her words, "Only if you do the same for ours."

"It would be an honour," Lily said as she squeezed her back. After a glance over at the continuing snowball fight, however, she added sheepishly, "Perhaps we shouldn't tell them we've already talked about the 'godparents' thing, though."

Groaning, Alice dropped her head onto Lily's shoulder. "We kind of butchered that one, didn't we?"