Previously in the Darklyverse: Alice got back together with Dirk Cresswell, with whom she had quarreled when he declined her invitation to join the Order and did not want her involved in it. Back at Hogwarts, Alice started spending most of her time with Remus, despite Alice's previous disagreement with Sirius in which she did not believe that the discrimination against werewolves was unfair. Alice struggled to connect on a deeper level with her friends, feeling like their interactions were mostly surface-level.

James's mum contracted spattegroit, and his dad opted to stay home and care for her despite the high risk of catching it from her. The Order of the Phoenix members still at Hogwarts formed and began to advertise a new student organization that they called War Stories. With Mary out of the Order, she was not involved in the creation of the org.

Revised version uploaded 19 January 2022.

xx

September 17th, 1977: Alice Abbott

Spending all her time with Remus during the first week of term was confusing, to say the least. Sure, she saw him and the other Gryffindor seventh years plenty often over the summer, but she'd sort of started dodging all of them when Lily was named Head Girl, and anyway, she's just spent the last couple months getting an earful from her parents about how Wizarding Britain isn't corrupt and werewolves are subhuman. They haven't really talked about Remus being a werewolf since Alice found out last winter, despite how many hours she's spent since then working one-on-one with him on their studies. After her parents' bad reaction to finding out about the Wolfsbane Potion, she kind of wants to sit Remus down and ask him a bunch of questions about anti-werewolf legislation, but she's been too afraid of making things even more awkward to actually do it.

That's the thing about Remus—actually, that's the thing about all of Alice's best friends. She loves them, supports them, would do anything for them—but when it comes time to really talk to them about anything that matters, she just… clams up and can't. Even when she tries, it always feels like there's this divide between her and them that she can't breach.

And if there's one thing Alice does when she's dealing with something unpleasant, she avoids it. So she's been spending most of the last few days with Dirk Cresswell, which has been—yeah, she likes him, but it's been a little disconcerting to go from going on the occasional date to being around him from dawn 'til dusk. Worse, Dirk and Frank Longbottom are pretty good friends, which means seeing a lot of Frank's girlfriend, Dana Madley. Alice has always kind of thought of Madley as being vapid and rude, and she tries to be nice for the sake of keeping the peace, but sometimes she just gets impatient with the way Madley just—hangs off of Frank like a fifth limb and talks over anybody who tries to get a word in edgewise.

She gets a rare moment alone with Frank outside the ladies' room while Madley powders her nose in there and Dirk is off in the library working on a Charms essay that he's got due on Monday. "How're you doing, Alice?" Frank asks with a little half-smile on his face.

"Oh, just fine," says Alice dismissively, but Frank adds—

"You just seem quieter than usual lately, that's all. And I'm sort of wondering if—if you've been spending all this time with us because you're avoiding the other Gryffindors for some reason?"

"Oh, it's fine. I mean, things with Lily are a little—"

She breaks off as Madley emerges from the bathroom and simpers, "Frank, honey, did you still want to go outside to work on that Defense essay?"

"Uh, yeah, of course. Coming, Alice?"

"Oh, no, I…" says Alice, suddenly feeling like she doesn't belong with the two of them here without Dirk around. "I should be getting back to my common room. But I'll see you at the meeting tonight, right?"

"We'll be there," says Madley.

"Dirk's coming, too?"

"Yes. Yes, he'll be there," Alice says. Given that Dirk is Muggle-born, Alice expects that he'd be interested even if Alice weren't going, unlike her suspicion that Madley is only going for Frank.

War Stories' first meeting is at eight o'clock tonight, and Alice couldn't be more anxious. She's positive that opening with a direct mention of Liz and Millie will immediately open the door to questions that they aren't prepared to answer, but what are they supposed to do? Ignore the elephant in the room? And what if no one comes forward to share their experiences when prompted? Alice knows that Peter and Lily have been working on preparing stories to read out if needed, but what if they're the only ones who do?

Contrary to what she tells Frank and Madley, Alice doesn't go to the Gryffindor common room, instead doubling back and finding Dirk in the library. He grins at her when he sees her, this big smile lighting up his whole face like she's just made his day, and Alice feels the twinge of guilt she always feels when Dirk pays her a compliment. Sure, she likes him well enough, but she's not entirely sure to what degree she's been spending time with him just to avoid feeling left alone entirely by her fellow Gryffindors.

Peter didn't spend all his time with Siobhan when they were dating, Alice reminds herself. He found a way to balance having friends with having a girlfriend. Of course, this is the same Peter who proceeded to get dumped by Siobhan when she found out that he and Emmeline had kissed…

"You ready to do this thing tonight?" says Dirk, bringing Alice back to reality.

"Yeah, it should be interested to hear what everyone has to say," says Alice.

The words are perfectly polite, but Alice still feels strained thin on the inside. They're presenting themselves like War Stories is all James and Lily's idea: it sends a good message showing the Head Boy and Girl united; Lily can share her experiences as a Muggle-born witch, and James can relate to other purebloods who might initially be skeptical of the extent of wizarding purism in Wizarding Britain. But Dirk knows that Alice and the other Gryffindor seventh years were all involved in the educational campaign last year and the ambush, and it's not a stretch to imagine that this is all of their brainchild, either. There's nothing dangerous about the discussion that they have planned for tonight, but Dirk probably thinks it's a slippery slope from here to more reckless behavior, and Alice can't blame him: she and the others are all planning on doing more with the resistance once they get out of Hogwarts.

She works on her Arithmancy homework while Dirk pokes at Charms. Eventually, he finishes the essay and starts on his Transfiguration homework—practicing Conjuring Spells—and Alice allows herself to get sidetracked helping him with his wand movements and giggling at the mice without tails or with wooden little legs that Dirk generates.

"I swear I was getting this better when we did this in class," Dirk wheezes after Vanishing his latest attempt.

"You'll be fine. You just need to focus."

"It's pretty hard to focus when I'm around you," Dirk admits.

It looks like this was a slip of the tongue that Dirk hadn't intended to say, because he claps a hand over his mouth and looks at Alice with wide eyes. She's once again slammed with the feeling that she doesn't deserve this boy, this beautiful boy who loves her more than she can give back, and that's when it occurs to her: instead of fixating on how she doesn't care for Dirk enough, maybe she can solve all her problems by putting her energy into treating him the way he treats her.

She reaches up to pull Dirk's hand away from his mouth, and they sit there with their hands entwined on top of the table, Alice tracing the lines on his palm with her thumb. "You're not helping," says Dirk with a weak laugh.

"Probably not," agrees Alice, and she leans in and kisses him.

She's kissed Dirk before, but it was always fleeting things, little pecks on the lips that didn't last more than a second. She's never really kissed anybody before, so she doesn't really know what she's doing as she moves her lips back and forth, but Dirk doesn't seem to mind. He groans a little in the back of his throat and scoots his chair toward hers, pressing their thighs together side-by-side, a hand moving up to cradle her cheek. It feels good, better than Alice would have thought it would feel, and she's just starting to think she's getting the hang of it when—

"Honestly! The things people try to get away with! Out of my library, now! OUT!"

xx

They'd originally planned to reserve a classroom to meet in, but as word buzzed around the castle about War Stories and they heard more and more about people interested in coming, they ended up talking to Professor McGonagall about using the Great Hall. It's not jam-packed when Alice and Dirk walk in, but it's maybe at twenty-percent capacity, which is still pretty impressive and big enough that it's hard to hear much of anything over the chatter.

Alice tugs on Dirk's hand and leads him over to the Gryffindor table, where they grab seats next to Remus and Marlene. They've been sitting there for maybe five minutes, Alice holding Dirk's hand under the table, when she hears James yell from the end of the table, "Oi!" and then give a searing whistle.

Talk from all sides dies down at once. "Thanks everyone for coming to our first meeting," says James, a little quieter now that he has everyone's attention. He stands up, as does Lily. "I'm James Potter, and this is Lily Evans. For those of you who don't know us, we're in Gryffindor, and we're Head Boy and Girl this year."

"Since this is a meeting for people with concerns about the war, and it's the war that took these girls' lives last year, we thought we could start with a moment of silence for Elisabeth Clearwater from Hufflepuff and Mildred LeProut from Ravenclaw," Lily adds. "You all know Liz as Captain of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team and Millie as our Quidditch commentator at official meets. This year, Liz would have been a seventh year, and Millie would have been a fifth year. Even if you didn't know them personally, their memories will live on at this school as brave warriors who stood up to evil and were taken from us too soon, and one of the reasons we're gathered here today is to fight together for a world where what happened to Millie and Liz will never happen again. Please take the next moment to reflect on their lives and their legacy."

To everyone's credit, they do wait a while before anyone interrupts. It's not until James wraps up the minute and starts to introduce the next activity that somebody says, "You're really not going to talk about what happened to them? You're really going to try to save your own arses on this one?"

Alice recognizes the voice: it belongs to John Dawlish, a sixth year Hufflepuff prefect whom Alice knows from prefect meetings. Truth be told, Alice is a little surprised to see him here, at a meeting about Muggle-borns' rights. He's always been so—well—politically correct all the time; he's not someone she would think of as being outspoken on behalf of anybody.

And then, unexpectedly, Benjy speaks up. Alice hadn't thought he was planning on saying anything. "Elisabeth was my girlfriend," he says in a loud but broken voice. "I was in the Hospital Wing with her when Madam Pomfrey pronounced her dead. She was acting on bad information leaked to her and others on purpose, and she wouldn't have wanted anyone to expose themselves as targets to anybody whose word might get back to Death Eaters in some misdirected attempt to honor her."

"Like it's any more honorable to frame her death like an accident when it was clearly the fault of—"

"You're right," Benjy interrupts, sounding tired. "No one here is going to argue that her death, or Millie's for that matter, was an accident. It was murder, and we run the risk of following it up with more murders the more we point fingers."

"But you're lying!" breaks in someone at the Ravenclaw table that Alice doesn't know. "You know what really happened, and you're covering your arse, and you aren't just going to get away with it!"

"Anybody who is only here because they care about spreading rumors and interfering in other people's business is free to leave," Lily interrupts with a frown. "We're here to talk about the realities of living with prejudice against the Muggle-borns that Millie and Liz were fighting on behalf of when they were killed. If you care about having that conversation, then stay with us."

There's a long pause, and then Dawlish mutters something Alice can't quite catch, swings his legs over the bench he's sitting on, and marches out of the Hall. Half a dozen others follow him out, including (Alice cringes) Greta Catchlove and Pol Patil. The silence is ringing in Alice's ears by the time Lily says, "Well, with that, I think it's about time we get the conversation going. James, did you want to get us started?"

James nods, sliding a hand through his hair. "All right, now, I want everybody to come over here to the Gryffindor table. There's no need for us to stand divided today. Is there room?—can we fit everyone?"

Slowly, the students sitting at the other tables make their way over to the Gryffindor table and grab seats.

"Great. Now, I want everyone to stand up right where they're sitting. Excellent. So I made this list today," continues James, pulling out a sheaf of parchment and waving it for a second. "I have here a list of statements that may or may not apply to you. The first time I read out a statement that has never been true of you and your life, I want you to sit down. Are we ready? Yeah? All right. First statement is, I have never lied about my blood status to others."

Lily is the first to sit down, followed hesitantly by about a third of the people at the table. James goes on, "I have never been called an insult based on my blood purity." A few more people sit. "I have never worried about being denied a job, position, or role important to me because of my blood purity." More follow.

"I have never been asked to speak on behalf of everyone of my blood status. I have never heard people of my blood purity spoken about as a voting bloc in Ministry elections. I have never had to ask for more information about a past wizarding event that someone brings up in conversation. I have never been told that I am smart or good or worthy 'for someone of my blood status.'"

James keeps going for something like twenty more items, and by the end of it, a good half of the room has sat down—has been sitting down since at least the second or third statement. "So the purpose of this exercise," says James, "has been to highlight for those of us who are pureblood or half-blood some of the challenges that we don't have to face because of our blood status. Lily was going to kick off a discussion about the exercise—everyone can sit down, by the way—"

All in all, the whole thing goes much more successfully than Alice predicted, even with the skirmish that lost them a few people at the beginning. Even Alice has to admit that Lily does a great job mediating the discussion, then facilitating the opportunity for people of all blood statuses to share their experiences. And what they talked about—she knows rationally that these problems and experiences Muggle-borns face aren't new, but she keeps wondering, have there really been all these prejudices all along? And if there have been, how did Alice miss them?

Is this what Dumbledore saw in Lily that led him to choose her for Head Girl? Alice will probably never know, but she still catches up with Lily when they get back to the dorm and says, "You did a really great job leading things back there."

"Thanks," says Lily, smiling a little.

"So everything went well?" Mary asks. She's in her pajamas, writing in a journal and petting Aquarius, who is curled up next to where she's sitting cross-legged on her bed.

"It went great," says Alice. "You should come to the next one! We're doing another one in about a month."

"Yeah, maybe," says Mary, shrugging it off.

Alice thinks she should probably push the issue, but can't bring herself to do so. It's just like with Remus: as much as Alice may want to forge that connection, when it comes down to it, she can't—or maybe doesn't know how. How is it so easy for her friends to get so wrapped up in each other—to feel like they're parts of a messy, loving, complicated whole? Because no matter how many owls Alice sends or lunch dates she makes, she still—

—Feels like she's on the outside sometimes. (A lot of the time, if she's being honest with herself.) Even though she knows that's at least partly a good thing, that her friends veer too far in the direction of codependency—

—It's not like Alice has entirely escaped that, either. After all, she was right there with them trying to barge in on Marlene and Sirius's trysts before they started properly dating, wasn't she? Alice has spent her fair share of time interfering in ongoings she had no business interfering in; it's not like her inability to connect with people has protected her from getting sucked into their drama, from feeling too emotionally invested in it.

Is Alice just—broken? Was she born broken, or was she made this way by her upbringing? After all, it's not like her parents took her on tons of playdates when she was growing up, and when they talked to her about other kids her age, it was never to encourage relationships: they treated every one of her peers like a potential rival, somebody over whom Alice needed to prove academic superiority. Just look at the way Alice has been viewing Lily: ever since she got the badge and became a viable adversary, that's all she's really been to Alice, no matter how hard Alice has tried to convince Lily and herself and everyone else that this isn't the case.

She can't sleep—she's too wound up and fretful—and around half past one in the morning, she finally gives up on trying, puts on her slippers, and pads down to the common room. At this hour, it's nearly deserted, except for a few third years intent on their game of Exploding Snap—and James, who's sitting in an armchair with a sort of dead look in his eyes.

"Hey," she says quietly. He smiles when he looks up, but it doesn't reach his eyes, and she feels entirely like she's intruding.

"Hey."

"Everything okay? You're usually not down here this late."

"I, uh… I heard from my dad earlier today. He's caught spattergroit, too, you know, from my mum."

Alice's heart clenches. "Oh, James, I'm so sorry to hear that."

"Thanks."

"I mean it. I know I don't… I know you and I aren't… but if you ever want to talk about it, um, I'm here."

It feels like an empty platitude, and she expects he's probably taking it as such. His next smile looks even more forced than the last.