Previously in the Darklyverse: Dirk, who always disapproved of Alice's involvement in the Order and her codependency with the other Gryffindors, broke up with Alice. Alice neglected her Gryffindor friendships. Alice and Lily engaged in an academic rivalry. Dana Madley broke up with Frank Longbottom. The Gryffindors fretted over their future careers but looked forward to getting more involved in the Order after graduating.

xx

May 3rd, 1978: Alice Abbott

And then one morning, Alice and Dirk run into each other in the corridors. Alice, having overslept, is sprinting past the Entrance Hall so she can get out of the castle and over to the greenhouse for Herbology. when she nearly bowls over poor Dirk, who looks like he's just coming out of breakfast in the Great Hall.

"I am so sorry," says Alice. She's not sure whether or not to offer to help him up, but eventually sticks out a hand, which Dirk takes. "Are you all right?"

"Oh, I'm fine," says Dirk a little stiffly. They stand there staring at each other for a second, and then Dirk asks, "Have you been doing okay?"

"I—yes. Yes, I'm fine," Alice says.

And she knows Dirk isn't just asking to make small talk. Breaking up was going to be painful no matter what—Dirk is charming and sweet and so attentive to the needs of others, to the point that here he is, wanting to make sure his ex-girlfriend is getting everything she needs out of their breakup. It's not like Alice wanted Dirk to leave her, or like she felt good about Dirk leaving her, but, well—she was hiding behind him and neglecting all of her other relationships, and maybe she's better off this way.

But that doesn't make it any harder to see Dirk standing here and know that she could have had all of him—probably forever, if she'd wanted that—and that she probably would have been happy. Isolated and overly dependent, but happy.

"Are you okay?" Alice says now. She doesn't know what to do with her hands, so she stuffs them into her pockets, clenching and unclenching her fists.

"Oh, yeah, I've been all right. Everyone has been really supportive."

"That's good," she says, and then she hesitates. "Dirk—" she says at the same moment as he says, "Alice—"

Alice laughs nervously. "We, uh… not now, because I don't think that would be a good idea, but someday, I'd like for us to be friends. That is, uh, if you want us to be."

"Maybe someday," Dirk says with a small, pained smile. "But I'm going to need…"

Alice waits, but he doesn't finish the thought. He goes on, "Anyway, I'd better get to class. I'm going to be late for Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"Yes, I'm running late for Herbology, too."

There's another awkward pause. "Well, I'll see you around," says Alice.

"See you," says Dirk. She's given him a brief smile and turned to duck out the doors when he adds, "Hey, Alice?"

"Yes?"

"I heard you made valedictorian. Congratulations."

"Thank you," she says, and the words feel sincere coming out of her.

Since N.E.W.T. scores don't come out until nearly the end of summer, and N.E.W.T.s aren't technically Hogwarts exams anyway (they're administered by the Ministry), scores are determined to count toward graduation after the grading period that ends with Easter break. It then takes McGonagall some time to tally everyone's grades, compare results across all seven years, and finalize class ranks. Consequentially, the seventh years' final placements were only just released this week. Word, of course, has already traveled across the school that Alice has beaten out her competition—predominantly Remus, Frank, and Belby—for the valedictorian spot. People she doesn't even really know have flagged her down in the corridors to congratulate her; it seems to Alice that people are invested to a ridiculous degree in seeing who beat out whom academically and picking sides.

For her part, Alice is proud, yes, and delighted—but she knows that Lily took it hard in sixth year when her scores dropped too low to stay in the race for valedictorian, and she doesn't want to rub her own victory in Lily's face, especially not now that Alice has vowed to work harder on her friendships with Lily and the others. They haven't really talked about it: Lily congratulated her briefly on Monday after they checked out the scores pinned up in the Gryffindor common room, and Alice thanked her and quickly changed the subject.

Alice wishes she knew how to mend things with Lily—between Alice and all the other Gryffindor seventh years, really. Now that she's got all this time to spend with her friends, she feels like she's not using it in meaningful ways. Sure, she's spent plenty of time with them in the past week, particularly Sirius and Remus, but what have they really done together besides study?

Soon, they'll be going on Order missions together, she reminds herself, and she'll be in the Auror training program without the free time to devote to having an active social life anyhow. Still, she wants to lay the foundation now for friendships that last beyond graduation, and somehow, she feels like she's failing.

As it works out, Alice is just barely late to Herbology, apologizing to Professor Sprout and taking her place over by James, Peter, and Marlene. Mary is one station over with Reginald Cattermole and Benjy Fenwick—it appears Mary and Marlene still aren't on speaking terms, then.

Alice doesn't even know what went wrong between Marlene and Mary, who are supposed to be two of Alice's best friends. What happened that got her so detached from everything going on around her?

"What's got you running late this morning?" asks Marlene once Sprout has set them to it.

"Overslept. And then, uh, I ran into Dirk."

"Ouch. And how did that go?"

"Fine. Awkward. I told him I'd like to be friends someday, but he said… he just sounded really reluctant about it."

Marlene nods. "Yeah, that can happen when people split up, not that I'm one to talk about functional breakups."

"So you're still on the outs with Sirius?" says Alice.

Marlene nods but doesn't say anything. To fill the weirdness, Peter quickly says, "So are we all going to the Quidditch game this weekend? Hufflepuff versus Slytherin?"

"Rooting for Hufflepuff, obviously," says James, "but we don't want them to score too high, or else my Chasers and I will have to put away a lot of extra goals before Gryffindor is safe to catch the Snitch in three weeks."

"I wasn't planning on going, honestly," says Marlene, which James and Peter immediately jump all over in apparent horror. "Everyone's going as a big group, right? I'm at least civil with Lupe again, but I have no desire to be around Sirius, and I don't… I don't really know what's going on between me and Mare right now."

"But you have to come," says Peter. "You can use it as an opportunity to figure out what's going on with you and Mary. You don't even have to sit anywhere near Sirius in the stands if you don't want to."

"I don't know…"

"You should come. I don't want to go without you," says Alice.

That seems to be the magic thing that cracks Marlene, because she twists her lips and says, "I, well… I guess I can go. Okay. But if it's awkward and horrible and I regret going, I'm blaming all of you."

Quidditch talk carries them through the first half of class and smoothly into a panic over the upcoming N.E.W.T.s. Alice has only just started complaining about the rigor of her study schedule, though, when James says, "You're one to talk. You're class valedictorian. I'm sure you could take your N.E.W.T.s today and you'd do just fine."

It doesn't feel true—Alice feels like her brain is like a sieve through which all of her knowledge has slipped away the more time passes—but she reminds herself that, to James, it is true. She shuts her mouth and doesn't speak again for the rest of the topic.

After Herbology are a couple of free periods with lunch in between them. Alice meets Sirius and Remus, and they power through lunch and beyond in the library, writing essays and practicing nonverbal incantations some more.

By quarter after two, Alice has packed up her things and set off for Ancient Runes. She takes her usual seat beside Frank, smiles at him in greeting, and starts copying down the runes on the blackboard to be translated this period.

They're quiet for the first few minutes of class. One of Frank's hands is on his quill, and the other is gripping the table and looks white with strain. "We should, uh—we should do something sometime. More than one time. Together. You and me."

Alice is acutely reminded, suddenly, that Frank is single now and so is she. She's liked Frank forever, and now here he is, actually available and—asking Alice out, from the sounds of it? Yes, she thinks his phrasing counts as asking her out on a date.

And she wants to say yes so badly, but she knows she shouldn't. So she tells him, "I'm—flattered. I am. And I want to. But I think I need to focus on strengthening my friendships, and I don't want to jump headfirst into anything with anyone new too soon."

"We're friends, aren't we?" says Frank, but Alice just gives him a look, and he says, "Point taken. Maybe someday, then?"

"Yes. That would be nice," she says.

When Dirk says that maybe someday they can be friends, she doesn't really believe that he means it—Alice gets the impression that she hurt Dirk too badly for him to be capable of that kind of relationship in the future. But her and Frank—well—Alice can see that going somewhere. She just can't take it there now, when she still has so much left to sort out with the other Gryffindors.

It strikes her suddenly that there's a month and a half left at Hogwarts and then they're done—not just for the year, but forever—and she'll never have the excuse of school to draw her and her friends together. Sure, they'll still have Order business together, but Dumbledore has kept them on such a tight leash this year that Alice really has no idea what that's going to look like or how much time she's going to spend with other members of the Order when things really get underway. Plus, Mary isn't even in the Order anymore—does that mean she's just going to fade out of Alice's life like she was never there?

Alice hopes not. She may not have been around much this year while she was sucked into her own problems, but she loves her friends and would miss them dearly if she were to lose them.

Suddenly, it seems like such wasted potential that Alice spent this whole year hiding behind her boyfriend and a pile of books to avoid talking to her friends. She tells herself that they'll keep in touch—that she'll make a point of making plans and following up and staying in contact. The Order will make it easier, and they'll finally have something real to talk about instead of exchanging idle gossip because they're trapped in an echo chamber where real movement and change don't happen. Besides, it'll only be hard in the beginning, when they're still in transition and getting used to what life looks like on the outside of Hogwarts—it'll be easier the more time passes.

She just has to stick it out in the beginning and not give up if she gets frustrated. She glances to the tables on her left, where Lily and Emmeline and James and Remus are sitting, and promises herself that she'll do better.