Previously in the Darklyverse: Feeling lonely and left out, Alice tried to get closer to Mary. Frank and Alice got together.

xx

December 16th, 1978: Alice Abbott

In retrospect, it was a very good idea for Alice and Frank to meet up with Mary and Cattermole an hour before Lily and James's shower. Over drinks at the Leaky Cauldron, Alice gets Mary talking a little and fills her in on what the Gryffindors have been up to (sans anything involving the Order) so that Mary isn't totally blindsided when they get to the shower. By the time they pay for their butterbeers and go to Disapparate, Mary is smiling like she's actually happy for the first time Alice has seen in what feels like a very long time.

Lily and James opted to rent out The Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade for their shower, and Alice can immediately tell that this was a good choice when they arrive. Half of their year from Gryffindor are already there, along with Amelia Bones, Meghan and Kirley McCormack, and Marlene's uncle, Caradoc Dearborn. The atmosphere is lively; Alice has to shout to be heard as she says hello to Lily, who wraps her in a hug.

There's a young couple in the corner who look thoroughly disgusted with everything around them. "That's my sister and her husband," Lily explains with a roll of her eyes, but Mary says—

"Alice, we have to go and talk to them. They look miserable."

"Cattermole and I will leave that to the two of you," says Frank with a grin. "Come on, Reg, let's grab a table."

So Alice uneasily heads over to Lily's family behind Mary, who looks determined to befriend Lily's family whether they like it or not. "Hello!" says Mary brightly, sticking out a hand, and Lily's sister and sister-in-law look her up and down, narrowing their eyes at her close-cut hair and her gaunt face. "I'm Mary. This is Alice. You're Petunia, right? And—I don't know your name," she says to Vernon, still smiling.

"Dursley," says the man, clearing his throat. "Vernon Dursley."

"I think you're the only Muggles coming today," says Mary, "but a lot of us have Muggle parents, just like Lily did! My parents are both Muggles."

"Don't call us that," Vernon hisses. "Your lot are the farthest bloody thing from normal, and we won't get mixed up with your witchcraft words and labels."

Mary scowls. "Why are you here today if you're so against everything magical? Why bother?"

"Lily is my sister," says Petunia disdainfully, "and our father would have wanted us to show up for each other."

"So you do have some loyalty left in you," says Mary. Alice thinks she means it as a positive thing, but the Dursleys' eyes are twitching.

"Let's go, Mare," Alice says. "We shouldn't bother them."

They go and find the table Frank and Cattermole picked out, and Mary shakes her head at them. "Those two are a trip, aren't they?"

The rest of the shower passes blissfully uneventfully. Mary's spirits stay lifted, and she even chats a bit with the other Gryffindors and with some of the rest of the Order: Benjy Fenwick, the Prewetts, Dorcas Meadowes, Eddie Bones. As for Alice—

Does it really matter how Alice is doing? It's Lily's shower, and Mary is Alice's latest project, and isn't that enough?

But Alice can't help noticing all day that she still feels—well—lonely. Even now that she's dating Frank, she feels like the odd one out among the other Gryffindors—at least, the ones who are still in the Order. It helps a little to have Mary there with her, too, but Mary has become so far removed from the rest of Alice's social circle that the comfort she provides feels fleeting.

Frank seems to notice that something is up because after the shower, when they're back at Alice's flat, he says, "Is there something going on with you today, Alice? I haven't seen you that quiet in I don't know how long."

"I just…" Alice lets out a sigh. "Sometimes I feel like I'm just going through the motions with my friends, like they're not really my friends, you know? I do everything it says on the tin—I write to them and plan to have them over or to go out together—but it's just a… a replacement for real intimacy. I don't know if any of my mates really like me or if they're just putting up with me because they're supposed to care about me."

"I'm sure that's not true," says Frank, frowning. "They care about you. I know they do."

"Yes, but… but when was the last time one of them reached out to me to make plans? When was the last time one of them sent me an owl that wasn't a response to one that I sent them? I can't even remember, Frank."

"I don't think it's you," he says seriously. "I think that kind of thing is bound to happen now that we've left Hogwarts. I couldn't tell you the last time that I talked to Dirk or Carol or Alexander. People get busy with their lives, you know? It's harder to keep in touch when you're all off in different directions in your lives."

"People don't get that busy," Alice grumbles.

Frank scoots in closer and puts his hands on either side of Alice's neck, gently kneading her shoulders. She groans and lets her head fall forward. "I can't speak for anybody else," says Frank, "but you've got me, and I'm not going anywhere."

"You better not," says Alice with a smile. "Auror training would get awfully awkward if we suddenly weren't on speaking terms."

He lets go of her shoulders and pulls her into a hug. "My Alice," he says, planting a kiss on her forehead. "Everything will work out just fine. Just you wait."

When Frank leaves an hour later, Alice leaves her bedroom to fetch an apple out of the kitchen. "Hey," she says to Remus, who's sitting in the living room staring at a textbook.

"Hey," Remus echoes, and then he says, "Hey, so I didn't mean to intrude or anything, but I heard what you were saying to Frank earlier about—you know, about feeling like an outsider."

A curtain of hair falls from behind Alice's ear to drape across her face like a shield. "You weren't supposed to hear that."

"I know I was. It wasn't on purpose, I promise, just—thin walls."

"Yeah, I know," says Alice awkwardly.

"I just want you to know that I do see you as my friend. James does, too. I know we only really talk when we see each other incidentally nowadays, but that doesn't mean I don't care about you or don't want to make time for you in my life. It's just… I get sucked up into my own stuff. If I'm not thinking about Sirius, I'm—well—thinking about Sirius."

"It's fine."

"It's not."

"Remus, just leave it be, please. I don't want to do this with you."

He scrutinizes her like he's really seeing her for the first time. "I hate seeing you unhappy," he says finally.

But if that were true, he would have noticed all the times she was silently screaming out for attention and done something about it. She smiles at him, closes the icebox door, and retreats back to her room, where she can brood in peace.

xx

Back when she was at Hogwarts, this was exactly the sort of situation that would provoke Alice to throw herself into her studies. She's not a student anymore, so she doesn't have homework to focus on, but she does have Auror training and the Order, and she buries herself deep in the Imperius Curse-identification spell and practicing what she's learning at work.

She doesn't leave her bedroom for—a long time. She skips dinner—and breakfast the next morning—and it's well past lunchtime by the time she hears a knock on her bedroom door. "Come in," she says, pushing aside a pile of notes and wiping the sweat off her forehead.

James looks uncomfortable as he sidles into the room and closes the door behind him. "Hey, Al," he says. "I'm going over to see Sirius, and I was wondering if you wanted to come. Lily will be there, too."

"Oh, that's okay. You go on without me. Have fun."

He pauses. "You can't stay holed up in here forever," he finally says.

"I know," she says cheerfully, as if that's not the exact thing she's trying to do.

So Remus must have talked to James, then. Alice isn't totally sure how she feels about this. On the one hand, it's touching that Remus cares enough to try to get other people to rally around her, but on the other, she wishes he wouldn't go spreading around information that he wasn't supposed to have heard in the first place.

At least things with Frank are going well. He comes by later Sunday afternoon to practice spells, and Alice feels like she can let her guard down for the first time in a while. "Stay for dinner," she says when they finish up and are tucking their wands away.

"Sure," he says. "Let me just owl my parents so they don't worry."

"How's it going living at home again? It's got to be an adjustment from living with your friends the whole time we were at Hogwarts."

"Oh, it's not too bad. My mum is a little intense, but that's nothing new. I'm already sort of used to living at home from summer vacations—the only thing that's changed is that I'm going to work during the day."

"That reminds me," Alice says. She doesn't really want to have this conversation, but she knows she'll need to sooner or later. "Now that Sirius and Remus are broken up, Sirius isn't planning on moving in here with Remus after James gets married, which means I don't technically need a new place to stay in June."

"So our plans to get a flat are off, then?"

"I mean… we have a couple of options," says Alice hesitantly. "We can still get our own place somewhere, though in that case, I'd want to make sure Remus knows where he's going to be staying before signing anything. Or—you could move in here, take James's place, and live with both me and Remus, although I don't know how Remus would feel about that."

"I take it you haven't talked to Lupin about it yet, then?"

"No. I've… kind of been avoiding dealing with it, to be honest."

Frank asks, "But you still want us to move in together? I mean—I thought you might not want to jump into something like that after what happened with Black and Lupin. You know, in case we wound up broken up and still on a lease together."

Alice hadn't considered that. "Let's see how things are going when springtime rolls around. That should give us a good couple of months to figure out where to live if we decide that's something we want to do."

"Sounds like a plan to me."

At dinner, Frank, James, and Remus do most of the talking, leaving Alice to root around in her thoughts and eat in near silence. "You're awfully quiet over there," says Frank gently, squeezing her free hand under the table.

"I'm good," says Alice, and the smile that crosses her face is more genuine than anything from the last couple of days.