"You're really going?" Frank asked. He was just getting home from the night shift and Alice would be going to Diagon Alley in just a few minutes.
"Yes, Frank. I wrote to Narcissa and told her in advance that it would delight me to have tea with her." Alice explained, looking at herself in the mirror and adding one more charm to her hair. "And don't you dare throw yourself on the bed in those dirty clothes?! Shower first."
"I still don't like it, Alice." He confessed, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. Alice could see his reflection in the mirror. His green eyes travelled from the back of her head to her feet, stopping on her hips for just a longer second. "You look pretty."
"I'm torn between saying thank you, or asking you if I don't look pretty every day?" The Slytherin raised an eyebrow, turning to look at her husband.
He chuckled, wrapping his arms around her, and pecking her cheek. "You look wonderful every day, powerful. But right now, oh, my angel. You look so sweet I could eat you."
Alice playfully pushed him away. "When I come back, if you have been a good boy, took a shower and napped, I might wake you up with a surprise."
"How can someone so angelic be so devilish at the same time, darling?" He asked, swatting her ass. "Enjoy your pureblood lady tea with Mrs Malfoy. I can only imagine that if I was to have a pureblood gentleman drink with Mr Malfoy, we would both end up in the Ministry holding cell for disorderly conduct."
Alice rolled her eyes and pecked his lips. "Love you, Frankie. I will be back soon."
When Alice arrived at the little teashop, it surprised her to find not Narcissa Malfoy waiting for her, but Lucius. There was no turning back. He had seen her and raised from his chair to welcome her.
"Luci…" She whispered once she was close enough.
He kissed her hand. "Lice, I'm glad to see that you are alright. I read about the attack on the Prophet."
"Yes. The healers took excellent care of me." She assured, taking a seat. "Good as new. And how are you, Lucius?"
"As well as always. It seems you were mistaken, Alice, I didn't get fat like my father with marriage." He teased.
Alice smiled, shaking her head. "If I recall, my exact words were: when you get married and have children, you will grow a firewhiskey belly like your father."
Lucius chuckled. This felt nice. It felt like they were back at Hogwarts, on their Heads dorm, having tea and studying for the NEWT's. It was like nothing had changed, like she didn't catch dark wizards for a living, and he wasn't allegedly one.
"I ordered ahead." He explained, as the server approached. She expected nothing differently from Lucius Malfoy with his need to be in control of everything all the time. It seemed that had not changed. The server placed a cup in front of her, and the other in front of her companion. "I hope you still enjoy herbal. Strawberry and Elderflower used to be one of your favourites."
Alice nodded. "Yes, thank you. But there was no need to ask for a different tea. We could have shared a pot."
Lucius dismissed her statement just as the table filled itself with pastries, biscuits, and sandwiches. "Why would you compromise for black tea, when you enjoy a cup of that pink monstrosity?"
She brought the cup to her lips, deciding to ignore his comment. "Is Narcissa alright?" Alice asked.
"Oh, yes, she's splendid. Beautiful as always." Lucius said with an enormous smile. He was always like that when they were talking about Narcissa, deeply in love. Alice could doubt many things about Malfoy's choices, but his love for the youngest Black sister was as real as her own for Frank.
"Then why isn't she here, Lucius?" She asked. "We were friends in school, but this felt almost like an ambush, I was expecting your wife, not you. I told Frank I was meeting Narcissa."
Instead of offering an answer, Lucius sipped his tea, looking at the different sandwiches that had been brought. "I deserve an explanation, Luci!" She snapped her fingers, trying to get his attention back to her and not the food.
"You do. I just… I needed to make sure that you were alright, Alice. We were friends for so long... We were heads together." He said and Alice raised an eyebrow. She had never seen him anything but eloquent, so this Lucius in front of her was a strange vision.
And then something just clicked in her mind. The Prophet never identified which Aurors had been hurt. How did Lucius know it was her who had been injured? She felt her heartbeat getting faster and faster, and it was getting harder to breathe. Her worst fears came through. How would she tell her husband that he was right?
Alice shook her head. No one could have known because no one could have witnessed. Besides the group that duelled her and her partner, and their associates. She wouldn't cry in front of Lucius, wouldn't give him the pleasure of seeing her hurt.
"You changed, Lucius Malfoy." She whispered, finishing her tea in a long gulp. It burned in her mouth, but at that moment she couldn't care less. "Hope this little meeting eased the guilt that was tormenting you, because of what you did to me and to my partner."
"Alice, I was not there. I assure you, I wasn't involved."
"It doesn't matter. Thank you for the tea, Malfoy, but don't invite me again. The girl that you met in school, it's gone. We can't be friends anymore, Lucius." She explained, sighing. It was still a loss, an enormous loss. Another loss. And it hurt, even if Alice knew there were no reasons for it to hurt, he was one of the bad ones.
"Why?" He asked. Alice realised that even if Lucius was an adult, he was still the same petulant child. He wasn't used to hearing the word no, not used to losing.
"'Cause, you wouldn't know me today, Luci. Because we're on different sides, we cannot meet in the middle, in a fucking tea shop, and behave like our values can be conciliated, like our actions are one and the same. They're not! Because you do not know what I lost." She explained, hazel eyes meeting his grey ones. "Goodbye, Lucius, and Farewell."
Alice left the tea shop, rushing through the busy street to the closest apparition point. And then a voice called for her. "Auror Longbottom!" She saw a young woman waving at her from her little colourful stand. Romero's little crush. She had only met her briefly last week, during patrol.
"Hi, Mariana, right? Please, you can call me Alice, I'm not working at the moment. It's my day off." She said as she reached the other woman and her counter filled with cakes, biscuits, and pastries. And only then she realised that she drank her tea out of spite and didn't even touch the food.
"Yes. I wasn't sure you would remember me. We spoke so briefly." The brunette said, adjusting her pastel green apron.
"Oh, yes, but we have heard and tasted your talents before." Alice smiled. "You're a wonderful baker, and so young. I could barely make a pie when I was your age."
"You're not that much older, Alice." She said. "And my family owns a bakery back in Portugal, so I think I helped make pies before I could properly talk."
Alice was surprised by that statement, not the fact that the girl came from a family of bakers, but because the young woman had moved across Europe, to sell pastries in the middle of Diagon Alley. "You're a long way from home."
"Oh… I guess, but after so many years attending Beauxbattons, and then the internship on magical patisserie in Paris, it stopped really feeling like home. So I decided to travel, and I always wanted to visit England." She explained. "Would you like a slice of my carrot cake? On the house."
"So the plan is to keep travelling, showing your talents and selling your delicious masterpieces around the world?" Alice asked, taking a seat on the little bench that the Portuguese woman had conjured. It was a simple enough question, but the meaning behind it was there. Alice thought Romero was a pleasant addition in the Auror Office, one of her favourite greenhorns, and he was so invested in impressing the little baker, she didn't want him to end up heartbroken.
"Maybe, or until I find something I can call home." She explained, placing the paper plate in front of her, a slice of a very orangey cake covered with shredded coconut in the middle, and a little fork.
"Thank you, it looks different from the ones I've tasted before"
"So I've been told before, but give it a chance. Matteo loves it and he doesn't even like carrots!" she chuckled, busying herself with another client as Alice ate it slowly. It was delicious. "So, Alice, did you like it?"
"I loved it. I will take a few more slices if you can wrap them for me. My husband and my father-in-law will absolutely love it as well."
Mariana nodded, summoning a little cardboard box, and placing 5 slices inside. She was tying the ribbon around it, without magic. "Alice, you don't mind if I ask you something, do you?"
"Ask away," Alice assured the other woman with a smile, putting a shiny galleon on top of the stand.
Mariana sighed with relief once she saw the coin. "I complain enough about your currency, so I won't bother you with it. But what I was wondering was… is it an initiation?"
"What is it?" Alice asked, confused, stroking her thumbs over the little paper box.
"Matteo, coming and buying a large box of pastries almost every day. I absolutely don't mind, it's great for business, but I'm just wondering if it's like... hazing? To be accepted? If he must do it to become one of the Aurors? And then one day, it will just stop?"
Alice chuckled. "Oh, sweetheart, no, don't worry, no one forces Matteo to do anything. We love when he appears with the box, but no one is hazing him." The other woman took a deep breath and her smile softened. Fools, the two of them, Romero for not saying something before, and her for thinking he was doing it out of duty. "He does it because he wants to."
"Really?" And the dark brown eyes in front of her, filled with what Alice could only describe as hope.
Alice nodded, thinking if she should leave the two of them to their own devices, or that maybe they would need a push. "Thank you for the cake, and the conversation."
"The pleasure was all mine, Alice, please keep visiting." Mariana waved goodbye. "And thank you for the wonderful… I'm not sure if advice is the right word, but I think it helped me understand some things." She explained, a blush on her cheeks. "We will see what happens, what changes."
"Have a little faith, Mariana. But if you're like me and you have got to see to believe, just watch as he looks at you, man try to hide what they want, what they're feeling, but they let it all out through their eyes." Alice explained, waving goodbye.
She placed the cake on top of the kitchen counter and climbed up the stairs, finding her husband still asleep. Getting rid of her robes, Alice could not believe that she had put in an effort to look like a lady for Narcissa Malfoy, only to have been ambushed by someone that could no longer be considered a friend. She changed into some shorts and a t-shirt and climbed under the covers, finding comfort in her husband's warmth and smell.
"That bad?" He asked, still sleepy. His hold around her tightened, and he buried his face in her hair.
"You don't want to know, let's just, snuggle." She murmured.
"So the surprise that you promised… is it out of the table? Or out of the bed?" Frank teased. Alice chuckled, trying to spin them around, but Frank's arm kept her laying down on the mattress. "Later, love. Now just… just sleep. You sound like you needed it as well, and then when we wake up, we can have some tea and talk."
"And cake, I brought some carrot cake from Diagon Alley. You're the best husband someone could ask for, Frank. I love you." She whispered against his lips.
"I love you too, Lissie, and a little bit more when you bring me ca-" a snore interrupted his sentence and Alice chuckled as quietly as she could to not wake him, drifting to sleep soon after.
