Author's Note: I am feeling very stressed out right now. My first midterm is the coming Monday, and I feel like I don't know much of the material. First round of midterms is going to last three weeks. Then I'll have a one-week break before the second round starts up. Blegh. And because I like to torture myself, I have a new job on the side. These are my justifications for being unable to post as frequently as I'd like. Sigh.

Recognize these lyrics?

"I wanted you to know that I love the way you laugh. I wanna hold you high and steal your pain away."

They're from the very pretty song that I am currently listening to (: Yep, I get easily distracted when I'm tired.

Anyway, I feel like this segment takes a bit of a detour from the rest of the story, but I just really wanted to include it. Hope you don't mind too much! And if you do… sorry about that! We'll be back on track soon(ish)… ;)

Chapter 69

"Hi there!"

I turn toward the voice and see a mousy-haired girl, about my age, with huge, round eyes and a bright smile.

"My name's Alice. What's yours?"

I smile back at her. "Frank. Nice to meet you, Alice."

"Do you know what House you want to be in yet?"

"Well… my parents were both in Gryffindor, so I think I want to be, too."

Alice's smile gets impossibly wider. "Ooh, I want to be in Gryffindor, too!"

"Oh dear Merlin, Alice, will you stop squealing?"

I turn toward the voice and see a girl with shiny, black hair and very dark eyes.

"Hello, Bellatrix," Alice says, stepping closer to me and leaning a bit to the side so that she can see the newcomer. From the tone of her voice, she doesn't like this Bellatrix.

I smile at her anyway—Mum told me that I should make lots of friends, and that I shouldn't judge someone before getting to know them.

Instead of smiling back, Bellatrix says, "So, you want to be a Gryffindor? Well, isn't that grand? I already know I'll be in Slytherin, and I'm proud of it."

"You can't know that," I say, frowning.

"Sure, I can," she says matter-of-factly. "I'm from the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, and—"

"Oh, you're Bellatrix Black!" I exclaim before I can stop myself.

I can't believe I didn't notice before—it's not as though "Bellatrix" is a common name. How many more Bellatrixes can there be?

She grins. "So you have heard of me. Good."

"Bellatrix, leave him alone," Alice says.

"I'm not bullying him, am I?" Bellatrix replies. She focuses her attention on me again. "So, what's your name?"

"Frank."

"Last name."

"Longbottom."

"Oh, I've heard of your family. You're pure-blood. That's good—we can be friends."

I smile. Despite what Mum told me about the Blacks, Bellatrix doesn't seem so nasty. She even wants to be friends. And she's rather nice to look at… like a princess.

Alice grabs my hand. "Frank, we should stay away from the likes of her. Come on."

She starts to drag me toward the nearest compartment of the train, away from Bellatrix. I pull my hand out of her grasp and stop walking, and she turns to look at me, perplexed. I turn around to face Bellatrix.

"I would like to be your friend, Bellatrix," I say.

"Call me Bella."

I smile. "Bella."

"Well, then. I'll see you around," she says before turning around and walking in the opposite direction.

Alice gets a hold of my hand again and pulls me into an empty compartment.

"Why would you say you want to be friends with her?" she asks me. "Her family is the worst kind. Really, really awful. Haven't you heard of how they treat Muggles?"

"She seemed pretty friendly to me," I say.

"Only after she made sure you were a pure-blood, of course," Alice points out.

I frown, unhappy with what Alice is saying about Bella.

I race down the hall and duck behind a suit of armor just as a spell rockets past me. I point my wand out and shout, "Expelliarmus!"

"Come out, come out, little Gryffindor! Come out and play!"

I groan—I must have missed, or he'd be cursing up a storm. I should have known Lestrange would come after me.

I jump out from behind the metal figure. "Impedimenta!"

The older Slytherin blocks my spell with minimal effort and flicks his wand at me almost lazily.

"Tarantallegra."

My legs start moving uncontrollably, and I try to force them to stand still. Lestrange bursts into laughter, and my cheeks redden. I point my wand at him, intending to use a Pimple Jinx on him, but he barks a spell that I don't recognize, and my hands start to swell enormously.

Then there's a loud bang, and Lestrange is thrown backwards, landing on his arse.

My legs finally stop moving, but I can't even hold onto my wand anymore.

"Come on—hospital wing."

I recognize the voice as belonging to Bella, and I glance to my left in time to see her stepping up to me. She grips my elbow and starts leading me down the hall.

As we pass by Lestrange, his hand shoots out and grabs Bella's ankle. I expect her to tell him off, but she kicks him away and pauses to stomp on his nose instead. I wince—that looks like it must have hurt…

"Oh Frank, are you all right?" Alice asks.

"They're still a little swollen," I say, looking down at my bandaged hands. "That was one nasty hex."

Alice frowns and reaches over to touch one of my hands gently. Three hours have already passed since Lestrange attacked me, but my hands are still sore and a little swollen.

"You know, Bella saved me."

She glares at me. "It's her fault you're in all this trouble, anyway. She should have helped you."

"It wasn't her fault," I argue. "I kissed her. I didn't know that he was watching."

Alice sighs. "Why would you kiss her anyway?"

"Alice, we've been through this a thousand times. It's been five years, and she hasn't killed anyone. I don't see what your problem is."

"I just worry. I don't want you to turn into… one of those snobby prats who thinks he's elite just because both of his parents happen to have pure blood."

Then the door to the hospital wing opens, and I smile at the sound of a familiar voice.

"Badmouthing me again, are you? Do you have nothing better to do?"

Alice looks over at the dark-haired girl who's moving toward us. "You need to control your boyfriend."

"He never was my boyfriend, and I'd appreciate it if you'd stop spreading rumors like that," Bella says coldly, stopping in her tracks.

"I haven't been spreading rumors," Alice says defensively.

"Well," Bella says, shifting her gaze to me, "I'm glad you're all right, Frank, but seeing as I'm hardly needed here—"

"No—stay," I say.

She's already moving toward the exit.

"Bella, please."

She stops and turns around slowly to meet my eyes. Then she looks at Alice pointedly.

"Fine!" Alice huffs. "So you've chosen her, is that it?"

"No. Alice, I—"

Alice storms toward the exit before I can finish speaking. As she passes by Bella, the two girls exchange venomous glares, and I can't hold back a sigh. Then Alice is gone, and Bella closes the door.

Her expression immediately softens, and she moves over to sit on the bed next to me.

"I'm so sorry," she says. "I would have stopped you—you should have told me what you were going to do."

I smile. "I suppose I could ask for permission next time."

She carefully lifts up one of my swollen hands. "You really need to practice dueling more often. Rodolphus may be a seventh year, but it shouldn't be that easy for him to corner you."

"Oh, so I'm a little absentminded sometimes. That's what you're here for, isn't it?" I say, still smiling at her.

She doesn't look amused. "I won't always be around to look after you."

I give her a slight pout. She tries and fails to hold back a smile.

"You know, it's utterly unromantic when the princess has to save the prince," she says.

I laugh. "It's a good thing I'm going for survival and not romance, then."

She laughs as well, and I don't think I've ever seen anyone so beautiful. I wish she'd laugh more often. No, I wish I could make her laugh more often.

When we stop laughing, we sit for a while, just smiling at each other.

"Bella… why won't you ever be like this in front of other people?" I ask. "They'd like you a lot better. I'm sure of it. Alice is always giving me a hard time for wanting to be around you, and most of my other friends… I don't even want to tell them that I'm friends with you, for fear of what they'll say."

She only sighs, amusement fading from her features.

"Come on, Bella. You can tell me. Tell me what it is."

"I just can't. I can't be myself. It's not who I was raised to be, who I'm destined to be," she mumbles. "My parents would disown me if I were too friendly with a Muggle-born, and half of your friends are Muggle-borns. So, by association—"

"Then forget about your parents! They treat you awfully. I've seen the bruises—"

Her dark eyes flash with fury. "Don't! I told you never to bring that up again, Frank. I'm warning you."

I sigh. "All right, all right."

"I'm not even so sure that the person I am when I'm with you is the real me, anyway," she says quietly. "You just…" she raises her eyes to my face, "…make me feel so different."

"In a good way?" I ask hopefully.

She frowns, thinking it over. "Just… different."

I scoot a bit closer to her, and she watches me warily.

"You make me feel different, too," I say. "In a very good way."

Her pale cheeks flush slightly, and she drops her eyes to the cot that we're sitting on. I reach out and lift her chin with one of my slightly larger-than-usual hands so that I can see her face.

"Bella… mind if I kiss you?"

A radiant smile spreads across her face, and my heart flutters in my chest. Then she leans forward and presses her lips to mine.

Alice slips her arm around mine, linking arms with me and huddling close into my side as we trudge through the snow.

"It's so cold," she complains.

"I told you we should have left earlier," I say, looking up at the dark sky.

We just left Madam Puddifoot's to go back to the castle—by the rules, we're supposed to be back at Hogwarts by nightfall, but since we're both prefects, we decided to bend the rules a little bit.

"Do you hear that?" Alice says suddenly, stopping.

I pause and listen carefully. "What?"

Then I hear it—a faint cry of distress. We race toward the source of the sound. As we get closer, the screams get clearer. We finally round a bend in the path, pretty far away from the village, and see a young boy writhing on the ground, tentacles sprouting from his body.

"Bella—stop!" I shout, pointing my wand at her—she's standing only a few feet away from the boy. I Disarm her and then turn to my companion. "Alice, take the boy back to the castle—now!"

Alice glances at Bella as if to make sure it's safe before snatching the victim and racing away.

Bella rolls her eyes at me. "You just had to ruin the fun. Didn't you, Frank? Well, what do you think? I invented this one myself."

I clench my jaw. "Bella, please stop doing this."

"Why should I? I'm a bigoted racist who doesn't deserve anyone's respect, let alone friendship."

"I never said—"

"You certainly made it clear enough!" she snaps. "You were the one who snuck out of bed before I woke up. You were the one who said in no uncertain terms that everything that happened meant nothing to you. You were the one who said that you and that bitch were so much better suited for each other!"

By the time she finishes her tirade, she's standing right in front of me. She snatches her wand out of my hand.

"We were fighting," I say. "You didn't have anything nice to say about me either, did you?"

"You still left before I woke up."

"I had class!"

"You should have woken me up or left me a note, then!"

"I just—fuck! Bella, why are we still doing this? What's the point? It's not as though fighting is going to fix anything."

We've already had this argument several times, and I feel like every single time, we reach the same outcome. Bloody hell.

"You know what, you're right. You've clearly moved on," she says.

"You told me to!" I say.

"Since when did you start taking orders from me?"

I take a deep breath. "We… we can still be—"

"No, not friends. Never again," she says.

"It was… it only happened once," I say. "It was a mistake. We… we can go back to how we were, can't we?"

That damned night happened almost two full months ago, and in all the time since then, we've hardly spoken at all except to fight. Honestly, I miss her very much.

"No. You should have known there would be no going back as soon as you snuck into my room. I still don't know what you were thinking."

I don't even know what I was thinking. All I do know is that I never intended for things to get that far…

"And now," she continues, "do you really think I'll go back to being friends with you when you're dating her?"

"It doesn't have to be you or her," I say. "I value both of you, and I really, really miss you, Bella."

She glares at me. "Oh, no. No, you're not doing this," she says. "I will not be friends with Alice. I don't care what you say. And she doesn't want me as a friend either, I assure you."

"Alice is a friendly—"

"Yes, I know she's a bloody angel! I don't need you to tell me. But she's always been jealous, and you know it, Frank."

It's the truth—I can't deny it.

"Fine," I say. "I can't say anything for Alice. But I miss you, Bella. And with all the things that you've been doing… I worry about you."

"Worry about me? Oh, I never thought the day would come," she says sarcastically. Then the fake smile slides from her face, and she says, "I think it would be better for you if you started worrying about those Mudblood friends of yours, because that little boy and the ones before him… they're just the beginning."

"Please don't—"

"Oh, how sweet. The boy said 'please.'"

"I'll have to go to Dumbledore, you know," I say.

"Go ahead, then. It's not the first time I've been in to see him. We have such a kind headmaster, don't we?" she replies.

"Bella…"

"Yes, Frank?"

I sigh, frustrated. "What do you want from me? What will it take for you to stop?"

"Nothing," she says. "Nothing that you're willing to give, at least. So turn me in if you want to. Get me expelled. Whatever makes you happy. But I will not stop."

She storms past me and down the path toward Hogwarts.

"What if I broke up with Alice?" I ask.

"That's between the two of you. I don't care anymore."

I turn around and watch her as she walks away. "But you do, Bella. You obviously do."

She whips around to face me, and the look on her face makes my chest throb painfully. "Don't make the mistake of thinking that I might be a human being with feelings," she says scathingly.

"Don't say that."

"It's true, isn't it?" she says, taking a step toward me. "I've heard what you and your friends say about me when you think I'm not listening. Nothing I do is going to change that."

"If you just didn't—"

Her eyes flash maliciously. "Frank, you don't want to finish that sentence."

"You know it's true. You're not an innocent victim, here."

"All the more reason for you to turn me in, right?"

With that, she turns on her heel and strides away. I watch as she moves farther and farther away from me before rounding a bend and disappearing from view.

I wish it didn't have to be this way. If only things were different.

If only everything was different.

Author's Note: So, I was originally only going to write one chapter of Frank's memories, but I couldn't resist writing in some extra scenes, just because I liked them so much. Agh, totally didn't expect this when I started the story. Anyway, the next chapter will be the continuation. What did you guys think of teenage Bella?

In case you didn't catch the in-text clues, the first scene is in first year (well, if you didn't get that one, I don't know what to say to you). The attack from Lestrange happens late in their fifth year, and Bella and Frank's fallout happens early in sixth year. I looked up Alice and Frank, and I don't think it's ever specified in the novels exactly when they attended Hogwarts, so I decided to place them in Bella's year.

Oh, and one more thing. Did you guys recognize the effect of the spell that Bella used on her unfortunate victim? It's shown up another time in this story. I'll be super excited if you can tell me approximately when and/or where the spell showed up and who the other victim was. But I suppose that's asking a bit much of you :P