Author's Note - Now, I decided to tell Alice's Point of View for that battle scene in which Harry and her first meet... I do believe that this type of story telling, though, is called a 'Song Fic'. The song I used is called "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda", it is a famous Australian song sung on Anzac Day and references the Australian song "Waltzing Matilda".

"Waltzing Matilda" is Australian slang for travelling by foot with all your possessions in your swag (a.k.a 'Matilda' or 'a bag'). A swag is called 'Matilda' because a swagman often travels alone, leaving his swag as his only companion, thereby personifying it as a woman. And waltzing is simply just travelling from town to town and working whenever it's needed, honing your skills and learning new things.

If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask! And if you want anything clarified, ask and I'll put it in the story clearer... Sound good? ^.^

(And yes, I'm procrastinating -.-")

Now when I was a young man, I carried me pack, and I lived the free life of a rover…

Alice laughed good-humouredly with her old school friends at the attempts a handsome German backpacker made to speak English.

They had just graduated and were backpacking around Australia; working for the various farms they stayed at for bed and board, and had met so many characters along the way. They were currently picking fruit for a lovely old couple along with the handsome German and a charming young woman from Singapore.

From the Murray's green basin to the dusty outback, well, I waltzed my Matilda all over.

Alice's arm lazily hung out the window of the kombi van as the red dust of the desert kicked up around them. It was her turn to drive the temperamental muggle machine for the next stretch to Uluru and Kakadu National Park and the day was hot. Her other mates were either asleep in the back or gazing silently out the window at the wide and never-ending red of the desert and blue of the sky.

Then in 1915, my country said son, it's time you stopped rambling, there's work to be done.

There were whispers going around of Pureblood uprising happening in England and that the Australian and New Zealand soldiers would be sent to help support their English counter-parts. Alice had always aspired to be a Healer and decided that she should do her part. Along with two other friends, who had sneaked out of the Academy that fateful night and gotten enrolled into the Air Force Cadets, the three of them would now be enrolling into the real Royal Australian Air Force.

So they gave me a tin hat, and they gave me a gun, and they marched me away to the war.

It was the middle of the day when Alice, Louie and Matt's squadron had been called to duty in England. Both Alice and Matt had just been fully qualified as Healers, while Louie was working in Logistics; enjoying organising the Magical Sector of the Australian Armed Forces. Their entire squadron was made up of Wizarding folk, and as soon as they had all arrived in the Parade ground in their uniforms and with packs, they had been portkeyed into the darkness of the English night. The Order of the Phoenix and the English Aurors were gathered in the middle of a forest, quietly organising their attack when the ANZACs had arrived, adding more body fodder for their use.

And the band played Waltzing Matilda, as the ship pulled away from the quay;

And amidst all the cheers, the flag-waving and tears, we sailed off for Gallipoli…

Louie placed a comforting hand on a trembling Alice. Louie had never been very good at dueling during school, but she had a confidence Alice wished she could have. Louie's free hand was clutched tightly around the medal her Grandfather had received for fighting in the Great War.

And how well I remember that terrible day, how our blood stained the sand and the water

And of how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay, we were butchered like lambs at the slaughter.

'Matt is Healing back at camp, he'll be safe, Louie is with Watson, he'll keep her safe… Matt is Healing - ' Alice was chanting silently to herself as she ducked and dodged curses hurled her way and she retaliated fiercely. She had been using the same chant in her head ever since her squadron had been sent to help recover all the Death Eaters that had managed to escape and hide after the Battle of Hogwarts. After several months of finding and fighting, these were the last of Voldemort's followers. Moments later a tired cheer went up as the last one had been captured and Alice grinned as she looked around for Louie. A familiar shape was hunched over an old tree stump and was bleeding profusely. Ignoring the pain from the aftermath of several curses, Alice ran towards her best friend.

Johnny Turk he was waiting, he'd primed himself well.

He shower'd us with bullets, And he rained us with shell.

And in five minutes flat, he'd blown us all to hell…

Nearly blew us right back to Australia.

Alice and Matt stood side by side as they chanted spell after spell, trying to figure out what could possibly stop the horrible, profuse bleeding. Alice encouraging and comforting Louie punctured their soft chants, as Matt continued to concentrate, but tears were cultivating in his eyes. Alice longed to revert to her true Fae form to give her spells all her power, but knew now that even that wouldn't save her. Louie seemed to know that too, but was holding onto dear life, while Death pulled her away, kicking and screaming.

But the band played Waltzing Matilda, when we stopped to bury our slain.

We buried ours, and the Turks buried theirs, then we started all over again.

Soon after Louie had died, Sister Marianne, a trainee Healer from Canada, came up to Alice. She asked softly if she knew any Healers that could help, as Matt was the only Healer in the tent and the others couldn't give any of theirs up. Matt looked relived when Alice insisted vehemently that she could help patch everyone up, even though she had just finished fighting. She needed something to keep her busy or she'd just fall apart crying. Sister Marianne floated over to a darkened corner of the tent where one of the exhausted soldiers sat, to inform him that he'd be attended to soon. Alice saw the way Sister Marianne's gaze always lingered on him as they worked, so she surmised that he must be handsomely dark and roguish. Sister Marianne had a different gaze for different boys; cute ones, handsome ones, dark and roguish ones… And according to Sister Marianne, if she could get a date with this soldier, she'd never let him go. Something told Alice that it had something more to do than looks… Maybe an old friend from school?

And those that were left, well we tried to survive, in that mad world of blood, death and fire,

And for ten weary weeks, I kept myself alive, though around me the corpses piled higher

Alice went from stretcher to stretcher, smiling the practiced smile of a Healer. If there was one rule to Healing in a war zone, it was to never, ever let that smile slip, because for some, that smile would be the last thing they'd ever see. As she tended to a soldier whose wounds would soon be healed, Matt called Alice over to another bed.

"Can you look after this one? I'll look after the other boy." he asked and Alice agreed, surprised. She soon knew why he'd asked it though. The wizened man spoke with a Scottish lilt, but had been born and raised in New Zealand.

Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head, and when I woke up in my hospital bed,

And saw what it had done, well I wished I was dead. Never knew there was worse things than dyin'.

The bloke had lost both his legs and was slowly dying, a large curse had ripped his stomach open and she could see the purple muscles of his intestines. As Alice hopelessly tended to him, he spoke quite clearly, as if in a daze and couldn't feel a thing.

"I can still feel my legs you know, lassie."

"Yes…Phantom limbs."

"They mustn't be as bad as poltergeist limbs then." He chuckled grimly, amused at his own play on words, than sighed.

"What part of New Zealand are you from?" he questioned her.

"I'm from near Whanganui. Well actually a couple of kilometers North from there."

He chuckled and the acid from his stomach leaked from a small nick, but he barely paid any attention to it, as Alice quickly healed the small wound. His eyes were closing now, "I'm from the North Island too, near Rotorua. Y- you're an ANZAC, aren't you?"

"Yes I am." Alice made sure that her tone was always comforting and had a definite New Zealand lilt; the bloke wanted something that reminded him of home and that was something the Australian born and bred Matt couldn't do.

For I'll go no more waltzing Matilda, all around the green bush far and free…

To hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs - no more waltzing Matilda for me.

So they gathered the crippled, the wounded, the maimed, and they shipped us back home to Australia.

The legless, the armless, the blind, the insane, those proud wounded heroes of Suvla

And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay, I looked at the place where me legs used to be.

And thanked Christ there was nobody waiting for me, to grieve, to mourn, and to pity.

"Do you have a sweetheart back home? Someone who you're fighting for?"

Alice smiled gently, her eyes welling up a bit; the man's time was coming. "No, of course not, who'd want someone like me?"

"Ah, but you're such a sweet lass. So beautiful too."

Alice laughed, "Don't try buttering me up! I won't be able to sneak in a bit of chocolate for you in here anyway!"

The man couldn't even open his eyes any more, but he smiled none the less. "Aye, Lassie, you've got me there. But soon you're going to meet someone who you don't mind being buttered up by. Soon you're gonna meet your sweetheart…" he trailed off and Alice blushed.

"What about you?" she questioned lightly; it was only a matter of time for him now.

"I'll be meeting my wife soon. She'll meet me at the door with a hug and a kiss, and then we'll settle down for a spot of tea. Once I get back, we're retiring to New Zealand, so we can watch the Grandkids grow old together."

"Sounds lovely…"

"Please…sing a song."

"But the band played Waltzing Matilda, as they carried us down the gangway.

But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared, then they turned all their faces away

And so now every April, I sit on me porch, and I watch the parades pass before me.

And I see my old comrades, how proudly they march, reviving old dreams of past glories

And the old men march slowly, old bones stiff and sore. They're tired old heroes from a forgotten war

And the young people ask, what are they marching for? And I ask myself the same question."

Alice softly crooned a tune well known on ANZAC day. Matt had stilled briefly when he heard her, before returning to work, his ear cocked in her direction. The patients, while in a lot of pain, also stilled as they listened to the tale of a young free man, chosen to do the duty for his country and having to witness horrors that no one should ever have to. The song, for them, expressed not only their homesickness, but also the fear of their loved ones seeing them in such a horrible state.

"But the band plays Waltzing Matilda, and the old men still answer the call,

But as year follows year, more old men disappear. Someday no one will march there at all.

"Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda, who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?

And their ghosts may be heard as they march by that billabong, who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?"

The man, Alice had never found out his name, died quietly as she sung the ballad. Although a song technically focusing on Australia, it sung of all ANZACs. He was levitated over to the tarp that waited to carry the dead away and Alice went on to the next patient, a young girl from India who was barely conscious and had had various curses placed on her since the beginning of the Last Battle. A nervous looking young South African man hovered by her bed until Alice shooed him away.

The practiced smile, heal until the patient could leave, than, follow the wooden path to the next bed, so as to avoid the muddy ground and repeat. Smile, heal… leave.

Once they had managed to patch up everyone and had those with serious cases stay in the hospital beds, Alice noticed that the same soldier had been sitting in the dark corner, waiting to he seen to, had not yet moved.

"Come with me." She beckoned over to a free bed and eyed the young man before her, he held his arm awkwardly, couldn't straighten his leg and was currently hunched in badly concealed pain.

"Has Sister Marianna seen you yet?"

He shook his head and Alice rolled up the trouser leg of his left side. She muttered a basic healing charm for it; well, basic for the Australian Aboriginals, the wound wasn't too dangerous. He had obviously picked up on the strange language and asked about it. Alice smiled brightly at him, for once not the practiced smile; he seemed so interested in the different style of magic and about her homelands of New Zealand and Australia, unlike some. She knew he dozed off soon after she started talking, but the pain he must've been holding in was immense… plus she was using a powerful anesthetic charm…

Later on, when Matt just finished his last patient, Alice approached him and gazed at him solemnly. Matt glanced up at her briefly, went back to what he was doing and then sharply looked at her again.

"Oh Merlin, Alice… Did you? Why didn't you tell me you were hurt?" Matt scolded her as he hauled her into a nearby bed to treat her wounds and beckoned Sister Marianna over, but she knew he was still rattled after Louie's death and didn't want to have another close friend die on him. Especially as she had put off her own treatment for several long hours as she treated others that were wounded. He didn't listen to her sharp cries of pain as the salves and charms healed her; he needed her to live.