Sunday 10th May 1981
Longbottom Manor, 10:00
Alice stalked past Frank without even acknowledging him. Because if she acknowledged him, she was going to have to talk to him. And if she talked to him, it wouldn't just be talking it would be snapping. And a wife really shouldn't snap at her husband. Too much anyway. And she didn't want to, no matter how annoyed at him she was.
What she did want to do was ignore him and stomp about for a bit. And if she been a childish person, she would have also wanted to throw something but she wasn't so she wasn't going to. That was a bit too dramatic for her tastes.
Unfortunately, Frank didn't seem to agree with her about the idea of ignoring him.
"Alice-" he began only to be interrupted.
"Leave me alone, Frank," she said irritably.
Why did he want to talk when she wanted to be quiet? Or, better yet, just avoid him completely. She just didn't want to talk to him. Or see him. Or even hear him. None of those things. Every single one of those things were making her irritable and annoyed and she just didn't want to be anywhere near him. Was that really so hard?
Then she realised that if she wanted something done, she was going to have to do kt herself. If Frank wasn't going to let her ignore him and if he wasn't going to leave the room so she could sulk in peace then she was going to have to do it.
So, that's what she went to do. Sidestepping her husband, she made her way to the door. Unfortunately, she was thwarted by a hand suddenly wrapping around her wrist, preventing her from going any further. She looked down at it and then pointedly back at Frank. He didn't even have the decency to look ashamed of doing this!
"Come on, talk to me," he urged.
He probably thought he sounded all persuasive but all it did was annoy Alice further. She wrenched her wrist out of his grasp and glared at him.
"I don't want to talk to you."
"Well, I want to talk to you."
"Too bad."
She gave him a furious look, rubbing at her wrist absentmindedly. Maybe she shouldn't have wrenched out of his grasp that hard.
"Well, then," Frank said in frustration. "You don't have to talk but you're going to have to listen to me talk."
"That's not talking with someone, that's talking at them."
And no one liked being talked at. Certainly not her. And she wasn't going to stand for it so she made to walk bast him again but he moved so his entire body was now blocking the door. And drat his Auror Training, he was hard to move what with him basically being all muscle now. There was no softness to him anymore.
"Oh, just leave me alone, Frank Longbottom!"
"Not until you talk to me."
"I don't want to!"
He gave her a long look before sighing heavily. She didn't know what to make of that and then the next thing she knew that he was stepping away from the door, leaving her way clear. And, not thinking anything of it, she stormed off.
Monday 11th May 1981
Godric's Hollow, 15:30
"Why do you have to do things like this?" Lily asked in exasperation, wiping at her face. "Do you know how childish that is?"
James had rigged the taps in the bathroom to squirt your face with water. That was the second thing he'd done to their taps. At least the stream of bubbles had been amusing and kept Harry amused. This squirting of water did none of those things.
How on earth was having you face get absolutely drenched, with the water dripping down your chin onto your shirt in any way fun? Because it wasn't not. Not even a little bit, in her mind. Especially since the water was cold!
"It's just a little bit of fun!"
"It's annoying, that's what it is."
"You jus5 don't see it."
"Because it got me right in the eye! But I can definitely feel it!"
She hated the feel of water trickling down her skin, under her clothes. It made her skin crawl. And then there was the whole getting her clothes damp which was also a horrible feeling against your skin.
"That's not my fault!"
"Of course, it's your fault! You were the one that did it!"
"I wasn't making it aim for your eye! It's supposed to get in your mouth."
"James, I'm smaller than you!"
Of course, kt was going to get in her eye. Her eyes were nowhere near the same level as James' and the other Marauders, the only other people James would be able to target with this stupid prank. Granted, she wasn't as short as Dora but she was still smaller than James! Urgh. Why didn't he just think?
The stood there, staring at each other as they panted form the exertion. James' hair was all sweaty and sticking to his face. And Lily was sure she didn't look much better. Especially since she knew that her face got all red when she shouted and got upset.
"I'm being ridiculous, aren't I?" Lily asked heavily.
"Just a bit," James agreed, running a hand through his hair. "But I'm being annoying."
"Just a bit," Lily echoed with a grin.
It was a sad sort of grin, though.
That's all they had been doing recently, pick, pick, picking at each other. Lily could have sworn that just the other day that James was breathing top loudly, just to annoy her. And he said that she sniffed weirdly. What was that even supposed to mean?
Either way, that was the sort of thing they had been bickering about or something on. Not constantly but enough.
They smiled at each other and immediately the tension pressing all around them lifted a bit. It wasn't a perfect fox by all means, Lily knew that she still felt vaguely annoyed with James and she was sure that he felt the same about her. This incident hadn't been the first annoying thing to happen, after all. But it was a start. They could start fixing this, right?
Right?
Thursday 14th May 1981
Diagon Alley, 15:00
Kingsley couldn't help but do a double take as he walked through Diagon Alley. He hadn't been on patrol down here in a while, Diagon Alley being more for the more Junior Aurors (and Merlin, he had only been an Auror for what was it, nearly four years now but he did not feel like a Junior Auror). He normally had Knockturn Alley or the surrounding areas of he was on patrol. Though these days he was mainly tracking down Death Eaters, doing the investigative stuff. Which was his favourite but everyone had to do patrols and there was no arguing about it.
And it was nice to walk down Diagon Alley and all, he hadn't exactly had a chance to be here in recent months. Not really. And kt had been nice. Barely anyone on the streets (which was a bit depressing if he thought about it but hey, at least he didn't have to navigate crowds), the weather stayed good and no funny business had gone on.
Which is why he had time to do a bit of people watching. Hence the double take.
He hadn't realised just for up the Alley he had gone or maybe he would have been more prepared. Or maybe he wouldn't. How could you be prepared to see an estranged friend?
Elsie was sweeping around the door to the shop, keeping it nice and neat. He knew that her grandmother was very particular about that sort of thing. Was she still like that? Sometimes people cha bed as they got older. Had Elsie? Had he?
He didn't think he'd changed but maybe he had to other people? People he didn't really talk to? Even if he wanted to talk to them but had no clue what to say...
Then she was looking at him, right at him, and he froze. What should he do? Should he do anything? Say something? Did he want to? Well, of course he wanted to talk to her. But right now? What was he supposed to say? Or was she supposed to talk first considering what happened last time?
The decision was taken completely out of his hands not seconds later. Out of the corner of his eye, Kingsley caught a movement. And not a good movement. He pulled his gaze away from Elsie to see a wizard pointing his wand right at her.
Kingsley didn't even think, his training kicked in. He dove for her, making them both tumble to the ground in a roll. He felt a spell go over his head, heating it slightly at the intensity. The wall next to him sprayed out some chunks, which rained down on them. Another one flashed next to them. It was a bright yellow which could be any number of things ranging from inconvenient to very, very bad and Kingsley was not about to take any risks.
"Ouch!" She exclaimed, followed by an awful lot of swearing.
"Stay down," he hissed, tucking her head under his arm as be looked around, trying to ascertain the threat.
But it seemed that there wasn't any threat any more. The wizard, whoever it was, had seemingly shot those two spells and just vanished. It was very strange behaviour, even for a Death Eater. Was it even a Death Eater? Surely more damage would ha e been caused? More panic?
Maybe kt wasn't? They didn't still have normal criminals. Not every bad guy was a Death Eater, after all. That's what they tended to think these days, for good reason, but there was still your run of the mill criminals to deal with. He felt like he was going to have to involve the Hit Wizards. He sent off a quick Patronus back to the office.
He was about to reassure her and ask her a few questions when she got up, dusted herself off and gave him this weird sort of look that Kingsley couldn't decipher. He also got to his feet, not really caring that his robes were now filthy (hey, grime was better than blood stains after all). Elsie opened and closed her mouth, looking incredibly unsure of herself. Kingsley tried to say something (though he wasn't sure what he was going to say) but she didn't give him a chance to. Without saying a word, she turned on her heel and walked away. Leaving Kingsley just standing there, watching her.
Saturday 16th May 1981
Back of Marauder Flat, 11:00
There was a weird sort of clanging noise that came from underneath him. That wasn't good. And then the body of the motorcycle got hot. Very hot. Sirius's eyes widened. That definitely wasn't good.
He didn't even think another thought as he frantically got off his motorbike. He must have looked ungainly and as graceless as could be but that didn't really matter when you were trying to get as far away from something a physically possible.
All of this, unfortunately, ensured that he did not simply run away from his motorcycle. Oh, no. That would have been too easy. Instead, he manged to run for about three steps before he skidded across the ground. With flailing arms, Sirius tried to keep himself upright but failed miserably and landed with a 'thump' on his backside. Which hurt both himself and his pride.
Thankfully, he didn't make much noise because if he had he would have missed the hissing noise that then came from his motorcycle and Sirius reacted on instinct. For Potions a hissing noise only meant one thing. He dove to the ground, covering his head with his arms.
There weren't many times in his life where Sirius was glad that he flung himself face down onto the ground (think of the damage it would do to his face) but this time was definitely one of them.
And it wasn't a moment too soon because there was suddenly a brief hissing noise and then what mist have been twenty seconds of silence before 'BANG'. The seat of his motorcycle went rocketing up into the air. Like, seriously, straight up. Whatever was under there provided enough force and pressure to actually do that.
He was incredibly lucky that je turned onto his front when he did. For if he hadn't then what happened next could have been very, very tragic. The worst, actually. He actually felt the heat from the explosion or whatever it was across his back. Thankfully, it hadn't felt like actual flames but still. That would not have been pleasant if his face had been exposed to it and he rather liked his face! And the whole not having to go to St Mungo's. Yeah, that was good.
As soon as the sound of falling metal stopped, Sirius couldn't help but twist around so he could sort of see what was going on through one eye. There was his bike, now seatless and less whatever had made him lose the seat of his beloved bike. It was smoking. Literally smoking. Smoke was actually pouring out of the new gaping hole there was now on top of his bike. And were those sparks? Those looked like sparks. That was definitely not good. But before he could react to that, the sparks disappeared and he was just left with all the smoke. It smelled funny. This whole situation was funny. Not ha ha funny but weird funny. Since when did motorcycles just blow up like that?
His motorcycle had blown up. Lile, honest to Merlin just blown up. Since when did that happen? He hadn't even been doing anything with it! It had just started hea5ing up and BANG it was gone? Well, not actually gone, parts of it were still there, right in front of him. It just wasn't exactly functional anymore.
He touched his cheek gingerly, brushing off some gravel. He didn't feel anything sticky and it didn't feel like anything was dripping. Pulling his hand away, he was relieved to see that there was no blood on it. Only a bit of dirt and that could be cleaned up.
Phew. His face was good. He looked behind him and scrunched up his nose and that hot metal, oil and burning rubber smell. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for his motorcycle.
Monday 18th May 1981
Godric's Hollow, 17:00
James couldn't help but feel somewhat relieved now and he wondered if Lily felt the same after the talk that they'd just had. A long, overdue talk in his opinion. And they'd done it. And he felt so much better after it, getting it all out into the open. Bottling things up just never felt right with him. It always made him feel like there was more and more pressure until it felt like he was about to explode. And his way of exploding was usually losing his temper. He didn't understand how people could actually be good at bottling things up because he definitely wasn't.
Getting things out in the open before you exploded was far better. Well, James thought so anyway. Was it pleasant? Definitely not. Was it awkward? Definitely. Was it annoying? Also, definitely. And one hundred percent needed. Sometimes you just had to do hard things and this was one of them. Apologising even though you felt like you were partially in the right. Which also meant that you were partially in the wrong as well, hence the apologising.
It had gone on long enough, after all. It had started with little comments and then the disagreeing about stupid things. And then they bickering with a little bit more venom than usual. It had been hard to realise that they had been getting somewhat bad because it wasn't constant. They weren't always arguing (what their bickering eventually turned into) and they also weren't constantly snarking at each other. It had all been in bits and pieces that you didn't realise just how frequently it was happening. Just this vague feeling of something not being right just sort of sitting there in the background. It had been uncomfortable.
He hadn't liked all this tiptoeing around each other they had been doing before they basically made themselves sit down and hash this all out.
Oh, sure, they had made up from the squirting taps prank but that didn't mean that things were automatically okay. Little things had been getting on both of their nerves recently and they weren't just resolved with a snap of your fingers. No, they stayed around, festering. Getting worse with each passing day. Except it wasn't constant. Some days these things didn't even bother you a little bit and then the next day you were smacked in the face by how annoying they were.
But the apologies had been good. Cleared the air a bit which meant that they could start somewhat afresh. This time being a little bit more mindful of each other.
Was this going to fix everything? No. Where they both probably going to do something stupid that hurt the feelings of the other at some point? Yes. Almost definitely. But hopefully this talk meant that they'd actually talk things over when that something stupid thing eventually happened instead of sulking and shouting.
