Welcome to a random thing! This fic is going to be a quick (by my standards) overview of what could have happened if Dumbledore had followed the rules and sent Liz to the preferred guardians the Potters had arranged for her ahead of time, as mentioned in The Good War. The set up for this fic can be assumed to be exactly the same as in TGW up to Hallowe'en of 1981, at which point things begin to diverge.

There are five different possibilities for where Liz could have ended up, the first of which is Frank and Alice Longbottom. Here's the first batch of chapters for you, wee!

7th November, 1981

The first time Alice had seen the inside of the Headmaster's office had been February of her third year.

At the time, she'd been going through something of a rebellious phase — in retrospect, she'd been rather insufferable. She'd hardly been the only one, at least, teenagers could just be like that sometimes. (She could say she'd made less of an arse of herself than Jamie and Sirius, but that was a pitifully low bar.) Her yearmates had been at a point when they'd begun to develop interest in each other, Alice terribly uncomfortable with the attention she'd suddenly been getting from her male classmates. It only took a few months of looks and comments and a couple times being asked out to Hogsmeade before she'd been completely done with it all, and decided to do something drastic.

Alice had hacked her hair down to fluttery wisps — perfectly acceptable for a grown, married woman, but peculiar for a girl her age — abandoned her proper (fine) wardrobe for trousers and duelling boots and muggle tee shirts and jackets, let herself be loud and crass, speaking whatever thought as it came to mind, started making a point of hanging around the misfits and muggleborns — she'd already been passingly friendly with Lily before that, having spent a couple years sharing a dorm room, but that was when they'd started to become proper friends. She'd insisted to any boy who even looked at her too long that she only liked girls, kindly piss off, had even dated Cassie for a time in fourth year.

(When Cassie and Lily started dating in fifth year, Alice had made a very crass sex joke — she physically cringed whenever she remembered it, she'd been so insufferable...)

She had mellowed out a bit, in time, though she'd never fully returned to the proper pureblood girl she'd once been. She'd stayed friends with the misfits and muggleborns, but she'd stopped quite so stubbornly snubbing her peers. She'd kept the trousers and tee shirts, though she'd started putting up less of a fuss about tolerating formal wear when events came around — it helped that her aunts had conspired to arrange suitable ensembles which didn't include skirts — let her hair grow out again. After a few further awkward attempts at dating, she'd eventually figured out that it wasn't just that she wasn't attracted to boys, but actually wasn't attracted to anyone at all. It didn't repulse her, exactly, and orgasms were nice, and she did still like people (both of which had definitely contributed to her confusion for a time), but there was just...a draw other people described, which was completely alien to her. She hadn't figured it out until a girlfriend had been reciting literal love poetry to her, and it felt like listening to foreign language — naturally, Alice had immediately put her foot in her mouth about it, that hadn't ended well...

Near the beginning of sixth year, she'd decided that she did want to do the whole marriage and family thing, actually, and had belatedly agreed to present herself for courtship. After a year of interactions with various suitors which could charitably be called mixed — some put off by her less society-approved quirks, or her intent to go into the Aurors after graduation, or were otherwise just unpleasant to her for whatever reason, and one had even attempted to abduct her for nefarious Death Eater -related purposes — she'd finally met Frank. At the time, he'd only been passingly familiar, one of the Gryffindor prefects starting in her third year, but they'd hit it off very quickly. Unusually so for her, even, without the motivation of sexual attraction other people had going on, it'd felt very...fast, and intense, and honestly rather bewildering. They'd only been seeing each other for maybe four months before Frank had suggested his mother might make an offer to her grandfather for her hand, and three months after that she'd finished her final year at Hogwarts, and a month and a half later they were married.

(And a little over a year after that she was pregnant — she might not feel the same about it as everyone else, but the sex was still pleasant.)

Her first visit to the Headmaster's office (and certainly not her last) had been closer to the beginning of her insufferable rebellious phase than the end of it. When she'd still been on the downward slope, as it were. She'd gotten in a rather loud and vicious argument with some of her cousins, some very cruel insults had been dished out by both parties, gradually devolving into... Well, one thing she could say for them was that they'd at least had the sense not to draw wands — not that a disorganised brawl of slapping and kicking and hair-pulling was really any better. For whatever reason, Alice, her cousin Ceinwen, and Narcissa Black (also a cousin of some degree, though they both pretend otherwise) had been identified as the instigators, so they'd all been sent up to Dumbledore's office for a lecture.

Alice had firmly denied any wrongdoing, and insisted that maybe if Narcissa weren't such a stuck-up bitch all the time she wouldn't have gotten a handful of her hair pulled out. Like she'd said: completely insufferable.

For all that had happened in the years between then and now, she thought Albus's office was exactly the same as she remembered from that first glimpse. He was a very colourful sort of man, so it only made sense that it was a very colourful sort of place. Made out of three circles — a large circle containing the hearth and the main entrance and a ring of seating facing the hearth for guests, a smaller circle elevated a few steps above the larger held his desk, a circle past that held a cosy little nook to take tea in, a bank of windows overlooking the grounds.

The large circle contained a model of the solar system overhead, gears and balls made of steel rings — supposedly tuned to display the heavenly bodies as they currently stood, the model turning imperceptibly slowly. The walls were almost entirely covered in bookshelves, packed close cover to cover in all colours of the rainbow, here and there stacks of scrolls instead, or seemingly random objects, enchanted or alchemised artefacts or gifts from friends or students. The random objects spilled into a narrow table here, a second there, some clicking or whirring, little lights lazily blinking, impossible to tell what most of them were supposed to be for...

...assuming they had any purpose at all — with Albus, it could be hard to tell.

Albus's desk was strewn with papers and stacks of books, and bowls of colourful candies, and also his pensieve, silvery light and shadow playing off of the nearby surfaces. To one side stood a hatstand, hanging from it a riotously colourful cloak — red and purple and decorated with curlicues and stars, definitely Albus's — the ratty old Sorting Hat perched on top. To the other side was a gleaming bronze perch, a wide bowl attached underneath the crossbar. Fawkes was there now (sleeping, long neck curled around to tuck his head under a wing), the phoenix's crimson and gold plumage almost seeming crystalline, reflecting bright chinks of light in all directions, gleaming in the eerie glow from the pensieve.

Colourful and eccentric, yes, filled with the ticking gears and the clicking of some unidentifiable device or another, the faint tingle and crackle of magic on the air. For all the years since her first visit here, for all that had happened in that time, it was the same, the very same. As though somehow isolated from the world, safe under the famous wards of Hogwarts, preserved against the storm.

She honestly couldn't tell whether it was comforting or vaguely irritating.

Albus was here when she arrived, of course, in relatively plain house robes — by his standards, of course, long and flowing, blue and green in curling Celtic knot patterns — standing at his desk by the pensieve, caught in the middle of something. His wand to his temple, he held up a hand, asking for quiet. By the time he was finished extracting a gossamer silvery memory, dropping it into the basin, Frank had come through the floo behind her. Giving them a tight, tired sort of smile, he said, "Good evening, Alice, Frank. Sorry about that — memories can be easily lost during the extraction process, and that one wasn't mine."

Alice just shrugged, not offended — she was used to Albus occasionally acting oddly, delaying the pleasantries because he was in the middle of a delicate bit of magic was perfectly ordinary "Good evening, Albus," Frank said, his tone just slightly sharp. She knew he was angry with Albus, for Jamie and Lily's protections failing, and at Sirius, and, just, everything at the moment, she guessed. Despite Voldemort's defeat, it was not a happy time. "Anything I need to worry about?"

"No, no." Shaking his head to himself, Albus sighed, moved to step down from the raised circle. "I've been attempting to analyse the curse Dolohov used, in hope that I might break what remains of it. Unfortunately, I suspect that will not be possible."

She winced. "How is Alastor doing?" A raid on a suspected Death Eater safehouse two days ago had resulted in several kills and captures, including a few high-profile names — but Alastor had been injured in the process. From what she'd heard, it was pretty bad, but she hadn't been able to check up on him yet.

"He'll live. He has lost an eye, however — and I'm afraid the curse damage will make fitting a replacement impossible."

Lost an eye, Mercy...the poor old bastard was already short a leg...

Albus immediately led them out of his office, heading toward the stairs down. Along the way, they discussed the state of things, what news Alice and Frank might have missed while they'd been dealing with arrangements. The chaos of Voldemort's disappearance Hallowe'en night had hardly abated at all in the week since, random celebrations still occasionally breaking out in the street — only somewhat tempered by intermittent attacks by Death Eaters or other militants. Some of their supporters had gone quiet, seemingly waiting to see how the cards fell, but some were still fighting, vicious with fury and desperation. Alastor was not the only injury on their side, and there had even been deaths Alice hadn't heard about yet.

Curiously, some of the Death Eaters had surrendered — including Lucius bloody Malfoy, in fact — the lot of them currently held in the low-security levels at Azkaban as a precaution. From what Albus had heard, it seemed they were claiming to be bewitched, that the spell had broken as soon as Lily defeated Voldemort. Alice was dubious, to say the least, Lucius had always been a vile fucking prick...but she had to admit it was plausible. The Minister had been under some kind of spell, claimed that her head abruptly cleared that night, as though waking from a dream — this was still a new development, but there'd already been speculation in the Prophet that Voldemort had subtly cursed Bagnold, not so severely to have her removed from office but enough to cripple the Ministry's effectiveness. The suggestion that he might have bent the minds of countless other people to his will was not unreasonable. Alice seriously doubted Lucius, or some of the other names Albus mentioned, needed to be coerced like that, but it wasn't out of the question.

Albus was pretty sure all of the known Death Eaters who'd voluntarily surrendered themselves were going to get full pardons — which was fucking infuriating, Alice's teeth grinding, glared seething off at nothing. Frank's hand had noticeably tightened around hers, walking stiffly, clearly just as angry.

In time they reached the Hospital Wing. There were patients in here, the curtains pulled closed, but it was quiet at this time of night, the lights turned down low. Bare seconds after they'd stepped foot in the ward, an unfamiliar young woman leaned her head out of the office — an apprentice, presumably, new since Alice had finished school. "Ah, Headmaster, and you must be the Longbottoms." Pointing deeper into the ward, "Healer Turner went to get Hazel ready for the trip, they're in one of the private rooms. If you'll excuse me, I was in the middle of a test, I really must get back." And she disappeared back into the office, without waiting for a response of any kind.

"I see introductions will have to keep for later," Albus said with an amused sort of bounce. He led the way deeper into the ward, toward a door in the back corner Alice had never seen the other side of. "Katherine has finally decided the time has come to retire — she's agreed to stay on to train her replacement until this summer, perhaps the next. Poppy is a talented Healer, if somewhat lacking in social graces."

"So Turner found a proper successor, then." Nobody could doubt that Kitty Turner was a very qualified Healer, but she could be a bit...abrasive.

Albus chuckled. "Quite." On the other side of the door was a hallway in the same plain green and white tile as the main room, short, three doors on either side. Albus led the way up to a door, pulled it open and stepped back to wave them in ahead of him. Inside was what was clearly a small private room — the bed, side table, and drawers were identical to the ones out in the main room, a few chairs for guests here and there. It was somewhat larger in here than the bays with the curtains drawn in the main room of the Hospital, but not by very much, the room would quickly feel cramped with a few healers or guests. There was a bag sitting on the bed, and over in one of the chairs was the familiar figure of Healer Turner, short and slight and square-jawed, her neatly-cropped chin-length brown hair frosting with age.

Sitting on a blanket on the floor, playing with a set of blocks, was Hazel. It'd been a couple months since Alice had seen her in person — Lily sent photos with her letters, but they'd wanted to keep in-person visits to a minimum, out of security concerns — though she didn't look much different than last time. Somewhat larger, perhaps, no longer quite an infant but not quite a child either — Alice thought she was maybe a little smaller than Neville, but it was hard to say for certain, without him present to compare. She was still putting a knit cap on Neville's head, to keep him warm, but Hazel's hair was thicker, enough it could probably keep her warm on its own, and longer — and also messy, locks sticking up at odd angles in random places, the curls around her shoulders asymmetrical and twisting.

Just like James. The recent generations of Potters had gotten that weird hair thing that went around in some parts of the nobility — Jamie's would stay at the same length no matter whether he tried to cut or grow it, and resisted attempts at styling it properly, and would even throw off spells all by itself, from simple colour-change glamours to complex transfiguration effects. It'd been clear within just a few months of her birth that Hazel had inherited the trait as well, her hair coming in somewhat more quickly than expected, and soon developing into an irrepressible mess. It looked like Hazel's hair would want to be longer than Jamie's, but as far as Alice could tell that sort of thing was unpredictable, varied from person to person with the trait. Lord Charlus's had wanted to sit a bit past his shoulders, and Alice had a Fawley cousin with the trait whose hair regrew almost to knee-length overnight, he cut it short first thing every morning just to keep it manageable.

The vibrant green of her eyes, though, was entirely Lily.

Her eyes immediately began to water, a hot knot building in her throat, but she tried to push it down. Without really thinking about it, hardly even feeling the steps, Alice moved toward Hazel, sank down to her knees on the blanket — there was a prickle of magic, the floor seeming to give under her, Healer Turner must have cast a cushioning charm. Hazel noticed the movement, by the time Alice was down the girl was already watching her, big green eyes slowly blinking. "Hey, baby," she said, her voice coming out noticeably thick. Her hand to her chest, "Do you know who I am?" Hazel had at least recognised her the last time they'd met in person, but that'd been a while ago now.

Hazel frowned at her, just a little, vague in the way the expressions of very young children could be. "Awih."

Prickly surprise shooting through her, Alice felt herself gasp — Hazel had never said her name before. (Lily must have been showing her pictures.) "That's right, clever baby, I'm your Aunt Alice." She leaned closer, her hands finding Hazel's, tiny and warm and soft in hers. "I'm so happy you're okay. I didn't—" Her throat tightening, her eyes stinging, she couldn't quite get the words out, breaking off to force a breath.

Her face screwed up in an expression Alice read as confusion, and Hazel's tiny fingers grabbed onto the sleeves of her jumper. With a weak, almost imperceptible tug, Hazel said, "Mama."

Alice tried to say something, she honestly didn't even know what, but her voice wasn't cooperating. The simple demand like a knife in her throat, because Lily was not coming back, but she was certain Hazel didn't know that — she'd been in the room when Lily was murdered, but she was only fifteen months old (Neville's age, exactly), she wouldn't have understood. She'd already been struggling against tears, and the dam abruptly burst, Alice gathering Hazel up in her arms, hugging her close, Hazel squirmed a little bit against her at first, but then she quickly started crying too, little hands fisting in her jumper.

If Hazel didn't understand that Lily was gone, at least she could see that she was not here.

The crying went on for a while, Alice, just, holding Hazel and... She felt like a mess, honestly — she'd been a mess the last few days, she didn't know why it'd suddenly hit her so hard (again), but she couldn't stop, so. She could hear the others in the room talking, but she wasn't listening, rocking Hazel back and forth, whispering into her hair between sobs...

They both wore down eventually, Alice's throat left sore and burning, her chest thick and tense. She loosened her grip on Hazel enough to free her wand, conjure a handkerchief. Hazel's face was leaking a bit, probably got some on Hazel's jumper, but that could be taken care of in the wash. Alice mopped Hazel's face clean with the handkerchief, then vanished it, clearing her own face with a charm — charms could sometimes be harsh on an infant's sensitive skin. "I'm sorry, Hazel," she muttered, her voice hoarse and half-choked. Brushing her hair aside, she pressed a kiss to her forehead, "I'm so sorry."

She thought Hazel was still somewhat confused, didn't understand what was going on, but more than that she seemed tired — crying could really take it out of you, especially when not even one and a half years old. Gripping on to Alice's jumper with both hands, her very green eyes only partly open, Hazel just steadily stared back at her. Almost thoughtful, like trying to work things out.

Raising her voice a little, Alice said, "I think we should get going, before Hazel here goes down for a nap."

"I only have two quick matters." Healer Turner seemed to abruptly drop whatever conversation she'd been in the middle of with Frank and Albus, but that was hardly unusual behaviour from her. She approached Alice and Hazel on the blanket, sinking down to a seat herself — a bit stiffly, letting out a sigh as her weight settled onto the floor, showing her age. "Have you been nursing your boy yourself?"

"I have." She'd been a bit uncomfortable with the idea, at first — among the Light nobility, it was expected to use wetnurses — but she and Lily and Liz had all been having children at more or less the same time (Liz somewhat earlier), and they'd had very different feelings on the matter. The expectation among the Boneses was somewhat different, and Liz hadn't wanted to make things awkward with her in-laws by insisting on a wetnurse — though she'd come around in retrospect, after a short couple months (not long before her death) telling Alice that she couldn't imagine having some stranger do it now. Lily felt very strongly about it, for reasons to do with old witchcraft, but she'd also made arguments to do with the baby's health and maternal bonding and some such that Alice had found more convincing. Though, she'd also insisted Alice nurse Hazel and Lily Neville at least once — they'd ended up doing it multiple times, simple out of convenience when visiting — but that was definitely for old witchcraft reasons.

"Still?"

"Yes?" She wasn't entirely certain when she was supposed to stop, honestly — Mother hadn't nursed Liz or Alice herself, and neither had her grandmothers or any of her aunts she'd asked, so their advice was completely useless.

"Very well." Healer Turner glanced around for a second, before, summoning a parchment envelope to her hand with a crook of her fingers. She held it out to Alice, but partway through her explanation Frank held out a hand, so she passed it up to him instead. "My analysis showed that Lily was nursing this one as well. Most women won't naturally produce nearly enough to support two infants this age, but that can be accounted for. In that envelope, you will find the formula for a potion which will stimulate increased milk production, as well as instructions on its use — the strength of the dose can be adjusted, if you feel you are getting too little or too much. You'll also find descriptions of some analysis charms, to ensure the correct nutrients are being provided in sufficient amounts, with directions for a regular testing regimen, as well as the formula for a nutrient potion tailored specifically for this purpose. The first potion will cannibalise your body to produce the additional milk if your intake of certain nutrients is too low, so it isn't optional — I'm deadly serious, take the damn potion, Prewett."

Her voice still thick from the crying, she croaked, "That's Longbottom now, ma'am."

Turner scoffed. "Maybe to everyone else, but to me you'll always be that snot-nosed little brat who brat who broke her arm showing off on a broom like a damn fool."

Alice felt her lips twitch despite herself. She remembered that, it'd been her first visit to the Hospital Wing, the September of her second year — crashed into the quidditch stands, trying to do a hand-stand on her broom, like...well, like a damn fool...

"There's one other thing we need to talk about. I need to get this off you for a minute," Turner said to Hazel, tugging gently at the collar of her shirt. Hazel made a face at her, but didn't protest or resist, letting Turner undo the buttons running down her back. Turner lifted her away from Alice, Hazel obediently letting go of Alice's jumper, tugged down her shirt and—

Alice gasped as the angry mess of scars covering Hazel's chest was revealed. It looked like some kind of lightning curse, branching zig-zagging lines radiating out from a central point, the scars raised and vivid red toward the centre and fading toward white as the lines narrowed toward the outside. The wounds were huge, and awful-looking, they must have hurt so badly... "Is that where...?"

"Yes," Turner said with a tight nod. "I've healed the damage as well as I could — and it was not easy, let me tell you, I was at it for nearly twelve hours. Albus wanted her moved immediately, once I had the wounds sealed, bloody ridiculous."

Standing not far away, Albus said, "I understand your concerns, Healer Turner—" The irascible healer was one of the very few people whom Alice never heard Albus call by their given name. "—but I had thought the precaution necessary at the time. It has been taken out of my hands regardless."

"Someone managed to deflate your fucking ego, more like." Alice was aware that Albus had planned on putting Hazel with her muggle relatives, for some unfathomable reason. She and Frank had been gearing up for a legal battle to stop it — she was Hazel's godmother, as there weren't any other living Potters and with Sirius out of the picture custody should rightly pass to her — but then it'd abruptly ended as Albus reversed course without a fight. She assumed someone talked him around, but she didn't know who. "As I was saying, there is some serious dark magic lingering in these scars. I've managed to contain it well enough that it won't cause any further damage, for the time being, but I strongly recommend that you bring her to a blood alchemist on the Continent as soon as Hazel is old enough to safely undergo that sort of procedure."

"I'm not convinced that—"

Albus only got a few words in before Turner interrupted him. "Because you're a stubborn self-righteous bastard with an unfounded paranoia around blood magic. There's a reason healers almost universally disagree with the idiotic prohibition of blood alchemy in this country — it is an essential tool for the treatment of some conditions. The magics bound to these scars are contained, for now. It is possible that there may be a breakthrough, and it is impossible to predict under what circumstances such a thing might occur. Or what the effects would be — the energies are far too tangled and chaotic for me to model them with the means available to me here. And I don't think you appreciate, Albus, the psychological stress this sort of disfigurement may have on a girl, especially as she enters adolescence. You may not think solely psychological pain merits such a drastic intervention, but I am the healer in the room, and I am telling you it absolutely does.

"In my professional opinion," Turner said, turning back to Alice, "having a blood alchemist remove these scars is absolutely necessary. I don't give a damn what feelings you might have about certain blood magics that remain irrationally restricted in this gods-forsaken country — you do it anyway. Understood, Prewett?"

Alice nodded. "Yes, I..." Mercy, the scars looked awful, and they were still cursed... She cleared her throat. "Yes. Frank?"

"If you feel it's necessary, Healer Turner." He did sound somewhat uncomfortable — but there was a firm edge to his voice that told Alice that he would do it anyway, regardless of his feelings on the matter.

"Absolutely."

"Then we will. You said we have to wait until she's old enough. How long would that be, precisely?"

"...A year, maybe a few months longer. Sooner is better than later — if you delay too long, the instability of identity in adolescence will force you to delay as long as her late teens."

Alice was going to guess that would be a terrible idea, given the particular location of the scars. "As soon as possible, then."

Still looking somewhat uncomfortable with the prospect, Frank nodded in firm agreement anyway. Good man.

There was little enough left to talk about at that point. Turner instructed them to keep a close eye on Hazel's scars, to watch for any signs of breakthrough, and that was it from her. A few days ago, Albus had returned to Godric's Hollow to retrieve some of Hazel's things — that was what the bag was for. Alice picked Hazel up, and the blanket and toys out on the floor were packed away, before the bag was closed up Hazel begging for a stuffed toy, a dog with shaggy black fur.

That was from Sirius, Alice remembered, a gift for Hazel's naming.

...Albus would have checked for curses before removing anything from the house. After only a brief hesitation, Alice handed the dog to Hazel, the girl hugging it close to herself, rubbing her cheek against the false fur.

After a round of goodbyes and good lucks, the group split up, Alice carrying Hazel and Frank the bag of her things. She hated going through the floo while carrying Neville — it might be a touch paranoid, but she was always concerned she would trip and fall or something — so they started the long walk downstairs, making their way by shortcuts. They managed to avoid people for the most part, though they couldn't avoid the Entrance Hall, the noise filtering out from the Great Hall surprisingly loud — it must be around lunchtime. There were students about, giving them curious looks as they passed.

They looked so young, now. It hadn't felt that long since Alice had been a student here herself, and at once almost seemed like another life...

They paused at the main doors for a second, Frank casting a couple quick palings over Alice and Hazel, before stepping outside. She knew it should be rather cool, November in Scotland, and windy, the trees tilting and swaying in the breeze, a light lazy drizzle falling from the sky — but she felt none of it, Frank's spellwork holding back the cold and wind and water.

About a third of the way down the drive to the wardline, from where they'd be able to apparate away, Alice noticed Hazel had fallen asleep. Her hands loosely gripping onto Alice's jumper, head resting against her clavicle, the stuffed dog pinned between them, her soft round baby face slack in sleep. Alice thought she might be drooling a little, but it was hard to see from this angle.

She hurt to look at, burning sharp in her throat, her eyes stinging.

(Lily and Jamie were dead.)

"Alice?"

She twitched, glanced up. Frank was a few steps ahead, turned back to look at her — she hadn't realised she'd stopped. No idea what to say, too much, she just shook her head, looking back down to Hazel, trying to blink back tears.

Frank's arms wrapped around her a few seconds later, warm and firm. She leaned into him, Hazel held close between them, still asleep. And she just tried to breathe, forced through the hot tangled mess in her throat, Frank's hand gently rubbing down her back.

Lily and Jamie were dead. It still didn't feel quite real.

But it was, as certain as Hazel's weight in her arms.

"Let's go home," Frank whispered into her hair.

She still wasn't sure she could find her voice just now, too much, so she simply nodded against his chest. Home sounded wonderful right about now...