The red-and-black steam engine puffed out steam into the unusually chilly September night and it’s gray clouds rose above to join their friends in the sky. Down below, countless students roamed the platform, all dressed in black robes. Most of them wanted to climb into the horseless carriages as soon as possible, not sparing a look at the familiar castle above Hogsmeade. It was surprisingly cold for this time of year, and Hagrid wore his beaver fur coat.
"First-years to me!" he called over the heads of the students. "Come ‘ere!"
Hagrid's call was heard all over the platform and reached the ears of some older students as well. The half giant wove at a few girls, who were trying to make their way through the crowd. A redhead waved back and said: "Hello Hagrid. Did you have a nice summer?"
Hagrid nodded. "The creatures missed y'all. I hope you'll come 'round ter tea soon."
Alice nodded her head yes, while Dorcas shook hers behind Lily's back and poked her in the side. Lily turned around and caught the pitiful look on Dorcas' face. She grinned smugly, turned to Hagrid once again and said: "We'll come by this week. Thanks for the invitation."
The girls smiled a last time at their friend and carried on walking in the direction of the carriages. A few metres behind them, a raven-haired young man with askew glasses pushed a few first-years out of his way. "Where'd she go, Padfoot?"
Sirius rolled his eyes and said – a bit unnerved, "Probably to the carriages, like everyone else. Besides us, of course – we're busy tracking down Lily-Flower."
James ignored the remark as well as his friends' attitude and stood on his toes, as if it would help him find his favourite redhead. By this time, Remus and Peter had made their way towards them, seeing James fall back onto his feet and looking at his toes in resentment. "Why are we running around in the cold again?" Peter asked. “There’s probably fudge for dessert!"
Remus pretended to look around with great effort, before pointing to one of the carriages more to the front of the long line of carriages.
"There" he said. "James, look, she just entered that one."
"Why didn't you say so before!?"
James was off before either of his friends could say anything else. Remus giggled very un-Remus-like, grabbed his bag again, and followed James.
"Let's go! If we're fast enough, we'll reach Hogwarts directly after Lily-Flower!" Sirius screamed after James and barked out a laugh. He greatly doubted that Lily was anywhere near the carriage Remus had pointed at. He wasn't about to tell James, though – Remus had just spared them a great deal of suffering on the cold platform. And Peter would probably shut up about the food earlier.
The excitement to finally be at Hogwarts again was only dulled by the cold, cloudy September weather. Sirius caught up to Remus and slithered his arm around his mate. Peter trailed behind them, struggling slightly with his cloak. Life was already so much better.
***
The Great Hall greeted the Hogwarts students with open doors, candlelight, the smell of food and a pleasant warmth. Lily noticed – much to her displeasure – James and his friends sitting down awfully close to Alice, Dorcas, Mary, and herself. Alice smiled her most encouraging smile and waved at Remus. Most of the girls were quite fond of the marauders, while Lily and Alice had agreed that Remus was by far the smartest of the group. He waved back, a small smile gracing his tired face. Lily did a doubletake at his new scars, but she couldn't comment on it, as Remus noticed her staring and quickly returned his eyes to Sirius, who was animatedly telling a story about his mother, as far as Alice could tell. Sirius was doing quite a good job at impressions. Alice had met Sirius' mother a few times at Diagon Alley or the occasional high society dinner. The woman had a disgusting attitude towards her first-born son and seemed to be acquainted to most of London. Alice normally searched for a reason not to attend these dinners but seeing as her own mother was quite the important person at the ministry, she couldn't always escape.
Alice's thoughts had long passed on the topic of Remus, and she quietly observed James Potter. It was really quite sweet how he kept trying to get Lily's attention. He had never made a secret of his obvious fondness towards her friend. And yet, perhaps that was exactly why he hadn’t been given a chance with Lily.
Alice talked a bit with Mary about the upcoming classes while she skimmed through the black-cloaked students to see how the summer had treated her classmates. Suddenly though, someone met her gaze. She recognised the dark mop of hair in a millisecond. Frank smiled a charming smile. Alice beamed at him for a moment, but looked down at her golden plate again in an instant. Why did she smile so brightly? He'd think she was in love with him or something. She could've rolled her eyes at herself. The girl picked up her fork to pick at her still-empty plate and kept half-listening to Mary.
All at once, a scrunched up napkin hit her shoulder. "Oi!" she said, looking up. Dorcas smiled smugly.
"Did you even listen to me?" Mary asked. Ah, shit. They caught her. She threw a quick glance sideways, and saw Frank approaching them with deliberate steps. Oh no…
"I knew it!", this time it was Lily who snapped her back into reality.
"What did you know?" Alice asked, her cheeks already burning up. They'd had this conversation seemingly a thousand times already.
"You like him!"
Alice blushed a little more. "What- who do you even think I li-"
"Hello Ladies! All my male friends seem to have decided to abandon me, sooo… would you be inclined to let me sit with you, as it would indeed be the greatest of honors?"
He even hinted at a little gentleman-ish bow, only adding to his mock-posh behaviour. Sometimes, he attended those dinners Alice had thought about earlier. He was the perfect gentleman, in stark contrast to herself. She was very clumsy most of the time and had poured a glass of champagne down someone's lap more than once. Once, Frank had asked her to dance at one of the dinner parties, but the poor girl was so nervous she stepped on his feet all the time and although she apologised profusely, Frank never asked her to dance again.
She remembered the night like it was yesterday. It had been at the ministry's Christmas dinner party two years ago. Frank had looked very handsome in his black suit, gaining the attention of some of the younger girls. Back then, he was still the shy boy who only was himself when he was with his closest friends. Well, that was still the case, but in present time, he opened up to new people much faster and seemed more sure of himself. Back at that Christmas dinner party, Frank had hesitantly come over to Alice. She was younger than him, but still the only one he really knew aside from his family. They talked a little timidly, warmed up to each other, and when they noticed adult couples dancing on the dance floor, Frank shuffled closer to her. He had looked at her, at the dance floor, and back to her. He never really vocalised the question, he simply held up his hand for her to take. Alice remembered how he had looked at her – questioningly, yet so gentle. She remembered how she thought that if her future husband wouldn't look at her like that, she wouldn't want him. Alice had looked into Franks eyes for so long he had started to think she didn't want to dance. But just as he wanted to let his hand fall back to his side, she took it as gracefully as possible. He had smiled at her in a way that could light up the stars on his cheeks, and led her to the dance floor.
Everyone at the table laughed, giggled, or nodded enthusiastically – except for Alice. She was still too busy looking at the freckles scattered on Frank's face, resembling stars on a clear night sky.
"…Alice?" Frank asked, suddenly much more self-conscious.
She blushed a deeper pink, stuttering out a yes, while jerkily brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. Frank let himself fall on the empty seat beside her with a relieved sigh. He seemingly ignored her obvious absent-mindedness and instead asked the other girls about their holidays.
"Well, Lily, have you already found a replacement for your beloved James?" Frank teased Lily a bit into the conversation, Alice having spent the last five minutes trying to calm down and willing her cheeks to take on less of a red colour.
Lily groaned. "Even Petunia's boyfriend Vernie would be good enough to replace Potter but I'd never have the courage to take on his meanness, his scope and especially not his moustache."
Dorcas and Mary laughed freely and Marlene McKinnon, who just sat down beside Lily, said, "I can't even fathom what our horseface Petunia-" Lily scrunched her eyebrows together "-sees in him."
"Exactly! He hasn't got the looks, nor the charm, nor the necessary cute puppy" said Dorcas, winking exaggeratedly at Sirius, who actually winked back. Marlene threw a mock angry glance at Dorcas.
"If you’re trying to indicate Sirius had all these things – I have yet to meet a puppy in Gryffindor tower", Marlene said.
They all now enthusiastically took part in the teasing and mocking in the group, Frank gesturing wildly. Alice became aware of how close they were sitting, but she couldn't escape, it was too alluring to know what it felt like sitting next to him, what it felt like seeing his face up close and experiencing his expressions and gestures first-hand. They were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder and Alice had this feeling like her skin was on fire. She knew this feeling; it had become familiar a few months into their fourth year, and it occurred every time Frank and her touched.
Alice stared at her knee, as if it could change anything about her butterflies. If nothing else, the knee should take the blame for only almost touching Frank Longbottom's knee, which was just millimetres away from hers.
Frank had disengaged himself from the heated conversation about Sirius' puppies and looked at the girl next to him. He asked if she was alright.
Alice nodded, not trusting her voice to sound normal enough to talk yet. He gently put a finger under her chin, slowly and effectively tilting her head up. She hadn't looked him in the eye properly since he sat down at the table. Now, he could finally see her beautiful eyes. It felt like a lifetime since he was last able to.
"Are you really alright?" he asked again. "You seem like your thoughts are all over the place. Well, more than usual."
"Y-yes", Alice stuttered and cursed herself. "I'm fine."
Frank nodded, pleased with her answer. Their eyes met again, and he promptly forgot everything else. Her eyes were such a beautiful colour and seemed to lure him in like a rabbit hole. The promise of a whole new world lingered in those eyes. If one looked into Alice's eyes for too long, they could get lost in there, turn mad even, Frank was sure of it. But sadly, a movement interrupted Frank's staring at Alice's eyes and he was launched back into reality.
Alice had blinked.
Frank did the same repeatedly, trying to erase the last traces of his trip down to dreamworld. It was a wonder how Alice could render him speechless without even doing anything.
Alice looked like she was having an inner melt-down, she was clearly nervous as hell, her pink cheeks showed as much. Only now Frank realised how his finger had never left its resting place beneath her chin and he quickly pulled his hand away.
"I-i… Sorry, I mean, it's just, you've just got very beautiful – gorgeous – eyes…" he managed to say and opened his eyes comically wide in embarrassment. He didn't mean to say that. Now she'd think he was a creep for staring into her eyes for that long.
Alice blushed furiously and looked down again. Frank resisted raising her head again. The girl picked at her empty plate again and opened her mouth just as Professor Dumbledore began his speech.
Alice risked a quick look at Frank's face, shutting her mouth firmly and turning to their headmaster as quickly as possible.
***
"He so does like you!" Lily screamed at the top of her lungs as soon as all the girls had filtered into the dormitory. "I mean, there were a thousand free spots. And he goes and sits next to you!"
Alice laughed. "Even if he did like me, I'd never have the courage to ask him out."
All the girls abruptly stopped doing what they were doing. Marlene even dropped her suitcase onto Dorcas foot, and she was too shocked to yell out in pain.
"Excuse me!?" they all said in sync. "You don't deny it?"
Alice laughed a bit nervously. "You all have known for so long how I'm in love with Frank. Why are you so surprised by me actually saying it?"
"Because you just admitted that it would be possible for him to like you back!" Dorcas called out. Marlene nodded along, and said: "Which he undoubtedly does."
Alice flipped Dorcas the bird, turned around and walked to her suitcase. While Dorcas pretended to be deeply hurt, the others laughed full-heartedly at Alice's ignorance.
"Oh, come on, Alice" said Lily. "We'll get you two together, don't worry. His behaviour this evening was so cute. I wish someone would look at me like that."
"James does", Alice shot back, with Marlene and Mary still laughing in the background.
Lily rolled her eyes, smiling slightly. Mary tried to regain her composure, clapping Alice's back. "We'll get you two together, that's gonna be great!"
"How would you even manage that?" Alice asked, just a little bit curious. She would never admit that though.
Lily, Dorcas, Mary, and Marlene looked at each other.
"Okay. First, you gotta lose your fear of looking at him. Second… talk to him, sit next to him during lunch and dinner and try to get into his study group."
"Merlin, Lily, that was a manual on how to find friends. Where'd you dig that up?" said Dorcas and scoffed.
Lily crossed her arms. "That's what I avoid doing with Potter, so he doesn't get any inappropriate ideas about our relationship."
"Relationship?" Marlene screeched, immediately choking on her own salvia.
Lily simply rolled her eyes. “Karma is a bitch.”
Dorcas clapped her hands. "Now, that's just gonna go awful."
***
It did go awful.
The first few times the girls tried to set Frank and Alice up for a date, it went wrong each time. Alice would lose her courage half way through telling him she liked him, Frank seemingly never walked around without a horde of his friends and Mary thought she once saw Frank kissing some third year Ravenclaw, only to find out later it had been James Potter under the influence of a love potion. The girls almost lost their minds after that one, because how on earth do you mistake James Potter for Frank Longbottom? Mary had given up twice two weeks into the year, just when Frank sat down beside Alice at dinner again.
Lily thought there couldn’t go anything wrong when Frank was initiating things. After all, up until now Alice had been unable to produce a single meaningful moment between them. Frank on the other hand had a romantic eye-stare and a Christmas-dinner-dance going for him. At the moment, he was much more likely to gather up the courage and finally kiss the girl of his dreams, than vice versa. So, Lily made sure that Alice could have a more or less private dinner-conversation with her dream guy. They looked cosy, how they stuck their heads together to talk quietly. Like the first night of the schoolyear, there was almost no space between them, and lots of other available seats to choose from.
The girl’s dinner-conversation-plan would’ve worked, Lily told herself in the aftermath, had they not forgotten to take Peter Pettigrew into account.
The boy had an alarming talent to show up either completely unnoticed or on the front end of some embarrassing marauder-prank. This time, his goblet of pumpkin juice exploded with bright green mud halfway through dinner, soaking everyone in a six-people-radius to the bone, while Sirius Black was laughing his ass off from at least ten seats away. It could’ve been a little funny had the mud not smelled like troll dung. It became even less funny when Lily realised that Alice had not been spared. It made it worse that Frank apparently found all this very funny. He giggled along with other students, clapping Peter on the back in sympathy. When he turned back to the girl beside him, he giggled some more. Alice took one look at herself in the polished gold of her goblet, stood up and speed-walked out of the great hall in embarrassment. Frank looked after her in confusion.
Lily sighed. Black would pay for this. And for the pining she would be exposed to back in the dormitory.
But she would not give up so easily. The girls could work with this. Mary was already scheming; Lily could see it. Together, they could come up with a new romantic plan. One that wouldn’t involve green mud.
***
"Okay, okay, okay. Operation Fralice is starting," said Marlene.
"Fralice!?"
"Exactly, what happened to Fortebottom?"
"Girls, shut it!" whisper-shouted Lily. "I can't understand them."
'Round the corner, in a corridor on third floor, Frank was waiting. Mary had made sure he would be there, ready to apologise to Alice for his giggling the evening before.
"Hi Frank", said Alice upon seeing him. At least the stuttering from a few weeks ago was gone.
"Alice! Hi!" said Frank, looking up from his shoes. "I wanted to meet you because I'm really sorry about yesterday. I think I hurt you by laughing at you and I wanted to tell you that I, erm, didn’t think you were ugly, so… er…"
Behind the wall hanging around the corner where the other girls had hidden themselves away, Dorcas was getting impatient. She wrapped a strand of hair around her finger in impatience.
"Come on, Dude. We haven't got all the time in the world. I'm hungry."
The others quickly shushed her and listened closely again. But there was no sound anymore.
"Did they leave?" asked Mary. Lily looked at her, contemplating. She carefully lifted the wall hanging, at put her head around the corner, only to be met with the picture of Alice sinking back onto her heels, just after pecking Frank on the mouth.
"Wait, WHAT? Marlene, what did you tell her to do!?"
"I said she should tempt him a little, tease him, y'know? Not put everything into it, but give him a little taste."
"Excuse me? Where did you get that bullshit from? She was supposed to take his hand or something, not dive in for a kiss with no backup!"
Outside in the corridor Alice took a step back and grinned at Frank. Her smile was brushed off her face as she saw his shell-shocked expression.
“Shit…I shouldn’t have done that. I-I’m very sorry, I’ll go now…”, she said and started her escape to the Great Hall.
Everyone in the secret tunnel looked at Marlene with anger in their eyes.
"It worked with Sirius…" she said, thinking back to the encounter a year back.
"But this is Frank!" Mary clarified, while Dorcas looked incredulously at her friend.
Lily put her head out again. "Wait!" she whispered.
The others joined her on observation duty.
Outside, Frank followed Alice the few steps she had already taken towards the Great Hall. He tried to take her hand, but missed and turned her around by her upper arm. The girl gave a surprised yelp. Her forming tears glistened softly in the torch light.
"Alice…" whispered Frank, almost inaudible, his gaze flickered from her eyes to her mouth, skimming over her face. And finally… he kissed her.
They caught Alice's eyes shining with realisation and happiness, her arms wrapping around Franks neck, in a millisecond, just before Lily let the wall hanging fall into it's original place, clapped her hands and said, "The show's over! Kids, you go to bed now!" she said, laughter in her voice.
"But Mummy, we just woke up", giggled Mary. Marlene rolled her eyes with a fond smile, took Dorcas by the hand and pulled her to the end of the tunnel and through another wall hanging. She leaned closer to Dorca’s ear.
"Where and when does Operation Jily start?", she asked.
"I think you're talking about Pevans…"