Alice + OTA (Multiples welcome!)
Alice knew that whatever she was picturing in her mind for this particular birthday party, James Potter would top it. As she and her family approached the area set aside for the pirate ship and assorted other activities, she was right.
"He's certainly outdone himself this year," Alice remarked to her husband who spoke his agreement. The Longbottoms' plans for Neville's birthday tomorrow simply consisted of inviting his friends over for a lunch and a few hours of play and their families coming together that night for supper and celebration. While a happy occasion, Alice couldn't help her mind to drifting to what Neville's (and Harry's) birthday ultimately meant in the wider scheme of things. The prophecy, Voldemort, his fall and demise. How Albus still hadn't told them how Voldemort had been finally defeated. The loss of all of those innocent people, the good people who hadn't asked for any of that. But they hadn't a choice. So Alice and Frank had done what they needed to do and had the scars to prove it.
But a child's birthday party wasn't the place for such thoughts and Tamsin was pulling her insistently towards the ship. "Mummy, look!" she kept saying as the two approached.
"I see," Alice told her daughter as they walked up the gangplank, Tamsin pulling out her plastic sword and waving it around in the air as she ran toward the middle of the ship. "Be careful!" Alice called out after her daughter. No need to unnecessarily injure someone with the sword today.