InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I am a fish (times 400)"

Alice Longbottom (happily_alice) wrote in beyondthepages,
@ 2010-05-15 18:16:00

Entry tags:

!complete, 2023 10, alice longbottom, dorcas meadowes

RP: Not the Right Wing
Characters: Alice, Dorcas
Time/Date: Saturday afternoon, October 15, 2023
Location: St Mungo's
Warnings/Rating: None
Summary: Alice wonders why she's in the long-term wing
Status: Complete

Alice was no stranger to St Mungo's. Her line of work had wound her here often enough - and nevermind the not exactly so long ago giving birth to her son bit. But never had she found reason to be in the Janus Thickey ward. No relatives of hers or Frank's were here, none of the Order members had been committed here.

Come to that, she wasn't sure how she'd even gotten here. She'd been in the Ministry library, looking up some apparition coordinates and then she'd blinked, and been here.

Impossible, as far as she knew.

Her eyes swept curiously over the room, but it was barren and looked as though it hadn't been occupied for a bit, so why would she even be here?

Shaking her head, Alice strolled out of the room and meandered down the hall. It was about then that she realized her wand was missing. That wasn't good. Yes, all right, she had a backup at home, but that didn't help her now.

Because how would she have lost it?

The situation was getting more and more unnerving as she started down the hall toward the lifts. Maybe she'd just Floo home and pick up her wand and just ... forget about all of this. Or maybe she could ask someone at the front desk if there'd been some sort of magic anomaly that was randomly displacing people.

Humming to herself, Alice wandered down through the Lycan ward on her way toward the front desk.

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dorcas_m
2010-05-16 02:23 am UTC (link)

Cas was just looking up from a chart when she caught sight of a woman who looked not unlike Alice Longbottom. She blinked, shook her head, set down the chart, then began to follow her. None of her patients needed her attention, and besides, this was a far more pressing matter. Benjy had wondered into the lobby; how could Alice have gotten this far in? After a few meters, Cas let out a curious "Alice?", hoping she wouldn't make a fool of herself.

She couldn't remember if she had heard of Frank and Alice's fate, but at this point, it was superfluous. There was a woman who looked curiously like Alice Longbottom and Cas wanted to know if someone else she knew had returned and what age she was. It was getting to be a regular party after all; shame the boys would miss out on some of it. She knew if it was Alice, she'd have to fill her in, have to explain that, as far as she knew, Frank still wasn't here, and then have to carefully and tactfully throw in that if he did show up, he might be a good deal older ... or younger.

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happily_alice
2010-05-16 02:37 am UTC (link)

Alice turned at the sound of a familiar voice, and felt a really queer clenching in her gut. Dorcas was dead. Long since dead. She pressed one hand to her mouth and looked around curiously.

So, all right. She'd ... somehow ... gone back in time a couple of years. Maybe someone got a little crazy with a time turner near her. Her lips parted and she tried to come up with some sort of rational, solid explanation for this.

"You're dead," she said with all the tact she could muster just then. "I ... was at your funeral. Several ... several months ago."

Dorcas didn't look at all like a ghost, and there was an awful lot of strange going on just then. "What ... what's going on? Who are you, really?"

The confrontation might have been a little easier on her if she'd had her bloody wand, but she didn't, and all of this was freaking her the hell out.

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dorcas_m
2010-05-16 02:48 am UTC (link)

Alright, so it was Alice; at least she hadn't made a prat of herself.

The announcement was refreshingly blunt, and, after all this time, had lost some of its shock value. She knew she was dead. She had known that from her arrival here; she just didn't expect to be asked to prove it.

"I know I'm dead. Voldemort got me because I got in too far snooping about the werewolf packs. Benjy was at my funeral too ... I think. Ask me anything you want, I'm really Cas Meadowes. And this is, believe it or not, not the afterlife. It's something far weirder; it's the future. It's 2023, and you've gone forward in time, and I swear to you, I am not making this up. I am not. Benjy is here, and Lily, and james and Sirius and Remus, but those three are about sixteen. And Severus Snape and Bellatrix Lestrange. No one I've talked to really knows why we're here, or why the few Death Eaters are here, or anything. And this is a bit rambling, and I meant to be more coherent about it, but that should be your proof that I really am me, back from the dead."

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happily_alice
2010-05-16 02:53 am UTC (link)

Alice kind of stared, and listened, and stared, and waited for the punchline. Dead Cas was telling her this wasn't the afterlife, that other people, some of whom were dead, were no longer dead. And she was somehow a good forty years into the future.

Benjy, Lily, and James were dead. Sirius was in prison for betraying the Potters, as shocking as that was, and Remus ... well, Remus was still alive as far as she knew, as were Severus and Bellatrix - though that was one bitch she wouldn't mind seeing dead, and soon.

And somehow James, Sirius, and Remus were sixteen?

"Right, should probably run through that one more time, and slowly. How am I in the future, how are they in the future, and ... I'm not dead. I was in the library. I was looking for a map to find a good apparition point for my assignment, and then I was in a room up in the Janus ward. The long term ward. I don't know anyone up there, and I don't know why I'd be up there, but I am not dead."

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dorcas_m
2010-05-16 03:02 am UTC (link)

"Em, okay, I'll try for coherence this time. For the past several months, people from the past who are dead, have been showing up here in the future. No one knows why. But these people aren't all from the age they died at, like James, and Remus, and Sirius. And some of the people are from father along in the timeline than others, so there's all sorts of big gaps of information. Like Severus Snape not being a Death Eater anymore. But, in any case, if you're here, at some point, you died. If you had family or a child, they might be running around here; Lily's got a son and granddaughter. I, obviously, don't. The Ministry is keeping a running tally of known returnees. Oh! And Bellatrix ran amok at Hogwarts. But, that's not even the shocking bit; the shocking bit is that there was a second war that was fought partially at Hogwarts." Cas took a breath. This was getting rambly. "You Know Who's dead, though, so that's good."

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happily_alice
2010-05-16 03:11 am UTC (link)

"Of course he's dead. He died when ... the night he killed the Potters." So the bit about a second war fought at Hogwarts - and Bellatrix running amok at Hogwarts - didn't make much sense to her.

She supposed there was a story behind it, if she bought the whole 'back from the dead' thing, which she didn't.

"I know ... Lily has a son. Harry. Had him the day after ..." Alice went several shades of pale. Neville. What happened to her baby? "The day after I had Neville," she said quietly. "We were pregnancy buddies," she added, her voice distant. This was ... surreal. Bizarre didn't begin to cover it.

The rest of it she let muddle around in her head. Like the bit about Snape, and Lily having a granddaughter. Bellatrix was here, and that was bad. The bitch had been after them ever since that night ...

"Frank," she said, an edge of urgency in her voice. "I ... Frank? What happened to him? Is he here?"

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dorcas_m
2010-05-16 03:18 am UTC (link)

All of a sudden, Cas felt very uncomfortable being the one without a child. It's not that she hadn't wanted one, not that she didn't find motherhood as her calling, it was just that she had wanted to establish herself first: get some time in on her profession, fall in love, win the war. Sure, she had Lily, Benjy, and now, Alice here, but it wasn't the same as having a child here.

Don't be ridiculous, she scolded herself. Be glad you've got friends here at all.

"I don't know what happened to Frank; I haven't seen him here, but that doesn't mean he won't show up." Cas paused, hating the news she'd have to drop. "Alice, look, I don't know how to finesse this properly, so I'm going to just have to be upfront, I suppose. Even if Frank shows up, he might not be your age. I mean, Lily's twenty-one and James is sixteen. Granted, they're the only couple I know of who were pulled forward, so that might not mean anything."

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happily_alice
2010-05-16 03:23 am UTC (link)

She shook her head to the news about Frank not being here. He had to be here, didn't he? Well, he'd show up. If James was ...

... "Sixteen?" she echoed hollowly. That would put him firmly in school and, as far as she knew, not even on Lily's dateable boy radar. She recalled Lily admitting to not dating him until ... seventh year.

What if Frank was sixteen?

Alice pressed her hands to her mouth and shook her head, closing her eyes. She'd rather be dead than have Frank be so much younger than her. "What about ... my baby. Neville," she said. "Where is he? Is he here, alive?"

What if she'd died and ... and Frank had died with her, and ... who had taken in her son? She shivered at the idea of Frank's mom raising him, though there were worse. Like Frank's brother. What if Neville had died? How had they died?

Everything she didn't know was frustrating the hell out of her, and she ached to have Frank here, his arms around her, telling her it would be fine even if it was a big fat lie and they both knew it.

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dorcas_m
2010-05-16 03:30 am UTC (link)

Well, at least she'd appeared to take it fairly well; being told you might be separated from your significant other forever was hardly an easy thought, especially when you were stranded this many years in the future.

"Neville Longbottom ... Neville Longbottom ... I think i read something about him teaching at Hogwarts. I think. I couldn't tell you where, though. He's alive, that much I know. As for Frank, he hasn't been registered with the Ministry as a returnee, and I haven't heard anyone talk about him. It doesn't mean anything, though. He might still show up. I've seen both you and Benjy reappear, and I've only been here for a month or so. He could still just show up." This was awful; Cas had no idea how to comfort Alice. Anything she could think of sounded trite, not even worthy of the air needed for the sound to travel. She and Benjy had been single and Lily had found Severus. It would only be Alice who was newly without.

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happily_alice
2010-05-16 03:34 am UTC (link)

Teaching, at Hogwarts. Well, she'd have to go look into that, she decided. See how her baby boy had turned out. She focused on the fact that Neville was here and tried not to think about the fact that Frank wasn't.

Because he could be back. He would be back. He wouldn't let her be alone for long.

Alice nodded, and decided that anything else was going to be an overwhelming information overload, so she just ... nodded a few more times. "So I should ... Ministry, right? That's where we're meant to go?"

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	dorcas_m 2010-05-16 03:37 am UTC (link)
	"Yeah. Ministry. It isn't bad, really. Bloody boring interview, and they'll set you up somewhere." Cas decided that she'd get around to telling Alice about living with Benjy, but not in that sense, and would Lily tell Alice about living with Severus in what was probably that sense now. "It gets less strange," Cas added as an afterthought."Really." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

happily_alice
2010-05-16 03:47 am UTC (link)

She suddenly had a lot more questions. Who was in charge of the Aurors now? Could she get back in? Was Moody still around? Where was everyone else who had come back? Slender fingers ran through her hair.

Wand. She had to get a wand. So she'd go put up with the Ministry, figure out what her money situation was like, get a wand and find her son, or vice-versa if all her money was with Neville now.

"I ..."

Alice forced a smile. "I'm sure it does," she said. "Get less strange."

She gazed at the formerly dead witch, and thought that it was likely she only even half-bought this was because Cas was dead. She wasn't completely sold on it, but ... what else made sense? "So ... I'll see you," she offered.

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