Alice Longbottom (openeyed) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2013-02-10 21:34:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, alice longbottom, frank longbottom |
Who: Frank & Alice Longbottom
When: Sunday evening
Where: Their apartment
What: Alice just arrived
Rating: PG
Frank knew there were several people he should probably apologise to, but he was still reeling from the revelation that he and Alice were captured and tortured into insanity shortly after the war. He'd greatly appreciated the walk the elf Sarafinwe - from Tolkien, a Muggle writer, Frank had never read the books - had agreed to go with him on. That had been before he knew, when he was consumed with anger at Dorcas. He was still mad at Dorcas, and had no intention of apologising to her. James and Sirius he'd already made peace with, but Nymphadora deserved an apology, as did Hermione Granger. He was pondering how best to apologise when the door opened and who should walk in but his wife. "Alice!" he said, sitting on the couch, dumb for a second. "Shit," he finally managed. "It got you too." *** Alice was still trying to work everything out, but they had handed her some paperwork to fill out, then a key card and instructions on how to use it and where to go with it, and then she'd been sent off. She'd been told her husband was also here, along with several other people she'd surely know, but it didn't make any sense to her. She'd seen her husband just an hour before, when he'd left to go to work. She still had another three weeks left on her maternity leave, before Frank's mother would take over minding Neville every day while she returned to work herself, and she had just settled down with a new History of Magic text she'd ordered from Flourish and Blott's a few weeks before, when Neville had started crying. She was about to go to the nursery for him when she saw the blue light and the pain and then she ended up -- here. Those who were present when she arrived assured her that her son was fine, that she was fine as well, that things were going on without (and yet still with?) her, but none of it made sense. As an Auror, Alice Longbottom was used to seeing, hearing, and experiencing a myriad of things, some of which were quite inexplicable. But this? She had no sense of this at all. All she knew was that she was here, it was 2013, she was in America, and there was no going back to where she had just been. The worst of it was the paranoia, the worry and fret and panic that this was the work of Death Eaters. But how -- how?! -- would they have had this sort of magic. She hadn't touched anything that could have been a portkey (unless it was the book, which she was still clutching along with her wand, and she almost dropped them both at the thought), or a time turner, or -- Alice touched the door with her room number on it then touched the keycard to the pad as instructed. She was tired, sick to her stomach about what had happened, and she hoped so much that her husband actually was on the other side of the door. Taking a deep breath, she pushed it open and stepped inside. Her observational skills went into action, taking in the barely decorated room, the white carpet and walls, the simple furniture, and -- "Frank," she breathed out, crossing to him and pushing her book and wand onto the couch to move beside him. "What happened?" -- There were so many places Frank wanted to start, but coming out with everything would have been far too overwhelming for Alice - it had been overwhelming for him, and he wished he could have had some time to take a breath and explored the world before everything being laid on him. It was all too much, the turmolt of the Order, the end of the war, the war not really being over, losing his entire life and still living - there was a difference between living and a life and Frank would have rather died at the hands of his torturers than wound up alive but insane. Alice was here now, and he pushed those thoughts from his mind. He'd had everything laid on him, but maybe Alice would fare better. He wouldn't lie to her, but maybe she could enjoy New York for a little bit before the bombshell of insanity was dropped on her. He moved closer to her, wrapping his arms around her and breathing in the scent of her shampoo. It had only been days, but he'd missed her. "Did they explain about time and how ... how people here aren't all from the same time? For instance, I ... I come from Hallowe'en night, 1981." She looked vibrant, not too young, but not from the same time as him. Before him, but he couldn't place exactly when. *** Alice hugged him back, pressing her nose in against his shoulder and closing her eyes. She nodded in response to his question. "Yes, they said as much but I didn't quite understand all of it. How -- 1981?" She shook her head, not looking at him, her eyes still closed. "That doesn't make any sense," she said softly. "August," she responded. "1980. Had I been gone that long from you?" She was so glad to see him, to feel him, but -- she pulled back, stiffening, and looked at him closely. "Frank," she said, "what is the name of the song we danced to at the Muggle nightclub during our honeymoon before we had the champagne toast?" It felt silly, in hindsight, to ask the question, but they had set it up months before, on the off chance that something happened to one of them and they weren't who they said they were. She needed to get it done with and out of the way. *** It wasn't silly to ask the question at all, and Frank should have asked it himself when she walked through the door. It was incredible what just a few days of post-war life in a safe environment did. Moody have hexed him for sure, but Moody wasn't around, was he? It had been Moody who'd insisted that they all come up with various questions that only those asking them would know. It meant knowing pieces of information about everyone not known to others; truth be told, it meant a lot of questions came from incidences at Order meetings, little secrets whispered off to the side. No wonder Peter hadn't betrayed them all sooner - if he'd gone to the Death Eaters and You-Know-Who and tried, he'd have hit a brick wall. "Frankie Valli, My Eyes Adored You," Frank said, smiling tenderly at Alice. He skipped a beat, knowing he should ask her his question. "What colour was your dress?" He should wait for her to answer, but he couldn't. This was Alice, he knew it was Alice. The portal wouldn't have sent a fake Alice to trick him. "Alice ... Hallowe'en '81 is the day the war ends." Well, the day the war went on time-out until You-Know-Who's cronies recovered, but Alice didn't need to know that yet. "You and I, and Neville ... we ... we make it to the end." At the mention of Neville, a flicker of anger crossed over Frank's face. If his son came back through the portal, he'd likely come through older, not as a baby. To Frank's knowledge, no babies had ever come through. He'd be older, fatherless and motherless and - raised by Augusta. If their son came through, Frank was going to be extra nice. *** The comfort that settled in her stomach as he gave the right and expected answer was good. Very good. "Purple," she answered automatically, blushing as she remembered that dress. She really had enjoyed that dress, which was unlike anything she'd ever worn before or since. Truth be told, she couldn't even remember what had happened to that dress... Her stomach turned over, in a good way, and jumped up her throat. "It ends next year? Hallowe'en? Why? How did it end? What happened?" It felt to her like the year and a few months from where she remembered until then was a lifetime. She could only imagine all of the twists and turns and -- deaths. "Frank, I don't understand. How can I be here from one time and you from another? What about Neville? Who's watching him? Why didn't he come through with me or with you?" *** The nice thing about Alice asking so many questions was that Frank could pick and choose which ones to answer. He set the earlier ones about the war off to the side for a moment, and focused on the more pertient ones. "I don't understand it either," he said quietly. "I know we're here, and there at the same time. It's like this portal is a giant perpetual time-turner. I'm still there in '80 and '81, doing whatever I was doing when I was brought here. Whoever was watching Neville then, is still watching him right this second. Time ... stops when you're pulled her, but I guess starts right back up the second you go back? I don't know how that works. I don't know how to explain it better that, I'm sorry. Harry's all grown up here, Lily is just a teenager, James too, Remus is .. he's our age, Nymphadora - you remember her? She'll all grown up too. There's some more people I don't know, and then there's - I don't even know how to explain this. People we don't and can't possibly know because they're from so far in the future. What would be the era of our grandchildren, though none of Neville's children have showed up, I don't think, if they have, nobody has told me about it. Neville was here, though, and so were you and I, earlier. The time-turner portal erases all your memories of this place when you go back. "None of this is making any sense at all, is it?" *** Alice truly was doing her best to try and understand everything that her husband was explaining to her, but she couldn't. She was a smart woman, it was true, but this sounded even further beyond her capabilities. She sat back against the sofa, glad to find it comfortable and softer than she expected, and she rubbed her hands over her face. "What you're saying is that it's a free-for-all of sorts," she started slowly. "That there is no rhyme or reason to being brought here, the comings and the goings, the memory of it or the lacking of memory of it, am I correct?" To think that they could, perhaps, see Neville all grown up when just that morning he was still an infant? It struck her tight across the chest and left her short of breath. "What's the general feeling of it all?" she asked. *** "Absolute free-for-all, no set of established rules or guidelines," Frank clarified. I find it's easier to just accept what's happening than try to question it. General feeling is that there's nothing we can do except wait it out." Besides, there were other things far more worth questioning. He took a deep breath though - if revealing that people came from their future was a bombshell ... what would be revealing from their past? "You know how there's people here from the future? There's also people here from the past. Honey, Dorcas is here." Dorcas was also off her broomstick, but holy godric, so many pieces, Frank would get to that one later. All too late he realised his wife wouldn't have known of the death of Dorcas, and he hurridly added, "Dorcas, Sirius, Emmeline, Lily, James, Remus, I've heard Moody is here thought I haven't run into him yet - all of them are here, some older, some younger than they were in '80. Remus, I mentioned, is older, James is younger, still just a child. And now us." *** Alice felt the onset of a headache, and she rubbed her temples in an effort to make it go away. As Frank was the first person she had seen, and he was (besides Neville) the most important, she nodded. "Right, I get it. I will just have to remember not to be shocked when I meet someone familiar but a bit off, considering ages or timeframes or what have you." She looked at him and tried to smile. She needed to make the best out of the situation; it was what she was always best at. "At least you and I came from near enough each other. I mean, imagine if I had shown up and been still at school!" A light laugh, though it didn't feel like a laughing matter. "What matters is that you're here, and I'm here and -- you're positive that Neville is all right, back home? He was just asleep in the nursery and I was about to go get him …" *** Frank looked at his wife, considering for a moment. When he spoke, he looked absolutely delighted, "I'm certain he's fine. When I ... came here, the war was over - there was so much going on, but it was safe to go outside, and there were fireworks all over the place, so I took Neville outside and I was throwing him up in the air, and he was laughing, happy as can be, his little curls bouncing. And then ... well, you went through it. It's horrible. But somewhere out there, in some universe, Neville is frozen in time in the air, staring at the most beautiful sky you've ever seen. And when we're done here, and go back, he'll fall back into my arms, and never know that I wasn't there to catch him." Then, just a short time later, while they mourned Lily and James, and tried to handle the shock of Sirius' betrayal, Death Eaters would storm his house, capture him and Alice, and then torture them into insanity. Who the hell did he piss off to get that shit ending? This Rowling author woman either needed two orphans to tell her story, or she was just twisted sick. *** It was time for Alice to decide that even though she didn't understand it and couldn't comprehend it, it was happening and she had to go on with her life here. Whatever that life might entail. "This isn't just our future though, correct? The woman I spoke with -- from SHIELD? -- said that this wasn't simply 2013 in my -- iin our future -- but that this was another universe? Or reality? What did she mean?" *** "Oh, that," Frank said. "No, in this Universe we're in, and in several others', we're all fictional to them. An author wrote us down as a story, made up the whole war as a form of entertainment for people, and we're just characters to them. It's weird, because ... people who are fictional to other people share the same idea that we're fictional to them. I've just decided to roll with it - I don't even know how to explain it. Emmeline explained it to me, and I just ... it's just so much easier to smile and nod." He tried to think of another approach. "Okay, Tolkien. He was a Muggle author, have you heard of him? I haven't, but you might have? Well, the elves that he invented and created are here too, though we think of them as just fictional constructs." *** It was easier, Alice realized, to understand it from a time displacement standpoint, as she understood the use of time turners and the manipulation of time. The idea of a space or place displacement, however, Alice couldn't quite grasp. It wasn't something in any of her history books or anything that she had ever studied. "Fictional?" she echoed. "To the people here, we're just characters in a book?" It was all real to her. Her entire life. Everything she had felt and experienced. She shook her head. "No one writes in enough detail that I know my entire life and have all of the experiences and memories of a full life," she said. She fingered the edge of the History of Magic text that had come through with her. She had heard of Tolkien, though she hadn't read him. There had been a time, early on in her Auror training, when she had focused quite extensively on Muggle history, and it included Muggle literature. She felt like her being born on such an important day in Muggle world history meant that she ought to have some knowledge of that history. It just wasn't extensive enough for that matter, for her to know all of Muggle literature. "I see," she said quietly. "If we think about this another way and say that this world, or reality, what have you, is universe A, wherein there are multiple books and stories that are read as fiction, then our universe could be, say, universe B. But there is some overlap as well, it seems, yes?" *** Frank was rubbing his head. Leave it to Alice to actually ... think things through and try to make sense of things. Oh, godric. Neville probably took after her in that regard. Sometimes it was better to just accept things and jump in the water without thinking about it. "Shit, Alice, I mean, yes, maybe? I don't really know. I just ... it's so much easier if we just ... just roll with it. There's a whole new world here, the Death Eaters don't exist, I don't even think You-Know-Who does, and ... the Order is here, and we don't have to fight with each other and we can ... not fight. Fuck, Alice, after seven fucking years we can take a breath." *** It was a long moment before Alice spoke, letting everything she was thinking and everything Frank was saying settle into her. She took it all in and then, when she was through considering it all, she nodded. "Well, that's certainly a relief," she said very quietly. She sat back against the couch comfortably, then tipped herself in against her husband, sliding an arm across his midsection. "It would only be perfect if it were our reality, you, me, and Neville. Like you were about to have, when you were pulled away, hmn?" *** Yes, just like he'd been about to have. "Our son grows up to be friends with Lily and James' boy, and some woman named Hermione Granger, though I don't think we know any Grangers, do we?" It was a large world of Wizards and Witches, but not that large that Frank wouldn't have noticed the name. "Oh, and Wood. Wood's son. Met him. Seemed like a nice chap. Nymphadora is all grown up as well. And the people here are really nice. I met another magically-inclined woman named Molly Carpenter, and as I mentioned, an elf from Tolkien's universe." He wrapped an arm around Alice, kissing the side of her mouth. "Mmm, it's cold and gross right now. I could show you around Muggle New York ... or we could stay in. I could give you a tour of the apartment ..." Frank was hoping that Alice could have some degree of happiness before she went on the network and everything came tumbling down. He probably should at least warn her about James and Lily, but … he could do that after he showed her the apartment. *** Alice nodded along with him. It was good to hear that Neville and Harry got on well later on, especially since they were so close in age. She didn't know any Grangers either but that was no matter. Wood -- at the Ministry, she supposed. She could picture the man. His son was a few years old, last she heard, she believed. And other people -- the agents from SHIELD had gone on and on about how many people were coming through, and she only half-heard them. It was Frank who was doing the bulk of the explaining, and that was helpful. It was good to hear it from him; she trusted him more than anyone else in her life. "I would rather just stay here," she said. "Until I get used to everything and can made some modicrum of sense out of it all." Alice wondered how long it would take. "Right now I have to just get used to the idea that I don't have to keep an ear out for Neville crying." At that, tears prickled her eyes, but she fought them back inside. He was fine, she told herself. He was fine and happy and loved, even if it wasn't here with her now. *** Frank stood from the couch, taking Alice's hands in his, "Well, then, come on, the pillows here are absolutely amazing ..." He would, after the 'tour', sit her down and tell her the serious part, of Sirius and Lily and James and Peter; of betrayal and innocence and fault and Azkaban. He'd tell her about Dorcas, both of her death, and of her obstinate refusal to understand that sometimes betrayal comes from many sources, and it was all of them who betrayed Sirius, even Dumbledore. Then he'd hope against hope that nobody would mention the capture and torture to her. Not yet. Alice hadn't come from the end of the war. She deserved some time to be happy before realising their fate. |