Forbidden Forest → December 1, 1976
Alice should have lived in that moment. The tricky thing about living inside of her mind is - well, she lives inside of her own mind. She can rarely live in the moment and so she nearly always lets them pass her by. She is left with a list of things she should have done and possibilities of what could have been because her mind was two moves ahead. Alice should have lived in Frank’s small celebration and his smile, she should have been content to just be with him because it would have been enough. He would have given her peace.
But she needs him to know. Him. No one else, not yet. Before she can take another step forward she needs Frank to know - and she is reaching the time where she must take some sort of action. He isn’t ready to hear it and she should be patient with that. A better friend wouldn’t selfishly bring him to her reality, she would have let him be. But a friend doesn’t need him in the way Alice does. Whatever it is they are, she needs him and she needs to know he’s with her.
The insinuation she was in any way joking is understandable considering her demeanor just a moment before her outburst, but it’s still infuriating. “Silly?” she sputters, stuck in her spot for just a fraction of a second. After, Alice springs forward and rounds on him. “You know she’s different. It was her - you have to. I need you to. You know she hasn’t - she isn’t,” Alice exhales rapidly, “I’m sorry I told you like this but it’s the truth, I know it is. And you can’t - you can’t just walk away. You aren’t this dense! For Merlin’s sake, stop pretending for one second and open your eyes!”
Frank just can't grab a hold of this, cannot find his footing on this ground. Bellatrix. Bellatrix who they grew up with, who they played with and came to Hogwarts with, who they were going to leave Hogwarts with, or so he had always believed, always taken for granted. Bellatrix who they knew. Or Alice did, apparently. No, no, Frank knew his friend, their friend, she wasn't this. She couldn't possibly be this.
Yet she was. The fact was staring him in the face, Alice just points it out. In her words, she is not only accusing Bella, she is accusing him to, of lying, of denying, of deceiving himself and of these crimes Frank is guilty. Guilty as their corrupted companion. That's the way he appears now, his guilt pervades his very posture - Frank's shoulders slump, his gaze drills into the ground, he hangs his head. He looks defeated, he looks shameful, he looks spineless.
Who is this boy? This man?
Frank Longbottom tries to surpass the stranger. The Frank of unwavering hope, of unstoppable loyalty, of forceful delusion raises his voice. "She's different, sure, she can be a little meaner, cruel, sometimes, but not that, Alice. Not that. You know it. You know her, just as well as I do." His eyes, his tone plead with her but Alice marches on, beats down his insubstantial points with her reason and the evident fact that she says none of this to hurt him, though she knows that it must and therefore, Alice would never say such a thing to Frank were it not necessary. Still, he can't do it. His fingers knot into his curls as Frank sighs shakily. Then the frustration, the emotion, the inability builds and builds up inside him until he's shouting, "What if I am? What if I want to be? What if you're seeing things that aren't there? No. You can't be right, Alice, you can't. I'm not pretending, it just that that can't be."
