Location: The Flaming Dragon
Date: Tuesday June 12, 1984
@emmaofvanity
It was odd, Alice thought, being in familiar places arranged in unfamiliar ways. Not that there had been much rearranging of Caradoc’s pub -- at least not that Alice could tell at a glance -- but with the doors locked and the public banished, it felt different. Or maybe that was just the mood of the gathering.
Alice knew these people well, but she was used to seeing her fellow members of the Order of the Phoenix in combat-orientated situations -- before combat, during combat, after combat, planning combat, strategizing for future combat... Not like this. Not at a party.
She smiled her thanks to Caradoc as she lifted a drink to her lips and sipped at it, but he was already ensconced in conversation with Evan and Alice had said her greetings to both wizards already. Instead of interrupting, she leaned back against the lip of the bar and turned to survey the room. One face caught her eye immediately: Emma Vanity.
The younger witch had only been one of them for a few months (maybe half-a-year or a little more even; time felt more fluid than it used to these days, one fight blurring into another into another until sometimes a whole week would somehow slip through Alice’s fingers before she realized that she and Frank hadn’t had so much as a single dinner together, paths in the office crossing more than they did at home) but Alice always tried to keep something of an eye on the new kids who had come out of the same dungeon dormitories she had. Not that there was any sort of anti-Slytherin prejudice in the Order, really; that was a childish sort of thing that belonged on the Quidditch pitch, not something to be countenanced by adults.
But sometimes Alice thought she caught eyes slanting her way uncertainly when she made a reference to her schooldays down in those cozy underwater rooms, when she said something about the social gatherings of her youth; sometimes she caught those same glances directed at her fellow onetime snakes. She couldn’t deny that the ratio of Slytherin alumni leaned harder in the Death Eaters’ direction, but that was only natural: Voldemort had made friends with his housemates, just as Dumbledore and McGonagall had made friends with theirs. People gathered the people they knew first.
Alice didn’t know Emma well -- five years had been a large gap in school, and Alice had paid more attention to her N.E.W.T.s than to the little kids sorted her way during her final Hogwarts years -- but she still counted her as one of her people. And now Emma was sitting alone, a look on her face that Alice could only read as pensive. And while Alice didn’t have what one might describe as motherly impulses (at least if one was Frank or Augusta) she had been trained by Alastor Moody, and he’d taught his people to look after their rookies.
So Alice scooped a second glance off the bar without stopping to identity the pale violet liquid sloshing behind the beads of condensation that rolled down her fingers and walked forward, distractedly returning three passing greetings before coming to a stop in front of Emma’s table. Alice set the other glass down on the table and pushed it in Emma’s general direction -- depositing it close enough to the other witch’s arms to be an invitation, but not so close as to be intrusive -- before sliding herself into an open chair.
“Hey, Vanity,” she said with a thin smile. “Looked like you could use a refill.” She paused, took another sip as she studied the girl in front of her. “Looked like you could maybe use a friendly ear, too. Anything you want to talk about?”
