like cracking eggs || alice & charity
@charityxxburbage
In Ravenclaw, everyone was her friend from the moment they were Sorted. Even when they did not get along, the ‘Claws were a House like every other Hogwarts House. Alice had never struggled to make friends, no matter where she was; she had a tendency to fall into groups that melded. The Aurors, and then the Order of the Phoenix, had accepted her. She had never truly felt the need to approach someone to solicit their friendship.
At Port Montrose, things were different in so many ways. The group had started out entirely made up of faces familiar to her already. The strangers had come along later. People whose names she did not know, even in passing; war-torn individuals gone ragged and sour from what they’d experienced. And Alice, who was wary of beginning new relationships when her old ones had so recently been torn from her, avoided them for longer than she had right to.
They were all guarded, closed within their groups and unwilling to open themselves to new vulnerabilities. The longer they stayed, though, the more Alice found it impossible not to befriend them.
One of the strangers, Charity, had drawn Alice’s attention when she was caught stealing strawberries from Frank’s garden. Frank had found it amusing, so Alice did too; they were both good-natured types and Frank enjoyed having one with a greener thumb than his wife helping in the garden. She found Charity in the kitchen, washing up the berries freshly picked from Frank’s plants. Alice lingered in the doorway, glad that Charity’s focus on the task at hand meant that she did not notice the slight brunette lurking behind. Before she’d decided what to say, Alice decided to move closer, into Charity’s line of sight in what she hoped was a non-threatening way.