Fatum

Today was the day. My first tutoring session with Frank.

The entire night I had been restless. I woke up at least once every hour, wrapped up in my sheets and sweating like a pig. I brushed it off as just one of those nights.

I was probably just stressed about tutoring, or my mind was in overdrive after Sirius called my hair cute and touched his forehead to mine.

Or at least…that’s what I was telling myself.

When I woke up for about the billionth time and realized it actually was morning I let out a sigh of relief.

I stretched my arms out and yawned, then ran a hand through my ever so ladylike bedhead. Taking a quick glance around the room I was able to determine that only Lily and Lottie had already left the dorm. They were probably sitting down in the common room.

Since it was the weekend and I was not required to wear my uniform I threw on a baggy burgundy jumper that my mother had gotten for me in London, and a black skirt that ended at about mid-thigh. It was one of my favorite skirts as it was ever so fun to twirl in it.

Opting for warmth I also pulled on a pair of long black socks. Hogwarts was ridiculously chilly in the fall.

I brushed my hair backed down and hurried down the staircase to the common room. Once I reached the bottom of the stairs however, I was struck by a sudden rush of faint and dizziness. I held onto the bannister and took a few deep breaths before continuing on.

Lily and Lottie weren’t in the common room, but James and Remus were. I walked over to them a bit cautiously and sat down on a chair beside the couch they were on. “Good morning you two.”

I still wasn’t sure if we were all in the ‘friend-zone’, or just ‘casual acquaintances’.

James looked up from the book he had been studying and smiled at me, “Oh, hi Alice. Good morning.” He scanned the room but clearly didn’t find what he was looking for as his smile faded into a bit of a disappointed frown.

“Looking for Lily?” I asked, slightly curious, slightly teasing him.

James ran a hand through his dark, messy hair and gave a soft laugh. “Is it that obvious?” He raised an eyebrow and looked down bashfully. He really was a cutie.

“Wait a second, is the notorious James Potter actually blushing?” I teased, poking him in the side.
Remus laughed and nudged James with his elbow, “Odd isn’t it? I’ve only ever seen him like this when it comes to Lily.” Remus looked towards me, his eyes crinkling as he smiled.

James just laughed us off, setting his book to the side and leaning back against the couch. “Yes yes, let’s all make fun of me for actually experiencing normal human feelings. I know it must be strange to see someone everyone looks up to acting so ordinary.”

I wonder if he knew Lily was beginning to act the exact same way about him.

“So Alice, any plans for today?” James asked as Remus mumbled something along the lines of “narcissistic ass” but James only ignored him. I assumed he received comments like that all the time.

“Nothing really, but I do have to head out. I need to find Lily.” I pushed myself out of the chair, noticing how James seemed to perk up slightly when I mentioned Lily.

“Why don’t we accompany you?” He cheerfully suggested, standing up beside me, “Why don’t mind, do we Remus?”

Remus sighed but stood up anyways, “Not at all, I never mind spending time with our dear friend Alice.” He offered me his arm, and James offered his on my other side so I was linking arms with the two of them.

“Oh Remus, aren’t you just the charmer.” James said in a very stereotypical English accent. We began walking, and the boy’s strides were much longer than mine so I had to do a sort of awkward walking jog.

I had to admit, I felt rather special standing between the two of them. They were both so well-known and popular among the students. At one point, while we were walking down a corridor on the second floor, Anita Strathforth (a rather snobby and conceited sixth year Slytherin) saw us and had the most obviously jealous expression on her face.

Oh I could definitely get used to this.

James and Remus finally unlinked their arms with mine once we reached the Great Hall. “Here you are my lady.” James gestured into the room and gave a dramatic bow.

I giggled and curtsied back at him as Remus just shook his head beside us. “Will you join me for breakfast?” I asked them both.

Lily, who had been sitting at the far end of the Gryffindor table, must have noticed us then as she called out my name. I turned quickly to see her and was struck by a wave of dizziness and nausea. I put one hand to my forehead and held the other out in front of myself in case I happened to collapse forward.

Within a few brief seconds I felt an arm go across my back and hold me up. I knew without even looking that it was Lily. She was always there.

“Alice, are you okay?” I heard Remus ask behind me.

I nodded, the dizzy spell fading away quickly. “Oh yes, I’m fine. I must just be a bit off. Haven’t had a cup of coffee yet.” I lied. When I looked up I wasn’t surprised to see Lily’s face right there, inspecting me carefully.

“Morning Lils. I was looking for you.” I smiled at her, only causing her to frown.

“Let’s go sit down.” Lily suggested and we began to walk towards where Lottie was still seated. Her hand never left my back, as if she was afraid if she let go I would fall to dust.

I took a seat across from Lottie, with Lily and Remus taking seats on either side of me and James sitting beside Lottie, across from Lily of course.

Lottie gave me a skeptic look but soon went back to eating her toast and eggs.

“That was a bit odd back there, sure you’re all right?” Remus asked once again.

I was about to respond when a cawing noise sounded throughout the Hall. I looked up and smiled when I saw the owls arriving and dropping off letters to the students who were already in the Hall.

My smile got even brighter once I spotted a familiar white barn owl with brown speckles all across its wings. It was my father’s owl Bram. That owl had been around since I was just a small girl.

Bram slowed once he reached me and perched gently on the table in front of me. “Well hello Bram.” I greeted the bird and stroked his head, “What have you got for me today?”

I took the letter from his mouth, stole a piece of bacon from Lily’s plate and fed it to him. The letter was addressed to me from my parent’s. “Go to the Owlery, I’ll be up later with my reply.” I instructed him and he nipped gently at my fingers before taking off again.

“Your father has the nicest owl.” Lottie sighed. “Our family owl is the devil I swear.”

I smirked, my eyes looking at the letter in my hands. “We may have gotten a friendly owl, but we sure didn’t luck out with my cat.”

“Speaking of your cat, I haven’t seen her forever. Are you sure she’s even here still?” Lily asked between bites of a waffle.

I nodded as I opened the letter, “Yes, Circe is still around. She spends most of the day down in the dungeons or in the Hufflepuff common room. She’ll come back every few nights to sleep in my bed though.” I explained.

James’ face scrunched up in a quizzical look, “The Hufflepuff common room? How does your cat get in there?”

I just shrugged, “The ‘puffs love Circe. They let her in all the time. I know this because in fourth year I was searching for her and Magdeline Rochen, you know the one with ridiculously long hair? Well, she asked if I was looking for a fluffy black cat with a moon on its collar. When I told her I was she laughed and said that my cat was always sneaking into the common room and lying across their couches.”

Lily laughed, “Your cat has always been quite the character.” She glanced down at the now open letter sitting in front of me, “What did your mother and father say?”

I read the letter quickly, it was in my father’s handwriting. It read:

My Dearest Alice,
How is your final year at Hogwarts been thus far? Your mother has been hounding me to message you. I don’t know why the woman can’t write to you herself, but you know how she is. She says you won’t tell her everything like you will with me. I always knew I was your favorite. (Only half kidding.)
It’s been rather dull here, work at the Ministry is as boring as ever. No one wants to bring up the real threat at the moment
I must ask though, how are you feeling? You’ve been taking your medicine, right my girl? I understand you hate when I get on you about your medicine, but you have to take it. We don’t want you ending up back at St.Mungo’s again. You and I both know how much you dislike that place. Other than the male healers. Yes dear, I see you watching them. The drool makes it rather obvious. So just please remember your medication. At this very moment your dear mother is harping at me to remind you to take it. That woman. Something else she is.
Write back to us soon, we want to hear all about your last year at Hogwarts.

Signed with an abundance of love,
Your father.

Once I had finished reading I tucked the letter back into the envelope and sat it down on the table in front of me. “Oh just the usual, my mother’s being as paranoid as she…” My sentence was cut off when a voice called out for Lily and James.

“Ms. Evans, Mr. Potter!”

It was Professor McGonagall, heading towards our small clump of people rather quickly. She glared down at us, but not unkindly. I had come to believe she rather enjoyed having most of us in her house and classes. “Honestly you two, I can understand Mr. Potter being a tad bit forgetful but I am surprised you forgot about the meeting Ms. Evans.”

Lily scrunched her eyebrows together in confusion before gasping, her eyes opening wide in shock. “Oh no! The meeting with the prefects!” she exclaimed, standing up and almost spilling my cup over in her rush. “I’m so terribly sorry Professor, I never forget these sorts of things.” She turned towards James and motioned for him to get up. “James, we have a meeting with the prefects, let’s go.”

James only sighed, but stood up none the less and followed after Lily who was already high-tailing it out of the Great Hall, her hair sashaying side to side.

McGonagall glanced at those of us remaining which included Remus, Lottie and I, and nodded her head in greeting before hurrying off after the Head Boy and Girl.

I watched them all leaving before I pushed myself into a standing position, “Well, I should probably go respond to my parents. My mom will be a mess if I don’t answer back within a day.”

Remus and Lottie were watching me as I stood up. Lottie patted my hand which was still resting on the table. “You sure you’re okay? I mean, now that you’ve had your coffee?” She gave me a knowing look and I knew exactly what she was referring to.

“Oh I’m fine and dandy thank you for asking.” I placed my other hand on top of Lottie’s and smiled at her, “Don’t worry about it.”

Remus cleared his throat and I looked over at him, “Do you want someone to accompany you?” He offered, leaning towards me slightly.

I shook my head, “No no, that’s not necessary. You stay here and finish eating.” I glanced at his barely touched plate of food. “I’ll see you both sometime later today.”

I grabbed my letter and headed out of the Great Hall, waving goodbye to the two of them over my shoulder. I wanted to get my response letter back to my parents as soon as possible, so I hurried back to the Gryffindor common room seeing as I had left my bag with all my parchment, quills, and ink beside my bed.

Inside the dormitory, all the beds were empty, except for one. Liv’s nearly white blonde hair was splayed across her pillow, a few curls framing her face. Her comforter was tangled between her legs, and the small blue blanket she brought with her every year was lying on the floor beside her.
Liv muttered in her sleep, something about a Quidditch game and unicorns. I didn’t have even the slightest clue what she could be dreaming about.

I walked over to her bed and plucked her blanket off the ground. Very gently, I placed it over her, making sure not to wake her up. How did she even sleep this late? It seemed unnatural. She was like a hibernating bear, and it wasn’t even winter yet.

I didn’t want to disturb Liv, so I went to the common room to write my letter. There were only a few stray students lounging around, most of them had their noses shoved into their books meaning I really couldn’t tell who was in the room.

I sat down at an unoccupied table and pulled out a small scroll of parchment. Dabbing my favorite quill into my ink jar, I wrote back to my parents:

To my dearest mumsy and popsicle,
I miss you both so terribly much. Just the other day I was feeling nostalgic for the smell of your cigar smoke, and I long for mother’s homemade hot chocolate.
My last year is the same as every year, except for the added stress of it being our final year, and the fact that after this we all must move on with our lives. How frightful! I don’t know how you or mum dealt with it.
Oh, and I’m fairly certain that something’s going on with Lily and James. We were right father!
And yes, I’ve been taking my medicine. I feel absolutely fine.
Tell mother not to worry so much.

With all the love I can hold in my heart,
Your daughter Alice.

I checked over my letter quickly, and then stuffed both mine and the letter from my parents into my bag before hurrying off to the Owlery …or so I thought.

If I had happened to look behind myself at that moment, I would have seen that I had in fact dropped the letter from my parents on the ground. It had not made it into my bag.

I then would have seen the infamous Frank Longbottom, who had been one of the stray students with their nose stuck in a book, stand up and pick the letter off the floor. Of course, I learn of these events later on. But at the moment I had no clue in the slightest that Frank Longbottom was about to find out the one thing about myself I didn’t want anyone else to know other than the select few chosen ones.

Now, not only did Frank know about my rather large crush on Sirius Black, he now knew that I was ill, and that I was keeping it a secret from everyone all these years.

~~~~
I didn’t realize the letter was missing from my bag until lunch that day when I was sitting at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall with Lily.

“So, what did your parents say?” Lily had asked while taking small spoonful’s of her tomato soup. “You started telling me before I was dragged away. Sorry about that by the way.”

I brushed off her apology and went to grab out the letter, “Oh just the usual, asking how I’m feeling, how I’m doing in school, making sure I’ve been taking the devil juice.” Devil juice was what I generally called my medicine.

That was the moment I realized the letter was not actually in my bag. I began to look a bit more frantically, though Lily paid no attention to the matter.

“You have been taking it, haven’t you Al? You seemed off at breakfast today, I was worried that could have been the cause.” Lily’s voice trailed off at the end, clearly she was more worried than I thought.

I looked up from my bag, momentarily forgetting my missing letter. I reached across the table and put my hands on either side of her face, squishing her cheeks so she looked like a fish. “Lily Evans, you’re not supposed to be worrying about me. You have too much already weighing on you, especially with your Head Girl duties. Please do not worry. I am fine.”

I let her face go and leaned away. “Besides, I’ve been taking my medicine. Why wouldn’t I? The real problem here is that I can’t find my parents letter.” I said, probably sounding a bit more dramatic than I had intended.

I plopped my bag onto the table so Lily could look. After a thorough search she sighed and shook her head, “Yeah, it’s gone but why’s it such a big deal?”

I groaned and set my head on the table, “Because if it’s gone, someone must have found it by now. And let’s be real here, Hogwarts students aren’t well-known for their respect of other’s privacy now are we? Somebody out there knows that I have this defect.”

I couldn’t see Lily with my head against the table, but I could practically feel her glaring daggers at my skull. “Alice Charlotte Fortescue, you know I hate when you call it a defect.”

I pushed myself back into a normal sitting position and gave her a shameful look, “I’m sorry. It’s just frustrating some times.”

“It would be less frustrating if you didn’t care if people knew.” Lily pointed out.

“You know why I don’t Lily. I don’t want people looking down on me. Seeing me as something to pity.” I declared for the billionth time. Lily should have known this by now.

She just sighed and shrugged her shoulders, “Then I can’t help you with this one Alice.”

She was right. There was nothing she could do to help, and I knew that her not being able to help me on this subject in anyway made Lily feel like a terrible friend but it wasn’t her fault. I learned long ago that I would have to rely on no one but myself when it involved my illness, and I was fine with it.

~~~~

It was time.

My first tutoring session with Frank was about to start in ten more minutes, and I was freaking out which seemed like a bit of an understatement at the moment.

I had gone straight my supper that night to the library which hadn’t been the greatest idea as the tutoring session had been forty five minutes away so I had sat and flipped through my astronomy notes and textbooks nervously while waiting.

I wasn’t sure exactly what Frank needed tutoring on so I hadn’t written up any guidelines on what to cover. I honestly had no preparation whatsoever.

I glanced up at the clock once more and placed my head in my hands. Five more minutes.

I had been slowly feeling worse and worse throughout the day. My headaches and nausea had seemed to disappear after my little episode at breakfast, only to resurface even stronger between lunch and supper.

I was rubbing my temples to get rid of the dizzy sensation when I heard someone sit down in the chair across from me. My head shot up, eyes wide open now, and saw Frank sitting in the chair giving me a skeptical look.

“Tough day?” He asked casually, tossing his bags on the ground and placing his feet on the table.

I crinkled my nose and sat up a bit straighter, “My day has been fine, thank you for your concern. Now, if you don’t mind I’d rather not have your foul smelling feet anywhere near my face. Thanks.” I flashed him an overly sarcastic smile.

Frank rolled his eyes, but did remove his feet from the table. “What a lovely welcoming. Seems like a grand start to our little date.”

“Ha!” I brushed some dirt that had fallen off his shoes off the table, “Believe me, this isn’t anything close to a date. Besides, I thought your idea of a date would involve less books, lighting and clothes.”

“Is that all you think I do? Shag girls? Wow Al, I love how you think so highly of me.”

I didn’t respond. My head was spinning so much already, I didn’t know how I’d make it through this session. “So…” I spoke slowly, focusing on my text book instead of him, “What do you need to know? Is there anything specific?”

“No, nothing specific. Just the entire course to be quite honest. It doesn’t make much sense to me.”

I scrunched up my nose and looked back up at Frank, “Then why on Earth are you taking the class? Do you need it?”

Frank shook his head and the corner of his mouth tugged up into the smallest of smiles, “No, I don’t need the class. Let’s just say I find the subject fascinating and leave it at that.”

I groaned and let my head fall back, “Why do you have to be so damn mysterious all the time? Can you never give a straight answer?” I questioned him, my head rolling to the side.

Another wave of nausea and dizziness ran over me at that moment and I lurched forward as if I was about to vomit but stopped myself. I felt a small prickle of fear crawling up my spine. My illness had only caused me to actually throw up once before, and it was when I was three years old.

I had ended up at St. Mungo’s for two months after.

Frank leaned forward and it looked like he was reaching towards me but my eyes must have been playing tricks on me. “Are you feeling all right little Alice? Do you want to reschedule?” Frank asked.

I shook my head and pushed my hair out of the face, tucking it behind my ear. “No don’t be stupid. I’m perfectly fine. Plus, this was our deal I can’t skip out.” I let that horrible nickname slide this time.
“We really should actually start studying. We’ll go through the main concepts of the class and see what you understand and what you don’t and go from there. If we need to we can go to the Tower at some point one session. Sound good?”

Frank nodded slowly, “Sure, whatever you say Professor Fortescue.”

“Okay, open your textbook to the first chapter and we’ll start by making sure you know how to locate the constellations.”

We continued to go through the first chapter for a little over two hours. In this time I had caught Frank watching me probably about twenty times. I had ignored it though, seeing as Frank was an odd guy and he was bound to do odd things.

“The library is closing.” Madam Pince’s grating voice called out from behind me. “Come on, get going.”

“We’ll be right out Madam.” I said back to her with a smile, which she responded to with a scowl in Frank’s general direction before storming off to harass more studying students.

Frank stood up and began gathering his books rather quickly.

I frowned and slowly started to close up my books and tidy my belongings, “Are you really in such a hurry to get away from me?”

Frank stopped dead and glanced up at me, his expression softening as he studied my face. “Of course not Lil’ Alice. I have a previous engagement I need to be getting to.”

I let out a noise of understanding and nodded my head, “A date with Liv I assume?” I wasn’t sure why, but it felt uncomfortable for me to say that, as if him going on a date with Liv was a bad thing.

Frank smiled, “Sure, if that’s what you want to call it.”

“Ugh, you’re disgusting.” I said, emphasizing disgusting. I grab my bag and stood up. I didn’t realize how bad of an idea that had been.

The second I stood up I felt yet another round of dizziness rushing up into my head. I felt my body sway slightly and I set my bag down gently.

“Hey, Alice are you alright?” Frank asked without a trace of his usual sarcasm. He sounded genuinely very concerned.

“Yeah, I’m fine. You should get going, you wouldn’t want to miss your date with…with…” And that was as much as I could get out before my body began to slowly collapse forwards.

Fainting is an odd sensation, I couldn’t actually feel myself falling, but I could sense the ground rushing up to meet me. When my vision faded to black it was as if a black cloud was slowly settling over my eyes, blocking out the remaining sun.

The last thing I recalled before fully going unconscious was a familiar voice calling out to me, and a set of warm and muscular arms wrapping around my body right before impact.

“You’re okay.” The voice whispered in my ear, “I’ve got you. You’re okay little Alice.”

And then there was only darkness.