WHAT ARE FRIENDS FOR? [ALBUS]

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It had taken a few pieces of parchment until Alice had finally decided that she had written the right letter to her mother. She had gone through at least seven different pieces, scratching through words and scribbling over sentences until each was not fit for sending. She had crumbled each one up and threw them on her bed, much to her Pygmy Puff's joy as he was swimming and wriggling in the pile of crumbled up parchment. Finally, Alice had just decided to wing it and spill the beans. She figured her father probably would have mentioned something to her mother by now, anyway. It was inevitable, and so Alice had finally come to terms with it. This was what she wanted, though, right? To be able to share how she felt? With people she knew who wouldn't say anything to another person? It's what she had thought she wanted, but the more she talked about it and sought out the advice of others, she wasn't so sure.

Alice Longbottom was in love with her best friend. James Potter. They had grown up together in diapers. It was natural, after all, as their parents had all been good friends growing up themselves. Alice and James were the eldest of their families, so the two paired up as partners in crime and would often boss the younger siblings around or cause havoc among the Longbottom-Potter clan. The two were quite the dynamic duo for many years, but then Alice had to go and soil that by developing feelings for James. It had surprised her, of course. It had just happened, she realized, when she had gone a summer without seeing him before her sixth year. Somewhere in there, James and she had both changed. Physically, of course (the two were still quite the same in personalities.) James had turned into a handsome young man, Alice found. And Alice herself had matured and she found herself... blushing and acting weird around James when she had met him after months of not seeing him that year in Diagon Alley. She was able to overcome the jitters, luckily, but as that year progressed she realized that she felt differently about James. She found herself thinking about him a lot more. What he was doing, where he was, and how he was feeling. Sometimes she even thought about if he was thinking about her as well. Alice had never before thought about James like this, and after much deliberation between her inner thoughts, she was finally able to come to terms with her being in love with James Sirius Potter.

Until recently, Alice had not mentioned these feelings to anyone. Not her best friend, Elodie, and certainly not James. However, Alice was beginning to realize that she couldn't keep it to herself any longer. She felt like she needed advice, and she was feeling the desire to share what she felt with people, particularly those she loved. So, Alice had decided on speaking to her father about the subject. As expected, her father had been a great help. He was, as always, encouraging and wise. And his advice never failed to get Alice thinking. But she was feeling like she needed to share this with her mother as well, for surely she would know what to say as well, and even may have had advice that her father had not. So Alice had written a letter telling her mother about her feelings for James, asking her for her opinion on the matter. Her father had luckily not disapproved of her liking James, but Alice wasn't sure what to make of all the other advice he had given her... much that she would save to think back on for later. Now she was focused on sending this letter to her mother.

Alice walked up the dung covered steps to the Owlery with the folded parchment in hand. Normally, she would have used her father's bat, Percival, to deliver letters to her mother but this was a personal, top secret (to Alice, at least,) letter and Alice did not want anyone recognizing the bat and intercepting the letter. It was silly to think that, of course, for it was just a letter telling her mother that she had a crush on a boy. It wasn't as if it was some extremely important letter in which she had confessed to hiding some expensive family heirloom or killing people, so it was a bit over dramatic of Alice to want to use an owl. But it was her prerogative and when Alice wanted something done a certain way, one best let her they would have quite an angry badger on their hands.

Albus Severus Potter

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` ALBUS POTTER:

630 . @alice

The year had started out with a rocky start for Albus. A girl had been murdered on the Hogwarts Express and who could have found her, but James. Over the summer especially, Albus had become quite jealous of his older brother. After seeing everything that he was given by their father and the recognition that he would get, Albus was jealous of it all. Especially since he had been the closest one to their father out of the three Potters. Albus had anticipated the invisibility cloak from his father though it was given to James. Who had possession of the Marauder's Map? James. It was getting a bit tiring for the middle child of Harry and Ginny Potter to the point where he had yet to write to his parents. Typically, Albus wrote to them every month though had avoided it since he wasn't too pleased with his home life. The brothers had always been at odds sometimes, bickering and taunting each other nonstop. However, his resentment for James had only grown after being in the Slytherin house for so long. Some people had noticed it, while others had not. Albus was unsure, if James saw it himself though he couldn't have. James still treated him just the same as he had always treated him, as if everything was fine. Albus had always been the great liar of the family, able to lie even if his life was in danger at the time. His talents had come on from being in the slytherin house, a house well known for getting away with things that they did to other people. It also must have been because Albus had been quite close to being sorted into Ravenclaw, a house known for their knowledge.

While, he was avoiding writing to his parents, he had another person that he wrote to. That person was his uncle, Ron. The two guys were similar in that Ron had been picked on by his brothers quite a bit. His brothers had turned something into a spider to scare their brother, almost got him to take the unbreakable vow. If there was anyone that Albus sought advice from, it was Ron. Albus never told him how much he really resented the attention that James got, but would often ask how to deal with his brother. How to handle all the nonsense that his brother would put him through. Albus also got his girl advice from Ron for the year, admitting to him that Albus liked a girl. He had never thought of her as liking him back since the two were friends, but nowhere near as close as she was to other guys. So with a break between his classes, Albus had made his way to the owlery where he could send a letter to his uncle. The letter had been written out during breakfast before his first class. It was going to be the first letter that Albus would be sending out to anyone in his family. Walking up the steps, he caught a glimpse of a girl with blonde hair. A girl that he knew if he had seen, it was her. There was no second guessing who he had just seen. Alice Longbottom in the owlery. The owlery had small openings in the building for the owls to fly in, so it wasn't hard to catch a glimpse of someone as he walked up to the owlery. Albus had stopped on the steps, debating if he should have kept walking. After all, she was the girl that he was about to tell Ron all about. If anyone else could see the owlery from where they were, they would have thought it was a repeat of Harry's fourth year when he had seen Cho in the owlery.

`ooc notes; sorry, it took so long for me to reply.

table (c)ulv of adoxography

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So much had happened in just the last month that as Alice was tieing the parchment to the owl's leg, she almost thought about removing it and ripping it up to rewrite another letter to her mother, detailing all about the year so far. The killing, her first Abraxan ride, the new professors... but upon further argument with herself, she realized that her father probably already beat her to that too.

Alice loved her parents. She liked to think she was pretty close with both of them but when it came down to it, Alice was much closer to her father. She left her brothers to be momma's boys. Alice felt that her father just understood her a lot more. The two could do anything together without even speaking and still manage to have a good time. In fact, Alice didn't even have to tell her father just who it was that she was "in love" with. He had just guessed James. While that scared Alice a little bit, thinking it may be too obvious, she was also thankful that he father had just figured it out.

With a deep breath, Alice tied off the parchment and the owl was off. She watched as the owl began to soar off into the distance with her letter in tow. There was no turning back now.

Then Alice's head automatically turned in the direction of the doorway to the Owlery. She could have sworn she had just heard footsteps. She took a few steps back, careful not to step in large piles of poo, as she readied herself to leave. Whoever it was, Alice did not want to be bothered by them. She sighed a bit as she began to walk toward the exit, her eyes on the ground in front of her. Trying to avoid any real contact with whoever it was turned out to be futile, for while she had been looking down at the ground she turned to walk down the stairs and ended up bumping right into the person outside the Owlery.

Alice's eyes blinked several times, flustered, until she finally looked up to see who she had just bumped into. At first, she had already assessed that her initial reaction would be anger but seeing the familiar dark hair and blue eyes, a smile appeared on her face. "Albus," she said, happily, a sigh of relief exiting her mouth. Albus had been another good friend of hers growing up. Alice had always loved Albus like a little brother. Growing up together did that to a person. Alice looked down at the ground, a little embarrassed she had started to act like a brat. "Sorry about that," she rolled her eyes at herself.

Albus Severus Potter