Who: Alice Longbottom and Lily Potter
What: A night to the cinema turns into a not-so-pleasant time
When: Tonight



Alice licked her ice cream cone thoughtfully, ears focused on listening to the footsteps of the people coming out of the theater behind her. She was so absorbed in her studying for her final Auror exam (final exam, as if in pass or go away forever), that she could hardly enjoy the cinema Lily had dragged her out with. James was in charge of keeping Frank from going insane tonight, and she should be thankful, but maybe Moody was right; the longer you were an auror, the more paranoid you got.

They stopped on the pavement in front of the doors, and Alice caught sight of the two guys that had tried to buy them popcorn earlier. She had tried explaining to them that they had their own money, but Lily had just dragged her away.

"Are you sure they just..." now her ears turned red, "think we're...you know. Cute?" Alice straightened up a bit, and not so subtly lifted her left hand to flash her wedding ring. She supposed it might be strange in the muggle world for two nineteen year girls to be married (both nearly a year or more into their marriage), but that didn't mean she had to get herself used to being hit on or--something.

She probably looked interested in them, the way she was staring now. Alice blushed and looked away, continuing to work on her ice cream.

Lily did everything she could to stop herself from rolling her eyes, keeping in mind that Alice was overly paranoid lately and that she was in full Auror mode lately with her exam coming up. But she found that, after all that, she still couldn't quite stop the motion from coming out as she grabbed her friend's arm and began to steer her off in the opposite direction. For the second time today.

"Yes, I'm sure," she said. "It happens all the time, Alice, whether you're wearing a bloody ring or not. Boys are idiots, surely you know this just from looking at the ones we choose to associate with." Of course, the fact that they were wearing their wedding bands and they'd still been confronted made Lily's blood boil just a little, but she had dealt with far worse in her life. After all, she was married to a man who had a history of hitting on her regardless of who she was or was not dating---it was all the same, really.

Alice's neck twisted over her shoulder to get one last look at the boys (not much older than the two of them, it looked like), before simply letting Lily tug her along. She felt a bit like a child, what with her ice cream cone and the fact that she had no idea how to handle herself in the muggle world, but her brain was far too fried from all the strenuous training she'd been going through. By the end of most days, she couldn't remember why she forced herself to get up and go to work every morning, but Alice had always been a hard worker, and whenever she couldn't recall the ideals of the auror-code, she just reminded herself that she wasn't a quitter.

Yeahhh, that was kind of lame too. Maybe she did it for the cool robes. Scarlet had always looked good on her.

"The movie was good," she said finally, catching up to Lily's pace. 'Manhattan' had been very funny, even if it was strange at the same time. Definitely not something to take the boys (the men, she could never stop calling them 'the boys' in her mind) to, though, so she was glad it had turned out into a girls night. "The lead actor was odd though, what's his name? Woody---"

Something caught her ears again and Alice looked over her shoulder, only to spot the two men (her mind was calling them men, now, because--well, she didn't know, but they were definitely not boys anymore--) on the other side of the street, walking at a slightly slower pace then they were. "They're following us," she whispered, not at all noticing how paranoid she sounded.

"---Allen, Woody Allen," Lily provided. "And yeah, I'd say it was worth the money, at least."

She was so glad that she'd finally been able to talk someone into going and seeing a Muggle movie with her. Of course, she could always take James, but he seemed to do nothing but cause trouble when she let him loose in the Muggle world, and really, she sort of just wanted to get out with one of her friends once in a while. Which was the weird thing, actually, because six months ago Lily wouldn't have been able to handle a whole afternoon talking to and doing things with Alice--she had always thought the other woman was a bit flaky, to be quite honest with herself... But in the past few months, it seemed like she'd become far more tolerable and far less annoying.

Then again, fighting Death Eaters and trying to save the world while keeping one's identity a complete secret would mature anyone up right quick.

Lily glanced down at her watch, oblivious to the way that her companion kept peering over her shoulder. "We've got an hour or so before we told them we'd be back, how about we drop by the---oh, honestly, they are not." She finished her sentence without looking up, a hint of exasperation in her voice. "Look straight and walk."

She wasn't the most astute of people when it came to social situations (just look back at her Hogwarts record and how many times she and Frank had broken up--oy), but Alice wasn't completely oblivious to the coming on of men and--no, this wasn't normal behavior. Actually, it was beginning to quickly turn into what they at headquarters called a 'situation.' Yes, a very simple, to-the-point term, but it meant a lot more than it sounded. Alice knew if they ran into trouble with these muggle men, natural instinct to pull out their wands would take over, and that wasn't a good idea with all the trouble the Ministry was dealing with, but Alice wouldn't hesitate, she didn't think.

"Through here," Alice muttered, not waiting for Lily to respond before tugging her toward the entrance of a some what busy park; there was a concert, or something, being put on a couple of meters away, and people were lingering around the edge. If they cut through the crowd, they could find a secluded area and disapparate out of there. It'd be easy to lose the men, too, it looked like the way that they had gone through was the only entrance into the park for quite some distance, and concert stragglers were creating a cushion between them and--

"Wait--" Alice froze, gripping onto Lily's arm as she most definitely spotted one of the men in the crowd, staring directly at them and just meters in front of them. He started toward them, and Alice looked behind her to see the other man, who could not have naturally made it through that crowd so quickly--How had he---Alice let out a very rare curse, "They're wizards!"

Lily couldn't understand what was going on as they switched places, and Alice began to drag her now---into a park, what was this girl's issue right now? She finally glanced off in the direction that Alice had been looking before, and furrowed her brow when she didn't see anyone there. Okay, this girl was clearly letting her Auror exams get to her now because she was acting like Moody, and a delusional version at that. She suddenly was getting a hint of why she used to not like spending extended periods of time with her.

"Alice---Alice--hey, ALICE!"

No matter how much she protested, it seemed that the other woman couldn't hear her. Alice was definitely in Auror mode right then, and Lily was helpless but to let herself be dragged through the crowd of people, trying to figure out what in the world could have happened that made her think things were going so wrong. It was then that the question was answered for her, as she tuned in again to what her friend was saying, just one single word catching her attention.

"They're what?" Despite her words being a question, Lily didn't think for a second as she put her hand on her wand, ready to grab it out of its holster.

"Wizards! They're magic, there's no way he could've gotten in front of us without apparating, we have to move---" They could technically disapparate right there, but one, the transportation committee would cause such a fit for magic being performed in a huge muggle crowd, and secondly, and more importantly, these men were following them to hurt them, Alice knew--angry wizards were not the best to leave alone in the middle of muggles.

She had noticed what Alice thought was a rundown bathroom area, but she couldn't be sure--there had been fountains around it, and what looked like stalls over the short walls, but---at any rate, there weren't any muggles milling about it, so it would be their best chance. Alice began to push harder through the crowd that seemed to be swelling toward the stage, feeling only slightly guilty about littering the ground with her ice cream cone...

"HOW'S EVERY BODY DOING TONIGHT?" a booming voice shouted from the stage. Music began to blast and before Alice could realize that the concert had begun, a cheering fan's hand shot up in front of her and smacked her hard in the face, knocking her off balance and to the ground. She lost her grip on Lily and scrambled to her feet, the back of her hand to her nose to try and stop it from bleeding.

Where--where did she go, she couldn't---Alice was being pushed back and forth by the now dancing crowd, and in some strange sense of fate, was brushed roughly against by one of the two men (the blond, the one with dark hair had been ahead--) "POTTER WENT TO THE LEFT!" he shouted, and Alice's blood froze.

They were after Lily, they were death eaters after Lily, everything made sense, that had to be---Alice grabbed the back of his jacket as roughly as she could, pulling him around and over, and with a jerk kneed him in a very sensitive area. It was almost scary how her defensive tactics were coming to her, but Alice was not complaining.

"LILY! KEEP D'OING!" she shouted as she forced her way through the crowd, her bloody nose messing up her speech, "KEEP D'OING!"

Lily was in high alert mode now, all thoughts of Alice being crazy swept from her head once an explanation was given. So they had Apparated and so she hadn't seen them when she had looked, and that just explained why they had disappeared so suddenly and okay, maybe Alice was a credible source about this kind of stuff and she should listen to her, but still she couldn't believe they were being followed and attacked right now. Out of nowhere. In the middle of a bunch of Muggles.

Okay, well, actually it was perfect. It was perfect---they'd been caught with their guards down (okay, Alice was pretty high on her guard but) and in a place where Apparition would be too dangerous to perform and magic would be even more impossible. They just----auugh, stupid Death Eaters, this was going to be so fucking hard to pull off here, she'd take a head on duel to this any day.

Lily pushed and elbowed through the tight crowd, fighting to keep a hold of Alice's hand... and failing, with one strong push back from a rather angry fan. She felt herself slip away from her friend as a hand shoved hard into her shoulder and set her off her footing, causing her to fall into yet another fan, who pushed her again and holy crap she felt like some kind of rag doll. Above all of the clamor, she barely heard Alice's voice yelling... something to her, she couldn't tell, nor did she have the time to process it as an elbow to the side of her head sent her ears ringing and brain pounding.

Fuck being short, fuck it all! Lily pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes, feeling dizzy from the previous impact. She knew she shouldn't be stopping here, but if she started running she was just going to fall over and be stepped on and----oh hell, was someone seriously still pushing her? ... Wait, no, no she wasn't being pushed. Those new hands around her shoulders weren't letting go.

Knowing that there was a problem, that she had no other choice, Lily forced her eyes open and all disorientation out of her mind for the time being (she could nurse a headache later), as she had had to do so many times before in these damned situations. She pulled forward and away from the Death Eater's hands with one rough movement and a little help from an elbow thrown back behind her, and bolted off as quickly as anyone fighting through a crowd of rock concert fans could possibly bolt, trying her best to not look back.

"ALICE! ALICE, WHERE ARE YOU!"

Thankfully for the two women, the first song had come to an end and now the performers were talking about the cause--something about a cold war...which didn't make much sense to Alice, but at least they were in a peace loving crowd and---that didn't matter, stop getting distracted!

She caught a flash of red (which could have been the blood from her nose getting into her eyes, but--) and slammed through the crowd and latched onto Lily's arm before she could disappear again. Oh, she'd never been happier to see the woman, and she looked to be okay (funny, how they'd completely ignored Alice, and she was going to be the one with the most injury--if they escaped, of course).

"Dis way----" oh, she sounded like a complete fool, "Come on!"

With the crowd quieter, or at least more subdued, it was easier to get through and find their way to the abandoned stalls. Ugh---ew, ew, this place was disgusting, it was disgusting, how did muggles do this oh, she was going to vomit--

"Let's det out ob here," Alice managed, even though she was trying to hold her breath at the same time (even though she really couldn't breath through her nose anyway).

Lily couldn't have been more relieved than when she finally grabbed hold of Alice's hand again, because Christ, she didn't know what this was about (apart from the fact that, you know, she was right about number one up there on Voldemort's Kill List), but it was better in any circumstance if they were together. No matter which one of them they were after, they had a far better chance of survival if it was the two of them---but just getting the hell out of there altogether wouldn't be a terrible plan either.

So she had no complaints about ducking into the abandoned stalls, despite the rank odor that overcame her nostrils at doing so. This was disgusting, but it could also be their only chance of getting away.

"Right, let's go," Lily agreed and, grabbing her wand out of her pocket, Disapparated without any further question. Who knew if the Death Eaters had seen them, or how far behind they were, but one thing was for certain---they couldn't follow them to the Order house.

Alice appeared about a meter away from Lily inside of the headquarters, hunched forward a bit to stop the nosebleed. She made her way over to a side table to pull out tissues (the girls in the Order, they made sure there were necessities of every kind for their rowdy boys) and pressed it to her nose, turning back to the other woman to make some sort of joke about everything when she spotted the strangest looking----thing, what was that---in Lily's hair.

"Ew--hold on, you've dot--" stupid nose, "Dere's---" It looked like a pine cone, but Alice had taken notice of their surroundings, there weren't any...trees with pine cones (were they pine trees? Merlin, she wouldn't say that out loud until she was sure, Lily didn't need to think she was an even bigger idiot than Alice had a feeling she already---okay that didn't make sense, just--get the--). How did a pine cone get into Lily's hair, when there wasn't one to fall down onto her?

Alice pushed Lily's shoulder gently to turn her, and realized that the pine cone was actually stuck onto Lily's shirt, not her hair. Well, her hair was getting stuck in it now, and--how on earth had it gotten there? It couldn't have fallen, it must've---someone must've put it there, it was the only explanation--

---why would someone stick such a random object onto Lily Potter?

Oh.

Alice let out something of a 'BWAH' sound, and basically ripped the pine cone off of Lily--not pine cone, portkey it was a bloody portkey, and before she could tell Lily that she wasn't crazy and that she didn't mean to pull out some of her hair, the portkey set off and Alice felt a sickeningly tight feeling pulling at her navel.

"OW!" Lily squeaked. She jumped away from the other woman as she rather suddenly ripped away the object--she didn't even know what it was--that she had been reaching for, taking a good bit of her hair along with it. She felt annoyance boiling up, because Alice was fucking nutters and even if she had been right about the Death Eater thing, there was no explanation for her pulling off the whatever-it-was--pine cone, it looked line a pine cone now that she could see it--like it was a fucking gnome or something.

She watched Alice with wide eyes, her mouth halfway open to yell something like 'what the hell!'... but nothing came out, because in that exact second there was a small flash of light and her friend and the pine cone were gone.

Oh. Oh.

Lily's mind worked rather quickly considering the shock of Alice's sudden disappearance, putting the pieces together almost instantly. Somehow Alice had realized that the thing was a portkey---how was still to be determined--and decided to be a hero and grab it off and---that fucking moron!

Lily smacked her hand to her forehead as she continued to stare at the spot in the living room where she'd been moments before, trying to figure out what the hell to do but for that moment only able to think about what an idiot Alice was. Well, well of course she was an Auror, of course she could handle whatever it was---Lily hoped---but that didn't stop Lily from thinking that the other woman had no idea what she was getting herself into by grabbing that away and... oh fuck it all! She needed to find Frank---or no, no, she'd get Frank later, she didn't need a murderous Frank breathing down her neck---James! She needed James, and she needed to owl Dumbledore and get the rest of the Order and then Frank later once they'd figured out what to do. Because Alice was an idiot and had just---auuuuuugh!

This was why she never liked to hang out with Alice Longbottom.