hi, frank here

She grinned at him over her shoulder.  Most of the people in the Auror office were some combination of stuffy or intimidating.  Frank didn’t fit either of those molds, so she was always glad to see him.  “I’m afraid you don’t quite meet the requirements.” 

It was sweet to watch him interact with her partner.  She knew he was expecting a kid soon, and it was more than clear that he was going to be an incredible father.  “What do you think?”  She leaned in, grinning at the girl she was already playing with.  “You think we can make room for a third?”

The girl enthusiastically tossed the Quaffle in Frank’s direction with no warning, and she and Hestia giggled together as the ball bounced off his forehead.  “I would take that as a yes.  Come on.”

"It’s because I’m too tall right?” he asked, feigning ignorance at the fact that maybe some of his features didn’t match with the other Harpies. Not like him being female would have changed anything, he had pretty bad hand eye coordination though when trying, it was often good enough.

He was quite surprised when the quaffle came towards him, reaching his hands out at the last second with no luck as the ball bounced off his head. It hurt a bit but was really no harm and he chased after the ball catching it nearby. “Playing dirty already, don’t expect me to go easy on you.”

With some general concentration he managed to pass the ball back to the girl, not missing his mark by too much. He watched as she caught it, throwing the ball in Hestia’s direction with a huge smile on her face. This was the kind of calm peacefulness he’d been needing these past few days and Frank eagerly awaited the not so gentle ball Hestia might throw his way.

It was a rare, sunny day – the air had a pleasant bite to it, cold enough to wake you up but warm enough that all you needed was a light jacket.  It was the perfect day for the Harpies’ latest press event – a day in the park.  A few autographs signed, some pictures, playing around with a toy Quaffle with some kids whose parents shelled out the galleons.  A family friendly appearance. 

She was sitting in the grass, legs crossed in front of her, bouncing a ball back and forth with a little girl who looked to be about 5 or 6.  “Good,” she laughed as her partner hit the ball with a clenched fist.  “We’ll make a chaser out of you in no time.”

A shadow distracted her, and instead of hitting the ball back toward her pint-sized companion she craned her neck to see who was standing behind her.  “Sorry,” she grinned.  “right now I’m playing with my future teammate.  But for 5 galleons you can have next go.”

"Awww are you saying that I can’t be a future Hollyhead with you?” Frank pouted, smiling at the little girl Hestia was playing with. “You’re very good, much better than me,” he whispered to the girl, smiling down at her. A weird burst of happiness overcame him, Frank’s grin widening as he thought about the fact that his son was due to be born soon. Maybe he’d be like this little girl one day, smiling happily and playing with a quaffle. Since Alice’s due date was looming not too far in the distance Frank often got a little goofy when looking at young kids. He’d have his own soon.

“I don’t think I’m willing to shell out 5 galleons to get my butt kicked by you, I don’t suppose you can give your Auror friend a little discount?”

Getting a drink or two after work was hardly atypical – she stopped by one of a rotating list of pubs nearly every night.  No one could blame her.  Her job was stressful under the best of circumstances, but in the middle of a war it was enough to drive her cold, black heart to ache a bit.  But what had begun as a few drinks had turned into more of a celebration of the end of another week.  There were people here she liked, ones she would prefer stopped existing, and ones she didn’t know at all – the mixture made it fun.

“Pathetic,” she sighed.  Shoving her tall pint of cheap beer in the hands of the person closest to her.  “That was absolutely nothing.”

Could she actually do this?  It had been years since she had run through the fields with her cousins, tumbling and goofing off.  But if she fell on her ass it’d all be part of the story.  She took a deep breath and ran forward, springing up until she was balancing on her hands.  She moved forward a few steps on her hands before she fell forward and landed on her ass.  “That was awesome, I know.  You don’t have to tell me.”

Frank hardly entered pubs. Hell, he hardly ever drank. It just wasn’t much of his style, he was plenty happy enough having sober fun and didn’t mind the teasing of his other friends when he decided to pass on round after round of drinks. But there was such a thing as office culture and while there really wasn’t much of an Auror office anymore, Frank didn’t want to lower the moral by passing up a night out, even if that did mean he’d see a little less of Alice for a night. A dreadful thought for the newly turned homebody, since they’d moved in together they’d hardly spent any time apart and now with the anxiousness running through his body, he was wondering if that was exactly a healthy thing.

“Are you okay?” Frank asked Yuki, putting the pint she’d shoved into his hands down and going to help her up. “Very impressive, did it take a lot of practicing to be able to perform?”

“Hopefully she wouldn’t eat all of them at once, but one never should judge the taste of a pregnant woman.” He said sagely, nodding. One of his uncles had made the mistake of questioning his wife exactly once and to this day no one let him live it down. Frank deserved far better than that. He seemed a very stand-up man, hero Auror and all that. Plus he was very cute. Lucky Alice.

“I’m sure there’s some science behind it all but I’ve never been much into research, myself. Vance is, though. She might know, that woman is full of terrifying trivia.”

"I think they have the potential for some genius food combinations. Sure there’s a lot of trial and error but I have hope Alice will come across something genius one day.” Their child couldn’t be making Alice eat anything too horrendous after all. Probably, though this combination of weird salty and sweet foods was probably not the most appealing.

Even when they were the same age or not that much older than him, Aurors always had a more adult aura to them that made Henry automatically stand a little straighter. Not that he wasn’t perfectly capable of disrespecting people, Aurors just immediately put him on different footing. Aurors and Emmeline. 

Henry canted his head slightly in Frank Longbottom’s direction to acknowledge his point, though he kept scanning their surroundings as they made their way through the castle. 

“Fair point. Still, you lived with them for seven years. Don’t tell me you aren’t at least a little bit surprised that they pulled this off? Not to knock my cousin and Sirius Black.”

He didn’t want to be rude, to insist that he wasn’t all that surprised with what the boys head’s could think of and accomplish themselves. “I think living with them gives me a little bit of a different perspective. I could also see their thought process more and maybe that’s why it makes sense to me?” He watched them struggle a bit with pranks or one of their crazy ideas. It was kind of like seeing a behind the scenes. “I can completely understand why it might seem crazy though they weren’t exactly the most know for their brain power.”

He paused to stare at a particularly part of the wall, thinking he saw something for a second before moving on. “And this is a crazy invention I wouldn’t even think of something like this.”

Stealth

“A magic map.” Henry shook his head. “It’s rude that I’m having a hard time believing it, isn’t it? The level of discipline required for something like that…”

Was discipline that his cousin and friends lacked. Or not, if what they were saying was true and they’d made a true-sight, ever-changing mal of Hogwarts and everyone in it at any given time. At fifteen Henry had been hiding in the library and glaring at people so hard he made them cry. Apparently the Gryffindor bunch had been putting their intellect to work.

The instinctive urge to defend his friends boiled to the surface, Frank stopping himself before the words could leave his mouth. Henry was probably just making a comment, even Frank himself was stumped by the magic they would have had to pull off to make such an object. But with the number of people Frank called friends and trusted slowly dwindling, he couldn’t help but feel a bit protective of them.

“Honestly I wouldn’t even know where to start with it. But they had four brains put together so it makes a bit of sense when you think about it.”

She watched for just a moment, as a man with bags and boxes in every bit of available space in his arms.  It took her a long moment to recognize him as Frank Longbottom – a man she knew, but one that she didn’t know particularly well.  She watched him struggle for a moment, feeling guilty but unsure if she knew him well enough to know if he’d even want her help.  But when the third gust of wind appeared to nearly blow him over she stood and walked toward him.  “Do you need help?”  It was a challenge to keep the laughter from her voice.  He looked silly.

Without waiting for an answer she took a few of the bags that were dangling from his left arm and one of the smaller boxes, helping him balance a bit better. She smiled happily at him.  “This is a bit better, isn’t it?  Where are we heading?”

It wasn’t long before Frank his arms being relieved of their weights, spinning one last time to see a girl grabbing his things. A familiar person, a witch! “Thank you so much,” Frank gasped with a smile, finally using his free hand to wrap his scarf back around his neck. “I’m afraid I took on more than I thought I could handle.”

Looking around he realized he’d almost pulled out his wand out in front of other muggles. Thankfully he hadn’t. “I was thinking of picking up some things at the Ministry but it looks like that’s probably not a good idea. Perhaps a bag store? Then I can charm it to hold everything.”

“I will admit the binge-ability of soft pretzels does leave quite a bit to be desired.” He said with a differential nod. This was somehow not the strangest conversation he had ever had in the middle of a convenience store, but it was creeping its way up there. 

Gilderoy laughed, delighted. “The entire store may be slight overkill. But salty does tend to be a good seller. My aunt craved nothing but pork rinds for months, her poor husband.”

“Carrots, pickles, and pork rinds an interesting combination,” Frank pondered. With Alice the type of cravings hadn’t been too bad, there was nothing extreme or weird about them for him to judge. What was the problem with them was that her cravings often came at times that the shops were closed and therefore the things she craved harder to acquire. 

“I wonder why little babies crave these things? Like do they already have a taste preference in mind in the womb or is this all just completely random human body things?”

“Glad to know there are things you put work into,” Moody said mostly as a joke and not particularly meaning it. After all, Frank was actually a good Auror even if he asked questions like this. Moody just liked to keep the them on their feet and he had a feeling it would spread around the office that he had attempted a joke. He’d remembered Kingsley running around telling everyone he’d actually laughed once and he figured it would be a good moral boost. 

“Hm,” He said in response to an absurd premise. “I can’t say I’d pick that name for them, but perhaps he did like peas. In any case I don’t think this has anything about the reports you were supposed to be working on, unless the scientist might be a wanted criminal. In that case excellent work Longbottom. In seriousness did you find anything on those leads I gave you? I know a few of them were longshots.” 

"Only the important things Moody,” Frank assured him. Was it a little cocky of him? Sure, and Frank was sure he’d go over and over the response in his head for the next few months. But Moody had said that as a joke right? The older man may have a rough exterior but Frank and everyone else in the department and Order knew that he was secretly a softie... at least Frank believed he was a softie.

“Nothing about scientists liking peas no,” Frank said, sliding in one last joke before getting towards work things. “Nothing definite just a few things leading towards our assumptions. I think in another week I should be able to weed out a few that we should either follow or give up on.”

For someone who’s eyesight was as bad as James’, one would think he would take better care of the very item that helped him not walk into walls and poles. Of course, James wasn’t that hard of sight, but his vision was rather blurry, and not having his glasses in tip-top shape made it more difficult to see things clearly. For some reason, it seemed that he was always breaking them, though less frequently now than when he was a kid. It helped a lot that he wasn’t on a field smashing into other witches and wizards on brooms though. 

“Don’t suppose you’re good at repair charms?” he asked aloud, chuckling a bit awkwardly. Holding out his glasses for the other to see, they had a crack in one of the lenses, and a scratch on the other. 

“I think I can manage,” Frank said inspecting the glasses held out to him. In the time that he and Ted had been partners in the Order they’d broken plenty of things and in turn had practiced repair charms in the process. “But shouldn’t you be a master of these at this point?”

Even without his glasses James should be competent enough to point his wand towards them. Well, Frank wasn’t one to judge and he held the specks carefully in his hand while fishing in his pocket for his wand. “Should just be a quick second.”

Winter was her favorite time of year.

There was something just so comforting about layers and a good, knit cap.  Her hair never seemed to lay flat from November until March, but it was a small price to pay for perpetual coziness.  And it reminded her of home.  She had little to no desire to return to Bulgaria in the near future, but it was still nice to have small reminders of what used to be.

It was a touch too cold to be outside, but she liked the way the air bit at her nose.  She sat on a bench just outside the entrance to the Ministry, but in Muggle London, with both hands wrapped tightly around a to-go cup of hot chocolate.  She’d head back in soon, there were still a few pages of translations from the French Ministry that she’d like to get to before heading home for the evening.  But she could do with a few moments of people watching – this was the perfect spot to see the gentle mixture of magical people and Muggles, intermixing on their way to work or to lunch.

Winter was always hectic. He was always struggling last minute to find everyone presents and to go home and help his parents prepare to have guests over. This year was worse than ever with his mother practically calling him over every weekend to shove baby clothes into his hands and remedies for Alice to eat or drink. He was just coming back from a trip, apparating close to the Ministry in hopes that he could drop something off before heading home. That however seemed to be a bad idea as the cold winter air undid his scarf and threatened to blow him over with all his bottles and packages in his hand.

Unfortunately, Frank the ever forgetful pureblood, had left his wand in his pocket completely out of reach. Another strong gust of wind threatened to blow him over and he stumbled around while trying to hopelessly twist around so his scarf wouldn’t touch the dirty cobblestones. He must look like an utter fool, and he huffed before turning his body as a third gust flew by him.

“You forgot? Aren’t you an auror?” Adelaide laughed, before nodding. “I have to agree, there’s a certain novelty surrounding having a miniature pet. What animals does she like?” She asked. “Maybe if you find her favourite animal and, you know, make it mini, that way she’d be more likely to approve.”

“Probably take us both on, let’s be real.” Adelaide joked. “Is there a charm, perhaps? There’s got to be, someone must’ve come up with a solution before now, right?” She asked. “Well, he is right on most things,” Adelaide admitted. She held a great amount of respect for Alastor Moody. Not necessarily about this topic, just in general. “What about a krup? A little bit magic, a little bit dog.”

Sometimes Moody wondered why he hired the people he did, but at the end of the day Frank was a great Auror, even if he was a kid at heart. However, he had to feel for Alice with all of this. It almost sounded like something Alex would pull. He just hoped Alice put her foot down more than he managed to do. 

“I mean I guess if you have a plan it’s not the worst thing you can do - but I’m still not going to tell you to do it. Sounds like an awful lot of work for a - pod? of dolphins. I’m sorry but is that actually the name for it? Who came up with that?” 

“I think this is one of the things I’m willing to put in the work for,” Frank said hopefully convincingly. Something strange and random like this was just the sort of thing he’d spend hours devoting his time towards instead of mulling over Auror paperwork or answering Order owls. Not like he procrastinated on those tasks much but it’s not like he was always the most hardworking towards them.

“Yes a group of dolphins is indeed called a pod, I expect some old scientist deduced that would be a fun name. Probably a man who liked peas a lot.”

Austen nodded, looking down at her hands. She couldn’t look in his eyes.

“I know, Frank, it’s okay,” she told him. “I understand how this works.”

She understood how it worked, but that didn’t mean that she understood what was going on. Fabian would never hurt anyone, and now he was being hunted down. She couldn’t care less about some pureblood wedding, and now she was being treated like a criminal too.

And all this, by the people they had lived and worked and loved beside.

She looked back up at Frank and gave a little nod, reassuring him. She would go along with his questioning, because she knew that it wasn’t easy for him either. He was their friend.

“Where do you want me, then?”

Despite her attempts of trying to make him feel better, it didn’t. It was kind of funny, how they were both trying to comfort each other, but Frank knew in the end she was the one that was really hurting. 

“I guess we could start with the basics, like when was the last time you saw him? What was he wearing? Was he acting strange at all?”