
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/204354.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M
  Fandom:
      Harry_Potter_-_J._K._Rowling
  Relationship:
      Frank/Alice
  Character:
      Frank_Longbottom, Alice_Longbottom, Arthur_Weasley
  Additional Tags:
      at_Hogwarts, Storytelling
  Stats:
      Published: 2007-12-18 Words: 5280
****** Tongues and Tales ******
by cjmarlowe
Summary
     Frank and Alice Longbottom were always meant to be.
Notes
     Written for emiime for Smutty Claus 2007.
She first heard his stories, though she didn't recognise the moment for what it
was at the time, in a small boat on the lake outside Hogwarts castle, on their
very first day at school. It was something about the squid, about where it
lived under the lake or how many Hogwarts students it had drowned or some
outlandish theory like that. Alice didn't remember exactly what the story was,
but she never forgot the look on his face when he told it. Frank Longbottom was
a born teller of tales.
And he never stopped. In fact, the stories grew even more elaborate as they got
older. By third year they had grown to include the 'real' origin of nearly
every magical creature they studied, and by fifth at least half involved the
sacrificing of virgins (in both real and figurative ways). Arthur Weasley once
told her, during one of their late night chats over hot chocolate in the common
room, that the more Frank's mother encouraged him to become a practical and
upstanding young man, the more fanciful his stories got.
It was only once they reached seventh year, a time long past when she should
have noticed herself, that Arthur pointed out that most of the time, Frank was
telling his tales to her.
~~~
"Have you got any idea what that is?" said Alice, stretched out along a sofa in
the common room and listening to an odd sort of warbling coming in the open
window again, not quite singing and not quite not.
"Ah, that," said Frank, nodding sagely from his perch on an overstuffed
armchair. "That would be the sound of the mermaids singing their annual mating
song. You hear those little trills here and there? Like that one, just now?
That signals the sort of mate they're looking for."
"What a load of nonsense," laughed Alice. "Mermaids indeed."
"It's their love song," Frank insisted. "And only here at Hogwarts, at this
time of the year, do they share it with any witches or wizards. You'll not hear
music like it anywhere else in the world."
Alice rather hoped she wouldn't, but Frank had his eyes closed and was swaying
to the sound and she didn't have the heart to tell him she questioned whether
or not it was even music.
"Hogsmeade weekend coming up," he said after a few minutes of comfortable
silence, while flipping the pages of a book called Aquatic Plants of the
Sahara. "Do you think you might go down for this one?"
"I've got Quidditch," she said. "I'll have to go next time."
"You haven't!" said Frank, closing the book with a sharp bang. "Eoin Flannery's
talking about picking up all his Christmas gifts early, and he hasn't said a
thing about Quidditch."
"Not the whole team, just the chasers," said Alice, pulling a face. "Gordon
finally made the team this year and he's not ever played a match before. I said
it would be all right to go this weekend; I've been to Hogsmeade before and
I'll go again."
"All right, but you're missing out," said Frank. "Honeydukes is bringing out
their new line. It'll have to be something special to top last year's."
"You'll have to bring me something, then," said Alice. "I've already promised
to be there and I'll not back out now. If we want a chance at the Cup this year
we've got to get Gordon up to standard quickly."
"Ravenclaw's the best they've been in years," said Frank. "Gryffindor's got a
real challenge ahead."
"You needn't remind me," said Alice, tossing a balled up bit of parchment at
him, "but that's all right, I like a good challenge."
"You and me both," he said. "I've got to get to the library before Eoin thinks
I've forgotten about him. You just keep listening to those mermaids. Maybe
they'll even share some secrets with you in the end."
"Go," said Alice, balling up another piece of parchment in anticipation. "I'll
see you at curfew."
"Maybe you will and maybe you won't," said Frank before disappearing out the
common room door.
~~~
Alice's hair was stuck to her forehead with sweat and she was convinced that
any of the charms she'd used that morning to try to keep it in place were
thoroughly defeated by the sheer exertion of the practice.
"You looked good up there," said Frank, lounging against the stands and waiting
for her as she left the pitch.
"Weren't you supposed to be at Hogsmeade?" she said, pulling her gloves off to
push her hair back off her face. "Something about a feast for the senses at
Honeydukes?"
"Didn't take long to load up on chocolate," said Frank, shrugging and then
holding up a copy of Ninety-one Defences Against Common Jinxes and Hexes. "I
had some revising to do besides. How was practice?"
"Well, I don't think we're going to get completely clobbered by Ravenclaw," she
said, "but it's going to be close. If we win, it'll be because Godric
Gryffindor himself decided to return to Hogwarts and hop on a broom to help us
out."
"You never know," said Frank, falling into step with her as she headed for the
showers. "There's a story about that, you know."
"I knew there would be."
"Of course, he didn't come back to help win the Quidditch Cup, he returned to
help vanquish the foes of Hogwarts. But I'm sure that in a certain light
they're very nearly the same thing."
"Very nearly," said Alice, giving him an indulgent smile. "So how did Eoin's
shopping go? He didn't buy his girlfriend one of those terrible rings from that
old witch selling them in front of The Three Broomsticks, did he?"
"I haven't any idea," said Frank. "I left before he really got started."
"Right," said Alice, "you had all that revising for Defence Against the Dark
Arts to do. As though you won't get top marks in the class again."
"I get top marks in the class because I do all this revising," countered Frank,
"and as you said, there are only so many times you can go to Hogsmeade before
you've seen everything. All I needed to do was stock up at Honeydukes and pick
up a few other things and I was finished. So that loop you did up there today
was new, did you just come up with that?"
Alice paused a moment to look at him curiously. "Just how long were you
watching?" she asked. "I tried that one out ages ago."
"Long enough to see, it seems."
"It didn't work out quite like I planned," she went on after a moment, starting
to move forward again. "Better I tried it out in practice than in the match."
"This seems to be where I leave you," said Frank as they reached the doors,
tucking his book back under his arm for the walk back up to Hogwarts castle..
"See you at supper, Alice."
~~~
It was nearly one in the morning when Alice crept out of bed and headed down to
the common room in her striped pyjamas. It wasn't a surprise that Arthur was
already waiting for her. It would have been more of a surprise if he hadn't
been.
"I've already got Bitsy getting us some hot chocolate," he told her, looking up
from what looked like a perfectly ordinary Charms text but which Alice
suspected secretly concealed a Muggle periodical.
"I couldn't sleep," said Alice unnecessarily, though it wasn't entirely true.
She'd slept soundly for a full four hours, but when she had something on her
mind the dead of night was the time when she couldn't seem to settle.
"I heard Frank skipped Hogsmeade to watch you practice," said Arthur.
"He didn't," said Alice, "he came back early to do some revising while he could
get some peace and quiet. He might've passed by practice on his way in, that's
all."
"Sure he did," said Arthur, "and I passed by the Prewett estate this summer
because I liked the architecture."
"Oh honestly, Arthur, he's my friend," said Alice. "Is it so odd that he might
want to come by to watch me practice? It's not the first time."
"No, it's not, is it," said Arthur knowingly. "In fact, he's come by any number
of times to see you play. And to revise with you, and I believe one time he
said he was going to 'study the giant squid' when you were out with Ellie by
the lake."
"I'm not thick, I can see where you're going with this," said Alice, drawing
her knees up as she sat there on the sofa. "But it's absolute nonsense. He
probably told you he was going to see the giant squid because he didn't want to
tell you he likes to listen to the mermaids singing."
"Mermaids?" said Arthur. "Merlin, what kind of stories has he been telling
now?"
Alice laughed and looked up at the window through which she'd heard the strange
song. "We were revising the other day when we heard something outside," she
said. "Frank tried to convince me it was secret mermaid songs, of all things."
"Mermaid songs," said Arthur. "Now there's a romantic notion if I ever heard
one."
"Romantic," scoffed Alice. "You haven't any idea what you're talking about."
"Haven't I?" said Arthur. "Then what are you doing down here past midnight
tonight?"
Alice didn't have an answer for him. At least, not one she was ready to admit
to. Fortunately, before enough time had passed that she needed to say
something, Bitsy arrived and Alice was free to sit and sip quietly and let
these strange new thoughts marinate.
It was possible, just barely possible, that Arthur was right. And it was
possible that Alice had known it all along.
~~~
"You're going to be late and you haven't even got your robes from the wardrobe
yet."
"Do you think I ought to wear my hairpins today?" Alice blurted out. Not only
had she not put her robes on yet, missing breakfast, but she was still lying
atop the covers of her bed thinking about her conversation with Arthur the
night before. "The ones with the pixie wings."
"Do you even still have those?" Ellie asked her, pulling out her wand to put
the finishing touches on her own elaborate hair. It was, as always, immaculate.
"I haven't seen you wear those since last Christmas."
"I haven't."
"And now you want to wear them to Charms?"
"You're always saying I ought to do something with myself," said Alice, sitting
up and rummaging through her knick-knack box. "Didn't you tell me just
yesterday that I ought to try a hair-straightening charm?"
"It's the fashion right now," said Ellie, "and you've got the hair for it. But
the hairpins... they're a bit third year, don't you think?"
Alice paused before she overturned the whole box. She didn't care all that much
for cosmetic charms and jewellery and frilly robes, and she hadn't realised
that the only decorative hairpins she owned might be terribly out of fashion.
She wasn't sure she owned anything that could be termed fashionable at all.
"I haven't got time to learn a new hair charm right now," she said finally,
slamming the box shut again. "Have you got any other ideas?"
Ellie paused and gave her a quick once-over. "I'm not sure what you're going
for," she said, "but you might want to consider combing your hair today. Just a
suggestion."
Alice hardly even knew what she was thinking anyway. She hadn't ever made
herself up for lessons. She hardly even made herself up for special occasions.
And just because it had suddenly occurred to her that there might be someone
interested in her didn't mean that ought to change. But she still ran a brush
through her hair a few times and found a dark ribbon to tie it up with.
"That'll do," said Ellie with grudging approval, "though if you're getting
dolled up to meet that Ravenclaw boy out under the Quidditch stands, you might
want to go with robes that are a little lower cut."
"Eleanor Binghamton!" Alice admonished her. "I'd do no such thing, least of all
with him. Where did you even get that?" Alice was one of the cleverer students
in her year, but she honestly had no idea where people came up with these
things sometimes.
"Everyone knows he fancies you," said Ellie. "I know you've got other things on
your mind, but one would think you'd notice these things at least some of the
time. And besides, I know perfectly well you're not prudish. You're the one who
told me about that shop off Diagon."
"If I thought every boy I was friends with fancied me, I'd have a head so big
I'd not be able to get through the common room door," she said.
Alice had always known she was a bit plain, especially compared to some of the
other girls in her year, but it had never bothered her. She had her studies and
Quidditch and some of the best friends a young witch could ask for, and there
would be plenty of time for other things once she left school. Boys her age
went after the pretty girls, and really it just saved her the trouble of
dealing with it.
"Yes, well, that's why they fancy you, isn't it?" said Ellie. "Now put on your
robes and grab your books."
Alice pulled on her standard student robes - no embellishments, no adjustments,
nothing anything like what Ellie might suggest - and checked herself just once
in the mirror.
"Another couple of years of patient coaxing and I might even convince you to
try cosmetics," said Ellie before tugging on her arm. "Come on, or we're both
going to be late."
~~~
They met in the corridor outside charms, because despite the fact that Frank
sat at one corner of the room and Alice sat at the other, they always managed
to gravitate towards one another sooner or later.
"Good job today," she said, and for a moment she considered making the sort of
pose that Ellie would have made, but the ribbon was enough of a concession to
that sort of thing for her. "Flitwick looked pleased."
"Flitwick looks pleased every time we manage not to cause a minor explosion,"
said Frank. "I hear you got a higher mark on your Potions essay than I did."
"You heard, did you?" said Alice as she slipped her books into her shoulder
bag. "Don't you mean you peeked?"
"Heard, peeked, it's all the same in the end," he said. "I'll have you know I
practically slept in the library when I was writing that one. I haven't any
idea how you could have beat me."
"Oh you haven't, have you?" said Alice. "No one could ever possibly top you, is
that it?"
"Oh, I know you can top me, I just haven't any idea how you did it this time. I
poured my blood, sweat and tears into it."
"Not literally, I hope," she said, "or that might explain it right there. Or
maybe I'm just better in Potions than you are."
"Perish the thought," said Frank, grinning at her. "Blow a cauldron up one time
and everyone starts thinking it's your weak subject."
"I can't imagine how they could have come to that conclusion," she said,
hoisting her bag up onto her shoulder and being careful not to dislodge the
precarious ribbon. "Are you coming back to the common room?"
"I've promised to help Eoin with his Defence work," said Frank, looking up the
corridor at where Eoin was, in fact, lingering against the wall and looking
expectant. "But I'll see you later. Who knows, maybe the mermaids will sing for
us again."
~~~
She could see that something was the matter with Arthur the moment she returned
to the Gryffindor common room. Not that it would have been immediately clear to
anyone else, but Alice had known him all her life and could see just by how he
was sitting that something was on his mind.
"We've got one last warm day today," she told him, sitting down next to him and
immediately pulling the ribbon from her hair. "We could go out by the lake for
a walk, if you'd like."
Arthur just gave her a sad smile and pulled the ribbon from her hands where she
was already fussing with it, winding it round her fingers. "And what's this
about?" he said. "Trying something new?"
"I thought it might be a good idea, after everything we talked about," she
said, sighing softly. In retrospect, it seemed more than a little bit silly,
that after all their years of history something as slight as a ribbon would
change anything. "I'm not even sure he noticed."
Arthur shook his head, and if he still looked a bit down, at least there was
some amusement to go along with it. "What exactly are you trying to get him to
notice?" he said. "He already notices you."
"I thought he might notice me differently."
"He already does that too, if you ask me," said Arthur. "It's not like those
stories he tells, you know. Romance isn't like that, with the hearts and the
flowers and the cauldrons of burning love. You're trying to make it more
complicated than it is."
"It's not romance," she protested. The word seemed so flighty, so unlike the
friendship she'd shared with Frank for the past six years. "It's just something
new."
"Whatever you want to call it," he said, "it all amounts to the same thing in
the end. About time, too."
"We've talked about this, you know," she said. "We decided in fourth year that
neither one of us was ever going to become like those moonstruck witches we
used to see, not if we wanted to make it into Auror training."
"And you didn't, did you?" he said. "Except for the ribbon, you don't seem the
least bit moonstruck to me. I'd've known something was wrong if you were, not
that something was right."
"At least I didn't take Ellie's advice," she said, "or you'd not have
recognised me when I walked in the room." Even in the blush of first
recognition, though, Alice had known that Ellie's advice wasn't for her. "Is
everything all right, Arthur?"
She wouldn't have asked, but Arthur generally liked to take the piss out of
her, and if there was ever a time to do it this was it. But he hadn't so much
as glanced at the opportunity, much less jumped at it.
Arthur didn't generally talk about things, though, and true to form he just
shrugged at her. "Molly's family is overcomplicating things," he said, which
was his way of saying that they still didn't approve of him and were giving
Molly a hard time about it. "Love itself is pretty straightforward. It's only
when other people involve themselves that things get difficult."
It was certainly advice to bear in mind, even if she hadn't the practical
experience to understand it entirely.
"You don't actually need to change anything at all," he said. "All you've got
to do is say yes."
~~~
When Alice crept down the stairs to the common room she found, not Arthur, but
Frank, sitting there in his favourite chair with a book open in his lap. He
looked up and smiled at her when she approached, as if he'd been expecting it
all along.
"Arthur's sneaked out to meet Molly," he told her. "He said he thought you
might need some company tonight."
"I'd only thought to get something to drink," she said, though it was a clear
untruth. Perhaps someone else might not have noticed, but Frank would, and did.
"I'm worried about the Quidditch match," she amended. While it wasn't the whole
truth, it was enough of one that it would do. "I don't like to lose."
"No, you really don't, do you," said Frank. "Do you want to get out of here?"
"I'm in my pyjamas," Alice pointed out. And while they were warm pyjamas, they
wouldn't do to go wandering around in the crisp autumn weather.
"I've brought a cloak for you," said Frank, pulling it out from behind his
chair and handing it over. "Just in case. I'm a little itchy to get out of here
for a little while myself."
"Just so long as we don't get caught," said Alice, pinning the long cloak
around herself without further protest. "I haven't got the time to serve
detention right now."
"At least you can get a lot of revising done," said Frank, "depending on who
catches you. Have you got your shoes?"
Alice searched for a moment, but finally just pulled out her wand and cast a
quick summoning charm. She didn't ask where they were going, and found it
didn't really matter to her. The garden, the pitch, the lake, any of it would
be a welcome excursion.
Frank did lead them out to the lake, the autumn wind whipping the surface into
tiny waves.
"Hard to believe it's almost over, isn't it?" said Alice, as she sat down on
the bank.
"Our time at Hogwarts?" said Frank. "Don't get ahead of yourself, we've still
got the rest of this year and our NEWTs to finish first."
"Still, it's hard to believe all this time has passed already. I remember the
day before I got on the train for the first time, how excited I was. It was all
still ahead of me."
"It all still is," said Frank. "We'll finish school and get into Auror training
and who knows what's going to happen after that. That's pretty exciting too.
And who knows, you might get the Quidditch Cup yet."
"It'll take a miracle."
"There is such a thing," said Frank, picking up a pebble and tossing it into
the lake. The ever-expanding ripples didn't call any of the lake's denizens to
the surface; much like everyone in the castle, they were all fast asleep.
The silence between them was comfortable, as comfortable as it had always been,
and everything really was the same, even with her newfound awareness. Alice and
Frank were Alice and Frank, they way they'd always been.
"It's snowing," said Alice after a little while, holding out her hand palm up
and looking up at the dark sky.
"It's about time," said Frank. "The sky's been threatening our first snow for a
week. Are you warm enough?" He already had his wand out for a warming charm
before she could even tell him that she was perfectly comfortable already.
"Thank you," she said instead, and sat nearly pressed up against his side.
"There's a rock on the coast where my Uncle lives that looks just like a young
girl," said Frank, stretching his legs out in front of himself and leaning back
on his hands. "They say that many years ago she froze in place, right there,
and over time her body slowly turned to stone."
Alice could imagine him with a half dozen children at his knee, telling these
same stories to wide-eyed, eager faces. Frank was going to be an amazing father
one day, and that might have been an even more important thing than being an
amazing Auror.
"You're the best friend I ever had," she said, and tucked her arm into his.
~~~
"Do you know that missing stone in Ravenclaw Tower?" said Frank, leaning
against the wall outside the Great Hall. "The one right near the base; you
nearly can't see it through the shrubbery."
"The one that was hexed during the Triwizard Tournament of 1862," said Alice.
"Of course I know it. Everyone knows it."
"Aha," said Frank, "but do you know how it really vanished?"
Alice fastened the clasp of her cloak and smiled at him. "Something tells me
I'm about to hear all about it."
"The year is right," said Frank, taking her sleeve and leading her outdoors
onto the Hogwarts grounds, "but it wasn't the Triwizard Tournament. That was
just a convenient coincidence."
"And I suppose you're the only one who knows this?"
"I have read through half the library," said Frank, "or so Arthur seems to
think. No, it wasn't the tournament, it was a lovers' quarrel between John
Hawthorne and his lady love, Anna Oldham."
Lady love, indeed. "A quarrel gone so badly wrong that they hexed a piece of
the foundation of Hogwarts right out of existence?"
"Just the opposite," said Frank, quickening his steps. "The missing stone was
apurpose, a sign of good faith and undying love. In the midst of his
desperation at their senseless quarrel, John created his own secret hiding
place in the castle, like the Founders before him, right at the spot where he
and Anna first met. Right where he knew she still went nearly every day. And
inside of it he placed a token of his love for her."
He stopped speaking right when Alice was getting into his tale. "And then?" she
said.
"The last page had been torn from the book," said Frank, grabbing her hand and
giving her a little spin, and only when she came to a stop again did she
realise they'd walked round the castle while he'd been talking and now stood
direction in front of the missing stone in question. "There's a legend now,
that if you love and are loved, purely and completely, you can reach inside and
discover what he left for her."
Alice didn't answer, nor did she made any movement towards the wall. Instead
she just grabbed hold of his shirt and pulled him close and kissed him square
on the lips.
It was ridiculous, it was all so ridiculous, that they hadn't done this
already, on that day outside Quidditch practice, on the train to Hogwarts, in
fifth year in the restricted section, in first year right there on the boat...
it was a moment they'd been moving towards from the day they met.
"Alice," he breathed, and she knew that he had been waiting, he'd been waiting
for her, for just as long and with a lot more awareness of where they'd been
going all along.
"Come on," she said, only after letting their kiss linger for oh, so long a
time. It was everything a first kiss should have been, satisfying in and of
itself and still a prelude to something more. To everything to come. "I'll not
give Ravenclaw the satisfaction of seeing us."
He hadn't expected that, she could see it on his face, but Alice had never been
so sure of anything.
"No one's got Quidditch today," she said. "They'll not be using the shed at
all."
The shed in question was well within their grasp, just a short sprint away and
hidden from the rest of the castle. Frank took her hand and wasted no time
getting her there, and if anyone saw their flight across the grass they never
mentioned it to them, that day or ever after.
"I wrote you a letter," Frank told her as he shut the door behind them and
pressed his soft lips to her throat. "I told you everything."
"You what?" said Alice, breathless from the run and the anticipation and
feeling a hot flush begin to creep up her body. "A letter?"
"I told you everything," said Frank again, slowly drawing her robes open. "I
told you I wanted this."
Alice let him do that and more, trusting his sure hands and knowing that Frank
wouldn't ever do this if he wasn't as certain as she was. It felt both exciting
and inevitable.
"And you didn't give it to me?" she said, drawing off his robes as well,
stripping down his layers of clothing till he was nearly bare.
"It was in the hole in the castle," he said, running wondering hands down her
body, slowly, as if seeing her again for the first time. "You were meant to
reach inside."
At that Alice couldn't help but kiss him again, for it was the sweetest, most
romantic gesture she could imagine. Arthur had been right that this didn't have
to be complicated, but wrong that it wasn't just as romantic as any story he'd
ever told.
"Are you sure about this, Alice?" said Frank, his hands skimming over her
breasts, handling them gently.
"I've always been sure," she said, stripping off her underpants and leaving
herself completely open to him, completely trusting and utterly and completely
in love with him.
He took her at her word, and his hands did not restrain themselves to any
particular place, moving over her chest, her belly, her arms, and finally
between her legs. Alice remained passive as he began, but as she grew warmer,
as she grew more confident, she reached out and explored him as well. It as a
Frank she'd never seen, not entirely, laid out as naked before her as she was
for him. And she wanted to know all of it.
"I want to do this slow," said Frank, mouthing her neck, his lips close to her
ear, "but I don't know if I can."
"I don't know if I can let you," said Alice. "I didn't know I was waiting for
this, but I was, and I don't want to wait anymore."
She was wet and he was hard, and she let her fingers trail down his length,
base to tip, learning him as he shook and moaned under her touch. As he gave
her an equally thorough exploration, his fingers slipping over her and then
into her, drawing out again and moving in ways that she'd only ever done to
herself.
"I've always wanted to you," he said finally, and moved his hands around to the
back of her hard thighs to lift her up against the wall, to slip into her as
easily as if they'd been doing it forever.
They couldn't do it slow, they couldn't, and once he was inside her, holding
her up with her legs wrapped round his back, they began moving together
immediately. Alice reached up to grab hold of what she could, an empty broom
rack, and closed her eyes as he moved inside her and rubbed against her, and if
it was this good the first time she couldn't even imagine how good it was going
to get.
"Alice, oh Alice," he said, moving harder and faster and she gasped as her
orgasm came suddenly, more suddenly than it ever came when she was alone. He
kissed her until she was breathless when he pulled away again, pushing into her
hard and erratic until finally he too gasped and came to a sudden stop and
pressed his forehead hard against her sweat-slick shoulder.
They stayed like that, just breathing, for so long Alice's legs began to ache,
then finally he moved to let her down again, pulling only so far away that they
were two separate people again and not so far that he couldn't touch her, just
as wonderingly as when they first began.
"I've loved you for so long," he said, finally letting his hands come to rest
at her hips.
"I know," she said, pushing her messy hair back and kissing him softly one more
time. "I have too."
And then they were quiet again, touching and breathing and cooling themselves
to the point where they might, at some point, be able to emerge from the shed
again. Quiet, that is, until Frank leaned in and whispered one last thing in
her ear.
"This is going to be quite some story one day."
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
their work!
