Portraits of a Flower in Bloom | Jily

2: The Complexities of Young Love

~ Sunday 4th September, 1977: Afternoon ~
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The train ride ended, and the Gryffindor girls trundled their way towards carriage, hopping in carefully. They had waited behind for a while to get a carriage of their own; as according to Alice there was "important issues to discuss".

After half an hour of jumping into carriages and jumping back off, when even a single other student got on. They finally managed to secure an empty one, and as it started to move, Alice got everyone's attention.

"I have to tell you guys something," Alice sounded deadly serious and they were all intrigued.

"I figured as much when you tried to kick that second year off the carriage," Marlene chuckled, "you traumatised the poor girl, Al."

Lily nudged her friend hard in the arm, a pretty obvious sign for 'shut up'.

Alice took a deep breath, "Frank proposed to me!"

Her friends sat bolt up right, all alert. Lily's eyes had opened wide, her mouth hanging open, completely at a loss for what to say.

"Alice..." Mary started, in barely a whisper. The three glanced between themselves nervously and started to smile. Then gradually, they all broke out into giggles.

"Alice! How on earth did you keep this secret for the whole train ride?" Marlene practically yelled, disappointed in her friend for not divulging the gossip before, but too excited to feel any real resentment.

"Well I wanted to wait for Lily to be here too," Alice grinned giddily at Lily, who felt honoured to have such a sweet friend, "plus I needed somewhere private because... well I haven't exactly answered him yet."

Alice felt herself going momentarily deaf as her very own Greek chorus screamed in her ear in disbelief.

"It's a rollercoaster with you isn't it?" Dorcas muttered as she leaned back into her seat, taking in this crazy turn of events.

The carriage came to a halt but none of them were ready to move yet. They were far too invested in this story now. They'd watched Alice and Frank together for the past 2 years, they were the perfect match. They breathed as one, moved and spoke in sync, they were the epitome of love that all the girls looked up to. None of them could understand why she would ever say no.

"Why on earth did you say no?" Lily asked, sounding perplexed at her friend, "you two are the embodiment of love!"

"I haven't said no exactly... I just said I needed time..." Alice trailed off, frowning anxiously, "it's just, am I not too young to be married? We'd do it after school but still... and we're practically in a war I just don't know whether it's good for me right now. And because I haven't answered our relationship's straining."

"Well that's not what it looked like earlier," Mary quipped snidely.

"Well we were only together for a minute today, but almost every time we talk it's so awkward, and I don't know what to do," tears were falling from her eyes now, she couldn't control it, "urgh can we talk about something else, I'd like to get my mind of this."

They finally stepped off the carriage and started hiking up toward Hogwarts. Unfortunately, they were pretty slow at it, they had waited far too long for a carriage and were now starving and felt exhausted from the train journey.

"Well..." Marlene wriggled her eyebrows at Lily, who groaned anticipating what the distraction might be, "Lily over here can tell us about the Prefect meeting, how was your little Jamesy?"