All Right, Evans?

Chapter 42: Interlude

Tuesday, 6:15 P.M.

"I AM LOSING MY MIND."

"Bloody hell, Alice!" Marlene said, jolting from her seat on the couch where she'd been nodding off over her Ancient Runes translation. "What's got your knickers in a twist?"

"It's got nothing to do with my knickers!" Alice snapped. Since Marlene was too far away, Alice took to whacking Lily around with a roll of parchment. "They aren't in a twist, besides, but you tell me how you feel when it's time for you to get married and it's 'round about a month away and you've got nothing done!"

"'Nothing done'?" Lily repeated incredulously. She caught the parchment Alice was beating her with and tossed it aside to avoid any further assault. "Alice, what are you talking about? You've got the dresses, the venue, and Frank's mum is taking care of the rest of it. All we've got left is the ceremony itself."

Wide-eyed and exhausted, Alice clutched at her curls and tugged, hard, to relieve herself of some of her long-standing stress and jitters. "I don't know!" she practically wailed. "I'm just so tired – all this planning, not to mention studying, and the worrying, I can hardly handle it anymore."

Lily rubbed a soothing hand up and down her friend's back. "Just relax, love," she urged gently. "You've got nothing left to plan; leave the bachelorette preparations to me and Mar –"

"Leave it to us, indeed," Marlene cut in with a mischievous grin. Alice glared at her but didn't say anything.

Ignoring them both, Lily went on. "You're doing fine in all your lessons, too, and N.E.W.T.s are months away, so don't kill yourself over it yet."

"Yet being the operative term," Marlene added none-too-helpfully as she scowled down at her Runes book.

Lily shot her a pointed look before turning back to Alice, whose eyes were shining with the effort of holding all of her feelings back. "As far as worrying goes, well, we all are. But why don't we shelve that for a bit, yeah? We've all been wound-up lately, we deserve a break from it."

"I suppose." Alice sniffed and wiped the dampness from her eyes. "I think I'm just tired, really, working myself up over everything I've got to do, you know..."

"We do," Lily agreed, and Marlene nodded along in acquiescence.

Alice offered them both a rather watery smile. "I'm sorry for shouting, and for beating you mercilessly," she said, allowing herself a small chuckle. "I think I'll head up to bed for a bit, collect myself before I trip over the line of sanity again."

"Good plan," Marlene agreed. "Perhaps I'll be able to salvage my ear drums while you're gone."

"Oh, shut it."

Alice left them then, rubbing her eyes of tiredness and unshed tears as she went. When she was out of earshot, Marlene turned to Lily and very seriously said, "I reckon she's right, though, about losing her mind. It's not just her – more like the whole lot of us. This is too much to deal with."

Lily simply nodded; she didn't need to ask what this was, that much was obviously. This encompassed everything that Alice had mentioned, as well as everything else that was being thrown at them. It was schoolwork, which had been getting progressively heavier and more difficult as their final academic year went into full swing. More than that, it was everything else that was going on within Hogwarts, all the usual tension and discontent, which was gnawing away at all their patience, especially those students who took such clear-cut sides in the war outside.

There were fights breaking out through the corridors, from verbal to physical, many of which Lily and James had to deal with as part of their Head duties. There were threats to contend with, seemingly harmless sabotage in the form of untraceable hexes and tampered-with drinks at various House tables. Such "pranks" never resulted in any lasting damage – a trip to the hospital wing was always enough to diminish the effects – but the driving force behind those actions were a concern nonetheless, considering it was the Muggle-borns and blood traitors who ended up under Madam Pomfrey's care.