July 21st, 1977
Who: Emmeline Vance and Frank Longbottom
What: Frank's having a hard time dealing with Derrick's death
Where: Emmeline's house, Liverpool



So what if Frank hadn’t Owled Emmeline since Sunday, even though he had promised to give some form of word at the beginning of the week? She would understand, wouldn’t she? Even though Frank highly doubted it, he still kept his head held high as he walked up the steps in front of the Vance’s house. The longer he was away, the less time they had to deal with him; at least, that’s how he saw it. And he couldn’t go home- no no, that wasn’t even a possibility anymore. Ludicrous, even. No no, he would rather feel guilty about staying at their house for a while than go back home just yet.

“Emmeline?” He wrapped on the door, refusing to ring the doorbell. It made such a screeching noise and he hated it, hated it like nothing else. ‘Or, er, anyone’. As Frank waiting, his thoughts rambled to the last time he had been at their door, waiting for it to open. A sickly feeling formed at the bottom of his stomach and he took a breath, trying to not think about it. At any rate, he was feeling better than the last time he had knocked on their door, wasn’t he?

A house-elf had to come running to the backyard to get Emmeline, as she was attempting to follow Anneliese's advice and get a bit of a tan. The girl knew she was just going to end up as red as a Quaffle, but it was something to do besides wait for letters from Ben.

She hurried toward the door, wrapping herself up in a cloak as a bathing suit was really inappropriate to open the door in, and flung it over, "Franklin Tybalt Longbottom, do you even care about what you put me through? No Owls in days, after everything---come on, let's go find something for you to eat," she said, grabbing his wrist and pulling him into the house.

Frank frowned as Emmeline was pulled into the house, nearly stumbling over his own feet. Well, at least he was being pulled in and not shooed out. “Sorry, Emmeline,” he answered, just barely getting his fingers around the door knob to close behind him. “I…er, lost track of time.” That was true; he hadn’t intended to stay at James’ house as long as he had.

"Clearly," she muttered, letting go of his hand as she opened the ice box, pulling out leftovers from dinner. For the past week she'd been preparing more than was necessary, incase Frank dropped in, so they had more than enough for him to eat. "Here, a quick heating spell should do it good, it's only been in there for a little bit," she said, putting the plate of steak, mashed potatoes, and corn on the table.

Emmeline slid into a chair, frowning, "Where'd you go?"

Staring at the food in front of him (much more than he needed), Frank thought for a minute before pulling out his wand. Maybe he would just heat up a bit to make Emmeline happy, and then munch on a piece of corn. All to get his little cousin off his back, though- and that was the only reason why.

“I went to James’,” Frank answered quietly, watching steam rise from the steak and the mashed potatoes lose their rock-like form. Not picking up a fork, he redirected his gaze back at Emmeline and watched her.

"Oh." Emmeline would not admit that she was thoroughly annoyed with Frank, even though it was quite obvious. It was more annoying, than anything, that he seemed to want to be everywhere but at her house. Honestly, right now she was the only family he was actually talking to, and he'd gone off and disappeared. Didn't he get that she should be taking care of him right now?

She crossed her legs at her ankles, putting her clasped hands on the table, "What did you do?"

Frank sucked his bottom lip in and quickly looked back down on the table. Emmeline, apparently, did not seem very pleased with that answer. Running his tongue along the inside his mouth, he took his wand and twirled it around the rising steam. “I don’t know. Stuff.” He wasn’t about to tell her about James’ suggestion to write that letter to Derrick, no no. Stuff covered most of it- even though he knew she wouldn’t like that answer at all. Not even one bit.

“We talked about some stuff,” Frank shrugged finally, watching the food again through his circling wand.

Emmeline stared at Frank as if he'd just said the dumbest thing ever heard by a witch's ears. Which it was, but she wouldn't say that. Ben had told her to keep her mouth shut, and though it was really hard, she was managing, somewhat. "Stuff is always interesting," she said dryly, pushing against the leg of the table.

She wanted to ask about how he was, if he'd talked to his mother, but if Frank didn't feel up to it, then…damn it. "You've got letters from your mum, in the foyer."

He gave a soft mumble as a response and waited for Emmeline to at least get up from the table. But, she didn’t. Rather surprised, Frank was ready to say something in response (possibly even tell Emmeline something a bit more detailed) but he stopped mid-thought. His mother was sending letters now? Feeling a spot of anger, Frank banged down his wand to the table and slid off the chair.

“Where?” his voice rang rather loudly while thumping back to the foyer. How- how- Frank couldn’t even begin to think or explain how, how- he grabbed the first pile of letters he saw (ha, they were for him) and stomped back into the kitchen. This woman had some nerve, some nerve. It had only been four days since the funeral, and already she was sending piles of letters to him?

“Total rubbish, this is fucking bu-” Frank continued loudly, grabbing at his wand on the table vigorously and jumping in front of the kitchen fireplace. Another second, the fireplace was lit and the letters were slowly becoming shriveled pieces of ash.

“There, now there are no letters in the foyer.”

"Whaa…okay," Emmeline let out, watching Frank storm around her house. He was lucky that her parents were out for the night, or her father would've been rather peeved at the foul language and his mother would've squeaked about the ash in her very clean fireplace. Frank didn't look like he wanted anyone near him and Emmeline had always been better with words than physical things.

"Do you feel better now?" she asked in a voice that didn't sound concerned, slightly mocking. Frank needed to spill, now.

Frank whipped around on his heels, jaw set tight at Emmeline. What was that for? She couldn’t possibly be on his mother’s side about this- oh no. She was seriously wrong to think that she even had a right with the way she was saying things. “What the-” He made a general wave at her with his wand at her, keeping it high.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Frank said and clamped his mouth shut, jamming his tongue into his teeth. The little part where she was letting him live with her in her parent’s house was out the door, not even in his mind.

"Did that make you feel any better?" she asked again, sitting up a bit and crossing her arms. Emmeline wasn't worried about Frank hurting her or anything like that, even if his words stung. She was his bloody cousin, that's who, and he knew she cared about him more than she did a lot of people.

"Throwing a tantrum, did that help?"

“I didn’t throw a fucking tantrum,” Frank hissed, lip curling up. His lips parted into a thin opening and his bottom jaw stuck out making a rather good loathsome face. Emmeline had some nerve, some bloody nerve and something up her arse to even go where she was going. She had no clue- no idea- not any at all.

Frank looked like a two-year old, pouting like he was. Emmeline refrained from rolling her eyes and she got up and passed him, walking to the fireplace. She took a poker and jabbed at the ash that was once letters from a concerned mother. She hated being around Augusta, but at least the woman was making an effort, where as Frank seemed to think that running away from everything was going to make it all better.

"Fine, you didn't. Where are you off to next, then? Ben's? Sirius'?" she asked calmly.

He clenched his jaw a bit tighter and looked over his shoulder at Emmeline. He did not and she didn’t have to know. For all she knew, he could be staying there for the rest of the summer- or go home tomorrow. Or maybe, just because, go off to someone else’s house. But him not thinking about it meant he wouldn’t know, which made him feel a lot safer than making plans in advance. If he didn’t know, then no one else would know either.

So she was mad she didn’t know everything that was going on? Or even more amusing, she wanted him to go home. “I don’t know, and you don’t need to either,” he sniffed, dropping his arms to his sides and promptly stalked out of the room.

"I don't need to know, that's news to me," Emmeline snapped back, standing and putting a hand on her hip, glaring at Frank. "That's bloody rich, Frank, really bloody rich. Do you think I'm just some idiot girl who's just going to let you wander around the rest of your life in some mindless daze? Come on! I want to help, everyone wants to help, but you're not bloody letting them!"

He had to know how serious she was, cursing up the storm that she was. Emmeline was tired of his attitude; no matter what you've gone through, you're not allowed to be like that toward the people you supposedly care about.

For the second time, Frank whipped back on his heels, glaring down the hall at Emmeline. And before he could stop himself from saying it, he heard himself roar, “You don’t need to know! No one needs to know!” He faltered for a second- he shouldn’t be doing this- they shouldn’t be fighting, should they? It didn’t feel very right.

But how could Emmeline possibly to being to understand how chilling that Death Eater’s voice had been, the tone, the way he talked. Yes, Frank was sure they had met before. How could she begin to understand that the reason he kept on moving around was because he was freaked out of his bloody mind. Who was next? Would this person follow him? Would they know where to find him? Who was it really? What if it was someone he saw everyday, just pretending to be his friend? They were only seventeen! And Emmeline wasn’t even of age yet. It was stupid to think that the Death Eater would come after him now, but Frank couldn’t help but feel a nervous twitch about the thought.

And then, he regained himself. “I never said- I don’t need- You, you can’t help!” Frank paced back over to her at the doorway. She looked aggravated, serious, concerned, pissed off…the list could go on. But whatever was on Emmeline’s face broke down a wall of anger- for now, at least. “You can’t help.”

"How do you know that, Frank?" Emmeline said loudly, looking up at Frank with wide, stern eyes, throwing her arms up. "How do you know that I can't help? That I don't need to know what's going on? I'm living in this world, aren't I? I could've been in Diagon Alley that day too, I know that---Ben could've been there, Frank, I know that."

She shook her head quickly, clenching her teeth because she really didn't want to cry, but the thought of both Frank and Ben being in the middle of that fiasco tore her heart apart. "And I---I would do anything," her voice cracked slightly, but she continued, "…anything to go back in time and make sure you weren't there, that---that Derrick wasn't there, anything, Frank."

Emmeline bit her lip, shaking her head slowly, "But I can't. You can't. Nobody can, and it's a God damn shame, but it's our reality and…and if…if…" How could she be at a loss for words now? She tapped her foot quickly, as if it would get her back on track. "If you just keep pushing everyone away like you are, then you're going to be all alone in this shithole of a world and…and…" She brushed away a loose tear, frowning up at him, "Look, you've gone and made me cry."

Frank opened his mouth to retort, to snap that unless Emmeline had some magical answer to everything come together less confusing and much less scaring than before then no, she couldn’t help. He was hardly helping himself, how would she be possibly able to? Or anyone else for that matter? Ben’s form of helping had resulted in Frank nearly driving himself up the wall, ready to rip out his own ears. No no, if Emmeline thought she was going to ‘help’ that way, then she was sorely mistaken.

“I never said-” he started, then faltered again to let his cousin finish. Bloody hell, it looked like she was going to burst into tears any second. Feeling much more horrible than three seconds ago, his shoulders dropped and hung limply on his sides. And now she was crying. He hated it when he made her cry- Alice too.

“I’m sorry,” Frank mumbled, dropping his wand into a pocket and put his hands on her shoulders, holding tight. He really felt no immediate need to tackle anything Emmeline had just said- one because she would start crying again and two; her words had been too stingingly real for him to actually think about them just yet. “Don’t cry.” He shook his head from side to side slightly with a deep frown.

“I know I can’t go back to change everything.”

"No, it's not you, really," she said, wiping the loose tears away. Emmeline wasn't full out crying; it was more of those angry tears that just fall because you're getting yourself so riled up. "It's just frustration, is all." She put her hand on his shoulder, letting out a long sigh. She did hate fighting with him, but things just needed to be said.

Making a 'pfft' noise with her lips, Emmeline smirked up at Frank, "Okay, now that we've got all that out…I still think you need to talk to people about what happened, Frank. It doesn't have to be me, just…someone," she lied, just a little. She really wanted Frank to talk to her, but wouldn't make him do anything he was uncomfortable with.

Frank hands dropped from grasping onto Emmeline’s shoulders. Talk to someone? The last time he had tried to go and do that, Ben nearly made him want to rip his ears out. Mumbling something incoherent, he shrugged off her hand from his shoulder and back stepped away from her. He would rather not- she was emotional and he was still angry… it didn’t seem like it would mix right now. And plus there was the fact that he simply didn’t want to. Maybe later, when it didn’t feel like he wanted to punch something.

Still mumbling, he took another step back and turned around completely. Maybe, he would think about it. But that would include actually walking away to go think about it alone. So he did, or at least start to walk away again.

"You don't have to right now," she said, following him. "Just, at some point. Oooh, I think I'll make you promise, Frank." Emmeline smirked, but then something moving down the hall made her lose her concentration on Frank. There was rustling near the foyer, and Emmeline was sure she'd heard a little squawk. Bugger, there was an Owl, there had to be. If it wasn't Rosalie, then it was most likely another letter from Augusta and…

"Oh…I think I left the stove on," Emmeline lied, hurrying down the hall and to the foyer. Yes, the Longbottom owl was sitting calmly on the table.