Fred, George and I had spent the next two days coming up with a plan. We decided that it would be best to take the muggle train to France but we barely knew how it operated. Muggle train stations were quite complicated. We couldn't ask Hermione because she was already involved in another mission and Dean couldn't come with us to help out either.
That left only one other muggle-born we knew who might be able to help.
When we wrote to Emma, she was initially afraid to talk to us seeing as she had 'betrayed' us but I didn't blame her one bit. I told her that it didn't matter to me that she had helped out the death eaters and even Fred and George convinced her of the same thing. She finally decided to come today.
The three of us sat on the table silently, awaiting her arrival. There was a loud knock on the door and George practically jumped up from his seat and ran towards the door, opening it to reveal a shy-looking Emma, a small bag over her shoulders. George didn't hug her this time, unsure about how she felt at the moment and let her in.
"Alice I just want to tell you how sorry-"
"No. Emma, don't be. It really wasn't your fault" I said.
"But if I hadn't delivered that letter to you, it wouldn't have happened"
"True" Fred crossed his arms, "But we understand why you did it"
"And we're ready to put it behind us if you are" I said.
"C'mon, we just want our friend back" said George.
She nodded shyly before making her way to the table and sitting opposite me and Fred. George seated himself next to her.
"So, you want to go to France by train without being seen by the death eaters?" Emma asked and we nodded in response.
"Okay, that should be simple enough, but the place is crowded with death eaters so we have to be careful. Muggle train stations are nothing like platform 9 and 3 quarters, you need ID's. Fortunately, I thought about it before hand, I know a person who makes fake ID's. I will purchase 4 Eurostar return tickets, 50 pounds each so 200 pounds for the four of us so that's about 40 galleons. Each of you'll have to pitch in ten galleons. We're only going for a couple of hours so we don't need a place to stay. I'm booking tomorrow morning's train at 5 AM and we should be there by 9 AM. After that, the next train back home is at 6 PM so we should be back in London by 10 PM. Sound alright?" Emma said all of this in just one breath and Fred, George and I gawked at her.
"What? I like to have everything planned" she shrugged.
"It's like you're planning a spy mission" said Fred.
"What about the fake ID's?" I asked.
"Yours is by the name of Nora Earnheart and mine is Mona Earnheart, we're sisters. Fred and George Weasley are Charles and Daniel Klein" said Emma, pulling out four ID's from her purse.
"Why is my hair blonde in this?" I asked, looking at my blonde hair.
"Yea and our hair is dark brown" said Fred and George.
"We're going to need a disguise, change our hair colours, eye colours so that people don't recognise us immediately" said Emma.
.
The next morning, all of us were ready to go. We had used Fred and George's hair colour changing potion from their WonderWitch supplies. I looked at Fred and George who looked quite odd in their brown hair.
"Hmm, really pulling off this brown hair look aren't I?" Fred joked, posing in front of the mirror.
"Ready?" asked Emma.
We nodded and apparated to the train station.
"Okay, just, act natural. And neither of you say anything, I'll do all the talking" said Emma, motioning us to follow her.
"Here are our tickets, London to Paris" said Emma, handing over some papers to a lady behind the counter.
"ID please?"
"Emma pulled out the four ID's from her bag and showed them to the lady. She looked at the picture on the ID and then at us before nodding in approval
"Your train leaves in fifteen minutes, Platform 4" she said, handing the ID's back to us.
We started to walk towards the platform when suddenly, from the corner of my eye, I could see a very familiar looking man wearing a large coat, walking towards us. It was a death eater in muggle clothes.
I tugged at Fred's sleeve, discreetly pointing to the death eater who was very close to us. Fred quickly turned me around and placed his hands on my face and began to kiss me, covering my face entirely. The death eater walked right past us, without even taking a proper look. Fred pulled away, grinning.
"Nice one" I said as we continued to walk, Emma and George laughing at us.
We finally reached the platform, the train would arrive in the next five minutes. I started to think about Amelie, how her mother said that she had been brutally injured. She would be fine wouldn't she? Of course she would be fine.
"You're thinking about Amelie aren't you?" Fred said from beside me.
"Yea" I sighed. He took my hand in his and began to rub the top of it with his thumb, his way of telling me that I had nothing to worry about.
"Fred, it's just- I've already lost Cedric, my mum and my dad to The Dark side. I can't lose my best friend too. I can't lose anyone anymore" I wasn't making much sense but I found it hard to put my thoughts into words.
"Hey, you're not losing anyone anymore, we're all here. I'm here, George's here, he loves you like his little sister you know? Hermione, my mum and dad, Ginny, they all really care about you. I can't imagine how hard it would be to lose your mother and your best friend, I'm not going to say that I understand, but you're not alone" Fred said reassuringly. He was so good with words, and he made me feel so loved.
I rested my head on his shoulder, "Thank you Fred, I don't know what I'd do without you"
"Oh you'd do amazing, look at how strong you are. It's me who'd be a mess if you leave me and go"
"That's not happening anytime soon, you're going to be stuck with me for a while" I chuckled.
The train arrived and we boarded it. Fortunately, the rest of our journey went smoothly. When we reached Paris, we hailed a cab to take us to Amelie's house. We reached her street and memories came flooding into my mind. This was the same street I used to play in with Amelie. We'd take out are pink, tasseled bikes and cycle up and down the road, chasing each other and pretending we were on an adventure. It was on this street that Amelie had first discovered she could do magic.
"Are you going to knock?" asked George, breaking me out of my trance.
"Um, yea" I said, lifting my hand up reluctantly and knocking on the door thrice.
Soon, it was opened by Mrs. Lume, who looked quite different from when I last saw her. Her skin had wrinkled and the bags under her eyes were prominent but her blonde hair was as long and shiny as ever.
"You made it!" she cried, pulling me into a hug.
"I had to meet her" I said, inhaling Mrs. Lume's trademark vanilla scent.
"I hope you don't mind we tagged along, it was dangerous for her to come on her own" said Emma from behind me.
"Absolutely not, please, come in" she said, walking out of the way to let us in.
"Where's Mr. Lume?" I asked.
"He's at work" she replied. Mr. and Mrs. Lume were muggles and worked as bankers.
"Can we see her now?" I asked, not wanting to delay it any longer.
Mrs. Lume lead us to Amelie's room, a path that I was already familiar with. She opened the door to reveal her room, the same as it always had been, muggle posters, a keyboard, crochet rugs and a single bed on which lay Amelie.
I practically ran to her bedside and Amelie's eyes widened when she saw me.
"Alice!" she sad, weakly. I bent over and gave her a hug but she winced so I immediately retracted.
"Is that Fred and George?" she asked looking behind me.
"Hello" grinned Fred and George.
"Aims what happened to you?" I asked. Her skin was pale as if it was recovering from multiple bruises. She didn't look like her usual, radiant self. But she was still beautiful.
"It's a long story" she sighed, still wincing in pain. She could barely move her body.
"That's why I'm here, I want to know everything" I said, seating myself on the floor and resting my chin on my arms which I had placed on the bed.
"We can give you both some privacy if you like, c'mon Fred and George, let's go sightseeing" Emma said, noticing Amelie's reluctance. She grabbed their arms and pulled them out of the room.
"Well, since I'm muggleborn, the new law prevented me from going to school. I wasn't having it and went anyway" Amelie said when Emma, George and Fred left.
"Why would you do that?"
"I didn't want anything to get in the way of my education, especially not those stupid death eaters. Anyway, I got sent to Azkaban for a couple of months-"
"YOU WHAT?"
"And after a lot of pleading, they let me out but.."
"But what?"
"There was this one female death eater, Bellatrix. Apparently she knew that I was one of your close friends, so she um, tortured me for information as to where you could be. Don't worry, I didn't tell her anything"
My blood began to boil in anger. How fucking dare she do that to Amelie?
"You should have told her! I would've been able handle it. Everyone needs to stop sacrificing themselves to save me!" I said, beginning to get angrier by the second.
"It doesn't matter, it's all in the past now" she said, waving it off.
"But Aims, when your mum wrote her letter, she said that-that-"
"That I wasn't going to make it?" Amelie said and I nodded meekly. Very slowly, she removed the thin blanket from her body and pulled up her t-shirt to reveal a massive bandage wrapped around her abdomen, specked with blood. My eyes widened at the sight.
"What the hell happened?"
"She stabbed me"
I suddenly felt as if the entire world came to a stop. Bellatrix stabbed her. Stabbed.
I had never felt more angry in my life, except for the one time in the dungeon when I was furious over letting other people sacrifice themselves for me. And yet again, the same thing had happened. Amelie had been stabbed so that she could keep me safe.
"I know what you're thinking Alice, she stabbed me because of you. But that's not true, I was stabbed before I went to Azkaban, it only got infected recently" she said.
"How bad is it?" I asked, worriedly.
"Like my mother said, don't know if I'm going to make it" she smiled sadly.
I watched my best friend, the girl who had always been strong, smart, beautiful, reduced to nothing but a body, hanging to life by only a few flimsy strings.
"This isn't fair.." I whispered.
"Nothing's ever fair Alice, but that's alright. We just have to live with it don't we?"
"You most definitely are going to make it, I'm sure of it. Stop saying that you're not" I said quietly, placing my hand on hers and stroking it gently. I couldn't bear to lose her.
"Enough about me, I wanted to meet you to talk about you! Where the hell have you been?" she asked.
I told her everything, from the very beginning. Going into hiding, the skirmish at Malfoy Manor, my mother, Bella. By the end of it her mouth was wide open and she stared at me in surprise.
"Bloody Hell when did you turn into a secret agent?" she asked.
I couldn't tell what exactly she meant by that.
"How're things with you and Fred?" she asked.
"They've never been better. He's-he's perfect" I sighed, even the thought of him brought butterflies to my stomach.
"Aww look at you! You're blushing. Did you do it yet?" she asked bluntly.
"Aims!"
"What? I'm curious"
"If you must know, yes. We have. Just a few days after I left Atlantes to go to Shell Cottage"
"Oh my god! And is he good?"
"He's incredible" I said shyly, every word of it true. Fred really knew his stuff.
"My little Alice, finally a woman!"
"Shut up! What about your girlfriend?" I asked, changing the topic. Thankfully, Amelie was easily distracted.
"Oh she's wonderful Al! I love her so much. She's not in town at the moment although i would've loved if you could meet her" she said, gazing at the ceiling.
We spent the rest of the day talking, laughing and reminiscing, just like old times. The sky went from blue to orange, the birds went back to their nests, the clouds floated to a destination known only to them and just like that, time flew by.
Before we knew it, it was 5 PM and Emma, Fred and George knocked on the door to pick me up.
"You're going to be alright Aims, we can go watch a film in that cinema hall that you like so much" I smiled at her, running my hands through her long hair.
"Of course we can, I'm not going anywhere" she said weakly, tired from talking the whole day. I could tell that she only said it to make herself and me feel better.
"I love you so much" I kissed the top of her head and she closed her eyes, a smile playing on her lips.
"I love you too Alice"