Work Text:
"Alice?"
"Hm?"
"Alice."
Silence.
"ALICE-"
"What?!" Alice snapped, looking up from her work.
Narcissa smiled like a chesire cat.
"Nothing. Just wanted to see your face."
Alice scoffed gently, more out of habit than annoyance.
"Hey, Alice?"
Alice ignored her.
"Aliceeeee-"
Without looking, Alice raised a hand and placed it firmly over Narcissa's mouth.
She struggled for a moment, and when Alice finally looked at her she was sporting a truly betrayed look. Alice had to chuckle.
"I'm sorry love, but, unlike you, I have to finish this by tonight. Can't you wait one more minute?"
Narcissa vehemently shook her head, Alice's hand still plastered over her pouting lips.
With half her original determination, Alice sighed and tried to return to her work.
She had all the quiet in the world. For, maybe, five minutes. Maybe Alice should've been impressed with that much.
Then Narcissa started fidgeting with a pencil, tumbling it over her knuckles, tapping it against the table, even balancing it between her nose and her upper lip. Alice watched in amusement, unable to focus anymore.
Narcissa was... Odd. In the best sense possible, don't get her wrong. She's absolutely lovely, but she's also a contradiction and a half. In class, she's quiet and answers the odd few questions in a bland, perfectly poised tone. At home, Andy often complained about her being like a ghost - passing through everything with close to no reaction. On the halls, outside of school, even at the theatre, she's the straight-backed, polite, perfect youngest daughter of the Blacks.
When she's alone with Alice, she's the silliest little hedgehog anyone could wish for. Curious. Easily bored. Perpetually requiring touch but never asking for it.
Alice still remembers that one day last year when she had convinced her father to take half a day off and drive them to a psychologist's office to finally get her "friend" Narcissa diagnosed without her family knowing. It had taken a long few weeks until they finally figured out the best medicine for her newly diagnosed ADHD - at first, Concerta had seemed best, but then her family found it suspicious when she crashed so badly in the evenings.
Then, for a good while, Cissa had attempted Adderall across the day. Long story short - it went alright... Until she had crashes midway through school because she couldn't space them out just right.
It took a long, long, long three months until she finally decided Wellbutrin was, after everything, probably her best bet. It was quite hard to find it at first, but it worked well - especially since it didn't have quite the same possible addictive side-effects and it lessened her risks of suffering from mildly genetically-induced depressive bouts. ("Regulus already goes through enough of those for the whole family" Narcissa had said at the time with a sad lilt to her voice)
But nonetheless, it still feels a little odd - again, in the best sense - when Cissa allows herself to... simply be. Simply exist around Alice. Bored, perpetually looking for entertainment and finding it very, very fun to annoy Alice.
She lasts an entire seven minutes this time. Which, to be frank, isn't enough time for Alice to concentrate yet again, so she isn't nearly as bothered when her girl finally loses patience again.
"...Alice?" Narcissa asks, arms folded on the table and chin balanced on them, her lower lip jutting out slightly.
With a gentle sigh, Alice pushes her notebook and pencil away. She mimics Narcissa's position and tilts her head slightly, their noses inches apart.
"Yes, love?"
Cissa looks undetermined for a moment. She breaks eye contact and reaches out with a hand, twirling a piece of Alice's short, brown hair around her thumb.
"I know you have work, but..." her voice stunts for a moment, attention solely focused on cutting off circulation to her finger using Alice's hair strand "I really, really want to get away from here. It's a bit too... I don't know."
Alice knows. Narcissa doesn't enjoy quiet that much, surprisingly - it's one of those little bits of information that took her a few months out of their year-long relationship to figure out. As it turns out, silence reminds her too much of her home, where it always means that 1. her father is annoyed and ready to strike or 2. her mother is drunk and too tired to argue anymore.
Chewing on the inside of her cheek, Alice slowly reaches out too, cupping Cissa's face in one hand. Her eyes snag to Alice and a gentle, lovely blush slowly crawls up her face as she averts then quickly. Alice feels the smile pulling at her lips and, as slowly as she can, she brings her girlfriend's face closer and closer, until her lips brush softly against her forehead.
"Alright then." she murmurs, not yet pulling away.
Right next to her throat, Narcissa makes a confused little sound and this time, Alice can't actually help the soft laugh that tumbles out of her.
"Alright what?" Narcissa mumbles as Alice pulls back, cheeks still squished.
"Alright, we're going to pops' parlor and getting gelato." Narcissa's face is still a little flushed and Alice really can't help it, so she presses a quick kiss on her nose before retreating and packing her things.
For a moment, Cissa stands there, stone-still, ears tinted and eyes a pupils a bit wide. When she notices Alice packing though, she sets out and quickly grabs her own bag, getting up and slinging it unceremoniously over her shoulder. After another moment though, she stops.
"I think your father might find it suspicious if I come again so soon." she says, voice tinged with worry.
Arranging her bag on her shoulder, Alice smiles.
"And?”
Narcissa frowns.
“You know how he is, Alice, I don’t want you to get in trouble-” she begins but Alice interrupts her.
“Well, I wanted it to be a surprise, but... he's out of town for a few days, so-" she doesn't get to finish.
Because in one second, Narcissa is processing. Then, she’s beaming.
In the next, she's quickly swiveling her head around to check if there's anybody near (spoiler - Alice had checked. They're alone in Hogwarts' library). And in the one right after, she's rushing forward, fisting Alice's tie and bringing her lips forward in a rough kiss.
Alice lets out a quick, surprised sound before she melts into it, fighting a smile that's building at the corners of her mouth. She doesn't win though, and when Narcissa sighs into the kiss, she lets the corners of her mouth curl upwards. Narcissa pulls back just a fraction, takes in Alice's (probably delighted) eyes, her rumpled shirt and stupid grin and, with her own huff of laughter, begins peppering kisses anywhere she can - her cheeks. Underneath her eyes. On the shell of her ear (that one made Alice shiver and Cissa laugh). The tip of her nose. The corner of her jaw. The bend of her neck. The corners of her mouth, her chin, her temples, her forehead, and finally again on the lips.
It takes a few good minutes until they're out of the building, holding hands and whispering and giggling like schoolgirls - which they very much are - and they only encounter one person.
Who, thankfully, happens to be Frank.
When he rounds the corner and nearly bumps into them, he takes a step back, messy hair all ruffled and hanging on his forehead. It takes him all of two seconds before he's smirking at them.
"Well, seems I interrupted a rendezvous?" he asks in a horrible accent, wiggling his eyebrows mischievously.
Narcissa laughs hard enough to slightly fold over while Alice scowls.
"Get off it Longbottom, we're going on a date" she states, and Frank has the absolute audacity to flick her on the forehead, which pulls a very outraged squawk out of her.
"Sorry Allie, but you're sounding more and more like Crouch the more time you spend around him" Frank adds with a smile, this time a little softer "I am heading to the theatre room anyway, so I won't hold you two ladies-"
"Wait!" Narcissa gasps out between giggles, straightening and giving Frank a look. All of a sudden, he seems a bit nervous "Are you going to go see-"
"OH, look at the time, I must hurry, have fun on your date!" Frank rushes by them, ears rosy. Alice can't help but raise her eyebrows at her girlfriend in question.
"Well..." Narcissa starts, biting her lips before leaning in close and whispering in Alice's ear "...you don't know it from me, but he's been following one of the Prewett twins for some time now and-"
Alice's mind goes blank for a second as she remembers Frank's "deer in the headlights" face. As she continues to walk with Cissa, it finally registers.
"He's seeing Fabian-?!"
It's Narcissa's turn to slap both hands over Alice's mouth, effectively shutting her up and pushing her gently into a wall. Looking both left and right, she sighs, looking at Alice with fond exasperation.
"Yes, sweetheart, but I highly doubt your cover-up boyfriend wants people to know that, right?" she whispers with a raised eyebrow.
Alice feels her cheeks heat up and she shakes her head.
"Good, now come on" Narcissa lets go of her and intertwines their hands once more "you promised me ice cream-"
"-gelato" Alice corrects.
"-ice cream, and I'm hungry, so you better hurry if you don't want your girlfriend priviledges revoked."
Alice can't help it.
"...and what might those be?"
"You'll see later" Narcissa hums as they step outside and finally dislodge their hands from one another "if you buy me just enough ice cream."
Alice is about to correct her again when she registers Narcissa's words. She gulps as her girlfriend turns around and starts walking backwards, lips pulled into a smirk and eyebrows raised.
"Well?"
Alice nods absentmindedly.
"Yes, love"