Third Year, Feelings
Friday September 28th 1973
Marlene was high up above the ground, soaring through the air at an impeccable speed, she could distinctly feel a nippy gush of wind graze the skin of her face; quidditch practice.
Something was off, it was as if she wasn`t exactly holding onto her broom, but was actually looking down on it from a different perspective. It made her feel loopy. Everything felt off, all the dimensions were different; for one, her hands were oddly big in comparison to the rest off her. Someone scored a goal and the referee blew the whistle. Looking down, Marlene saw the referee was Professor Ferox, though he was wearing Madam Hooch` robes, his distinct roguish dirty blond hair tipped him off. There was a loud roar from the spectator stands, as well as a loud growl from up above as a giant catlike creature sprang over them; it look a lot like Achilles, the kneazle.
The game continued and Marlene tried to find the bludgers. Her hands were empty and it only occurred to her then that she must have dropped her bat. Had she had a bat in the first place? How could she be up here without her bat? Who were they playing anyway? She tried to find James in the air, seeing if she could ask him what was going on. But she couldn`t spot him.
Someone swerved past her on a broom; it was Mary.
`Mary, where is James!` Marlene called, her voice felt odd and tinned, as if it wasn`t her own.
Mary started to cackle and pointed at the stands. To Marlene`s horror, she saw James snogging Lily in between the other spectators.
When she turned around again to face Mary, she`d disappeared. Marlene started to panic; they needed to win this game, otherwise she wouldn`t be allowed in the team anymore and Sirius would take her spot. A bludger came soaring her way and Marlene smacked it away with her bare hands, it felt weirdly rubbery and shot through one of the hoops of the other team, earning them a point. Achilles hissed angrily and Ferox shouted fuming up at her.
`I knew you`d mess it up!` he boomed. `You haven`t got nerves of steel, quick-thinking or cool-headedness. I will need to make you flunk out of Care of Magic Creatures!`
But this is quidditch?; Marlene thought.
Suddenly, she was no longer on her broom and instead was standing in a classroom, Professor McGonagall sitting on top of the desk in cat-form. `I`m afraid you`ll need to leave.` the cat meowed. Again it looked a lot like Achilles and Marlene started to doubt if it even was Professor McGonagall. Though the kneazle could talk, could it?
Marlene blinked confused and looked around the classroom. In the back, Mary was sitting on Sirius` lap. Lily now snogging with Remus; Snape stood glaring at them from the back of the room, vampiric teeth sprouting from his mouth.
`But why?` Marlene asked confused, to no one specific.
Nobody answered her question, so she got up. She threw a pleading look at Mary on her way out of the classroom.
`You promised.` Marlene begged. `No more boys.`
`It`s not my fault you don`t like boys!` Mary laughed meanly.
Soaking wet from sweat and with her bedsheets tangled all around her limbs, Marlene shot up. She had been having really vivid dreams like these for the last couple of days; i was probably a result of their dream journal for Divination. Professor Rowe had already told them they would probably start dreaming more regularly once they started recording them.
`Lumos.` she whispered, lighting up the space inside her bedcurtains.
Out of habit, Marlene grabbed the little notebook from underneath one of her pillows, still breathing heavily. Yet, as soon as she put her quill to the parchment, she wasn`t so sure if she wanted to record this one. It felt a little too personal to be sharing in class. This truly was a silly assignment.
Sighing she tucked the dream journal back under the pillow and flicked off the light that emitted from her wand. It took her quite some time to get back to sleep, images and sounds replaying themselves on loop in her head.
When morning came, the dream had practically already faded from her memory and she could only remember parts of it. The day went it`s way. They had History of Magic in the morning, followed by Care of Magical Creatures in the afternoon.
Marlene felt nervous throughout the whole second lesson, shifting back and forth on her seat, biting her nails, almost unable to look at the people around her; Professor Ferox, Remus on one side, Mary on the other. Mary kept asking her what was bothering her. Luckily they were discussing Murtlaps, truly revolting looking creatures; they had tentacle-like fleshy stubs sprouting from their mouths. Thus, Marlene could pin her discomfort on them.
As cherry on top, on their way back to Gryffindor tower they bumped into Snape in a deserted corridor. When they encountered him with Lily around, neither Mary or Marlene felt worried. However, when it was just the two of them, it was a whole other story.
`Watch were you`re going!` Snape spat at Mary as she swerved out of his way.
`Piss off will you!` Marlene hissed at him. When she was feeling nervous, it was hard to contain herself when any annoyances came her way.
`You`re one to talk.` Snape drawled.
Mary tried to pull Marlene along by her sleeve, but Marlene wasn`t having it.
`Just leave us alone, aye?` Marlene pointed her wand at him, threatening.
`What are you going to do?` Severus replied, sounding bored as he flicked his own wand from hand to hand. `Complain about me to your daddy?` he asked, raising his eyebrows. `Oh, no wait…`
Marlene swallowed, but didn`t lower her wand. Mary looked really anxious.
`Cleary, he didn`t care enough about his daughter to stick around.` Snape grimaced menacingly and sized Marlene up. `I don`t blame him. Poor fatherless girl.`
`My stepdad is just as much my father.` Marlene spat back at him defensively, though she immediately regretted it. `Better than yours in any way.`
`Oh yes…clearly, I`m so jealous of your scum of a mudblood father. Pity me.` Snape threw his hands up in the air. `I wonder how long it will take for him to be removed from his position at the ministry, hm?`
Marlene`s bottom lip started to tremble and she tried to open her mouth to say something in return, but couldn`t.
`I would save those tears for later. Obviously they`re just a waste of time.` the greasy haired boy drawled.
Mary put an arm around Marlene and pulled her along, out of the corridor, into an alcove behind a tapestry; far away from anyone else. It was there, that Marlene truly started to cry, big heaving sobs. It wasn`t usual that she got this upset about being called a couple of names.
`Shhh.` Mary pulled her close to her chest. `It`s alright. It`s alright.` she rubbed Marlene`s back slowly.
`I- I-` Marlene chocked, but couldn`t get any words out. She started crying even harder.
Mary kept hugging her; it was as if her soft body was absorbing all of Marlene`s sadness. Though Mary was small, she always felt bigger than life itself. Slowly, but steadily she could feel herself calm down and could now make out some vague shapes in the darkness behind the tapestry. Wiping her face she made herself loose from Mary and sat up. Mary was gazing at her with gentle eyes. Marlene didn`t want to look away, and kept looking at all the individual parts of Mary`s face; the way the tiny hairs by her hairline swooped over her forehead, the curve of her bottom lip, the soft indent of a dimple in one of her cheeks.
`Snivellus is a dick.` Mary whispered. `A massive tosser.`
Marlene sniffed and laughed a little bit.
Mary took Marlene`s hands in her own and looked at her intently, `Nothing about what he said was true. Do you understand that?`
Marlene swallowed and stared back at Mary in the dark. She felt incredibly aware of Mary`s body in the space they shared; the way their foreheads almost touched as if wanting to share a secret, the manner in which Mary`s thumb grazed the palm of her hand, drawing small circles.
`Do you understand?` Mary repeated, squeezing her hands. The small frown lines that appeared just above her nose when she was worried.
Marlene nodded, feeling like she couldn`t tear her gaze away from Mary. The way her knees kept bumping into hers.
`Good.` Mary kissed the side of Marlene`s face, the spot where her hair met her forehead. The way her lips felt the moment they fleetingly touched the tender patch of skin that was her temple.
In a split second, it was as if a nest of butterflies had hatched itself in the pit of her stomach, swarming around her intestines, making summersaults; her throat turned chalk dry.
Oh Merlin, she fancied Mary.
***
Friday October 5th 1973
Despite it being early autumn, it was still relatively warm and sunny. Hence, to sit in the quidditch stands during the Gryffindor team practice, wasn`t that much of a punishment. That, and the fact that it gave Mary plenty opportunity to hang around Sirius without rousing too much suspicion. Everyone who asked she told that she was watching Marlene fly. This wasn`t a complete lie, she was indeed watching Marlene at times. However, she could hardly watch her friend swerve around on a broom for hours on end, that trick got old pretty soon.
Despite her devious trickery, it wasn`t exactly like this time in the stands was solely time she got to spent which Sirius. For one, school went on as ever and seeing as they were talking up two to three additional classes, assignments were piling up. Professor McGonagall hadn`t been kidding when she had warned them about the increased work load at the beginning of the year. Though, it did surprise Mary how easily she seemed to be getting along in most of her courses. Potions was still an abomination, History of Magic was as dull as ever, but most of her other classes weren`t giving her such a hard time. Mary was a quick reader and if she actually put her mind to it, she was a lot more clever than she usually gave herself credit for.
`I`ve got it. I`ve actually got it this time!`
Oh yeah, that was the other thing; Remus and Peter were also almost always there. There was almost no opportunity to catch Sirius on his own these days.
`That`s nice, Pete.` Remus replied disinterested, seemingly not even listening, his nose deeply buried in a book. He appeared to be the only one of them who actually used this time to study.
`We should dye his robes pink.` Peter said smugly.
Ever since Hogsmeade the Gryffindor boys had once again called on a war against the Slytherins. Lily had filled her and Marlene in on what had happened in the Three Broomsticks that day in Hogsmeade, and next to being absolutely appalled at the sheer nerve of them all, she also thought that getting back at Snape was justified. Though, Peter didn`t seem to be very qualified to come up with anything good. Mary herself could probably come up with something better than the four of them combined, but nobody was asking her, so she kept her mouth shut while listening in on their conversation.
`He`d just dye them back, it`s too simple. Where would we even get his robes from.` Remus sighed and returned to his reading.
`Ouch! Bloody hell, there`s something wrong with that bludger!` Sirius hollered, standing up and peering over the pitch. `Come on, McKinnon, move your bloomin` arse!`
In the distance Mary could see Marlene glare at him.
`Do you mind leaving her arse out of it?` Mary bit at Sirius. The way he could give unsolicited advice to Marlene was probably his most unlikeable quality.
`Jealous, Macdonald?` Sirius grinned at her, cocking an eyebrow. Mary could feel her stomach lurch.
`Dye his hair pink, then.` Peter held on, evidently not on his way of giving up, shaking on Remus arm. Mary felt for Peter. `I`ve learnt colour changing spells now. I can do it.`
They had been covering those spells in Transfiguration and Mary had had a lot of fun with them over the last week; trying out all different colours, ultimately settling on her own natural ebony black.
`So can he.` Remus responded irritated, yanking his arm back from Peter.
`You know, Moony, you could show a bit more interest.` Sirius said primly.
`In quidditch? Our taking down your arch nemesis?` Remus asked, still sounding irritated.
`Both. Either.`
`I`m here, aren`t I.` Remus flipped to a the next page of his book.
This felt like the perfect moment for Mary to enter the conversation, she was absolutely dying to get her own word in, `Who`s your arch nemesis?` She got up from her seat and went to sit tactfully next to Sirius.
`If I told you, I`d have to kill you.` Sirius replied, looking teasingly at her. Mary rolled her eyes.
`Is it Snape?` she asked.
The three boys all turned to look at her in surprise. Oh come on, like it wasn`t obvious. Boys could be so dense. `Come, on, you lot, it`s not exactly a secret – you`ve had it in for eachother since first year. Plus, Lily is one of my best friends.`
`Don`t talk to me about Evans.` Sirius groaned. `I hear enough as it is.`
Mary raised her eyebrows; James really had it bad for Lily then. `I think she`s an idiot, going around with that creep.` Mary replied, a shiver running up her back as she said so and she rubbed her arms. The thought of Snape made her feel sick to her stomach. `You know he made Marlene cry the other day? Called her dad something really nasty. Makes no sense, either, because Lily says he`s half-blood, Severus…anyway, someone needs to teach him a lesson.`
The way Snape had treated Marlene the week before still irked her deeply. It had been tremendously mean and apparently it had affected her friend deeply, since Marlene seemed to be more drawn in than ever; constantly staring off into space and biting her nails or her hair. Fleeing rooms or getting up before dawn to go to the pitch.
`Ha!` Sirius chackled. `He`s half-blood?!` Brilliant.`
Mary frowned. `Yeah. So`s Remus. And I`m muggle-born. So what?` she said icily.
`Nothing,` Sirius muttered, looking put out, staring at his hands. `I`m not like that.`
`Good.` she replied primly. `Get enough of that shit from the Slytherins.`
They grew silent, staring out over the quidditch pitch. Mary followed Marlene`s sandy blonde ponytail fluttering in the wind. The proximity of Sirius body next to hers made her tingle, and gently she tried to scoot herself over a little closer, trying to go unnoticed.
`Oh,` Remus sudden exclaimed. `Oh!` He firmly grabbed Sirius` arm.
`What?`
`We change the words!` Remus spluttered excitedly. `We change what he says.`
`What are you on about?` Sirius looked as confused as Mary felt. `Snivellus?`
`Yeah! There are spells to top someone speaking, right?`
Mary looked at Sirius and saw him colour slightly, `Yeah…` he mumbled.
`Ok, so how much more difficult can it be to…to like, twist their words?` Remus went on, it instantly dawned on Mary what he was trying to say. `We could set a trigger word – or a few – mudblood, or blood-traitor, or half-breed, dunglicker, or….whatever. And instead we make them say something really nice. Or something stupid. Whatever we feel like.`
`Moony, where did you hear all those-` Sirius began, but was cut of by James scoring a goal. Peter sprung up, cheering loudly.
Mary edged even closer to Sirius, her knees now bumping into his, sending her stomach into bouts of summer saults.
`So?` Remus grabbed Sirius shoulder. `What do you think?`
`I love it.` Sirius grinned. `We should make him say something really ridiculous, like….I dunno `snuggle bunnies`` Mary giggled at that. `Or something. We`ll go to the library after this, yeah?`
`Can I come?` Mary asked, feeling bold and encouraged by the weight of Sirius` leg touching her own.
`If you want, I s`pose.` Sirius replied, looking at her surprised. `It`s serious marauder business though.` He grinned and lifted his eyebrows impishly.
Mary started giggling, feeling rather pleased with herself. When she picked up Marlene from the field a whole twenty minutes later, she still couldn`t stop smiling; feeling like she had a hanger in her mouth.
***
Thursday October 11th 1973
`Can one of you zip me up?`
Lily stepped out of the bathroom, wearing a turquoise dress Mary had leant her for the occasion.
`Sure.` The dress clung snugly around her torso as Mary gently pulled the zipper up. `Oh, Lil!` Mary gushed. `You look gorgeous!` She took Lily by her hand and spun her around. Lily felt her face turn pink.
`Oh, stop it.` Lily mumbled, feeling embarrassed.
`Doesn`t Lily look stunning?` Mary asked, looking imploringly at Marlene, who was pouring over a book on top of her bed.
`Hmm?` Marlene looked up. `Yeah,` she stammered. `Really, erm, pretty.` She stared wide-eyed at the two of them.
While Lily wasn`t usually one for parties, tonight she would be attending one. Last week, she`d received an invitation from Professor Slughorn to attend the Slug Club`s annual beginning of the year party. Lily didn`t really know who else was invited. Severus had probably was, though she wouldn`t know, since she hadn`t spoken to him since Hogsmeade.
However, she did suppose - since he was by far one of the cleverest people from their class - Remus would also be attending. She was planning on waiting on him in the common room, maybe they could even go together. It would certainly be nice to have someone familiar nearby. A flutter of excitement at the prospect of spending the evening together with him circled through her.
Before going out, Mary quickly touched up Lily`s make-up; practically holding her down to get some last minute mascara on her lashes. Feeling giddy, she waved her dormmates goodbye and headed down into the common room; positioning herself strategically by the portrait.
Anxiously she kept checking her watch; thinking about how the evening would pan out and what she would say to Remus.
Fortunately, after only a couple of minutes she heard people coming down the stairs; Lily looked up to see Remus, James and Sirius entering the common room. Lily`s stomach sank when she realised she`d have to share Remus would those two goons. Obviously they had been invited as well, how could they not have been, being the young lords as they were.
`Remus!` Lily said, standing up.
`You look nice, Evans.` James smirked at her; Sirius exhaled audibly. Both of them were wearing neat dress-robes. Remus was in his normal clothes.
`I wanted to speak to Remus.` Lily said, pointedly ignoring James` greeting and Sirius` exasperation. `Will you walk me to the party?` she blurted, it came out a lot less elegant than she`d planned.
`Not going.` Remus simply shrugged. `Not invited.`
Lily`s heart sank. `Oh…` she said, feeling her cheeks flush from embarrassment. `Sorry, I just assumed…` she stuttered.
`What did you want to talk about?` Remus asked. She now noticed he was carrying his bookbag and was impatiently tugging at the strap. He already started pushing past her, through the portrait hole.
Quickly, Lily scurried after him, her slightly heeled shoes making it hard to keep up with his long legged strides. She hadn`t really wanted to talk to Remus exactly, she had just wanted to enjoy the party together. He was practically the reason she was going at all. Now she just needed to hold up appearances and try to come up with something she wanted to discuss.
`What`s the book?` she heaved, indicating at the book Remus was clutching.
`Nothing.` Remus replied, covering the title deliberately.
`It`s not something nasty, is it?` Lily asked, furrowing her brow in disapproval. `It`s not another horrid thing to do to Severus.` Mary had told her about the war that the marauders had called out over the Slytherins.
`I knew that was what you wanted to talk about.` Remus sighed annoyed.
Lily felt a slight pang at this. Was that really all that Remus though about her? Just a whiny goody-goody? He was still walking and it was hard to keep up with him; she felt silly in her party dress.
`Well you have to admit, Sirius did start it that it that time in Hogsmeade. I mean he called Sev-` Lily started, feeling justified to be mean to him.
`I don`t care, Lily.` Remus bit at her, more forcefully than Lily had thought he was capable of. `He didn`t have to be so nasty, Sirius and James were just having a laugh, and Snape had to go and make it personal.` They turned around a sharp bend.
`Oh!` Lily stomped her foot angrily. `You`re all as bad as eachother!` She felt foolish for having thought that Remus might be on her side with this.
`You know he hates people like you, too, don`t you?` Remus retaliated. They were now standing outside the library. `You know that his sort hate our sort.`
`Our sort,` Lily rolled her eyes, fuming. `Honestly, this whole blood purity thing is getting ridiculous, and it doesn`t excuse-`
Remus cut her off again, `He made Marlene cry, Mary told us. What do you think he says behind your back.`
Lily felt as though she had been punched in the gut with a giant quidditch bat; all the air whacked out of her. Neither Mary nor Marlene had mentioned any of the sort, and Remus was unjust for saying that Severus might secretly say mean things about her behind her back.
`Sev would never say anything like that about me!` she cried, feeling her face turn red. `He`s my best friend!`
`Well good for you, but the rest of us aren`t so fortunate.` Remus snapped at her, his length towering over her. She felt herself shrink. Desperately she wanted to floor to swallow her whole. In the corners of her eyes tears began to prick and her throat closed up. Lily really didn`t want to cry right now.
`What are you going to do to him?` she asked, her throat feeling thick and her voice small.
Remus sighed and his face softened slightly. His dark eyes no longer had the fury in them that they had exhibited only moments before.
`Not just him. All of them.` Remus said softly, bowing down to her, his face almost touching hers, she could feel his breath on her face. `And nothing bad. If he stops calling anyone else names, then nothing at all.`
Lily swallowed. They way Remus brought it, it didn`t sound too bad; still she felt dubious about his intentions.
`That`s all I`ll say.` Remus straightened up. `You`ll be late for your party, go on.`
Lily left, feeling like the night might just as well be shot with. Still, she went to the part; after all she`d already told Professor Slughorn she`d be there. James and Sirius were already there, standing in a corner, laughing and whispering to eachother.
There was music playing and a table laden with various canapés was standing against one of the walls. Lily wasn`t hungry and she certainly didn`t want to dance; which was only amplified by James asking her to do so, which she rejected with vigour.
Severus wasn`t there -Lily hadn`t exactly expected him to come - yet now she`d sort of whished he`d been there. Standing in a corner of the room, wearing her beautiful dress, nursing a drink, she felt incredibly lonely.
Ultimately, she set herself a time she would allow herself to leave and kept checking her watch to see if it was already time. Slughorn came to check up on her a couple of times; he seemed rather drunk, which Lily thought was extremely inappropriate. Some older students also seemed to be under the influence of something.
Suddenly, there was a lot of noise and screeching and Lily saw that there were several slugs sliding across the carpet, moving very fast in all directions. Lily let out a tiny yelp and sprang up on a chair. The slugs seemed to be multiplying themselves rapidly. In her periphery she spotted James and Sirius laughing hysterically; of course they were behind this.
As icing on the cake, the slugs all suddenly exploded and the slimy substance got all over her; in her hair, over Mary`s dress, in her drink.
Without further ado, she left the party, absolutely fuming.
In rage she stormed though the common room, Remus was sitting in one of the armchairs and she was still angry with him. Why couldn`t he have been invited?
`What`s up Evans?` Remus asked coyly. Oh of course he also got a kick out of this; whiny annoying Lily had gotten hers.
`Ask them.` she spat. `I`m going for a shower.`
Storming up the stairs, she wiped some of the silvery slime from her face in disgust.
`Lily!` Mary gasped as Lily burst into the room, almost taking the entire door with her. `What happened?!`
Marlene came out of the bathroom and looked alarmed at the sight of Lily.
Lily immediately started sobbing and sunk down on the rug, `They, they… Potter and Black.` she heaved, between sobs. `Horrid dancing and those awful, awful slugs! And I`m – eurgh – And the dress. Oh Mary, I`m so sorry about your dress.` she wailed.
`It`s ok, we can wash it.` Mary replied, patiently.
`And I didn`t even want to go to that foolish party!` Lily cried. `I only went for Remus and he- he wasn`t even there. Annoying prick. And I got all dressed up! I must be losing my bloody mind.` she clutched her arms around her legs. `I need to be locked up. I`m actually loosing my head! This isn`t me, getting all upset about a boy like that.`
`Lily, Lily, ` Mary tried to calm her down; Marlene just sitting silently in front of her. `Listen to me, love. Maybe you aren`t loosing your head. Lil…maybe you just fancy Remus.`
`I- I-` Lily stammered, still crying. `But, no I-`
`Just think about it.` Mary replied gently.
Lily swallowed hard and blinked; trying to rewind all her memories. Could Mary have been right all this time?
`Oh God, oh God, no, no, no, ` Lily sobbed. `I fancy Remus! Do I fancy Remus?! Oh… bugger.` she plonked her head down on her knees.
Marlene quietly handed her a handkerchief and Mary patted her back, consolingly.
`Jup. Good job on figuring that one out.`
///