The snow fell like gentle dust over Diagon Alley, colouring the cobblestone in pure white, somewhat numbing the usual echoes of the nightlife. Most shops on her way had already barricaded their doors and windows, many weeks ago, fear these days travelled even faster then the fire of the dragons in Bulgaria. Only the flickering gas lamps kept watch under the weight of this particularly cold winter night.
Marlene McKinnon moved like smoke through the alleys, well hidden under a disillusionment charm, her wand loosely tucked in her hand. The hem of her cloak was already damp from all the snow and her boots, charmed of course, left no trace behind her.
She stopped in front of an ash-stained wall, not unlike the one behind the Leaky. Soft footsteps approached only a moment later and she uncast the charm, coming fully into view, her breath purring out in ghostly puffs.
“Bit late for a drink, McKinnon,” said a familiar voice, hush and low.
“Well, you’re the one who picked the hour,” Marlene murmured, not turning, “You have any idea what the password was again?”
Dorcas stepped beside her, pulling back her hood, she didn’t even bother hiding. Her curls were just as damp with snow, as Marlenes coat. “Of course.” She tapped her wand to the bricks and whispered, “Pluma Fumi.”
With that the wall began to shimmer in a heat like haze and slowly started to seemingly meld away in the middle, leaving a narrow crack in the wall that led to small passageway lit by golden lanterns. At the end stood a crooked old oak door with a brass knocker shaped like the beak of a hippogriff.
The pub was small, windowless and, at least according to the owner, older than most establishments in and around the Diagon Ally, only Gringotts, he said, stood here longer. Candles were floating above each booth, carefully placed in old wine bottles, of whom some were decades older than Marlene and Dorcas, casting golden pools of light on the dark tattered tables. Behind the counter, an elderly witch with bright orange spectacles wiped down glasses and hummed along to a scratchy Sinatra record playing from a gramophone in the corner. She only nodded as she saw Dorcas and Marlene come in, they were already a pair of well-known faces, one could almost say that they were part of the furniture.
They slipped into their usual booth, the one half-hidden behind a crumbling tapestry of the second Kobold Rebellion, that always made them thing of Professor Bins endless tirades that they had to suffer through back in Hogwarts.
“Two,” Dorcas said to the bartender, holding up her fingers.
“Strong?” the witch asked.
Dorcas hesitated, exchanging a short look with Marlene, the latter raised an eyebrow.
“Make one of them strong,” Dorcas said, “The other one can be watered down a wee bit.”
“Oh, watering it down again?” Marlene asked, while an amused grin hushed across her face.
“Some of us like our throats intact, thanks.” Dorcas leaned back, stretching one arm along the curve of the booth. “You look like shit.”
“Aw,” Marlene said playfully, “That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard all week! Thanks darling.”
Their drinks arrived-a normal Firewhisky for Marlene, and a version more akin to water for Dorcas, that still carried the faint scent of danger. They clinked their glasses, an oddly loud noise in the quiet.
“To making it back,” Marlene said.
“To something stronger than Felix Felicis,” Dorcas replied.
The Firewhisky was warm and sharp, burning through her stomach like courage in liquid form. Dorcas coughed, wincing.
“You always order like you enjoy the taste,” she mumbled.
Marlene smirked, “Well but I do enjoy it. Puts hair on your chest, you know?”
“Terrifying.” Dorcas shook her head, half-smiling as she conjured a slice of lemon to drop into her drink.
They didn’t talk about the mission at first.
Instead, they spoke of lighter things, or well at least tried to. Emmeline’s utterly absurd new wand holster, Peter’s disastrous escapades during stealth training, the run in with the cops James and Sirius had on his enchanted motorcycle, about which the boys still bragged about days later.
But eventually, almost like curse, the quiet slipped in.
Then, after a while, Dorcas starts to speak very softly, “I don’t want to forget how this feels.”
Marlene looked up from her, now empty, glass, “What?”
“This,” Dorcas said, “This moment. This place. You with me. Things that aren’t about blood and wandwork and death.”
Marlene didn’t reply right away, instead she reaches across the table to gently touch Dorcas’s hand, tracing the edges of a faint scar along Dorcas’ knuckle. Marlene had kissed it once, just before a mission that neither of them thought they’d come back from.
Dorcas exhales.
“I’ve spent years pretending that I wasn’t utterly in love with you,” she said.
The candles above them flickered.
Marlene’s heart thudded heavy against her chest.
She still said nothing. She stood up instead, slowly, and held out her hand.
Dorcas blinked. “You can’t be serious.”
“Indeed, I’m Marl-”
“No, I mean here?”
“Why not?”
The pub had cleared out, leaving only two other patrons beside them, one of whom was asleep with a half-empty Butterbeer loosely in his hand. The music shifted to something slow, old, and rich with longing.
‘…Tomorrow comes like yesterday, the autumn fates…our love away…’
They stood together in the middle of the room, where a small space for dancing was cleared out. Marlene’s hand was on Dorcas’ waist, Dorcas’ fingers curled at her shoulder. They didn’t really know how to dance. But they moved, in sync and that was enough.
Marlene leaned her forehead against Dorcas’. Their breath mingled and just for a moment there was no rush, no panic, but instead there was a warmth between them that not even the horrors of the war managed to bury.
“I was afraid you know?” Dorcas whispered, “afraid that if I kissed you, it would mean I had something -someone- to lose.”
“You do,” Marlene said, her voice barely a breath, “We both do.”
Dorcas smiled, just slightly, and closed the distance between them.
It may not have been one of those kisses found in fairy tales and it also wasn’t one of those wild and desperate once either, no, this kiss was gentler and, in a way, truer, a kind of kiss that said: Even if all ends tomorrow, at least we had this.
They stepped back into the snow just before the dawn of a new day began to melt away the snow of the previous night. The streets were still quiet. The light creeped slowly across the rooftops like a promise one shouldn’t trust.
They stood there in the cold for a moment, their gazes interlocked with one another.
“Say it again,” Marlene whispered.
Dorcas didn’t need to ask what she meant. “I’m utterly in love with you.”
Marlene touched her cheek, thumb brushing away a lonely snowflake that had still lingered on. “Good,” she said softly, “That means you’ll come back.”
“And so will you,” Dorcas said.
They didn’t kiss again. They didn’t have to.
A moment later, she was gone with a soft crack. Marlene stood there for another heartbeat, memorising the space where Dorcas had been only a few seconds ago.
Then she disappeared into the growing light, her heat somehow heavier and lighter all at once.