The McKinnons
To live in a house filled with only the smartest can often be a struggle. High expectatons of intelligence, severe disappointment, or simple disregard.
The McKinnons were known for being Ravenclaws. It was engrained in their history, engraved into their bones. Whoever heard of a McKinnon not in Ravenclaw?
They’d have jobs in the Ministry sometimes. Aurors, Unspeakables, Curse Breakers. Only the positions requiring the most intelligence, of course. Then there were those business owners. A McKinnon had opened the Leaky Cauldron Cafe, and sold it when they got bored, moving on to bigger things.
They were known for their entrepreneurship and all the success that arose from it. Marlene McKinnon, one of many heirs, knew her expected place from the beginning. Her parents loaded her with books, fiction and non-fiction, expecting her to pore over them the same way everyone else in their family had.
They only looked back when she didn’t.
“Seriously, Marlene. It would do you good to stop being so difficult for me and your father.”
Youngest in all the family, the seventeenth heir to the McKinnon fortune (and most likely to never even see a knut of it, aside from her own small trust fund), and the forgotten McKinnon. Whoever said being a pureblood heir was easy?
Marlene had the same mousy brown hair of all the McKinnons, until she’d stolen box dye with some muggle friends and bleached it blonde. The store keeper had chased them out while Marlene and her friends laughed. She was certain she’d gotten reported. But if it was a lecture she was hoping for, she was bitterly disappointed.
They ignored her hair colour and petty theft much like they ignored her presence. She was nothing more than a mouse; rarely regarded unless it was to express disappointment or disgust. Why regard the mouse when they could regard the cat? It wasn’t hard to ignore Marlene when the day after, Winnie (third cousin, dad’s side) had announced she was to become a Curse Breaker. Like they did every time Marlene had found something to show her parents and they’d be required for work or to celebrate another McKinnon.
Any McKinnon, as long as it wasn’t her, right?
“Really Marlene, you don’t make it easy for us either.”
“You couldn’t let us be proud of you for once?”
Every Sunday they’d go to the church. The Wizarding World wasn’t big on religion, and many witches and wizards rarely were enthusiastic in celebrating anything that wasn’t purely cultural anyway. You’d think the McKinnons would be the same, considering their status as Ravenclaws.
Yet, Marlene found herself always being herded into church. A quiet, select church for Elite individuals only. Was that why it appealed to the McKinnons? All of whom were elite in every sense of the word. Or, was it to guide her thinking, possibly as a punishment for rulebreaking. No, that couldn’t be. Why priotise one unimportant child over an entire collection of notable figures. Silly Marlene. How would she get into Ravenclaw with that brain?
“Purity is our highest virtue; do not let others tamper with your dignity.”
She’d tested the waters of rebellion, searched for herself in vintage leather jackets and a pack of cigarettes. She’d devote her life to the nearby church for her parents approval by day, run wild in the town at night in saught of their disgust.
Whatever would best evoke a reaction, really. How was one meant to search for the impossible?
The McKinnons were purebloods through and through. Thorough haters of Voldemort and his supporters, yet harboring similar blood purist beliefs and pushing them onto their children.
“You’ll marry a nice, pureblood man.”
She’d asked once why she couldn’t marry a women — most wizardkind didn’t seem to care. Her parents did. If it’d been attention she’d been searching for, she got it. Marlene didn’t know if she still wanted it anymore. So why did she still chase it, searching for every tiny rebellion that might make her mother scream at her, just like that again?
The McKinnons were a valued House a part of the Sacred Twenty Eight. Marlene was expected to live up to the same expectations of similar purebloods, though she wasn’t certain if she’d ever be successful. It wasn’t as if any of her achievements would be new, as if they wouldn’t be overshined by a family member eventually.
Rebellion was somehow worse.
She didn’t even know who she was. Not anymore.
Was she the expectations of her parents? Or a failure, mixed into it all. Was she a rebel? A rebel destined to disobey that would never once reach some confirmation of her blatant rule-breaking.
Who could she become? What would she achieve? Would her parents ever be proud of her?
Was becoming a saviour not enough? Or, would her marriage to a person who stood against everything her parents believed in be enough to truly cut her off?
Marlene McKinnon would achieve a great number of things. Each extrordinary, yet none congratulated by family.
Family is fickle; everchanging and complex. Some children are the apple of their parents’ eyes. Others are nothing but disappointment. A majority lay within that grey area. Loved by their caregivers, yet unimportant to them.
But the blood of the covenant is said to be thicker than the water of the womb. Why must we rely solely upon the family we are born into for unconditional love and support? Sometimes, our relationships outside those with whom we share blood can toe the line of loe, camaraderie and kinship.
Marlene McKinnon would learn to dive between those lines, when it is safe to jump and when one must turn away. Not everyone can be saved, but it is better to try and fail than to say you didn’t try at all.
She would be a visionary for other seventeenth heirs. A role model for little Marlene’s, struggling to find their own place in a cruel, unforgiving world. And of course, never once forgotten or neglected by her chosen family.
If little Marlene could see her now, maybe she’d go a little easier on herself.
It will be okay. Everything’s going to be okay.
The blonde would never fade, but Marlene would learn to appreciate the roots of brown that poked through. She wouldn’t become a Curse Breaker or an Unspeakable and would stray far from the Auror path. But she’d be pretty happy with where she’d end up nonetheless.
A hero, not to just the wizarding world, but to the people who’d matter.
And such is the tale of Marlene McKinnon.