marlene
marlene mckinnon-
"i'm so sick of seventeen"
seventeen is marlene's least favourite number. she thinks it's unlucky.
well, for her, its more that she knows its unlucky.
her father was seventeen when he was killed in a muggle car crash, while her mother was seventeen weeks pregnant with her.
her stepfather married her mother on the seventeenth of january, when she was seventeen months old.
her stepbrother turned seventeen and joined the order, getting himself killed seventeen days later.
you could call them all coincidences, but she doesn't think they are. there must be something more to it, but the hours she has spent searching for any magical connotation of the number seventeen have seemed to be in vain. there is nothing.
she hates it.
she is so sick of seventeen.
that is why, on the morning of her seventeenth birthday, she slept until one pm. her friends left a couple of gifts beside her bed, and breakfast under a warming charm. she knows lily had thought of that, and she is forever grateful.
she still doesn't wish they had stayed until she woke up. the quiet was nice - she didn't have to pretend to be all fine. she's marlene.
she's always fine.
it must be a cruel sign that she wakes up on the seventeenth of july with a lump in her throat. when she walks downstairs, her mother is sitting at the table with her stepfather. her half-siblings are flitting around the room, and there are seventeen slices of dry looking pieces of toast on a cracked platter.
she throws hers out the back door when no one is looking and tries to tell herself that she didn't count them.
she isn't insane, there is a very real war. she's just a little on edge.
that's all.
but when a faint squawk sounds from outside and there are seventeen magpies fighting over her abandoned toast, she runs to the bathroom and throws up. when her mother rubs her back, she pushes her off.
but not before she counts the seventeenth circle.
the death eaters come at at seventeen past five, or as some of the smarter muggles were saying now, 17:17pm.
they break through the wards as if they are made of paper. her family's screams echo off of the walls, and she curls up behind her little sisters locked door, a door that eliza will never use again, one hand clasped over her mouth as tears fall down her cheeks like something out of a movie, the other clutching her wand so tightly her knuckles almost break through her skin.
the wood is freezing against her back, cold seeping through her jacket. eliza's expensive muggle alarm clock - the one marlene had bought her, with lily's help, of course - says it has been seventeen minutes since the death eaters broke in. she struggles to swallow a sob as footsteps begin down the hall. almost as if she's doing it against her will, she starts to count them.
one.
two.
three.
...
seven.
eight.
nine.
...
twelve.
thirteen.
fourteen.
...
seventeen.
the door is blown open, and marlene curls into herself even more as a shadow falls over her. but she doesn't move until a wand prods her shoulder.
the man standing over her has a face so familiar that she wants to scream. everything relaxes as her face sags, and she reaches out a hand to him.
to peter, her best friend to this day.
but he stares at it as if it is something he cant even fathom touching, and she falters. for a second she wonders if this isn't peter, but it is. she knows those slightly stringy, dirty blond curls and pale blue eyes. she knows the birthmark shaped like a ship on the back of his neck, and the trail of freckles on his left calf. she knows the black robes- wait what?
the robes.
and the mask.
and the secrecy.
and the rat in the order.
she would honestly laugh if she wasn't so terrified.
peter betrayed them. and in doing so, peter killed dorcas. peter killed her family. peter is going to kill everyone.
peter is going to kill her. she would have died for him, but he is going to kill her.
she scrabbles away from him, her back hitting the plaster wall. her nails rip as she tries to dig them into the wooden floor, splinters embedding themselves into her palms. she reaches for her wand only to spot it in his right pocket.
and that's when it hits her. she is going to die. she can't escape this.
something must show on her face, maybe pained acceptance, because peter flinches as if someone just slapped him across the face. she wants to scream, and cry, and laugh, throw things at him, curse him, torture him - kill him, even.
how dare he even think to be in pain. how dare he act like this hurts him, when he made the decision to do this, because even if she doesn't know him as well as she though she did, she still knows no one can make him do anything he truly doesn't want to do.
he raises his wand a little more, just so that it is pointing at her heart. oddly poetic, if she was bothered about that kind of thing.
her lips are cracked, and covered in dry blood, though she isn't sure where its from, but she's too close to death to be bothered now. she wets them with her tongue, the taste salty and coppery, tears and blood, and the word spills from her mouth before she can stop it.
"coward."
peter visibly crumples, his body curving like he was kicked in the gut. his face is twisted in something akin to guilt, but she is sure he is incapable of truly feeling such an emotion after what he has done. it is seventeen seconds before he straightens again, and then his wand is spewing out the killing curse, the light a poisonous green. she wonders if it was difficult for him to cast it.
as she dies, marlene curses the number seventeen.