Valentine's Day
Dear Mary,
Petunia and I have been fighting for the past week, and I genuinely don’t know what to even do at the moment. I think I lose it when I fight with people, it makes me crazy. If there’s a worst version of Lily Evans, the most despicable I could possibly be, I think it’s when I fight. Petunia didn’t even do anything awful, she just brought Vernon to something I would be us two. Is that so wrong? Of her, I mean, it’s not really wrong at all. For me it is. I’m wrong. I don’t know why, I guess. I’m not always awful, am I?
Hopefully I’ll snap out of it soon, or I’ll repent for it in church on Sunday, I suppose. It’s what my father would tell me to do.
(P.S. Vernon is a right prick, to be fair.)
(P.P.S. He deserves it, though Petunia does not.)
Possibly damned,
Lily Evans
---
Dear Lily,
Personally, I don’t find you crazy at all, but I see why you find yourself that way. You’re an angel come down to Earth, Lily Evans, which makes it seem extra horrible when you act like a normal person. This is a phenomenon I have titled “The Evans Effect” and it should not be taken too seriously at all. Being subjected to time with that awful Vernon seems like reason enough to be absolutely raging mad to me. You’re never awful. I promise it!
Church on Sunday is always the best plan. My mother would agree.
(P.S. I’m glad I’ve never been arse enough to deserve your wrath.)
(P.P.S. If I ever begin to turn into Vernon Dursley, simply kill me on the spot.)
Damned alongside you,
Mary Macdonald
Chapter 30
Mary Macdonald and Dorcas Meadowes, as shocking a pair as ever, leaned outside of the abandoned Charms classroom and listened to Marlene and Lily shout at each other on the inside.
Mary frowned and eyed her counterpart uneasily, taking in her dark blue dress. It sparkled slightly in the light and kept slipping down over her shoulder like it was too loose.
So this was what they’d been up to. All this time she’d suspected some grand plot to strike down the Gryffindor bid for the house cup, or a complex system to get Marlene answers for homework, and this was what had really been going on.
“I’m sorry,” Mary said instinctually. She realized she knew how it felt, and should probably be sorry for the gut wrenching nausea that was probably wrenching through the other girl’s stomach.
“It’s alright,” Dorcas Meadowes replied with a shake of her head.
“We didn’t mean for that to happen,” she told her.
Dorcas laughed, “Neither did we, I suppose.”
Marlene and Lily’s voices rose to a pitchy crescendo inside the room. Mary couldn’t even fathom what they were yelling about. She was shocked, in so many ways, that it was them fighting inside that room. They seemed an unlikely pair to be yelling like that. It would make more since, really, had it been Mary and Dorcas. Not sweet tempered Lily, not good natured Marlene. Mary and Dorcas made far more sense. A rough girl from London and a Slytherin from God knows where. It had been a long time since Mary had been near a Slytherin and not gotten into a row. Shouldn’t they be the ones shouting?
“How could you be so stupid?” Lily shouted. “Tell me, what in the world made you do this?”
“Oh come down off the high horse, Lily, it isn’t fooling anyone,” Marlene countered. “You really don’t understand what made me do this?”
“Christ, you-”
Mary stopped listening when she realized they were arguing with themselves more than each other.
“They certainly have a set of lungs on them, eh?” She turned, valiantly, to an offbeat sense of humor, as she was still clearly extremely drunk.
“Isn’t that the truth,” Dorcas Meadowes had the strength to chuckle.
They sat in an uncomfortable quiet, though it was easier to linger in than what resulted when they’d found them there in the first place. She almost could have laughed at the idea of it, Dorcas Meadowes had known Marlene this whole year. They’d probably lingered in silence just like this, if not with a little more warmth.
The thought spurred her further and words tripped from her mouth, nearly like how Marlene had tripped over the leg of a desk and a chair to cover Dorcas from their sight.
Get out! Mary still remembered the shout. Give us a minute, please, please!
“How long has this been going on?” Mary asked quietly. Give us a minute, she thought. Us. It had been going on long enough to make them a unit.
“Two months, three months maybe,” Dorcas murmured. “Feels like longer, I suppose.”
“Yeah, feels like longer,” she agreed, and laughed.
“How long have you two been um-” Dorcas fumbled in the air with her hands as if to suggest something, making Mary’s eyes go wide with shock.
“Oh no, we’re not- we’re friends,” she spat out, her face going hot and red.
“Friends, yeah?”
“Friends.” Mary nodded her head.
Dorcas smiled and reached over to pat her gently on the shoulder.
“S’alright,” she murmured touchingly. “Me and Marlene are just friends too, sometimes. That’s what she says. Or that’s what I say.” Her eyes unfocused sadly, staring at the ground. “It’s hard to keep track, I suppose.”
Maybe she was a bit drunk as well. She kept repeating that last bit, I suppose. Mary wondered if that was a quirk she had, or something. It was odd to meet someone and realize how different they were from what you expected. Dorcas Meadowes, supervillain of Mary’s most melodramatic social imaginings, was stuttering over her words and repeating over and over again, I suppose.
She kissed Marlene like she meant it too. Mary could barely even stand to think about it, kissing. That sort of thing had lived at an in between place in her mind, both real and not real. Hot and cold. She didn’t want to think about it like that, like someone could see it happen.
“Yeah,” Mary murmured. “Hard to keep track. But Lily and I are just friends.”
The door banged open, practically kicked down by Marlene and Lily as they simultaneously attempted to edge their way through.
“We’re leaving, Mary,” Lily demanded, beckoning her to stand intensely.
“Stop-” Marlene called.
“I said, let’s go.”
Mary stood. When she was commanded by Lily Evans she did as she was told. Once, twice she glanced back at Marlene. Her hands shook uncontrollably and her eyes were rimmed with painful red.
Dorcas Meadowes reached out to grab Marlene’s hand proudly, so that everyone could see, and she did not shy away from lightly soothing the trembling in her fingers. Lily’s face turned bright red. She sputtered like she wanted to say something awful before she cut herself off.
“Goodbye Mary,” Dorcas gave her a mournful smile. “It was nice to meet you, I suppose.”
“I suppose it was too,” she laughed faintly, and was whisked away without opportunity for another word.
***
“Can you fucking believe them?” Lily seethed and paced the small opening behind the window as Mary smoked out the window.
“I can’t,” she murmured and took a long and tired drag.
The night was ancient, falling into the hours where her eyes tended to get itchy and rough unless she smoked. The moon was bright and shining down on them, more like the sun than anything else, and the wind blew coldly against her face. Lily, in her narrow minded quest to find what vengeance would fit best to Marlene and Dorcas’s crime, ranted and raved about the intricacies of their evil. Mary’s skin still hummed with hours of old want.
“They were doing- doing- that! In a classroom?” Mary did not tell her that they had been about to do the same thing.
“They were,” she sighed instead in return.
“Christ, I can’t fucking believe it.” Lily shook her head.
The stars were painfully bright against Mary’s eyes. They made her blink and frown incessantly, nearly as bad as the anger in Lily’s voice. She raved like a politician on television, tearing down some enemy that was still living in the shadows.
Mary sighed and said, “It’s not that surprising is it?”
“What?” Lily stopped in her pacing tracks.
“I mean, look at Marlene. It’s not that surprising.”
“I don’t know what you could possibly mean by that,” she shrugged violently, almost like she was seizing. Mary wanted to hold her close and soothe away the jerking breaths that wracked each word, but she wasn’t allowed that yet.
“She looks like she would, well, she looks like she would get caught with a girl, is all I mean.” Her head hurt. She needed to sleep, and to sleep she needed Lily to hold her.
Lily shook her head. “You can’t look like something that isn’t anything at all. Marlene is making a mistake. She doesn’t mean it. You understand that.”
“Come on, Lily. There is such a thing,” Mary felt her eyes turn hot, tears welling up at the back of her mind.
“There shouldn’t be.” Her voice fell terrifyingly in volume; her eyes went dark. The smoke from Mary’s most recent drag shrouded her face in opaque gloom that left Lily as a darkened figure in her vision. She loomed, her hands clenching into tight fists.
“Well there is. Haven’t you taken a look at your own life lately?” she delivered a pointed laugh, holding the cigarette from her lips with dangerous anger.
“Oh shove off,” Lily spat. “I swear you say the most awful things, Mary.”
“Can you fucking believe it?” Mary mimicked the soft, pitching parts of Lily’s voice. “Really, really, what do you tell yourself is the reason we were going to that classroom in the first place?”
“I- I-”
“That’s what I thought,” she said firmly.
Lily became very quiet, her head turned down to the floor as if she wished to hide.
“I never thought you would do this to me,” she murmured, soft and nearly silent. The venom poured from her words.
A pit fell into Mary’s stomach. She wiped away the tears from her face but they would not quit their flowing. Her face was turned to the window, at least. Lily couldn’t see how she made her feel. She couldn’t stop caring and she couldn’t stop crying. What would have happened, she wondered, if someone had seen them kissing instead of the other way around. What would Lily have said then?
I never thought you would do this to me.
She turned back around to say something, to really get angry, but Lily was already gone. To bed, Mary assumed. To sleep with James Potter again, most certainly. Julien wasn’t even there to make her feel worse twofold. Bad for shagging him and bad for hating it.
She smoked out of the window all night long, and did not let herself cry anymore.
***
In a turn of events so loathsome it made Mary nearly sick with anger, Valentines Day fell directly after the Ball in its honor. She woke with a groan and a headache that signified a much larger issue. A hangover that could possibly be big enough to stop an elephant in its tracks. Mary wasn’t sure if it was because of how drunk she’d been or everything that happened. Either way, her head pounded, her eyes squeezed shut, and Lily was nowhere to be found.
The shower ran cold and the air ran colder as it hit her skin and made her eyes water. She was quite glad, as did not often happen, that she actually got to choose what she was wearing today. Jeans did a great deal more to cover against the elements than a flimsy uniform skirt, and her favorite sweater was heavy enough to block out even more cold. All she needed now was a coat and her Gryffindor scarf. Easy enough to acquire.
There was a note on the door with her name on it, though it was not Lily’s handwriting that she recognized.
Dear Mary,
It read,
I’m sorry about what happened last night, and that Lily is angry and that I ruined everything. I didn’t mean to ruin anything. I didn’t mean to do anything at all. Dorcas and I are planning to come back from Hogsmeade early. If it suits you, meet us on the path to the gamekeeper’s hut. We can talk. I need to talk to you.
Love, Marlene
She stuffed the note into the pocket of her jeans and tucked her head lower against the collar of her jacket. It rode roughly against her cheek with biting insistency. She was glad, at least, that it helped her not to cry.
Right then and there, she decided not to go to Hogsmeade, picking up the rudder for her day otherwise marooned. She couldn’t take the idea of Madam Pudifoots and couples darting in and out of each other's arms. She couldn’t take not being able to smoke. She couldn’t take seeing James Potter’s grinning face. Mary wondered if he knew that there was something wrong with Lily, if in the most literal sense or the least literal one.
Maybe Lily wasn’t sad at all. There was always that too. Maybe she kissed James Potter and really loved it. Either way, Mary realized she could not stomach the thought.
So, instead of breakfast, she went to the footbridge to smoke, bringing her letters, a novel Remus gave her, and her wonders that if she lost Lily, if she lost Marlene, would she even have anyone left?
She mentally divided up her friends in her mind, a draft of sorts. James would go with Lily, as he alway did, and Peter would follow him soon after. Sirius would probably follow James, it certainly didn’t seem like he cared about her enough to break that bond. Remus was the only tossup, the only one too close to call.
One person who could stand all that she’d done, and maybe not even that, if he didn’t choose her in the end.
So there it was. She had to meet Marlene. Her last friend left, if it all turned out how she thought.
***
Around midday, the sun passed behind a lonely cloud, floating silently over her down turned forehead and casting its dark shadow over her reading. She looked up, saw the position of the sun, and noted the time like she was an ancestor living in some primitive society a thousand years prior. Then, with panic she shifted into gear.
Marlene had summoned her at this time, and Dorcas (she supposed). Even if she didn’t actually end up meeting them she would find Remus and Sirius and let them get her pissed. Or Lily would be back. Maybe she would let her in again.
The path back up to the castle was cold but not dreary. Though it was supposed to be sad, gray was a color that suited the stones and gardens. She walked, for once, with her head turned to the sky and not to the ground, her eyes awake and alive. She thought, of course, about Lily Evans. The green of the Forbidden Forest sweeping next to the lake was like her eyes.
Without meaning to, her legs turned her loose towards the gamekeeper’s hut. It was, by that point, a tumbling path that followed the slope of the hill and leveled out in places. She took breaths to take in the scenery at each place the hill stopped for a moment.
One such time, one such place, she found Marlene and Dorcas.
They were standing among a group of four rocks, great pillars that cropped up against the sky. Dorcas slumped gracefully against the tallest of the four, her head thrown back and laughing. Marlene was pacing back and forth in the slushy, melting, Valentines snow. Mary saw them before they saw her. High up on the hill, she watched Marlene tell a joke that made Dorcas laugh wildly.
It forced her to make herself known. Mary tumbled over herself down the rest of the stone steps embedded into the hillside and called out a lofty hello.
Both of their heads snapped up in tandem, leading straight to the sound of Marlene’s voice cutting through the cold air.
“You came?” she called.
“You weren’t wrong when you said we needed to talk,” Mary replied back and laughed a little, as it leached into her chest. With all the people she’d known since first year, laughter felt like that. Almost by accident, she laughed like a memory was making her do it.
Dorcas Meadowes, however, was an alien. The alien stood up straighter and adjusted the long black braids that fell past her shoulder. The alien smiled and waved a little bit. The alien probably liked Marlene a great deal, or even loved her.
“Are you alright, Macdonald?” Marlene asked quietly.
“Yeah, I’m alright,” she shrugged. Had it been a traumatic event? Mary wasn’t sure.
“We- I- well. I’m sorry you found out like that.” It was plain and simple. No apology that it happened, that they existed. Only sorrow for the manner in which it was found out.
“We both are,” Dorcas reassured her. Her voice was gentle and even. She could see why Marlene found comfort in her. For all she saw, they seemed to be uneven versions of each other.
“So this is it?” Mary asked. “The truth.”
They looked at each other, then back to her again, then to the sky. Teenage girls always liked the sky, or the trees, or the lake. There was lots of thinking to be done in such a place.
“Yeah, this is it, Mary. I don’t think that’s such a bad thing.”
“Maybe it’s not,” she whispered just over the wind. “I just didn’t think it would turn out this way. You would turn out this way, I guess.”
“Me?” Marlene raised her eyebrows as if to suggest something far wider.
“Sure, you.” She shrugged, knowing she had been long found out.
Marlene sighed. She strode several times forward and placed a strong hand on her shoulder, a Quidditch player’s hand.
“I can tell about you and Lily,” she told her softly. “I’m sorry, but I can tell.”
Mary slumped where she stood, her posture falling from half her size as the air deflated from her lungs. “She told you?”
“No, we just figured it,” Marlene gestured towards where Dorcas stood.
“You too?” Mary asked desperately.
“Me too, I suppose,” she murmured.
“Sure, you suppose.” She collapsed to sit on the steps of some crumbling stone structure that had long seen better days. It was cold where she sat, dismal. She let her forehead fall to her knees and put pressure on her eyes to stem the tears. “Everyone will know soon, now.”
“No Mary, no,” Marlene rushed forward to sit anxiously beside her. Mary thought she heard the beginnings of Dorcas doing the same, hesitant footfalls starting and stopping.
“This is our secret to keep, and we will keep it,” Dorcas called.
Mary lifted her head to meet dark brown eyes, true like a Brixton girl’s might be. She wondered where Dorcas was from, where her family was born. At her mother’s congregation that was always the first question. How did you get here? They would ask. It meant the same thing. What is your family at its core and what did they make of you? Mary wondered if Dorcas was Jamaican, like she was. She wondered if her mother hated her too. She wondered what kind of shame had been dug into her since birth. Was it the same breed of Catholic as Mary? Was it something else? Did it hurt sometimes, when she kissed Marlene?
“You won’t tell?”
“Never,” Dorcas told her. No more, I suppose.
Marlene fell onto Mary in a deep hug, and did not relent until Dorcas had done the same. It felt, for once, like their hearts might've beat the same.