Marlene
All these people think love's for show
But I would die for you in secret
The devil's in the details, but you got a friend in me
Saturday, August 31st 1989
Marlene was the first one to get up the next morning, which was not unusual at all. She had known not to participate in any drinking the night before — it turned out, as she was nearing her thirtieth birthday, that alcohol only resulted in making her stomach sick, and she had already indulged in too many of Mrs. Moore’s infamous pigs on blankets (which had more grease than meat in it) for the entire party. She stretched herself, quite contently.
"Oh, is it morning already?" moaned Mary beside her, covering her face with her pillow.
Marlene went to the window and cracked it slightly open. It seemed like a lovely day. "Yeah, it seems so."
Mary only grunted in bed.
"You can sleep over", she said, kissing Mary on the cheek before changing herself. "You already did so much last night."
"You’re the best", Mary murmured.
She chuckled lightly. "Love you", she said before leaving.
"Love you", Mary echoed back, already half asleep.
The inn was charmingly silent. Marlene heard a symphony of calm snoring as she crossed the first floor hallway, and she could already hear the crackling of oil on a pan as she neared the kitchen. Mrs. Moore was already there, dutifully scrambling half a dozen eggs, and barely noticed her coming in.
"Morning", she called.
"Oh, Ms. McKinnon", the matron greeted her. "Good morning."
"Is Lily up yet?"
"No, miss, you’re the first. Quite the event last night, eh?"
"Yeah, it was fun", Marlene laughed. "Your nephew’s very good, we were all saying it."
"If only the boy could put as much dedication to school as he does to music", she sighed. "My sister’s going crazy back home. He’s starting his A-levels this year, and Lord knows he has no idea what he’s doing."
"Right." Marlene smiled politely and nodded. She decided to change the subject before Mrs. Moore tried to get into detail about the muggle education system, which she didn’t know enough of to carry a conversation about. "I should get started with cleaning up. People should be waking up any moment now, right?"
"That’s right, miss. And good luck out there, it’s quite the mess."
"Thank you", she said, smiling. It was better, actually, that Lily wasn’t there, so Marlene could use magic to clean the whole thing up in seconds. She understood Lily’s satisfaction of doing things with her bare hands, but hungover party cleaning should definitely not be one of them.
Just as she had taken out her wand, though, a couple of muggle guests exited the inn, waving at her and making themselves comfortable at one of the outdoor tables. She waved back, discreetly putting the wand away, and cursed them mentally. Could they not have waited a minute or two to come down? Who wakes up this early when on vacation, anyway?
"Morning, Marls!"
Remus had appeared in the garden, a coffee mug already in his hand.
"Oh, hey!" She greeted him. "You’re up early."
"Suppose we’re the only ones not hungover."
She grinned. "Yeah, you’re probably right."
"Do you need any help?"
"Yes, actually." She leaned in closer and lowered her voice. "I was hoping to clean things up by myself, but that couple came out right when I had my wand ready."
Remus glanced discreetly at them. Mrs. Moore had just served them two full plates of breakfast. "Yeah, looks like they’re not going anywhere. Come on, let’s get started. We can get this done before more people come down."
They began the work, which mostly was picking up trash — from the randomest and most absurd places. Removing food chunks from the grass turned out to be the trickiest part. She and Remus had to kneel and take them out one by one, but luckily they had found gloves amongst Lily’s cleaning supplies. It was still remarkably disgusting, so Marlene forced a conversation to distract herself.
"So, how…" she began. How what? She couldn’t ask him how the night had been, she’d been with him almost the entire thing. She also couldn’t just ask him how he was feeling so out of the blue, with no ice breakers. So she simply asked, "How are you?"
"I’m good", Remus responded, not looking up. "Crazy last twenty four hours, I suppose."
"Yeah, for all of us", she chuckled. "But I imagine it was a bit crazier for you boys. Well, and for Lily, of course."
"Oh, definitely. It’s all very… overwhelming. I’m just trying to take it one minute at a time."
"That’s a good strategy."
They continued their task in silence. She had so much to ask him, and yet she didn’t even know where to start. As much as she loved Remus, it had been at least a couple of years since she’d last seen him, and it still felt weird at times. Conversation didn’t come as naturally as it used to, and sometimes it felt too performative.
"So… the Harry situation", he finally spoke.
She only managed a nervous laugh. "Yes."
"Did you know?"
"No", she confessed. "I had no idea, actually. Found out yesterday, right after Lily found out you three had come here. She hadn’t told any of us about you or Sirius."
Remus kept looking down. "Yeah. I never told anyone, either."
"I didn’t wanna upset her even more, so I didn’t ask, but… How… When… What exactly happened?"
Remus sighed. "Well… Oh, when do I even start?"
"Halloween '77", Marlene suggested. "That was the night Lily and Sirius had their… thing, right?"
"Right, that was it. Though they never told anyone at the time, did they?"
"No. From what she’s told me, she felt too guilty about it. She only did it because she saw James kissing someone else, and then she and Sirius got pissed on those Ironbelly shots, and…"
"And they did it", Remus completed. He didn’t seem as uncomfortable as she had feared, so she took it as a good sign.
"Yeah. But then she and James started dating the next week or something, didn’t they?"
"I think they dated for two weeks."
"Well, it must have been during November, cause I remember no one was talking anymore when the Christmas decorations were put up."
"Right", Remus continued. "So they dated for a couple of weeks, until Sirius could no longer handle the guilt. So he went to James and confessed the whole thing. Then James confronted Lily, and they broke up."
"Yes." Marlene nodded, encouragingly.
"Well, then", he gulped. "That night they broke up, you and Mary were nowhere to be found, so I tried to console her. But as she was telling me the whole story, that was when I found out about it, too."
"About… Lily and Sirius."
"Yes."
"But… but you and Sirius, you…" she didn’t finish the sentence. Remus had never liked to talk about whatever it was that he and Sirius had, so she’d never known exactly what to call them.
"We weren’t official", Remus said. "Not on any terms. So he was perfectly free to sleep with whomever he wanted to, but… well, it still stung. Especially to find out about it through Lily.”
Marlene put a hand on his shoulder and waited until he looked at her. He couldn’t hold her gaze for more than a second at a time, but she kept smiling reassuringly. It suddenly felt incredibly stupid how they had allowed all of this miscommunication to ruin their friendship, and she decided she would not allow that any longer. They were all a bit too old for that now.
"I know", she said. "Believe me, I do. You know Mary and I took ages ourselves to become exclusive, so… I get it. It’s never fun."
Remus finally stared at her.
"I did that, too", she admitted. "Years ago. I found out Mary had been with this… actually, do you remember Ellis? Yeah, well, I found out they had slept together once, so I… I went after someone I thought would hurt Mary the most."
He frowned. "Not…"
"Yeah. Dorcas." She rolled her eyes. "At least you didn’t revenge-sleep with your ex, Remus."
He smiled faintly, but quickly shook his head. "I think what I did was worse. Not only did I ruin my friendship with Lily by sleeping with her, but… I betrayed James."
Remus then went back to scraping the grass furiously.
"Is that why you distanced yourself from all of us?" she asked. "For the rest of that year? And after graduation?"
"Yes. I… never found the courage to confess what I’d done to him."
"But he forgave Sirius. I’m sure he would forgive you, too."
He shrugged. "Maybe."
"And what about you and Sirius?"
"Well, Sirius for one would definitely not forgive me", he scoffed.
"Remus", she called and waited until he met her eye. "Come on. You don’t get to run away anymore. Not with Harry now involved. Whatever it is, you both are going to have to figure it out."
They both looked at the inn. It seemed so peaceful, so quiet, that it was hard to believe there was so much uneasiness between its guests and residents. Marlene thought of Harry, who was probably still in bed, dreaming of dragons and broomsticks. Whatever conflict they had with one another, especially Lily and James, they would have to sort it all out before Harry went away the next day.
The front yard was finally clear of any evidence of the night before, so they went back inside for their own breakfast. Mary, Lily and Harry all came down to join them not much later, and, for a while, it felt like a regular family meal. They told him stories of their times at Hogwarts, answering his every inquiry of the magical castle, which only led to more follow up questions. They remained at the table until Mrs. Moore appeared, trying to recruit help for lunch.
"Mum", Harry called, as Lily tied an apron around her body. "Can I go find James and Sirius? They said we could play some more quidditch today."
Lily’s face made it obvious that she wanted, more than anything, to answer no. But she forced a smile to her son and replied, "Yes, but be careful."
Harry jumped in excitement and ran out of the house. Lily’s mask fell immediately, and she turned to her friends in despair.
"One of you has to go with him", she urged. "And make sure James doesn’t try to tell Harry anything… compromising. He seemed a bit too eager to talk last night."
Mary was about to answer, but Marlene spoke first. "I’ll go", she volunteered. She knew Mary had already stressed herself out too much the night before; it was her time to carry that burden. "But, Lils… You know you’ll have to talk to him eventually."
"I know", she replied, not convincingly. "Just… not right now, okay?"
She wouldn’t insist, not then. "Okay."
"I’ll come with", Remus said.
She and Remus left for the beach, while Lily and Mary helped prepare lunch. They didn’t speak on the way there, but Marlene was proud of Remus for having taken the lead. She only hoped Sirius wouldn’t be as elusive as he had been during the bonfire party.
When they reached James and Sirius’ camp, Harry was already staring unsurely at the tent.
"Did you knock?" Marlene asked.
"There’s nothing to knock on, is there?" he replied, making Remus snort.
She rolled her eyes and clapped as loudly as she could. "Hey", she shouted. "We’re coming in! Please be clothed!"
They made their way into the tent, and fortunately both men were fully dressed — though she instantly noticed Sirius was still wearing his clothes from the night before. He was laid out on a sofa, colourless and barely conscient.
"Is he okay?" Marlene rushed to his side.
"He’s alive", James said. "I just found him, he was passed out outside. Never made his way inside the tent, it turns out."
Marlene was examining him closely now. Sirius was going to be fine, but he was definitely dehydrated. "Okay", she said. "We’re going to have to take him to the inn. Remus, give me a hand?"
They lifted Sirius — Remus held his chest, and Marlene got his legs — and started carrying him out. James and Harry followed them, looking confused.
"Do you need…" James started.
"We’ll be fine", Marlene shouted back, barely able to think of anything but the overwhelming weight on her arms. Sirius was a lot heavier than he looked, and she was not used to carrying weight herself. If only she could use magic.
They had already reached the inn when Marlene finally realised she had left Harry and James all alone, with no warning towards the latter, and absolutely no supervision as to what they would do or say to each other.