Mary had always wondered what life she would have lived if she hadn’t taken the path into the world of magic.
She would spend late nights whispering in her dorm with the others about the mundane things she would do every day: she would pick up a paper round and buy a new bike just to try to attract the attention of the new girl that moved in down the street, she would skip school to go to a music concert and she would come home every night after school and make food for her parents.
They had laughed then, the mere thought of a muggle life a whole lifetime away from them.
Mary had laughed too, her soft voice merging into the huffs of laughter the others let out, as it was a stupid thought, a world not at Hogwarts was something unimaginable- the friends made there turning it into a home, a home they loved.
Marlene went first; it wasn’t pretty. It had been Mary who found her body, a pep in her step and a skateboard in her hands ready to learn the kickflip Marlene showed her last week. There wasn’t a lot of blood and there was no eerie feeling that warned her to be careful- the movies all lied, there was no time to even slightly prepare yourself.
Marlene had been sat against the wall in her living room, her arms so broken and twisted that Mary had convinced herself that her Marlene had been replaced by a doll, because how could brave, beautiful Marlene be laying in a position that no-one alive could make, with all her limbs hanging limply beside her. But it wasn’t that picture that had completely destroyed Mary, it was Marlene’s face. Mary knew. She knew immediately what they had done with one simple glance into Marlene’s glassy eyes. Mary had been no stranger to Crucio in the war, but it was nothing compared to this.
Mary had tried dark magic then.
Marlene hadn’t woken up.
They had lost James and Lily next- the heart and glue of them all gone in a heartbeat. It devastated them all irreparably- a tear in the friendships that couldn’t be sewed back together. Mary had blamed Sirius then too, a cruel manifestation of her grief became lashes of hurt and she aimed hard. She didn’t know how to bear it.
When Sirius was sentenced to Azkaban, Mary had expected to feel happy. Instead, what had
encompassed her was just a deeper hole of grief, waves of cold shivers striking her anytime the man struck her mind. She had spilled her feelings to Remus one drunken night and he has looked at her with his ever-so-sad eyes, a knowing smile on his face.
“You’re grieving the Sirius you knew.”
Mary doesn’t remember much from that night but she remembers Remus’ words had angered her, she would not grieve a murderer.
She remembers waking up the next morning with bruised knuckles and cracked walls and it wasn’t hard for her to connect the dots. Remus sent her flowers every 13th, a stark reminder that they were still living and defying the luck that fate has set for them.
Peter had gone missing. Mary suspected he had run away, something Mary ached to do but the consequences of war had already etched itself into her skin- scars that stained her bones with blood and death that tethered her to stay. She thought that if she left she would be betraying the memories of all those lost and that thought pained her like no knife or unforgivable could.
Mary was still living when the news was announced that Sirius Black had escaped Azkaban. She had been surviving long enough already, Remus the only thing that kept her living. Mary couldn’t find it in herself to remove Sirius off her wards, maybe it was selfish of her, a stabbing sensation in her mind that thought dying wouldn’t be that bad.
Mary hated how her thoughts had assigned Sirius to kill her, the thought of her once favourite Black cursing her a pleasant thought, ‘God’, Mary had thought, ‘I couldn’t kill Sirius’.
Sirius hadn’t come for her, he went to Hogwarts for James and Lily’s son… and for Remus. Mary knew he’d welcome Sirius the moment he saw him. The blinding love he gave him stagnant in his heart for now, but always awoken by the older Black. Mary didn’t have it in her anymore to be mad- she had used up all her anger a long time ago.
It was the daily prophet who told her off Sirius’ death- an active member of the order of the Phoenix. Remus had asked her to join.
She was tired. Tired of the war and tired of fighting so she had told him no. She felt justified in her denial, she had little she wanted to protect- herself and Remus all she would fight for. Remus hadn’t begged, he understood her probably better than she understood herself- his small smiles saved just for her. He could see that she was just a collection of broken parts of herself that didn’t want to be put back together, and he worked with that, he stayed.
Sirius’ death hadn’t broken her any further, the man had died long ago in her brain.
The battle of Hogwarts was dreadful, a complete wave of destruction. She should’ve cared more about the attack on her once home but she didn’t. She just left her house and she went to Marlene’s grave: if today was the day she died, she wanted to die in the company of someone she loved.
She didn’t hear from Remus for days after the attack. It was probably the first time in years, fear had found its way inside her heart again. It was frail hope that held her together, ‘if he died,’ she’d think, ‘they’d tell me.’ The same 6 words repeated in her head religiously.
The first time she returned to Hogwarts was for Remus. The hope feeble and mean, and truly she just wanted to see his face- she missed him.
It had been Minnie who met her at the gates of Hogwarts, her eyes betraying the shock and confusion at Mary’s arrival, but Mary didn’t let her speak- she was so tired,
“Moony.” She whispered to Mcgonagall’s questioning eyes, “he didn’t come for lunch.”
Mary had watched Minnie’s face fall and she had known.
It had barely taken a minute for a moment for the words to leave the Gryffindor head's mouth before Mary had moved her wand to her head, tears cascading down her face and sobs choking her breaths.
She didn’t think about it, she was just so tired and Remus had been her everything, not in the way Sirius had been his forever love, but in the way they knew everything about each other. They had understood each other and stood hand in hand through the worst the world had offered them. She couldn’t live without him.
But Mary had always been deathly afraid of death. Her survival had always relied on that fear and her lips, even in the drowning of grief, could not utter the spell, so it was the next best thing that fell from her mouth,
“Obliviate.’