She was at the library and there was a girl.
They were sitting a few seats apart, rolls of yellowing parchment sprawled in front of them with quills between their fingers and drops of ink speckled on their arms and hands.
They were off in their own heads, walking the trail of thoughts their brains had laid out for them.
The librarian had something to say, so they both looked up from their work.
“The library will be closing soon, ladies,” she said, giving them a pointed look.
After the librarian’s announcement, the girl turned to her.
“What are you writing?” she said.
She looked at her parchment, the careful lines of her tiny handwriting. “A poem.” Then she looked at the other girls’ drawing, the rapid lines and harsh edges.
“I like your drawing,” She said to her.
They smiled at each other.
She was shy. The other girl was bold and kind. They held eye-contact for a few more seconds before looking down to their own creations again, continuing their work quietly, side by side.
Emmeline was in her first year of Hogwarts and she knew a girl. Her name was Marlene. She was slender with blonde wavy hair, a pointed chin and big brown eyes. Marlene was a year older than her, so they didn’t have any classes together. But along with the rest of Hogwarts, they showed up to their lessons. They took notes and practiced magic, listened to their professors and crammed for tests and flew across the Quidditch pitch.
They did their best to learn the secrets of growing up, but they were only just teenagers and they had plenty of time.
One day, Marlene turned to her in the library, smiled, and said, “What are you writing?” and she answered, “A poem,” after which she added, “I like your drawing,” and they went back to their projects, side by side, in their own separate worlds.
They were students at Hogwarts, all thousand of them, together. They stole glances at the professors; the nice ones and the strict ones, at their special table at the end of the hall. They ate the delicious dinners made by the tiny elves who deserved better. They gossiped and consoled, felt the pangs of unrequited crushes and the first press of lips against their own. They cried in bathroom stalls and laughed in dormitories. They hoped to be noticed, and worried they weren’t. Dipped quills in ink and changed into robes and made trips to Hogsmeade.
They did all of this, day after day, until they didn’t have to anymore. They were the adults now, though they felt just as small as when they were only eleven.
They left school and entered a world of destruction and war. So they fought, day after day, and then one morning in July they heard that Marlene had died.
“She was murdered last night.”
She can’t remember who’d announced it. She’d arrived at the Order’s headquarters and everyone was talking about Marlene, but she stayed quiet. “It’s not true,” someone said to her. “It can’t be true.”
She didn’t say anything back.
The next time she saw Marlene was at her funeral, when she walked to the front to view her body with everybody else. She’d never been to a funeral before; she didn’t know that she had a choice. If she’d known, she might have stayed seated and closed her eyes, imagining one of the smiles she’d given her — open and kind — from the seat next to her.
But on that warm July morning she didn’t know any of this yet, so she went to headquarters and hoped to see her, kept scanning the room for her blonde hair.
She can’t remember when the formal announcement came, or if the truth had settled in long before.
What she does remember is that someone started to cry. And then another. And then more and more. She cried too.
She remembers the silence — a quiet one not of peace, but of panic. Of not having the words to discuss what had happened. Silent tears and silent walks. Silence and horror and a heavy, thick sadness.
They were all supposed to fight together. Fight and win.
It was July and she went to Marlene McKinnon’s funeral. She saw her body in her casket. Mary Macdonald let out a scream, and all she wanted to do was cover her ears.
It was September and she went to Dorcas Meadowes’ funeral. There was no body.
It was October and Benjy Fenwick was missing. There was no funeral.
It was November and Lily and James Potter were dead. Sirius Black was sentenced to Azkaban.
It was November and the war was over. Harry Potter, the boy who lived, had saved them all.
She was twenty and suddenly the end of the war was upon them. There they were, in their celebratory dresses and fancy robes. Some went about the world in large boisterous groups, catching the attention of Muggles the Ministry had to obliviate later on.
She didn’t feel like celebrating, but she did so anyway.
It’s been almost fifteen years since Marlene died. They were so young then, barely adults, still just children. And it doesn’t matter that they never really talked much. It doesn’t matter that they were not close friends. What matters is that she is no longer in this world and she should be. She was there and then she was gone, and the rest of them didn’t get to move through their days with her among them.
Even if they weren’t the kind of people who would keep in touch after everything, Marlene, during the brief time she knew her, changed Emmeline for the better. She died and showed her what grief was.
She will never forget her casket, lowering into the ground. She will never forget Mary Macdonald’s cry. She never knew how to get over the sound of it.
She has talked about Marlene over the years, about how she was taken from them too soon. How her death marked the beginning of the end. But she’d never called her by her name before.
She always said, “She was not my friend. I didn’t even know her very well,” as though she had no right to talk about her death. As though it should not have filled her with grief.
“It was not my tragedy,” she used to say.
But it was.
She’s an adult now, almost thirty-five. Marlene would have been thirty-six. Not many people acknowledge her or her death. “War brings casualties,” they’d say. “It’s the way it is.”
But when Emmeline turns to the last page of a book full of memories there is a photograph of her, smiling that same smile, forever suspended in time, with the dates of her life below it. And she’ll always remember that moment in the library.
Side-by-side stools, quills and ink and splattered hands.
Her careful lines and her sharp edges.
Blonde hair and brown eyes and a smile.
A few kind words.
Even now, after so many years, she finds herself thinking suddenly of Marlene, wondering what kind of life she’d be living now, had she lived past twenty-one.