Sirius confronts his inner demons
The insomnia was back again. Marlene knew Mary and Lily went to bed at around 10, so after that she'd try to keep the tossing, turning upside down, laying sideways, putting pillows between her legs, flipping the pillow to the cold side, etc etc to the minimum but goddamit this was hard. Some nights Mary would come over and ask if she was ok but she had stopped somewhere in the 3rd of November, realizing it was pointless. She was right, it was. Nothing would help.
At least her grades were starting to improve. You don't sit in bed, thinking over your life's decisions without thinking about grades even once, so that was a fun development. Who knew that thinking about French led to dreaming in French, then becoming somewhat good at it? Probably Dorcas.
No, Marlene. Don't go there.
A voice whispered. Marlene didn't know whose it was. Certainly not her own, as that one had been rather unhelpful and this was spectacular advice. Alas, Marlene had never been good at following advice, or rules of any sort, you could ask Frank for proof, so she continued to do so.
What could I have done better? Was a common theme in these thoughts. Deep down she knew the answer was nothing but it still hurt to see someone chose someone else so willingly. I mean, gosh, Marlene was amazing. Friendly and thoughtful and quite awfully pretty. But she needed more than her.
It was the first week of December that anything "life altering" happened. Well, not life altering. But Mary and Sirius broke up. So life altering for Remus them. It had started off as something small.
"Sirius, god do you ever wash that thing?!"
"THAT THING? Excuse me, this thing is a Red Ranch 2004 fall accessory set, complete with chains!"
"Oh of course it came with chains-"
"Pardon me if you think it smells bad, but you're not the one who has to bloody wash the thing!" He huffed at Mary, who rolled her eyes and marched away down to the library or somewhere. Marlene knew this mood of hers, and she did not want to be followed so she stayed up with the others and waited for her best friend to come back.
Everyone else had left, leaving Marlene and Sirius alone waiting for Mary. It dawned on the blonde that she had never really been alone with Sirius before. Most of the time they hung out Mary, Remus, Lily and/or James had been there. Marlene didn't find it awkward with Sirius though. He knew how to keep a conversation going and could talk almost as fast as Lily Evans.
"I mean, don't get me wrong Mary is amazing. She's super nice and always helps me with my chemistry homework. That shit's hard bro. And she's the prettiest girl in the year -sorry- and what more could a guy ask for? But I just want someone who gets me. I don't think James or Peter would ever dare to critique my beloved Berty-"
"You named your leather jacket Berty?" Marlene almost laughed out loud. Classic Sirius, giving a super cool badass jacket an old ladies name. He sent her a death glare. "Ok, ok continue talking about Berty." She smirked.
Sirius harumphed before continuing.
"As I was saying, James, Peter, probably Remus but you too are alike and you've offended her, would never have insulted my lovely. I don't know Marls, girls are complicated sometimes."
"I get what you mean." Marlene agreed, before going bright red as Sirius processed her words. Goddamit this was bound to happen soon.
"Huh? Wait... wait... oh! Wait...You're...?"
"A lesbian, yeah." Marlene nodded swiftly, putting her hand behind her neck in kind of an embarrassed gesture. Her walls were going up inside though. She'd faced one to many homophobic comments from bigots at her old school, and even though she would like to believe otherwise, Sirius seemed like the type, despite the flirting with Remus a bit. She mentally chided herself for telling Sirius first.
"And.. you're... ok with that?"
Was she? She thought to herself, before reprimanding her brain. Yeah, she was, she'd been over this a bajillion times before, mostly in her insomniac phases. Those were free therapy sessions from herself.
Marlene's heart broke. Denial, of course. She hugged him. Not an awkward side hug either. She just hugged him and let him cry and cry and get it all out. Who knew the King of Hogwarts had this much emotion in him?
"So, how'd you know?" He asked her, laughing a bit in the way you do when you make a joke right after crying and it's not even funny you just need to not be sobbing. Marlene made the same half hearted giggle, mentally chuckling at the stupidness and hilariousness that was the first person she had come out too, and soon enough they were both on the floor giggling about just everything.
"Black Widow."
And they both started laughing crying more, creating a perfect scene for Mary to walk in on, her best friend and boyfriend laughing hysterically and cackling about marvel characters. And she couldn't help but smile at the sweet scene. Well, until Sirius noticed her and asked to have a tiny chat in the study room.