The Beginning
'If I tell you this is drowning, you'd tell me I'm walking on water. I could bring fire from the mountain, you'd tell me it feels a little colder. I don't wanna choose between being a salesman or a soldier. Just let me look a little older, let me step a little bolder, choose between being a butcher or a pauper. Honey, I'm taking no orders, I'm gonna be nobody's soldier. -Nobody's Soldier/ Hozier
It was too soon, but they had no choice.
They were too young, but they had no choice.
Only children, still practically children, thrust into a war that they barely understood, soldiers of a doomed generation.
Lily was going to have a child.
Sirius and Remus were going to get a flat together.
Mary could do nothing but watch, as they threw away their lives for nothing at all.
They had a choice.
And she raged, screamed, cried because they had not chosen to survive.
She knew she was a coward, she knew she could help, but Mary couldn’t fight for a people who had barely accepted her as one of them. She would not give her life for that.
But Lily would, of course.
She was so kind, so selfless and Mary longed to take her away, to hide her from everything, but she let her go anyway.
At least Lily would be hiding, rather than fighting, she thought.
Maybe they would all be safe.
That’s what she told herself as she snapped the piece of wood she had treasured for so many years.
That’s what she made herself believe as she hid, as far away from it all as she could.
She was selfish and bad and so many other terrible things, but Mary was alive.
Still, she was alone.