Rhythm
'Cause he gets up in the morning
And he goes to work at nine
And he comes back home at five-thirty
Gets the same train every time
“A Well Respected Man” by The Kinks, 1965
Wednesday 15th September 1976
Everything at Hogwarts was settling back in. It felt good. It felt normal. Marlene started settling into the workload, mostly cause Lily was forcing her to. Remus was back in lessons from last Thursday afternoon, and looking way better. He and Sirius were talking more and more every day. Whatever happened last term seemed to be forgotten and everyone was focused on making Sirius feel better. And he was getting there.
Quidditch was coming on too. Every day the team was training, doing: drills and runs and tactics. Preparing for the coming games. James was constantly on her for technique and stamina. Always pushing for more. He insisted on peak physical fitness from all his players. More than once, Marlene had seen Dorcas training too. Hovering around the goals, she had Pandora levitate quaffles and launch them at her from the stands. From what Marlene could tell that’s all Pandora was really useful for. Remus seemed to like her enough but aside from being completely mad, there didn’t appear to be much going on. Why did Dorcas spend so much time with her?
It was chemistry last again today. Marlene and Dorcas refused to speak that morning in the lesson when they went to collect lacewings, but they had to actually collaborate this time. The students were given the dried ones collected last year. Time to start stewing the lacewing flies, for their potion. Dorcas settled the cauldron on a low simmer while Marlene sat with her head in her hands watching. Dorcas picked up a beige burlap pouch and a silver spoon, she carefully scooped six spoonfuls of flies into a paper boat on a rocker balance scale. She then tipped the boat in the cauldron. And Marlene sat and stared just watching her. With Dorcas doing all the work, potions was going to be easy this year. Dorcas did everything with such precision, it was both infuriatingly slow and somewhat satisfying. Dorcas need not use scales at all she was always bang on with the ingredients. Marlene watched as the dark-eyed girl gripped the wooden spoon so hard her nails dug into her palms she stirred clockwise four times and glared at Marlene. Marlene sat up and spun around to chat with Sirius on her right side, he smiled at her. “Getting a Slytherin to do all your work is honestly impressive”
“Proud of me are y’?”
“Very,” Sirius agreed. “Although I think you might want to start helping 'cause she looks like she’s trying to explode you with her mind.”
“Ach, she probably is. I don’t know what’s up with her” They both peered over at Meadowes who was now furiously scribbling notes. “She pisses me off with everything she does and she’s so smug about it and-”
“Oh, don’t worry Marls. You only have to spend the rest of the year with her!” He grinned.
Marlene stuck two fingers up at him. “Go away!” She beamed. Sirius, Cresswell and Marlene carried on chatting while they copied the notes from the board. At the end, Dorcas packed away and rushed off. “Such a freak.”
“Who?” Lily inquired, Marlene hadn’t even seen her and James walk over.
“Meadowes,” Sirius answered for her. “It’s all I’ve heard this afternoon.”
“Yeah well you don’t have to be around her and her stupid-”
“Don’t start again!” Sirius interrupted.
Remus and Mary stood by the door, “Can we go? I’m starvin'.” Remus whined.
“Pete will be waiting,” Mary nodded. The group trekked through the castle to the great hall. They sat in the space reserved by Peter. The seven of them started planning Sirius’ 17th birthday, “As long as you don’t start playing that shit again.”
“We’re not having this conversation, we’ve all moved on,” Lily interjected. “How were you two even together? All you do is argue over nothing.”
“Yeah but it was fun,” Mary laughed and placed a hand on his inner thigh and Sirius winked at her.
“Christ you’re incorrigible,” Marlene complained covering her eyes. Mary threw her arms around Marlene.
“Always my girl” Mary assured. Marlene pushed her away laughing. Marlene dumped some steamed broccoli on her plate and began picking at it. She, Lily and Remus decided to go to the library after tea. Marlene hated studying in the library, but Remus talked her into it.
Alice liked to study with them a lot. Alice was a little weird, in a fun way. She and Lily were quite close, but other than matches and parties she and Marlene hadn’t really had much cross-over. She’d been friends with some of the older Slytherins, but they were all gone now. And Marlene remembered Sirius’ cousin, Bellatrix, hated her. She sent her flying once outside their common room. But then she got with Frank of course and they were so excited about being together they hardly had any time for anyone else at all. Frank left school last year and she was in seventh, Marlene was pretty sure they were still going steady.