Nothing Is Going On

“What the fuck Marlene?” Mary bursts the second Marlene enters their dorm. 

“What?” Marlene asks, confused. 

Lily stares at her with her mouth half open, “Who did you kiss?”

“What?” Marlene repeats, a note of panic in her voice. How do they know? How the hell do they know?

“You have dark purple lipstick all around your mouth.” Lily says like if she can read Marlene’s mind. “You don’t wear that shade and I know what someone looks like after being kissed by someone wearing lipstick. I have mirrors.”

Marlene runs to the mirror to see her reflection. Fuck. She walked through the whole school looking like that. She tries to find a lie but nothing comes to her mind. Fucking Dorcas Meadowes. She tries to think again and again but she cannot find anything. Anytime she tries, her mind recalls Dorcas’ taste and Marlene is starting to believe that someone casted a spell on her. 

“I know that lipstick shade.” Mary says, thinking to herself. 

Marlene thinks and thinks and thinks. Fuck!

“I swear I already saw it on someone.”

Marlene starts to take of the lipstick Dorcas left all over her mouth and around it with a cotton. She knows her silence is suspicious. She has to say something. 

“I tried this shade and it didn’t fit so I tried to take it off but it didn’t work apparently.” She says. Well, ‘something’ was not suppose to be that bad. Now that she said it she has to stick to it but she never lied so bad, and Circe knows she lied before. Screw you Dorcas Meadowes and your bloody sexual impulses. 

“Are you kidding me, Marlene?” Lily asks, raising an eyebrow. 

“If you don’t want to believe me, don’t believe me, that’s all.” She answers defensively, throwing her cotton in the bin. Okay, she just has to make this unbelievable thing the most believable possible. 

Lily doesn’t believe her, that’s legit. Mary still looks like she is thinking about the lipstick’s shade and Marlene prays for her not to connect the dots. 

“Come on, we have arithmancy.” Lily says finally, giving up. 

Marlene knows this story is not over. She knows Mary and Lily will ask her again, she just hopes she’ll be able to stick to her stupid story long enough to make them at least forget it. That’s all she can do for the moment. 

***

Sirius didn’t come in arithmancy. Dorcas did. Fortunately, she had taken her lipstick totally off, Mary couldn’t link the two so quickly that way. 

The class was long, Marlene had too many things in her mind. First Sirius and what happened between him and Remus. She sometimes looked at Remus and somehow, he always looked more miserable than the time before, which doesn’t give her any clue of what the situation is. 

Secondly, Dorcas. Well, yeah, just Dorcas as a whole. Of course the kiss because that was, damn, so fucking good.  The simple idea of liking it infuriates her but she did not only like it, she really, really loved it. And that makes her so angry with herself. She knows she was probably just craving human touch, well, woman touch but her mind cannot stop telling her that it was Dorcas and not only teenagers hormones. She catches Dorcas eyes a few times during class and she could swear she sees a glimpse of panic in her eyes and feels her owns face burn. She just hopes she is not blushing. 

On their way out, at the end of the class, Dorcas trips and she catches herself by grabbing Marlene arms, passing at that moment. Reflexively, Marlene poses her hand on Dorcas’. It’s awkward. They stare at each other not moving for a moment. 

“Meadowes.” Marlene questions. 

Dorcas straightens and walks off. 

“What was that?” Mary asks behind Marlene. 

“She tripped.” Marlene answers, still looking at the place Dorcas disappeared. 

The next hour, she still doesn’t see Sirius. In fact, no one does. No one sees Regulus either. They don’t appear for the whole afternoon. James looks like he knows something but denies seeing either brother. Remus is not very talkative but he also looks like he knows something. These boys always look like they know something you don’t which is sometimes very annoying, sometimes very intriguing. It’s like they have this secret they won’t share with anyone else than the four of them and that always give them a backup. 

At dinner, Pandora sits with them at Marlene’s demand. She needs distraction and James, Remus and Lily eat on a side of the table so it’s only Mary, Peter and her. Luckily, Pandora accepted to join. 

“Barty and Evan aren’t going to be mad, right?” Peter asks, worried. He has been terrified of the duet since an Halloween party two or three years ago but no one really know why. 

“No they won’t.” Pandora says, laughing softly. “They are not as scary as you think, Peter.”

“ Talk for yourself! You’re friend with them!”

“They are high half of the time, Peter.” Marlene says, beating in her bread. “How are you so scared of them?”

“I heard things. I saw things.” Peter whispers, leaning on the table. 

“What kind of things?” Barty says, suddenly behind Peter. 

Peter freezes and stares at Marlene in panic, she can almost ear the voice in his head yelling ‘save me’. Marly smiles widely at both Barty and Evan. 

“Rosier.” She greets. 

“Macdonald.” He returns, smiling just the same. 

Mary and Evan have been together for a few weeks last year. Both of them act like if it never really happened and their interactions can be hilarious. Not that it is awkward, but they like to make their friends uncomfortable by staring at each other in silence. They started it to make Barty and Lily react. Mary and Lily ended up together but Barty and Evan are still beating about the bush. Marlene’s hypothesis is that they got together in the first place for that exact purpose but that they couldn’t stand it so they changed strategy. It didn’t fully work since Barty is still an oblivious shit but Mary got what she wanted. 

“Anyways,” Barty says in the intention to stop the starring context between the two exes and posing a hand on Peter’s shoulder, “what kind of things did you hear, Pete boy?”

“Nothing.” Peter rushes. 

Barry grins, visibly happy of Peter’s reaction. Marlene looks at them and she can only ask herself where Dorcas is. Maybe she stayed at the Slytherin table but that’s not likely, why would they have let her alone? Maybe she refused to follow them because Marlene is there. That makes sense. 

Marlene turns to Pandora to coerce herself into thinking about something else, Dorcas is not going to ruin her dinner. 

“You’re going home for Christmas, Pandora?” She asks, not listening to the other’s conversation anymore. 

“Oh, yeah.” Pandora says smiling. “I love Christmas actually. Are you going home too?”

Marlene does her best to hide her grimace, “No I never go home for Christmas. Although, I think I’ll be at the Potters on Christmas Day. I’m invited but I have got to see with McGonagall for the arrangements.”

Christmas is kind of a complicated thing for her. She stopped going back home three years ago when she had The fight with her mother. The one that leaded to her mother never talking to her face to face. Christmas can be particularly horrible because, each year, as a sort of gift, Marlene receive one of those letters, but much longer and much meaner. She knows she could just not read them, Sirius did it most of the time, but she always feels like she has to. So, yeah, Christmas is complicated but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t like Christmas at Hogwarts.  

Pandora and Marlene talk a bit about those kind of things (not the ones involving her mother) while the others discuss of other subjects. She sees James, Remus and Lily a few meters from them talking too. 

“Where is Dorcas?” She asks suddenly, unable to stop herself. Shit. 

The table look at her in surprise for a moment, especially Mary. 

“Why?” Evan asks back, suspicious. 

“Why?” Marlene repeats, thinking. “I don’t know she’s always with you, that’s all.”

“She didn’t feel like eating.” Barty says. 

“Is she alright?” Pandora asks, worried. She stands up, getting ready to run to Dorcas at any moment. 

Marlene stays silent while they talk about Dorcas’ situation. Supposing that she’s sick, on her period, heartbroken…

Her mind flashes the memory of earlier. Her and Dorcas should talk, she knows that, but she doubts they would. And she doesn’t even know if she wants to. Yes, they should talk, but what is there to say? It’s not like if their kiss meant anything. Marlene knows Dorcas will stand by the fact that she’s not queer. So it’s nothing. Just, well, a moment of madness. For both of them. 

Once she’s done eating, she apologises and go straight to her dorm, not acknowledging anyone on the way. She looks quickly around in the common room to see if Sirius is back but he isn’t there. She knocks at his dorm’s door but no one answers so she decides to prepare to sleep. Somehow, this day tired her and all she wants to do is be asleep. 

***

She wakes up around three in the morning at the sound of her bed’s curtains opening. She lights her wand to face Sirius. 

“Sirius?” She asks, surprised. It is not like if it is the first time he shows up at an ungodly hour but she didn’t expect him today. 

Sirius casts a silencing spell and crawls in the bed. 

“Hello Marls.” He says with a weak smile once he is seated in front of her. 

“Hello Siri.” She answers. “Are you here to talk about what happened or something else?”

“Had a nightmare. I think James sneaked out to join my brother. So, here I am.”

“What was the nightmare about?” Marlene asks gently. 

“A bit of all.”

“Mh.” Marlene says, thinking. “Want to talk about it?”

“I laughed.” Sirius says. 

“What?”

“During the conversation with Remus. He was talking about some serious shits and I laughed. It was like nervous but it didn’t sound like it. And I just couldn’t stop. And then he looked at me with such sad eyes, such upset eyes. And I bursted into tears and ran away and then you found me.”

Marlene doesn’t say a word for a moment. It is so less horrible than what she thought. She even doubts Remus was even upset. After all, he asked her where Sirius was and she saw him in class today. But is is not how Sirius feels. 

She knows it has something to do with Sirius’ family. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have asked her to get Regulus. It must not be directly linked but she’s sure there is something. It’s a trauma response and she doesn’t know how to react without triggering Sirius. 

“Why did you run away, Sirius?” She asks softly. 

He looks at her with wide eyes, mouth half open. Marlene just waits for him to formulate his answer. “He was upset. He was angry at me.”

“How do you know? Did he tell something?” Marlene knows Remus doesn’t. Because she saw Remus’ eyes when he asked her where Sirius was and she saw his face the whole afternoon. 

“He had to be.” Sirius says, almost suppliantly. 

“I don’t think he was.” Marlene says. “Maybe you should let him the opportunity to tell you how he felt. Remus knows you, Sirius. He knows how you react in stressful situations.”

Sirius lets the words float. He doesn’t look at Marlene. Marlene analyses all the micro responses on his face, trying to predict his reaction, what he is going to say, or not say. She waits in silence like she did so many times before, like he did for her so many times before. 

“But he has to.” Sirius just says. 

“No, he doesn’t. Why would he?”

“They always were.” Sirius says, suddenly looking at her. 

Marlene stops breathing. She was painfully right. It has to do with his family. 

“And since when are they right about anything, Sirius?” She asks, leaning forward and taking his hands in hers. 

His eyes widen and he gives her a weak smile, “I’m done crying.”

“Yeah. You cried enough today I’d say.”

“You think I should go talk to Remus?”

“I think you have to.” Marlene corrects. “Now.”

“It’s three in the morning. He is going to hate me.”

“I doubt it. Go to him now while you feel like it.”

“I don’t feel like it.”

“Too bad.” Marlene says, pushing Sirius out of her bed.

He stops a instant on the edge of the bed and looks at her, “Thank you, Marlene. For everything.”

“Go ahead, Black. That’s nothing.”

He lets a kiss on the back of her hand and grins of his Sirius Black grin before he disappears behind the curtains. Marlene lays back in the bed and falls asleep once more, this time without any interruptions.