Marlene was sprawled across her bed, legs kicking at the air, studying for an exam she would have to pass in order to be accepted into Auror training. She was confident, though there were some questions she didn't understand. There was an Order meeting tomorrow night, and she marked the sections she would ask Alice Longbottom about. The exams were less than a month away, but she was sure the Order had given her enough on-the-job experience to be successful.
In the middle of trying to puzzle through a page-long hypothetical situation that asked for a ten-inch response, she heard a knock on her bedroom door. "Yeah?" she called out. "I'm studying."
"I know dear," her mother's soft voice answered. "But there's a young man here to see you."
Marlene could hear the excitement in her mum's voice and she sighed; she didn't have the time for men at the moment, and she was sure that whomever it was had come on business and not pleasure. The only unattached man that she found the least bit attractive was Sirius Black, but he'd been a third year when she entered Hogwarts, and he probably still saw her as the ickle firstie tripping over her long black and yellow striped scarf as she spotted James Potter and his gang on a kitchen raid near the Hufflepuff common room.
"Coming," she sighed. She set a bookmark charm on her current page and opened the door.
"He's handsome," her mother whispered to her. "Long, dark hair."
She felt her heart skip a beat, and she silently cursed it. Her mother followed her closely as they slipped down the stairs, and she wished her mum would scram- if it was Sirius, Marlene was sure that having her mother hanging over her shoulder wouldn't help the fact that he still thought of her as a little kid. But her mum refused to back away, and she swung open the front door
For a moment, she stood there speechless. She recognized the man before her; he was in Sirius's year, but no friend. In fact, the rumour was that he'd fallen in with Voldemort's crowd.
She waited. When Snape said nothing, she spread her hands in front of her. "Well?"
In a second, his wand was out. She didn't even have time to react as a lance of green light hit her mother, who crumpled to the floor. Marlene screamed. Her father came rushing in, but she already had her wand out. If Snape had only targeted her father next, she would have had Snape.
But he didn't.
Instead, Snape pointed his wand at Marlene. She didn't hear a spoken spell. She didn't even have time for a last thought before the green light reached her and her world went dark.