A Note- Ive always wanted to write BlacKinnon but I never got the chance so here you go! I own nothing.
Marlene McKinnon was sitting on top of the Gryffindor table, her dark blond curls coming over her face like a veil. It was their last night at Hogwarts. Tomorrow they would be on the Hogwarts express for the last time.
Marlene had snuck out of her common room just to sit in the Great Hall alone for the last time. Wearing her worn out school robes, feeling the magic before the uncertainty of the future would suck it all out. The bewitched ceiling glittered like the night sky, showing stars she had never paid attention to before.
She tried to spot some constellations she had learnt about in astronomy. There was Orion, Lepus, the big bear, the jewel box, and right above her stood Canis Major. She tried to remember the names of the stars in it.
There was Delta Canis majoris, eta something, and...
"Stargazing Marlene?"
"Always knew how to make an entrance, Black." Marlene said, not averting her gaze towards the tall dark haired boy who had just entered into the great hall.
Sirius chuckled.
"Aren't you wondering-" Sirius began,
"Not in the least." Marlene spoke, smoothly cutting him off.
They stood in silence for a while. Marlene dropped her gaze down to Sirius, who had now come to stand near one of the tables long ends. She seemed amused.
Sirius slowly studied her face. Her eyes were coated in eyeliner, which seemed to have smudged badly, there were faint traces of crimson lipstick on her lips. Sirius watched as she slowly tugged a tendril of her curly hair which came over her eyes and pulled it down to her chin and let it spring back again.
"Are you scared?" Marlene asked suddenly, Sirius' gaze shot up.
"No- uh I mean I don't really know."
Silence took over again.
"What will you do after Hogwarts? Play Quidditch?" Marlene enquired, now slowly moving to recline on the table.
"James and I, we want to be aurors."
"Good," she muttered.
"Aren't you going to do something?"
Marlene looked offended.
"I'm going to train too!" Sirius knew that she meant that she wanted to train as an auror.
Sirius looked slightly surprised. Marlene had always been one of those witches Sirius thought, who were too shallow to have a serious ambition. But she didn't seem so shallow. Sometimes, her smatterings of eyeliner seemed like camouflage, hiding her intentions from the world. Sometimes her scarlet lips seemed as though drenched in blood. Sometimes her wild hair resembled broken chains. Sometimes he didn't doubt her ambition at all.
"Are you going to stay up all night?" Sirius asked sighing slightly.
"Are you?" She smirked, throwing a question back in return.
"Who knows?" Sirius shrugged, his long arms half raised.
And they stood in silence again, gazing at the stars, trying to figure out what the future would bring. Sirius kept looking down at Marlene, whose expression seemed to merge and blend with the night, the light of the stars carefully bringing attention to every single detail in her face and then moving to the next.
Sirius began wondering- What if he didn't live through the war? What if Voldermort took over the wizarding world? What would happen to James? What about Remus? Peter? Lily? What about Marlene?
Would Marlene die too? Would she too become another helpless victim of the war that loomed over their heads? Would she too be just barely remembered, by her name on some cold gravestone?
Sirius looked back up to the enchanted ceiling. The stars seemed to wink at him, slowly engulfing him in their trance.
And Sirius found himself forgetting of the war, of whatever that lay ahead of him, he just saw Marlene and the stars