Disclaimer: I am not good old Jo, because if I was, the houses would have far less cool names.
Author's Note: A small and random one shot for a small and random ship. Reviews will be loved and cherished as deeply as one of Molly Weasley's meals!
Gideon Prewett x Marlene Mckinnon
It could never work, because she was far too young and he was far too old.
The first time he saw her, her robes were soaked with rain water, and they clung to her so tightly that she looked like she was only made of bones. Marlene looked so tiny and young and afraid, but beautiful too, like a delicate little porcelain doll animated into life.
It was funny, because she neither talked nor acted like anything remotely delicate or fragile. She would charge into a meeting, brass and bold to lay out exactly what she thought the Order should do and declare why every single one of those bloody death eaters should be sent to their graves.
It was why they had been a good team, two bright flames of fire that could burn away any dark magic in their path; two Gryffindors too noble to do anything else but make the same stupid decisions at the same stupid time which saved lives and risked theirs. They were lucky too, because he was seven years older and she seven years younger. Seven was the luckiest number of all, and she had always said that nothing could go wrong with him as his partner.
Gideon was certain that she never meant partner in quite the way he started to dream about. He can't remember when all of sudden her dangerous smiles would make his stomach do flips, or when her lame jokes made him laugh too much or when all of sudden her perfectionism was endearing. He can remember that she was just barely eighteen, and even if she wasn't too young for the Order, she had to be too young for him.
It could never work, because her eyes were far too blue and his hair was far too red.
It was quite frankly a miracle, or more likely Marlene's vanity, that had kept her appearance so neat and perfect even throughout the longest nights of Order duty. Her lips were always bright red, her hair a deep golden yellow, and her eyes the biggest and bluest he had seen without any help at all.
But it was only when she wasn't perfect, when the red was drying blood and her hair too caked with dirt to tell the color, that he lost his head. When she opened those blue blue eyes and Gideon was so relieved that he had flung his arms around her and kissed her.
Marlene had stared at him, and then she flatly told him "At least you didn't wait until I was dead." It was a scenario that had been so close to being true that they had to kiss again with every bit of skill they each possessed to dispel the thought from the air.
They hadn't waited much longer, and every free night she had was soon followed by a morning of waking up in Gideon's arms. Her hair always looked ridiculous then, golden curls defying gravity at every angle possible, and it would make him smile no matter what kind of work or pain the busy nights of the Order brought.
It could never work, because the war was far too dangerous and they could die every day.
She was trying to become a Healer, and he was stuck as one of the few Aurors who did not believe every lie the Ministry franticly told him. All of sudden a relationship meant that they could no longer be that lucky fiery pair in the Order, because they'd start to save each other instead of someone else.
Gideon didn't know why he was supposed be ashamed of that, and why Dumbledore preached love and yet constantly doubled Gideon's fear when Marlene was alone on a mission. He knew that she could take care of herself, but those days even the most capable wizards and witches wouldn't make it home.
It was hard to explain to Fabian, the reluctant fighter, and even harder to explain to Molly why this cause was something worth dying for. But with Marlene, they never had to tell each other why it was okay for them to risk their lives even when it hurt so much to see the other step into the path of an unforgiveable.
Sometimes, the stress was enough to send them into a screaming match, on the verge of throwing curses at each other (as if they didn't get enough of that already). But other times, the majority of the time, it'd drive them even closer. In this war, it seemed that less and less people could understand him; but everything would be perfect when he was spread out on the couch with Marlene, both of them falling asleep to the same silly Celestina Warbeck songs prattling about true love on the wireless.
It could never work, because her family hated him and he loved her family.
Gideon could see it in the way they stared at him, that cold way where they didn't quite engage in the meaningless small talk at dinner. They still thought, as he once had too, that Marlene wasn't nearly mature enough to decide what was or wasn't worth dying for. And they thought that instead of finding some nice level boy, she had gone and found someone even more foolish than herself to draw her further and further away and into danger.
He still liked them though, and figured that if they had enough time to see that she knew exactly what she was doing, they could even like him as well. He loved how her little brother was determined to become a quidditch star, and the fact that her dainty mother could cook a meal even better than Molly, and still laughed about the time her father tried to say all the capitals in the world to impress him, but instead made up country names as his memory failed him.
And he loved Marlene most of all, the way that she could love them and him so much. He loved that fact that her whole face would light up and how her whole body loose that tense stiffness neither of them could shake on duty. It was so easy to pretend that the war really wasn't going on when he was at the Mckinnon's, just as long as he could avoid the silent accusations in their eyes.
It could never work, because she was dead and he was not.
Fabian wouldn't meet his eyes. Not when he knocked on Gideon's door at 1:07 in the morning, not when they apparated to the McKinnon's and especially not when they were going through what was left of that little cottage to find the bodies.
The light of the dark mark was even stronger than the light from the moon or the stars, and it made the whole scene even more surreal.
It was the last time he saw her. Her robes had settled on her in all the wrong places, like she had already turned to bones, curled up in the rubble of the hall. Marlene looked so tiny and young and afraid, but beautiful too, like a delicate little porcelain doll that could maybe just be sleeping.