Disclaimer: I really own nothing beyond the perception of the characters and the situations they are put in. And even most of that isn't mine.
Red
Lily Evans falls to a stray curse meant for her. One second, Marlene is shooting silencio's and imobiulous' and freaking impedimenta's because she's fighting for the good side, and no matter how much she'd love to toss one vicious, hateful crucio at the sods, she can't. She's better than that. But when she dodges a few nasty, rapid fire spells from her opponent, and she can taste its darkness sizzle past her shoulder and scarf turned makeshift hairband, she wishes she wasn't. She wishes she could swoop down to their level and not feel like she's giving the monsters any form of victory.
Hearing Lily Evans give that blood curling scream, the one that brings her right back to that childhood memory of alcohol cabinets and smashing chandelier's make her wish she'd never allowed anyone to let her believe in being the better person. Especially when that particular person was on the ground, body twisting and convulsing at unnatural angles.
For a second all she sees is red, and then both Death Eaters are out cold without her saying a word. She turns to her friend and still, all she sees is red. Lily's hair, Lily's blood, Lily's new Christmas coat.
Marlene's at her side in a moment, and she's not even processing, so she's not panicking, and her only thought is she can't heal things, that's not her thing. She bloody well destroys things, always has and apparently always will, and this isn't helping damn it!
An anaesthetic spell, that's all she's got, and a few tricks for stopping blood flow that are absolutely no use. She thinks that even if she's utter crap at stitching flesh back up, she's had enough practice with Sirius and herself, hasn't she, that it should do something. Anything. But no, it's no use, as there's plenty of blood but. no. wounds. And this nasty yellow puss is foaming from her mates mouth, nose, eyes, and gods damn it all, would something, someone just bloody help her.
No, no one can, they're all fighting for their lives as well, while Lily goes red and green on this stupid London pavement, and she's always hated the holidays, but never quite as much as now. And then she remembers Alice and sends the worst Petronius in the history of Petronius's, but why the hell should she care? Lily's dying.
Alice is there in her bathrobe, and Marlene would have ripped into her mercilessly for the pink frills on battle grounds if Lily wasn't the reason for it. The thunderclouds threatening to pour pure rage and anger down on the world is growing heavier with every breath Lily nearly doesn't take, and it's virtually at boiling point now when Alice is crying and shaking her head that she can't cure this. No one can, it's that dark and volatile and unknown. She's never even imagined something like this existed, and Marlene is so close to breaking point that she doesn't even have time to spit out the cruellest thing on the tip of her tongue.
"Well, start imagining," she snarls instead, and that's tame compared to what she wants to say. She wants to tell Alice to lay down and die in Lily's blood, for all that the witch's imagination means to her.
"I- there's nothing I can-"
"Don't," Marlene hisses through the rage and red, and she's gripping her wand so tight that she can't feel her fingers. "Don't you dare finish that sentence."
"But I don't know! I don't know, only they know," she points at the bloodied, unconscious heap that's responsible for all of this.
Time is running out, Lily's dying and she's going to burst any second, so she wastes no time in standing, pulling up one of the Death Eaters as roughly as she can, dragging him over to Lily and Alice and waking him up with two powerful enoverates. He wakes howling and disoriented, but she doesn't give a rat's arse. Not about him.
"How do I fix it?" She shouts, shakes him, and when he fails to answer, she yanks his head back, hard, and jabs his throat with her wand. "Answer me, you arse, or I'll blast your head clear off."
He believes that she will, she probably would at this point, and blubbers out a bunch of nonsensical bull she can't make out past original, and don't, and a few attempts at only Snape. But that's all she needs. That's all the prerequisite she needs to make one of those quick, reckless, life-saving plots she's so apt in.
"Freeze her," Marlene tells Alice, and when the petite brunet tries arguing how dangerous that is, she shakes her head. "She's dying both ways," she tells Alice, and so what if it's heartless on her side, it's true. "Least this way, we have an impossible chance. Do it, take her to- Remus Lupin's. Now!"
She hands Alice her portkey and apparatus to the Leakey. It's a crazy whim, all she has, her only chance, but time is running out and she doesn't have the choice of failing. Not before, especially not now. And she'll go pound at Grimmauld Place if she has to.
He's there anyway, and she can't even think of what that may mean, that Regulus Black is at an empty table for two on a Friday night, just takes all her fury and lets it grow. Here he is, eating dinner like a heartbroken fool, while Lily is somewhere dying because of the cause he's chosen to support.
"Wha- Mars? What are you- what's happened to you?"
It's a good thing he's in middle of standing when she gets in his face, or she wouldn't have been able to use the momentum to yank him around in front of her.
"If you've ever given a fuck about me, Reg, you'll tell me where to find Snape. No questions, if you don't want me hurting you."
He stares at her for a moment, eyes wide and then shrewd, guarded, and she thinks he won't do it, he won't, but then he lets out a breath that's soul deep and closes his eyes for a second.
"Belits," he says, and then opens his eyes with conviction when she moves away. "Guess the cards are on the table, Mars."
"I- don't have time for this."
Belits is an ugly, seedy tavern in knockturn, and she has to run and magic herself clean as she goes, not dim enough to intentionally call anyone's attention. Regulus didn't lie, and she finds Severus Snape right at the edge of the room, black hood pulled over his head. She's got his wrist in her hand in a heartbeat, wand trained to his ribs.
"You won't mind my borrowing him, hmm?" she tosses at his shady company, and drags him out the back.
"Wrong move, McKinnon," he says, and she's not a bit surprised he recognizes her. His tone is dangerous, but right now she's ten times more of that than he's ever been, dark mark sod itself. "I can kill you in-"
"Not if I do first. Which I will," She throws him against a wall. No formalities, no secrets, all open and hostile. Doesn't even taking his wand. She doesn't have time. "So you'd best give me what I want."
He sneers, ugly and dark, like the universe around them, "what in the world makes you delusional enough to even imagine I-"
"Lily's dying as we speak."
That shuts him down fast. Snape's eyes widen, and the black, fathomless bottoms seem to swallow all his terseness. "What do you think I can do? I certainly can't bring back the dead."
"Cut it. Lily's dying because of one of your spells, and I'm completely inclined to let you live with that, if I didn't know that would get me nowhere. So, here it is, Snape, your chance. How do I cure her?"
He looks as if something has knocked the wind right out of him and punched him in the gut all at once. She can't even think that it's any good because it's not. Besides that he can't talk if his gravity is failing, it's not nearly brutal enough for what he's done.
"I- my spell… which one? I don't know- I don't know which-"
"Oh, shut up. How many dark curses have you invented already that can cause someone's inhibitions to fail, while letting them bleed out without any wounds? Oh, let's not forget all the pretty yellow puss, or that she can't really breath-"
"She's- she's dead," he whispers, face ashen, shaking his head. "She's gone by now, there's no way she can survive this long-"
"She's frozen. Time locked, as of five minutes ago. She'll stay like that if we don't help her soon."
"Idiot," he hisses, angry. "Did you not think that she may not be able to reawaken-"
"Yeah, that was so obviously my concern, when she was dying anyway. You're wasting my time. Am I getting anything here, or am I going to reserve a special spot for you on my list of people to destroy in our next battle?"
Marlene is completely serious right now, he knows it, she knows it. Surely, he's noticed that cracking thunderclouds in her eyes. There, ready to set its downpour on whichever idiot decides to test her. She's just watched her friend bleed out over the London pavement in a quest to fight all this man is choosing to stand for. Today, she may not be throwing around unforgivable, but that doesn't mean that she's forgiving much beyond the choices made here and now.
When she spins into Lupin's family room four minutes later, it's with a vial in her hand and the knowledge in her heart that even the darker side can bend for the light of Lily Evans. She doesn't dare tell anyone of what occurred during those ten minutes she'd disappeared. Not even Snitch, who had more right than any to know why it was that he got the chance to hold Lily Evans in his arms that night.
As for herself, she isn't at all surprised when Regulus Black, Baron Smith, and Severus Snape are waiting in her flat once she's managed to peel herself from the scene of recovery. Admittedly, Pucey is a shock, but the day has drained so much from her, she hardly reacts at all.
It seems Lily Evans can manage to allow even the ugliest and darkest to believe again. Who is she to deny them the chance she's been given? After all, it's the difference of a split seconds hesitation that landed her in Gryffindor, and not in Slytherin.