Marlene McKinnon groaned as she slowly opened her eyes and was blinded by the morning sunlight, that was finding it's way through the cracks in the ageing blinds. Rolling over so she was facing away from the sun, the twenty one year old rubbed her eyes and looked around the room. She was expecting to find herself in her brightly coloured room. But No. She was in a cranky and disgusting old cottage, lying on a mouldy bed in a room that stunk of smoke and decay.
Sirius Black, her mission partner, had managed to find the place and although it wasn't the most attractive of places it was better than sleeping out in the open under a tree. Their location was somewhere in Scotland, near the mountains of Inverness, where they had been for over a week. Dumbledore had sent them to track down some death eaters who had recently been located up by the Scottish borders, but a week of only each others company and very little sleep had caused the mission partners to start taking their anger out on each other. The night before they had both shouted and screamed a lot of things that they regretted as soon as the words left their mouths, though they dare admit that.

Marlene sat up and ran a hand though her bed ridden blond hair before stretching. That's when her blue eyes caught sight of the crumple of sheets by the foot of the bed where Sirius had made his own bed. Raising an eyebrow, she sat up and leaned forward and frowned. The bed was still messy but there was no sleeping figure tangled up within the covers; checking her watch Marlene saw that it was only Six in the morning and Sirius Black was not one for getting up at the crack of dawn. Climbing off the bed, she reached over and picked her wand up from the dusty beside table and proceed out the room slowly.
"Sirius?" She called making her way onto the landing. There was no reply. The cottage was quiet apart from the creaking of the floorboard on which she stood.
"Sirius?" She called again, this time louder and moved to walk down the stairs. The memories from last night came flooding back to her, she had called him a few things that she knew he wasn't and he the same with her, but now she scared that either something had happened to him,or he gone because of the argument.

Sirius was in the living room with his wand tightly clutched in his fist, using a single finger to move the dirty blind away from the window just enough for him to look out of eyes where dark from little sleep, and Marlene knew that was her fault. He heard Marlene walk into the room . "Shh" He hissed at her, not tearing his eyes away from the window.
"They were out there. I think they're gone, but i just wanted to be sure." He whispered as if he could be overheard, even though they were inside. It was obvious he was talking about the death eaters they had been tracking. Marlene slowly walked over to where he was standing and peered out through the blinds. "You put the charms up last night didn't you?" She asked quietly,not taking her eyes of the open field in front of the cottage.
"I, uh," Sirius paused, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. "I think so," He eventually said. "I mean, I don't exactly remember doing it. But I've been doing it every night for the past week, and i haven't forgotten once, so I probably did them last night too."
Marlene moved so she was looking up at him. "Well I suppose we'll find out if we get a few visitors." She replied dryly. He took a quick glance around the front garden before stepping away from the window. "I think they disapparated; I heard it a few moments ago but i just wanted to make sure i was hearing things."

"How they hell did they find us?" Marlene asked frustrated as she stepped away from the window and looked around the living room. There wasn't much apart from a flea bitten sofa and broken wooden table. "I don't know." Sirius mumbled, running a hand through his sleek black hair and frowned slightly. "You don't think they followed us here or something?". "I don't have a clue." She shrugged,taking a seat on the flea bitten sofa. "We've always been so careful when we've gone out," She bit her lip before laughing slightly. "They probably heard us arguing last night." Sirius ignored her last comment and shrugged. "Well I don't know. Either way, you should find another place to stay." He said curtly before turning and heading into the dark,dank and dirty kitchen. Marlene let out a frustrated groan and stood up and followed him into the room. "Well do you have any idea's of where we can stay?" She asked raising an eyebrow.
"I have no idea. It was a struggle to find this place." He told her. " Maybe we should find a hotel or something for the night. I can go out searching again tomorrow." He sighed. "Your Scottish Marls. Shouldn't you know where the best hiding places would be?".
"We hardly have any money for a hotel, and I'm not from this part of Scotland. I'm from a village in between Glasgow and Edinburgh ." She muttered. "Well we'll confound the guy. Just as long as we get a room, and look I don't mind sleeping on the floor again if i have to."
Marlene shook her head. "No that's unfair on you. We'll try and get a double room and you'll just have to deal with sharing a bed with me.".
Upon hearing that a small smirk worked it way onto Sirius face. "I'm sure I can deal with that perfectly fine McKinnon."