Written for the International Wizarding School Championship Finals
This is the fourth part of a series written by the Beauxbatons team, it's set after xoxoVanillaOrchidxoxo's and before Paceso's, with Liz Jean Tonk's story starting off the series.
School: Beauxbatons
Theme: Conjuring and vanishing (discovering what we're made of in times of conflict)
Year: 4
Main Prompt: [Era] First War
Additional Prompts: [Creature] Knarl, [Quote] 'There are two kinds of evil people in this world. People who do evil stuff, and people who see evil stuff being done and don't try to stop it'
Link with the other stories: assembling of the Order of the Phoenix (historical development), First War (shared prompt), reference to several characters from other the stories as well as the first Order meeting.
Word Count: 2643
Huge thanks to Paceso for making everything sound more British and to Heidelbeirgchick for helping me sort out the ending!
Assembling the First-War Order of the Phoenix
Part 4: Marlene McKinnon
Marlene had made a terrible mistake. There were no two ways about it. She had royally messed up, and now her parents' garden was paying the price.
In her defence, it was an easy mistake to make. Knarls and hedgehogs were practically indistinguishable. There were no helpful physical markers to differentiate one species from the other. The only certain way to tell them apart was to offer them food and watch for their reaction. A cute, loveable hedgehog would accept and enjoy the kind gift, whereas a Knarl would assume that the food was an attempt to lure it into a trap and would savage the garden of whomever had left the food out as retribution for the slight.
So now she had an angry Knarl running around her backyard, digging up the flowerbeds, smashing the ornaments and desecrating the vegetable patch, all the while glaring at her with its beady little eyes and visibly mocking her futile attempts to make it stop.
She threw herself at it once more, but it dodged her easily, and she landed face first in the dirt. The little devil was faster than it looked and had been evading capture for the last half an hour. Marlene's summer robes were covered in more grime than she cared to contemplate, and her knees felt permanently bruised. It wasn't how she'd planned to spend her afternoon, but perhaps it beat the alternative. After all, she couldn't have asked for a better distraction than having a Knarl wreck her garden. But, eventually, her sore knees won out. She stopped chasing the destructive little rascal and pulled out her wand.
She'd never been top of her class at school. That wasn't to say that she couldn't cast a decent spell—far from it. In fact, modesty apart, she was an exceptional witch, good with a wand and quick on her feet. But she'd been surrounded by people even more outstanding, who'd always beaten her for the top spot. Edgar Bones with his constant studying and overachieving. Benjy Fenwick, who'd never studied a day in his life, yet had still excelled at everything—that git! Even Dedalus Diggle, who was the most accident-prone person Marlene knew, had, from time to time, shown such magical prowess that it had left even Professor McGonagall in awe. Marlene couldn't have competed with all that brilliance even had she wanted to.
The Knarl gave away its position with the rustling of Marlene's favourite rose bush. She twirled her wand between her fingers as she considered ridding herself of the little troublemaker permanently, before remembering how difficult it was to cast the Vanishing Charm on mammals. Despite the mess the beast had made, she didn't want to risk hurting it with a poorly cast spell, so with a swift flick of her wand, she conjured a net instead. It was a definite improvement on throwing herself bodily to the ground and hoping for the best.
She edged toward the ravaged flower bed, inching closer to the sound of tiny paws frantically digging up the earth as sharp little teeth tore at plant stems. She was so focused on locating the Knarl that she didn't notice the twig at her feet until it was too late. It snapped beneath her weight, alerting the Knarl to her presence. The creature tore out from beneath the rose bush, but, this time, Marlene was faster. She swooped in, bringing the net crashing down around it, and, finally, it was trapped. Far from being deterred, it started chewing and clawing at the thin strands of thread.
"Come on," she moaned, dejectedly swallowing her pre-emptive victory cry.
She released the ruined net and grabbed the Knarl just as it wriggled through the hole it had created. It growled at her and threw her a dirty look, and she was sure that if it had had the ability to, it would have folded its arms grumpily as well. No matter how much damage they could do to a garden, Knarls never attacked people, a fact that Marlene was thankful for because those teeth and claws might have been small, but they were also razor sharp.
Her gaze swept over the ruined garden, and her resigned sigh made the Knarl cease its struggling. It looked up at her as if she'd just deeply offended its mother.
"I'm going to have to clean all this up before my parents get back," she told it crossly, dreading the amount of work it was going to take to make the garden look presentable.
She had plenty of time to get it done though, or at least she thought she did. In truth, she wasn't sure when her parents would be back. An unhelpful voice in her head suggested that 'when' might be too presumptuous, and that 'if' might be more accurate. She did her best to ignore that thought, but, despite her best efforts, it kept playing at the back of her mind.
Frederick and Elspeth McKinnon were Gryffindors through and through. When the war had broken out, and things had started getting really bad, they hadn't hesitated to answer Professor Dumbledore's call and join an underground organisation intent on ending You-Know-Who's rise to power. They'd left a week ago to complete a mission. Marlene didn't know where they were, what they were doing, or when they'd be back.
Waiting was the worst part. The uncertainty of it was enough to drive anyone crazy. It was all she could think about, all she dreamed about; a constant stream of anxious worrying and unfounded reassurances as she imagined what her parents were getting up to.
She flopped down on the steps of the back porch, Knarl in hand, and tried to forget everything else and enjoy the warmth of the sun and the freedom of summer. Her fingers lightly stroked the little creature, deftly avoiding its sharp spines, soothing it even as it tried to reach for a nearby potted plant to tip it over. It was a beautiful day, and, had there not been a war going on, it would have been the perfect start to her life after Hogwarts.
Unfortunately, that kind of wishful thinking wasn't going to put an end to the conflict. She knew what would, but that was something else she'd prefer to avoid thinking about. Some truths couldn't be ignored indefinitely, however, and this was one that she would have to face—sooner, rather than later.
It had started with the Prewett brothers. A month before the end of term, Fabian had been called to the Headmaster's office. The unusual thing about it was that his twin, Gideon, hadn't been sent with him. Edgar always swore that those boys had spent seven years trying to set a record for the number of detentions incurred. If that were the case, they had probably succeeded. Edgar and Caradoc Dearborn had been the next pair to see Professor Dumbledore, followed by Gideon and Dorcas Meadowes. During that week, every Gryffindor seventh year, plus a few of their Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff classmates, had been invited to the Headmaster's office for a cup of tea and a chat.
Marlene had tried to get them to spill the beans about what he'd discussed with them, but not one had given her a straight answer. She'd finally found out at the end of the week when it had been her turn to enter that office along with Benjy.
The Professor had tried to engage her in small talk, but her stomach had been in knots from the nerves she'd built up over the week. Part of her had known what Dumbledore wanted from her and her classmates, but it hadn't made it any easier to hear. As soon as he'd started talking about the war, her suspicions had been confirmed. He'd hit them with many hard truths, spelling out every ugly aspect of the war. He hadn't hidden anything, nor had he softened the facts or glorified his proposition. As far as recruitment processes went, it had been less than appealing.
Benjy had jumped on the opportunity, always eager to rebel against the government and too reckless to think things through. Fortunately, Dumbledore had requested that they take some time to consider their answers. Before they'd left, he'd given them an address, a time, and a date, telling them that if they wanted to help defeat the evils of this world, attending that meeting would be the first step.
Marlene only had a few hours left to make up her mind, but she still had no clue what she should do.
Her housemates had all decided weeks ago that they were joining the Order of the Phoenix. Even Caradoc, who'd been known to jump at the sight of his own shadow, was willingly stepping up to the front line. Everyone Marlene cared about would soon be fighting on the losing side of a battle that had been escalating for nearly five years, yet still she hesitated.
There was no way to put a good slant on what was happening to the magical community. You-Know-Who's army had resources that far outweighed those of the Ministry, and he had the support of almost all the powerful pure-blood families, not to mention the werewolves, giants and dementors. Then there was the Ministry, which the war effort had drained of funds, and whose Aurors were falling left, right and centre—there was only a handful of them left. As for Dumbledore's secret organisation, it was a renegade resistance movement with no financial backing and no training. Had it not been backed by the Hogwarts Headmaster, it would have been thought of as a bad joke.
Marlene was young, smart and talented. She ought to have the world at her feet, but instead, she had to contemplate this impossible choice where her options were either doing what was right and joining the losing side or doing nothing and praying that she could live with herself after. She was barely more than a child, yet the weight of the world had been thrust onto her shoulders, and it wasn't fair.
Benjy and the Prewett boys and so many others thought that this was a game, failing to realise that there was a very real possibility that they were not all going to make it out of this alive. Marlene didn't want to die, not now and not like this. She wanted to live and grow old and experience all the wonderful things that the world had to offer. But she knew that if she joined this fight, her life expectancy would drop drastically, and the chances of her seeing the end of this war would be little to nothing. Surely she deserved better than that.
Frustrated tears stained her face, and the Knarl wriggled against her tightening grip. She forced her hands to relax, loosening around it enough to spot the drops of blood where its spines had dug into her palms. Her mumbled apology was met with a reproachful look as it started cleaning her blood from its quills.
Marlene had spent the better part of her afternoon being outsmarted and outmanoeuvred by a creature no bigger than her hand. If Dumbledore himself, as well as an entire government of highly-skilled witches and wizards couldn't stop You-Know-Who, Marlene didn't think much of her chances of making a difference. But if everyone had that same mindset, then no one would fight back, and then what? Just let the bad people win? Let them hurt the people she cared about? Not bloody likely.
She deserved better than to be thrown into a war that she wasn't prepared for and hadn't asked for, but so did everyone else she knew. All those people that You-Know-Who wanted to eliminate—the Muggles, Muggle-borns and blood traitors—didn't deserve to have their lives threatened by a madman and his ilk, and they shouldn't have to stand alone against that vile force.
Marlene had the blood status and low profile required to maximise her chances of surviving this war, but others weren't so fortunate. If her luck held, she might be able to breeze through this war, avoiding any major incident. But this wasn't open warfare; there were no rules, no code of conduct and the enemy had no honour. The bloodshed had already stained people's homes, wiping out entire families, most of whom had wanted nothing to do with the conflict and would have gladly stayed out of it. But war had casualties, and no one would be safe until it ended.
This was a certainty of which Marlene was well aware. Knowing it, and acting on it were two different things, though. She wanted to be brave and good. She wanted to do the right thing and be selfless and help people—maybe even save some of them. But she was afraid—afraid of dying, of losing the people she loved, of fighting her hardest and failing anyway. But if she didn't at least try, then what kind of person was she?
There was more than one way of being evil. The bad people weren't just the ones committing atrocities, they were also the ones who saw what was being done and had the power to stop those horrors from happening, but didn't even try. Marlene would not be one of those people.
She remembered a conversation she'd had with her mother, back when the war was first beginning, and her parents had informed her that they would not sit idly as evil forces worked to destroy their world. Marlene had begged them not to fight; even then she'd understood the dangers they would face if they took an active role in the conflict. She'd sobbed and shouted and pleaded until her mother had wrapped her in a hug and whispered words in her ear that Marlene remembered to this day.
"We'd all like to think that if we ever found ourselves in a position, where we would have to choose between what is right and what is easy, we would do what is right. We imagine that we would be one of the good guys, the heroes, the saviours, the ones who make it into the history books. But in dark times, that choice is seldom a simple one to make. Fear is a powerful deterrent; it can make even the best of us turn tail and run, but that's where bravery comes in.
"Bravery without fear is worthless because if you're not afraid, then there's no need for you to be brave. But when your life is on the line, and the likelihood of losing everyone you love is high, when the choice you have to make, between what is right and what is easy, terrifies you beyond words, that is when your bravery, or lack thereof, truly shines through. That is what heroes are made of."
That speech had guided Marlene through many of her recent life choices, and it would do so again today.
She released her hold on the Knarl, and it scampered away through a hole in the garden fence. This war might well kill her, and it might take from her the people she loved, but she would fight. It wouldn't be easy or glorious; danger would lurk behind every corner, and Death could swoop in at any moment. But it was the right thing to do. She would stand with her friends, her family, and her teachers. With a bit of luck, they just might win against the forces which so greatly outnumbered them. She hoped that they would.
If Dumbledore was to be believed, hope could be a powerful force. Although optimism didn't strike Marlene as a sound battle plan, she was willing to give it a shot. She would be at that meeting, even if it meant forfeiting her life.