She smoked too much. She was unnaturally skinny and her nails were turning yellow, though that could also be attributed to the constant coating of bright nail polish, and he couldn't remember the last time he had seen her without a cigarette in her mouth. It was worrisome, yes, and he had begged her to stop or at least cut down countless times, but no matter the pleas or the hard facts of the dangers of cigarettes—her own father had kicked it thanks to lung cancer she ought to know this stuff—the response was always the same, "You stress me out, Peter."
And he did. Two years into a relationship with Mary Macdonald was not a cake walk, or at least it wasn't anymore. During Hogwarts the two had made plans for their life, back when she would only pick up a cigarette conversationally—if it was offered. Halfway through sixth year he had finally plucked up the courage to ask her out, even though he was vaguely dumpy and mildly unattractive and she, well she was what inclined him to believe that maybe the world wasn't all bad.
They had been happy, or at least he thought they had, and his fondest memories of his last two years of school were of her, curled up on the couch in the Gryffindor common room, ensconced in a corner at Three Broomsticks drenched because even though it had been pouring out all day they weren't going to let that ruin their rare Hogsmeade trips. He liked to think she looked as fondly onto the past as he did, but he couldn't be sure.
It was the Order of the Phoenix that had started the deterioration of their relationship, he knew. If either of them were to try and pinpoint the exact moment their happy relationship had started to crack it would almost certainly be that moment, that damn moment. It had gone down rather naturally, first someone had joined and then the other, down the line until James was knocking at their door—they had gotten a flat together almost right out of Hogwarts—telling them about some group Dumbledore had started up 'to help the Aurors'.
Peter had invited him in because if there was anyone in the world he trusted it was James Potter, and he had proceeded to take up a good hour or so of their time to explain to them what it was all about. Remus, Sirius, and Lily had already joined and Lily was talking to Marlene about it, and so James had thought he ought to pop round to see if they'd like to join, to get the gang back together.
He was ready to accept right away, he'd have done anything that James asked of him really, but Mary; well Mary had had other plans. She'd told James they'd have to 'talk it over', a response James obviously hadn't expected considering the surprised look on his face, and then kindly escorted him to the door. The cigarette intake had increased drastically then. He barely noticed at first, spying an empty pack in the rubbish bin or catching her tapping the fag against the sink as she made dinner, simple things really, but put them together and they spelled an ongoing problem.
Anyways, Peter had ended up joining, as he knew he would, and Mary had elected not to. Her reasoning Peter never quite got out of her, though they'd had several fights on the matter before the end of the war, but by then it didn't matter. The cracks had already started forming.
Mary was unemployed. Peter's family had been fairly well-to-do in the wizarding world and so they didn't necessarily have to work for a living to afford the cheap rent of their flat. Peter spent most days out with the Order, or in Mary's jaded mind goofing around with the boys, and so Mary was left sitting at home reading the Prophet and letting her fear grow gradually. She could have worked, sure, but as the daughter of greengrocers who had hardly had enough to get by Mary had been put took work at a young age, and she was enjoying having the time to relax and do nothing. The only problem was that when one does nothing they have more time to ruminate on all the bad that was happening in the world.
It went on and on, Peter would go out to 'Order meetings', occurring more and more often although sometimes these meetings were actually just sharing a round at the bar, and Mary would wonder idly what her life had become. Near top of her year in Hogwarts, with Lily Evans, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, and James Potter in your year how could someone compete, Mary had always been bright for her age, and pretty, and just generally pleasant. She'd had a relationship to envy, a boy she loved, and high prospects. Now her life had become a prison.
She half blamed the pureblood supremacists for making her feel even more unwelcome in a world that she was always struggling to fit into, and she half blamed herself for her lack of direction. It wasn't that she was scared, well she was but not to the point of action paralysis, it was just that she didn't see the point. Hundreds of people were dying out there, mostly muggle-borns, and the prospects seemed so bleak. She already didn't fit in with her encyclopedic knowledge of Tolkien's work, she had mourned for days when he died, and her need to microwave everything, so what was the point of trying so hard in a world where no one wanted her and she didn't matter?
She'd lost the game before she even started.
Their life together had become frigid. The food was bland, the empty cigarette cartons were piling up, and when Peter and Mary looked at each other they were met with dead eyes. They didn't even touch anymore besides the most unromantic kisses goodbye whenever one of them left the house, and they had both started considering stopping those altogether.
They had become shells of their former selves.
Just months before the flat had been brighter, lighter; Peter had chased a giggling Mary around the kitchen trying to smear flour across her face. Giggling they had spent hours, days, in bed, only getting out for necessities and to pay the pizza boy. Smiles had been currency and neither would have imagined themselves happier.
So what had happened?
It was neither of their faults that Peter was succumbing to his fear, targeted by Voldemort and slowly being drafted to become his spy, and Mary was succumbing to a deep and twisty depression that had left her mirroring a Franny Glass sort of downward spiral, without the religious propaganda. It was simply the natural state of things, perhaps something proactive could have been done but in their current states neither Mary or Peter could think of pulling themselves out of their own problems long enough to fix each other's.
They stopped talking altogether once Peter joined Voldemort's side, whether it was an active thing on his fault, a result of overwhelming guilt as he helped the man who was trying to kill the girl who he had once loved, or the fact that Mary had sensed the shift despite it all, conversation in the flat halted. It didn't make any real difference to either of them, they had long since run out of words to say, but whenever Peter would invite some of his Order mates back to theirs out of politeness it was always a struggle for them to put on a show.
It was on one of these occasions, just after Sybill Trelawney had relayed a prophecy to Albus Dumbledore and moves were being made to protect the Longbottoms and Potters, that Lily pulled Mary aside. Lily had always been the most perceptive of the bunch, and closest to Mary thanks to their shared muggle-born roots, and so she could see through the painted expressions and cheery phrases that Mary had been doling out.
"Is everything all right?" she asked one evening, leaning against the kitchen counter as Mary prepped some food.
"Yeah," Mary answered faux-happily, "the food should be done soon, I just wasn't expecting anyone."
"You know that's not what I meant," Lily said plainly as Mary rooted through a drawer to find a cigarette.
"Honestly Lily I don't know what you mean," Mary replied, procuring her sought after stick and lighting it instinctively. "How's Harry doing?"
Lily shook her head at the diversion tactic, one she recognized well from their years from friendship, and pulled herself up onto the counter.
"We're talking about you, Mary," she explained tediously and then, as an afterthought, "how come you never joined the Order?"
"I don't want to talk about it Lily," Mary answered sharply, pulling the food out of the oven and transitioning it to small plates. "You know this would be much faster if I could have a microwave, I don't get why wizards haven't gotten around to inventing some magic microwave."
Lily shot her friend a worried look as she watched her try to balance the plates, but there wasn't much she could say or do. She had tried, and that was really the best she could do, if Mary wouldn't talk to her and refused to actually live her life there wasn't much Lily could do. Dropping off the counters she helped gather some of the plates of food up, helping her friend in the only way she could.
Mary never blamed her; she'd had more important things to handle.
When it came down to it the Potters died and the Longbottoms survived, though one couldn't really call their state of being living, and Sirius Black took the fall for it all. But Mary never believed the way it had all sorted itself out, Peter the hero and Sirius the traitorous scum. She hadn't even known about the secret keeper thing, she hadn't been privy to anything war related sans what the Prophet said, but she had known them both—Peter intimately and Sirius fairly well—and furthermore she had lived a life of hell with Peter for several months. Deep down she knew what he was capable of.
She was sick to his stomach when she heard. When she read about it and then read about the subsequent trial. She was ill for months thinking about how the boy that she loved, the boy who she had touched and been touched by so intimately had come to this, it shattered her completely. Now when someone is already broken and dying on the inside there isn't much lower they can get, but somehow Mary exemplified the perfect hit to rock bottom.
The worst, however, was not that her once friends had all died, betrayed by her boyfriend, no that wasn't what affected Mary most, at least physically, the worst that was without Peter's well filled bank account she was rendered homeless, destitute, and without any life skills.
She started working at the Leaky Cauldron and worked out a nice little deal where rent came out of her pay. She sold most of her possessions, and Peter's because looking at them left her curled up for days, and that plus the tips she made being a pretty bartender helped keep her above water, and provide her with a steady supply of cigarettes. She saved wonders on food.
Most of her time at work was spent outside Florean Fortescue's, rain or snow or shine, with a floppy hat and a cigarette, staring out at the world and wondering how and why. Sometimes she pretended to read a book. Guys tried to pick her up sometimes, she was still pretty after all, but Mary didn't trust them—not anymore. More importantly, the thought of letting another person touch her made her want to be physically ill or maybe that was just a side effect of the toxins she was pumping into her body daily.
She saw them everywhere, Lily in the passing ginger heads, Sirius in the dashing confident guys, James in ever Quidditch or glasses shop she passed. Peter was everywhere. One time she passed a rat and stopped dead for hours, she didn't know why it just reminded her of Peter.
Eventually Tom insisted she start to seek treatment, for post-traumatic stress if nothing else, though depression was what could be read in his eyes, and since he was her employer and surrogate father figure, or at least kindly older brother, she obliged. Weekly trips to St. Mungo's seemed to help, at least a little, but that didn't stop her from crying her eyes out every night and it certainly didn't stop her from pulling out a cigarette almost soon as she had excited the hospital, it was how she coped.
"You shouldn't smoke so much, you know," a quiet voice remarked from below her, parked on the stairs where she had stopped to lean against a column.
"I don't," Mary replied taking a long drag as if to taunt the person.
"Well that's a bald-faced lie," the person said.
Mary turned to look at them and her eyes met a soft, kind face. Small and generally unassuming, Mary couldn't help but put out her cigarette almost instinctively in compliance. She'd move heaven and earth for a genuinely kind person. Dropping down on the stair next to him Mary's eyebrows furrowed.
"How do you know if it's a lie or not?" Mary inquired, mostly curious.
"Well you're a stick," he observed gesturing to the rather unhealthy skinniness that had become Mary Macdonald, "and I've seen you before. At Fortescue's, smoking all day and seeming, well, sad."
"Hmm," Mary replied for lack of something else to say. "It's been said before."
"That you smoke too much or you seem sad?" He asked and Mary was struck suddenly by the familiarity of it all.
"Both, actually," she answered. "Mary Macdonald."
"Reg Cattermole," he introduced and then without missing a beat, "So what's got you so sad Mary?"
Mary hummed for a second, to avoid the question, and then turned to Reg.
"What're you doing here anyways?" she asked.
"Routine check-up," he explained. "I work at the Ministry and I was due for a physical."
"What department?" Mary inquired.
"Magical Maintenance," he answered unabashedly as Mary snorted. "Oh I'm sorry, what is it that you do?"
"I bartend at the Leaky," Mary said, shame edging her voice. "But I also spent about six years unemployed so don't think my resume is so lacking."
"Is that why you're so sad?" he asked again, almost tenderly.
"Only sometimes," Mary answered. "It's actually a nice enough gig, well the Leaky, being employed was like feeling myself slowly die which is yeah, why I'm so sad. That and the fact that I live in a world that only just stopped killing people over my right to live here, about ninety percent of my school chums are friends—and the other ten percent are as good as, seemingly my ex betrayed said collection of friends and was instrumental in their deaths, and, oh yeah, I can't even bleeding drive a car. That about sum it up for you, Reg?"
At some point in her rant a cigarette had found its way into Mary's mouth and she took a puff out of it angrily, turning to look at the man next to her expectantly.
"So you can't drive a car, huh?" he remarked. "Me neither. Don't sweat it."
And then, despite it all, the corner of Mary's mouth quirked up into a smile. Only barely, and only for a second, but it was the first time she had smiled, properly so, since she was about eighteen and she realized then that she had missed it.
"Here," Reg said handing Mary a piece of paper. "I have to get to work or else I'll be fired, but if you ever want to talk about it all without someone I'm going to presume you're paying, that's my address. We've all lost something in this war, Mary, maybe you more than most, but you can't let it stop you from living."
He took her hand and squeezed it for a moment before getting up and starting to walk away. Mary went back to her cigarette, crumpling the paper as she decided not to call or write or however it was wizards got in touch with people they met, but then Reg Cattermole reappeared, standing over her.
"I just want to remind you that you told me where you worked in case if you're considering tossing that paper away," he declared, leaning over to take the cigarette out of her mouth, "and also that you shouldn't smoke so much. Do you know how irritating it is to have to clean up other people's cigarette butts all day?"
Mary gaped as she watched him walk away again, this time with her cigarette in his hand, calling out a loud "don't litter" as his goodbye and despite herself for the second time in what felt like years, she smiled.
Disclaimer: Nothing here belongs to me, characters and such belong to JKR.
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