Valentines days are rarely sweet at our age
Characters; Marlene Mckinnon and her mother. Brief mention of her 4 brothers.
Setting; Valentines day at the Mckinnon family Manor-Scotland. 2 weeks after Benjy Fenwicks Death (I know that he died after her but meh :l)
"Do you have any idea what you're going to do with your life?"
The words hung in the air, creating a tension so thick that even the sharpest blade or spell would never make a dent, but she didn't answer because only her mother would think that being an auror-in-training with a side job of helping save the world was doing nothing with her life. A hand touched her back ever so slightly and she whirled around in her spot in front of the large, imposing book case to catch one of her brothers shoot an apologetic look her way as he passed, moving to slip out the side door to meet with the three other boys she called her kin.
Cowards, the fucking lot of them. Ready to pillage, plunder, maim, and murder when it came to a boy approaching her or catty girls who's bark was always worse than they thought their bite was but the very moment their mother brandished her mile long, perfectly lacquered claws they ran for the hills, tail between their legs as they left her to the wolves.
The silence stretched between the two women in the room with only the sounds of the old grandfather clock breaking up the long moments. "Well?" the voice behind her came once more. "Are you going to answer me, young lady?" Marlene still remained silent, pushing the volume in her hands back into the gaping mouth like hole on the shelf before finally turning around and stalking to a chair where she plopped down ungracefully, the book she had kept open against her knees as she settled down to ignore her mother.
But her mother had other ideas apparently and she kept repeating the same question over and over with varied wordings as she moved from the open doorway and into the side room to stand a few feet behind her daughter.
"Mother! Would you stop that incessant clucking already?" The words came out sharper than she intended but Marlene felt no immediate urge to pull back the line covered in the properness that always came from visiting the Mckinnon Manor on the moors of Scotland, where her parents had moved once their last child had finally graduated from her schooling. She could feel her mothers sharp intake of breath, getting ready to reprimand her child for her sass, something "not suited for a woman coming from such a talented, upperclass wizarding family" that the older woman seemed to forget that she herself married into rather than being born.
It was Valentines Day, a day where she should be curled up in her bed or on her couch with a box of chocolates and a bottle of firewhisky as she watched sappy muggle movies. It was pathetic, but it was her tradition that was best performed in her flat in downtown London rather than the imposing manor that held nothing but stale air and bad memories of old ladies who wanted nothing more than to pinch her cheeks. This was the last place that she wanted to be.
Before her mother could speak however, Marlene was standing, the book in her hands tumbling to the floor with a dull thud against the age darkened area rug. "You don't get to talk like I'm going nowhere! I'm doing the same things the boys did." Well, save the second son who had dropped out of auror training to work with dragons, but that part was best not brought up as was her involvement with the Order. "I'm not that bratty little teenager anymore who sneaks down into the school kitchens and nicks bottles from the supply cabinet or thinks her time is best kept snogging rather than studying."
Maybe she was blowing the words out of proportion, and maybe she wasn't but all Marlene knew was that it was so ironic that this was the point in her life where her mother decided to criticize what she was doing and not when she really needed someone to sit her down and help her get her life back together before she screwed up all of her chances before she even graduated. And all of the pent up emotions that she had kept bottled up for so long came out in one large burst and while she told her mother that she wasn't that sixteen year old girl anymore, it felt like she had lied. Like that sixteen year old girl with the short skirt and hair mussed from a recent snog fest was standing there in front of her mother in the house that her ancestors built rather than the twenty-one year old woman who had worked so hard to get out of that hole.
All of the emotions. Sadness. Grief. Anger. Terror that she would probably see her grave before she saw this war to the end. Guilt because her boyfriend had been murdered instead of her and no matter how many fights they had when she ended up bruised and broken, she would always regret allowing him to be the one to walk out that night. Feelings that didn't have to do with the conversation just rushing out of her, leaving her exhausted the moment she quit talking and she stood there for a moment silently and the grandfather ticked the moments off one by one as both generations stared at each other before Marlene broke the connection to look down at the book resting at her feet as if finally remembering it but instead of bending over to pick it up she stormed out of the room with a face red from either anger or embarrassment. She couldn't tell.
She didn't get far before the young woman remembered that she had brought a cup of hot chocolate with her into the library and with a small resigned sigh she turned around in the hallway to head back hoping that her mother would no longer be there. Of course she had no such luck and the woman was still there but Marlene paid no attention to her as she went over to the chair where the white mug was resting on a stand so inconspicuously. But it was only as she was heading back out when she caught a glimpse of the expression on her mothers face.
It was not anger.
Not disappointment.
But a heart wrenching relief that seemed to bring the woman close to tears as she tried to hide amongst the books surrounding the two of them and it was not until she was a few steps back out into the hallway when it finally clicked why she was feeling that way.
She was finally showing emotion, when such a thing had seemed impossible the day Benjy was buried not two weeks before. That's why her mother had come with the sole purpose of irritating her and as Marlene walked down the hall, her bare feet making no sounds she took a sip of her cooled drink, a smile ghosting over her lips. It was easy to forget how much the woman who was such a perfectionist cared about the daughter who was anything but.