Warning: parts of this story lean more towards M rating due to mentions of sex.
"Sirius Black needs to speak with you, Marlene," a voice said, interrupting my zen. Distracted, I looked up from my Transfiguration homework and stopped humming. Dorcas stood in the doorway of our dormitory and looked at me expectantly.
"Cassie, tell him I'm busy," I responded, irritated that Black would break my concentration on the essay. Apparently my irritation didn't go unnoticed, as Dorcas winced with a sympathetic smile before turning to head back downstairs. I didn't bother to watch her retreating figure. I resumed my humming while flipping through the textbook.
"Oh, bloody hell, she is not too busy for this right now. It's important! Tell her that she needs to come down this instant!" I heard Black shout from downstairs. I didn't bother to get up, but wasn't surprised when Cassie reappeared a moment later.
"Look, Marls, I know you and Black are in a fight, but please go talk to him. He keeps yelling at me, and I am not an owl!" Cassie said, sounding rather put-off.
"We aren't in a fight. We aren't even friends. Mary and Sirius are mates, not me and Sirius," I said, annoyed. After all these years, one would think she'd notice differences between Mary and I.
"That's right. Well then it must be quite important. He looks like a right mess, he does. Go talk to him, Marls, please," she pleaded. I gave her a sour look and set down my quill. After making sure the ink bottle wouldn't topple over, I got up from my bed and trudged down the stairs.
Never in my life had I seen Sirius in such a state. While normally his hair fell gracefully off of his head in silk curtains, now it was greasy and sticking up in odd places. The skin on his face almost looked a sickly green color. His eyes looked crazed, frightened.
"You have to come with me. It's Mary," he said urgently. I stared at him blankly for a few moments, and then he was grabbing my hand and pulling me towards the portrait hole. My eyes widened as my brain tried to process his words.
"What's happened? What's wrong with Mary? Where are we going?" I shouted in a panicky voice as my mind screeched to a halt and I put the puzzle pieces together. "Mudblood, Marls. I'm just another mudblood to them." Her words rang in my head. My heart thudded in my chest and I felt my throat close in, and Merlin, it hurt. I squeezed Black's hand tighter, feeling as if it was my lifeline.
"I found her by the kitchens on the ground, unconscious. After I brought her up to the hospital wing, I checked the map and saw that Mulciber was hiding in a classroom nearby. So, I opened that door and of course he was in there, McKinnon. The evil little git who attacked Mary of all bloody people, was right in front of me. I punched him. I hexed him. I kicked him. I knocked him out," here he paused for a shaky breath, "Anyway, I went back to the Hospital Wing, and Pomfrey doesn't even know what she was hit with. It must have been some new dark magic that they made up. Pomfrey doesn't think she'll make it, McKinnon." The sentence ended in a sob, and Sirius Black tried to hide the tears falling down his cheeks.
"What..? But… It's Mary! How could anyone…? Oh, Merlin. I can't lose Mary. I just can't…" I trailed off desperately, looking up at Black to see if maybe it was all some sort of sick joke. A sick joke and the Marauders would pop out and say, "We got you real good, McKinnon. You're so gullible!" and Mary, gorgeous Mary, would be laughing so hard that she had to wipe tears out of her eyes and say, "Marls, you need to stop believing these Marauding folk."
But the Marauders didn't pop out of a secret passage. The Marauders said no such thing. And Mary didn't emerge with a sheepish grin on her face, rolling her eyes at the boys. She said nothing. The hopeful look in my eyes was wiped away when Sirius's eyes found mine, and there wasn't hope in them. There wasn't anything at all in those eyes that were usually so telling of emotions. Nothing at all except despair and loss. Tears poured out of my eyes, and I couldn't control them, couldn't shut them off like a faucet.
I sank to the floor in shock. Mary was my best friend in the entire world, my other half. Sirius approached me cautiously and touched the top of my head. "Marlene, stand up," he prodded, running his fingers gingerly through my blonde hair. If the situation hadn't been so tragic and utterly heartbreaking, I probably would have cracked some self-deprecating joke and laughed at the way his hands kept getting stuck in my thick curls. But as it was, the action was just extremely irritating.
"Don't touch me, Black," I spat, giving him a glare that sweet, dramatic, Mary would have rolled her and eyes and laughed at. Sirius stared back at me with sad, red-rimmed eyes.
"Look, McKinnon, I know that you don't particularly like me," he began in a cool voice, "But I know that we both care about Mary more than we care about ourselves." I sucked in a breath at the harsh reality of his words.
"It's true, I gladly would have taken the curse in exchange for her safety," I said quietly, tears trickling down my face. Something in Sirius's face softened, and he resumed his speech with less hatred, less bitterness.
"Marlene, Mary's in the Hospital Wing right now, on the verge of death, so I beg you, get off of the floor and come with me. I can't face it alone. And I need to be with someone who loves her and knows her like I do."
I quickly got up and nearly ran towards the Hospital Wing with Sirius, tripping slightly over myself as we went. Sirius caught me around the waist and steadied me every time.
There was Mary, her dark, dark hair that shone blue in the light. Her hair was in one, long braid down her back, the same braid that I had put in her hair that very morning. It all seemed so trivial and stupid now: Lily, Dorcas, Mary, and I lounging around our dormitory, doing our hair, and gossiping about boys. The war had seemed so far away, then. Something we knew we'd have to deal with eventually, but not then, not while we were still in Hogwarts. Just that morning, 'mudblood' was nothing but an offensive curse word, surely not a threat.
"She's beautiful," I found myself saying to choke back a sob. Sirius nodded, gulped, and placed an arm around me. And she was beautiful. Her chest slowly rising and falling, her pale face, the upturned nose, the thick eyelashes, and her tiny hands with her nails painted in Gryffindor colors from the Quidditch match the previous day.
"Over the summer, James and I went to Diagon Alley to get some firewhiskey and ice cream, and we wandered into Flourish and Blotts. Just as we suspected, there was Mary, sipping an iced tea in a secluded corner and reading a book. I greeted her, and she didn't hear me for the longest time, she was so into her book…" Sirius laughed at the memory. It was a hollow laugh, a laugh of a man grasping for some happy thing in this cruel world. I laughed, too, and put my arms around his waist, leaning into his side.
"Remember when she got pissed drunk at her birthday party and went around acting like a cat?" I chuckled at her antics. "She's so crazy," I remarked with a sigh.
"That's the thing, though. Not many people really take her seriously. It makes me so angry sometimes," Sirius said in a voice that sounded so lost, so broken, so hopeless, so damaged. He clenched a fist in anger. I wasn't sure if it was in anger at the universe, the war, the people who didn't take Mary seriously, but I decided it didn't matter. He had a right to be angry. I wanted to comfort him as much as I could, but I had always been terrible at knowing how. Besides, I needed to be comforted in that moment just as much as he did. Instead, I reached for his hand and grasped it tightly, to let him know that I was listening. He continued weakly.
"There's so much more to her than just that happy-go-lucky person who has so much energy she explodes. Mary is deep and serious and philosophical. She's always asking why things happen, and is just so curious about every little thing. And it kills me that people just dismiss her, just roll their eyes, and choose not to get to know her like we know her." He tore away from my grasp and approached her carefully. I followed his lead, and brushed loose strands of her long, long hair out of her face. Uncomfortable with the silence and worried that we would lose Mary once and for all if we stopped talking about her, I began to speak.
"Do you know why she was always so happy-go-lucky and acted as if she didn't have a care in the world?" The past tense slipped easily off of my tongue without my notice, and if Sirius noticed anything, he didn't mention it. Rather, he merely shook his head. "She told me one time. It's all very simple, very Mary," I paused for a moment, trying to decide where to go from there. Sirius stared into my blue eyes with his solemn grey ones, and waited for me to continue speaking. I started from the beginning.
"You see, early on in our friendship, I came back from a party one time to find her crying in her bed. I asked what was wrong, and she just held me close and told me that she hated how nobody took her seriously because she was always happy and energetic. Just like how you said you hated that about people. You know what she said? 'Why waste time being sad when you could be happy?' she asked me in response. I didn't have an answer for her, so I just let her cry until she stopped. Before she went to go take a bath, she remarked offhandedly, 'Life's too short to be sad, Marls.' And that's why," I said, still rubbing Mary's face lightly with my thumb.
"How did you and Mary meet?" Sirius asked curiously. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and carefully crafted my response in my head.
"Well we lived together… But we really became the best of friends when I went through a rough patch and I battled with anorexia. She helped me through it, and saved my life, I'm sure," I said with a shaky laugh.
"Why were you anorexic? If you don't mind me asking…" Sirius blushed.
"There wasn't any specific event or catalyst, I just… hated myself." I shrugged. Silence.
"I'm sure you know how I met Mary," he said with a smirk after a while. But the smirk looked wrong on his face; it wasn't the smirk I was used to seeing. It didn't reach his eyes and it looked more like a grimace than anything.
"Yeah, I'm still not sure how you guys dated and then ended up becoming like brother and sister," I responded with an eye roll.
"I don't know, she was just so… Mary. We're too alike in some ways and too different in others to date… But she's like the sister I never had," he shrugged.
Just then, Madam Pomfrey came in with Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall at her heels. Sirius reached across the bed, across Mary, and grabbed my hand, squeezing it. The simple gesture sent more tears streaming down my face. Here was this charming and handsome acquaintance of mine who was going out of his way to comfort me, even though he was every bit as sad as I was, if not more.
"Mr. Black, Miss McKinnon," Dumbledore greeted and McGonagall nodded. Pomfrey, however, ignored us and reached over to Mary. She started doing all sorts of healer-type things to Mary, feeling her pulse, taking her temperature, giving her potions. Sirius's eyes flicked to mine.
"She's dying, Albus. There's nothing I can do," Madam Pomfrey said hopelessly.
"Minerva, if you could owl Miss MacDonald's parents," he nodded and McGonagall left without another word. A few minutes passed in deafening silence, but time seemed to drag on endlessly, forever.
All of a sudden, I felt a certain peacefulness about the room and I noticed that Mary was no longer breathing. I could tell the others felt it, too, by their facial expressions. Dumbledore and Pomfrey left to give us a few moments alone. I looked at Mary's grey face and remembered the light green eyes that always twinkled out of her face. I learned forward and kissed her cheek softly.
"Marlene, you got tears on her," Sirius said with a frown and wiped them off with the sleeve of his Quidditch jersey. Then he proceeded to kiss her forehead, just as I had. He stood up and held out a hand for me to take. I silently obliged and we walked back to Gryffindor Tower together.
"Sleep in my bed? I don't really want to be alone tonight. I just need to cuddle with someone, you know? Someone who understands, someone who really knew Mary," he mumbled and wiped some tears off of my cheek with his thumb. I nodded and followed him upstairs.
"Goodnight, Marlene," he whispered against my neck and kissed me softly. Even though I was bundled in blankets and wrapped in his muscled arms, I was cold, so cold.
The funeral was worse than I imagined it would be. People I didn't know kept coming up to me and offering their condolences. It was hard for me to grimace and say thanks. These people shouldn't have been crying, they didn't know Mary the way I knew her.
"Marlene, they're crying because the war is scaring them. It hit way too close to home, and it scares them," Sirius said, giving my back a soothing rub. We held onto each other the entire time, because we were the only ones who really knew Mary, besides her family.
My speech was short and sweet. I talked about the fun we used to have together, and the things Mary loved in life. Sirius, on the other hand, talked about the deeper aspects of Mary, and I felt so broken. I couldn't handle it, sitting up front alone.
My friends (Mary's friends, too, but not really, not like I was) all came up and hugged me, asked me if they could do anything. Maybe if they had understood, but they didn't. I knew Sirius felt the same way about his friends that were technically Mary's friends as well.
"Did you know that Mary was a poet?" I asked Sirius as I practically dragged him upstairs to his room after the funeral. He nodded and I continued. "She wrote songs, too, but she was a terrible singer," I chuckled softly at memories of our dance parties and karaoke nights, "One time she asked me to sing a song for her, and she loved it, but I always refused to perform it." My eyes stung with the familiar need to cry, and tears spilled from the corners of my eyes.
"You know what she said to me last week?" Sirius interrupted the silence as I crossed the room to the bed, his bed. I couldn't sleep unless I had him with me, because he knew what it was like to miss someone so badly that it rips one's insides out. He needed me as much as I needed him.
"What did she say?" I questioned, though something in my gut told me that I already knew the answer by the way he was looking at me.
"She said that she thought we were soul mates, you and me," he laughed. I blushed scarlet at his laugh, out of embarrassment and indignation both. I suddenly felt offended that he would laugh at the idea of us together, laugh it off so easily.
"Yeah, she told me something along those lines… 'Marlene, honey, you and Sirius are destined to be together for all of eternity. Just think of your attractive children! I know you don't know each other very well, but just give it a chance. Do it for me, Marlene.' " I choked on a sob on the last line. The words echoed in the room for a while and he was looking at me strangely. I wasn't sure if the look was a reaction to what I said or if it was because my hair was limp and tangled, my face red and splotchy, my eyes puffy, and my nose runny.
I heard my body crash against the wall more than I felt it, because suddenly he had me pinned against the wall, and his lips were devouring mine. I kissed him back roughly, because this was for Mary, dammit! I ran my fingers through his soft hair, and let out a small gasp when he pushed his tongue past my lips and found my tongue. I pulled back after a few moments, panting, and he started to kiss my neck with light kisses. He murmured my name softly, and the sound of my name ghosting past his lips drove me mad.
"Damnit, Marlene!" he swore and carried me to the bed, where he dropped me.
"Sirius! Stop!" I pushed him away slightly and laughed.
"Why?" he asked, pausing for a moment. His eyes found mine and they looked so sad, so lonely. But his eyes were also curious.
"I don't do this. Ever. And we aren't even together," I managed to get out, even though my thoughts were still hazy and he smelled way too good for me to concentrate on anything.
"Well you could. And we could be together. We might as well both lose our virginities with someone Mary would approve of," he whispered against my skin, all the while placing light kisses along my jaw line. My nod in response was my permission, and he started to undress me.
We fell asleep shortly after we collapsed back onto the bed in a tangle of naked, sweaty limbs. We were tired, so tired of everything.
When I woke up in the middle of the night, it hit me. I had hot, randy sex after my best friend's funeral. I couldn't control the tears that fell onto Sirius's chest.
"I want a cat, Sirius! I don't understand why you won't let me buy one!" I screamed at him a year later.
"I hate cats! It's as simple as that!" he yelled back at me, doing his best to stand his ground.
"Well I do like cats! You're not home half the time, anyway, lousy boyfriend you are! So what does it matter?" I knew I struck a deep chord with that one, but I was so far gone from caring anymore. We fought constantly.
"Don't you dare talk about how often I'm home! It's all work for the Order! Maybe you should try being a bit more involved in it! I'd like to see you nearly get your head blasted off by Voldemort! It's not as if you need your job at Gringott's anymore, you live in my flat and don't even bother to pay rent!" he threw the couch cushion at me and I dodged it, familiar with the routine.
"Just give me a damn cat and I'll quit and pay you rent," I said and tossed my high heel at his chest. He caught it, per usual.
"Fine! It's settled then!" he yelled. Suddenly, we were kissing passionately and falling back onto the couch. It was the next step in our inevitable cycle.
"We're naming the cat Mary, right?" he questioned, tearing his lips away from mine.
"Of course," I said softly, "You know she always loved animals."
"Yeah, Marlene, I know," he said and squeezed my hand tight in his.
"One time, Mary dared me to go into the men's restroom with her. There were so many men in there, Merlin," I stop the story and laugh, because the story is too funny not to. "And she looked at me with that twinkle in her emerald eyes, and she swished her black hair back, and stared at some of those guys. She acted like she was in the right place, and nobody questioned her until the very end. Some guy said, 'this is the men's.' and she grabbed me and said, 'nope! My friend here and I checked, this is the women's!' and he scurried on out!" I shook with laughter and picked up my butterbeer. Sirius laughed uncontrollably along with me, of course.
"Did she ever tell you about the time she told her parents that I was their long-lost son?" Sirius smiled at the memory. I hooted with laughter and nodded.
"I was there, remember?" I grinned at my boyfriend across the table of the Three Broomsticks.
"Oh, yes! That's right! You were always there, Marlene," Sirius giggled, having had firewhiskey. I blushed at the implications of his words.
"Oh, Mary…" I said fondly. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat for a few moments and I eyed him curiously, knowing something was bothering him.
"Listen… All we have in common is Mary. We wouldn't even be together if it weren't for her. Everything is so Mary," he said. "I just don't see the point."
"That's where you're wrong. Everything was Mary. We were driven together by Mary, joined the Order because of Mary. But now… I'm in the Order because I know it's right. I'm with you because you're the only person who keeps me together when I'm broken. We've gone through too much to not be together. You know what I mean?" I said, knowing that I probably didn't make much sense.
"You're right. I suppose she was right. We are soul mates, in a tragic and broken kind of way," he said, eyes glistening with unshed tears. Silence passed between us. There was nothing left to say.
Thank you so much for reading and reviewing this story!
Love,
Maura