The Last

By: glimmerveins

Thanks to my betas at PTB!
DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fan fiction using characters from the Harry Potter world, which is trademarked by J. K. Rowling.

She's a hobbling creature now, with a cane and arthritis in both hands. It's the same hands that once assisted the winning goal against Ravenclaw. Her hair falls in snowy tufts until she resembles a downy bird. It's the same head that her friends loved to braid during class. Her face is lined from age and from worries. No one would recognize her, and there is no one left to.
"Excuse me, ma'am." The cashier looked at her with worry as if she might topple down any second. It was always ma'am or miss, the old spinster down the street, these days. But, before, in a different world, she had been Mary.
Mary the Mother Hen who would listen to your problems but never spoke her own.
Mary the Strong who spit in Mulciber's face as he attacked her.
Mary the Cowardly, the only one who didn't join the fight.
Mary the Lonely, watching from a bystander's view as the newspapers heralded the deaths of her dearest friends. One by one they marched into battle but didn't return. The spoils of war left grieving parents, lovers, and friends. Now, she was the last. The last of an era. The sole survivor who came from the time filled with Caradoc's flirtatious winks, Marlene's brash opinions, and the Marauder's antics.

O.O.O.O.O

Even though she can barely shuffle around in her scratchy tartan dress, Mary makes the loop every year. It's her duty because she is the last. She has the dates memorized better than her own birthday, better than any holiday in the world. January 16th. March 3rd. April 26th. July 16th. October 31st. There were so many more that even she cannot recall anymore.

Her journey begins on January 16th to a tiny town in Wales. It's decrepit, wasted with not a living soul. In the graveyard, the tombs are crumbling, fading as if to prove that death not only destroys, it eradicates. "Oh, Cara. How did you end up here?" She kneels by a small eroding stone hidden behind the willow tree. It is quiet, peaceful, and so unfitting of the boy who embodied life. She lays a daffodil on the frozen chapped ground. The harsh yellow of the flower contrasts sharply with the vast grey that surrounds it. Yellow like his tie, which he never learned how to knot properly. Hands shaking, Mary gives a feather-light kiss to the old, chipped shot glass, an adieu to the only memory of one of her best friends. She was finally ready to return it to its rightful owner.

"I promised I'd give it back to you soon, didn't I, Cara?"

January 1st, 1980; Bell Estate, Kent, England
"Darling, Mary, what are you doing down there?"
"I'm sitting, Cara."
"But, it's a party," He says patronizingly as he grabs her arm, pulling her towards him. In his discombobulated state, Caradoc still manages to keep her from toppling over. "The firs' one of the year. Come on, darling."

She grasps his arm with a vice-like grip as he weaves through the crowd, not wanting to lose her life-boat in the throng of (drunk) people. Mary never liked parties, too crowded, too loud, too sweaty, but Caradoc had somehow managed to drag her to this one. Unlike her, he lived for these parties so he could show off his unparalleled alcohol tolerance and talent for winning drinking games. "Cara, I... I don't-"
"Whadya' say, darlin'." He's filling the shot glasses with amber liquid, Firewhisky no doubt. "You don't have a shot glass." Realization dawned on his face, "'Course. I knew my little lioness was in there somewhere," with a wink he hands her a glass with the likeness of a pin-up girl painted on it. "Here, promise to give it back to me soon?"

"I promise, Cara."

Later that night, she sloppily kisses her friends goodbye, all of them reeking of alcohol. Caradoc had already left with his "friend" of the night. As she Floos home and tucks herself into bed, Mary feels the weight of the shot glass in her pocket. Later, she dismisses in her drowsy state, I'll give it to him tomorrow.

She never saw Caradoc the next day. Or the day after that. When summer rolled around, every sound outside her flat was him. She waited patiently for Cara to barge in demanding a popsicle and an announcing his impromptu bonfire, but he never came. Mary never heard him call her 'darling' again. She was never forced to run to the apothecary in her bathrobe and get a Pepper-Up Potion to cure his hangover. Mary didn't have the need to still keep packets of Earl Grey in the back of her cabinet in case he came over because her Cara, her darling best friend, was never coming back. The only thing to remember him by was the shot glass and the memories, but they too faded and gathered dust. "I promised, Cara," she whispers as her wizened hand reaches out to touch the stone, "I promised."

Three months pass until her next visit and the world around her slowly unfurls as it transitions from winter to spring. A flock of robins nest on the tree next to her window. Their chirping wakes her up every morning and the warm weather makes her back ache more than usual. As her false teeth methodically moisten the oatmeal, she prepares for her visit.

Another visit to St. Mungo's and the Ministry will probably forbid her from Apparating. With a pop, she lands at the Apparation Point in Hogsmeade Village. It's a special weekend for the Hogwarts students and Mary watches them scuttle around buying licorice wands from Honeydukes or pranks from Zonko's. Near the entrance of Three Broomsticks, a group of boys loiter around trying to act as if they owned the place. Her heart softenens as she watches the boys. How lucky they are to live in a time of happiness where war is the backdrop for sleep during History of Magic.

When the dark-haired boy goes over to flirt with a red-headed girl that walked by, Mary inhales deeply trying to remind herself that it was just a coincidence. It isn't James and Lily. The short rotund boy whose eyes are full of eagerness isn't Peter. Most importantly, this isn't ninety years ago when children warriors were being molded and alliances formed before they even realized what was happening. All was well. With her eyes still rested on the squat boy tagging behind his taller friends, she makes her way to the knobby hill on the west of the Shrieking Shack.

Mary was the one who made the headstone for Peter. She engraved his name and dates on a clunky old rock only because no one else would do it for him. He was a traitor of the worst kind, but, in death, shouldn't they all deserve to be the same? On the hill overgrown with rue flowers and twisted brambles, his forgotten tombstone lay. No tears slid down her wrinkled face or clenching in her heart when she came to visit Peter. All Mary felt was regret. Could she have saved him? Why didn't she notice him pulling away? In the end, he was gone, just another child who grew up too fast and left too soon. Placing a solitary rue on his grave, she makes her way down the hill slowly but surely.

In her youth, Mary was a girl of action. Flying. Jumping. Twirling. As an adult, she was a woman of emotions. Grieving. Regretting. Forgiving. By the time she was eighty, Mary was a creature of habit. A cup of coffee. Read the Daily Prophet. Feed her owl. Stare out the window. Drink more tea. It was always the same and gradually, like her habits, Mary became fixed. The wish for stability that she sought in her youth had been granted, much too late.

There is only one day in the entire year Miss Mary MacDonald wasn't up at 6:43 to brew herself a cup of herbal tea. April 26th, she lies in bed, swathed in her primrose duvet, looking up at the chipping ceiling. Mary is frozen with vacant eyes. Sometimes, she thinks that if she looks at the chips at the right angle, his jawline will appear. Other times, it would be the swoop of his hair or the edge of his favorite brown loafers. When her eyes faltered and his image flickered away, Mary could feel the emptiness in her bed, the same desolateness that had haunted her for the last eighty-five years. This was their bed, the one they bought together after their first paychecks. It's where they would spend their time before going to bed. Ankles intertwined, each buried in their own novel. They would talk into the early mornings about the war, their future, their friends, but chose not to mention the deaths. It was on this bed that he proposed to her. "Don't worry. It's not an engagement ring, Mary." He assured her once he saw her wide eyes,"A promise ring, until after the war. We'll get married. Have three kids. Grow old together."

It was also on this bed that he left her. They were both looking up at the ceiling, talking about nonsensical abstract things. "Benjy, I'm going to get a cup of tea. Do you want any?"

"Sure, love."

A lump of sugar. A spoonful of honey. Stirred carefully. Carrying the saucer in her hand, she made her way back to the room. He was kneeling by the side of his bed, hands working fast as he laced up his work boots. "I have to run. They need a distraction west of the Ministry. James said it might be Bellatrix Lestrange. It will only take a half an hour, nothing big. Keep my tea warm. I love you." Pressing his lips to her cheek, Benjy squeezed her hands and disapparated with a pop.

Mary should have warned him about the feeling she had in her gut. It was the same coiling sensation she got every time he left her. Her fingers were numb as her legs quivered in apprehension. Don't go, she always wanted to say. Don't leave me. I'm afraid you'll never come back. However, Benjy was no different from the rest of them. He'd brush off her comments, telling her that the Wizarding World needed changes. He said he was ready to die for the right cause, but, didn't he know that she wasn't? 'Stay with me' were the words on the tip of her tongue, but they were washed away with war.

An hour slid by and the coil in her stomach tightened until it felt like a stone resting in her abdomen. Her hands grasped the blue teacup in her hand in search of a heat source, but it had already turned lukewarm. "Mary, are you in there." It wasn't Benjy's voice. Too low. Too loud. Too brash. That wasn't her Benjy. Her hand fumbled with the lock on the door; she didn't even bother to check who it was.

Mary was right. It wasn't her Benjy. Instead, at the doorstep, covered in mud and flaking blood was James Potter. His eyes were on the floor, at the ceiling, at his hands. They were everywhere except looking at her face. "Where's Benjy, James?" Her voice was filled with hope. Maybe James was telling her that Benjy had gotten so drunk he couldn't find his way back home. That must be the reason why James had come; otherwise he would have gone back to his home with Lily. Yet James, bold, cocky, playful James Potter was silent. "Goddamnit, Potter, where is he?" she shouts as her voice cracks on the last word.

Tortured. Fought. Veil. Sorry. Loss. They were five easy words but together they strung a crippling sentence. Mary sat on the sofa, completely still. If it were not for the inhales and exhales of her chest, she would have looked like a corpse. Tortured. Fought. Veil. Sorry. Loss. Mary didn't break down that night and wrap herself in his clothes desperate for a lingering memory. Instead, she stiffly rose from the sofa and tucked herself into bed. While Mary MacDonald was physically among the living, she already began to decompose inside. It hurt so much that she couldn't feel anything at all. The thing about pain is that it subsides. Numbness, on the other hand, never really leaves.

The transition from spring to summer is marked with the annual anniversary of the end of the Second Wizarding War. Few danced on the street in joy liked the day they found out about Voldemort's downfall. Now, it was nothing more than a date in the history books for the students to memorize. Harry Potter defeats He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named with the help of Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger. Neville Longbottom destroys the last horcrux and the Order of the Phoenix rises from the ashes. It was just Chocolate Frog material and made even more boring by Binn's monotone voice.

By the time sticky, humid July arrives in England, Mary has begun to shrivel like a prune. She rarely eats anything solid these days and only takes miniscule sips of her coffee. Only four more months left. After October passes, she will be free to leave. Pushing the almost full saucer of coffee away, Mary grabs the bouquet of periwinkles she made the boy down the street buy for her.

It's a long and winding road down to the McKinnon Manor; halfway there her chest is heaving for air. Leaning on her cane, Mary plants it in front of her and then drags her body with it. After an hour, she finally arrives, soaked with sweat and feeling light-headed. The walk never seemed so long when she was younger. In front of her, the empty Manor looms, cracking at the foundation with dilapidated statues that are now the home to birds.

She looks around the statues until she finds the one of a teenage girl, head cocked to one side with a pensive smile on her lips.

Marlene Marie McKinnon

Born: Sept. 17, 1960
Died: July 18, 1981
"Dutiful daughter and sister"

Laying the bouquet of flowers at the foot of the statue, Mary hurries away as fast as she can despite the fact that her heartbeat is erratic and blood pounds in her ears. She can't stay at the house for too long, not after she remembers seeing the outcome of the Massacre of July 18th.

July 18th, 1981 8:31 P.M.; The McKinnon Manor:

Mary and Marlene had been inseparable best friends ever since the time Mary asked Marlene for a hair tie on the Hogwarts Express. Both tall and blonde, the girls could pass as sisters even if one had pure blood running down her veins and the other had blood made from mud. Even after Hogwarts, they still had the habit of having dinner dates with each other and Lily (who had become scarce after her marriage).

After Benjy's death, Marlene was the one who helped Mary fold up his clothes and pack them away in cardboard boxes. When Marlene and Sirius broke it off (wars were no times for love, after all), Mary held Marlene's hair back when she started vomiting after drinking a bottle of Firewhisky by herself. It was a symbiotic relationship and they checked up on each other to make sure the other one was okay.

On July 18th, Mary and Marlene had planned to leave for a weekend trip to France.

"It's the one place I want to see before I die, Mary."

"Nonsense Marls, you're not going to die," Mary had said, but they both knew Mary had always been a horrible liar.

It was their plan to meet at the McKinnon Manor at eight-thirty where they would take an International Portkey to France for a weekend spent away from the epicenter of the horror of war so they could finally act their age again. Mary walked up the dusty driveway blissful and ready for a much needed respite. Bliss in the middle of a warzone never lasted long for ignorance was bliss and war had a funny way of revealing everything. There, painted like a festering wound in the sky was the Dark Mark. No, she thought to herself, no, no, no.

The McKinnon's were not killed swiftly. Their bodies lay interlocking, bodies mangled, eyes wide open pleading for help. Even the young were not spared as Marlene was clutching little eleven year old Mia's body to her chest, trying to shield her away from the horrors. Mary stared at Marlene's lifeless eyes pleading wordlessly. Slowly, she bent down and shut them.

After staring at the broken bodies with shell- shocked horror (war had still not trained her for this), she called the Aurors. Officials arrived on the scene minutes later and Mary was taken into custody. "Do you know the exact specifics of the perpetrators? Were you present at the crime? Are you okay?"

The answer was no. No, no, no.

Mary usually didn't visit the Potter's graves out of respect. Lily and James had family, people more important than a friend who excommunicated herself from the world. Today, though, is a different case. Today is the last.

When she arrived at the cemetery in Godric's Hollow, a clan of redheads clad in black is leaving with somber faces. "I'll be there in a moment, Ginny." The shadowy figure near Lily and Jame's graves called to the stern-faced matriarch who was shepherding her grandchildren away. Mary stepped to the side allowing the congregation to pass, still clutching her peonies tightly. "They would have been so proud of you, Harry Potter." Mary smiled, her papery checks stretching into a wan grin, before setting the flowers and hobbling off. She remembered the time she had seen him with Arthur Weasley at the Ministry. He was Lily; he was James. Harry would carry on the legacy with dignity and pride.

O.O.O.O.O

Mary MacDonald passed through the Veil on November 1st. They say she died with a smile in her face and a tear in her eye. "I am ready." Her wrinkled face set into a tranquil mask as she faded into a better world. Her grave slowly crumbles as dust gathers on it but that no longer matters. Seventeen again, her fingers lace with Benjy's as they sway to the music.

Mary is whole again.

Author's Note: If you're still here, thank you for reading this! The Last was my first piece of fanfiction and I'd really like to hear your reviews.
In case you didn't notice, the flowers Mary brings to each of the graves has special symbolism:

Daffodil- New Beginnings/ Unrequited Love
Rue- Bitterness/ Regret
Primrose: Young Love/ I cannot live without you
Periwinkles- Early Friendship
Peonies: Healing

Please review!