So this is a little sequel i wrote after Marlene's death in 'You're in My Veins'
I hope you enjoy it and please review.
Marlene wasn't sure where she was, she wasn't really sure of anything right now. She didn't even know for sure who she was. She could feel herself lying on her back, the floor far from uncomfortable against her skin. Her body was naked, she knew that, there was nothing between her and the floor, yet it didn't bother her too much. She didn't feel cold, she didn't properly feel anything.
Still, she could feel, and if she could feel, she may be able to do other things. Taking a deep breath, reveling at the fact she could still breathe, Marlene opened her eyes. She thought for a moment she was blind; there was nothing but whiteness surrounding her, everything so impeccably clean that there appeared to be nothing but the whiteness, no ceiling, no floor, no walls.
But she could feel the floor; she could feel it beneath her as clearly as she could feel her own arm. Sitting up slowly, Marlene was amazed that her body wasn't aching. She was dead, surely she should feel something, if she could feel the floor against her skin then she must be able to feel the pain of death, an aching feeling like being hit by a muggle bus. But she felt whole. She had all her limbs, exactly the way she remembered them, long and pale, slender and a tiny bit freckled.
She could feel a tingling in her fingers as she flexed them slightly, bunching her hands into a fist and out again. Her hair was falling down her bare back, tickling the skin just below her shoulder blades. Groping around with her hands, feeling like she'd forgotten how to use them, she grabbed for the hair, feeling the loose curls, silky to the touch against her fingertips. Pulling it around to before her eyes she saw it was still the light blonde she remembered.
As she looked around she saw a mist coating the floor, the soft swirling patterns curving around her body. She thought for a moment of what had happened to her, what her last day had entailed. Thinking back, trying to pick apart the details in her mind. She remembered immediately what she had been wearing, and before she could remember anything else they appeared before her. Picking the clothes up she examined them, the skinny light-washed jeans, ripped and frayed in so many places, and the overly large grey jumper.
Excitement bubbling through her, she pulled on the clothes, wondrous as to how warm and dry they felt, cleansed of any dirt or grime. Curious as to her surroundings, Marlene looked around her. At first she saw nothing, but then, as though the room was encouraged be her curiosity, it began to take shape. Walls were forming around her, the floor taking shape as clean, spotless concrete, a glittering glass dome forming the roof above her head. She thought for a moment that she was in a palace, but then seats began to form, clean and white, all across the floor. She was in a station, an obscenely familiar train station, but she couldn't put her finger on how she knew the place.
"You shouldn't be here," Said a voice Marlene knew. It was warm and comforting, but sad as well, and Marlene turned towards it so fast she was sure she'd have snapped her neck if her predictions weren't correct. Marlene's eyes fell upon a woman who stood a few feet away from her on the platform. She wasn't very tall, shorter than Marlene was, with naturally tanned skin. Her hair was a soft, chocolate brown and fell in waves to just above her shoulders, her hazel eyes as misty as Marlene always remembered, giving the woman a curious and skeptical expression whenever she looked at someone. "It's too soon."
"Dorcas!" Marlene shouted, aghast, but running towards the girl none the less. They collided in a tight, hug, both of the girls clinging on desperately to the other, Marlene's hands bunched in the back of the floral material, reveling in the familiar, warm scent. "But you're – you were dead." Marlene said, feeling the familiar prickling behind her eyes as Dorcas smiled a sad, pitiful smile.
"I am dead, Mar," she replied as the two girls pulled away from one another, Marlene's hands gripping the top of Dorcas's arms as Dorcas's hazel eyes turned teary – Dorcas was always a crier.
"So, that means that I'm – I'm really dead." Marlene said, letting her hands fall lamely to her sides. "So this is where we go after we die?" she asked, looking around in confusion "A train station?" she said and Dorcas rolled her eyes as Marlene looked around in slight distaste, clearly uncomfortable with the cleanliness. "But wait! What about my family, they're all-" But Marlene couldn't finish.
"They've already gone. You're mother told me to say they'd be waiting for you."
"Even Decky, and Nate too?"
"All of them." She said, smiling kindly at Marlene.
"But, if they're already gone, why am I still here? Why are you still here? You died weeks ago!" Marlene said, astonished to the girls presence.
"You have a choice, Marlene, whether or not you board the train." She said "I thought that would be obvious."
"Well apparently not." Marlene said, crossing her arms over her chest, feeling like the stupid girl she was in school whenever Dorcas got an easy answer right and Marlene didn't.
"Besides, I've got no one to wait for me." She continued "My family is still going, living their lives. I'd be all alone."
"You say that like it's a bad thing?" Marlene questioned, raising an eyebrow at her friend.
"It isn't, it really isn't, I'm so happy they're still alive" Dorcas assured "but I miss them, and they miss me, and I'm scared that one day soon, they're just going to forget I ever existed."
"We didn't forget you, Doe." Marlene said, grabbing onto the other witches hand, giving it a comforting squeeze.
"I know." She replied with a smile "I've been watching you all, seeing what you did with your lives. Well done for standing up to Sirius's brother by the way." she said and Marlene's breath snagged. Sirius, she remembered him, the touch of his skin against hers, his breath in her ears, how he'd wriggled under her skin, and the way that his eyes had looked at her from Regulus's face as she died.
"I'd hardly say I stood up to him," Marlene said, not out of modesty, but belief.
"I think you did." Dorcas said bluntly. "I've spoken to some passers by, people who were killed by Regulus too. There weren't as many as you'd expect, six I think, and yet they all said the same thing. He made them look away; he couldn't bear to see the life leave their eyes. It's quite noble really."
"Noble!" Marlene screeched, releasing Dorcas's hand like it burned. "He wasn't noble! He was a fucking coward. He had no problem with killing children like Decky and Nate. Since when was murder a noble act?" Marlene spat, but Dorcas didn't flinch, she never used to when Marlene would shout and swear at her, spouting insults like she was a crude human dictionary.
"He doesn't know what he's got himself into." Dorcas reasoned "If you could have seen him after you died, he was horrified!"
"Glad to know I've sparked some emotion into that cold bastard." She sneered, taking a few steps away from Dorcas, the other girl didn't follow, and she never usually did.
"I don't think you understand, Mar." Dorcas said, but Marlene was barely listening. "he could only kill someone when their backs were turned, he couldn't bear to see the light leave their eyes because he couldn't bear that he was killing them. He never thought this was what was going to happen when he joined You-Know-Who."
"So, what? Is he the fucking victim now? Because the last I checked, I'm the one who was fucking murdered!" Marlene shouted indignantly.
"I'm not saying he's a victim, I'm saying that he's not what you think he is. He offered to let you go."
"That was lie."
"Merlin!" Dorcas exclaimed, grabbing onto her hair, "I'd forgotten how stubborn you could be!" Marlene's mouth fell open, here she was, seeing her friend for the first time since she'd died and she was criticizing her. "Just, just look down there." Dorcas said, pointing towards the edge of the platform where trains would arrive and depart.
Arms crossed and scowling, Marlene walked towards the edge, peeking over only slightly. Instead of seeing a white train track, she saw her home, shattered and destroyed, the bodies of her and her family still lying battered and bloody on the floor. As Marlene watched, she saw as Regulus was frozen, his wand by his side, staring blankly at Marlene's crumpled body on the floor.
"Is this a sick joke?" Marlene asked, but she couldn't take her eyes away. There she was, cold and limp on the floor, all the life gone from her. But she was here, she was alive, (almost) and she was thinking for herself and talking with her friend like nothing had changed. Except everything had changed, they were both gone, dead.
"I've been up here for long enough that I've gotten used to observing the world." Dorcas said from Marlene's shoulder. "And Regulus Black is someone of kept my eye on. And I can tell you now, he doesn't want to do this. He doesn't want to kill." She said reasonably but Marlene was still far from convinced.
"Well then why the fuck does he do it?" Marlene asked bitterly, watching as Regulus knelt beside her body, moving the blonde curls away from her face.
"Because he has to." Dorcas shrugged.
"Nobody has to do anything. I didn't have to die, did I?" she half shouted, but she couldn't take her eyes away from the scene below, no matter how hard she tried.
"I think you did." Dorcas replied idly, doing what she so often used to do, talking to herself. "I don't mean that in a 'you didn't deserve to live' way, because we both know that you did, even if you did spend half your life trying to destroy yourself. What I mean is I feel that without you dying, so many people's lives wouldn't change."
"Are you going to explain your stupid theory?" Marlene snapped, but Dorcas just rolled her eyes.
"Take Regulus for example. By standing up to him, by making him look you in the eyes as he killed you, it's all become real to him, he knows what he's doing and all that he's done and he can't bear it – look! - look what he's doing now!" Dorcas said, pointing to the image, Marlene having looked away to gaze as Dorcas like she was crazy.
"Is he – Is that bastard crying over me!" Marlene screamed, pointing hysterically at the image of the world below her "How fucking dare he do-"
"Shh!" Dorcas said, slapping her arm gently, receiving a shocked look from Marlene. "He is crying, yes, but he's also moving you."
The two girls watched in silence as the younger man gently lifted Marlene's body from the floor, both wincing as Marlene's head lolled helplessly on her shoulders, before he began walking up the stairs. He carried her to her room, kicking the door open gently before entering, laying Marlene down delicately, as though afraid of hurting her, on her own bed, laying her down in such a way she could appear to be sleeping. Marlene's body was still, each of her freckles prominent on her ivory skin as Regulus slowly placed a finger on either eyelid, shutting her eyes for her before apparating away.
"You see." Dorcas said, nudging Marlene's shoulder with her own, but the other girl didn't move.
"What did he say?" she asked, biting her lip slightly. "When he shut my eyes, what did he say?"
"I think he said he was sorry." Dorcas replied quietly, watching as Marlene bit her pink lips, clenching her eyes shut tightly. Dorcas had known Marlene long enough, had seen her enough times after a fight with Sirius to know she was holding back her own tears.
"I thought that's what he said." Marlene replied solemnly.
"Marlene, I think you just saved him." Dorcas said and Marlene rounded on her with such rage, Dorcas was surprised she wasn't burned by it.
"Saved him? Why would I want to save him?"
"It wasn't intentional; you're far too stubborn for that kind of selflessness." Dorcas said with a cheeky smile as Marlene huffed. "But by showing him what he was, everything he had done, you saved him from doing more terrible things. I think you just saved that mans humanity."
"In which case," Marlene said, a vicious glint in her eyes. "I'm going to wait for him right here."
"Why?" Dorcas asked carefully, watching as the girl sat herself down on the nearest seat, crossing her arms across her chest.
"So that when he does get here, and I hope it's soon, I can beat seven shades of shite out of him." Marlene said with a sickly sweet smile.
"Marlene!" Dorcas said abashed by the girl's attitude. "That's not the way this works." She said, trying desperately to reason with the girl.
"It is if you're Scottish," Marlene said with a shrug.
"You're honestly going to spend eternity waiting for him to turn up, just to beat him up?" Dorcas said sounding incredulous, but Marlene just nodded and began whistling to herself. "Merlin, I'd forgotten how immoral you were." Dorcas said, rolling her eyes and sitting next to the whistling girl. "I wouldn't change you for the world though." She said and Marlene smiled back. And so the two friends began their wait for their friends, watching over them all like angels.
Dorcas would mope about Remus, claim he wasn't coping very well without her, wishing she could go back and comfort him while Marlene teased her relentlessly for fancying Moony, something that turned the girl red in face.
Marlene watched, helpless as Sirius began his decent into madness, from the drinking and the fighting, to the meaningless sex. She'd been jealous the first time Sirius traipsed into an unknown apartment with a scabby, dyed-blonde freak with heeled boots and fishnets. She'd envied every moment she'd spent with him, his body pressed against her. She'd got so mad the first time she saw this that she'd needed to throw something. Dorcas only just managed to dodge the vase that Marlene had somehow made appear out of nowhere.
But the jealousy faded fast. Marlene would watch as Sirius lay awake, staring at the ceiling while the lackey of a woman beside him slept on. She'd hear him speaking into thin air, watch as he snuck away during the night, only to return home and sit with his back against the wall, falling asleep with a bottle in his hand and a cigarette between his lips.
He visited her gave a few times, the one in her family plot, her name engraved on a grey granite tombstone. He'd sit there for hours, not usually saying anything, just staring at the stone, reading the words etched on the surface. Then he'd talk for a little while, tell her how things were going, how there was a traitor among them in the order, and how they had no idea who it was.
"I think it's Remus." Sirius said blankly one day, sat in front of the grave in the snow, not making any effort to warm himself aside from the drags he kept taking on his cigarette. Whenever he pulled a new one from the packet, he'd drop one in front of the grave. Most people would leave flowers and tokens of affection, but Sirius knew Marlene better than that, he knew that she'd wanted nothing more out of the afterlife than to drink and smoke and shag her life away. "
That's all she ever did when she was alive after all, that and being traditionally reckless, fighting a war along side her friends before they'd even left school. "They can offer him so much, the death eaters, and with James and Lily in hiding, Peter never being around and Dorcas and you being – I just don't think he's coping well." He said flicking away his fourth cigarette but onto a nearby flowerbed, watching it roll across the freshly fallen snow. "Why'd you do it, Marly? Why'd you leave?" he asked, his voice so helpless and broken as Marlene watched from her bench in Kings Cross, her knees to her chest, Dorcas standing awkwardly a few feet away.
"I'm sorry, Sirius," she said quietly her eyes stinging from the tears she held back as Sirius stood up, a breeze ruffling through his shaggy hair, his eyes closing at the strange contact before turning and walking away, kicking a nearby tree before turning on the spot and disappearing into nothing.
"It'll be okay, Mar," Dorcas said, sitting next to her on the bench and going to put her arm around the girls shoulders, but Marlene shrugged her off, wiping her face subtly with the edge of her sleeve.
"No it wont."