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Gone
Sirius awakes to the sound of a drowning man.
The noise grabs him by his ankles and tears him bodily from his dream, and he burrows his head underneath his pillow in an attempt to plug his ears. He's tilting on that line between half-asleep and half-awake, and he sleepily tries to clutch at the details of the dream he was just having: a grassy field, a clear sky –
From across the room, Remus makes the same awful sound. He's having a nightmare; of that, Sirius is certain. With the war at a peak, they all are. Some people, when they have nightmares, scream. Others mumble, or speak aloud, or thrash in their bed, but not Remus. The sound he makes when he is having a nightmare is most charitably described as a drowning man trying to catch one last breath of air. Less charitably, it has an eerie similarity to the rattling breathing of Dementors.
Sirius grudgingly slips into consciousness, struggling for a second to disentangle himself from his sheets before placing his bare feet against the cold hardwood. The darkened arms of their clock are pointing towards three in the morning, and with the slivers of light provided by the half-moon he can just make out Remus's mattress. He has only been living with Remus and Peter since James got married a couple of months ago, and he has already begun regretting his decision to share Remus's room instead of Peter's. Peter, at least, has his nightmares quietly.
Sirius stumbles out of their room into the hallway. He knows from experience that trying to wake Remus will only result in him being reflexively hexed, and he supposes he might as well get something to drink while he waits for Remus to quiet down. Blearily rubbing his eyes at the hall's light, he begins to slouch to the kitchen when it strikes him – why is there a light on in their flat? Heart pounding in his chest, he almost expects to see a flash of green light any moment as he creeps forward, pulls his wand out and -
Merlin, it's McKinnon. Marlene bloody McKinnon is sitting in their kitchen at three in the morning. Sirius opens his mouth to angrily tell her that she should at least knock before waltzing into their flat, but before he can get a single word out she holds a finger up to her lips in a shush motion and gestures towards Remus's bedroom.
He scowls. Fine, so maybe he should try to avoid waking up his roommates. McKinnon looks at him with an amused smirk on her face, and her eyes flick downwards before flicking back up to meet his eyes. Sirius frowns slightly in confusion before glancing down himself.
Oh. Well, Merlin, if he knew McKinnon was in the kitchen he would have put a shirt on beforehand. And probably pants, too. And maybe not worn his boxers with little Quaffles on them. Really, though, it's his flat! If anybody ought to be embarrassed it's McKinnon.
She returns her attention to silently looking into space, and he drags his feet the last few yards to the kitchen before tearing open a cupboard. Pulling out a mug and a tea bag, he glances at her out of the corner of his eye. She's wearing the same torn denim pants as when she last appeared at their flat – the type of pants Muggles seem to be so fond of. As he slides into the crooked chair across from her, he vaguely thinks to himself that the holes in her Muggle pants make her look more homeless than fashionable.
The hot water Sirius conjures from the tip of his wand makes a calm, bubbling sound as it sloshes into his mug. Taking a deep breath of the tea leaves' rich scent, he curls his fingers around the mug's handle and smiles at a memory of him and James in Divination together. That class was a riot, and inventing new and exotic futures for themselves from their tea cups was –
His thoughts are interrupted by a single quiet smacking sound from McKinnon's lips. He frowns because, Merlin, is she eating? Food from their kitchen? Now that he looks more closely, he notices she has her hand curled against herself, a small porcelain bowl cupped to her chest. Following his gaze, she holds the bowl out towards his mug. He recognizes the bowl's pattern – it belongs to the hideous set of dishes Peter's mother gave him – and it seems to be filled halfway with sugar cubes. While he is watching, she plucks one out and pops it into her mouth with another quiet smacking sound.
Sirius raises a disbelieving eyebrow (because, Merlin, how old is she?) before pulling his mug closer to himself; he certainly doesn't want his tea spoiled with anything that sweet. An almost offended sniff is her only response, and she returns to cradling the bowl against her body once more.
When Sirius moved in, neither Remus nor Peter were able to offer a particularly satisfying explanation as to why McKinnon would sometimes spend the night at their flat. They both agreed that she asked if she could a long time ago and that they said yes, but that was it. Peter explained he didn't know if she had the money for her own flat and that she likely spent other evenings with her friends. Remus replied in a round-about sort of way that he wasn't certain how many friends she had, but he suspected she stayed with her Muggle parents most nights. Surely, Sirius, thought, there must at least be some sort of romantic interest or entanglement for her to be visiting semi-regularly? But, no, Peter wrinkled his nose and said she was too immature for his taste, and Remus added in his same round-about way that her personality could be a bit harsh sometimes.
McKinnon's chair makes a creaking noise as she tilts back and lazily glances around the flat. Sirius continues sipping tea from his nearly empty mug.
Some days she appears at their flat before he falls asleep, quietly letting herself in and silently flopping into one of their chairs with her worn Muggle clothes and her carefully applied make-up. Other days she is simply there when he wakes up in the morning, curled up on their couch with her pristine witch's robes and her pale face. Sometimes she is not there at all, but the hint of flowery perfume in the air makes him suspect she stopped by sometime during the night.
Sirius stands up from the rickety table they are at, stepping towards the kitchen in search of more tea. He accidentally lets the cupboard bang shut as he grabs another bag, and she flinches at the noise before gesturing towards Remus's bedroom again. He frowns because, Merlin, it was an accident, and he knows he has roommates. Two of them, as she seems to be forgetting, and just to make a point, he emphatically gestures towards Peter's bedroom. An odd look – blank, yet hesitant – crosses her face.
"Gone."
The way she says it causes the hair on the back of his neck to stand up. It is a long, drawn-out whisper. Suspicious, distrustful. For a fantastical second the night air sighs against his ears, and Sirius wonders if McKinnon knows something. Peter was here when they went to bed, and yet he has since silently crept out of their flat. There are splinters of moonlight spilling across the floor, and the arms of their clocks are tracing circles, and the autumn wind is whispering outside their windows, and for a second his mind spins a tale: what if McKinnon spends so many nights at their flat because she is watching Peter, because Peter secretly leaves at midnight for unknown reasons, and Peter is not to be trusted –
His thoughts are interrupted by hearing Remus gasp like a drowning man in the room over, and Sirius is torn back into reality; a reality where they are all plagued by nightmares, where McKinnon is just a girl eating sugar cubes in their kitchen, and Peter is as dangerous as an overgrown flobberworm.
Sirius conjures another stream of hot water for his mug, sliding back into his seat at the kitchen table with his now-steaming tea.
Some of the time he rather dislikes McKinnon. Most of the time, truthfully. Sometimes she acts as though life is all a game, and he wonders why someone so childish joined the Order. Sometimes her words are just cutting enough that he wonders why Dumbledore asked someone so abrasive to join the Order, and sometimes she is nothing but delicately applied make-up, and curled brown hair hanging loose around her shoulders, and fashionable Muggle clothes, and Sirius wonders why somebody so shallow would join the Order.
And other times her offensively red lipstick looks more like war paint, and her carefully styled hair looks more like that of a drowning woman, and her torn Muggle pants are not a fashion statement but defiance, and Sirius knows exactly why she joined the Order. Sometimes Sirius thinks she is so much more clever than any of them assume, and sometimes he wonders if she will be the only one to survive this war.
Marlene holds out her bowl of sugar cubes towards his mug again. This time, he picks one up and drops it into his tea with a quiet plopping sound. He pretends to not notice as a hint of a smile traces her lips, and they continue to sit in amicable silence.
.
(And when Sirius is in Azkaban and James is dead and Lily is dead and McKinnon is dead and Peter the traitor is alive, he wonders – did McKinnon know? Did Peter know? Did they play their little game of cat and mouse for too long, until all McKinnon got for her sleuthing was matching granite gravestones for herself and her mother and her father and her little brother? Until she died with the traitor's name resting uncertainly in her trachea and the mouse won?)
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A/N: I was debating whether to include the last paragraph at all or end this one-shot with the second-to-last paragraph. Let me know what you think the better ending would be!
Anyway, many thanks to coltishfraxinella for beta-reading this for me. This one-shot was (very belatedly) for the One Word Challenge over at the HPFC challenge, where the only word of dialogue I was allowed to use was the word "Gone". I swear, in my original outline this was supposed to be a cheerful friendship piece, and then it somehow turned angsty instead. Also, as a disclaimer, the photo in the icon doesn't belong to me.