Chapter 25: To Fight a War

Marina awoke late the next morning in a groggy haze, taking a long moment to recognise her surroundings. Sunlight poured in through the small window, the trees in the orchard below swaying gently in the morning breeze. She pushed herself from the bed and stretched, looking around Ginny Weasley's bedroom with interest. There was a large poster of a strangely dressed band next to the window, and on the wall opposite the bed was a serious-looking athletic woman on a broomstick using the stout wooden bat in her hands to periodically smack away a brutal black ball that would hurtle at her from out of frame. Marina hadn't noticed any of it the previous night, she'd been much too tired and much too distracted to pay attention to her surroundings.

There were busy sounds creeping through the closed door from the floor below, and Marina pulled a patchwork blanket around her shoulders before making her way down the stairs into the bustling kitchen. Mrs Weasley had adorned a large white apron and was brandishing her wand at the multitudes of dough balls and bags of flour that littered every surface in the kitchen. Lumps of dough were shaking and kneading themselves as the flour flew everywhere, flinging itself around on its own accord.

"Oh, sorry Marina, dear," Mrs Weasley said hastily as she jerked her wand at a particularly stubborn dough that was refusing to come unstuck from the bench, "we tend to have an early breakfast in this house – there's some leftovers for you on the table over there."

"Thanks," Marina said, ducking under a bag of flour as she skirted around the chaos. "Er – what's with all the bread?"

"It's for the refugees," Mrs Weasley puffed, waving her wand at a line of dough balls that sat waiting on the wooden kitchen table that immediately folded in on themselves. "We take it to Diagon Alley and pass it out every week we can."

"Oh," Marina said dully, sitting down at the table and looking at the plate before her. There was a single, small fried egg and a bit of bread with a lump of butter. Although she'd been hungry when she'd woken up, the reminder of the war had stolen her appetite.

"Eat up!" Mrs Weasley exclaimed as the dough balls folded themselves once more. "You've got to get your strength back!"

As Marina took small, slow bites at the bread, a stranger entered the kitchen from the garden door, throwing down a pair of muddy leather gloves on the bench as he did so

"No use, mum," said the stranger, wiping sweat from his brow as he scooted behind Mrs Weasley and leaned against the kitchen bench. "Coop's done for. Whoever stole those chickens did a right number on it, we'll have to start charming it to keep thieves out – oh, hello."

The stranger had finally noticed her. He looked about Marina's age or a bit older and had the typical flaming red hair of a Weasley, though he was deeply tanned and covered in so many freckles that Marina couldn't tell where freckle ended and tan began. He was the same height as Mrs Weasley and had a stocky, muscular build that gave Marina the impression that he did a lot of physical labour.

"Hi," she said lamely, giving an awkward wave.

"I'm Charlie," said the stranger, leaning forward with a friendly smile and offering Marina his hand.

She took it, surprised – it was very warm and very calloused.

"Marina," she said, trying to smile back.

"So I've heard," Charlie said, giving his mother a side eye as he leaned back on the bench. "The Muggle time traveller!"

"That's me," said Marina unenthusiastically, picking up her bread again.

"I hear you can tell the future, too," Charlie said conspiratorially, not put off by Marina's less than upbeat demeanour. "Do the Montrose Magpies ever get their heads out of the clouds and beat the Bats? I'm getting sick of owing Bill money –"

"Charlie!" Mrs Weasley admonished.

"Afraid I can't help you there," Marina smiled despite herself. "My knowledge is strictly limited to useless trivia, like how to get into the Hufflepuff common room."

"And how does one get into the Hufflepuff common room?" Charlie asked, grinning.

"You gotta tap the right barrel near the entrance to the kitchens," she said, leaning forward in mock confidentiality, "if you get the wrong one, they'll open and drench you in vinegar, so be careful."

"I'll bear that in mind," Charlie said solemnly.

"Charlie," Mrs Weasley said again, giving him a look. "The chickens?"

"Yeah, I'll get started on a new coop," he said, sighing. "Want to come? I could use a hand," he said to Marina.

"Er –" Marina looked at Mrs Weasley, and down at the hospital gown she was still wearing beneath the blanket. "I – I don't have –"

"You can borrow Ginny's things for now," Mrs Weasley said distractedly as she wrestled a lump of dough into two halves with her wand, flour going everywhere. "And if something doesn't fit, I'm sure Charlie won't mind lending you something."

Twenty minutes later, Marina was dressed in an odd assortment of Weasley spares that made her look like she'd cut her outfit out of different magazines and glued it together. She had Ginny's muddy old boots, Charlie's old jeans folded up at the cuffs twice, Bill's worn Ballycastle Bats shirt, and a battered Weasley jumper that was dotted with so many holes that it was impossible to tell who it had once belonged to.

"You look great," said Charlie as he stifled laugh.

"Shut up," Marina rolled her eyes with a smile, "I'll go get some stuff from the shops in town – you guys live near a Muggle village, right?"

"Yeah, it's a long walk though, can't risk magical travel there," said Charlie as he pushed the door open and held it for her to pass. "Mind you, I'd have you walk for hours if only to get that ruddy Bats shirt out of my sight…"

They trudged across the leaf-scattered grass towards a decrepit chicken coop that was lying in splintered parts in the corner of the yard. Chickens were roaming around the place looking confused, and there were feathers everywhere like they'd recently been in a scramble.

"Food's tight everywhere right now," Charlie said gravely as they approached the coop. "Someone snuck in and stole a bunch of the chooks last night, left the place looking like this." He toed a piece of the old coop reproachfully.

"Why is food tight?" Marina asked curiously.

Charlie seized one of the splintered walls of the old coop and heaved it into his shoulder. "New regime blocks any Muggle-borns from buying and selling with wizard money," he said as he walked the wall to the edge of the garden. "That includes all farmers, shopkeepers and importers" – he dropped the wall heavily against the wall that enclosed the property and made his way back to the ruin – "but apparently the Ministry didn't make any preparations for the big gaping void that'd leave in the economy." He shook his head disparagingly and seized another piece of the coop debris.

Marina remembered the meagre breakfast and felt a bit guilty that she hadn't eaten all of it. Resolving to finish everything on her plate from now on, she turned her attention to helping Charlie clear the old coop.

"Not using magic?" Marina asked, picking up the crumpled span of chicken wire by her feet as she eyed the wand sticking out of Charlie's pocket.

"Whoever broke in used a bunch of curses," said Charlie, dragging debris towards their growing pile. "Levitation spells aren't working, and it refused to be mended – I tried all morning. Gonna have to solve it the old-fashioned way," he grinned. "That's alright though, keeps us nice and strong!"

"You work with dragons, right?" Marina said, turning on a broad wooden beam that must have held up the roof of the coop. "You must be used to some hard work."

He laughed, nodding like it was an understatement. "Dragons don't much like magic," said Charlie, smiling wryly, "and you've got to stay on your toes in case they decide they don't much like you, either."

"Why aren't you in Romania, by the way?" asked Marina curiously, puffing a bit as she lifted the beam up across her shoulders. "Why'd you come home?"

Charlie grimaced. "You-Know-Who is big in Romania," he said, darkly, "Mum was worried that I might get cornered by his supporters there, asked me home as soon as the Ministry fell."

Marina let the beam fall heavily onto the pile and rolled out her shoulders. "The war has a pretty broad reach, huh," she muttered.

Charlie eyed her suspiciously. "You don't blame yourself, do you?" he asked perceptively. "For the war?"

Marina shot him a surprised look. "Why do you ask that?" she said, a bit too defensively.

"Mum told me about you," he said, "about what happened in 1991."

"Did she, now," grumbled Marina, feeling uncomfortable as she resumed moving the debris.

"The war's not your fault, Marina," Charlie said, putting a hand on her shoulder to stop her. "It's not anyone's fault but You-Know-Who's."

"Easy for you to say," she retorted sullenly, not meeting his eyes. "You weren't magically sent into the past for the express purpose of stopping this shit from happening."

"Don't you think that's a bit of a big ask for one person?" Charlie said sarcastically.

"Does it matter?" Marina said sharply, pulling her shoulder from his hand to seize a large piece of debris. "I failed, didn't I? We could have gotten all the Horcruxes! We could have taken out all his defenses! Stopped him before he even had a chance to –"

"Taking out his Horcruxes wouldn't kill him," said Charlie reasonably, "you'd still have him to deal with, wouldn't you? It's the same –"

"It's not the same!" Marina shouted, throwing down the piece of wood. "I was supposed to stop all of this! That's the only reason I'm even here! Then all of a sudden I've lost six bloody years and Riddle's run off to be a Death Eater, Dumbledore's dead, and You-Know-Who's started a race war killing innocent people! And I should have stopped it!"

Tears erupted from her eyes and she fell into a crouch to hide them, letting her head hang down and her arms rest on her bent knees. Embarrassment was creeping in at her outburst at Charlie, and she suddenly realised that this was his first impression of her. Tears ran down her face as she stared at the cold grass, unable to look up at him.

Charlie let her be for a moment, allowing her sobs to diminish into slight sniffs before coming over and kneeling before her.

"Sorry," she mumbled, wiping her tears away with her sleeve. "That was stupid."

"It's not stupid," he said patiently, replacing his hand on her shoulder. "You'd be hard pressed to find someone on our side not wondering if they could have done something to stop this from happening. Doesn't mean that this is actually their fault though, does it?"

"It's different for me," Marina said gloomily. "I actually could have done something to stop this from happening."

"And what, it's your fault that you were accidentally thrown into the future?" Charlie said humourously.

Marina considered this. "Well, technically the only reason that happened was because I got sick and broke the time turner when I collapsed, so –"

"Unbelievable," Charlie shook his head, "everything bad that happens within a ten-mile radius of you is directly your fault, huh?"

"Of course," Marina said, a smile curling her lips inadvertently.

"Good to know, now I know who to blame next time some idiot breaks the chicken coop," Charlie gave a lop-sided grin and offered her his hand.

She took it and he pulled her up.

"Listen," he said, in a more serious tone. "What you said about Riddle –"

"I don't want to talk about Riddle," Marina said immediately, looking away.

"I just mean – we don't know that he ran off to become a Death Eater –"

"I appreciate it Charlie, I really do," said Marina said quietly, "but let's just get this coop built."

He looked like he might say more, but instead he just nodded and withdrew his wand. After he had summoned a small pile of supplies, they set about constructing a new coop. The project took them into late afternoon, only pausing for a brief meagre lunch. Charlie did most of the more complicated work with magic, but he relied on his hands more than Marina had expected for a wizard. It seemed that both of them relished in the physical strain of the challenge.

By the time the sun was hanging low in the sky, they were both sweaty and red-faced as they attached the final stretch of chicken wire across the back wall of the new coop.

"Nice work," Charlie huffed, raising his hand for a high five.

Marina slapped his hand with a grin. "You too," she said, stretching her back. "Don't forget to charm it, though, don't think my spine could handle having to do this again tomorrow."

"Right," said Charlie, withdrawing his wand and throwing some charms towards their creation. He gave her a sly look. "Should I fire-proof it too, just in case?"

"Make it entirely dragon-proof," Marina said as if it were obvious. "You can never know."

They spent the next fifteen minutes coming up with increasingly unlikely circumstances in which the chicken coop might be endangered, finally cumulating in Mrs Weasley coming out to shout at them to get back inside as Charlie was charming the chicken coop to be impervious to lightning strikes.

"We forgot to give it a troll-repellent," Charlie muttered as they followed Mrs Weasley indoors.

"Didn't make it meteor-proof, either," Marina grimaced dramatically. "We'll be back out there in no time…"

"If you two are quite done," Mrs Weasley said as she waved her wand at two large baskets by the door, "we have bread to deliver."

The flaps of the baskets flicked open and the golden-brown loaves that covered the kitchen table diligently flew inside. They have must be charmed to be bigger inside because Marina couldn't see how that many loaves could fit any other way.

"Let's go, Charlie," Mrs Weasley said busily as she picked up a basket.

"Aren't I coming with you?" Marina asked, surprised.

"You'd best stay here, dear," said Mrs Weasley, giving her still purple hands a concerned look. "You're still recovering, after all."

"I feel fine," protested Marina. "Honestly, I can help!"

"We won't be long," Mrs Weasley replied, her tone ever so slightly firmer.

Marina realised that the decision was already made. She sat in one of the kitchen chairs, defeated. Charlie spared her a sympathetic look as he picked up the other basket and followed his mother towards the tall fireplace.

"See you in a bit," he called with a slight smile.

Marina nodded dully, and then they had both vanished in a bright burst of green flames. The house instantly fell very quiet, and Marina looked around the floury kitchen despondently.

She was stranded once again. The gentle ticking of the strange, nine-handed clock on the wall with the faces of the Weasleys all hovering menacingly over "mortal peril" made a memory bubble up in her mind. Somewhere in the books, she remembered reading that after Voldemort's rise Mrs Weasley had started carrying around the clock with her for fear of what would become of her family, with no way of knowing what was happening to them. Marina's thoughts went to the war again, the fact that at that very moment, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were out there somewhere. Marina realised that just like Mrs Weasley, she had no way of contacting them, no way of knowing if they were safe, or where they were, or what they were doing.

Perhaps that was the real experience of war, she wondered, not the exciting battles and adventures that everyone liked to read about or watch on movies, but the hundreds and thousands of people stuck in their lives, always wondering if those they cared about were safe. The regular people who didn't know what was coming next, trying to do what they could to help like baking bread for refugees, trying to fill their days with something to do like building chicken coops, unable to rest or relax, always alert, ever waiting for bad news.

She thought of Riddle, wondered where he was, what he was thinking at that very moment. Voldemort was untrusting, paranoid, and egotistical – would he have been self-congratulatory that his own Horcrux had managed to take on a life of its own? Or would he have seen Riddle as a threat, and killed him on the spot? There was no way of knowing, no avenue to investigate, no one she could ask –

Marina grit her teeth and consciously drove her attention elsewhere, eyes falling on a pile of laundry by the propped-open door to the scullery. If idleness led to thinking about Riddle, all she had to do was avoid being idle.

As it turned out, what constituted a 'long walk' was very different for a wizard than for a Muggle. For all Charlie had said about Ottery St Catchpole being inconveniently far away, it was only a pleasant half hour stroll from the Burrow. After returning from town with some scant essentials, Marina had teased him for days about wizards' lack of patience from being able to whizz around instantly whenever they wanted. She'd had to stop after he'd taken to cutting ahead of her on the stairs only to walk down them at a snail's pace, giving her scandalous looks when she snapped and told him to get a move on and exclaiming dramatically that she was too impatient.

Days passed in a blur, each a repetition of its predecessor. Marina fell into the strange routine of the Burrow faster than she had thought possible, though she knew that the thanks belonged to Mrs Weasley. Charlie might be under Mrs Weasley's watchful eye at home, but her other children were largely outside of her reach. Pairing that with the fact that her husband walked into the hornet's nest every morning, Mrs Weasley had become a veritable master of filling the long hours of her days to stop her thoughts from eating her alive. Marina only had to follow suit.

Marina dried clothes on the old-fashioned laundry mangle, ironed them with the magical ox-tongue iron that spat steam at her when she left it on the clothes too long, helped de-gnome the garden, pulled up carrots and potatoes for their dinner and planted new ones, cleaned flour from every nook and cranny in the kitchen, fed the chickens, learned to darn, cut firewood, caught fish in the lake behind the Burrow, and sprayed the lettuce patch for Flobberworms. They avoided doing chores alone and always kept the conversation going, lest the dreaded quiet and all it brought with it creep in.

At night after eating what they could scrape together for a dinner, Mrs Weasley, Charlie, and Marina spent an hour or two in the lounge with a cup of tea, trying to tune into Potterwatch to learn what they could about the war. The show didn't run every night, but Mrs Weasley insisted on checking regardless and kept track of the passwords obsessively so that she wouldn't miss the next broadcast. After that, the three of them would collapse into their beds, expertly too exhausted for their minds to keep them up with torturous thoughts and the endless unknowing. Sometimes Marina would awaken hours after going to bed to the sounds of Mr Weasley arriving home from the Ministry. Mrs Weasley bitterly mused to her one day that they were giving him extra-long shifts as a covert punishment for being a 'blood-traitor.'

It seemed a blink of an eye between September ending and Halloween arriving. Life before the Burrow was banished from Marina's mind with absolute execution. Thinking about Riddle was the ultimate taboo, but she also relegated Dumbledore, Horcruxes, Moody, and the rest of the Order to the list of forbidden topics. Remus was at that moment on the run, and although Mrs Weasley had mentioned that he would try to visit if he could, she'd warned Marina against holding her breath to see him. He'd been labelled an Undesirable, and Remus wouldn't want to risk endangering them any further considering that the Weasleys were already under close scrutiny by the Ministry.

In early November after the last of the purple faded from her nails, Marina was finally granted permission to accompany Mrs Weasley and Charlie to Diagon Alley to hand out bread.

They stepped out of the fireplace into the Leakey Cauldron, and Marina ducked her head a bit to let the hood of her cloak cover her face as they passed Tom the innkeeper.

"Mornin' Molly, Charlie," Tom called with even politeness, not making any mention of the third member of their party.

"Good morning," Mrs Weasley said breezily, not stopping as they made their way through to Diagon Alley.

Marina held back a gasp as the familiar street opened up before her. The place was half-deserted, and those who did walk the streets had their cloaks pulled even lower over their faces than she did, moving with rapid determination and casting nervous looks around them. It was deathly quiet. Some shops had smashed windows and dark interiors, others had giant posters proclaiming their support for the Ministry plastered on their doors in a desperate attempt to avoid being ransacked, too.

"This way," Mrs Weasley whispered to her, "quickly!"

The three of them hurried off down the street. As they passed the Magical Menagerie, Marina couldn't help but peer out from under her hood - but the shutters had been firmly closed over its windows and the place looked abandoned. They made their way further into Diagon Alley, stopping beside a ransacked shop that Marina recognised with a swoop. It was Ollivander's.

"Why are we here?" she murmured uncomfortably to Charlie.

"For them," Charlie said quietly, nodding behind her.

Marina turned to see a small line of strangers emerging into the street from side alleys and abandoned store fronts, and beelining towards them with their robes pulled tight around their bodies. Their faces were gaunt and dirty, their hair stringy and their eyes wide and alert.

Mrs Weasley was pulling loaves from her basket and handing them to each person, casting surreptitious looks around the street as she did so. Charlie was doing the same, and gave Marina a little nudge, knocking her from her stupor. She looked down at her own basket and lifted its flap with trembling hands, pulling a loaf out and handing it to the nearest person, a young woman with large, fearful brown eyes and long, greasy curls that might have once been blonde. The woman took the bread immediately, giving Marina a quick nod before hurrying off and disappearing between two shops.

Marina pulled out another loaf and barely managed to extend her hand before a man took it and ripped it in half, handing it to the two small children in tow behind him. Marina went to give him another, but he shook his head.

"Keep it for them," the man said gruffly, jerking his head at the growing crowd of hungry-looking people behind them before he grabbed his children by their hands and led them away with bowed heads.

A frantic ten minutes went by, and Marina could barely register her own actions as she passed out loaf after loaf to the never-ending stream of scared, starved people that had emerged for Mrs Weasley's charity. All of a sudden Marina's hand hit the bottom of the basket, and she looked up at the old woman waiting before her with wide eyes.

"I'm sorry," stammered Marina, "I – I don't have –"

The old woman's expression hardened with disappointment, and she turned to leave before Marina could even finish.

"Let's go home," Charlie murmured beside her. "Mum wants to visit Fred and George, but we should get back."

Marina nodded, feeling like her whole body was shaking. They were already back at the Burrow before she could really take in her surroundings again.

"That was…" she said hollowly, unable to finish.

"Yeah," Charlie said, collapsing into an armchair looking exhausted. "You being sick wasn't the only reason Mum tried to put off you coming with us."

"Who are those people?" Marina whispered, sitting in the chair next to him and letting the basket drop to the floor.

"Mostly Muggle-borns who had their wands confiscated," muttered Charlie, "but it varies. There's Half-bloods who refused to give up their parents, witches and wizards who wouldn't turn in their partners, Pure-bloods who spoke out against the Ministry…" he trailed off, looking grim.

"You do that every week?" asked Marina weakly.

"Got to do something, don't we?" he said with the ghost of a smile. "Can't just sit on our backsides and let Harry do everything for us."

The two of them sat together for a moment longer, the weight of their trip heavy on their hearts. The immeasurable suffering Marina had seen had both dwarfed her own problems and inflated her deep-set feeling of guilt. There was no doubt in her mind that she was going with them again the following week – giving out the bread felt as much like a kindness as it did like an act of rebellion, like in the smallest way possible they were rejecting Voldemort's disgusting blood-politics and trying to help those he had ruled to be worthless.

Marina blinked. Suddenly, it all made sense.

'This is how they're fighting the war,' Marina realised, looking at Charlie. 'By being kind.'

A/N: A quote I like sort of inspired this chapter: "In a world filled with evil, being a good person is an act of defiance."

Also! Some things I've had in reviews that I thought I'd quickly respond to!
marifilippa asked about Marina's nationality and accent - I've never really considered it too important to give stuff like this a 'canon' answer, but if you'd like my opinion, she's a Kiwi with a bit of a British accent :)
THGHPTVD.2 asked about what month she showed up in 1997 - I hope it became clearer in this chapter, but I had it planned that she arrived around mid September.
NightRise: don't worry, all will be revealed :P
The Guest reviewer who was worried about their English mistakes: you have nothing to worry about! Your English is great, and thank you for your kind words ^_^