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Chapter 36
The Whole World Wrong
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MARINA PULLED HERSELF up onto the fence and sat with a huff, feet dangling as she looked out over the winter morning. It hadn't snowed, but the frost was so intense that the world looked to have been crystalised, and her breath was coming in thick clouds, her face cold and tingly. She pulled her chin down into the neck of her Weasley jumper and tugged her sleeves over her fingers.
Nine days. Nothing from Tom.
A flurry of birds leapt from the trees in the distance and flit across the sky with loud chirps. Marina stared at the rising sun and the hazy morning sky. Her mind travelled – as it often did – to Greece, to the long nights in the archives and Tom gently shaking her awake when it was time to leave, to that one weird tavern they'd stayed at in Argos that had been run by harpies and had human bones decorating the walls, to Tom's hand brushing her back in the busy crowd –
Marina pulled in a harsh breath and let it go sharply, distracting herself by watching the cloud of her sigh plume before her. She'd originally thought that his absence would help her stop thinking about him, but she'd been grimly disappointed - if anything, it had only gotten worse. The unknowing was tearing her apart. Charlie was right, of course, Tom was probably completely fine… but the thought that perhaps he had been discovered always haunted her. Not for the first time, Marina's mind spat out the horrible image of Tom in the cellar of Malfoy Manor looking much like how she had upon her rescue, gaunt and pale, covered in blood and dirt and grime, eyes sunken and skin pallid –
Her shiver ripped through her aggressively, not the least to do with the morning chill.
"Cold?"
She nearly fell off the fence.
"God, Charlie," Marina grumbled, glaring at him. "You scared me half to death."
"Sorry," he grinned, not looking it in the slightest. "Mum's just left by the way."
"Early," she frowned, curious.
Charlie shrugged, pulling himself up onto the fence next to her. "She doesn't want Ginny waiting around at the station by herself."
Marina nodded. "And what's my cover story again?"
Charlie snickered. "You're my Muggle girlfriend from France who I've brought home for the holidays to avoid the Death Eater supporters in Romania."
She fake retched.
"I know, but we can hardly tell everyone the truth, can we?" Charlie rolled his eyes. "The fact that Fred and George know will be hard enough to manage already."
"Why'd you even tell them about me in the first place?" she snickered.
"They would never have bought it," he shrugged. "They're a lot smarter than people give them credit for."
"Fair," she said, remembering the way they'd deduced Tom's identity. She watched a long stream of smoke run lazily across the sky from the Burrow behind them and mingle with the morning fog in the air. "Who else is coming, then? I've never had a big family Christmas like this before."
Charlie heaved a sigh and pretended to think very hard. "Well Fred and George are coming back with mum and Ginny, Bill and Fleur should be here tomorrow morning, Aunt Muriel, Tonks, and her parents are arriving on Christmas Eve, and dad's brothers are coming the day before."
"Aren't people… worried?" Marina asked slowly. "About having such a big party during…"
Charlie gave her an uncharacteristically serious look. "I think we need it," he said quietly, "now more than ever." After a second, he broke back into a grin. "But honestly the scariest thing about it will be mum – she's already losing it trying to sort a dinner for that many people."
Marina snorted.
"You ready to come inside?" Charlie asked, side-eyeing her.
He'd noticed her daily ritual after all, then. Marina cast one last look out at the calm, cold sky, and nodded.
"Yeah," she said quietly, pushing off the fence and landing with a satisfying crunch on the frosty grass. "Let's go."
"He'll be fine, Marina," Charlie said astutely, nudging her shoulder as they walked back across the lawn. "Have a bit of faith in him."
Marina pursed her lips and said nothing. She didn't trust herself to talk on it without saying something that would tip Charlie off. Inside they stoked the fire and Marina stole Charlie's woolliest socks as they had breakfast and laid some ground rules.
"Absolutely no kissing on the lips," Marina said threateningly, pointing at him.
"You're off your gourd if you reckon I'll be trying to kiss you," Charlie snorted, "not with that fish food mouth of yours."
She threw a bit of bread at him but he flicked his wand and it turned into a little dandelion, which he picked up and started twirling between his fingers. "But we'll have to be somewhat affectionate."
"We're already affectionate," Marina shrugged.
"Kicking my knees out from behind and spontaneously demonstrating wrist locks is not affection, Marina," he deadpanned.
"Course it is," she said breezily, ripping off another chunk of bread and spreading a bit of butter onto it. "That's the patented Marina brand of affection right there."
"Right," Charlie said dryly. "Well lets swap that out for some garden variety hugs for now, maybe people will actually believe you're my girlfriend and not my high school bully who I inexplicably brought round for Christmas."
Just before lunch time there was a deafening CRACK from inside the house and Marina looked around sharply from where she'd been hanging out laundry. She sped back to the Burrow and heard raised voices before even opening the door. Something was wrong.
A teenage girl with long, flaming red hair and a spattering of freckles on her tanned face was pacing around the lounge in a frantic energy, yelling at the top of her lungs and not paying the slightest attention to Marina's appearance.
" – RIGHT FROM THE BLOODY TRAIN, AND WE COULDN'T DO A THING ABOUT IT! THEY TOOK HER, MUM, SHE COULD BE DEAD!"
Marina glanced to Charlie who was standing with a grave expression by the stairs. Mrs Weasley was in silent tears on the couch, not even scolding her daughter for her language or her tone, and the twins lingered by the fireplace with furrowed brows and mouths in hard, grim lines.
"HOW CAN THEY DO THIS?" bellowed Ginny, angry tears in her own eyes. "HOW CAN THEY JUST TAKE HER? SHE DIDN'T EVEN DO ANYTHING! IT WAS HER DAD WHO PUBLISHED THAT STUFF! SHE'S INNOCENT!"
Marina's blood ran cold. She suddenly knew exactly who Ginny was talking about, and exactly what had happened. Somehow in the insanity of the last few months, the fact that Luna Lovegood was kidnapped by Death Eaters on her way home for the Christmas holidays had completely vanished from Marina's mind.
Five solid minutes of shouting later, Ginny stormed upstairs without a second glance at anyone in the room and slammed the door to her room so loudly that the house shook.
"Tom can get her out," Marina said quietly, looking at the others. "Right? Tom could –"
"You think she's at Malfoy Manor?" Fred said at once, looking aghast. "Ginny thought they'd put her in Azkaban!"
Marina blinked. She felt sick. "I – I just assumed –"
"I'd be surprised if he can do much," Charlie said bitterly, "he said they'd changed the security on that place since you disappeared, remember?"
Marina felt even colder. "But surely he could still…" she trailed off, sitting down heavily on the couch next to Mrs Weasley who immediately took her hand.
"We'll have to wait to ask when he's back," said Charlie, looking up the stairs. His sister's furious sobs were echoing down from behind her closed door. "I'm going to go talk to her."
He disappeared at once and they listened as he knocked on the Ginny's door, entering without waiting for a reply and closing it softly behind him. Ginny's sobs became louder and more heart-broken.
Marina's grip on Mrs Weasley's hand tightened. "If I hadn't needed rescuing, the defences would still be down," she said hollowly, "and Tom would be able to –"
"Don't tempt those thoughts, Marina," Mrs Weasley said sharply, intimidatingly stern despite the tear tracks on her cheeks. "It's a dark road, and there's little use to it."
Marina nodded but her heart wasn't behind it. Guilt was swelling sickeningly in her stomach, and she was suddenly shivering hard.
"Marina," Mrs Weasley said in alarm, "what's –"
But she couldn't hold back her own tears as she leaned against Mrs Weasley's shoulder. When Mrs Weasley's arms came up around her and held her tightly, Marina only cried harder; she wondered what Mrs Weasley would say if she knew that Marina had half-known that Luna would be kidnapped, that she'd forgotten – forgotten about it, like it was still just words on a page and not real things happening to real people around her. Like she couldn't have said something to try to stop it.
•❅──────✧❅✦❅✧──────❅•
Marina's eyes opened slowly, swollen and scratchy from crying the night before. The lounge was dark and quiet, but she could hear birds chirping from outside announcing the arrival of the early hours of the morning. Mrs Weasley had pulled a blanket over her shoulders some time in the night after she'd finally fallen asleep, and Marina pushed it back as she sat up, head pounding.
She drew in a long breath and let it go slowly, looking out the window to the dark, star-speckled sky, stained light blue at the horizon. It couldn't have been much past five.
A memory struck Marina so hard that she felt it in her chest, faceless family members she couldn't name with her on a weekend camp with their entire karate school, getting woken up just as early for meditation on the ice-cold, dew-soaked grass. They went every year together, of course they did, how could she have forgotten that? It seemed that she was forgetting a lot important things recently.
Marina wandered outside as if in a daze, staring up at the fading stars. There were lots of memories of mornings, she thought, even though the people she'd shared them with were just out of reach. Like an itch beneath her skin she could not scratch, she thought perhaps there was someone special to her who she'd visited every day before school, they'd had a thousand cups of tea together, talked until the bell rang from school across the street, had to run to make it to class on time. Perhaps someone had taken her to her sports games early on the weekend, she could remember the cold pressing in on her skinny little twelve-year-old legs, that someone cheering from the side lines. Maybe there had been someone who'd driven her to school each morning, and she'd looked out at a fog-drenched countryside and the cold pink sky reflecting on a mirror surface of the bay as she listened to a van rumble beneath her.
Marina began to wonder if perhaps the mornings calmed her because – in the absence of the right people and the right places and the right time – they were the closest thing she had to going home.
She wandered forward, kicking off her shoes and socks and rolling up her sleeves, a weight in her chest that was not wholly unpleasant but just very sad, a nostalgia with its roots cut off. She sat down on the cold grass a little ways from the house and there a long time as she watched the sky grow brighter. Marina had always been terrible at meditation, but in that moment she felt as if her body was dissolving away into the world around her, the cold seeping into her skin, the grass swallowing her up, the birdsong passing straight through her. She felt transparent and small, like the disappearing stars above.
"Marina."
She looked around at once, surprised but not broken from her strange peacefulness. Tom's face looked strange in the dawn blue light – though perhaps it was because of the way concern was pulling on his features.
"You're back," she said, staring at him. Her voice was hoarse, it didn't sound like hers anymore.
He nodded, stepping towards her slowly. Marina looked back out at the horizon as he sat next to her.
"Are you alright?" she asked, still hoarse.
"Yes," said Tom. In her peripheral vision, Marina saw him look at her. "Are you?"
Marina's lips pressed together. "There's – there's a girl in the cellar now, isn't there?"
Tom drew in a slow, very fatigued breath, letting it out just as slowly as he looked back at the dawn, too. "Yes," he said again, quietly, "they brought her in yesterday."
"Can you get her out?"
"I can try."
Marina nodded silently, not liking the answer. It was the pretty way of saying no. "And is she… alright?"
Tom hesitated, and Marina's heart fell. "She is receiving significantly better treatment than you did," he said with what she could only assume was impressive diplomacy.
"That's a very low bar," Marina said tiredly.
"You are preoccupied with her," he replied softly, looking at her. It wasn't a question.
Marina's heart clenched, the urge to confess was tearing at her skin from the inside. She finally met his gaze. Tom was sitting next to her with his arms looped around his bent knees and his hands clasped loosely together in front of them. He was wearing the simple black clothes he always wore beneath his Death Eater robes, evidently having removed the horrible things as soon as he'd arrived. His face was very calm as he assessed her.
If she could tell anyone, surely it would be him.
"Tom," she whispered, her heart hammering. "I – I knew she'd be kidnapped." She watched anxiously for his reaction, but there was none; he only looked back at her, waiting for her to continue.
Marina swallowed hard, breathing deeply to centre herself. "I… it happened in the books, you know? I… forgot." Her voice went hollow. She had to retreat from his gaze at the shame of saying the words out loud, finding solace instead in the sunrise before them.
"I could have stopped it," she continued, barely above whisper. "I keep telling myself that I couldn't have known for sure it would still happen, you know, because things might be different, but I know I'm just making excuses. If I'd… just remembered… I don't know, I could have said something and she wouldn't be…"
"You're being exceptionally egotistical," Tom said flatly.
Marina was so surprised that she looked around at him at once, shame forgotten. "Excuse me?"
"To assume responsibility for events outside of your control requires that you vastly overinflate your perception of your own importance, does it not?" Tom asked without a hint of malice.
"I – it wasn't –"
"Dumbledore told you many times that you should not try to intervene in events any more than you already have," he continued simply, "this is no different. Even if you had remembered, you should not have said anything."
Marina stared. "Are you joking?" she said sharply.
Tom looked back at her, perfectly composed. "Marina, if you had stopped her from being taken, they would have taken someone else. There is always someone else."
"That doesn't mean I should just give up and roll over," she said angrily.
"No, but it does mean that you still have knowledge as to how things may play out for her, don't you," he said, cocking his head.
Marina frowned. It was true, she supposed. "But – but what if things are different? What if things don't go that way now?"
"Then you can do nothing about it," he said, unfazed. "You're taking on more compunction for the situation than the people who actually perpetrated it."
"Can you not say compunction in a real sentence, please," Marina said loudly, "I know you used to be a fucking book but you don't have to talk like a human dictionary all the time."
"Do you really expect to be able to fix the entire world by yourself?" Tom asked, giving her a very level look as he ignored her jab. "Will you punish yourself every time you feel like you've failed? I can't imagine you'll be spending much, if any of your time particularly happy –"
"Not the entire world!" Marina shot back, "Just – just the parts I could actually –"
"By your logic, I will be equally responsible if there is no way to save her without raising the alarm," he said evenly.
"That's different," she frowned.
"Of course," he replied at once, a decisively sarcastic lilt to his tone as he gave her a emphatic look, "you're right, that's different."
Marina glared at him. She'd said the exact same thing to him several times when she used to tease him for his shitty logic back in 1991, and his repetition of her own words did not pass her by unnoticed.
"It is different," she said acidly, "if you messed up rescuing her, all hell would break loose, but I just fucking forgot that a real person gets kidnapped –"
"Yes, and it's hardly as if you've been doing anything of import that may be occupying your thoughts," Tom said dryly, "such as breaking into the most dangerous prison in the world to retrieve an object of incredibly potent dark magic, or perhaps hunting down a three-thousand year old sorcerer and coming face to face with a basilisk without so much as a wand –"
"Stop trying to defend me," Marina snapped.
"It's not your fault," Tom said simply.
Marina paused. Something about the way he said it had made her heart ache and her stomach fall.
"It's not your fault," he said again, looking at her carefully.
"But I knew," she whispered. "I knew and I forgot."
There was a long silence. Marina stared out at the slowly dissipating wispy clouds, stained brilliant orange by the sun still concealed beneath the horizon.
"There is much more outside of your control in the world than inside it, Marina," Tom said quietly, "you'd do well to avoid endlessly ruminating over that which you cannot change."
Marina's lips flickered into a weak smile. "Sort of ironic, isn't it? You telling me that?"
Tom huffed a small laugh. The sun suddenly peeked up from below the horizon and Marina squinted as a bright beam of morning light hit her eyes.
"I haven't told the others," she said, near whisper.
"They would understand," he replied, looking to her again.
She grimaced. "I – I don't want them to know."
There was a beat of silence. Marina felt the overwhelming urge to cry well up again and very much felt like she could do with one of Mrs Weasley's hugs. Torn between the desire for comfort and fear of overstepping her boundaries, Marina wearily let her head fall on Tom's shoulder again. Surely it was safe, this gesture – it was ground they had already tread, after all, and surely he knew that she was just upset and needed someone to be there, he wouldn't think it strange, she'd do the same if it was Charlie after all, so surely it would be okay –
Tom's hands unclasped from in front of his knees and he straightened his legs out on the grass, propping his arms behind him instead as he leaned back slightly. His hand found its place on the ground just behind her, his arm barely brushing her back as she rested against his shoulder. "I won't say anything," he said quietly.
She nodded, letting her eyes fall shut and taking a long breath to calm herself. It was strangely relaxing, being there with him. Everything was wrong, the whole world all around her was wrong all the time, but for a moment it all fell away. For now, there was only the cold morning air, the clear sunlight on her face, the singing birds, and Tom's arm nearly around her as they watched the misty countryside and the cold, colourful sky.
The sun was fully up in front of them before they heard sounds in the house behind them as Mr Weasley got ready for work and the rest of the house began to wake up.
"We should go inside," Marina said tiredly, not moving.
Tom looked down at her, and she wondered if he had heard the reluctance in her voice. "Yes we should," he said, though he too did not move.
Marina decisively ordered herself to lift her head off his shoulder and greatly resented herself the second that she obeyed. She took another long breath, eyes closing as she mentally steeled herself to speak to the others.
The sunlight against her eyelids suddenly darkened and she looked up to see Tom standing before her, hand outstretched. Ignoring the ridiculous way her stomach flipped, Marina took it and he pulled her up – but to her surprise, he did not let go straight away.
"What happened to your lips?" he frowned, looking down at her closely.
Their proximity had allowed him to notice the small cuts and abrasions on her lips, the fact that her hand was still in his as he assessed her apparently escaping his attention.
"I – I bite them when I'm stressed," Marina said, trying to stop her cheeks from flushing.
"You drew blood," Tom continued, eyes raising to hers to give her a critical look.
"I'm very stressed," she deadpanned, lightly shoving him as an excuse to let go of his hand and put some space between them.
"That's a terrible habit," he said dryly.
"We can't all be perfect like you, Tom," Marina rolled her eyes as she picked up her discarded shoes and socks. "Forgive me my mortal deficiencies and corporal imperfections."
"And you mock me for saying compunction," he smirked as they turned to the Burrow.
"None of those words are even in the same league as compunction," Marina scoffed. "I don't even know what compunction means, I had to just rely on context to figure it out –"
"It means guilt after moral wrongdoing, particularly if one's conscious is –"
"Are you totally sure you're not still half book?" Marina interrupted, peering at him with theatrical fascination. "Sometimes when you speak, it's really as if someone's reading out passages from a very dry text."
"You are insufferable," Tom said plainly.
"Thank you," she smiled.
They had reached the door and she held it open for him, ignoring her stupid brain for noticing how close he was as he passed her.
"Tom!" Mr Weasley said loudly, briefcase swinging as he paused right before throwing Floo powder into the hearth. He was dressed in his tatty, faded work robes and it was obvious that he'd still made a whole-hearted effort to be respectable, cleanshaven, hair neatly combed, and shoes charmed to a reluctant shine. "Didn't know you were back, my boy!"
"I arrived only this morning, sir," Tom said politely.
"Oh, none of that," Mr Weasley said with fatigued joviality. "Are you staying for Christmas? We'd love to have you – I'm sure we could find you a bed somewhere, or you can battle Marina for the good couch –"
"I'd win," Marina said at once, giving Tom a wry smile at his incredulous side-eye. "Can't curse me if you can't hold a wand after I break your hands."
"Actually, I'm quite accomplished at wandless magic," he smirked.
"Oh, of course – and what do I have to break to stop you from doing that?" Marina asked, teasingly curious.
Tom looked to be on the brink of rounding on her to retaliate with a decidedly playful gleam in his eye when Mr Weasley interrupted.
"I'd rather you not try find out, Marina," he said with a chuckle, though he looked somewhat alarmed. "So, what do you say, Tom? Christmas?"
Tom paused, and Marina tried to pretend like she wasn't waiting on baited breath for his answer. "I may have to return to Malfoy Manor at times," he said slowly, "but… yes, I believe I will be here."
"Excellent," Mr Weasley beamed, before his smile faltered somewhat. "And – and I heard about Luna Lovegood –"
"I'll do what I can," Tom said firmly, not looking at Marina.
Mr Weasley nodded slowly. "Good… lucky we have you there to keep an eye on things…" He adjusted his briefcase busily and pushed his travelling cap up off his forehead. "Well, must be going – I drew the short straw for the holiday shifts…"
Marina watched with significant concern as he wearily threw down the Floo powder and disappeared in a flash of green flames.
"That bloody Thicknesse guy," Marina said bitterly, turning to the kitchen and filling the kettle at the sink before placing it on the stove. "He's trying to piecemeal murder Mr Weasley through overtime, I swear to god."
Tom sat down at the table and watched her battle with the stovetop a second before giving a small, slightly condescending sigh. "Here," he said dismissively, drawing his wand and flicking it at the kettle. It immediately began to whistle.
"You can never go back to Malfoy Manor again," Marina said seriously, looking around at him, "you're like, an instant hot drinks machine."
"Yes, that would be the best application of my talents," Tom said monotonously, deftly stowing away his wand again as they heard footsteps on the stairs.
"Hey Tom!" Charlie said happily, still in his pyjamas. "When did you get in?"
"Just before dawn," Tom said with a small smile.
"It's good you're back," Charlie said with great relief, thumping Tom on the shoulder as he took the seat next to him, "maybe Marina will finally stop moping about all the –"
"Charlie," Marina interrupted sharply, shooting him a look – but it was too late.
"Were you concerned for me?" Tom asked her, looking incredibly amused.
Marina turned back around so he wouldn't see her blush. "Of course," she said, somehow wrangling her voice into something nonchalant as she carried on preparing their drinks, "I don't really understand why people find that surprising… can't imagine you'd be sitting here if they'd discovered you, we all know what the Death Eaters do to the people they don't like."
"Speaking of," Charlie said in a lower voice, "about Luna –"
"I will try to help her, but the wards were adjusted after Marina's escape," Tom said quietly. "Though… there may be other options, I'll investigate them as soon as I can."
"Good," Charlie said grimly, "Ginny's distraught. She's been up half the night crying."
Marina pursed her lips and avoided Tom's eyes as she handed Charlie his coffee and slid a cup of hot water with a slice of lemon in front of Tom. She sat down opposite them and sipped her own coffee with downturned eyes. The conversation was making her feel incredibly uncomfortable and very guilty, but she was suddenly saved from it by another roar of flames from the fireplace.
Two figures stepped into view who she recognised immediately, despite never having seen them before. The first was a man who looked a bit older than Marina with long red hair in a ponytail, his face very scarred and his expression kind. He had a fang of some sort dangling from an earring and was quite handsome in a quirky, striking sort of way. The other newcomer was difficult to look away from – she was tall and elegant with a radiant beauty that made Marina's pulse race a bit, her long, silvery blond hair shining in the morning sunlight coming through the windows. Her sparkling blue eyes were locked onto her husband's face and creased in a smile as the pair approached and set down their luggage.
"Bill!" Charlie beamed, standing at once and pulling his brother into a fierce hug. He did the same with Fleur who returned his friendly affections very gracefully.
Bill turned to Tom and gave him a little nod with a small smile. "Heard you were back," Bill said with a knowing lilt to his voice.
"It has been too long," Tom replied smoothly, as composed as ever.
"Ah, you must be Charlie's girlfriend, oui?" Fleur said breezily in a thick French accent, seeing Marina, "Bill m'a dit que tu viens de la France?"
"Oui," Marina stammered, her French extremely rusty after so long without use. "Mais – mais je ne suis pas vraiment français, alors – excuse-moi pour faire trop des erreurs…"
Fleur waved her hand in elegant dismissal. "Pas de tout," she said with a small smile, "je ne suis que soulagée qu'il y a quelqu'un avec qui je peux parler ma langue maternelle…"
"Tiens, je peux m'entrainer…" Marina grimaced humourously. "Il y a prés des quatre années depuis j'ai pu parler –"
"Alright, alright, we get it," Charlie said, dramatically rolling his eyes, "you're bilingual, very impressive." He leaned down quickly to place a kiss on Marina's cheek and she shoved him away at once, half forgetting about their ruse.
"Jerk," she said loudly.
Bill snorted a laugh.
Charlie grinned and seized Bill and Fleur's bags rather impressively without magic. "You guys are kicking me from my room," he said, bags banged against the wall and the banister as he trudged up the stairs. "I'm getting forced to stay with Fred and George, so you better appreciate my sacrifice…"
Bill and Fleur followed him upstairs to settle in, and Marina shook her head fondly. "Honestly I think Ginny's making a much more impressive sacrifice," she said to Tom, sipping her coffee, "she's bunking with Aunt Muriel, after all."
Tom did not reply. His eyes were on his drink, his fingertips gently fluttering against its handle in an ever repeating pattern, and his expression oddly contemplative.
"Are you alright?" Marina frowned.
His eyes flashed up to hers as if broken from thought. "Yes," he said extremely evenly, his expression clearing at once as he lifted his drink again. "My apologies, my thoughts were elsewhere."
Marina quirked a brow. It was an incredibly formal response which, if she knew Tom, usually meant that something else was going on. "Tom, what's –"
"I should return to the Manor," he said abruptly, standing and setting down his cup without glancing her way. "I believe I will be most of use there, at this time."
"You're going back now?" Marina said, alarmed.
"Not for as long," he said, retrieving his wand again. Death Eater robes draped across his form at once and when he looked back at Marina, she was slightly struck by his appearance. He stood tall and regal, his wand in hand and his eyes very intense, his unavoidably handsome image turned intimidating by the harsh black of the all-too familiar robes that cut vividly against his complexion and made his hair seem blacker. "I will be back as soon as I have news on Lovegood."
"When will that be?" she frowned, unable to stop staring at him.
"This afternoon at the latest."
"Promise?" Marina added quickly, not caring how childish it sounded.
His lips quirked slightly at the corners, but the smile was gone not a second later. "I promise," he said quietly.
He vanished with a snap, and Marina sat back in her chair with a huff feeling strangely empty. The house was only going to get more and more chaotic as guests continued to arrive and Christmas drew nearer, and she could not help but hope that she'd have another chance to talk to Tom like they had that morning. Somehow, despite his candid and frankly blunt conduct, she felt better after talking to him than anyone else.
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A/N: Such a long chapter but omg I could not cut it at any point. And hey... I did say this would be slowburn right...
Thank you for your reviews! You guys honestly are the greatest, I feel so lucky to have you :)
OH and if you'd like a translation of Marina and Fleur's convo and can't be fucked with google translate, Fleur just asked if Marina was from France, Marina was like uhhhh yeah but I'm not proper French so my French is gonna suck. Fleur told her not to worry and she was just glad to be able to speak her native tongue, and Marina was like well hey now I get to actually practice since it's been nearly four years since she last could.
There ya go lazy bones ;)
Anyway, hope you are doing good and see you at the next chapter!
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