Author's note: You can tell I'm gay because of how much I enjoy femme fatale Marlene, especially when she's raging against heteronormativity. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns the canon, world, and characters portrayed below and you can tell I'm not J.K. Rowling because #transrights

Hogwarts: Ravenclaw, Assignment #7, Potions Task #4 Write about someone poisonous or someone being poisoned.

Content Warnings: Sexual themes; themes of patriarchy and misogyny

we were born sick, heard them say it

She made sure to pick the shade carefully, since it would be the last colour so many would see. And so, Marlene McKinnon's signature lipstick was red like dahlias, deep like wine, and hot like the touch of a hundred men. Not quite a hundred, but dozens—sure. Dozens of Death Eaters who did not recognize her when she painted her eyes and straightened her curls and let herself get swallowed up by the haze and light and music of a pub or tavern. Death Eaters who were so proud, so brazen, to talk about the things they did to realize that they shouldn't be telling her anything at all. Death Eaters who were happy to explain things to Marlene if she batted her eyelashes and asked innocent questions, feigning innocence and giggling in all the right places. Death Eaters who kept talking and said things they would never tell anybody else if Marlene inched a little bit closer, if her hands wandered a little bit further, if her gaze got a little bit deeper, and if she raised her chest a little bit higher.

Marlene wasn't even that great of a spy, but her results were staggering. The other Order members were astounded by her results, but the games she played were easy once she'd decided to play them and picked out the shade for her lips. The world had always thought so little of her; of pretty girls, glamorous girls, flirty girls, wild girls… She'd heard the message loud and clear. So really, if someone had dug these peoples' graves, it wasn't Marlene. She simply chose the moments to play along; she simply let the world be right for a little bit, if and when it suited her. She was practical, at most. She'd just mastered the art of giving them the final push—with fleeting touches, with the casual waves that signaled that the bartender should pour another round, with the bedroom eyes and pouting lips that suggested that maybe it was time to slip away. It usually didn't take much, if she was honest about her skillset. They were always so ready to go, when they saw a girl like her. A beautiful girl, a chatty girl, a laughing girl, an indecent girl. They'd heard so much about girls like her before they'd even met her, and Marlene had heard so much about girls like her too that she knew, just knew, exactly what they wanted when they sat by her, talked to her, and led her away to somewhere quiet. That was when she kissed them.

She kissed them in elevators during the ride up to hotel rooms, or pulled them into alleys to press them against brick walls and kiss them as they walked home. She let their hands wander as they did, she let them smile against her lips and tease her about her impatience, because she was always wearing her signature lipstick. Red like dahlias, deep like wine, and hot like her. So their hands wouldn't even make it up her thigh before their fingers curled and cooled as the blood stopped flowing. It was never long after that that they realized something was wrong. Sometimes they backed away from Marlene, sometimes she just looked into their eyes as they slowly realized what was happening. Only one of them had ever asked her "Poison?" before collapsing. Others seemed to realize that she'd done something to them and tried to fight back in their last moments, but usually while their hands had been busy, hers had found their wands. Nobody ever cared about her hands unless they were wrapped around something, so nobody ever noticed. She liked to snap their wands in two where they could see them, but sometimes she opted to simply throw them away. She dropped one down a Muggle gutter once, and the plunk of the wood hitting the water below and echoing up to her felt like a church bell ringing. She always waited until their pulses had gone before she straightened herself up and Apparated away, off to relay whatever information she'd harvested from tonight's pick to whoever was on call that night.

Then she went home, locked the door behind her, and peeled off her clothes as she walked to the bathroom; always eager to wash the smell of wine and cheap perfume and bad cologne and beer off of her. She toweled off and wrapped herself up in a t-shirt that was usually left by the sink for her before stumbling into bed and sin and the first true thing of the night. Dorcas usually stirred when Marlene sunk into the mattress and pillows, no matter how quiet or gentle she tried to be. Dorcas usually pushed herself up onto her forearms, eyes half-open at best, and leaned down to kiss Marlene hello and goodnight. She'd swallowed the antidote years ago and had built up an immunity to the things that hung on Marlene's lips in the years since. Because when she'd seen Marlene, she'd seen her for real.

"Did they hear you roar, baby?" Dorcas would always ask quietly, her voice usually sleepy and quiet. "Did you make them hear you?"

"I always do," Marlene answered every time.

It wasn't her fault that it was always too late by the time they realized who and what Marlene really was.

WC: 893