Previously in the Darklyverse: Marlene confided in Lily, but not Mary, about what Emmeline told her about Em and Sirius. Mary tried to maintain her relationships with Veronica Smethley and the Hufflepuffs after catching them gossiping about her. Em was discharged from St. Mungo's.

Revised version uploaded 29 January 2022.

xx

January 20th, 1978: Mary Macdonald

Something is wrong with Marlene, and it isn't just Sirius getting together with Remus. It's been almost two weeks now that Sirius and Remus have been dating, and although Marlene was obviously distraught about it when it happened, she was at least still acting close to normal, if maybe with an edge of anger and cynicism. The last couple of days, though—she barely leaves the dormitory. Her eyes look puffy most nights when Mary comes upstairs to go to sleep. And she'll hardly talk to anyone except Lily.

Not Mary—Lily. First Marlene picks Sirius over Mary, and now she picks Lily, when Mary is the one who's been by Marlene's side since that first day on the Hogwarts Express, Marlene buying sweets for her because Mary was so scared her legs wouldn't stop shaking. It makes Mary so mad that she almost doesn't even want Marlene to talk to her about whatever is going on.

Almost.

She considers getting Lily alone and asking her what the story is, but she doesn't think she can stand the humiliation of Lily telling her what's up with Marlene—or, worse, telling her that Lily isn't comfortable sharing that information with Mary without Marlene's permission. Mary has been doing her level best not to blame Lily for any of this—it was Marlene's decision to freeze Mary out, not Lily's, and it's not like Lily had an easy time of it when she dumped her best friend and lost her parents; if Mary learned anything from growing up Catholic, it should have been to have more empathy for people like Lily, not to blame her. But that doesn't make seeing Lily and Marlene together any easier, and it certainly doesn't lessen Mary's hurt and frustration with Marlene.

So instead, she does the petty thing and starts spending all of her time with the Hufflepuffs.

Of course, the problem with this is that Veronica Smethley is a bigger gossip than even Mary ever was, and Mary has to keep dodging Ver's attempts to weasel information out of her about the whole Marlene-Sirius-Remus situation. On Friday, Ver pushes so hard that Mary sort of snaps half an hour into their study date and cracks, "I'm not here to spread around information about my best mate's private life. It's her business. God, Ver, don't you ever let up?"

Ver's eyes narrow into slits. "This is exactly what I was telling Greta about. You're different this year. Ever since whatever that thing was last year that got Liz killed—"

"Who says I was even involved in what happened there?" says Mary, but her face is heating up and she knows it's a flimsy defense.

"Of course you were involved! Everybody knows!—and suddenly you're all secretive and won't say what's going on and won't talk to me about anything that matters. I know you lot are up to something, but you're hiding it from me, and I thought—I thought we told each other everything."

"There's a difference between idle gossip and what happened to Elisabeth," says Mary, trying to remain calm, but Ver bursts out—

"Yeah, and you won't tell me either, will you? You certainly won't talk to me about Elisabeth, and you won't talk to me about Marlene's breakup with Sirius—"

"Maybe because it doesn't affect your life finding out about these things, but it could really hurt people like Marlene if I shared them with you. God—Ver, why do you even care so much? What is the point of keeping track of everybody's business all the time?"

Ver scowls. "That's supposed to be something I share with you."

"Yeah, well, maybe I'm not that person anymore. Maybe I've changed."

"Yeah. Yeah, I think you probably have."

Mary doesn't want to make a dramatic exit or anything, but the way Ver keeps slamming textbooks shut and stabbing the parchment with her quill makes Mary think that she's better off just getting up and getting out of there. She doesn't want to just storm off, though, so she says carefully, "I'm going to go. I'll see you at dinner tonight?"

"Why don't you eat with your Gryffindor buddies? They're your whole life now, aren't they?"

"You really want to pick this fight, don't you?" says Mary incredulously.

"Just go," snarls Ver, so Mary goes.

She knows the rational, proper, appropriate thing to do here would be to find Reg—her boyfriend—and confide in him about everything, but Mary has no desire to be around Reg right now. It's not like she loves him, and—

—okay, yes, that sounds terrible. It is terrible. But it's true, and maybe Mary should stop lying to herself about it.

At any rate, Ver was right about one thing: Mary does really just want to be with the Gryffindors right now. So she walks briskly back to the common room with the intention of tracking down—not any of the boys, obviously. Not Lily and Marlene—so that just leaves Alice and Emmeline.

Alice is nowhere to be found—off with Dirk Cresswell, probably—but she finds Emmeline sitting with Peter over by one of the windows. "Hey, Peter. Em, will you come with me?"

Emmeline glances up, looking startled. "Uh—sure?"

"It's nothing bad," Mary promises. "I just need someone to talk to."

So Em packs up her stuff and says goodbye to Peter, and they set off for a walk around the castle. Mary explains briefly about Ver, gesticulating wildly with her hands as she talks. "I just don't feel like we have anything in common anymore," she finishes, shaking her head. "I don't feel like the same person I was two years ago. Hell, I don't even feel like the same person I was last spring, before Millie and Liz died. It's just, like—it's getting more and more obvious that the only thing between us is gossip, and that's not me anymore—at least not as much as it is Ver."

"So you didn't tell her anything about—what Marlene's going through?" says Em.

"No," says Mary a little disdainfully. "It's not like there's much to tell, anyway. Ver already knows that Sirius got with Remus shortly after Marlene broke up with him, and I don't know what happened this week that's got Marlene so messed up."

"You don't know? You mean Marlene didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?" says Mary stiffly. "God, did Marlene tell everyone in this castle before telling me?"

"No, it's not like that, it's just—the reason Marlene is so upset is because of something I told her about Sirius. I thought she would have told you, that's all."

"Yeah, well, apparently not."

"Oh." Mary thinks that Emmeline is seriously not going to tell her what's happening, but then Em adds, "Back in fourth year—er—his cousin Bellatrix, the suspected Death Eater? She killed my parents, sort of because she knew I was close to him. Anyway, I freaked out and cut things off with Sirius when we had been—had almost been dating at that point, and then he dealt with it by sleeping with Marlene."

"Goddamn," says Mary quietly.

"Yeah. It came up when I was talking to her, and I guess Sirius never told her any of it? Even after I told him about my parents a year ago. Anyway, she was really upset. I know she wanted to tell Lily right away but—I'm sorry. I really thought she told you."

Mary shrugs. "It's okay. It's not your fault. Is it selfish of me, bothering you with this? I know you just got out of the hospital, and I don't want to—"

"No, no, it's okay," Emmeline assures her. "Honestly, it's kind of nice being included. I've sort of… I've been off on an island with Peter and nobody else for a long time. It's nice talking to you."

"It's nice talking to you, too," says Mary, and she smiles. "Listen, Em—come to one of us before you do anything like, uh, anything drastic next time, okay? I don't know about anybody else, but I know you've got eight people here who want you to be all right and are willing to help you get there."

"Yeah. I can do that."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

Once they've set the topic of Marlene aside, Mary and Emmeline doesn't have much more to say to each other, but that's okay—it's kind of nice just walking and having someone to keep her company. They wind up settling down in the library to study a while before dinner, where they're joined by Lily and Marlene.

Lily looks like she's all but dragged Marlene out of the dormitory to join them. Marlene won't say much, and Em is always quiet, which means that mostly it's Lily talking to Mary, who of course isn't feeling the most benevolent toward her at the moment. She wants to just shake Marlene. She wants to grab her by the shoulders and make her tell Mary all the things she's been concealing, starting with why Mary's friendship suddenly isn't enough to her. But she can't—or, at least, she doesn't want to humiliate them both by starting a row in front of the whole castle.

But after the meal—when Marlene gets up and tries to say she'll see Mary and Emmeline up in the dormitory tonight—Mary has had it. "We need to talk—now," she says, fuming.

"Mare, I really don't think—"

"Don't even," says Mary. "Come on, let's get out of here."

They make it halfway down the corridor from the Entrance Hall before Mary erupts, "You found out something that major about Sirius and Em, and I have to find out what it is days later from her?"

"Leave me alone," says Marlene, but Mary has had it up to here with Marlene shunning her, and she says—

"Since when is Lily your best mate over me? What happened to us? What happened that makes me so untrustworthy? If anything, I've gotten better about keeping people's secrets—"

"I don't know, Mare! I'm an awful, two-timing jackass best friend. These things happen. People drift apart. People—"

"If you're about to tell me that people change, you can shove it," says Mary. "I've changed since last year, but you don't see me keeping secrets from you anymore because of it." Except, of course, the biggest one of all: that she's gay and in love with Marlene, not Reg.

"What do you want me to tell you, huh? I don't love you any less, but I bonded with Lily in a way that—"

"I don't need to hear this," Mary interrupts. The reality is more like she thinks she'll fall apart if she hears this, but she doesn't want Marlene to know that.

"Do you want me to not have other friends besides you? Is that it? Because that's—"

"Of course that's not it. I have Ver and Greta and Reg and even Gilderoy, don't I? But you don't see me putting them first. You see me putting you first, even when you don't pick me. You never choose me for anything anymore, and I'm sick of holding onto someone who doesn't want to give back what I give you."

Marlene throws up her arms. "Then drop me! Be done with it! At least then, we won't have to keep pretending like we still have something we just don't anymore."

"What happened to us getting back to the beginning? What happened to facials and mani-pedis in the dormitory? I thought you wanted us to get better."

"It's like you can't even notice that I've been including you in everything I've done with Lily—and honestly, I'm getting sick of your jealousy getting in the way."

"Not everything," Mary scowls. "Not hardly. You didn't tell me about Sirius and Emmeline when it's clearly messing you up something awful."

"Oh, forgive me for not going alphabetically through all of my friends making sure everybody's informed. I picked someone to talk to about it. It wasn't you. Get over it."

"I can't believe you're saying this shit right now. Who's been your best friend since we were eleven years old? Who was there to pick up the pieces every time you slept with Sirius for two years? I'm not perfect—I'm jealous, and like, I'm superficial—but I was there for you, and you're going to regret it if you don't have me in your corner anymore."

"So you're leaving, then," says Marlene. "You're saying we can't be friends anymore."

Mary feels like she's going to melt down in tears. She's saying everything that's on her mind—every little hurtful, resentful, petty thing she's felt that's been getting stronger these last few weeks or months—and it's like she's feeling viciously satisfied while simultaneously stepping back and watching herself in horror. The last thing she wants to do is lose Marlene, but she can't stand feeling this way inside anymore, like—

—like the love of her life is leaving her. If she fell apart when she and Reg broke up last year, that has nothing on the way she feels right now, with Marlene glaring at her like she'd be perfectly content to never have a civil conversation with Mary ever again, let alone be her best friend or (Mary hates to admit that she wants this) more than friends. She can't function if she loses Marlene. She can't do it. It's too much.

And the full force of exactly how much she loves Marlene hits her, intertwined hopelessly together with jealousy and resentment and anger at her for—for not loving Mary back the same way. That's really what it comes down to, isn't it? She's tired of watching Marlene fall apart over boys when Mary is right here, cleaning up after her and waiting to be chosen.

Only Marlene's never going to choose her. Not like that, and apparently not even as a best friend.

"Yeah," says Mary. "Yeah, I guess we're done."

xx

END OF PART TEN