Previously in the Darklyverse: Mary and Marlene tried to find some common ground after they had a falling out. N.E.W.T.s approached. Marlene worried what would happen to her friendship with Mary after graduation. Mary and Reginald Cattermole got engaged.

xx

May 11th, 1978: Mary Macdonald

Mary wasn't really planning on getting Marlene alone today. The nine of them all leave Defense Against the Dark Arts in a big gaggle, Mary talking to Emmeline and Marlene talking to Lily and James, but then Emmeline stops off at one of the bathrooms to take a midday shower, and Lily and James steal off to the library for a study date, and Mary and Marlene are left kind of weirdly walking next to each other without talking the rest of the way back to Gryffindor Tower. Once they get to the common room, Sirius and Remus go off one way, and Peter and Alice go another, and Mary and Marlene are left giving each other sly glances like "are we really going to acknowledge each other right now?" because they haven't done that in weeks and Mary, for one, doesn't know if she ever wants to see Marlene ever again in a couple of months when N.E.W.T.s are over and they've graduated.

But then Marlene catches her eye and says, "I was going to practice nonverbal spells some more, but Lily obviously ditched me, and it'll be easier with a partner."

Mary doesn't smile, but she answers, "If this is your way of asking me if I want to study with you, then yes, I'll work with you."

"Great," says Marlene. "Should we go up to the dormitory? We'll have more space there."

So Mary follows her up, full of trepidation. The first half hour seems to go okay—Emmeline pops up at the twenty minute mark to put away her bag of toiletries and grab a couple of textbooks, but when she asks, Mary assures her that she's fine, they're fine, everything's fine. Mary doesn't really know what she's expecting to get out of this: it's not like Marlene's going to suddenly proclaim that she's in love with Mary or that she's abandoning Lily to get Mary back as her best mate. But they practice spells for half an hour, and it's going kind of smoothly, and Mary's feeling kind of hopeful that maybe she doesn't have to leave Marlene cold turkey after school ends—maybe they can build back up to some kind of understanding.

When it's been nearly a solid hour, Marlene flings her wand down and declares that she needs a brain break before she can do any more studying. "Exploding Snap?" Mary suggests cautiously, but Marlene, to her surprise, says yes, and they pass another twenty minutes playing through a few games, Mary hardly daring to believe that this is real life.

It's lunchtime by now, but Mary doesn't dare suggest they leave the dormitory and break the spell, and Marlene doesn't seem to want to bring it up, either. Eventually, though, they're almost halfway into the lunch period, and, well—Mary did tell Reg she would swing by the Hufflepuff table this afternoon during dessert.

"I'd better go down now," she says reluctantly. "We can keep working after we eat, if you'd like?"

Marlene looks very apologetic as she says, "I promised Lily I would study with her. But, um—tomorrow? After I get out of Potions?"

It's not a compromise that makes Mary happy—no amount of compromising is enough for Mary when it comes to Marlene—but she nods anyway. "Tomorrow morning sounds great," she says, and it takes all of her patience to accompany Marlene out of the dormitory and into the Great Hall instead of fleeing.

So they start studying together. Just a couple hours at a time, without a lot of talking about anything besides their classes, but it's consistent, and it's making Mary feel—things. Like how much she's missed this, what it felt like to think she was never going to get it back. Like how afraid she is that it's going to disappear when they don't have classes to bring them together anymore in just a few short weeks. Like how beautiful Marlene is in the evenings with her patterned pajamas and her fuzzy slippers and her face clean of makeup, all whole and vulnerable and just for Mary to see.

"You're going to the Quidditch game this weekend, right?" Marlene asks after about a week of this, when they're taking a break from studying to compare their Chocolate Frog card collections.

"Of course," says Mary.

"You should, um—you should sit with Lily and me. I'd really like it if you came with us. Bring Reg, too, if you want."

Mary has to be honest: attending a Quidditch match with Marlene and Marlene's replacement for Mary sounds like the exact opposite of what she wants to spend her weekend doing. She opens her mouth to politely decline, or maybe even to politely agree—it looks like Mary will never know which one she was planning to say, because instead, what comes out of her mouth is, "I'm not in love with him."

"What?"

"Reg. I care about him, and I want him to be happy, but I'm not in love with him."

"That's—but you're marrying him."

"I mean, I'm never going to do any better than him. I knew that when he asked me—he's the sweetest, most thoughtful, kindest person who's ever going to love me enough to spend the rest of their life with me, and I should feel lucky to have him. So I'm marrying him. But he's not the person I want to spend my life with."

Marlene is frowning; her face looks like she's sorting through a puzzle that's missing half its pieces. "But—you say that like there's someone else you do want to spend your life with."

Is she really going to go there? Is Mary really going to do this? It appears so, because she says, "Can't you see it? After all this time?"

"But you're not—not with Sirius or any of the boys. Are you?"

"It's you, Lene. I'm in love with you."

Marlene looks totally dumbstruck. She doesn't answer. Her mouth has fallen open into an O shape, and she sits there with her wand dangling from her fingers just staring at Mary like she's just opened up a whole new planet, and she may as well have, shedding this secret she's been carrying for so long.

"You don't have to say it back. I don't expect you to ever say it back. I wasn't even going to tell you, but, well, I guess I didn't want to have to carry it around any longer."

"Does it feel better? Not carrying it?"

Mary thinks for a second. "No," she says, "but it doesn't feel any worse, either. You see my dilemma, why I can't be friends with you and Lily together."

"But why would you be jealous of Lily? Why not be jealous of Sirius? All that time we were together, and even now I'm always still talking about him, and you…"

She shrugs. "What you and Sirius had was always out of reach. At least the kind of relationship you have with Lily used to be attainable."

"I—I'm sorry. I had no idea. You… I'm just really sorry."

"Don't be," Mary tells her. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"I did do something wrong. I should have tried harder to balance my friendships with you and with Lily."

"Yeah, but you didn't… you don't owe me that kind of love. I don't want to make you feel like I think you owe me that."

"Okay," says Marlene, and then she adds, "When we get out of here and into the real world, we should keep in touch. Have dinners at the end of the work day or on weekends. Something."

Mary knows Marlene is trying to pay her a kindness, to do everything she can think to do to return some kind of love to Mary, but the offer just makes Mary feel sick—like all the hours and hours she's spent loving Marlene, the consecutive hours spent with Marlene every day for seven years, are supposed to get distilled down into a lite version that fits inconveniently into their separate lives that no longer have anything in common. "We should," Mary says, but she has no intention of following through.

She tracks down Remus after that, because nobody else knows and she's going to implode if she isn't able to talk about it with someone. "It's not like I'm surprised," she tells him upstairs in his dormitory, where she's sitting with Remus on his bed and has got her head tipped back against the headboard. "What was she going to say, that she's not in love with Sirius anymore? That she's loved me all along? That she's started looking at me in a new light lately? No. I just wish it didn't have to hurt like this."

"But she didn't react badly, right? She could have freaked out about—about you being gay, or could have felt uncomfortable being around you from now on because of your feelings for her, but instead, she actually said she wanted to keep making plans with you and keep you in her life."

"Yeah, but I don't know whether I want her in my life. It hurts so damn much all the time, Rem. I don't know how you used to stand it before you and Sirius got together. I don't know how Lene can stand it when she's forced to be around Sirius."

"Mary, look at me." Mary looks. Remus's eyes are dark and earnest. "You're not going to feel this way forever. Either you'll move on and be happy just being friends with her, or you'll move on and leave her in your past, but either way, you're going to move on. Being in love doesn't have to be permanent."

"I don't know how to not be in love with her," she protests. "I've been in love with her as long as I've—been old enough to be in love, probably. I barely remember what my life felt like before I turned eleven and met her. How am I supposed to just leave that behind?"

"I don't know," Remus admits. "I've never had to do it. But I really do believe it's possible. You're not going to be stuck forever, Mare."

She hopes he's right, but she doesn't believe he is. It fills her up with guilt when she meets up with Reg that night after dinner; they go for a long walk, winding through corridors and across floors of the castle. Reg didn't do anything to deserve a fiancée who doesn't love him like he loves her, but here Mary is, visiting wedding venues and tasting cake flavors on the weekends, like she loves him back, like she isn't too broken to be a devoted wife in just a few short months.

"Is everything okay?" Reg even asks after they've been out for about a quarter of an hour. "You seem… I don't know. Subdued today."

"Everything's fine," Mary says with the realest smile she can muster. "I'm just stressed, I guess. About N.E.W.T.s, and graduating, and going out into the real world—all of it."

"I know it's scary with the war going on," says Reg, "but we're going to be okay. I'm pureblood; I can protect you. Our family is going to be safe, I promise."

"Family?" asks Mary.

Reg looks embarrassed. "Sorry. I know we haven't had that conversation yet—whether or not to have kids. I always pictured it, and—I can picture you doing it, too—but if you don't want to, that's all right."

Mary's in love with her best friend, and here Reg is asking her if she wants to have his children. Christ. "Maybe—I think someday I'd like that, but not right away. Not when Death Eaters are running around the wizarding world destroying lives and sucking up everybody's, like—everybody's hope. Once this is over—if it ends—"

"It'll end," says Reg. "It has to."

Reg saying the war has to end sometime, Remus saying she'll have to get over Marlene sometime—Mary is surrounded by people who have faith in things that seem impossible, and she doesn't understand it. How do people stop being afraid when they have no reason not to be? How do people stand anything?