Drugged out of her mind
After Snape pours a vial of what is presumably a Calming Draught down Eva Marlowe's throat and she unexpectedly drops down into a faint so he is forced to catch her in his arms or leave her to tumble to the floor as Potter is of course of no use, the room is frozen for a single moment before all hell breaks loose.
"What in the blazes is going on?"
"Who is that woman?"
"What the hell, Sirius?"
"Did you have to do that?"
"What did you do to her, Snape?"
"Somebody get that hag to shut up!"
"What is wrong with her?"
Everybody finally stops yelling with the arrival of Albus Dumbledore who only looks at Eva with raised eyebrows.
"Oh, dear. It seems I am too late."
Snape rolls his eyes at the headmaster's theatrical antics, Ginny eyes him suspiciously and Remus calls him out on his bullshit directly.
"Don't play me for a fool, Albus. You could have warned her. She came in here totally clueless. She had no idea what she was getting herself in coming into this house. She was ambushed."
Not denying anything, Albus Dumbledore bows his head.
"You are quite right, Remus. I admit I postponed telling her anything for fear of driving her away for good."
Remus deflates immediately. He is not angry at Dumbledore. He just feels guilty.
"We should have told her last year. How could I have forgotten about her?"
Dumbledore shakes his head.
"It wasn't time yet." And he was afraid of her reaction. She had finally seemed to have her life in some semblance of order and he didn't want to disrupt it. Not after the last time he'd seen her. Oh, the last time…
Severus Snape clears his throat as everybody seems to have forgotten about an unconscious woman sagging from his arms.
"Is anybody going to help getting her to the couch or should I just drop her to the floor?" To his annoyance the first ones to react are Potter and his friends. Of-bloody-course. Hi sighs but with their help moves her over to the couch and drops her unceremoniously. Frowning he checks her pupils. Out cold. Tonks comes over to stand by him frowning too.
"What did you give her? A sleeping potion? I have never seen anybody drop that fast."
"No, it was just a Calming Draught. It was not even supposed to knock her out."
"She was on the verge of fainting even before that, Professor." Ginny Weasley takes initiative and approaches her Potions Professor. She is good enough a potions student for her to not be scoffed at and called a dunderhead. "Not to mention she emptied half a bottle of Sirius' best firewhisky on top of working a thirty-six hour shift and obviously being under a lot of stress since she entered this house."
Snape nods. It makes sense.
"Yes. She is bound to sleep for a few hours then."
"Let's leave her to rest then. We should proceed with the meeting. I will fill her in some other day." Dumbledore ushers the adults to the kitchen and lets the teenagers to watch over Eva.
Eva Marlowe was no stranger to rough wake ups. She had acquired a whole assortment of them in the last two decades and this one was right up there with sniffing a few lines of coke and washing it down with a mix of peach schnapps and Pepper-up potion. That had been a disaster she hadn't attempted a second time after waking up in some stranger's place with a terrible headache, sick, dizzy, confused, wishing for a quick death, crumbled between a very dirty wall and an even dirtier toilet having no idea how she got there. That had been almost a decade ago when she was still trying to actively self-destruct on daily basis. In the last few years she had toned down on the various substances, rather burying herself in work and only letting loose every once in a while when she had too much time on her hands and wanted to escape from her own head.
Thus, she is confused by her swimming vision and failure to recognize her surroundings or remember how she came to be laying on someone's couch. (Well, at least it wasn't bathroom's floor.) She can't even remember going out. What was the last thing she did? Where did she go? Didn't she work late the day before?
It takes an enormous effort lifting her head even an inch. She tries to take in what she sees but her vision blurs and a bile rises up her oesophagus. She puts her head back down, closes her eyes and breathes in deeply. The musty smell doesn't help much. She hears rustling and a whispered conversation and feels someone moving towards her. After she is fairly certain whoever approached her is not about to be showered in vomit, she cautiously opens her eyes fearing the worst. A kind worried face with a halo of red hair is not what she is usually faced with in those kind of situations.
"Eva? How are you feeling?"
She looks on at the girl in complete confusion, digging through her brain for something to click. She feels high as a kite.
"Eva?"
"What…? Where am I?" Her voice is scratchy like she hadn't used it for some time.
"At the headquarters of the Order of the Pheonix. Remember?" The girl speaks carefully as if she is a frightened animal and she doesn't want to startle her.
Order of the Phoenix? What? Dumbledore. Right. Was that today? Slowly it starts coming back to her. She was tired and anxious coming here. And then the strange house. Molly. The twins. Ginny.
"Ginny?"
"Yes."
"Right, right." She remembers drinking some firewhisky. Is that enough to knock her out these days? She must be getting old. "What happened?"
Ginny looks uncomfortable and exchanges a glance with someone Eva can't see.
"Well… You got really upset. Professor Snape gave you a Calming Draught and it knocked you right out. It probably doesn't mix well with alcohol." It really doesn't, Eva can guarantee it first-hand.
"Snape?"
Then, suddenly, something clicks. Snape? Snape and his accusing eyes boring into her. Her breathing quickens as she tries in vain to get up from the couch. But she is too weak and her brain is still clouded from the potion.
"Calm down, Eva. Just lie back down." Ginny tries to calm her but Eva can't really hear her. Nor does she hear as Ginny tells her friends to go get somebody.
"Marlowe?" She is only brought back from her thoughts by Severus Snape hovering above her. "Calm yourself."
"I'm sorry." She slurs, the saliva gathering in her mouth that doesn't seem to cooperate with her brain. Snape frowns at her confusedly but placates her anyway.
"It is alright. Now, how do you feel?"
"I am so sorry." In hindsight, she knows she would never had said anything. Especially not then in a house full of people he despises. But she is drugged out of her mind and the only thing she can focus on is her own guilt. "I'm so sorry. So sorry, so sorry, so sorry. I should have done better. But I was so selfish. I wanted her for myself. And then I finally had her for myself. She was mine. My friend. My best friend. Only mine."
She babbles uncontrollably, the words flying out of her mouth in no particular order. She can't see the adults' uncomfortable glances or the teenagers' curious ones.
"And I failed her. I failed her. You wouldn't have. If she just had you! You wouldn't have let her die! I should have convinced her. I should have insisted! I was selfish. Oh, my Lily. My Lily."
She is finally forced to stop talking when another potion is forced down her throat by an irate Snape and she slacks into the couch, her limbs heavy and her mind in a fog. Time passes or maybe it doesn't but she has no idea.
"Well, at least this one didn't knock her out." Dazedly Eva slowly turns her head towards the woman speaking and is met with bright pink hair. She smiles lazily and beckons the woman to come closer. Tonks kneels at her side and Eva raises her heavy hand to caress her face.
"I should have recognized you before." Tonks frowns confusedly.
"I don't think we've met before." Eva just continues to smile like a lunatic and runs her hand all over the younger woman's face.
"You can change however you want but those you can't hide." She runs her finger over her cheek. "Those cheekbones. The Black family trait. I would know. I spent enough time looking at them." This gets a smile out of Tonks.
"My best feature. I get it from my mother."
"Your mother?"
"Andromeda." Eva smiles again.
"Sirius's favourite cousin. Regulus' too." Her face clouds as she remembers something through her haze. Her sudden sorrow shows clearly. "I killed him. She was right. I killed him. I told him he was useless. And then he was dead. I killed him!"
Even before she can begin to hyperventilate, once again she has a mouth full of potion. The conversation already forgotten she looks on as if from out of her own body as the room spins, the faces bob in and out of focus and conversations arise around the room. Time lapses. How much time has passed? Seconds? Minutes? Hours?
"Severus, is it really wise to give her more Calming Draught. She doesn't seem to respond well to it?" Eva has no idea that the conversation is about her, can't even distinguish the words one from another. Everything is a blur and she is swimming in it, her senses mixing together in a weird blend.
"You calm her down then, Lupin, if you're so smart."
"I am not saying-" Eva finally finds some focus through the mix of colours and sounds.
"Remus?"
"Eva. It's alright. You are safe."
"I am always safe with you," she slurs. Remus snorts at this but sits down at her side and smooths down her hair.
"I think all those potions are messing with your memory." Well, that is an understatement of the century. She can't even remember what she said two minutes previously.
"Are not. I always felt safe with you. I always trusted you. Always, always." The mood quickly turns sombre which is no wonder as her carefully constructed defences are absolutely fried. Remus smiles sadly.
"I know. It's ok, Eva."
"It's not okay. Not okay at all. You were always good to me and I was a bad friend. A bad person. I- I abandoned you. I didn't even say goodbye. I didn't-" Her voice breaks in agony as Remus keeps on stroking her hair. There are no words to console her anyway. And as much as Remus wants to assure her he doesn't blame her, a small part of him does feel resentful. He himself is not without blame; it is not as if he went looking for her. He knows perfectly well it was easier to just forget about the friends that were left behind, way easier than look at them every day and remember.
"What is done is done, Eva. Just rest now. Close your eyes and rest." He tries to get her to calm down on her own because Remus knows their only other option are potions.
It is tempting to just let go but there is something nagging at the back of her rattled mind. What did she forget? Again she is vaguely aware time has passed.
There is movement behind Remus and with trouble she turns her eyes and tries to focus. She is transported back in time or really isn't even aware what decade it is.
"Jamie? Can I see it again? Come on. Please?" James looks uncomfortable and James Potter was so rarely uncomfortable. "No, no. You're not James. You're Harry. Harry." She nods exaggeratedly to herself and then frowns confusedly. "But… Harry is only a baby. Isn't he?"
Eva turns her glazed dilated pupils towards the man standing beside James/Harry. He presses his lips together, his face a mix of pity and hatred and she remembers.
"James is dead." She says this matter of factly. And from this on it all starts coming back to her. What she had forgotten. What her mind had been shielding her from.
Sirius. Azkaban. Innocent. Innocent. Innocent.
The Calming Drought seems to lose all its potency in that second. Her breath quickens and her whole body shakes.
"Calm down, Eva." She can hear Remus' voice somewhere in the distance but his words don't reach her. She can only focus on Sirius' sallow skin and his haunted eyes.
"Severus!" Somewhere above or beyond her Tonks snaps at Snape as he reaches to dose her once again. "That's enough!" Severus sends her a death glare but relents. For now. But Eva is not aware of any of that.
What did she do? How could she? How could this happen? How? How? How?
"How?" It is only one word but they all seem to know what she wants to know. Remus contemplates postponing the explanation and trying to calm her down once again but figures they have to tell her something. She deserves it anyway. He should had told her before. It's not Remus that answers her but Harry.
"It was Peter Pettigrew. He betrayed my parents." She opens her lips a few times before finally saying anything.
"Peter is dead."
"He is not. He faked his own death and framed Sirius for his murder." She can't grasp his words. Probably couldn't even if she wasn't under the heavy influence. She looks at Remus for denial or confirmation. Remus nods but Eva shakes her head in denial.
"He was the Potters' Secret Keeper. He betrayed them to Voldemort."
"But… But… He was so… He was Peter… We did crosswords together. I- I helped him with potions essays. Lily- Lily tutored him through seven years of charms. He would still be in Flitwick's class if it wasn't for her!"
"And that was our downfall. Underestimating him." Sirius' bitter remark at last hits her in the heart.
It was Peter. It wasn't Sirius that killed her friends. It was Peter. It was Peter. It wasn't Sirius. And it was so easy for her to believe it too. Never doubting. Never asking for his explanation. If only she confronted him… Why was it so easy to believe it? Why didn't she question it? How could she? Lily would be horrified. She would be so disappointed. Lily would never believe it. Lily would overcome her own pain and go see him. She would never be this selfish.
She doesn't notice when she starts to hyperventilate. Once again Remus is at her side, comforting her.
"You didn't know. None of us did. We couldn't know. No one could. We just found out last year." His words really offer her no comfort.
Suddenly snippets of a conversation from a long time ago come back to her. A conversation she was barely present for, drunk to the point of catalepsy, sick with grief and angry. So, so angry.
"I don't think he did it... you have to listen to me… we haven't been on the best of terms for a long time… but I can't believe it… I heard things… listen to me… stop being a drunk for one second… we have to do something..." They are just words from a long time ago, that she has almost entirely forgotten about. Try as she might she can never forget what her slurred answer was. "You want to do something? You haven't done anything in your entire live. All you do is talk, talk, talk. Talk about hating Voldemort. Talk about leaving the Death Eaters. Talk about doing the right thing. Talk, talk, talk. You are useless!" It was the last thing she ever said to him as he was dead a week later.
"But he knew. He knew. And I didn't listen. I didn't listen! I killed him. She was right. I killed them both!"
Harry Potter watches on in fascinated horror as his mother's former best friend's agony is halted by another of Snape's potions. Sleeping potion finally knocks her out and this time nobody protests. Glancing at a still aloof and angry Sirius, Harry's curiosity is peaked. He has been present at Sirius' and Remus' reunion. It took Sirius less than a second to forgive his old friend. Yet, he could hardly spare a sympathetic glance for a woman clearly in anguish. Harry has just met her and he could hardly have listened to her wails. Funny, though, how a person could be in so much pain but not drop a single tear.
The next time she wakes up, she knows a lot of time has passed. She feels rested and free of all substances. The room she is in is bathed in sunlight. Her limbs are heavy but after a few moments of confusion her mind seems clearer. She is aware of her body and she has some idea of where she is. She remembers coming for the Order's meeting, remembers meeting people, strangers and old friends. It gets very vague after that. There are fragments she remembers (Snape, Tonks, Remus, Peter, oh god, was that real?) but doesn't really understand how she came to be lying on the couch with everyone looking down on her. Did she really drink that much? Oh, somebody kept feeding her Calming drought.
She considers running away. Just getting up, finding her shoes and fleeing. To Antarctica. The thought is so damn appealing. Let somebody else deal with all this shit. Yeah? Who is that going to be, hm, Eva? Harry Potter? The thought sobers her and she sighs heavily. No more running for you, Marlowe.
She can hear the door to her room open and considers feigning sleep. What did I just say, Marlowe? No running. She breathes a sigh of relief seeing Ginny entering with some tea.
"Oh. You're awake. Good. I brought you some tea." Ginny seems weary of her and Eva shudders at the spectacle she has caused the previous day. She sits up and tries to smile to reassure the teen she is not about to fly into a hysteric fit. She has never been one for hysteria and melodrama. She usually has a tight reign over her emotions. She can't remember the last time she cried.
The girls chat for a while about easy things like school and work. Just as Eva is about to get up and brave the way out of this cursed house, they are interrupted by a knock on the door. Harry doesn't wait to be invited to enter, mainly because the last five times he come knocking, he got no answer. His eyes widen at the sight of her.
"Oh. You're awake."
"Yes. I was just about to leave. I have already overstayed my welcome."
"You don't have to go yet. Maybe you should rest some more. You really didn't look that well yesterday" Harry seems worried, probably for Eva's mental health. Ginny nods along. Eva cringes.
"What happened yesterday? And how long have I been asleep?" Harry and Ginny exchange glances and decide to answer the easy one.
"You've slept for fourteen hours. It's nearly noon."
"What? Merlin…" She really is getting old.
"You were tired," Ginny soothes. "And all those potions would knock out a fully grown hipogrif."
Right. Potions. She has downed so many potions in her life she needs a triple dose of everything to take effect.
"Really, what exactly happened yesterday?" She needs to know. There is no way around it and she would rather hear it from those two then had it thrown in her face by Sirius. She knew his vicious streak well.
After another anxious glance between them they reach an unspoken agreement.
"Well, what do you remember?" Ginny asks carefully. Eva tries to pull it all together in her head.
"I came a bit early. Knocked. Met Molly. Then your dad and your brothers and you and Tonks- She is Sirius' cousin isn't she?" Harry and Ginny nod. "Didn't realize it then. Couldn't put my finger on it but something bothered me. Like that address… Anyway then came Snape and it all went downhill from there." Harry mumbles something under his breath. "Sorry?"
"I said it usually does when he is involved." That gets a startled laugh out of Eva.
"That's what your dad used to say." They smile at each other and Eva feels something change. She swallows down a lump in her throat and continues. "We drank some firewhisky. I probably should have eaten something before that. Then we went upstairs, met Remus, then Harry and his friends and then… Sirius came down stairs and I couldn't understand. And then… Mrs Black… That horrible woman. She was almost as bad when she was alive. Then it all gets kind of blurry… Severus gave me some kind of potion?"
Harry nods in confirmation.
"You were really freaking out so Snape simply forced a potion in your mouth. And you fainted on the spot right into Snape's arms."
"I have never fainted in my life!" Eva's indignant exclamation startles Harry and gets an amused chuckle out of Ginny.
"Okay, then you were knocked out by a Calming Drought. That better?" Ginny teases her. Eva is not amused.
"Whatever. Continue."
"After that you slept for about two hours while Dumbledore arrived and they proceeded with the meeting and we watched over you." Harry's voice is bitter and she remembers his fight with Remus from the previous day and his anger at being excluded. She needs more information before she can say anything but now is not the time. "The meeting was almost over when you woke up, Snape came and keep dosing you with potions until you were turning your eyes into your head and foaming at the mouth. After you fell back to sleep we moved you to this room."
Eva frowns because she knows for a fact this was not all, she could remember parts of conversations.
"Thank you for sparing me guys but I really need more than that. I do remember some things. I'm just not sure what is real and what is a figment of my imagination. About Peter… Was that real?"
They look uncomfortable but nod anyway. Eva pushes down all the emotions threatening to surface. Later.
"He was the Secret Keeper? He faked his own death?" Another nod. "How did you all find out?" Eva listens in horror and fascination about the adventures of Harry's third year in Hogwarts. The story is bittersweet but Eva is fascinated with the way Harry's eyes light up as he talks about his friends and quidditch and invisibility cloak and the Marauders'Map and Remus, Hagrid, Malfoy, time turners, Hippogrif and Sirius.
"If only Pettigrew didn't escape." Harry angrily punches the side of the bed making both girls jump in surprise. "Then Sirius would be free and I could move in with him." He loves him. he hasn't known him that long but Eva realises Harry loves his godfather. It has been a long time since she had such trouble swallowing her tears.
"I wouldn't have to go back to the Dursleys ever again." Eva frowns at this.
"Oh, Harry. Just because you met Sirius doesn't mean you shouldn't ever go back to your relatives. They had been your family for fourteen years. You shouldn't just abandon them like this."
"They wouldn't care." Harry says this as if it is final but Eva is very confused. She knows teenagers can be sullen and resentful but what could they have possibly done to him to make him think they wouldn't care and to want to simply move in with a convicted felon. Even if he was innocent. She wants to inquire further but Harry cuts her off. "Anyway since Pettigrew escaped, Sirius has to hide out here in his parents' house. He hates it."
"I know." They are all quiet for some time before Eva remembers she still doesn't know all that happened. "What else did I say?" Ginny and Harry look like they really hoped she had forgotten about them. Ginny takes over anyway.
"You rambled a lot. Mostly it was all a jumbled mess about Hogwarts and Harry's parents, Sirius, Remus, Peter, even Snape, your patients, potions, Dumbledore and so on. You kept saying sorry to Snape. He seemed like he wanted to kill you for it"
Eva vaguely remembers apologising to Snape. Did she mention something about Lily? Merlin, no wonder he wanted to kill her. What was she thinking?! Not much. Or rather, too much. And with her emotional walls lowered, everything seemed to come out. She was never going to live this down.
"Professor McGonagall came to see you before she left. That was really funny." Harry and Ginny both laugh.
"I lied to you, professor," she declared solemnly. McGonagall only raised her eyebrows at this. "My essay on human transfiguration? It didn't get eaten by a dog. Sirius spilled firewhisky on it and then tried to lick it off. Waste not want not, you know. But it was beyond recognition." Then she frowned thoughtfully. "Then again, maybe it did get eaten by a dog." She thought really hard on it. "You should give him detention."
"And McGonagall said very seriously: "I most certainly will." It was hilarious."
Eva groans in mortification but it seems the teenagers are not done yet, now that they are on a roll.
"Poor Remus kept on comforting you but when you told him you ate all his chocolates I thought he might strangle you."
"I was the one that ate all your special Belgian pralines. They were just sitting there on the table, all yummy and I just wanted one. And it was so good and creamy. And then I thought what is one more. And one more. And then the box was empty so I packed it back up and tied a ribbon on it and left it on James' armchair. And I let you think it was the boys that did it. But it was me." Everybody kept snickering as Remus gritted his teeth at a pair of innocent brown eyes staring at him.
Eva remembers none of that. It seems the only things sticking with her were the ones that were overwrought with emotion. Apologising to Snape, recognizing Tonks, Peter, talking to Remus, James, No Harry.
"I thought you were your dad again, didn't I ? I am very sorry, Harry."
"No, no, you were very confused. It's alright. And you basically knew who I was. You kept talking to yourself, answering all the questions on your own."
"So, is that all? Mostly? I don't need a word for word script. Just the main points." The teenagers shuffle awkwardly, looking anywhere but at her and she knows she is still missing something. She tries to remember but comes up empty.
"Mostly." Harry nods at her, still not looking her in the eye. His face is as red as a lobster. Eva stares at them in anxious anticipation not saying anything. Does she want to hear that? Ginny, obviously the bolder of the two in emotional matters, sighs half in resignation and half in exasperation.
"Ok, listen carefully because I am only going to say this once. At one point you came out of your droopiness, looked directly at Sirius and said and I quote: *I don't know why you bother with her when we both know I give better head.*"
