Previously in the Darklyverse: Mary envied Lily for the close friendship she'd formed with Marlene, with whom Mary was secretly in love. Mary and Reg got back together. The Gryffindors cofounded a student organization, War Stories, to educate the student body about prejudice and the war.

Revised version uploaded 25 January 2022.

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December 4th, 1977: Mary Macdonald

Having to share Marlene's friendship with Lily makes Mary's blood boil. It's not Lily's fault—all she did was get called "Mudblood" by her old best friend and then take Marlene up on the friendship she offered Lily to replace Snape. If anyone, Mary blames Marlene for being willing to offer Mary's place in her life to somebody else that she hasn't been friends with for anywhere close to as long as she has been with Mary. But Lily is here in Marlene's life alongside Mary now, and so Mary makes nice, tolerating Lily hanging around all the time and trying to make a point of including her in conversations. The one small mercy is that Lily usually brings James along with her, which means that Lily is focused on him and Mary can focus on Marlene.

She's caught off guard when the four of them are in the common room and Lily turns to her and says, "Hey, Mary—we're having another War Stories meeting tonight. You should come! You haven't been to one yet, right?"

Lily phrasing this as a question doesn't fool Mary, of course. Lily knows Mary hasn't attended any of the meetings—she and the other Gryffindor seventh years would remember it vividly if Mary had. It's not like Mary doesn't think they're doing a good thing with the organization, but—

"Are you sure that's such a good idea?"

"Why wouldn't it be?" Lily asks with furrowed eyebrows.

Why do you think? Mary wants to say, but she bites her tongue and says instead, in an undertone so that the people around them don't hear, "Well, I left the Order, and…"

Lily lowers her own voice, too. "Almost everybody in War Stories isn't also in the Order. If they were the same, we wouldn't be pushing so hard to bring in purebloods who don't already agree with us."

"Yeah, but, like, in that vein, do you really need another Muggle-born to show up? I'm not exactly your—target demographic."

James and Marlene have put down their quills by now to watch this exchange with nervous expressions. James adds, "Our target demographic is anybody who could either learn from the org or share anything with anybody who's there to learn. You could do a lot of good if you were willing to come."

"Please?" says Marlene softly. "I've missed you at every meeting—I'd like for you to be there."

And that clinches it—Mary is nothing if not a sucker for her best friend. "I… all right. I'll see if Reg wants to come, too—I'm meeting him in a couple hours anyway."

She shoves down the feelings of guilt that always accompany any thought or mention of Reg. It's not so much lying to everyone else about who she has feelings for that bothers Mary—it's knowing that Reg is truly, genuinely interested in her and wants to have a relationship with her, and she's really just stringing him along because she can't have the person that she wants. On her Hogsmeade date with Reg yesterday, he kissed her for the first time since they got back together and told her that he can see a future with her, and she went along with it, and she hates herself. It's not even that she can't see a future with him, too, because she can—but that future looks a lot like settling for less is the best she can do.

When she brings the meeting up to Reg that afternoon, his first reaction is to say, "Evans and Potters' club? I know they're your friends, Mare, but—I thought you were feeling good about getting some space from them."

"I was—I mean, I am," Mary lies through her teeth. "But—we agree that they're doing a good thing with this organization, don't we?"

"Well, yes—"

"And they asked me to come," she mumbles, "and—I think we should go. I know last year… but this is all above board this time. It's not going to hurt anything for us to have a conversation with our classmates about purity politics."

So they go to the meeting. They're about five minutes late showing up to it; Lily spots them over the head of the Ravenclaw boy who's speaking and gives them a friendly little wave before directing her attention back to him. "Right," she says as Mary and Reg grab free seats in the middle of the Gryffindor table. "I think, if we're going to talk about Minchum, we need to talk about Azkaban because—did everybody see what the Prophet came out with this week about him adding more dementors there?"

"Yeah, how does that even work logistically?" snickers a Ravenclaw that Mary doesn't know. "I'm not saying the dementors would refuse to breed more of themselves if the Ministry asked them to, but how have we gone all this time without them replicating exponentially to begin with? Azkaban's got to be perfect breeding grounds for the things."

"It begs the question," says Benjy, "whether the Ministry has ever had as much control over the dementors as they make out like they do. They're Dark creatures. Are we really supposed to believe the Ministry could overpower them if they acted out of line?"

"Can we just talk for a second about the fact that the Ministry has dementors running Azkaban at all?" says somebody Mary recognizes as a member of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team. "I can understand it for Death Eaters, but anybody with a prison sentence for any crime has to be trapped with those things for months or even years. You're supposed to not be able to feel anything happy the whole time you're around them, are you? Does anybody really deserve to be stripped of their ability to feel happy just because of something like—like tax evasion or theft or Muggle-baiting?"

There's an outbreak of muttering. Beside Mary, Reg pipes up, "That's completely fair—but I think we need to take it a step further. How many of us are okay with even Death Eaters having to live with dementors?"

Surprised, Mary shifts in her seat to face him. "You're not? But—they're Death Eaters. If anybody deserves to never be happy again—"

"There's no such thing as evil people," Reg insists. "I'm not saying they shouldn't be locked away where they can't hurt anybody anymore—but Azkaban should be about protecting innocent people from others who can't be trusted, not about punishment. Even if it were about punishment, isn't it enough to take away somebody's freedom? Is it really our place to make them—"

"You're mental," says Sirius, shaking his head vehemently. "Look, I'm with Mitchell. I don't think anybody ought to be forced to be close to dementors for a misdemeanor, but Death Eaters—how can you say they're not evil? How many people do you know personally who've had loved ones tortured and killed for sport by them? Everybody here knows someone. How can you look us all in the face and say—?"

"Cattermole's right," says Emmeline.

Muttering had broken out, but it dies down as everybody looks at Em. Sirius's eyes are popping. "Em, you—? How can you say—?"

"I'm not saying the Death Eaters don't sicken me," she whispers. "They do. They deserve horrible things, and you know that I, of all people, mean that. But—nobody should be alone in their head with their guilt and sadness and regret. Nobody should live with their worst fears and memories constantly on a loop. Do you hear me? Nobody."

And—the realization that maybe this is what Peter meant when he said Em was struggling hits Mary like a sack of bricks. Is that what Em's been feeling? If she's sympathizing with prisoners of Azkaban—

Emmeline doesn't speak again for the rest of the meeting. Mary wants to march right up to her after and ask her what that was all about, but she doesn't want to do it in front of Reg, whom she's walking back to the basement. By the time Mary gets back to Gryffindor Tower, Em's not in the common room—but Remus is, and Mary could really use a gay heart-to-heart.

He's sitting with Alice and Sirius near the fireplace, but he goes willingly enough when Mary tugs him away from them. Away from Gryffindor Tower, they push on classroom doors until they find one that's unlocked and slip into it. "What's up?" says Remus politely, and Mary sucks in a breath before she can vomit words all over him.

"Lene," she says finally.

"Tell me."

"It's like—what am I doing with her? I'm with Reg, and I'm pretending I want to be with Reg, and meanwhile, she's all I can think about. I'm a fraud. I'm a hypocrite, Rem."

"You're not a hypocrite, Mare. You're a human being with feelings for someone who doesn't want you back—no matter what way you spin that, it sucks, and you get to do what you do in order to protect yourself. I don't necessarily mean dating Cattermole, but certainly covering up the truth to Marlene is your prerogative to do."

Sighing, Mary rakes a hand through her hair. "If she mentions Sirius in front of me one more time, I'm going to—just—die."

"I know it feels that way now," says Remus.

"Easy for you to say. Your person loves you back."

"So, hey, first of all, we don't know that yet. Sirius told me he wants to figure things out and maybe give it a shot, but I definitely wouldn't say he's in love with me, or that he knows whether he's in love with me, at least. And second, Marlene does love you, Mary. She may not be in love with you, but there's real love there."

"Then why did she drop me so easily for Lily?" Mary presses. "For someone she barely even knew until last year? Every time I'm with the two of them, I feel like a third wheel, and Lily always seems to be where Lene is."

"What Marlene has with Lily doesn't diminish what you have with Marlene," says Remus.

"Well, that's not what it feels like," Mary says right back.

He sighs. "I know this is an impossible situation, and I wish there were something more that I could do to ease your pain. I really do, Mary. Have you—have you thought about trying to take some of the advice you're giving Marlene and use it on your feelings for her?"

"What, like avoiding being around her or talking about her so that eventually I can stop thinking about her? The problem is that she's my best friend first, Rem. If I give her up, I don't know how I'm supposed to…" Her voice catches and wavers. "I don't want to be in a world that she isn't in."

"I know. Can I just—give you a hug? You sound like you could use one, and…"

"Yeah. Yes." She's already walking up to him, and he pulls her tightly against him, cradling the back of her head in his palm. "Thanks for listening to me. I don't have anyone else who… just—thanks."

"Of course," says Remus, but he sounds like he really means it and understands what it means to her. "I'm going to go follow Peter to the common room and pester him until he says he'll play some terrible guitar for us. Want to come?"

She knows Marlene will be wondering where she got off to if Mary doesn't rejoin her and Lily and James, but, well—screw it. Marlene is not her whole world.

Marlene will not be her whole world.

Will she?

When Mary retreats to the dormitory for the evening, the hangings on Emmeline's four-poster are shut. She should make an effort to get Em alone first thing the next morning, but she doesn't. She'll regret that soon, but for now, Mary allows thoughts of Marlene to consume her until she forgets all about Em and the dementors and the meeting.