Previously in the Darklyverse: Mary quit the Order of the Phoenix after Elisabeth's and Millie's deaths. Mary resented Marlene for prioritizing her friendship with Lily and for failing to confide in Mary after finding out about Sirius and Emmeline's past relationship. After an emotional fight, Marlene and Mary vowed to end their friendship. Marlene broke up with Sirius, in part out of pride when she learned about his messy relationship with Remus. Upon graduating from Hogwarts, Dorcas Meadowes took on the role of the Hogwarts students' liaison to the Order of the Phoenix, but in light of the deaths the previous year for which Dorcas and the Gryffindors were responsible, she failed to task the Hogwarts Order with any missions they considered important.

xx

February 22nd, 1978: Marlene McKinnon

Losing Mary as a friend is like having one of Marlene's limbs ripped off. She can barely remember what her life was like before she had Mary, and now she's just—gone, like none of it mattered, like none of it happened. Silences drag on forever when they pass each other; when they spend time in the dormitory or with other Gryffindors in the common room, they pointedly avoid making eye contact or acknowledging each other's words. It's almost as bad as breaking up with Sirius has been—almost.

She blocked out a lot of the fight they had leading up to this, so she honestly doesn't remember all of the reasons that apparently their friendship can't work. Mary was definitely resentful that Marlene chose Lily over her to confide in about the business with Emmeline—that much she does remember. She remembers getting defensive about it, saying that people change and move on, it happens, she hasn't done anything wrong by growing closer to Lily—and maybe she was wrong about that. Maybe it was a dick move and she should have apologized and given a better explanation.

But Marlene doesn't have a better explanation. Lily lived with her two summers ago, and Marlene opened her heart to the dormmate whose best friend turned out to be a bigot, who came home to find that nobody in her own dormitory was her friend until Marlene adopted Lily as her next—Marlene doesn't want to call Lily a "project," but that's what she was originally, until Marlene found out that she actually really liked this girl, wanted to keep her in her life and protect her from harm. Wanted to stand by her when her parents died and she didn't have anywhere else to go. And somewhere along the line, their friendship stopped being just about Lily leaning on Marlene—it became about Marlene leaning on Lily, too.

She meant it when she told Mary that Marlene's friendship with Lily doesn't have to do anything like supersede their relationship with each other. But—Marlene ought to face the fact that she did pick Lily over Mary when she needed to tell someone about Sirius and Em. Why couldn't she have told both? Why did she treat it like an either-or?

Because she hasn't felt close to Mary in an exceptionally long time, a little voice whispers. Because girls' nights aside, she hasn't been able to really talk to Mary about what's going on in her life—the war. Even before that—even last year—they were struggling, but then Mary quit the Order and Marlene really forgot how to talk to her.

The worst part is that Mary leaving the Order of the Phoenix wasn't even a choice that Marlene can judge her for. If Marlene and the others were smart or had any sense of shame, they would have quit, too. Instead, Mary became the outcast, and the others kept right on forging ahead with a plan that has already gotten two people killed.

Lily keeps telling Marlene to go get Mary alone and talk things out, but from what Marlene remembers of their fight, she doesn't think that she's done anything to make Mary feel amenable to making up with her. So they keep avoiding each other, and time keeps marching forward, and Marlene starts getting used to what life without her first best friend feels like.

Losing Sirius in and of itself was almost too much to bear, and now she's losing Mary, too. The strain of it makes Marlene feel like she's going to crack up.

The combination makes Marlene reconsider—a lot of things. For example: she dumped Sirius, not the other way around, and if it weren't for Marlene pushing Mary so hard, they probably would have found a way to work it out, or at least begrudgingly gone on the way they had been going. Is that what she does now? Push away the people she needs the most because she's too proud? With Mary, she was too proud to admit that she should have confided in her about Emmeline; with Sirius, she was too proud to stay with someone who had kissed someone else—and a bloke at that. She knows Sirius would have been willing to stay with her and work things out, and she suspects Mary would have, too. But no—Marlene couldn't bring herself to do it.

Is Marlene too quick to cut people off for disappointing her? Would she be a better person for learning to compromise, to forgive?

The answer to those questions is probably yes, but it's been a damn hard year and Marlene doesn't think she has it in herself to challenge herself that much, selfish as that may be. So she does the natural thing—natural for her, anyway—and takes her frustration out on people who have nothing to do with any of it.

Specifically—on Dorcas Meadowes.

They're behind the mirror for an Order meeting when Marlene interrupts Dorcas, who is just starting to ask how War Stories is going. "What about everything else the Order is doing?"

"Excuse me?"

"We know you're doing more than just recruitment and breaking the Imperius Curse. What are you recruiting everyone to do, if you need so many more people? What about the disappearances? What about all the times that you got back to our owls a week late because you were deep underground?"

Dorcas looks conflicted, shifting her weight from foot to foot. "I know this must be frustrating for you. Dumbledore says—"

"Dumbledore needs to stop treating us like little kids," says Marlene. "All but one of us are of age. We're all capable of doing more than just sit around the Great Hall trading touchy-feely stories about the first time we saw a Muggle-born deal with discrimination."

Dorcas closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. "He's not treating you 'like little kids,' but you have to realize that it would be too big of a liability to bring you on for more serious stuff. Last year—"

"Last year was more your fault than any of the rest of ours, and yet you still get to go to full meetings and be in the know—do stuff—"

"Do you really think I don't live with the burden of what happened last year hanging over my head? But I'm out of school. I can afford to go into hiding if anybody suspects me as being allied with Dumbledore. You lot can't do that in the castle. You just can't."

"Lene, maybe you should…" says Sirius in an undertone, but having the bloke who left her for another boy tell Marlene how to act is just too much.

"Don't tell me what to do," she snaps. "And you can tell Dumbledore that I see through his bullshit."

She's actually so worked up that she leaves right then and there, sliding through the enchanted mirror and popping back out into the corridor. Moments later, Lily follows her out—Marlene is already walking away, but turns around at the sound.

"You're really determined to burn all your bridges this year, huh?" says Lily mildly.

"They make us feel useless when we could be doing something to make a difference. I just can't stand it, Lily."

"Are you sure this isn't about—everything else going on?"

"Of course it's about everything else going on," says Marlene. "But that doesn't mean I'm not right."

"Just come back to the meeting," Lily says. "It won't be the same without you."

"I can't. I just can't."

Lily sighs and looks around like she's expecting to find someone else there. "Fine. Then at least let me come with you. You shouldn't be alone like this."

"I'm fine," she says, but she's not, and Lily knows she's not.

This, right here, is exactly one of the reasons why Marlene had been choosing Lily over Mary. She sees through to Marlene's true motivations, and she's patient with her and doesn't judge and doesn't leave, even when Marlene is wrong. Would Mary have done that? Is Marlene not giving her enough credit?

"You know you're going to have to talk to both of them eventually. We all live together. You'll go crazy if you don't."

"I just want them to disappear until I can sort out how I feel about them and then stop feeling it," Marlene says.

"I hate to break it to you," says Lily, smiling, "but it definitely doesn't work that way. Listen—talk to Mary when we get back to Gryffindor Tower, okay? Go up to the dormitory with her. I'll come interrupt after ten minutes and everything so that you can make a quick getaway if you need to. Is that fair?"

"No," she says as they fall into step together, turning a corner and leaving the meeting spot behind. "I just can't, okay? Not yet. Trust me on this."

"Okay," says Lily, "but the sooner you work things out, the better you'll feel."

She knows Lily is right. She does. But she can't stand to talk to Mary or to Sirius right now. She just can't.

They swing upstairs to the dormitory to grab textbooks and quills, only to find Mary already up there, lying flat on her back in bed. See, this is exactly the bullshit Marlene was complaining about. "Hey, Mary," says Lily delicately.

"Hi, Lily. Marlene."

Marlene grunts. Lily literally throws up her hands and declares, "I can't do this anymore. Talk to each other, for god's sake."

The door clatters behind her as she leaves the room, leaving Marlene to avoid looking Mary in the eyes as she keeps rummaging through her trunk. Finally, it's Mary who breaks the silence. "So Lily wants us to talk, it seems."

"Yeah, she does. She's not jealous like you," snaps Marlene.

She immediately regrets it, but she's put it out there now and doesn't know how to take it back or what to do except double down. Mary sits up in bed—Marlene can hear the bed creak and sheets rustle—and Mary retorts, "What did I ever do to make you hate me so much?"

"Let's see. Like I said, you're jealous. You're possessive. You're petty and shallow and vapid. Do I need to keep going?"

"That's funny," says Mary, "because I could have said all of those things to describe you."

"I am not—"

"Oh, really?"

"I'm not jealous, for one thing," says Marlene.

"Really? Because you dumped Sirius's arse just because Remus had feelings for him that Sirius wasn't ever planning on acting on."

"And look what happened when I did dump him! The first thing he did was—"

"Actually, he waited, like, more than a month because you asked him to, and he wouldn't have gone after Remus at all if you had just trusted him enough to stay with him."

"Right. Right, and remind me again how any of this is your business?"

That stops Mary short. It's a while before she says, "It's not, now that you're not my best mate anymore. I guess I'm just remembering the days when what I thought mattered to you."

Marlene slams the lid of her trunk and gets up, textbooks and bag in hand. "Well, it doesn't anymore, so you can take your opinions and sod off."

"Fine."

"Fine."

Slamming the door on her way out feels good for about three seconds before the guilt and anger—at both Mary and herself—set in. She resists the urge to scream with frustration and hurries down the staircase to meet Lily.