Previously in the Darklyverse: Marlene and Sirius's relationship devolved after she found out about Remus's feelings for him. Sirius and Remus grappled with their differences about what each wanted from the other, including about sex. Mary struggled to feel like a relevant part of the group after leaving the Order.

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March 8th, 1978: Sirius Black

Sirius feels like he's surrounded by people who are too stubborn to talk about what they're going through. James acts normal on the surface, but Sirius can tell that he's concealing how much of a toll his parents' deaths have taken on him. Remus acts like he and Sirius are doing great when they're out of the dormitory, but he's avoiding being alone with Sirius where he might have to confront the realities of Sirius's attraction (or not) to him. Even Peter has been sort of moody and subdued lately, but he gets jumpy and denies it every time Sirius tries to bring it up.

Marlene, of course, is still treating Sirius like he doesn't exist, and Mary doesn't seem to want to open up to anybody about her issues with Marlene and, by extension, Lily. Alice is acting like she didn't just break up with her boyfriend of almost two years. Hilariously, the only person in Sirius's life who's being open about their problems is Emmeline, who seems to have given up on the idea of privacy ever since she got caught trying to kill herself and spent a month in a mental hospital.

He's just about at his breaking point, but still, it catches him completely off guard when the one to break the burning silence is Mary.

She's in the common room when they all get back from an Order meeting with Dorcas. It's late enough that the room is almost empty, so the eight of them clambering through the portrait hole are more than visible. Most of them try to avoid making eye contact with her, but then Mary says, "I know where you've been. I know what you're doing. You don't have to lie about it, you know."

"Can we not do this out here?" says Alice, her eyes darting around the room.

"Why not? It's not like there's anybody in this school who doesn't suspect what's really going on. Do you hear that, kiddos?" she barks at a gaggle of second years who are staring avidly. "The rumors are true! The—"

"Keep your voice down, god," says Marlene. It's probably the first time Sirius has seen Marlene speak to Mary in weeks. "If we're going to do this, can we do this in the dormitory or someplace not here?"

"Fine. Fine, let's do this upstairs," snaps Mary, and she hurls her books in her bag and stalks off up the boys' staircase.

They follow her up there, Sirius full of trepidation, unsure how exactly this is going to play out. As soon as the door clicks shut, Mary says, "You all need to stop treating me like I'm a leper. I know you're sneaking off every month for Order meetings with Dorcas. I helped start our branch of the Order, remember? All the lying and sneaking around and whispering is—it's not just unnecessary; it's rude. I was right there with you lot when everything went down last year. People aren't just gossiping about you; they're talking about me, too. And I've been alone in that all year because you people make me feel like—like I'm some stupid kid who doesn't get to mess around in grown-up business."

"Mary," says Alice patiently, "I don't think anyone is trying to treat you like a kid. It's just, now that you're out of the Order, there are certain things we can't tell you about what's going on—"

"Come on now. You can't even tell me that meeting up with Dorcas is what you're doing? You can't tell me that she didn't put you up to War Stories? Don't patronize me."

"No one is trying to patronize you," says Lily, frowning. "We just—well, I'll speak for myself: I don't really know where the boundaries are with you, and I guess I've been avoiding asking because—it's uncomfortable. Two people are dead, and we reacted to that in very different ways, but I don't think any of us are really free of it."

"It's rich of you to treat me like an outcast," Mary says, rolling her eyes. "You show up in this house after five years of doing Dark Magic with a Slytherin, for all anybody knows—"

"I thought we were beyond the Dark Magic accusations, god!"

"—and you work your way into the Order, and you steal my best friend, and you expect me to, what? Thank you?"

"I'll appreciate you leaving your problems with me out of this, please," says Marlene, crossing her arms.

"Why should I? You don't want anybody else to know what a jackass you've been to me? Don't want to air out our dirty laundry?"

"I thought this was about the Order."

"It's about everything!" Mary erupts. "I'm sick of being treated like an afterthought, and I'm sick of you acting like I don't mean anything to you, and I'm sick of you—you—you act like you know everything, but you don't. You're a mess. You're an even bigger mess than I am."

"I am not a—"

Mary lifts one hand and starts counting off, tapping a finger against her other palm for everything she says. "You won't talk to me. You won't talk to Sirius. You won't talk to Remus. Pretty much the only person you will talk to is Lily, and even from out here, even I can tell that you're smothering her."

"That's not fair," says Lily, frowning.

"So I guess the question is, am I your friend or not? Because I can't keep one foot in the door waiting for Lena to come back and for all of you to treat me like a human being again."

Sirius may have his issues with Marlene, but he's not sure if he's on Mary's side for this one. Can anybody blame them for concealing details of the Order from her? That was what she signed up for when she decided to step down, wasn't it?

The last time they all had a proper argument amongst themselves, they'd been inappropriately dueling in class and got stuck in detention and told to work out their issues. But Andromeda isn't here this time to force them to confront anything. Will any of them, besides Mary, make themselves vulnerable enough to speak their minds? Even if they do, will anything change without someone telling them it needs to?

Sirius doubts it. Sure enough, there's a long-ass pause, and then Mary snarls, "I'm done here," shoves past everyone, and stalks out of the room.

"Someone should go talk to her," says Marlene stiffly, "but it's not going to be me."

"I'll go," says Emmeline, and she turns and follows Mary out.

There's another big, awkward silence while the seven of them stand there, mostly still huddled by the doorway. "Is anyone else here to attack me?" Marlene says with a scowl.

But Sirius doesn't think that this is entirely fair, either. He wonders for a fleeting moment if he should take the opportunity to air out some of his issues with her, but decides that if he does end up confronting her, he's not going to do it in front of all their friends.

The person he really ought to be talking to is Remus, but Remus has obviously been avoiding getting Sirius alone, and Sirius can't really blame him. He still doesn't understand his own feelings about Remus: he wants all the little intimacies of a relationship with him, and obviously he's attracted to Remus to some degree, but the sex is going to be an issue, and he doesn't know how to get around it.

If it were up to him, they just wouldn't have sex, no problem. It surprises him more than a little that Remus is the one for whom sex is apparently a dealbreaker. What they've been doing for the last week is so close to what Sirius thinks is the solution—all the hallmarks of a relationship on the outside without any private intimacy—but he misses kissing Remus, and he misses feeling comfortable being alone with him and telling him anything and everything.

As much as he's loved being with Remus in this way, a small part of Sirius wishes that Remus never kissed him and none of this ever materialized. At least that way, it would have saved him a lot of time of Remus avoiding him, and there wouldn't be this potential breakup hanging over his head that will surely lead only to more avoidance.

So as everyone else is filing out, Sirius bites the bullet and tells Remus to hang back with him. The dormitory suddenly feels so much smaller with just the two of them in it. "We should stop avoiding each other," says Sirius, suddenly unsure of what else to say.

"We haven't been avoiding each other. I talk to you all the time."

Sirius raises an eyebrow, and Remus sort of backs down and shrugs while sitting on his bed. "Okay, maybe I'm avoiding you a little."

"You said you didn't want to try stuff out and see what works," says Sirius, "but I'm not really seeing an alternative, unless you want to, you know, never try anything and just be together like this. Or break up. But I hope you don't want to break up, because I really—you're so…" He clears his throat. "I don't know what else I'm supposed to do to prove that I want this, but I want this."

"I just don't want to be with someone who constantly makes me feel rejected," whispers Remus. "At least out in public I've been able to pretend like we're normal. In here…"

"But I'm not rejecting you," Sirius argues. "No, really. I'm looking at my—my biology or whatever you want to call it—the way my body works—and I'm saying screw it, I want you more than I don't want anything physical. This is me saying that being with you is more important."

Remus has raised his hands to his face, but he opens his fingers enough to look though them—Sirius can hardly see his eyes in the dark of night with the lights off. "I just don't want to be—be second best."

"You're not second best. Hey—you're not second best." He walks over, carefully peels Remus's hands off of his face, and kisses him. "I promise. If we, uh—if we try stuff… I can't guarantee I'll like any of it. But I want you to remember that that's not what matters, okay? How I feel about you is what matters."

Remus nods a little and leans up to kiss Sirius again. "Okay."

Sirius closes his eyes and hopes it'll be enough. "We're going to end up having to talk to Marlene, aren't we?" he says reluctantly.

"Yeah, I think maybe we are. Maybe—maybe not together. But I think she's going to crack up if something doesn't give."

Sirius tips his forehead against Remus's and groans. "Give me a few days. I'll talk to her."

He doesn't really need a few days, but he's dreading the conversation and gives himself that long to avoid it before he seeks her out. He's keeping an eye on her and Lily on Friday night when Lily says she's going to head out and take a shower. Marlene starts packing up, too, but Sirius sets down his quill and positively bolts from his seat to catch Marlene where she's sitting.

"Come upstairs with me. We should talk," he says, a little out of breath.

"And why exactly would I want to—"

"Just come with me, please. I'm not trying to start a fight."

They go back up to the boys' dormitory (Sirius is starting to sense a pattern), where Marlene leans against the wall and crosses her arms. "So talk," she says as soon as the door closes.

"Marlene…"

There are about a million things Sirius could say to her right now. That he still loves her. That he hates the way they ended things. That he was never trying to hurt her, and that he hates how determined she is to spin his motives into malice. That he shouldn't have started sleeping with her when they were fifteen so that maybe they wouldn't be in this mess today. Eventually, he just settles for saying, "I miss you, and I hate this."

"Well, you should have thought about that before you—"

"See, this is exactly what I'm talking about!" Sirius erupts. "Remus had feelings for me, and when I told you, you broke up with me. I never cheated on you—"

"You kissed him!"

"It was an accident! I was committed to you. I was willing to work things out with you—which meant crushing Remus, by the way—and you decided for me that you didn't want to stick it out. I'm so sick of you acting like the injured party here."

"If you want to talk about insult to the injury, what about fourth year, when Emmeline dumped you and you used me to—"

And all the injustice of it wells up inside Sirius as he says, "God, Marlene, I thought we were past that! If you didn't like what we were doing, you could have said no! You made your own choices and then blamed me for them like I was some kind of master manipulator, when really, I was doing the best I could. I'm not saying I did the right things, but I did my best, and you didn't have to stand for it, but you did. You did that. Own up to your own part in it, for once, why don't you? It's like you keep waiting for people to bend over backwards apologizing to you and—and changing their ways and making things up to you, when nothing anybody does is ever going to be enough for you, is it? Because I've been doing that for the last year, and you're still holding it over my head like some kind of debt I'll never pay off."

"So you brought me up here to yell at me, is that it?"

"You yelled first," says Sirius, knowing how childish he sounds. "Look, I brought you in here because I wanted to find some kind of peace, to make sure you were okay, but—"

"Well, I'm not okay," Marlene huffs. "You can't just barge back into my life with a bunch of accusations and expect me to pacify your ego by smoothing everything over. It doesn't work like that."

"Bold of you to be talking about my ego when it was you who was begging me to take you back after I got together with Moony."

"A mistake I'll never be stupid enough to make again," hisses Marlene. "If you think—"

They're interrupted by the door opening and Peter poking his head in. "We can hear everything you're saying from the common room. Thought you'd want to know."

"Great," says Marlene, "now I've got your sidekick trying to shut me up."

"I—I'm not anybody's sidekick," puffs Peter, but Marlene flips her hair back and pushes past him and out of the dormitory.

"Well, that could have gone better," he says to Peter, who laughs nervously, and Sirius wonders what it's going to take for Marlene to put aside her anger because, whatever it is, it's not something he seems to have in him.

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END OF PART ELEVEN