Previously in the Darklyverse: Lily and James went into hiding. Lily encouraged Marlene and Mary to make up, while Sirius and Marlene talked out some of their differences and agreed to put aside their discord for Harry's sake.

xx

July 26th, 1981: Marlene McKinnon

"We should take a group photo," says Frank.

A chorus of mingles yeses and nos breaks out just as Harry or Neville (Marlene can't tell which at this distance) starts crying. "Go on without me," says Arabella Figg, picking herself up off the couch and heading upstairs toward the bedroom. "I'll take care of them."

"Come on, it'll be nice! When have we ever done anything to promote camaraderie the last few years?" says Dorcas brightly to Gideon, who is rolling his eyes.

"I'll take the photo," says Fabian. "Gid can represent both of us."

They're at the cottage in Godric's Hollow for tonight's Order meeting—Lily and James offered to host it, presumably because they're getting bored of being unable to attend and having to get the recap from Sirius after the fact. Almost the whole organization turned up in order to see them, including Dumbledore and his brother, although McGonagall and Mundungus Fletcher are absent, and so is Snape, whom Lily doesn't want to allow in her house (and Marlene can't blame her). Marlene knows that some Order members haven't seen Lily or James since before they went into hiding, and Lily in particular has been in her element tonight, serving dinner and laughing so hard she choked on her pumpkin juice.

Eventually, everybody converges into three rows along one of the walls of the living room, although Arabella is still upstairs with the babies (of whom both are now crying). Marlene ends up in the front row between Frank on one side and Dedalus Diggle on the other, and when she smiles for the camera, it's the happiest she's felt in a long time, surrounded here by people who understand, who are fighting back.

After the meeting disbands, Marlene hangs back, hoping to catch Lily alone for a few moments when everyone else has gone. Eventually, it's just them and Benjy Fenwick, who is having an avid discussion filling James in on how the Quidditch league is going so far this year. "I'm glad we did this here tonight," Marlene tells Lily, pulling on her cloak. "None of us get to see enough of you anymore."

"Says the woman who comes round my house three times a week," says Lily, but she's smiling.

"I don't mean me; I mean everybody else. I don't like knowing that you and James are cooped up in here alone with Harry without anybody but me and Sirius to keep you company."

"Oh, it's not so bad. Have you seen how spotless this house is? My mum would have been proud if she could see it for herself. Anyway, it's not just you and Sirius coming by. Mary stops by every weekend, and Remus and Peter drop in every once in a while."

Marlene winces. "I'm glad Mary's keeping in touch with you. I haven't been the best friend to her lately."

"Really? I thought you guys had been in a good place for the last—year, at least. I mean, I can be in a room with both of you in it, and nothing explodes."

"We're doing okay—we get lunch every now and then—but I wouldn't call us best friends anymore. I'm glad things are stable, but I wish it didn't have to be such a binary choice, picking either you or her as my best mate. I can't remember whether she started treating it like that or whether it's my fault and I set her up to mean less than you did to me, but either way, I regret not trying harder to keep her in my life."

"I know you still love her. I know she knows that, too."

"Sometimes I think, in an ironic twist of fate, that she loves you more than she loves me anymore. I'm glad you brought her on as your campaign manager. It meant the world to her."

"Even though we lost?" says Lily, half smiling.

"Even though you lost. Besides, the next time the Minister of Magic seat is up for election, you're going to get back out there and you're going to win it this time."

"If we're not still in hiding."

Marlene smiles sadly. "If you're not still in hiding."

xx

Friday is Harry's birthday, and Lily and James invite both Marlene and Sirius over to celebrate with them. This time, Marlene decides to be proactive about the thing and sends Sirius an owl herself about it the day before. Come to my flat for dinner before we go to see Harry, she writes, and her owl comes back three hours later with a yes from him.

Dinner with Sirius goes fine, and so does Harry's birthday party, so much so that she asks Sirius, "Would you like to go out next weekend? Not as a date or anything," she adds hastily, "but just…"

"Yeah," says Sirius. "Yeah, that would be nice."

"I promised my parents I would come round for family night for my brother Mike's birthday on Sunday night, but I'm free until around seven. We could go to Hogsmeade?"

"Hogsmeade sounds great. I'm looking forward to it."

"See you next Sunday," says Marlene.

The next week passes awfully slowly. At work, she makes six arrests, including one of a Death Eater that the Order caught on a raid. Most of the wizards the Order intercepts these days are still under the Imperius Curse, but they know how to tell the difference now, which at least means that they're pulling people away who are a danger to others against their will and rehabilitating them by breaking the curse. And on the rare occasion that they do catch a real Death Eater—great. That's where Marlene comes in, getting dragged out of bed to work overtime.

She considers stopping by Mary's flat at some point but ultimately decides against it. They already have plans to get lunch later in the month, and she doesn't want to disrupt the delicate ecosystem they've created just to drag up painful history about the two of them and Lily. Even though things have been good between them lately, Marlene's still a little afraid that she's going to say the wrong thing and set off an argument that she thinks they both would be better off not having.

She meets Sirius outside The Three Broomsticks on Sunday evening. At first, they don't really have much to say to each other, but then Sirius asks, "You were one of the Hit Wizards who came to take Snyde away the other night, right?" and they get caught up for a few moments discussing Marlene's work.

"It's not the same as being an Auror would have been," she tells him, the wind ruffling her kinky hair. "I can't talk to Alice about it because I'm unbearably jealous and I don't want to put her in the middle of that. I just wanted to make a difference, you know?"

"You are making a difference," Sirius says. "Maybe not as much at our raids where the Order has already packaged up the Death Eaters for you to collect, but dangerous wizards are off the streets because of your dueling skills. That's worth something. Besides, you've been signing up for orb duty a lot lately, and that always counts, Imperius Curse or not."

"Oh, don't flatter me, Sirius Black."

He laughs. "No sucking up here. I thought you knew me better than that."

"I do," says Marlene, and suddenly things go all tense and heightened. "Sorry. We don't have to talk about this."

"Talk about what?"

"About… how well we know each other. What we used to be. We're not that anymore, and it took me a long time to be okay with that, but I'm okay with that now."

"Are you?" says Sirius. Marlene's breath catches. "I'm not saying we should get back together, but—you weren't just my girlfriend. You were one of my best friends. We shouldn't have to pretend that that wasn't real or didn't matter just because things are different now."

"Did it matter? Because a lot of what I told myself to get through it was that I could erase over the person I used to be and start fresh."

"You wouldn't have had to do that if it hadn't happened, would you have? Everything we do affects who we are, even the stuff we learn from that makes us change."

Marlene shakes her head and says, "Why are we even talking about this? I don't want to get into another fight with you. It's not worth it."

"We're not fighting. I'm just saying, it's okay. It's okay if you used to be someone or be involved in something that you're not proud of. I'm not proud of my role in it, either, but I wouldn't try to claim that you didn't have any meaning in my life. Saying that would be doing you a disservice."

"Even if part of the role I played was harmful?" says Marlene. "I'm not saying I was more wrong than you were, but… I was still wrong. There were so many times where I should have just walked away instead of punishing you over and over again."

"Well, I shouldn't have fallen into that cycle of breaking up and getting back together with you constantly."

"I should have ended it."

"I should have ended it," says Sirius.

"I should have forgiven you for Remus."

"I should have told you he had feelings for me as soon as I knew."

They look at each other, and then Marlene can't suppress a giggle that blows up into a full-blown laugh. They've stopped walking, and for a moment they just stand there laughing with each other. It's nice. "Can we be friends?" asks Marlene. "We never really did the friends thing properly. We were really just friends by association until fourth year, and then we jumped straight from having too much sex into trying to be in a romantic relationship, and jumped from that to hating each other."

"I never hated you. That one's all on you, my friend," snickers Sirius.

"Oh, shut up," says Marlene, but she's laughing, too.

Standing here talking to Sirius like this, it feels almost like they're back in sixth year, when things were going well between them for the very first time. She needs to remember that that's not what this is—they're not dating, and they never will ever again, even if they get back on speaking terms. Even if a part of Marlene still loves Sirius and a part of him loves her, that doesn't mean they can work. Too much has happened.

Hasn't it?

The rest of the afternoon passes in a blur of ribbing and laughter. Finally, when it's five minutes past seven, Marlene stops still outside Dervish and Banges and turns to face Sirius. "I've got to go. Mum must be wondering where I am."

"Yeah, of course. Look, it was… we should do this again soon. Is that okay? This was really nice."

"This was really nice," she says. "I just…" She looks around, as if scared of getting caught. "Can I get a free pass for you not to judge me for the next ten seconds?"

"I—yeah. Sure. But what—?"

She leans up, puts a hand on the back of his head, and kisses him on the cheek."Don't say anything," she says, leaning backward again, before he can speak. "I know we're never getting back together, and I know you don't feel that way about me anymore, but—just let me have this one memory, okay? Of the time we talked and got along and it was nice again."

"Marlene—"

"I'm running late," she says. "I have to go. Just—I love you, okay? I don't necessarily know in what way, but I love you."

She gives him a quick smile and Disapparates to the sidewalk leading up to Mum and Neil's house, but Sirius flies out of her head when she looks up and sees the Dark Mark floating above the house. "Oh, no," she says to herself, gasping, clapping a hand over her mouth. She wants to sink to her knees and scream, but there could be survivors still in the house, and she owes it to her family to go in there and save who she can.

She holds her wand aloft and runs up the pavement, up the stairs, and into the house.