Alice stirred about her food with disinterest, struggling to eat. She had been anxious all morning, from the moment she'd pulled her trunk down the staircase and said her final goodbye to her father before her lonely trip to King's Cross.
"Enjoy the rest of your year," her father managed to say to her, sitting, slouched over on the bottom of the stairs. His silver hair was a tangled mess and he stunk of bourbon – his poison. "Is Frank coming to pick you up?" he asked absentmindedly as Alice shrugged on her coat.
"No dad…" her stomach sank. "Frank and I broke up."
"Oh…" she could tell from the look which crossed his tired face that he had no recollection of being told such a thing. "Well…"
"I should really get going," Alice insisted, pulling her boats on now.
"Do you need me to take you to the station?" her father asked, clearing his throat. "Would that…help?" It was the closest he'd come to sounding like her dad in months. The man who had raised her, who'd enjoyed hot cocoa and books by the fire late at night. Her father had taught her how to ride a bike, he'd been the one who had comforted Alice the first time she had shown signs of magic, setting herself apart from the other kids she played with, in the neighbourhood. It's okay to be different, love, everybody has something. The guy sitting before her now was a stranger.
"It's fine dad," Alice assured him, "really. I'm used to it."
"Here," he said, rummaging about in the back pocket of his jeans before producing a crumply old bill. "Buy yourself something on the train."
"That's nice but…it's not the right currency…" Alice explained, somewhat embarrassed.
That was it – the last she saw of him before leaving for her final term at Hogwarts. Her father, sitting slumped over on the stairs, hopeless looking and alone. Alice could not help but feel ashamed at the relief she felt walking down the hill, away from the house she had grown to hate.
That shame grew into something much worse as the hours passed that day and she boarded the train to Hogwarts – leaving her father behind. Guilt took root in Alice and prevented her from feeling anything else all day, sitting on the train and later in the Great Hall at Hogwarts, a warm beef and barley stew before her though Alice had barely taken two bites.
"You have to eat something," Lily fretted. Alice looked at the redheaded witch, sitting beside her, and smiled thankfully.
"I'm just not hungry," she lied.
"Bollocks, you wouldn't even touch the pink coconut ice I bought you on the train," Remus jumped in, sitting across the table with Peter.
"Whatever is bothering you won't be fixed by starving yourself," Lily continued to smoother her.
"I'm not doing it on purpose!"
"Maybe we should all just give Alice some space," James interjected, sitting beside his girlfriend. "It's been a weird forty-eight hours—"
"I hate not having Mary and Emmeline here," Peter agreed glumly, taking a bite from his dinner roll.
"Where is Marlene?" added Remus. "She wasn't on the train."
"That was weird, wasn't it?" Sirius agreed, sitting on Alice's other side, and suddenly the whole group moved on to a new topic of conversation – Alice's full plate of food forgotten. She did her best to take a few more bites, appeasing Lily who nodded approvingly beside her, when there came a hush over the room, all heads turning towards the podium where Dumbledore stood at the head of the hall, before the professors' table.
"Good evening everyone and welcome back to Hogwarts." There followed a hesitant round of applause as many in the room were well aware of the events which had occurred in Diagon Alley the previous day and didn't feel very cheerful about anything. If they hadn't known someone present, they'd at least read about it in the paper that morning – a photo of the blown-out front of Alma's on the cover of The Daily Prophet.
"Of course, as we all know, just yesterday there was a tragic attack on Gringott's in Diagon Alley." Dumbledore's frank words drew the attention of the whole room – any whispers petering out. "We know that there are those who wish to do harm to our community and to our most vulnerable members." Alice watched as the Headmaster gripped the edges of the podium, steadying himself. "Know this," he spoke sternly, "there will be no tolerance for such behaviour in the corridors of Hogwarts and such acts of violence will be swiftly and harshly punished." Alice could not help but let her gaze drift towards the Slytherin table across the hall where certain students crossed their arms and glared at the podium.
"Now," Dumbledore clapped his hands together, smiling sheepishly. "Shall we have some pudding?" Suddenly the plates on the table vanished and everything was new, a fresh array of sweets arranged in the table's centre. After a brief pause, the room bustled with noise once more, Dumbledore returning to the head of the Professors' table.
"I think I'm going to go to the toilets," Alice said to Lily, rising from the table before she could be forced to eat any dessert.
"Do you want me to come?" her friend offered.
"I think I can handle the bathroom on my own. I have a feeling there aren't Death Eaters lurking behind the toilet seats."
"But if there are remember: flush first, think later," Sirius advised, winking at Alice. At the very least, his humour brought a smirk to her face.
Lily's concern was touching, to be honest, but Alice could not help it – once she was in a mood it was near impossible for her to break out of it. The only person who'd even been very good at getting her out of her head was Frank and he, of course, was not at dinner tonight (not that he would sit anywhere near Alice if he were).
The first-floor girl's toilets were just around the corner from the Great Hall – a dimly lit, low ceilinged space with three stalls. Alice entered the empty room, taking the last stall, only just locking it when the bathroom door opened once more.
"Was it scary?" Came a high pitched voice Alice did not recognize.
"Of course! I was petrified but…Frank is so strong and reliable, you know?"
"Oh, of course, everyone has eyed those arms." Alice froze, realizing now that it was Cecily Turner and one of her friends gossiping about the attack in Diagon Alley, having not a clue that Alice was the one in the occupied stall.
"So, you two are like, a thing then?" Cecily's friend inquired in her nasally tone.
"Oh, yes," Cecily insisted with more confidence than Alice might have expected, considering she had quite literally abandoned Frank to die yesterday. "He is totally over Alice."
"Well, aren't you lucky." Her friend replied with a giggle. "I'm heading back, are you coming?"
"You go ahead, I want to touch up my lippy," Cecily replied, Alice, waiting until she heard the bathroom door shut to make her appearance. Cecily was standing at the sinks, her face pressed up close to the mirror as she tried to perfect her lipstick. She jumped back in shock when she noticed Alice's reflection in the mirror behind her.
"Funny, hearing you talk about Frank protecting you yesterday," Alice said as she began to wash her hands beside a rather stunned looking Cecily. "I just have the funniest memory you know? Almost like I was the one who got him out of that building in time while you ran off to save your own ass."
Cecily's green eyes narrowed ragefully upon Alice, but she didn't care. It was the truth, was it not? She had cared enough to save Frank's life and Cecily was only interested in gossiping about having the strongest, bravest boyfriend around.
"I saw him this morning you know?" Cecily stated triumphantly, arms crossed against her checkered sweater. "He said he understood. In fact, he didn't even mention you."
Alice snickered. "You should ask him who saved his life."
"It doesn't really matter does it?" Cecily seethed; the look of pride vanished from her face. "You lost him. He's my boyfriend now."
"For now," Alice agreed, stepping away. Cecily looked ready to pull her down by the hair and fight dirty but she had no interest in that. Instead, she simply gave the Ravenclaw girl a final smirk, slipping out of the bathroom, her appetite suddenly returned.
The whole gang had gathered together in James' dorm room for an "emergency meeting," or so Sirius insisted upon referring to it as. Sirius and Remus were on the couch across the room, James and Lily cuddle together on top of James' bed, while Peter was curled up in the armchair.
"This is weird," Lily said to them for what felt like the hundredth time that day, "Marlene should be here."
"Did anyone hear from her?" Sirius asked. "After St. Mungo's?" everyone in the room shared a guilty look, shaking their heads. Not one of the boys had gone to check on Marlene in the hospital – not even James. While James had, understandably, been by Lily's side, she realized – with a sinking sense of guilt – how hard it must have been for her friend, being all alone.
"We would know," James shook his head, stuck in denial. "If something was really wrong with her, we would know." Lily could tell that her boyfriend had no interest in accepting that Marlene might actually be furious with the lot of them for forgetting to check-in - as friends were meant to do when one of them experienced a traumatic event. Instead of accepting responsibility, James would play defence until he was forced to admit that he had done wrong. Lily just hoped her boyfriend would hear Marlene out if she did appear at Hogwarts resentful with them all.
"I think um, she probably just needed a day," Sirius suggested. "She was pretty traumatized."
"Yeah but, it's Marlene, she's the strongest one out of all of us," James rebutted. Lily bit at her fingernails anxiously. If Marlene wasn't here right now it was because she was trying to send them a message.
James simply wrapped his arms around his girlfriend from behind and kissed her temple. "She's fine," he reassured her. "I bet you anything she's just with Henry."
"So, that's official then, is it?" Remus asked, yawning as he stretched his legs out before him.
"Seems so," James smiled approvingly.
"It's weird though isn't it?" Peter said. "Him working as a bartender at Donovan's all the sudden, after all these years?"
"Maybe he missed Hogwarts," Lily shrugged, offering Henry the benefit of the doubt.
"Wormtail's right," Sirius chirped in. "There is something kind of weird about the guy. He showed up out of nowhere and suddenly he's everywhere."
"I had no clue you two had such reservations," Remus's eyebrows rose. James, who'd previously been sitting rather still, cuddling Lily, drew away, crawling to the edge of the bed so he could face everyone in the room.
"There's something I haven't told you all," he announced suddenly. "Something that I wasn't supposed to overhear…" everyone seemed to lean towards him, ears perked up. "Henry isn't just working at a pub," he began to explain, "It's all a cover. He's part of the resistance. So are my parents, and Marlene's, so is Dorcas and Kingsley and soon…" James paused, looking tentatively about the room, "well, if we agree to it, then as soon as we graduate, we will be too."
"Are you certain?" Peter exclaimed, eyes widening with fear.
"There was a secret meeting at my house. the whole lot of them met in the dead of night to discuss the matter."
"And they said they planned to recruit us all?" Lily asked, James, looking over his shoulder at her to nod, biting his lip.
"That makes sense…" she nodded slowly, letting the news sink in. It was a hard truth to swallow - the fact that the first thing she would do as an adult was to join the war. She was already committed to it though, wasn't she? Whether she liked it or not. There was a timid knock on James' door which interrupted their whole conversation.
"Come in!" he shouted and in entered Marlene, face dropping when she realized there was a crowd.
"Oh," she said, pausing in the doorway.
"Are you okay?" Lily clambered off the bed, stepping towards her friend instinctively, desperate to fix whatever wrong had been done.
"Fine," Marlene insisted with a tight smile. "I um, I decided not to take the train," she explained. "I decided to come early instead, spend the day with Henry."
"That sounds nice." Marlene's blue eyes shifted about the room and suddenly she stepped back, withdrawing. "I just popped in to say hi." She spoke at James before abruptly adding, "I should head to bed."
Immediately she left, the door swinging shut behind her and Lily scurried to chase after her, the boys not saying a word.
Marlene was halfway down the hall when Lily caught up to her, slightly out of breath, the pair making for the stairwell.
"Mar…" Marlene said not a word, simply begin down the stairs, back towards the land with the connecting staircase to the girls' dormitories. "Please, if you're upset, just say it…"
"Why would I be upset?" Marlene shrugged, beginning up their stairs to their dorms, Lily following behind. "I mean, it's not as though this is the first time we've actually spoken since Diagon Alley." They reached the top of the stairs, Marlene's long legs carrying her briskly along the corridor as Lily scrambled to keep up.
"I'm sorry Mar, really," she exclaimed. "I was caught up in my own bullshit, in James, and my mum…"
Marlene paused abruptly, the two girls a few feet away from the seventh year's dormitory. She looked at Lily, eyebrows drawn in confusion. "Your mum?" Marlene asked. Lily's stomach clenched as she realized Marlene had no clue what she was talking about.
"She's sick," Lily admitted, adding, in a smaller voice, "…dying…"
Marlene's entire demeanour changed, her shoulders falling, face softening. "Oh, Lily…" she shook her head, "I'm so sorry and I've just been such a bitch—"
"Please, you have every right to be upset…" suddenly the girls were blabbering to one another – both apologizing to the other at once until a rather irritated sixth-year girl stuck her head out the door of her dorm room to ask them to quiet down. Sheepishly, they crept towards Lily's bedroom, settling down for in for a long-overdue chat.
"It's not really you that I'm upset with," Marlene confessed, cheeks turning red as she admitted her feelings to Lily. "James, he…he didn't even ask if I was okay…"
"I understand why you might resent me for that." How could she not? Lily had caused a wedge between two very good friends – a pair who had been nearly inseparable before she started dating James.
"I don't resent you," Marlene shook her head. "James doesn't see me these days. Everything is about him."
"You should tell him that you feel this way," Lily told her. She knew her boyfriend well enough to know that he would be devastated if he realized the pain that he was causing his closest friend. He might feel defensive when first confronted with the truth but Lily knew, in the end, he would choose his friends over anything.
"I know," Marlene sighed heavily. "I was planning to tonight."
"You'll find the right time," Lily reassured her reaching for Marlene's hands to squeeze. "He can be a stubborn git sometimes but at the end of the day, he loves you to death."
"I know," Marlene admitted, finally cracking a smile.
"Now come on, tell me all about your afternoon with Henry," Lily instructed her, getting comfortable amongst her pillows. "Tell me something juicy."
Mary had slept for twenty-four hours following the attack in Diagon Alley. She awoke the following day, sometime in the morning, lying in a hospital bed in St. Mungo's, the curtains drawn so that she could only hear the distant sound of footsteps and voices signalling life beyond her bed. Not until a Healer – Myra – came to check on her did Mary learn that she had three broken ribs, a serious concussion and massive internal bleeding (all of which had led to the need for the twenty-four-hour coma).
"You're doing much better now," Myra assured her, tucking a piece of grey hair behind her ear as she examined Mary. "You'll have to stay under observation for another day at least, we want to make sure the potions we're giving you are doing their job." Mary looked apprehensively towards the collection of vials on her bedside table.
"Where is Emmeline?" that was the only thing she really cared about.
"She's okay," Myra assured her. "She's in a room down the hall. Your friend got beat up pretty good but she'll live. You both will. You should be grateful."
"Yeah," Mary nodded, swallowing back a lump in her throat. Grateful...somehow she could not muster up the feeling within her. She was lying in a hospital bed because there were those who wanted to see witches and wizards like Mary - anyone outside the "norm" - obliterated. How could she feel grateful when the attack she'd survived was simply a reminder of an increasingly dangerous situation? No, gratitude was the opposite of what Mary felt, lying injured and alone, not a family member in sight, no one worried about her whereabouts. These were the thoughts running through her heard as she lay in bed, aching, gagging on the potions she was forced to drink every few hours, all alone.
Mary didn't know what time it was when the curtain around her bed was drawn back once more though this time it was not a Healer who entered but a nervous-looking, lanky, ginger-haired boy.
"Reg?" Mary rubbed her eyes; certain she was dreaming. "Aren't you supposed to be on the train back to Hogwarts?"
"I didn't get on it," he explained. "I heard about what happened, that you were stuck here in St. Mungo's and…" he was turning bright pink, the colour rising from his neck. "Truth be told I've been sitting downstairs in the waiting room all day," he told her. "They wouldn't let me come see you until now because I'm not family…"
"You've been waiting here all day for me?" It was bloody unbelievable. Here Mary had been, laying around, feeling sorry for herself, certain there was not a soul in the world who would care if she hadn't made it out of Alma's alive, and Reg had been sitting downstairs all day, waiting for the opportunity just to see her.
"I can't believe you skipped the train…" Mary felt like an idiot, tears building behind her big brown eyes. Reg shrugged, smiling.
"Of course, I did."
"Can you come here?" Mary asked, shifting over in her small bed. Reg sat awkwardly beside her but Mary didn't leave it up to him. She drew his face towards her own, lips touching, and held him close.
"Thank you," she whispered, her face nuzzling in his neck. "Thank you for being here."
"I would do pretty much anything for you Mary." He was running his fingers through her unwashed hair. Mary was certain she looked awful – she'd been lying in a hospital bed unconscious for a whole day – but if she did, Reg showed no signs of caring. He stared at her as though she were the most beautiful girl in the world.
Technically, as a visitor and not family, he was only allowed to stay for an hour but once their time was up Mary wouldn't let him leave. It was the first moment of comfort she'd had all day, lying there in bed with Reg, her head rested on his chest as she forced him to tell her stories about his holiday with his family to distract her from her present reality.
"Don't let me fall asleep," Mary mumbled at one point, struggling to keep her eyes open. Reg laughed.
"Why?"
"When I wake up, you'll be gone," she told him, "and I'll be stuck here all alone again." She hated it – the unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach she got being trapped in a hospital bed.
"Don't you get it, Mary?" Reg whispered to her, kissing the top of her head. "You're never going to be alone again."
Sirius couldn't sleep. In fact, he'd been restless all day, ever since the train had departed from King's Cross station without Marlene on board and he had known, without a doubt, that her absence was his fault. He couldn't explain why he did the things he did, not even to himself. It had been selfish – shagging Emmeline at the party – but he'd done it anyway. It was cruel, stringing Marlene along when he knew he was in no position to ever fulfil his promises to her. Still, he could not help himself, and round and round he went, wreaking havoc.
You will never be anything but trouble – that is what his mother had always told him. Sirius brought chaos with him wherever he went, a fact he had long resented about himself. It was hard not to think, lying there wide awake, wracked with guilt, that everyone would simply be better off if he just disappeared.
Tired of listening to the sound of his roommates' snores, and the circling of his thoughts, Sirius threw back the covers, pulled on a discarded pair of jeans he'd left under his bed, and made down for the common room, a textbook tucked under one arm. If he wasn't going to sleep it seemed reasonable, he try to get some work done.
"Oh," Sirius startled, finding someone else already downstairs when he reached the bottom of the staircase. Marlene looked up from the couch she was curled up on, reading a book. She simply stared at him, blanked faced, unreadable.
"I'm sorry," Sirius blurted out, not quite certain what it was he was apologizing for. "For everything."
"Everything?" Marlene's eyebrows rose.
"I'm a dick," he sighed, shoulders falling. "Everything you said at the New Year's party…you were right. I've never been fair, never honest. You always deserved better." He didn't expect any response in return – Sirius didn't really think he deserved one – but Marlene stopped him before he could turn around.
"Why Emmeline?" she asked, eyes narrowed.
"We were both drunk and lonely…" Sirius felt dirty just speaking about it, knowing where Emmeline lay now. "It was a mistake. For both of us."
"Do you know that Emmeline feels that way?" Marlene demanded, radiating fury. "Did you ever ask, or do you just treat every woman you fuck as disposable?" The sharpness of her words caught him off guard, Sirius standing there, gawking like a total idiot.
"I wouldn't be standing here if you were disposable."
"You said it yourself – I was just a shag."
"Look, I'm no good, okay? Even if we'd given it a decent shot, I'd ruin it." Marlene rolled her eyes, turning her head away. "I don't want you to hate me," he went on, putting his foot in his mouth. "You've got every right to, I understand…"
"I don't hate you, Sirius." She sighed, rising from the couch, stepping towards the staircase slowly. "Honestly. I'd rather we just put this whole thing in our past."
"Me too." That was not entirely true.
"I'm giving it a real go with Henry," she told him. "That's why he knows everything about us. I want to start things off honestly."
"Okay," Sirius nodded, struggling to hide his disdain for the whole thing.
"No one else needs to know," Marlene promised, finally offering her hand to Sirius in a gesture of truce. "Friends?"
"Friends," he agreed. Sirius took Marlene's hand, intending simply to shake it, but something within compelled him to pull her towards his chest instead, the two of them embracing. Truthfully, all he had wanted to do since finding Marlene on the floor of Alma's was hold her.
"Thank you," Marlene said to him as they drew apart.
"For what?"
"For actually caring about me."
"I've got your back," Sirius shrugged as she stepped past him, up the staircase.
"And I yours," she replied with a smile, Sirius watching until she had disappeared around the bend, wishing he could relive that hug for the rest of the night.
