DECEMBER 1979
Marlene tapped her fingers anxiously against the desk. Her lips were pursed in concentration, her vision only seeing the jumbled thoughts that were racing through her mind. She hadn't seen Evan since the Leaky Cauldron, but she couldn't rid her mind of his blank, callous expression. But that expression, she reminded herself, was not the problem. More important was the predicament of being in love with a Death Eater.
Marlene had panicked the first time she had admitted this to herself. After Caradoc had left her at the door to her family home – running an embarrassed hand through his hair, smiling lopsidedly and quietly apologising for the scene he had made in the pub –, Marlene had spent close to an hour pacing the kitchen. She thought about Evan, about how desperately she wanted to speak to him. How only he could relate to this fragmentation of loyalties, this plaguing guilt. Her skin crawled with fear as she recalled the feeling of being caught between what was right and what she couldn't control: Caradoc and Evan.
A small voice in her head tried, in vain, to remind her of the terrible things Evan had done, and what he was capable of. And a larger, more dominant voice replied. I can't help it, it said. I love him.
"Um – excuse me? Dear, are you quite alright?" A concerned voice had Marlene lurching back to the present. Her chin slipped from her elbow and she jerked back into concentration.
"Oh! Oh – I do apologise," said Marlene hurriedly, jumping to her feet and smoothing down her light blue Welcome Witch robes. A squat woman with mousy hair and a kind face was watching her anxiously. She had one hand on the shoulder of a little boy whose face had a greenish-tinge. "What can I help you with?"
"It's my son," the woman said. She presented the young boy's hand to Marlene, where a purple and green scratch was appearing between his fingers. "You don't think it's anything serious, do you? I mean, the book said – " Suddenly, the little boy sneezed, emitting sparks from his nose.
"You need the second floor," Marlene said urgently as she scribbled something down onto a slip of paper before passing it to the mother. She pointed out the staircase at the opposite end of St. Mungos' reception room. "Take this and give it to the first Healer you see."
Aghast, the woman nodded and hurried her son towards the stairs.
Marlene exhaled deeply and flopped back into her seat. The minutes ticked by. She allowed her eyes to lazily sweep the reception room before they fell out of focus. Once more, she tapped her fingers anxiously against the desk.
The anxiety followed her home. Marlene paced the living room, books littered across the sofa and the radio humming softly in the background – vain attempts at distraction that offered little solace for her racing mind. She considered apparating to see him, but ruled out the thought instantly. There were a lot of unsavoury visitors that Evan was likely to entertain, and Marlene did not want to hedge her bets with any of them.
Marlene blew a frustrated breath from her lips before charging to the hallway and grabbing her cloak from beside the front door. She threw it on and left her house, slamming the door behind her and stepping into the dark night. Marlene only made it a few steps before she noticed a huddled mass crouching on her porch. Her heart jolted with fear. Quickly, she ignited her wand and, as the light melted away the darkness, Marlene found Evan leaning against the side of her house, his knees pulled to his chest and his eyes closed. His lips sagged with the weight of unconsciousness; he was breathing deeply, seemingly unfazed by the cold that materialised itself in small clouds of vapour with each exhale. He was sleeping.
Crouching to his level, Marlene inspected him closer with her wand. He was shivering involuntarily. She placed a hand against his cheek and felt ice. "Evan," she murmured, rubbing her thumb against his skin. "Wake up." He stirred hazily, his eyes forming slits against the brightness of Marlene's wand. She extinguished it stowed it in her robes. Evan blinked away the sleep and let his eyes rake over her, seeking her beneath the shroud of darkness.
"Hi," he whispered. There was alcohol on his breath.
Marlene slipped an arm beneath his shoulder and, obediently, Evan clambered to his feet. She helped him through the threshold of her home and led him into the living room, steering him onto the couch.
"Incendio," she whispered, brandishing her wand at the prepared fireplace. Flames sprang to life, hungrily licking the stacks of firewood. Marlene turned back to Evan and crouched down in front of him. "You're freezing."
Evan shrugged, avoiding her eye. He was still shivering.
His cloak sat heavily upon his shoulders. "You're soaking wet," she said, slight admonishment in her voice. Evan simply looked at the fire. "Give me your cloak." There was a moment where Marlene thought he was going to argue; but, then, he slipped it from his shoulders and handed it over. With a complicated wave of her wand, hot air began streaming onto the sodden cloak, and steam rose from it in lazy spirals. Once it was dry, Marlene hung it over the back of the armchair and turned her attention back to Evan. His eyes remained steadfastly fastened on the flames.
Beneath his cloak, Evan was wearing a black shirt and jeans. Muggle clothes. Marlene frowned. She very rarely saw Evan in Muggle clothes. And they were ripped.
She sat beside him on the sofa. "What's going on?" He ignored her.
"Evan," she said. She placed a hand on each of his cheek and manoeuvred his face so that he had no choice but to look at her. He complied willingly, as if all the fight had left him. She could smell the alcohol on his breath and his eyes were unfocused, hazy. "You're drunk."
"So what if I am?" he murmured as he clumsily batted at her hands.
"You can't keep doing this, Evan," she said, her voice growing louder with the sort of scared anger that only loved ones can summon. "You can't just drink whenever something gets difficult. You're going to kill yourself."
He looked at her with pain in his eyes. "I can't – I – I have to," he mumbled. He gave a sharp shake of his head as if ridding a painful memory, before his head fell into his hand. "I've – I can't – "
Evan raked a hand across his face and, as he did so, she noticed a raw and bloody mess streaked across his knuckles. "What did you do?" she gasped, grabbing his wrist and inspecting the damage.
He smiled humourlessly before speaking with slurred words. "I might have done some damage to your front porch. I – I was angry. I couldn't be like that around you, so I waited outside. And – "
"And then you fell asleep," Marlene guessed. Evan nodded. Marlene summoned a rag and a bowl of water from the kitchen and, gently, she cleaned Evan's wound before bandaging it. All the while, Evan stared emptily and unflinchingly into the fire.
"Evan," she said gently, unable to keep the concern from her voice. "What happened?"
He looked desperately at Marlene. "He – He wanted us to – "
"Who, Evan?"
"The – the Dark Lord."
Marlene pressed her lips together, flooded with horror. What had he done? "What happened?"
Evan stared hollowly into the fire. "Muggles – there was a bookshop that sold books on witchcraft and he – we – " Evan shuddered. "We burnt it."
Marlene's hands jumped to her lips. She leapt to her feet and backed away from the sofa. "How many?" she whispered.
Frenziedly, clumsily, he climbed to his own feet, as if that would somehow make the information easier for Marlene to digest. He looked at her with wide eyes.
"How many, Evan?"
"Four." She sucked a breath in between her teeth, her body trembling. He took a step towards her and Marlene lurched backwards.
"Don't." Her voice was hard, betraying none of the repulsion, the fear, the anger that coursed through her veins. "Did you cast it?" She demanded. "Did you cast the spell?"
"Does it matter?" he retorted brusquely. "I stood there and did nothing. I watched as they died and those with me laughed. They laughed, Marlene." All the colour drained from his face, his eyes glossing over as he stared unfocusedly over her shoulder. "The screams – " He stopped suddenly, once more jerking his head dismissively. And then he collapsed. Evan fell to his knees onto the carpeted floor, his head buried in his arms, his shoulders shaking. As she watched him crumble, the repulsion that shielded her heart began to melt.
But she could not do this anymore.
"I can't be there for you, Evan," she whispered. "I can't be waiting for you to come home and tell me you've murdered someone." She fell to her knees beside him. "This is not you. You are not a killer." Marlene placed a hand under his chin and raised it. "But I can't wait around for you to realise that."
As the gravity of her words sunk in, the colour drained from Evan's face. And then he sighed. "I can't ask you to," he murmured. He covered her hand with his own and dragged his lips across her palm. Fire burned where he touched her. With tremendous willpower, Marlene withdrew her hand. She reached for her wand and, moments later, a blanket and a pillow came hurtling from upstairs and landed heavily on the sofa. An empty glass on the coffee table filled itself with water. She took Evan's wand so that he couldn't apparate in his delicate state.
"Good night, Evan." Marlene did not look back as she climbed the stairs.
Once in bed, Marlene tossed and turned. Every time she closed her eyes, the darkness was filled with the roar of flames and a cackle of mirth. And then they would snap open, and she would lie awake in the darkness, her heart pounding. The thought of Evan, lying metres below her, filled her with the strangest paradox of emotions. How could she be in love with a man who, hours earlier, had watched innocent people die? Did that make her a monster, too?
She buried her head into her pillow in order to soak up the tears.
What felt like hours later – or what merely could have been minutes – Marlene was tiptoeing downstairs. She hovered on the last step, watching the gentle rise and fall of Evan's chest beneath the blanket. The stair creaked beneath her feet and Evan shifted. He had not slept either. Evan struggled to a sitting position and cocked his head questioningly.
"You promised me you'd never hurt me. How much are you willing to keep that promise?" Marlene kept her eyes trained on his tired faced, and not on the way the dying embers threw his half-naked body into definition. "Because, if you're being truly honest, not hurting me means not hurting anyone else."
"I can't leave, Marlene. They'd kill me, and then they'd kill you."
"They can try."
Evan blew out an exasperated sigh, so rough that it almost sounded like a growl. "You don't know what they're capable of."
"Don't treat me like a child, Evan," she retorted angrily. "I know exactly what they're capable of. They've threatened my friends. They've torn their families apart. And they murdered my parents – or did you forget about that? I know exactly what they're capable of, Evan, because it has been me and my friends that have suffered it."
"I know." His voice was hoarse.
"You know? That's it? Are you kidding me, Evan?" she demanded, her fist angrily clenching the bannister. "If you care that much about keeping yourself safe, then I suggest you get the hell out of here before someone catches you."
Anger flared to life in Evan's eyes. When he spoke, his voice trembled with barely contained fury, quiet and dangerous. "I will not let you think for one minute that I care about protecting myself."
Then the anger dissipated. Evan dragged a palm across his face, still shaking. Then he shrugged the blankets off his knees and rose slightly unsteadily to his feet. There was deliberate slowness in the way he approached her, almost as if he was seeking permission from her body language. She froze, one hand on the bannister, watching his steady advance.
"I am so sorry," he whispered. He closed the gap between them, hovering a step below her, and pushed a lock of hair from Marlene's downcast eyes.
Marlene took a step backwards, feeling for the incline of the step with her heel. Evan's hand fell to his side and curled into a fist. For a moment Marlene thought he might punch something. But it wasn't anger in his eyes that she saw; it was despair.
Hesitantly, she looked at him, and then she made up her mind.
"Will you come upstairs?" she whispered faintly. "Not for – I just – I don't want to sleep alone." Evan nodded.
Moments later, Marlene collapsed into bed, exhaustion pulling at her limbs. Evan slipped in beside her, keeping a respectful distance. The scent of alcohol had disappeared and now he smelled like fresh air and soap, and his body heat saturated her sheets like a warm bath.
"I haven't forgiven you, Evan," she whispered through closed eyes, and she felt him tense beside her. "Not yet. I want you to make me believe you. And I don't want you to go back to them."
She opened her eyes. Evan was staring at her, his lips pressed together. But he said nothing.
Eloise shifted her weight and rolled over, so that she wouldn't be able to see his face, so she wouldn't be tempted to close the gap between them and be drawn into his embrace. With the warmth of his body behind her, the smell of him on her sheets, Eloise fell asleep within minutes.
Light trickled through a gap in the curtains, falling vexingly across Marlene's eyes. She groaned and stirred, eyelids fluttering in protest against the break of day. And then she felt something stir beside her, and the memory of the night before came flooding back. She lay still, willing it to have been a dream. But it was not a dream. Today, four lots of families would awake with the crushing and debilitating discovery of their loss. And there were people, people that called themselves friends of Evan's, that celebrated their loss.
When Marlene went downstairs, she found Evan at the kitchen table, his head in his hands. He stirred when she leant in the doorway and looked at her through dark-ringed and bloodshot eyes. "Hi," he said hoarsely.
"Hi," she repeated.
"I would have left, but you took my wand."
"You would have died if you had apparated. I was trying to help."
He smiled faintly. "I know."
Something so quiet and so tense hovered overhead, like a weight trying to push shoulders underwater. Words and feeling and curses hovered on both of their lips. What could not be conveyed in words was attempted through eyes full of desperation and hopelessness.
"I can mend your shirt," she said, holding out one hand.
Evan glanced towards his torso and eyed the shredded shoulder of his shirt. He shrugged and pulled it off, passing it to Marlene. She stared brazenly at his bared torso and the way his biceps curved, the broadness of his shoulders. Then she looked away.
"Your wand is upstairs on the chest of drawers," she said quietly. "This will only take a second." She did not look at him as she took the seat opposite. He paused, inhaling as if he was about to speak. And then he blew out a sigh and left the room. As Marlene heard his footsteps on the stairs, her shoulders racked with a silent sob. She composed herself quickly, in case he returned, and spread his shirt across the table.
As she began to mend the damage, there was a knock at her back door.
Marlene snatched at the shirt and balled it into her fist. Her eyes flashed to the living room, where a blanket and pillow were folded neatly on the couch. If she just stayed quiet, whoever it was might just leave…
"Marlene?" a muffled voice said through the door. And, then, the sound of a key turning in a lock echoed painfully throughout the silent kitchen. Marlene was frozen in place as the door peeped open and Dorcas stepped through.
"The key works!" she said brightly, holding up a copy. How could Marlene have been so stupid? Each Order member had created a copy of their house key and swapped it with another, so that they could exhibit a "safety in pairs" approach. Marlene remained motionless, a stunned expression across her face. What was she going to do? Would Evan hear the commotion and stay upstairs?
"Dorcas!" Marlene said, unable to mask the surprise in her voice. Dorcas looked at her with slight concern in her eyes.
"Are you okay, Marlene? You look – you look a little pale."
Marlene shook her head and plastered a smile across her lips. "Sorry, I was in a completely different place and you startled me, is all."
"Oh, I'm sorry. We should have a code word, or something. So you know it's me."
Marlene forced a chuckle. "That's not a bad idea."
Without realising it, Marlene was tapping the table anxiously with her fingertips. In her other hand, below the table, Marlene held Evan's shirt in an iron grip. Dorcas raised her eyebrows slightly at her friend's jumpy demeanour but said nothing. "I know you don't start work until twelve," Dorcas continued, breezing over the obvious discomfort. "But I thought we could get lunch beforehand. Maybe we could – " Dorcas stopped suddenly as footsteps sounded on the stairs, pounding one at a time, as heavy as the beating of Marlene's heart. Confusion pinched at Dorcas' eyebrows. "Is someone here?" she whispered.
All Marlene could do is gape at her friend. And then Evan came through the door.
A tense moment can stretch out for what seems like an eternity. In reality, one knows that it comes and goes as quickly as any other moment. But the brain, kicks into overdrive, does everything it possibly can to assess the gravity of the moment, and that process seems to last forever.
Wearing just a pair of jeans, Evan Rosier pushed open the kitchen door and stepped in. At first, his eyes did not notice the blonde, standing inconspicuously at the threshold of the house. Instead his eyes found Marlene's, whose were wide with horror and disbelief. A shuddery gasp from the corner of the room alerted him to the intruder. Dorcas Meadows threw her hands over her mouth and leapt backwards, colliding with a cabinet. The mug that shattered as a result seemed inconsequential compared to the deafening silence that filled the room.
"What is he doing here?" she cried shrilly. Her eyes were focused unwaveringly on Evan, whose face had developed that hard mask of callousness. She eyed the wand he was holding loosely at the end of his fingers, and then his bare torso, before looking wildly between the two, desperately searching for some kind of explanation.
"Listen," Marlene said pleadingly, taking a few desperate steps towards her friend. Her heart felt like it was going to burst in her chest. "I can't – I can't explain this easily, but you have to calm down." Dorcas' hand was shaking so violently it was a miracle she hadn't dropped the key. "Can you just sit down?"
"Marlene, I need to go," said Evan quietly.
"No!" said Marlene, jumping to her feet and turning on him. "You are not using this as an excuse to disappear again. Both of you – sit down."
Evan glared at Marlene, his eyes darting between her and Dorcas with barely concealed frustration. He strode fully into the kitchen and grasped Marlene by the shoulders, learning forward to murmur into her ear. "No one can know, Marlene. It's too dangerous."
"It's too late for that now," she said in a small voice, looking imploringly into his dark eyes.
Marlene turned to face Dorcas, forcing Evan's hands to drop uselessly to his side, to see her face ashen and her eyes bright with tears. "I don't believe it." Her voice was barely a whisper. "Him, Marlene? He is a brute. An absolute brute." She spoke about him as if he wasn't in the room, as if he was so beyond repair that he had no feelings to hurt anymore.
"I don't have time for this." Evan's voice was as hard as nails, but his eyes betrayed something that Marlene had come to recognise as pain.
Marlene ignored him and took a step towards Dorcas. Then, defeated, she blew out a sigh. Marlene wanted more than anything for Dorcas to see Evan through her own eyes, to know what she knew. But how was that possible, when even Marlene didn't know how to look at him?
"Maybe you should go, Evan." She turned to him, to see his arms folded across his bare chest and his expression shaped by bitterness. Only then did Marlene realise she was still gripping tightly to his recently mended t-shirt. She handed it to him and he pulled it swiftly over his head.
"Fine." He summoned his cloak from the living room and shrugged into it. Then he strode into the middle of the kitchen, pausing momentarily beside Marlene. He stared down at her, a plethora of emotions and unsaid words blazing in his eyes. "If she tells anyone, they'll come after you." His voice was low, as if he was trying to steal a moment of privacy despite Dorcas' presence, but there was desperation in his tone. "I'm not going to stand by and let that happen."
"Don't, then," she pleaded. "Don't go back."
Evan's smile was disfigured by sadness. "I'll see what I can do."
The lie rang in Marlene's ears as he strode across the room and exited using the back door. It broke Marlene's heart to see Dorcas cringe and shuffle backwards as he passed. He didn't look back as he disappeared through the door and snapped it shut behind him.
There was a moment of deafening silence. Unable to stand under the weight of the revelation from the night before, combined with the crushing accusation in Dorcas's eyes, Marlene collapsed into a chair at the breakfast table. "I'm trying my hardest to find a way to explain this to you, Doe," she said softly, her voice muffled by the hands pressed to her face. "But there's no explanation for it."
Marlene felt rather than saw Dorcas fall into the chair beside her. "You love him." It wasn't an accusation, or even a press for information; it was simply a statement. When Marlene raised her face, it was streaked with tears. Then, slowly, she nodded.
"You've loved him since Hogwarts." Another statement.
To her own surprise, Marlene gave another slow nod. Then she shook her head and made a guttural noise of protestation, angrily wiping at her cheeks. "I don't know, Doe! I have no idea what I'm feeling. I can't – my head is so warped. I don't trust anything I'm thinking or feeling because if I follow it – if I trust what's inside me, then what does that make me?"
Angry tears pricked at Marlene's eyes like needles and she felt the grief and the disgust and the confusion explode out of her in a torrent of hysteria. "He stood by and watched them die, and what did I do? Did I tell him to get the hell out of my house and to never come near me again? Of course I didn't, because I'm weak and I can't bear the thought of never seeing him again."
Dorcas opened her mouth to speak but Marlene continued, as if stopping now would destroy her resolve. The words continued to tumble out as if they were filling her mouth and throat and drowning her, and she needed to do everything she could to stay afloat. "He killed Anthony, did you know that? He knew Anthony was going to die and instead of doing anything about it, he saved me. He chose my life over Anthony's and I hate him for it. He's selfish and he's mean and I'm sick of feeling responsible for everything he does, but at the same time I know he's better than that. He has to be good. He has to be."
With a moan of despair, Marlene dropped her head onto to the table and was racked with violent, unrelenting sobs. The tears pooled on the table, soaking her already tear-stained skin. After a moment, Marlene felt Dorcas's hand slip into her own, the skin soft and cold. Her other hand slid around Marlene's shoulder, without a word.
They sat like that for a very long time.