Diary Of A Mad Man,
Chapter 9, Killing A Friend
Rabastan steered Marlene to the sofa while Bella went into the apartment's too small kitchen to pour four glasses of wine. Rodolphus found himself pacing about as they waited for her and the wine. Before long she reentered with four goblets floating ahead of her. She'd chosen the skull wine goblets. A skeletal arm and hand served as the stem with the hand holding the skull shaped bowl bit of the glass. Plucking one of the goblets from the air for herself, she floated the others to Rodolphus, Rabastan and Marlene. Bellatrix settled herself on the loveseat and Rodolphus joined her.
Marlene drained half of her glass in one long swallow then sighed. "Okay. So I hope you believe me, considering you remember bloody nothing," she began resentfully. She gave a little laugh. "Gods, I'm nervous. I haven't been this nervous since the first time I approached the lot of you back in the late seventies. The first conversation with Regulus and Kreacher was the hardest." She paused to polish off her wine.
"I attended Hogwarts in Regulus's year. I was in Ravenclaw house. During one dreary pointless Divinations lesson I accidentally discovered that I have a psychic gift in the area of scrying. It was when we had to practice with crystal balls. No one in the class expected anything of it, because that class is always rubbish, but when I was holding the ball and gazing into it, I actually started seeing things. Things that I knew I couldn't be making up out of sheer boredom. I saw Regulus dying in that lake.
I saw that it was over what Voldemort tried to do to Kreacher. So of course I had to at least try to warn them." She made a face, glancing down at her empty wine glass. "I'm going to need some more of this." Bellatrix chuckled and rose, plucking the glass from Marlene's hand. Rod hated the story to be interrupted, but he understood the need for more liquid soothing when speaking of something difficult so remained silent. No one spoke while Bellatrix was out of the room refilling Marlene's wine. As they waited, Marlene nervously plucked at the sides of her skirt, gaze darting from Rabastan to Rodolphus before dropping to her lap. Rabastan opened his mouth a few times as if to speak, but shut it again instead. Such behavior may have struck Rod as weird, but this entire situation was weird, so in that, it fit. When Bella returned, Marlene rose to take her glass with a grateful smile. "Thanks."
Bella nodded. "Don't mention it." She resumed her seat beside Rodolphus, and Marlene continued her story after a fortifying sip.
"I wasn't looking forward to approaching Regulus with my discovery for several reasons. He and I never really spoke much, and I always found him to be a bit of a stuffy stuck up git. I figured he'd probably be rude to me, but I also believe that chronic rudeness is no reason that someone should die. I was quite nervous, though, suspecting he wouldn't believe me... That he wouldn't want to believe me considering all it would cost him to do so. I had to think of something to make him believe me, so I started off by saying that I'd seen something in divinations that he needed to know. Then I said that it sort of connected to how close he was with the elf." She smirked.
"That got his attention. At first he was certain Sirius had paid me to prank him, but after I assured him that I tended to avoid Sirius even more than I avoided him, he decided to listen, if tentatively. I said that as it involved Kreacher, perhaps I should speak to them both and he agreed to call Kreacher to him after classes were over so we could all talk. We decided to meet at the lake where we could be private. Of course he and Kreacher were suspicious on principle, but I was able to give them enough information that I could not have known so they eventually believed me."She paused to take another sip of wine.
Having settled into the rhythm of her story uninterrupted seemed to have relaxed her nerves somewhat. "Of course they were upset and distressed, unwilling to believe the worst of their precious Dark Lord, but I was able to give them enough personal information about themselves to be believed in spite of that. They decided between themselves that the next step should be sharing the news with family, beginning with Regulus's parents, then you lot." She looked at them expectantly as if they'd remember. The situation was uncomfortable for some reason that Rod could not quite explain. Watching her face tighten, then her expression fall made him just not want to be there. He truly didn't ever have to be exposed to such social discomforts and he liked it that way. He'd be glad when this particular social discomfort was bloody over. "Sorry, I shouldn't expect you to remember," Marlene said. She shrugged and glanced down at her wine, but continued without taking another sip.
"That's when I met you lot. Regulus invited me to his over the winter holidays. It was just before the new year. There was dinner and a lot of drinks. My dad ended up staying to chat with Orion, which really freaked me out. I didn't want my family involved in the madness. The more they knew of anything surrounding Voldemort, the more danger they'd be in. I hadn't even told my parents about my newly discovered psychic gift. Only Mildred knew, because I had to tell someone and Mills knows how to keep things to herself when told to do so."
"Wish we could say the same for Rabastan," Bellatrix said with an eye roll.
Marlene chuckled, giving Rabastan a fond smile that he returned hesitantly. For his part, Rod still felt extremely disconcerted. He'd have liked to discuss this with Bellatrix and Rabastan to see if they shared the same odd feeling, but considering the current circumstances, they weren't about to have a private conversation at the moment, so his feelings would, as usual, have to stay in their bottle. A shame when he was finally in the mood to pour them out, he thought with an inner smile of self-deprecating amusement.
"Rod, it was you who talked me down when I excused myself to go out into the hall in order to have my own personal melt down," Marlene said, turning that fond smile, now tinged with sadness on Rodolphus. "You understood my wish to protect my parents, and when I sort of allowed too much shit to slip in my upset, you didn't hex me into oblivion when I more than hinted that your Dark Lord was going to screw your family over according to my psychic gifts.
You calmed me down just by being calm and stoic. Weird as it may sound, you had an oddly stabilizing effect on me, and I'll never forget that. I was able to go back into the dining room, get my dad out and home, and tell everyone what I'd seen. I even brought my crystal ball in case anyone wanted me to prove my abilities by looking for anything else. I'd bought myself a nice crystal ball after discovering I could use it, and for a long time I kept it with me all the time... Just in case." She shrugged and her expression shadowed again. "Now I hate to look into it. Sometimes I still do but, for a long time I couldn't believe what I saw. I am getting ahead of myself, though, sorry." She paused to run the back of a hand over her eyes as she let out a shaky sigh. "Everyone believed me and set to work sorting a way to avoid the situation. We had a plan sorted, and Dumbledore even taught us all mind blocking charms."
"Dumbledore," Bellatrix practically squawked.
"Yeah, I know, but we thought if anyone could help it'd be him. Well I thought, and you all decided that you had no better options," Marlene said. So he helped, because you all felt you were too far in to get out safely. Dumbledore wanted you to spy and you weren't so into that for various reasons, but you hadn't closed the door yet. By then I should say that Rabbit and I were a casual thing. I sort of did that. It was a stress reaction I suppose. Rabbit seemed like a lot of fun, and I felt like I deserved some fun. I was always studious and responsible, not in the prat like way, just doing my own thing, but I wanted a bit of fun, you know in case we all got killed or something." She sighed before downing her glass of wine. Rodolphus didn't miss the fact that she avoided looking at Rabastan.
"I decided to join Dumbledore's Army because I needed to know I was doing something to keep you all safe. I guess we'd all gotten close. You three treated me like I was one of you and it meant a lot even if I wished it didn't because Rabbit and I were both trying to keep it casual. Things were too dangerous to involve emotions at that point in time and we really tried." She sighed, then bent to place her glass carefully on the floor so that she could drop her face into her hands.
"You aren't going to cry are you? " The words left Rodolphus before he realized they were going to, but he really didn't want to deal with her crying. He hated it when Bella did that, and he knew her. He had no idea what to do with this strange woman, and the last thing he wanted to struggle through sorting was her upset. "You can just punch Rab again if you really need to do something," he added helpfully. If she cried, he'd just make Bella deal, he decided firmly to himself. Yeah, that was it.
"Hey," Rabastan shouted.
"I'm not going to cry... Or to hit anyone," Marlene said dully. "Just shut up, the both of you." When they did, she continued. "It got really weird when Regulus still ended up vanished even after all my warnings. I couldn't see how, and when I sought answers from my perhaps not so trusty crystal ball, what I saw made no sense, so I knew I had to be wrong. If Regulus lived, he certainly wouldn't have abandoned Kreacher. I told you lot, and you agreed. But it didn't matter. And worse than that, All of you got really dreadful headaches whenever I brought up Voldemort or Regulus or Orion, who disappeared around the same time.
You were all so odd about it, and I was uncomfortable, so just left it alone. I figured something had happened, but I had no idea what to do about it. When I went to Dumbledore, he said to leave it for now, because whatever had happened may not be fixable at this point. He said that perhaps our trying to fix things that could not be changed had already worsened matters. I listened, because I didn't know what else to do. Things with the four of us was as usual if I didn't mention anything that gave you lot headaches. You weren't unkind to me at those times," she hastened to reassure, lifting her head to regard them. "Just odd, you know?"
"Not really, but go on," Bellatrix said and Marlene nodded.
"Okay, so things went on for a year or so, then it happened. The four of you came to my family's flat one evening when we were having dinner. You had on those black hooded robes and Death Eater masks. I still remember how shocked I was to see you dressed like that. Even though I knew what you were, I never had to see it. Rabbit, you said all of us had to go. You said he'd ordered us killed."
"Who," Rabastan asked.
Marlene scowled. "Voldemort, idiot! Bella said she'd insisted that you three be the ones to kill my family." She glanced over at Bella. "You know so no one else would do it." Bella gave a small nod of understanding and Marlene returned her gaze to Rabastan. "Rabbit, you formed a plan on the spot to kill Muggles and transfigure them into the four members of my family. That was how the McKinnons would all be presumed dead by Death Eaters and Aurors alike. You all insisted we run, go far away and start over with new identities. My father decided that we should go to the States and hide among the Muggles, because Voldemort wanting us dead was serious stuff. So you all did that for us, and now you apparently don't remember."
"Not a bit, but it does sound brilliant of us," Rabastan said, and Bellatrix nodded her agreement.
"Especially my bit," she said.