17th May
I have been betrayed. They knew I would be trouble, so I was sidelined. Cast aside. I was informed that my presence at the Auror Office was not required, so Joanie and I were given paid leave. We were not allowed to object. I kept my three most trusted spies: Jaina, Alysha and Branwell to inform me of any unexpected event that I had been selected to be kept from. But they have failed me.
Now I see why I was shunted aside. They planned to arrest Hagrid in the dead of night, and then attacked Minerva without provocation. And they pushed me out of the way, so that I would not interfere.
25th May
I have come to the end of this book now; but my story is not yet over. The play continues long after the curtain has closed. I leave this diary near a year older, but am I wiser? I am not sure. Perhaps I am not a wise person, but at least I can now be happy with whom I am, and I would not be anyone else for the world. I remain cordially hated by the Ministry; but mayhap that will always be so. Maybe they just don't like people like me, if there is something I do or the way that I am. Governments and I- we are not match made in heaven.
There is no room for a heart in a heartless job, so I must lock my heart away for better times. Possibly I keep my heart here, in your hands. Can I let my heart rule my head? Both seem to be full of bitterness. Injustice could be defeated quicker through calculated planning and dogged determination- in my case, a hint of ruthlessness. An impulse of the heart and no resolution from the head isn't going to get me far. I could succeed, in my own pathetic way, backstage, quietly and with dignity.
If there is dignity in murder.
There is nothing for me now, with this diary, than to await the drying of the ink, close the book and tie it with a length of green ribbed ribbon- a lighter shade to the evergreen velvet of the notebook. Lock away my diary, lock away my heart. And then I take my leave of it, my head stuffed with memories and my heart filled with hope.
END OF VOLUME I
Marion's War Diaries
Volume II
8th June 1996
Fudge invited me to his office today. I knew it could be for no positive purpose; in fact it was his chance to gloat.
"Ah, Marion," he said, shutting the door behind me with a flick of his wand. "What do you think of my new desk?"
I took a critical look at it, at the shape and size as well as the nature of the colour and polish.
"I think it is awful. It was purchased in exceedingly bad taste; in fact it looks like a halibut balanced on two cocktail sticks."
Judging by Fudge's face, I may have stepped too far.
17th June 1996
It is a dreary time tonight. Tonks brings me a cup of blackcurrant tea. I have to smile when I taste the tang. She's laced it with Firewhisky, of which I have found myself becoming more and more fond. Despite the tedium that is associated with this bunker of a kitchen, my toes tap out a jazzy rhythm. My indignation at Minerva's sufferings was eased by Joanie taking me to a Jazz Night at Tetreton Town Hall. The fascinating tap tap sounds are calming, and it's nice to do some exercise that's not chasing or fleeing.
Sirius is upstairs tending to an injury of Buckbeak's though how he got it I cannot fathom.
So it's only me left in the kitchen.
I start- I can hear a noise upstairs, a wailing scream like a warning. Leaving my tea on the radiator, I hurry on up to discover the source of the caterwauling. I feel very suspicious as my shoes slide on the stairs, dust clouds puffing out of unbeaten carpets. The Grim vanishing, flashes before my eyes. Out of the corner of the vision, Kreacher looks very pleased to see me out of the kitchen.
The moment I reach the top of the house, all seeming well- as humdrum as usual. A sinking feeling enters my stomach. The fine hair at the back of my neck prickles and I shudder. I've the answer all this time: the scream is not real; it's the warning siren sounding in my head. Something's wrong, and it's not a premonition of the future but a fear of the present.
Head spinning, I hurtle down the stairs, clutching the banisters until my hands throb. The circular staircase twists and turns and I am giddy, sick with fear. My mouth is dry and my head is spinning. Can't breathe, can't speak: can only run. I need to get to the kitchen- now!
Slipping drunkenly on the flagstones, I stagger for balance and my teacup smashes.
I find only Kreacher, laughing his head off and rocking with the mirth. This is eerie, just me and Kreacher laughing like there's no tomorrow. Maybe there isn't.
I grip my chair for support. Do I need to be afraid?
"What's so funny Kreacher?" I cannot hide the cynicism.
He wipes his eyes. "O the world, Miss Mad, Kreacher laughs at the world."
OK. I'm not leaving the kitchen now. I sit rigidly and watch him until the stare blurs my sight. I grip my fingers, cling onto the table.
One minute I'm waiting. And then, a message from Severus turns sour.
"What is it? What's wrong?"
"Harry thinks Voldemort has Sirius at the Department of Mysteries."
"Impossible. Sirius is upstairs looking after Buckbeak: I saw him, a few hours since. "
"How long?"
"Two hours, at most."
"Have you heard him? DO YOU KNOW THAT HE'S IN THE HOUSE?"
"Hard not to, he's been swearing at the injury fit to bust."
The message vanishes. Now I know what I must to do, because everything in me tells that Harry is in danger.
"Remus! Tonks! Mad Eye! Kingsley! Sirius, get your lazy a** down here now!"
That should do it.
Remus looks at my face and I know what he's thinking. Harry might just have landed himself in serious trouble. But Mad Eye is the first to ask me why.
"Severus sent a message. Harry thinks Sirius is in danger, he thinks Voldemort's holding him in the Department of Mysteries, at the Ministry itself."
We sit and await further instruction, but the later it becomes, the more I feel uneasy. Another message from Severus arrives, this time for all of us.
"Harry must still believe that Black is in danger. Call to alarm. Send a task force to the Ministry immediately. Black must stay behind and report to Dumbledore."
"Well I'm not going to," says Sirius. "Kreacher can do that. I need to make sure Harry's safe."
None of us thought to question this.
What if I should die tonight? Who would be the unlucky s*** to tell Joan? I would not envy them.
And Sirius? The Seeing? Maybe he should not have come after all.
We reach the spinning hall with the doors.
"Which one, Marion?" shouts Mad Eye over the roar of the revolving room. "Which door? Find them!"
Focus. I let the Sight drift me, direct me- and then point slowly at the two doors straight in front of me. I could almost feel what was going on in there.
We hurry into the chamber the moment the curses have destroyed the remainder of the doors. Awake and alert once more.
Harry's looking pretty desperate and Neville- my Neville has clearly taken quite a battering from Lestrange. With a flash of white light that seems to come from within; I force her to drop him.
I look around the room. I have played this game before, and the losers- four dead Death Eaters are not for nothing. My hands are as red as any. Dark magic leaves traces; and everyone must sacrifice something if they are to walk away alive. Childhood, innocence, freedom maybe even family.
I charge down the steps until we duel face to face. He deals with me as one would an annoying fly- thrash wildly and hope to squish it.
The arrogant Death Eater's head deflates quite rapidly and I move on to another dueller. But before I have stepped two paces; a spell shatters the wall behind me and I am covered in rubble. A growing warmness on my head tells me that my head is bleeding. I rapidly begin to feel dizzy and I know it's a head injury and not the Firewhisky.
Macnair, the dreaded Macnair is in the corner, unconscious and bleeding. Easy target; for anyone. But as I raise my wand, something feels wrong. My eyes fuzz out of focus; instead of one Macnair's there's three and they are so vivid I can barely tell the true from the false. I know I shouldn't, that the risk is too great, but the brutality wins over the subconscious and instinctively I raise my wand and say the words that haunt my dreams and waking moments.
"Avada Kedavra!"
The moment I say the spell, I know I've done the wrong thing. My curse is cast too high, the angle's all wrong, and instead it whistles away and towards-
Sirius.
My heart deadens and almost stops. If this another vision, confirming my vision and folly, Sirius will die and I will be personally responsible, nor will I even dare claim innocence.
But it misses him, by a slither, and collides with the wall behind. Mayhap after all; my prophecy was wrong, or my Sight has failed me. Sirius could still yet live.
And for the first time since I was safe, I let myself have a little smile. My head throbbing, my hair askew, my face dusty from the spell craters. But I'm still alive, still smiling.
But it could not last.
There is a scream, muffled as Tonks falls; crashing helplessly down the stone seats. That has to hurt. Ouchies.
I race down to her, leaping aside from more spells to protect myself. I check her pulse, her breathing. Her eyes are open and unblinking, but she's alive. The Death Eaters will not have time to kill her; and Bellatrix may believe she already has. Tonks, as she is, is safe for the moment.
Back in the fray, Sirius takes on Bellatrix's duel. An emptiness fills me (an odd thought, I confess) and I can hear only silence, see only them. While chaos reigns around me, ducking down and firing spells at every Death Eater I see, though my head plays havoc with my aim.
And then, I feel a magnetism. Something is pulling me- not a physical force of any spell, but it's a strong instinct, a feeling. Despite the despair around me something is pulling me around, turning me towards a sense of the light. Something's leading me, guiding me up the stone steps-; something's coming, along the corridor. Any minute and it will be before me.
A spell whistling past me knows me and winds me with the force of its flight, ending with a crash by my elbow. I am flat on the rostra, the seats digging into my front. I look for something to grab onto and find only an ankle, closely connected to a foot.
An ankle? That's what I was brought all the way here for? Really? Some bony old ankle?
But I look up. It's Dumbledore.
That's better.
At once I feel quite myself again, as I always do. Albus is here.
"Your help, my little friend," he says and as he does he brushes his wand over my head, and the pain goes.
My joy is singing inside me, but frantically trying to drown out the cacophony, underlying like a banshee in the marshes. And the warning sirens howl once more.
He holds out his hand, and lifts me up, up onto my feet.
"Lead the way," he says and I want for no further instruction. I head on down the stairs; and I ready my knives. Albus overpowers them easily. His spill misses one; so I race after them and we duel.
Opponent, you have three chances. Three attempts to kill me and you have lost my patience.
One. The curse was too far to the right.
Two. Too far to the left, I easily dodge it.
Three. That one was close, but I saw it coming, and I bring out a stone tile from the steps to take the hit.
And now it's my turn, and I wish to high heaven that I wasn't sworn on assassination. I'm as trapped as he is. If I leave the Ministry or refuse to kill my prey; I will face execution myself. In fact, Umbridge will probably want the honour of doing it herself.
I duck his fourth curse and throw my knife into that part of the knee at the side that is the gap of the two bones. He cries in pain and I strike with my own curse.
Another death, another scream. Just another job.
And it's not over yet.
Sirius and Bellatrix are still duelling and the wailing siren screams louder and louder. I feel giddy again, and it's not my head. It's my Sight. The prophecy is fulfilling itself.
Seven cruel blows
Tonks, unconscious. Moody, vulnerable and eyeless. Ron, giggly and stupefied. Hermione, Luna, Ginny, all attacked. Kingsley, in pain. (My injury doesn't count, it's healed over now.)
Nine mocking crows
The arrogant and vicious Death Eaters, omens of death.
One prophecy to tell the past
Row 97, the prophecy regarding Harry Potter.
One veil to take the last.
One veil to take the last.
One veil to take the last.
"Come on, you can do better than that!"
The blue flames that light this Department sputter and flicker.
And now he's gone. Sirius is dead, taken by the veil. I wasn't wrong after all. The Sight has never failed me, and I don't think it ever will.
I'll never have that vision again, because it has been fulfilled. Sirius is dead.
It doesn't feel real. But it's true; and if Sirius- the most alive person that I have ever known- is gone, what will befall those left behind? Who knows who will be next?
I shake myself, as if that will help. There's still a battle to fight; the gauntlet is still down. Kingsley has run forward to continue Bellatrix's dance of death; her new amusement. Killing is torture for me. It's fun for her. I don't stop to watch.
The bolts that Dumbledore conjured have taken down the remaining Death Eaters and taken all but to- Bellatrix and a man.
I leave her to Dumbledore and chase after the man. He sees the knife in my hand, the look in my eye.
He runs for the dais and I instinctively hurl my knife at him. Hearing the whistle of its flight, he drops to the ground. My knife thuds by his shoulder, catching his robes and pinning him down. It doesn't kill him. It was never meant to.
His face darkens like a thunderclap as he realises he has been played for a fool, scared into entrapment.
Now Bellatrix alone remains. She deflects a spell from Dumbledore, and I throw another knife. She screams as she dodges it, the blade slicing a huge chunk of her hair off, missing her and crunching into the wall.
Dumbledore races after her, Harry as well and he calls over his shoulder. My final order. Exhausted and resigned, I set off to find the others. I wrap up Hermione, Luna and Ginny. Madam Pomfrey will know what to do.
Ron's giggling still.
"Hey M-M-Marion," he says. "We saw- we saw."
"Not interested in whatever amusing planet puns you've come up with Ron." I snap. I'm fed up now; I was always an intemperate one.
He wheezes, and I know that there is one more thing I can do for now.
"I'm sorry Ron, but it's for the best. Stupefy!"