Prompt: Dorcas goes to visit Marlene's grave.
Pairing: Dorlene friendship
A flurry of snow surrounded Doe as walked, encasing her in a swirling, chaotic mass of white. The weather seemed to be representing how she felt inside - a mess of emotions, all tangling together swirling around inside her much like the snow was on the outside. It had been a year to the day since Marlene died. Beautiful, brave, reckless, idiotic, and far, far too young to die Marlene Mckinnon, Doe's best friend since the day they met on the train in their first year. It still seemed surreal to her, to wake up everyday and know that she'd never see Marlene's face again, she'd never hear her laugh or roll her eyes as Marlene proposed yet another idiotic idea that would get them both in trouble if they got caught but they did anyway. Doe would never have a partner in crime again, or a best friend who meant as much to her as Marlene did again. She would never have Marlene back. Choking down a sob, Doe kept walking through the graveyard to where Marlene's grave was.
The headstone was simple, and it had 'long live the reckless and the brave' inscribed on it. At the time, it had seemed appropriate. It reminded Doe that Marlene's memory would live on, even when Marlene no longer could. Doe knelt down in front of the grave. It was 1982, the war had ended with the deaths of James and Lily and even though it had been a year since theirs and Marlene's deaths it still felt like yesterday for Dorcas. The pain was as raw for her as it had been then, filling her up and threatening to drown her. It would be so easy to give up, to give into the pain and just break down. But she couldn't, she knew Marlene wouldn't her to give up, Marlene would've slapped her over the face and called her an idiot or something like that until Doe stood up on her own two feet and kept on walking. Everyday it was a struggle to keep going, it was a struggle to not let the pain break her, not let it consume her. An endless battle that one day Doe might not have the strength to win. But that day was not this day.
This day Doe knelt in front of her best friends grave and allowed the tears to fall silently down her pale face.
"Why?"
Her voice was but a whisper, asking the same question she asked every time. Why did you leave me? Why did you die? Didn't fate know that we're Dorky and McDicken, and that we were never to be separated? Didn't Death know how hard life is without you?
Dorcas hadn't just lost a best friend the day Marlene and her family were killed in a Death Eater raid, she'd lost part of her family. When Marlene died, Doe swore she took a part of Doe's heart with her. The tears flowed freely down Doe's face, she saw no shame in crying. Eventually Doe wiped her tears away and stood up, unable to handle the pain for much longer without drowning in it.
"I love you, Marls," she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut and taking a shaky breath before saying one last goodbye and walking away. She'd see her soon, Doe knew. One day her time would come, and she'd see Marlene again, but in the meantime she had to be strong and keep putting one foot in front of the other until she no longer had force herself to do it. Until her time came, Doe would walk with her head held high and live a life that would make Marlene proud.