Mary understood more than she wanted to about violence.
Her grandparents had been Palestinian refugees who had fled in the 1940s, after the first wave of Israeli expansion. Along with most of the other Palestinian Arabs who had fled, they'd originally gone to the surrounding areas of Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. Mary was born in Damascus, although she didn't remember too much from her childhood. But some things were hard to forget.
She remembered the way her father would yell, and how her mom would emerge the next day with bruises around her neck. She remembered throwing a tantrum in front of her father one day, when she was four, and he had hit her to stop her from crying. She never threw a temper tantrum in front of him again, but he found other reasons to hit her. Her mom would often step in and end up taking the brunt of it, and Mary didn't know what else to do except to disappear to the closet in her room. Then, her mom woke her up one night, telling her to stay quiet, and they disappeared. The two of them applied for asylum and moved to England, where her mom raised her on her own. Her mom only spoke broken English, but they made it, somehow, as she worked odd jobs and odd hours in London.
Her mom told her never to trust men. Her mom told her not to trust boys her own age, either.
Her mom also reminded her constantly that there was nothing that Mary couldn't do. She was a girl, and stronger for it, because of everything she would go through. She explained to Mary that when a boy is born, fathers tell their sons that the world is at their feet, including women. She told Mary that it was her job to turn the world upside down, and at the tender age of nine, Mary became a feminist. She loved her mom more than anything, and she would've believed anything she said.
Her mom was shocked when Mary got the letter. They'd never had a witch in the family before, and originally, her mom hadn't wanted her to go. She inherently distrusted that a white woman had come to take her child away for nine months out of the year, under the pretense of schooling. Mary's mom knew about the cultural erasure that accompanied the genocide in Palestine, and this was too familiar. But even her mom couldn't ignore all the strange incidents that had happened with Mary as a child, especially when she'd been upset. Her mom gave it a chance, though, and took Mary to Ollivander's, just to see what would happen. When she saw Mary with a wand in her hand, sparks flying, and all the odd people at Diagon Alley, she was finally convinced.
When Mary went off to Hogwarts, she adjusted to a whole new reality. She was used to existing in a dual environment, so being an outsider was not new for her. She was an immigrant, the daughter of a socially conservative and politically liberal Muslim woman, so there was a lot that she couldn't share with her mom as she grew up. There was also the additional complication of a burgeoning language barrier, as Mary's primary language shifted from Arabic to English, and she didn't have the vocabulary to talk about some things with her mother. Being a Muggle-born would've been hard for almost anybody, but to Mary, it felt like the same racism she and her mom were accustomed to in London. That was a part of Hogwarts that was all too familiar to her.
However, she became best friends with her roommates, who made her feel like she belonged. They were outsiders as well, in their own ways. They learned from each other's lived experiences, and shared others. It was a uniting point that had initially drawn them together, and one that would keep them together after graduation when they joined the Order.
And as Mary got older, she was faced with an increasing amount of attention from the boys at school. She had dark brown eyes framed with even darker lashes, full lips, and soft, rich curls. Puberty hit her early, but even now, her curves outpaced those of her peers. She initially heeded her mom's warning not to trust boys her own age, keeping to her schoolwork and her friends, but she was eventually worn down. She'd been so shielded as a young girl that her rebellious side couldn't help but jump out, now that she had the opportunity.
Later on, she realized how badly she just wanted the approval of the boys she talked to. She often let things go farther with them than she was comfortable with. She often did things that she didn't want to do. But she did them anyway, and her relationships with boys never lasted long. Sometimes they didn't talk to her again after she snogged them. And sometimes, it was Mary that would leave when she realized that somebody new, somebody different, wanted her attention.
She tolerated much more than she should've. She was always asked what her race was, usually in the form of, "So where are you really from?" It wasn't until she got older that she learned about fetishization, and by the time she was sixteen, she swore off anybody who ever asked her what her ethnicity was. She used that question as a litmus test, but she'd also just developed an uncanny ability to tell whether or not somebody was just interested in her because she looked exotic.
It was during her fifth year, a boy finally convinced her to have sex with him. He didn't bother asking her if she was on birth control, and she wasn't. She would never have been able to talk to her mom about something like that, and it had all just happened so quickly. She was with Lily and Marlene when she had a panic attack after missing her period. She'd visited Marlene over winter break that year, so that Marlene and her mom could take her to BPAS to have an abortion, with Marlene's mom as her legal representative to sign for her. Marlene's mom made sure that when Mary left, she had an IUD, a new form of birth control that had been popularized only in recent years.
And finally, Mary learned that her mom was right not to trust boys.
She vowed not to date another bloke for the rest of her time at Hogwarts. They weren't worth her time. They had growing up to do, and frankly, so did she. She was finally starting to learn her own worth, and work through her own issues, having grown up with a paternal figure. Although she didn't hook up with another boy for the rest of her fifth year, she still hung around them. She started noticing the way they would make girls feel insecure, the way they acted like they deserved sex, the way they treated girls who they didn't think were pretty, and the way they talked about girls like they were collectibles. And above all, she learned to turn the game on them. She felt fully in control of herself in sixth year.
She let boys take her on dates so that they would buy her dinner, and she would leave without giving them so much as a kiss. She would go to bars with her friends to get free drinks, but she would never go home with them, and she always kept an eye to make sure they didn't slip anything in her drink. She learned what to say and what to do to keep them coming back. Sometimes, she had sex just because she wanted to and because she craved it. She learned to always take, and never give anything back that she didn't want to.
Over the summers, she worked as a server at a diner in London. Just before her sixth year, once she'd gotten off work to meet up with Amelia and Charity at a bar, a much older man asked her to go home with him – for £500. She thought back to her mom's endless hours of working at minimum wage jobs, and worried that she might go the same way, she agreed. The sex wasn't terrible, and he did pay her, so Mary went back to him. He wasn't hideous or terribly strange, just lonely and bored with his life. He wasn't just paying for a sex, but a connection that Mary led him to believe they had. She saved enough money for seventh year, and even a bit after. She told her mom she was staying with Marlene those nights, and she didn't question it too much now that Mary was at a boarding school. Plus, Mary had stopped taking money from her mom last year, so she would never have asked Mary how she had suddenly come into so much money.
Mary picked up the piece of parchment, staring at Marlene and Lily in disbelief. At first glance, the leaflets they were all holding looked to be exactly the same. At second glance, Mary realized that each of the leaflets featured a different person, and all of them were family members of the Slytherins they were at school with. That much was apparent, and Mary slowly dropped the one she was holding.
It was everywhere in the halls, and Mary didn't have to glance down at the other ones to know that it would be there, too. The normal hustle and bustle of the morning walk to class was eerily quiet. Students were talking in hushed voices about the pamphlets. Everybody was being careful, because it didn't take any stretch of the imagination to realize how angry the Slytherins would be about this. Nobody wanted to be the one to incur the wrath of Avery or Wilkes, or the targets of any of these leaflets.
"Watch your backs today," Mary warned her friends. "They're coming after us."
"I think you and I need to have a little talk with Potter and Black after classes today," Marlene said coolly. "The Slytherins won't care which of us did this. They'll hit us just as hard. And frankly, they might think the three of us did this and not their little marauding crew."
"I'm coming, too," Lily said, and she sounded worried.
They weren't far off the mark, and the one class they had with the Slytherins proved it. They stared daggers at them all day, in class, in the hallways, and even at lunch, all the way across the Great Hall. The day seemed to drag by, and Mary made sure that no matter what she was doing, she could get to her wand in less than a second. It never left her sight, and her anxiety was reaching an all time high. It wasn't until mid-afternoon, once their classes were over, that the girls essentially staked out the common room.
"Get over here," Mary said, as soon as she spotted James come in through the portrait, his friends behind him. She herded the four blokes into a study room situated off of the Gryffindor common room, where Lily and Marlene were already waiting. Marlene slammed the door shut and promptly cast a Silencing Charm.
"A bit crowded in here," James muttered. "Couldn't have spared two minutes to go up to a living room?"
"You need to warn us next time you do something like this," Marlene said angrily, and nearly a full day's worth of bottled up frustration started pouring out. "We're all the same to them. They don't care whether your group or ours did this."
"If you wanted to join, you could've just asked," Sirius said, head tilted to one side. "No need for all this."
"We don't want to take the heat for your rashness," Mary snapped, exasperated with their childishness. They still weren't taking this seriously. They were still acting like this was some grand prank they had just pulled, and were arrogantly parading it around. "Especially when we're being just as blindsided as the Slytherins."
"Okay, I'll admit, we didn't really see this happening when we planned it," Remus said apologetically. "But weren't you already targets? This isn't too different, is it?"
"We've never gone after them this badly," Lily said. "Sure, after what happened to Mary in fifth year, it got a bit intense for a while, but that was defensive, and they knew that. This is offensive."
"So they deserved it back then. They still do. You can't tell me you disagree," Sirius demanded. "We're only doing all of this because we're tired of them getting away with everything. Maybe if they actually learn their actions have consequences, they won't be as reckless in the real world."
"Did you call somebody else reckless?" Mary wondered aloud.
"Do you actually think this is going to teach them a lesson?" Lily asked, frowning. "It's not going to. It's just going to make them hate us more." She was rhythmically tapping her index finger on her leg, a nervous tick.
"This is all a moot point," Mary said. "As far as they're concerned, we just invaded Poland. All seven of us."
The boys turned to her blankly.
Marlene rolled her eyes, as if it was just a reminder of the company they were keeping. Lily just shrugged.
"It's Muggle history," Lily explained. "It's what started World War I. Mary's saying that to the Slytherins, we just started a war."
"A big one," Mary muttered.
"If you haven't noticed, there's already one starting outside," Remus pointed out.
"So instead of arguing about whether the first strike was justified, I say we all think about how we can defend ourselves," Sirius added. "And think about our next move."
Marlene was muttering under her breath, and all Mary could catch were curse words. Huffing, she sat down, apparently trying to calm herself down. Mary turned to Sirius accusingly. "Did you do this on purpose?"
"Do what?" Sirius asked, and he seemed genuinely confused by what she was asking.
"Do this so we'd all be stuck working together," Mary explained, sounding annoyed. "You wanted a way in. This is pretty convenient for you."
"Wait, wait. Time out," James said, putting his hands perpendicular to one another. He turned to Sirius, so that he was actually standing between Sirius and the trio of girls. "You talked to Macdonald about this already?" he asked, sounding hurt.
"Well, only in passing, and it wasn't successful" Sirius said abashedly. It was clear from his embarrassed tone that it was rare for one of the group to operate without the rest of them knowing. From both of their tones, it sounded as though James was confronting Sirius about an affair that he'd had.
Lily rolled her eyes at how dramatic the pair was being, and Marlene cut them off.
"No, no," Marlene said, shaking her head so vigorously that Mary actually looked concerned. "This isn't even up for debate. We're not rewarding you for springing this on us by working with you. I only came to tell you that you aren't doing this again without giving us a heads up. That much, we deserve."
"What if we show you something that would help you on the defensive?" Sirius said suddenly, stepping to the side so that James was no longer blocking his view.
"If you're talking about what I think, it's a no," Peter said automatically, so emphatically that he raised his hands in protest. Barely a second later, James seemed to catch on that Sirius was talking about the Marauder's Map, and it was like somebody had lit a fire under him.
"No way in bloody hell," James said furiously, taking a step to the right to match Sirius. "Absolutely no chance. I can't believe you're even considering this."
"What are you talking about?" Lily asked, sounding annoyed. She had no idea what they were talking about, and they seemed to have completely lost focus. She was tired of James and Sirius arguing like a married couple.
For the first time in his life, James ignored Lily.
"Two years," James enunciated. "Two years to make!"
"I think Sirius is right," Remus said. He turned to Lily, Marlene, and Mary to address them. "We want you all to trust us. So we want to show you something as a good faith gesture. A first step in us working together."
"I don't agree," James insisted.
"You want to join them or not?" Remus asked.
"This is not a one way pass to joining the antirebels!" Marlene said loudly, slamming her palm on the table for emphasis. Peter actually jumped at the sound.
Peter shook his head. "Look, I don't think we should do it, but I trust them. But I think James needs to agree, too. We made this together. It's only right."
James looked at his friends, united against his decision to keep the map a secret. He was beyond dismayed that this was happening. He looked at Lily, who was looking at him with an eyebrow arched, impatient. He looked back to his friends, and sighed.
"Fine. Show it to them," he said. He walked to the corner of the room, as though he couldn't bear to watch.
"This better be worth the buildup," Mary said dubiously, her arms crossed. She watched as Sirius pulled a blank sheet of parchment out of his back pocket, and unfolded it on the table in front of them. He pointed his wand to the parchment and murmured, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good."
"Dorky," Marlene said, under her breath.
James indignantly opened his mouth to respond, but Marlene was watching him expectantly, waiting for him to snap at her. Remus shook his head at him, and James reluctantly went back to sulking in his corner.
However, even Marlene's sour gaze disappeared as she watched the map come to life. Every inch of Hogwarts was on the map, even places that they hadn't known existed, like the teacher's lounge. Moving dots tracked the every movement of every person in the castle.
"We were never able to get coordinates on Dumbledore," James admitted, and there was a distinct note of pride in his voice. He enjoyed watching the look of wonder on Lily's face, and added, "We assumed he's just Untraceable."
"This is incredible," Mary breathed.
"Fun question now," Sirius said. "Whose dot did you look for first?"
"Us, to make sure this thing works," Marlene said, ever the pessimist.
"We can track where the Slytherins are, every hour of the day," Marlene said, sounding satisfied. "I'll admit it. I'm impressed. How did you all manage this?"
"It's a long story," Remus said, already sounding tired. "So are you in?"
Mary, Marlene, and Lily exchanged a look. Already, Mary's anxiety felt a bit appeased by the information that this map was able to provide. She was incredibly tempted to do it, knowing that it would be easier with the Marauders at their back. They seemed to have nothing but time to cause trouble, and clearly they were creative.
"I've always hated group projects," Lily sighed, but there was a note of resignation, like she'd already made up her mind.
"Well… I'm in if you two are," Mary said hesitantly.
"I feel like I'll regret this," Lily said slowly. "But I'm in."
They turned to Marlene now, who they knew would be the hardest to convince. Once Marlene had made up her mind about something, she was impossible to sway. And her friends were fairly sure that she had made up her mind a long time ago about the four guys standing in front of her.
"What the hell," Marlene said, throwing her hands up. "I guess I'm in, as long as you four don't think this gives you a free pass – "
"To think we're entitled to join the anti-rebellion. Got it," Sirius finished for her, and he rolled his eyes. "For the hundredth time, I think we got it."
"I'm so excited to work with you," Marlene said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.