A Marauder's Guide to Falling in Love

Chapter Six

Marlene supposed that receiving her first detention wasn't all that bad considering she got off easy with only the one.

Sirius on the other hand, was already serving the one month detention he had received when he had pulled the dungbomb prank on Marlene, and he was dished out an additional week.

She supposed she would have received the same punishment had it not been for Sirius who was quick to tell Professor McGonagall that Marlene had caught him sneaking out of the common room, and was only out past curfew to bring him back so as not to lose them anymore house points.

Marlene's apparent 'act of nobility' did not seem to impress Professor McGonagall. Although, it did seem to decrease the harshness of her punishment.

She was also unsure how she felt about the story Sirius had concocted. She was far too horror struck in the moment to disagree with Sirius's account of events. Instead, she opted to play along by nodding her head while afterwards thinking how obviously silly the story must have sounded. McGonagall was a smart woman; she must have seen right through the lie.

After they had been thoroughly yelled at in the dead of night and their punishments handed out, Professor McGonagall personally escorted them into the common room to see them off to their dormitories.

As Marlene entered her room, she had been relieved to discover the other girls were still fast asleep. She was quick to crawl quietly into her own four poster bed, succumbing to sleep almost immediately.

The next morning Marlene was faced with the dreadful realization that she would need to explain herself to her friends who were oblivious to the previous night's events. The task was exceedingly far more difficult than she had imagined, and she was spared an introduction to her story when Professor McGonagall approached her at breakfast.

"Miss McKinnon," she said so strictly that Marlene actually flinched.

"You will serve your detention Thursday evening with Professor Slughorn. He has informed me that he has a task that he needs help with, so please make sure you are at his office promptly at seven o'clock."

Lily had a look of complete disbelief, and Mary adorned wide eyes and a slightly gaping mouth; the bagel in her hand fell limp and left forgotten.

"Detention?" Lily said bewildered after Professor McGonagall had drifted down to the opposite end of the table where she stopped to talk to Sirius.

"Erhm, about that - " Marlene said quietly. She shifted in her chair uncomfortably, grabbed her glass of orange juice and raised it to her lips. She pretended to take an extra-long drink as her friends stared at her in complete disbelief.

Eventually, she ran out of juice and was forced to set the empty glass on the table. As she fidgeted with her fork she quickly briefed them on the previous night's events, carefully trying to gloss over the minor details so as to hurry through the story.

"Well that was just silly," Lily said with a shake of her head.

"Obviously," Marlene muttered quietly. However, Lily heard it and frowned in distaste as a response. Mary kept quiet only raising her eyebrows slightly as if to voice the same opinion, and Marlene was grateful that the conversation was dropped as soon as the daily mail arrived.

It was unfortunate that at least two more students at Hogwarts received devastating news about attacks at breakfast; one of which was a fellow Gryffindor student that happened to be sitting a few chairs down from them.

"Poor girl," Mary sighed sympathetically as the third year student was whisked away in a fit of sobs by her friend. Marlene watched with sadness for her fellow student's misfortune and the topic quickly changed to that of the recent attacks since October. The conversation allowed Marlene to momentarily forget about her own troublesome worries.