Marlene wasn't sure she had heard him correctly. The familiar pit in her stomach had returned and her head was beginning to feel fuzzy. Somehow the lighting in the room suddenly seemed dimmer and her eyes began to lose focus as she stared anxiously towards the hallway.
"What's he talking about? What's a padfoot?" she could hear Emmeline say but her throat had constricted and her mouth was far too dry to say anything.
And then he came into view; weeks' worth of unshaven facial hair and dark circles engrained around his eyes gave the impression he was at least ten years older than in fact he was. In all the months Marlene had seen him like this, this was the first time she almost didn't recognize him. His cloak was tattered and covered in noticeable substances such as dirt and what she could only presume to be dried blood. Whether his own or not, she couldn't be certain. His dark hair hung in his face, longer than she remembered it. The usual humorous smirk that Marlene had fallen in love with plastered his face, making it seem completely inconsistent with his current state yet oddly normal. l
"Sorry I'm late," he said jokingly. James had flung from his chair and crossed the room to envelop him in a hug. He was joined quickly after by numerous others and soon everyone had forgotten about dinner entirely.
Marlene couldn't move. It felt too surreal to be looking at the ghost of someone she had believed for days to be dead. He hadn't yet looked at her but she could not peel her eyes off of him. It was as though she had been the cruel recipient of the petrificus totalus curse and was watching the world around her continue on as though she were completely invisible.
"I couldn't shake them for the longest time," he was saying. The words were fragmented but Marlene was starting to realize that he was telling the story of where he had been. "Then I found a nearby cave and took cover as I waited them out."
"Isn't that your boyfriend?" Emmeline was in her ear again. Marlene could only manage a brief nod of her head in response. "So this dangerous job of his, he hunts Death Eaters?"
"What?" she hissed quietly. She hadn't really been paying attention but she tuned her ears to listen.
"I figured that while they didn't know I was there I could easily keep tracking them and figure out where they meet. The old Malfoy manor? Of course it was the perfect meeting place. I always suspected that the Malfoy's were in on it."
Hearing Sirius talk about his adventure wasn't necessarily the tipping point for Marlene. It was listening to the joy in his tone as he released details about how he had been tailing the Death Eaters over the course of days. He didn't seem the slightest bit worried or concerned that his disappearance had caused great havoc to those that cared for him. It was the final piece that sent Marlene over the edge. Sirius had been in the room a whole ten minutes and not even acknowledged her. For days she had presumed him dead and been prepared for the news even if others were certain he was not. She had cried so much that she wasn't sure her eyes could produce any more tears and here he was too preoccupied in everyone else to even notice that she had been dying on the inside from his disappearance.
In the moment as he gave his undivided attention to everyone else around her, she had never felt so much more alone in a room full of people.
It wasn't until the sound of her chair scraping backwards that filled the air that anyone looked her way. But it was finally what it took to get Sirius's attention. She knew that she should be thankful, happy even that Sirius was alive and uninjured. It's what she had been wishing for days. The little nagging voice was in her head again, quiet though and easy to ignore. It was telling her she was doing something reckless, something she was most likely going to regret but she pushed it further away unwilling to listen to reason. Marlene couldn't help that it was already too late. She had been losing Sirius for a long time and she didn't know if she could risk losing him again.
"I'm sorry Lily, thanks for dinner," she said quickly before hurriedly moving to the front of the room, pushing hurriedly past him and out into the hallway.
"Mar," it was him. The voice speaking the words she had been longing to hear for days only broke her heart more. She could feel the tears begin welling at the corner of her eyes and she forced herself to continue walking forward to collect her belongings.
"I can't do this now Sirius," she said with a slightly shakiness to her voice. She wasn't sure she could trust herself to speak further.
"Why are you so upset?" he seemed genuinely confused.
"Why am I upset?" she was visibly shaking now and unable to hide the sinister edge to her tone. "Why?" She spun around almost took quickly that she had to reach out to brace herself against the wall to prevent herself from falling over. "How about the fact that you've been missing for days and all I could think about was that you were dead, your corpse rotting somewhere, murdered by Death Eaters. Or that I've been worried sick about you for months, never knowing whether or not something like this might happen. How about that you come waltzing in here like nothing even happened. Hearing that you've been perfectly fine all this time and couldn't even be bothered to send us an owl to say, 'you know what all? I'm O.K. Don't worry about me, save me a plate of mashed potatoes, be home soon!'"
"You know this is a risk of my job," he muttered. Marlene couldn't help but notice a few order members were peering out at them, obviously curious about their conversation. Lily and James seemed to be doing their best to get everyone back on track with dinner but the volume of their heated conversation made it nearly impossible for it to stay discreet. Marlene didn't care much anyways, people could listen all they wanted.
"I know that," Marlene said bitterly. "You've made that blatantly clear where your priorities lay."
She grabbed her coat, threw her feet into her boots and spun on her heel while reaching for the door. She wanted to hear him call out, even reach out to grab her arm but he did not. Marlene was forced to comply with her actions and she pulled open the door, stepping out into the cold snowy darkness and slamming the door behind her. She couldn't help but feel the symbolism as she observed Sirius's fading footsteps in the snow beside her own newly imprinted ones heading in the opposite direction. She allowed only a few single tears to roll down her cheek before wiping them fiercely away and disapparating home to London.
DU LIEST GERADE
A Marauder's Guide to Falling Apart
Fanfiction"So we're alone," he said slowly. "That's a thoughtful observation," she whispered. She could feel her fingertips tremble slightly as they clasped around his hair. She didn't know why she suddenly felt so nervous. She moved her hands and allowed her...
