A Marauder's Guide to Falling Apart

Chapter Eighteen

"Marlene?"

She had been having another difficult dream. They seemed so frequent now that she wasn't entirely certain what was real anymore.

"Mar, can you hear me?"

"I can't do this right now," she mumbled into her pillow. She was dreaming about her fight with Sirius again, something that had been plaguing her all evening and prevented her from getting a decent night's sleep.

"Wake up Mar, I need to talk to you."

Her eyelids began to open; a steady stream of sunlight was peering in from behind the curtain and shone into her eyes. She realized that she hadn't really been dreaming this time, and she was hearing his actual voice from the two way mirror that was sitting on her nightstand.

She reached forward unsteadily to grab it. "Go away," she said with as much firmness as possible for someone just wakening. Except that after the words had left her lips, she realized that Sirius's reflection wasn't staring back at her.

"Tell me how you really feel," a small chuckle let loose behind her and she could feel the weight of another body sit at the edge of her bed. Marlene dropped the mirror back on to the table and rolled around into bed, pulling the covers up with her out of instinct.

"Sirius, what – "

He had shaved since the previous evening and was wearing clean clothes. He no longer looked like the aged man she had witnessed in the Potter's dining room twelve hours previously, and it took her a few moments to fully wake up and realize that he was indeed sitting on her bed mere inches from her.

"Go away," she said again, this time with a slight waver in her voice. "I don't want to talk to you right now."

The crushed look on his face told her that she had clearly hurt him. She wasn't going to let him guilt her this time though. She was angry, and for good reason. Sirius had vanished for days after recklessly chasing after a bunch of Death Eaters and she had feared him dead. She had just recently learned that he had been following them the whole time with full ability to make contact to let his friends know that he was alright. Instead, he had been selfish. So Marlene decided it was time to be selfish too.

"Come on Mar, let me explain –"

"There is nothing to explain, Sirius. You scared me half to death. I've been worried sick for days and now I find out that you're fine, that you enjoyed your jaunt over to the dark side, and you couldn't care less about how that would affect the rest of us. How it would affect me."

He was silent for a moment before his hand reached out to grab Marlene's. She withdrew it immediately and observed the way his face fell at her gesture. She ignored the guilt piling up within her, and continued to be firm. Instead of saying anything else she yanked off the blankets that were hiding her body and swung her legs out of bed. Pushing herself off the mattress she scurried over to the door and yanked it open, indicating with her expression and a gesture of her hand for Sirius to leave.

"Really, Mar? This is how you want to act?" he seemed agitated but made no move to leave. This only caused her to feel more frustrated. "I came here to apologize and explain myself."

"I don't really care right now," she nearly shouted. She could hear a loud sound omit from the kitchen down the hall as though Emmeline had dropped a pot in the sink. She imagined that her friend could hear every word of their conversation. She didn't care all that much. "I just need to be angry for a while Sirius."

He looked at her with contemplation for a minute before pulling himself up for the bed and slowly making his way over to her. He stopped mere inches away from her in the doorway; his expression was solemn when he looked down into her face. It was hard for her to ignore the familiar scent that belonged only to him, but she drew in a sharp breath and held herself steady, unwilling to cave into him.