French toast - even french toast as good as Moony's - was not enough to distract Marlene.
"Did that kid just say he's a werewolf?"
"Darling, what else would you expect? He's Newt Scamander's!" Sirius drawled.
"He just said it so calmly, my God," Marlene said, shaking her head.
Sirius shrugged.
"Look, I know how you feel about werewolves, that's what got you in trouble this weekend, isn't it?" Marlene said, rolling her eyes at Sirius. "I've never met someone so incredibly passionate about something that has nothing to do with him before."
Sirius shrugged again. "Sorry, but treating people like human beings instead of diseased animals seems like the sort of thing that has something to do with all of us, doesn't it?"
"You know what I mean," Marlene said, "I mean, I care as much as the next kind hearted person, but it isn't our fight, is it?"
Sirius said, "I dunno Marly, why limit ourselves to being passionate only about what personally effects us, right?"
"It just seems like you get in an awful lot of trouble defending them and -- Oh, wait. Is it because of this kid that you're so worried about the rights of the werewolves?"
"Sure why not," Sirius said.
"I mean, that's sweet as fuck if it is."
"Nobody ever said I was anything but sweet. Like honey. That's me. Sirius Black, sweet as candied sugar." He grinned at the annoyance clear on her face. "You should know. Your mouth has been on me."
Marlene rolled her eyes in disgust, "Ugh! Don't remind me of that heinous experience."
"It was most definitely non-heinous," Sirius said, smirking. "You've likely been having dreams of me ever since our practice rounds back in third and forth year and --"
Marlene made a gagging sound.
Sirius eyed her, his mouth twisted with absolute evil amusement. "We were truly ridiculous back then."
"You were."
"I'm truly ridiculous always," he argued.
"I hope you don't think I'm going to say something like 'oh no Sirius don't call yourself ridiculous, you're not' because that, sir, would be a straight bold-faced lie."
"Or a very gay bold-faced lie, as the case might be, my little vixen." He slid onto the chair beside her so that the chair was backwards and he was straddling it, watching her eat the french toast and said, "Marlene, my love, I simply must know every gory detail. Did Janis work her blue kozmic magic last night?"
Marlene grinned, "A woman does not kiss and tell."
"HA!" Sirius guffawed and pointed at her, "You did a lot more than kiss her, I can tell, your bloody face is about as red as Merlin's left tit after a good twist!"
Marlene choked. "You sick little pervert."
"What? Merlin loved it." Sirius hugged the seatback. "So things are right with the world again in Emmarlene land?"
"Emmarlene land?"
"It's where you and Emma live rent free in my head."
"Glad to know we have a home there."
"It's more of a flat, really," Sirius said, "Bit of a shitty one on the south side, but you manage."
Marlene laughed, "Bloody hell Sirius, you're so weird."
He reached out and took her hand, "Marlene, I --"
He had the funniest flash.
Marlene sitting on the Hogwarts Express, her hair in two blonde braids, her eyes wide and staring up at Annalee, who sat in the seat opposite, talking to McKenna beside her. Marlene feeling insecure, Marlene feeling by herself. She looked out the window and there he was - Sirius himself - already in his uniform, being told goodbye stiffly. There was something honest about the boy with the perfectly pressed trousers and the straight face, with the matching little brother (a perfect set like salt and pepper shakers) and the stern expression on the parents faces... It shouldn't be that the boy looked anything but dreadful and boring, given those around him, but Marlene knew then he was different.
Just like she was different.
She climbed up to kneel on the bench and pressed her nose to the window, trying to see where the boy went.
"Honestly, Marlene, sit down like a proper girl please."
Marlene turned and saw Annalee glaring in disapproval. "Sorry."
But that boy didn't leave her mind.
His name was Sirius Black.
She watched him sorted to the house of the bold and brave and she admired him and yearned to be as bold and brave as he was. Too cautious, too thoughtful, too wrapped up inside of herself and her fears to be anything except everything that everyone expected her to be.
"Oi who are you?"
"I'm Marlene."
"Oh well, that's splendid." Sirius was laying on his back in the grass, sunlight burning down from the sky, warming him like a cat. He squinted up at her. "You're blocking my sunlight."
"Sorry. I just wanted to meet you."
"Wanted to meet me?" Sirius sat up. "Am I famous?"
"A wee bit. You and your friends are. After that prank -- I mean, everyone's talking about it, aren't they?"
"Are they?"
"Yes. But honestly, I've wanted to meet you even before."
"You have? Why?"
"You seem -" she paused. What adjective would fit? "Free."
Sirius laughed, "Hardly."
They were older then, and Sirius was standing near her at the Ravenclaw table in the Great Hall. "Hey McKinnon?"
"Hey Black."
"You wanna, like, be my girlfriend or something?"
"Alright."
"Cool."
And he'd walked away.
It had been that simple.
They'd laughed about it, of course, later on, when a week later he actually asked her to hang out sometime and they'd gone and sat next to each other in the library for thirty minutes without talking, just doing homework. And another time they sat in an empty classroom and played gobstones for a bit while they talked about silly things - Quidditch, mostly, and Marlene had told him how her mum and dad didn't think girls should play sports and how Finley, her oldest brother, had taught her a thing or two so she could join him and Archie and a couple of their friends at pick-up.
"I'm actually a really good beater," she said.
Sirius had grinned, "I play beater, too."
"Yeah, I know," she said, blushing, "I've gone to the games just to watch."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
And there was Sirius with his face all screwed up, his mouth puckered, his face red, waiting. "You look like you're in actual pain," Marlene complained.
"I'm scared."
"You've done loads of snogging though you've said?" Marlene said, confused.
"No," Sirius answered, "No I've done loads of lying about snogging." He peeked at her to see how much she'd hate him for this admission. But she'd laughed then, too. "You're not angry?"
"It's hilarious, actually," Marlene answered.
"I've kissed Meg but it was terrible," Sirius admitted, quickly.
"Terrible? Meg looks like she'd be a terrific kisser, actually."
"No, she's not, it was so awkward! I wanted to DIE Marlene. Actual death. So - so hopefully yours is a bit better than Meg's." He paused, shuddered, then drew back and his face screwed all up again.
"If you made that face at her while you were kissing her, she had no chance," Marlene said. "Relax your face, you look stupid."
"Bitch."
Diagon Alley and Marlene was holding Jakob, her owl, whose snowy-white feathers shone in the morning sunlight. Sirius didn't remember her birthday. "You didn't read my last letter," she said.
Dear Sirius, it had read, today's my birthday and I'm really wishing you had come to my party. Didn't you get the invitation? I hope everything's alright. My brothers really wanted to meet you, but now Archie's off to uni tomorrow so he won't get to and I'm really sad because they would have liked you quite a lot and --
"I've only just come from Costa Rica."
"Costa Rica! What were you doing there?"
"Backpacking with my cousin, Andromeda..."
Back on the grounds of Hogwarts, and Marlene was running up the stairs in the castle, squealing the entire way, her robes flying out behind her as she ducked past students coming downstairs that shouted at her to watch where she was going, and she got all the way up to Gryffindor Tower, her heart racing and breathless. She waited, hopping from foot to foot until somebody came out the portrait hole and she rushed through before the Fat Lady had swung closed, ducking through the hole and up the stairs to the boys dormitories, finding the one labeled with their initials on it easily and banged on the door, her fist rapping on the frame.
Sirius opened the door groggily. "What the hell?" he said when he saw her, "How did you -- how --?"
She pushed into the room. "SIRIUS! SIRIUS! GUESS WHAT? I GOT ON THE TEAM!"
"Holy hippogriffs! There's a girl in here!" James shouted with surprise, pulling his duvet up - he'd slept in only his undershorts the night before because it was hot in the dormitory. Peter squeaked in surprise, and Remus, who was still asleep, rolled over.
"You got on the team?" Sirius asked. His hair was tufted up in weird places.
"YES! I'M A BEATER! FOR RAVENCLAW!"
"OH!" his face lit up and he grinned and hugged her, "YES!"
"Oi, take your girlfriend somewhere not so private please!?" James whined.
"Don't get your delicate panties in a bunch, Prongs," Sirius answered.
And suddenly they were under the tree by the lake... Sirius had nicked a pack of cigarettes over the summer, and they were passing a lit one back and forth, taking it in turns to take a puff and choke on the smoke. This was a sequence, their faces growing older, their grip on the cigarette more sure, more confident, more experienced...
"Bloody hell, how do you make it look so easy?" Marlene demanded.
It wasn't just the cigarette she meant, it was everything. Bloody EVERYTHING Sirius Black did looked effortless and cool. God, what was it like to be like that? To just BE everything that she, Marlene, wanted so much to be?
Sirius grinned, blowing smoke through his nostrils. "In Costa Rica, we smoked every day."
"Stop with the Costa Rica bullshit, will you? We both know you weren't in Costa Rica." Marlene asked, snatching the cigarette back. "So. Tell me the truth. Where were you really all summer?"
Sirius hesitated. "In the woods."
"Sirius."
"I was homeless, and living in a tent. My father tried to kill me and I ran away."
She stared at him.
"You're serious."
"I always am."
"I'm sorry. I didn't know about your dad. What did your mum say?"
"You must improve your aim, Orion, darling," Sirius simpered, imitating his mother's voice.
Marlene looked horrified.
"I don't think he's joking when he says those things, Annalee," Marlene said, sitting in the library, whispering to her older sister. "I think he's serious. And not like his silly pun, either. I think his parents really are abusing him. Isn't there something we ought to do?"
"Yes -- mind our own business," Annalee said.
"But what if something really bad happens and we didn't help him?" Marlene asked.
Annalee glanced across the library to where Sirius was sitting with Remus Lupin. She frowned. "Well he's here at Hogwarts isn't he? They aren't going to anything to him here, obviously. They can't get to him, so he's safe."
"I suppose."
And suddenly she had Sirius's chin held tight in her grasp, keeping his face still. "If you make me fuck up, not only will you look like a raccoon, but you'll poke your eye out."
"Then I could wear an eyepatch, like a pirate, and everyone would want me."
They were in the girls toilet outside the Gryffindor common room, standing in front of the mirrors.
"Hold still."
"I am holding still."
"Then shut the hell up so your face doesn't move when you talk."
"Darling, Sirius Black never shuts the hell up."
"Sirius Black is going to get stabbed in the throat with an eye-pencil if he doesn't start shutting the hell up."
"Violent! You never told me eyeliner was so dangerous."
"It's punk rock, it has to be a little dangerous."
She was drawing on the eyeliner, thick, all around Sirius Black's eye. When she'd finished one side, she stopped and let him look at it in the mirror.
"Oh my God, I look so bad ass!" he exclaimed, leaning in to see.
Marlene smiled at the side of his face. "Yeah you do."
Sirius asked. "Am I going to be able to do this myself?"
"It's just like drawing with a pencil. See - look." She held up the eyeliner pencil and showed him. "Now roll your eye up a little bit... and it's weird but it kinda helps if you open your mouth? I have no idea why. See like this..." she demonstrated, looking into the mirror so he could watch the reflection. She held out the eye-pencil
He put it on, mimicking what she'd done, and although it wasn't perfect by any means it wasn't horrible and he was pleased with the look, running his hands through his hair a moment. He looked at Marlene and grinned.
"Ah my protege," she said, laughing. "I have taught you well. Go forth into the world and do magical things with your new knowledge."
They were passing in the Great Hall, passing in the corridors, passing on the grounds...
"Sirius are you avoiding me?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, of course, just busy is all..." and he'd disappeared in a crowd again.
"You smell like eggs," the words echoed randomly and Marlene was sneaking sprays of perfume from Emma's bottle on her desk, afraid she really did smell like eggs.
And then they were in the alcove off the Trophy Room passageway and Marlene had her eyes closed, waiting for a kiss.
Sirius stared at her mouth, all puckered and waiting.
"Marlene?"
"What?" she asked without opening her eyes.
"Marlene, I can't practice kissing with you anymore."
"What? Why not? We still haven't managed to get it right, have we?"
"I think - I don't think the fact that we're unpracticed is the reason why it feels so weird."
"What do you mean?"
Sirius sat quiet for a few minutes, his face flushed, and staring slightly left of Marlene, eyes focused carefully on the fabric pattern of the couch.
"Sirius?"
"Marlene, I think I'm gay."
She stared at him, incredulous. "You... you what?"
"I think I'm - I think I'm maybe might be kinda gay." He looked up at her suddenly, his eyes were wet, shoulders heavy, and his face was full of fear as he waited for her to reply.
Marlene took his hands in her own. "I love you, Sirius."
Sirius looked ready to throw up. "Marls, I --"
"I love you no matter what is what I mean, Sirius. I don't care if you're gay. You're my best friend. If we can't be more than that... Well, at least we'll always be that."
"Really?"
"Yes."
He leaned forward and hugged her. "Don't tell anyone?"
"I would never, Sirius."
"It's Remus Lupin."
"I figured."
And she was walking back to the castle with the cluster of girls and Remus Lupin, and his hair was wet from snowballs the Slytherins had thrown at him, and he had his hands jammed in his pockets and a frustrated look on his face until the gaggle of girls had taken him in, and Marlene watched Remus walk and wondered what Remus Lupin had that she didn't have.
Well. Besides the obvious appendage, of course, she'd thought.
And then there they were - Sirius and Remus in the corridor, walking along, laughing and Sirius didn't even see Marlene in the crowd, he was so focused on Remus Lupin, his eyes all eyelined perfectly, just like she'd taught him how to do. And there was Sirius climbing onto the table in the Great Hall and there was Remus lacing his fingers through Sirius's on the desk in potions... and Lily talking for hours about Remus and Sirius and how great it was...
And Marlene felt jealous, watching how free Sirius Black looked once again.
Why did he bloody make EVERYTHING look so EASY?
"I - Sirius, help. I don't know what's wrong with me."
"There's nothing wrong with you Marls, there's not."
"But I feel like there is, I feel so dysfunctional, I feel so lost and confused and - the world just spins so fast, doesn't it? How do you make everything look so goddamned easy?"
Sirius laughed, "Nothing in my life is easy. If you don't think that coming out was the hardest damn shit in my entire life that I've ever done, then you were soooo not paying attention during fourth year."
But she had been. She'd been paying attention.
She was just terrified.
And he'd had great friends surrounding him, protecting him.
There was James Potter, hugging Sirius in the Great Hall and laughing and the pair of them in the corridor, joking about and having a lark of some sort, and James's eyes were crinkled, Sirius's arms about his shoulder --
God she was jealous of James.
He was the friend she desperately wanted to be with Sirius Black...
"I don't know what to do Lily," Marlene was saying, and Sirius recognized the scene on the bridge from when he'd incorporated Lily Evans, how Marlene spoke of being jealous of Sirius and Remus, how she said she didn't know what was wrong with her, how Lily said that she just might not have kissed the right person... and Marlene was kissing Lily. She was kissing Lily and feeling nothing and Marlene cried and cried and Lily just comforted her. "I'm sorry for not being the answer," Lily whispered into Marlene's ear...
Hours later, not days, but mere hours, Marlene looked Sirius in the eyes, "Sirius, if I tell my family - they'll disown me."
"Let me know you something..." and he'd shown her the letters - all those horrible letters from his mother...
Marlene was crying. She was crying and she was pacing in her dormitory, Emma sitting up in bed staring at her, hugging her knees. "I hate how much people feel like they have to hate on others for just being in love, I mean bleeding hell, what is so terrible -- just because they don't get it, just because it's not what they like, they have to hate..."
"Were the letters really that horrible?" Emma asked.
"She literally wished her son dead, Em," Marlene was sobbing.
Emma blinked. "Gosh, that's awful."
"I can't imagine what he's going through. I would DIE if my mum ever wrote me a letter like that. I would actually die."
Emma stared at her feet. "Luckily, you... you don't, um, have - have that problem, yeah?"
Marlene froze, her back to Emma, her eyes glued squarely on the window, on the moonlight drifting over the rooftops of the castle... the very rooftops James and Sirius had run away across, clutching a polaroid camera, stolen from that very dormitory room...
Marlene closed her eyes.
She did have that problem.
A flash of conservative parents in straight-laced, proper clothes. Family dinners, all four kids sitting with straight backs and their mother scolding Archie for slurping his soup, eaten out of a fine china bowl. Her father wore a tie to a basic Tuesday night dinner with just the six of them - mum, dad, Finley, Archie, Annalee and Marlene. Their house elf served the meal and none of them chatted...
She did have that problem and it would shatter everything.
She imagined once telling them during dinner and the sound of clattering silverware on the fine china and her mother sobbing had turned the family image dark, the sound of classical music changing from plinky-plonky upbeat tones to dark, unhappy, jaggedy tones in breath.
She did have that problem.
"My dad was very understanding when I told him about me," Emma said quietly.
Marlene turned slowly. "Wait. Em. You're -- you're gay?"
"Lesbian is the word, Marly," Emma said quietly. "And -- well, yes. I thought you knew."
"No. I mean --"
She'd hoped.
And Marlene stared at Emma.
Suddenly Kozmic Blues was playing - Maybe Maybe Maybe - and Marlene was closing the gap between Emma and herself, and the world was pink and hazy and there was a lot of skin tones and sweat, dainty little gasps and moans that were so different than the sounds Sirius and Remus made, so much more feminine and he blushed, and was nearly as red in the face as Marlene was when it was over, when they were laying side by side and Marlene was laughing and crying at the same time.
"Oh my folks are going to kill me, they're going to kill me Emma and I don't care because you're that kind of magical."
Emmaline laughed and kissed Marlene back.
And there were hugs and kisses in a hammock in Costa Rica, the way the wind caught the silky wrap tied around Emmaline's waist and the tiny triangles of bikini tops being taken off and beach sand stuck to the skin as they rolled...
Marlene was dancing with her in the light of some candles in a kitchen, and under a street lamp to music only they could hear...
Then there were fights, shouting, screaming - breakups and tears and firewhiskey in tea cups on Sirius Black's couch, his arms around her, her face buried in his shoulder, the smell of him and the warmth of him and the comfort of those arms - those boy arms she'd been in so many times that were strong and loving and protective and all the things she needed in the middle of the world falling apart as it was.
Did she mention the firewhiskey that she'd over done, that ran through her veins in place of her blood that day? That day she kissed Sirius, standing on tip toes in the park across the street from their flat in East London?
"I'm a fool, Em."
Remus Lupin's burning angry eyes.
"Oh God, I'm a fool."
But she'd made it right, hadn't she?
The whirlwind visit to borrow the record, and the sound of Maybe by Janis Joplin resurged...
"Everything's alright in Emmarlene land?" Sirius's own voice from just minutes ago.
And Emma and Marlene kissed, their hands on each other's face, the whole world fading away so that all that existed was them and their kiss and nothing else mattered. Not even the clattering sound of dishes on fine china that haunted Marlene every time she thought about what it would mean to be openly gay...
"Where did you learn to kiss so good?" Emma was breathless.
"Sirius Black."
"'scuse me?" Emma drew back, looking into Marlene's eyes with confusion.
Marlene started laughing...
Sirius pulled his hand back.
Marlene stared at him. "What - what just happened?"
Sirius could feel her confusion.
He laughed, "Oh Marlene, my darling," he said and he got up and kissed her head, hugging her. "I'm so sorry that we're the same soul. I feel so bad for you."
"What?" Marlene looked up at him. "Sirius, what just happened?"
"Have you heard about magique amour, my little vixen?"