Working at the Ministry was a lot different than working at St. Mungos. For starters, the pressure of learning the job was basically nonexistent. While she needed to work extra hard to learn different potions and processes, the administrative tasks came much more naturally. But that could have been due to the fact that Peter's assessment had been correct; the department wasn't that busy, and that made Marlene feel confused as to why Rose wanted to bring her on.
"This isn't some sick way to get Patrick and you closer together, is it?" Sirius had been very bitter when Marlene had filled him in on the details.
"No. I don't think so. The first signs that that's the case then I'm out, okay? You need to trust me on this."
He had sighed, then smiled. "I trust you, Mar. I do."
She was shifted around from department to department, assisting in support wherever the extra help was needed. Her favorite part about the actual job, when she was working and not thinking up ways to get herself into the Department of Mysteries, was memo deliveries. It turns out that those little paper airplanes that fly around, called interdepartmental memos, required someone to actually cast the charm and navigate them to their intended destination. Peter told her that it was the easiest way to get information about any potential spies working in the Ministry. Technically they weren't supposed to read the memos, but they did it anyways.
She hadn't found anything yet, but Nancy in Department of International Magical Cooperation was having a pretty steamy affair with Cornelius in Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. They weren't particularly subtle about it either.
Rose had kept her word that Patrick wouldn't interfere with her position at the Ministry, and after a month of unanswered owls, he seemed to give up. She had felt guilty in the aftermath, having put such an abrupt end to their friendship. But she knew that it had been the right move, the smart move. And then she never looked back.
In the months that followed, Tom continued to evade Marlene's attempts to visit him. He was never home when she stopped by and visitors to the Department of Mysteries was prohibited. She had tried. Numerous times. Cassandra's house continued to appear unoccupied, and the door continuously went unanswered during the frequent trips Marlene made back to Germany.
Despite her optimism that the job would lead an easy path to unraveling the importance of the Department of Mysteries, and Cassandra's cryptic information regarding prophecies, she continued to hit dead end after dead end.
When she wasn't working, she spent the rest of her time with Lily and Alice, attempting to patch up the fragments of their broken relationship. At one time in her life she had felt the pang of sadness that she was not sharing the same experiences as her friends. Both girls were blissfully married and had babies that they adored. But only after she had time apart from Sirius did she realize that she wasn't ready for that life yet. Not while the dark cloud of death and destruction continued to loom over their heads as Voldemort continued to rise in strength and numbers.
Of course she still missed Sirius, but the time apart while she had been away made the days and weeks separated from him much more bearable than they had when they were in a relationship. They didn't see each other much except for in passing at Order meetings, or when he would stop by to see James and she was over visiting Lily.
It could have been easy to pick back up where they left off. She knew that if she stopped by Sirius's flat and told him that she was ready to get back together that they would somehow make it work. But he didn't pressure her into making any sort of decision, and seemed genuinely happy to spend whatever time they had with one another without insinuating that it wasn't enough.
Overall Marlene was happy. As happy as one could be given the circumstances. She wasn't quite on the life path she had once foreseen herself taking, but day by day the pieces of her that were once broken began to mend.
It was late into winter when everything changed.