#closed*

Some people wondered how they would die. Some people considered an ode of old age, unable to go on, a thoroughly lived life. Illness might’ve struck some of them, pain and strife others. For Marlene McKinnon; it was war. The needless sense of us versus them, light versus dark. War was a sickness, succumbing them all to the pain, the sacrifice that they all bestowed. Wear the badge of warrior, one of honour and pride, built on the crippling emotion of loss. They felt like they were losing. People were disappearing all the time, unanswered questions lingered to those who feared asking them. Marlene had no questions—she wanted results.

In the time from her departure at Hogwarts to where she stood tonight in the Order Safehouse, there had been growth. Shift. The unbearably arrogant woman had grown into her strengths, her skill as a witch. She had shifted from the silly little girl, using the title of McKinnon to get her way, finally earning it. The McKinnon family was a threat. An idealistic Pureblood family set in the same aristocratic standards as the Blacks or the Longbottoms, but without the fuel of fire. They had always been blood traitors. They had always supported the growth of all in the magical arts.

She no longer acted carefree, but cautious. She didn’t merely swing and hope if she missed that she would have a chance. Every move was thought out, carefully planned and considered. Marlene McKinnon was a fighter, a skilled witch. It was why, as she walked into the open spacious meeting they’d taken their official photograph as the Order of the Phoenix nearly two weeks ago—it was quiet. She moved to one side, silenced as she stood next to her fiancée, Gideon. “What’s happened?” She asked, embracing that these meetings always came with the worse sense of fear.

“Dumbledore gathered us, not sure.” He whispered. Her hand slipped into his as they stood off, Lily and James nearest them, Mary and Sirius, Dorcas, Fabian, Charity Burbage…. Hues scanned the room as she released a low drawn breath. The door to the furthest corner opened, as Andromeda Tonks moved out of the way, allowing her former Headmaster to follow through. “We’ve received rumour You-know-who plans to attack prominent families of the Wizarding Community.” He announced to them.

“Like who?” Marlene’s head snapped, catching the gruff sounds of Mad-Eye Moody, so aptly named after the recent incident with the passing of Evan Rosier. “Who, Albus?”

There was that eerie quiet, the kind that, without thinking, Marlene didn’t break contact with Dumbledore’s frame as he stood in the middle of the room, still squeezing her soon-to-be husband’s hand a little tighter. “Some suggest it might be the Prewett family—“

“What?” Gideon spoke up, as Marlene’s breath turned ragged.

“Shh—let him finish. “ She whispered, slowly beginning to tremble.

“Who else?” James finally spoke.

“Your parents have passed, James—possibly you and Lily, Harry, end the Potter line.”

“Like hell they will.” Sirius snapped, his tone venomous, as Marlene looked over, watching Lily pat his hand, nodding.

“The McKinnon family was another—“

It was then Marlene felt the colour drain from her face, numbness settling into her bones. She didn’t look at the others, as they all turned to look at her as though there was some explanation for how she suddenly felt. They were coming for her family. They saw them as a threat, to be exposed. To be killed off. Goosebumps erupted against her skin, the lump in her throat too thick to swallow. If she spoke, she’d cry. If she said nothing, she might be able to hold it together. “We don’t know when, but that has been on the horizon for some time—“

But Dumbledore’s voice seemed to fade, as did some sense of light. All Marlene could hear was the admission that now her mother and father, her brothers were in danger. Didn’t she sign up for this? Draw her name in the sand, say she was willing to lay her life down? Certainly. Marlene was willing to become legendary. But she had never agreed that her family become a memory for others. A glimpse, a glimmer that once they had lived here. That they had once walked the halls as we had. She could feel others hues still bore into hers, a glassy-eyed stare dropped to the floor. “Marlene,” Gideon whispered.

Feeling her body be shook, she looked up. “Don’t do what I know you’re thinking about doing.” He whispered.

“I won’t.” She assured of him. Go looking for the bastards who wanted to target them. “But I have to tell them, get them out of the Country at least.” She whispered. “We’ve family in Istanbul—they can go there.”

Her mind in overdrive, staring up at the one so long ago she struggled to openly love, as she pulled her hand from his, moving from the room, murmur of voices as they discussed the recent news.

“Marlene, please—“

“I have to tell them, Gid.” She rounded on him, shaking her head slowly. “I have to give them a chance to—to survive.”

“You can’t go alone—“

“Yes, I can.”

It was silence between both of them for a second. Her hands slipped into his, hiding her face in his chest. That familiar scent, that when the world had become insufferable, suffocating her at every turn, she could breath. His hands settled, one on the back of her neck, the other the middle of her back. Arms wrapped, squeezing tightly, before she looked up. “I promise I’ll be right back.” Marlene pleaded.

Looking up, as his lips captured hers. The gentlest nature unlike such fiery spirits, as Marlene fell freely, warmed through her body as he lightly grazed her cheek with his thumb. “Be careful, please.”

“I will.”

*POP*

Marlene stood before her childhood home, and froze. It was too late.

The Dark Mark hung in the sky, painted there as though by an artist, flourishing and dancing in the night sky, diminishing the bright sun and stars that fell the Scottish hills. Did she think? Did her mind slip into some kind of trance? She should’ve turned back. Walked away. Marlene needed someone to be there—why hadn’t she asked someone to come with her? Lily or James? Drag Gideon and his brother here. Someone to tell her don’t go inside. Someone to stop the footsteps that took off slowly, stumbling as she almost fell, breaking out into a sprint. The front door hanging from the hinges, as Marlene stopped before it. “Homenum revelio,” She whispered. The spell lit up, markers before her as she gently stepped through the front door, wand extended. Marlene counted the markers before her—no more than the number of those in her family.

She nearly held her breath, guard up, ascending the steps, nonverbally silencing her steps so she could move with ease. Whispers took the life out of her, waiting to hear the tones of her family, anyone familiar to alert that they were okay, that they were alive. Unsure of what lurked in the shadows, of what might’ve hid behind her, as she looked over her shoulder once more. Nothing. An empty space of darkness, as she reached the next landing. Head poked around the corner, Marlene began to panic.

Leave, a voiced in her mind told her. Run. Get out—get out of here—

She couldn’t do such things. Couldn’t dare leave. Pride, bravery—she was a Gryffindor.

But a house choice won’t save you here when you’re alone.

She should’ve just left—apparated out of the home. If she’d believed the notion it’d been staged, her parents setting the tipping form, both Ministry of Law Enforcement employees, prominent—even in Voldemort’s regime of terror. Maybe they knew—

“You should’ve never come, McKinnon.”

A chilling sound broke, the very one she had only run into in these rare settings. The one source of torment within school. If she wasn’t Marlene McKinnon, she would’ve run, apparated—escaped. But Marlene did the only thing plausible. The only thing that she would do in an endless war like this. She smiled. The light at the end of the hall shone, one body standing stoically.  Entering the room now lit, the only source of light, as she stepped into the room. There—piled corpses of her family members sitting before the fireplace like some deranged aesthetic set by the Death Eaters. Each one of them bore the look of pain, fatigue, surprise. Wide-eyed and—and—dead.

She looked up, the masked man whose voice hung inside her head. She flicked her wand, unmasking him as she watched him raised a gloved hand, the reddened marking against his skin. “I want to look you in the eye when I kill you for what you’ve done.” She whispered, a fire engaged so darkly, no thought or care. No morality, or remorse.

He killed her family.

“Who said I was the only one?” Travers spoke, as the sudden whooshing sound surrounded her, like a depiction of the Four Horsemen of Death.

Three masked, one not, as tears flooded her eyes, a chaotic rage that had her trembling. Fear, anger, it resembled all the things, morphed within the Witch. Standing there, no hesitation, raising her wand with quick reflexes she dated in ode to her Quidditch days. Stunning one, blasting him out the third floor window, as she ducked behind the door. Green lights burst above her, all of them in every attempt to finish the job. But Marlene was blinded. No sensibility, no—this was not how it would end.

She promised to go back. She had to go back.

Wand aimed at the ceiling, a graceless attempt, as she shouted. “Bombarda!” Watching the ceiling cave in on some of them, the streams of blacked smoke escaping what they could before being crushed by stone with the dead that now laid under it. Panic settled in, suffocating her, as she slipped into the empty room she once occupied in the home, silencing all around her. Her mother had always said she’d been a fighter. Feistier than any girl she expected to bore into the world. But it was what the world needed. There were people who needed Marlene to go on. There were people Marlene needed to live for.

“You can’t hide—“ A taunting voice called out to her, as she hid behind the door, one hand balled into a fist, the other flexing her grip on her wand. She needed a moment, a second to breathe—to send the Order a message, for back up. If it was Travers, it was easy. The other, the unquestioned second person, two disarmed—she needed to get rid of him to end the other.

But the second she stood there too long, the ground gave out, crumbling beneath her like sand through the cracks of glass, as she fell, light of stone from her home fell around her, as one landed on her chest. Raising her wand, the chill finally froze her limbs. It was broken.

“Like I said,” The gloating tone of Travers broke, as he stood over her, wand pointed between her eyes. “—you shouldn’t have come.”

“You’re a pathetic coward, killing a family.” She whispered, trying to push the stone off her, knowing this was it.

“You really thought you meant anything to this world? Blood Traitors deserve to die.”

‘     . .      D’YA     STILL     WANNA   SEE  THE   STARS   ?                i   could   take   ya’   up       there        when  . .    all   of   this   is   over   ,       ya’   know  ?               ’        voice   soft   ,      a    whisper   in   the           SILENCE   OF   THE   DESERT   UNDERNEATH      PROTECTIVE       SHIELD ;         glancing        at   her   from   corner   of    indigo    depths  ,         hybrid     simply    stuffed    palms   into    the   pockets   of      hideous         uniform    pants       &       waited .               she   surely    had   a   lot    on    her    mind    the    paladin          thought   /      knew         &         didn’t    push .                 arm      itching  ,          urge   to    embrace    weiss’s     form    again        growing .                  STARS    SEEMED    TO      MOCK  ,     LURE  ,     LAUGH                       their        distant          light   still   alluring    even    on    earth’s     night   sky    that     reflected    in       nocturnal        locks    of    pilot . 

                 watching  his  student’s   reaction     closely ,     observantly       he   felt   his   heart   ache   ‘pon   realizing   something     elementary     about   bakugou.      he   saw     himself     to   a   certain   amount   in   the   boy                  saw     the   past     flashing   by.    his   resolve   to   be   strong ,     a   hero   everyone  would   look   up  to   &    ignoring   his    own   struggles     completely.       who   needed  a    weak   hero  anyway ?     taking   a   deep   breath   he     carefully     placed   his   palm   on   the   blond’s   shoulder   for  a   moment.     a   gesture  to   make   him   understand   that     he   wasn’t   alone     but   he   wouldn’t   pressure   the   rather   explosive   teenager.     it   pained  him   to   see   someone      this   young      struggle   with   the   same   thoughts   as   him   back   then

          ‘                              you   think         you’re     not   allowed     to  be  anything  but   strong ,   am  i   right  ?       ’               inquiring     the    dark  haired  closed   off  any  emotions   from   his   mimic ,     voice   holding     a   softness     rarely   heard.      bakugou  needed   help               aizawa   would     at   least  try     providing  it.         ‘        when   i   was      your   age   and   even  years   after  it ,    i   thought   the     same      thing.   i     never     told  anyone  about   the   hardships ,     the  pain ,     the  loneliness   nor   my   weaknesses.      i   kept  it  to   myself     and   lost  a   part     of   myself     somewhere   along   the   road.    i   want   you   to   understand    that   we   are     still     humans  under   our  hero   costumes ,    bakugou.    you  may   hold  the   pressure   of   more   than   your   life  on   your   shoulders  but   you’re     still     and     never     will  be   more  than   a  human.    i   learned   that      too   late.          i   payed   for   it.            don’t   do   the   same  mistake ..     whenever     you   need   me   i’ll     willingly     listen.     even   heroes   need   a   hero ,    don’t   you    think ?        now   go.        i’m   pretty   sure   you   don’t   wanna   listen  to  me   right  now.    think   about  my   word’s  ...      okay  ?         ’         locks  hid   hues   from  view  as   he   stood  up.