A SHIP A DAY MEME || MacMulciber

They share Mary’s bedroom, share a bed. As soon as Gwen and Charlie realize that Andromeda Black is here to stay, they set off on a mission to give her the most suitable bedroom. Unfortunately that means and invasion on Mary’s privacy and a hostile takeover by a set of feet which are somehow always inexplicably freezing.

They talk before they fall asleep.

Well, Andy does most of the talking.

Mary listens.

She needs someone to listen to her; Mary has thoroughly exhausted almost every ounce of her strength both mentally and physically yet she catches every word that tumbles out of the other girl’s mouth. It settles with her, somehow becomes a part of her. Her curiosity over the Slytherin was never hidden, and that’s what she initially blames it on. Andy sparked her interest right from the moment of their meeting as they left King’s Cross Station for the first time. She’s always wanted to learn more, and hearing Andy work through life as she learns herself more satisfies that curiosity.

A half-asleep assertion proves the theory false.

“I’m sorry,” Andy whispers, “I’m sorry I’ll shut up now. You sleep.”

“No, no,” Mary responds in a mumble, “Keep going, I’m listening.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re my friend.”

It was never curiosity.

Never strictly that.

From the moment she met Andromeda Black, Mary MacDonald was her friend.

It took awhile for Andy to catch up, to be a friend back, but three words spoken in the darkness of a temporarily shared bedroom make up for every second of lost time.

“Mary, what happened?”

It feels like those freezing feet pushing up against her calves.

Actually, it feels like Mary’s broken heart stops. She keeps breathing, though, not as a testament against this theory but as one to her body’s ability to keep going even when it feels like she and that very vital organ are begging for surrender. Mary opens her eyes slowly, her lips drying and cracking under staggered breathes. That is the only sound in the room for quite some time. If it wasn’t for their opened eyes very visible in the moonlight you would think they had both fallen asleep.

Too much time passes, Andromeda retreats, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to I -“

“Don’t,” Mary begs quietly. That’s all it takes for those pained breathes to fill the room once more. “No one’s asked,” she explains in a moment.

No one has asked her.

At least, no one since the night in the hospital wing.

It’s possible that this inquiry is scribbled down on notes given to owls who will only return later that day with the same letter with them and a belly full of the treats courtesy of the kindly old man they are routed to. So technically, this isn’t the first.

It is simply the first time Mary can not avoid it, or apparently the tears that swarm into her eyes and spill down onto the pillow below her. Crying isn’t new. She has even cried in front of Andromeda on several occasions. While listening to music, while listening underneath these covers.

It was a summer day fitting for a Beach Boy’s song the day Andy saw Mary sob because she had confused the sun warming the metal envelope that hung around her neck as a letter from James.

It’s a cool night tonight, the night he comes up. These tears are specific to him. These are the ones he would kiss away, make promises to. These are Alex’s tears.

Soon, sniffling accompanies the stuttered breathes. Mary waits for it to subside, tries to work through the logistics of the night. She works through what words would flow from her lips and stay trapped in the walls.

Severus asked for my help. That’s all I really needed to work on, I went without thinking twice. I walked towards the group of them without a thought. And then they took my thoughts. They didn’t hurt me, I didn’t even get bruised. They just had a bit of fun and then left. That’s all.

That’s all it took to do this to her.

It would be a reiteration of information she knew could already be heard in the halls of Hogwarts. Any student, hell any professor, could parrot what they had heard because word got around fast. Bragging from the Slytherin table lead to some exaggeration but the core of it covers everything necessary for someone to piece together a picture from the night.

She could offer this up and be left alone to fall asleep, she could do this. Say all of that. Trouble is, Andy isn’t asking for that.

Andy is listening to Mary because Andy is Mary’s friend.

The words tumble from her lips, “I fell in love.” The confession alone makes her feel as though her throat is closing, it feels too personal and the wound too fresh to expose to anyone but the one thought that found her voice and pulled it past the soft cries continues to tug. “I love him,” she breathes out. Jude nuzzles his way under her sweating palm, it only makes her heart ache more but Mary finds it to be useless to try and explain these things to him.

The tears pool in golden hair as she presses her fingers to her forehead. “My whole life I thought that there wasn’t anything love couldn’t make better. But this - this is worse than any curse he cast that night. I fell in love and I can’t climb out. I fell and it’s - it’s always going to be like this. It’s always going to hurt like this. He’s never going to be who I need him to be and I can’t change what I am. Now he’s gone and I’m never - we can never - I,” Something quieter, more broken than a sob escapes her but Mary doesn’t make any attempts to cover her face. She’s too tired to even try. “I love him. I love him. I love him.”

The hands that are too exhausted to shield her face curl into the fabric of Andy’s shirt when the girl moves closer. Mary falls asleep to the taste of her own tears and the smell of Andromeda Black.

A few days later, Andy’s permanent bedroom is finished.

Twelve quick steps across a shared bathroom means that nothing else changes. Each night Mary falls asleep with cold feet pressed into her calves and only after a long talk.

Not a mark on her.

Mary is content to sit in silence between two fussing witches. Minevra McGonagall has not stopped asking questions, she is relentless in finding out the who and the why - the mediwitch is intent on finding out just which dark curse was cast on the sixth year. She knows she should answer, she knows she is only succeeding in worrying them both more. But the words do not form, not as easily as the tears that lazily spill down her cheeks.

Not a mark on her. This is what pulls her attention towards them. This is what brings words to the back of her lips like bile threatening to escape.

How can they not see? Everywhere he has ever touched left a trail, been vines on the side of a stone house which eventually engulf it completely. How can they not understand? Magic always leaves a mark, a trace. Isn't that what love is? There should be some kind of path leading them right back to him. She's marked, marred. How can they not see?

None of these questions are purged, they merely settle in her mouth. Bitter, metallic, Mary believes it to be the blood of a broken heart surging up. In reality she has just bitten the inside of her cheek. The two fussing witches don't stop looking at her expectantly, though, so Mary thinks of something.