#peter002

Snow had fallen outside Hogwarts on Saturday morning, and naturally, a bunch of students decided to head outside. The Marauders followed suit, and ventured out to the grounds after lunch. The snow had piled up throughout the beginning hours of the day, covering the grass in a thick layer of white flakes. Sirius walked alongside everyone else, all of them talking together about anything and everything they could think of. 

Suddenly, Sirius had an idea, and put on a mischievious smirk as he bent down to pick up a handful of snow, indiscreetly rolling it into a ball a ball and chucking it at his friends. “Snowball fight!” He exclaimed, grinning wildly. It didn’t take long for it to escalate into a full-fledged battle together, the boys throwing snow balls back and forth at each other. Sirius dodged an incoming one that he was pretty sure Peter threw, before grabbing some so he could get revenge. He hurled it towards where Peter had been standing, but realized he’d moved before Sirius could do anything. It was almost comical how the snowball soared past at full-speed (really, it had been a good throw), and smacked right into Marlene, who was standing to the side with Lily and Mary. Sirius couldn’t help but laugh at that as he called out, “All right there, Marls?!” 

There had been a Valentine. A Valentine. Marlene almost snorted. The term was too small to encompass what she’d received. But, yes, there had been a Valentine. Before that, a letter left upon her belongings by the Pitch. Before that—well, before that had been tears and confession and screaming, pain and desperation and raw betrayal, gaping wounds and everything shattering.

The thing was, Marlene was certain, in some deep, coldly furious part of herself that she was right. That she was justified. That this intense devastation and betrayal wasn’t an overreaction—that they’d fundamentally done wrong. That Rod had done wrong. But because she was so sore—so messy, so pained, so unable to trust herself, she found part of herself doubting it. Part of her was a lick away from buying into the idea that it was somehow her fault, and the rest of her was railing against it. She needed to talk it through to process, but she was just so terrified that someone would tell her that it was somehow her fault.

She’d been armed with two-thirds of a bottle of firewhiskey shoved beneath her cardigan ( maroon, as befitted a Gryffindor, because fuck if she was going to wear her robes after dinner ) when she’d found her answer, her safe space: Peter. They’d gone up to the Astronomy Tower—she still didn’t know what she’d said to pull him there, only known a garbling of words, a kind of desperate need to get out of Gryffindor and to high ground where she wasn’t surrounded by all of these eyes, a please Pete can we, but nothing specific. All she could quite pin down was a rush coming from her mouth and them going to the Astronomy Tower, where they now were.

Marlene was sitting on the balcony part of the Astronomy Tower, legs pulled tight to her chest, staring out at the grounds. She took a gulp from the bottle then winced as it burned through her throat. “Everything’s a mess, Pete,” she said hoarsely, still looking out at the grounds, before turning her head to look at him. “And I don’t know what to do.” Her voice was helpless, desperate. She hated that. But she hated the feeling of being that more, so she plowed through. “I’m so—” she started, before breaking off. Scared it’s my fault, but she couldn’t bear to say that. “I don’t know how to say what’s wrong,” she said helplessly. “i don’t want to drag you in—but I just don’t know what to do by myself.”