#winterpatronus

She was distantly aware that she was angry, or sad, or something in between – however, the only thing engulfing her over the course of the past few days had been the emptiness. Somehow, that was worse than anything. Anger was tangible; grief was healthy; sadness was expected; pain was something. Anything Marlene felt, however, was downgraded instead to a dim sort of awareness of how she ought to be feeling, clouded by the terrifyingly vast and unfamiliar prospect of losing something so close to her. 

Marlene allowed very few people in her life to get close for this very reason. She had been foolish, perhaps, to be lured into the false sense of security that ‘everything would turn out okay’ as her father had assured her countless times. Things were getting worse, the reality of war screaming in every headline outlining another death or mysterious disappearance that the Ministry couldn’t quite explain. She preached that the only way to win was to fight back and was very vocal about the fact that she wasn’t afraid of what the war could do to them all – she wasn’t invincible, but as far as Marlene was concerned her life was dedicated toward making a change. If she managed to make at least some sliver of a difference in this shitty world, she insisted it was worth it, personal safety be damned.

Fear was a funny thing – it flitted in and out, but it had been dismissible all her life. She didn’t let it show. Marlene McKinnon wasn’t afraid. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

Sirius’ hand remained intertwined with hers through the entire ceremony, although he seemed to be aware of the fact that she wasn’t listening – she wasn’t too sure if he was listening, either, tracing patterns with his thumb over the back of her hand idly as he often did when he was distracted. Marlene distantly wondered when he’d picked up this sudden endless amount of patience with her. She’d hardly spoken to him in three days; although she knew he was probably worried, he hadn’t pushed her, and  she was grateful for that. She had been shuffled between people and flats during the day, with James or Lily or Mary or sorting things with her relatives, but it was Sirius who wordlessly pulled her against his chest at night and granted her some brand of escape by his presence alone. Only the soft thumping of his heartbeat pressed against her ear lulled her as close to a sense of calm as she could get, a reminder that someone she cared about was still breathing.

Marlene didn’t realize the ceremony was over at all until Sirius’ elbow subtly nudged her, suddenly brought back to a world where people were rustling behind her and moving to leave. Some part of her had known being left alone to say goodbye was traditional and inevitable; it hadn’t occurred to her whether or not she should ask Sirius to leave. If asked, she probably would have told him she’d be okay. All the same, she was slightly relieved when he didn’t move and seemed generally unfazed by the clearing space until it was only the two of them.

“Marlene,” he said softly, his voice heavy with meaning. She was still for a moment, inhaling deeply through her nose as her stomach twisted painfully – she had never been very good at saying goodbye, and doing it right then meant admitting they were gone, something she had been trying her best to avoid. All the same, a part of her knew she couldn’t avoid it for much longer; she’d been such a longstanding believer in confronting things forcefully before moving the fuck on that she knew this was only a slightly more graceful extension. Marlene McKinnon didn’t tiptoe around reality, afraid that the ice would crack and shatter beneath her feet.

She nodded very slightly, her body feeling heavy and stiff as she rose from where they’d been sitting and moving to where the caskets laid, three in a row. Their faces looked white, drawn, hardly even real - Marlene wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but this hardly looked like her family at all, their expressions so empty and void of anything. She could see the scar on her brother’s jaw from the time she’d pushed him into the bookshelf in her father’s study. Her father's wrinkles were still pressed into the skin around his mouth, laugh lines that'd become so familiar she knew she could trace them without looking. Her mother was wearing the same dress she wore at Marlene's eleventh birthday party, the day she'd received her Hogwarts letter.

The memories threatened to make her overflow. She was vastly unaware of Sirius, whether he'd risen to stand with her or was still sitting in the front row or if he was even still there at all. Something like regret and guilt and hurt washed over her, the rush of everything hitting her like a speeding train. They were gone. She'd never hear her father's boisterous laugh, see her mother smile, or elbow her brother at the dinner table as he teased her again. All she had left was what she remembered, something that seemed so fleeting and terrifying that she could barely think straight. All she wanted was for them to come back - fuck, she'd do absolutely anything to have them back. 

She exhaled shakily, moving and then leaning to press a kiss to each of their foreheads. She whispered goodbye, that she was sorry, that she loved them. When she finally turned she didn’t realize she was searching for Sirius’ embrace until his arms had closed around him and she felt her shoulders wilt. She’d been holding her breath for days and it was only when she buried her face against his shoulder that she felt something in her splinter. 

He pressed his lips against the crown of her head. “I know,” he murmured against her hair, and it distantly occurred to her that he was grateful she was even alive. Had she arrived at her parents’ house twenty minutes earlier she could have been dead, too. She’d spent the past three days telling herself over and over that if she’d been there she could have saved them – Marlene knew a part of her would always think that way – but Sirius was clinging to her in a grateful sort of way just as tightly as she was to him, his arms strong around her like she would float away if he didn’t anchor her to solid ground.

Marlene didn’t realize she’d been crying, her shoulders shaking slightly with barely-there sobs, until he finally pulled away slightly to cup her face between his hands like it was made of glass. “I will make sure,” he murmured as his thumbs traced over her wet cheeks and his eyes brimmed with sincerity, “that you’ll be okay. I’ll keep you safe.” She hadn’t known it was what she wanted to hear – she didn’t know until right then that the feeling washing over her in violent waves was fear, and she never would have guessed that she wanted to feel safe. Marlene McKinnon was the protector, not the one who needed protecting. 

 “I swear to you,” he breathed, lapsing into a different version of himself that he hadn’t even known existed, “that someday, it’ll all be okay.” She nodded almost unnoticeably; he was promising the seemingly impossible, and she was letting herself believe him.