Chapter Text
November, 1976- Fifth Year
“If you are what you eat, I could be you by morning.” Sirius leaned in and gave a wolfish grin. “What do you say?”
Marlene looked at him, unimpressed. “I am not saying that to Mary.” His grin fell, and Sirius slumped a bit, pouting.
“Why not? It’s such a good line!”
“It absolutely is not! I hope for your sake you’ve never used it on anyone.” At his shamefaced expression she swatted the side of his head. “You idiot.”
“Hey, you came to me!” Sirius said, rubbing the spot she had hit him. “You specifically asked for my expertise.”
“Yeah and it’s my fault for thinking you had any to spare. You clearly need all the help you can get.” Marlene sighed and slowly slid, not unlike honey from a jar, from her seat on the couch to the rug in front of the fire. After a heartbeat Sirius joined her and they sat together watching the flames.
They were in the Gryffindor common room at about two thirty in the morning. It was a Friday night, or Saturday morning if you were particular, which meant no lessons the next day, but it was late enough that even the most determined night owl was back in their rooms. Ever since the Minister of Magic had been replaced with a man intent on helping the Dark Lord's rise to power in fourth year, Marlene had been sleeping badly. She would join Sirius, who already hadn’t been sleeping, in the common room. Neither of them wanted to discuss why they couldn’t sleep. They both knew the other had nightmares, but they never asked the other what about. It didn’t seem right. And so they talked about other things, things easier to joke about in the warm flickering glow of the fireplace. Tonight, it seemed Marlene had come looking for relationship advice.
“So, Mary?” Sirius asked lightly, not looking at Marlene as she winced slightly. She had hoped he wouldn’t notice her slip. He gazed into the fire, watching a piece of bark burn off the side of a log. He felt more than saw her tense beside him, but she replied with no edge in her voice, surprising him.
“Yeah, Mary.”
“Like, our Mary? MacDonald?” Marlene closed her eyes and nodded, body tensed and still like she was expecting something terrible to happen by confirming what he said. Sirius looked at her, shifting to rest his arm on the seat cushion of the abandoned seat. “So do you love her?”
Marlene’s eyes shot open and she sat up straight. “What? No! Of course I don’t. I can’t. It's just a stupid crush that won’t go away. And it doesn’t even really count, because… well, it just doesn’t.” Sirius watched her short outburst with a contemplative look. She avoided looking at him, brushing the fibers of the carpet back and forth.
“Marlene?” She didn’t respond, studiously brushing her fingers along a part of the carpet’s pattern. “Marlene, look at me.” She did. “How many crushes like this have you had?”
“What do you mean ‘like this’?” Marlene responded, putting air quotes around her words and shifting to lean back against the seat. “Crushes on my friends? Crushes on blondes? Crushes on studious, loudmouthed, funny, adorable-”
“Girls?”
Marlene shot Sirius a look.
“I wasn’t going to say that.”
“Maybe not, but that’s what you were thinking.”
“Oh, because it’s so easy for you to understand girls?”
“No, it’s just easy for me to understand you.”
“Oh really? You think I’m that easy to unpack?” She shifted so she was mirroring his position, facing him with her arm up on the seat cushion. The fireplace threw dancing shadows around the room, but where they sat was bright. There was nowhere for her to hide.
“No, of course not. But you’re avoiding my question. How many crushes on girls like this have you had?” He knew he was maybe being too direct, but he had seen Marlene avoid a topic before. If it was lost, it was lost. It was never discussed again. He would take the risk. Marlene looked right at Sirius, trying to decide how to respond. She knew if she went to bed he wouldn’t stop her, and he wouldn’t bring it up again. But she didn’t want to go back to being around Mary, even if she was sleeping soundly. Marlene sighed again and looked down.
“I don’t know. I really don’t Sirius,” she said, stopping his reproach before he fully said it. “I think I’ve had crushes before, on boys, but none of them have felt like this. Like those I could almost ignore or turn off if they were too distracting, you know? And I don’t know how many I’ve had on girls before either. I think-” she started playing with a loose string on the seat cushion the two were leaning on, not looking at the boy sitting across from her, “I think I’ve maybe felt something like this, but not this strong. But everyone gets crushes on their friends. It makes sense, it’s who we’re around most, and who we know best. Everyone feels like this about their best friends.”
She looked up at Sirius, sounding like she was trying to convince herself more than him, but he was shaking his head.
“No, Marlene, not everyone feels that.” Her heart sank a little, but she knew he was right. She’d known it wasn’t the same.
“What am I supposed to do?” she whispered hopelessly. “I can’t like girls!”
“Why not? What’s wrong with it?” Sirius looked her dead in the eye. “I like girls. And they like me too, no matter how bad you say my pick up lines are.” His light joke fell flat. Marlene wasn’t in the joking mood. In fact, she looked almost wild with a panic that had clearly been boiling for far too long. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it before.
“That’s different Sirius and you know it. I’m not a boy, I can’t like girls. And I definitely can’t like my best friend!” Her voice rose as she spoke, and she quickly remembered the time. She looked around, decided she hadn’t woken anyone, and whispered, “It would be like you having a crush on James, or Peter. It’s not right!”
“I mean I’m not a girl but I like boys just as well as I like girls.” Marlene’s eyes widened with surprise, but she didn’t respond. “That doesn’t make me bad, does it? I’m still a good person, no one has struck me down from the sky for my immoral choices, though I’m sure my mother has made her attempts, and I’m still friends with Remus, Peter and James. Can you honestly think of a reason it’s bad? Really ? Any direct, specific reason at all? Even one reason?” She was silent, not looking at him. “That’s what I thought.”
They sat together for a few minutes, not saying anything. Marlene seemed to be lost in her thoughts, fighting herself, and Sirius just watched her carefully. He’d been here before. It had been rough, sorting out his muddled feelings, but eventually he decided that the Hufflepuffs in his charms class were cute, regardless of if they were boys or girls. There had been some inner turmoil and fear, sure, but he lived with enough self loathing. He saw no need to add that to the pile. It had been a freeing realization in the end, but it was different for Marlene, clearly.
“I think I love her Sirius.” He didn’t react much, just enough to show he heard her, just enough to let her continue. “I can’t love her.” She stopped him before he interjected. “Not because of the girl thing. Well- not just because of the girl thing. She’s my roommate. She’s my best friend. She’s so...good.” Marlene sounded almost defeated at the last word. “She’s too good. Even if you took out the girls thing, which I can’t , she wouldn’t want me. She shouldn’t want me- I’m not good enough!” She looked like she was going to cry, or lash out and break something. Sirius reached out to put his hand on her shoulder and she jolted back like she’d been burned. Marlene got to her feet hurriedly.
“No, look, Marlene, I’m sorry-”
“Don’t be, it’s fine. It’s all fine. Don’t worry about it.” She took a breath, but Sirius could still see the raw, unhappy look around her eyes. “I’m going to bed now, I think I need to sleep.” She backed around the chair Sirius was leaning on, still quietly watching her, looking almost like he was afraid she would hurt herself. Marlene turned and took a few steps towards the girls staircase, then seemed to change her mind. She turned back and walked over to Sirius.
“You can’t say anything.”
“Marlene I won’t, you know that.” He sounded almost hurt. They never repeated anything said in these conversations.
“This-” she gestured widely at the two of them, at the common room in general, “never happened. You don’t act on it, talk about it, or even think about it when anyone is around you. Understand?” Even unarmed and wearing her comfortable pajamas Marlene was terrifying. He nodded. She pointed at him. “Swear it!”
“I swear!” Sirius held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Tonight never happened.”
“Good.” Marlene turned and walked fully up the girls staircase to her dormitory door, looking back only once to see Sirius deliberately not looking in her direction. She sighed quietly, raggedly, and ran her hands through her hair. Giving herself another second to take a breath in and center herself, she opened the door to a dark room, and walked her familiar path back to her bed in the dark. She climbed in and closed the curtains.
She didn’t sleep.
Sirius watched her climb the stairs, then looked into the fire as she glanced back at him. Marlene worried him. Thinking back, she’d been looking rough for weeks, months now, and tonight made him wonder just how long she’d been fighting herself on this. He kept gazing into the fire as Marlene opened her door and disappeared inside. He kept gazing at the flames as he considered everything that just happened, and he was still sitting and watching the fire when James came down to find him the next morning.
_____
Sirius stuck to his word. He didn’t bring up the conversation again, and made no outward signs that it happened. But he began to watch Marlene closer. The two had been close friends for a long time, almost as close as he was with the boys, but if Sirius had learned anything in that time it was that Marlene was very good at hiding things. She could walk into a room with any collection of people and fit, playing whatever part was expected of her, and showing nothing true. And if they hadn’t been as close as they were, Sirius never would have seen the little cracks. But they were, and he could.
He saw them at breakfast, when her raunchy jokes about the latest guy to chase after Alice rang hollow and her laugh didn’t quite reach her eyes. He saw them in the library, when Lily and Mary sat beside her, chatting over ignored charms research. He saw them in the common room, playing exploding snap with Peter and laughing as he lost his eyebrows another time, watching him run off to beg Lily to grow them back. He saw them in the quidditch stands, when she stared off into the direction of the Ravenclaw keeper without really looking at him. He saw the cracks, but he couldn’t do anything about them, keeping his promise to not say anything. But if he was just a little more careful around her, no one but Marlene noticed.
And so it was that she didn’t join him in front of the fire for three weeks. She still couldn’t sleep, but preferred to go sit in the bathroom against the cool stone rather than see those eyes, the ones that could see her when she didn’t want to be seen, staring at her in the empty common room. No, the cold and quiet and lonely bathroom was fine. She was fine. Everything was fine.
Until it wasn’t.
And so one night, after waking up suddenly, choking back a scream so as not to wake the other sleeping girls, she found herself automatically going down to the common room, to the fire, and to her friend. She didn’t even think about it until she was at the bottom of the stairs, stepping up to the edge of the carpet and pausing as if Sirius would make her leave if she came closer.
Sirius didn’t say anything as she came down the stairs, only looking up away from the fire when she stood at the edge of the carpet, not making any moves to come closer. He expected to see cracks, sure, but he didn’t expect cracks like a canyon. Cracks in the mountainside just before the rockslide destroys it all. She looked awful, red eyes and cheeks streaked with tears. Her shoulders were so tense he was afraid for a second she’d dislocated something, and her arms were wrapped around herself so tightly it was like she was afraid she’d blow away in the hints of breezes that swept around the common room from the poorly sealed windows. Any words he might have had died on his lips as he saw her, and he just opened his arms to her, letting her come to him in front of the fire on the couch. Letting her accept the help if she wanted it.
She did, and so she went to him, curling as small as she could against him, pressing her face into his chest and taking shuddering breaths. She started to say something, but choked on the words in her throat.
“Shhh, don’t say anything yet.” Sirius said gently, holding her tightly and brushing his fingers along her back. “You don’t have to say anything yet. Just breathe. All you have to do is breathe. I’ve got you.” He kept murmuring to her, not knowing just what he was saying but knowing that she just needed someone, and knowing this was the best way to give it to her. She was crying into his shirt, but he kept holding her, kept running his fingers along her back.
“You know I play guitar?” She didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to. He was just saying anything.
“I got my first one when I was twelve, from Remus, and I was so excited. I thought it was so cool, and I wanted to learn all my favourite songs. I was always a fan of the Beatles, and I wanted to know how to sound like them. So I tried learning to play. Moony even gave me a book for it. His grandmother or great aunt or someone he didn’t know but who was related to him gave them as gifts. Because of course what Moony needs is a musical hobby.” Marlene didn't say anything, but her breathing came a little easier now with the sobs becoming more even, and she gave what could have been a wet snort of laughter, clearly thinking back to third year when Remus had tried to sing along to the radio in the corner of the common room and had subsequently gotten said radio banned from the common room by popular demand.
“But anyway Moony gave them to me and I was- well I was pretty bad actually.” He laughed slightly, remembering. “I wouldn’t have subjected anyone to it. Except I had to practice if I wanted to get better, so I kept wandering into empty classrooms to try and practice where no one could hear me. So one day I wandered into Binns room, but before I even pulled out the guitar, Binns appeared and tried to start lecturing me! When I tried to leave he docked me twenty whole points! Can you believe that? But anyways I figured anything was better than a lecture I didn’t have to be at to begin with. So after that I was just more careful wandering around trying to find a place to practice.” Marlene wasn’t sobbing anymore, just breathing deeply with tears still coming, though the stream seemed to be slowing. Sirius decided this was progress.
“So I was a twelve year old, with a guitar I couldn’t play, and a desire to learn muggle songs no one else knew. I was so excited about it too, I couldn’t wait until I could impress everyone with my musical prowess. It was before we were close friends, so you don’t remember how insufferable I was back then but-”
“Yes I do.” Marlene interjected. Her voice was quiet like she had lost it, hoarse and rough. Like she had been screaming. He didn’t mention it.
“Okay then, fine, everyone in the entire school knew I was insufferable and I could not be stopped. My enthusiasm ran rampant, ruled all there was, and went as quickly as it came. I loved that damn guitar so much, but when someone stole it I wasn’t quite as heartbroken as all that. I never did find out where it went, but I did eventually get a new guitar, and now I can play it and all the Beatles my heart desires.” He kept running his hands along her back, stroking gently. His arms were still around her, but slightly looser, less like she needed to be held together, and more like she just needed to be held.
“I have to tell you something.” Marlene didn’t quite pull away, but twisted enough to look up at his face.
“What?” She sounded so serious he didn’t know what to expect.
“Mary and I stole that guitar.”
“You what??” He did release her now, and she sat up, still close enough she could lean on him, but existing of her own accord. She was smiling, if a tad bit wetly, at his shocked and not quite outraged expression.
“Mary and I stole your guitar because you couldn’t play anything and we were tired of hearing the out of tune thing wake us up every night. Just because the bathrooms don’t have anyone in them in the middle of the night does not mean that the sound doesn’t travel.” She smiled wider at his face. “We stole it and gave it a safe new home. And there’s nothing you can do about it now, but it doesn’t matter because now you’re good and we don’t have to stage another guitar rescue operation!”
Sirius looked at her in amazement for a minute, then opened and closed his mouth silently a few times. It took him a moment to process.
“A rescue operation?” He asked finally. Marlene nodded solemnly, just a touch of a smile trying to make its way back onto her face. “That's not a rescue mission, that's a kidnapping! I ought to have you arrested!” He was joking. They both knew it, and it was a stupid joke, but she was smiling, and that’s what mattered.
“It is too a rescue mission, if what you’re doing is torture. And from the sounds it was making, that’s what it was!”
“You don’t get to kidnap my poor guitar and then tell me it was for the greater good,” Sirius said, poking at her playfully. “Who knows how much it suffered away from my calming presence?”
“Your presence has never been calming a day in your life, don’t lie to yourself.” They were quiet for a minute, Marlene resting her head against Sirius’s shoulder, comfortably sitting together and watching the fire burn and crackle. They both waited for the other to speak, Sirius with a wary curiosity and Marlene with a nervous anxiety. Marlene spoke first.
“I’m sorry.” She didn’t look at him, and she was so quiet that if he hadn’t been listening, even in the near silence of the common room, he would have missed it.
“For what?” He tried to keep a light tone. It wasn’t supposed to be accusatory, but it came out a touch sharper than he thought it would. She winced a little.
“For freaking out at you. About Mary. You didn’t deserve it.” He shrugged the shoulder she wasn’t leaning on, keeping his expression carefully neutral.
“I shouldn’t have been prying probably.” He shot her a grin. The angle was a little odd for his neck to be at in order for him to see her, but he barely noticed it. “You know how I love to stick my nose into other people’s business.” She smiled a little back at him, still unsure of how to proceed. He gave her an earnest look. “It’s all okay Marlene, don’t worry. We’re still good.”
“Yeah?” She sounded so small and tired. It wasn’t like her. Or maybe it was, but it wasn’t the mask she usually showed, even in their honest moments like this.
“Yeah.” She released a breath, and some of the tension dropped from her. She leaned into him, letting his arm rest over her shoulder and turning again to watch the fire. She let her eyes close and herself relax, suddenly exhausted. Curled up on this couch, being held by someone who didn’t want anything in return, except maybe the same shoulder another day, was suddenly the only place she wanted to be. She was so tired. She could feel herself slipping into sleep, letting herself relax just a little more. She was safe, at least for now. It was fine. She was fine. Everything was fine.
As she fell asleep, Sirius shifted her so that she was lying with her head in his lap. This wasn’t the first time this had happened. There had been nights that she would come down the girls stairway, still crying, and she wouldn’t stop until he held her for hours. There were other nights she clearly hadn’t slept yet, and came down bright eyed, happily avoiding whatever it was she needed to. But this was not unusual- for her to fall asleep against him. What was unusual was how even in sleep, even at her most peaceful, she still felt barely held together. Like it would only take one moment to break her completely. Sirius didn’t know what to do.
She worried him, and he didn’t know what to do about it yet. All he could do, he decided, was be there. And maybe that would be enough. But if it wasn’t, he was ready to keep holding her together, and, if he had to, put her back together.