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Marlene McKinnon was raised with God's name wrapped around her tongue and hymns echoing off her lips. Her childhood was a myriad of Sunday services and church potlucks, and above her crib had been a bible verse scrawled in loopy writing. Above her doorway, was a wooden cross. Marlene grew up in pretty dresses and ribbons in her long brown hair. She grew up the middle child of a family of five. She grew up under the weight of the Word of the Lord; the weight of a church.
The weight of her mother's watchful eyes and her father's sharp comments said with such casualness, but cutting deep enough to make her bleed.
Marlene McKinnon was raised with her knees in the dirt, sat in a church pew, praying like she was sick and there wasn't any other cure.
And God, she was sick.
She knew it from the first day she'd met Mary MacDonald. A girl so unlike her, yet a twin to her soul. A girl that was bright and loud and confident in everything she was. Marlene knew she had to sick, in every sense of the word, because she wanted. She wanted to hold Mary's hand and giggle like the girls at her church whenever they saw some boy in the shops. She wanted to be with Mary always. Always and forever, amen.
Amen, amen, amen.
Marlene knew she was sick when four years later, she kissed Mary MacDonald. Kissed her, really, fully kissed her. A stupid, drunken thing. A stupid thing. A sick, ungodly thing.
Father, forgive me, she had pleaded silently.
Though, she hadn't stopped.
Afterwards, she threw up, and only she knew it wasn't because of the alcohol.
In that year, her and Mary had been infinite. It had always been them. It had always been her. Them, sharing smiles and smirks and kisses when nobody saw. Them, that laid in each other's beds late at night in the dorms because they couldn't sleep, but they could still dream.
"What do you want to be, when you're older?" Mary had asked her one night, laying on her side, voice nothing but a whisper.
Marlene hadn't even hesitated. No thought. No choice.
"A wife."
Marlene had known how truly twisted it all was, when it didn't last. God punished those who sinned. The liars, the thieves, the girls that loved girls. God gave, and he took away. He took, and he took, and he took.
All Marlene could do was pray.
Bruised knees on the cobblestone of the courtyard, late at night when no one was around, she prayed, and she cried, and she wanted God to heal her. Take away the filth and the wretched thing she was. Make her forget Mary, and the way she tasted like strawberry lollipops. Make her forget every girl she'd ever looked at twice. Make her forget what it was to love, if love had been something she had ever thought she'd known. It was what God had intended for her.
It wasn't what her family would allow.
In her fifth year, Marlene started growing sick of everything. Herself, her mother, the uncanny way the looked like each other.
In her fifth year, Marlene cut her hair, and dyed it blonde. At 3am in front of a chipped mirror with the help of Sirius Black—thank God for Sirius Black.
Thank God for Sirius Black.
It was a week later that Marlene and Sirius kissed. They kissed, and that was all they ever seemed to do. It was boring. It was pointless.
But they kissed.
This was what they were supposed to want, wasn't it?
Sirius was Marlene's friend—a close one, at that. She would sell her soul for the boy, and he would for her. So why did it feel so wrong? Why did she look at Dorcas Meadowes more than her boyfriend? Why did she want to hold Dorcas, instead of Sirius?
Marlene would sell her soul for Sirius, but would she forfeit her happiness?
Too late. Summer break came, and she left her band t-shirts and ripped jeans and clunky boots with Mary to keep for the summer, so her mother wouldn't find them; wouldn't throw them out and shriek at Marlene and throw bible verses at her like slurs. She grew out her hair, and redyed it to brown, and braided it neatly, just as her mother had done for her when she was little. She dressed in her modest skirts and blouses and stockings and shoes, and she felt like a shell of herself.
No, she felt like she wasn't even that.
But she continued on.
Each night, at dinner, it became instinctive once more, to close her eyes and bow her head as her father prayed over the meal, hands clasped in the ones of her mother and little brother. To go to church on Sundays, and sit through the comments of who was getting married, and the boys that would make fine husbands, and the filthy people that were surely going to Hell.
It was that summer that Marlene snuck out into town, the place growing like a second skin. It was there she snuck into places her mother would faint at the sight of.
It was there, that Marlene would still silently pray, each time she took a shot, or shared a grin with a girl who was probably too old for her.
Lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.
Lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.
Lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.
That summer, her father found her little brother holding hands with a boy in his class, and slapped him so hard his cheek flushed red for days.
He was ten.
When the next school year rolled around, Marlene was anxious to get out of her house; to leave and run and run and run and never, ever come back. Screw her mother, screw the church and verses and pastors that looked at her oddly. She couldn't fucking breathe.
She was nearly gasping when she slammed the compartment door open, sinking into her seat.
Dorcas Meadowes caught her eye as she passed the compartment. A small smile curling her lips. A raised brow.
Marlene would have sunk to her knees right there and prayed until she bled if Lily hadn't burst through the door just a second later.
When the next school year rolled around, Marlene was a body chalk-full of pent-up energy. She was reckless, a loose cannon—even more than usual. The first night, she cut her hair, choppy and uneven. She drank with Sirius and James until she was knelt over the toilet, retching it all up. It was then that she fawned over Sirius' new tattoo he'd done himself over the summer, and demanded he teach her how. It was then that she impulsively pierced her ears.
Just her ears. Two small gold studs from Lily. Just there. Just there.
Her mother would have made her repent. Would have beaten some sense into her. Would have called her a foolish girl, and shipped her off to some finishing school to be saved.
Marlene wanted to yell at her mother. She couldn't be saved; she was a living sin.
Fuck, wasn't she?
At the last quidditch game before winter break, Gryffindor won against Slytherin. Won by a landslide, thanks to their bloody-fantastic team and captain.
It was after the game, sweaty and panting like a fucking dog, that Marlene met Dorcas' gaze again. She was drawn to it; moth to a flame.
Sinner to a church.
It didn't take long for things to happen. For Marlene to slip into some familiar kind of sickness. Dorcas was gorgeous, and intelligent in a way that made Marlene's head spin. The other girl was so bold, and unapologetic about it.
Maybe she had a type.
She didn't throw up after, but she paced. Nearly wore a track in the floorboards of her dorm while Lily and Mary slept soundly.
Father, forgive me.
Forgive me.
Forgive her?
Why was love a sin? Fuck's sake, she wanted to scream. Wanted to yell at the world until her voice was hoarse and her vocal cords bled. Why? Why, oh why, could her mother love her father, but Marlene couldn't love a woman? She did. She did, she did, she did. Why was that such a twisted thing? Why, when it was so sweet? What was so cursed about it?
She didn't sleep that night.
Her friends noticed. Mary and Lily sharing worried glances with James and Sirius. Remus sitting just a little bit closer. Peter telling a few more horrible jokes.
She wanted to say it helped, but it didn't.
What could be done? She had spent her entire life with knees bruised and words centuries old on her lips. How did you unlearn that?
Could you unlearn that?
How could she smile at Dorcas without feeling guilty? Was there a way she could do enough good deeds to appease God so he would turn a blind eye? Exempt just this one sin?
Marlene was so tired of living in fear. Of checking over her shoulder each time she grabbed Dorcas' hand, like she was afraid God would smite her there and then. Holy fire and all. Wasn't he supposed to walk with her through the fire? Would he dance with her as she burned?
Marlene wasn't sure she deserved that.
It was at the end of her sixth year that she truly, fully, royally fucked up.
She packed her trunk, like she did each year.
She hid her clothes, like she did each year.
She grew out her hair, and dyed it back to its original colour, and made sure she looked like a good, Christian girl, like she did each year.
One week into summer break, she received a letter from Dorcas, full of love and a melancholy that only people in love could write about. Stupidly sappy in a way Marlene would wrinkle her nose at, if it wasn't her. Her. Dorcas. Her Dorcas. Her girl.
She had read the letter, and made the mistake of leaving it out to see—aka hidden within a book, on her shelf, which her mother had rummaged through.
The letter had been found, her mother had screamed so loud Marlene feared the other side of the world could hear it.
Her father surely did.
Black and blue, black and blue. That was what he made her.
That was how Marlene left her house, eyes meeting her little brother's, his eyes wide and fucking terrified.
She didn't stop to say anything. What could she have said?
With a crack she was at Lily's front door. Her friend answered, red hair braided into neat plaits, dress green and perfect on her.
That time, when Marlene fell to her knees, she didn't even think to pray, she simply broke, which, in the end, where very similar things, if you really thought about it.