Para:0005 - Blog Posts

mxrlenemckn​:

It had been a long, sleepless night.  Sirius had been a welcome break from the heavy realizations the day had brought.  But once they parted ways and the tequila settled into a heavy ball in her stomach she could no longer ignore the truth she had been avoiding.  It was her fault.  Fully ignoring the fact that she was the only one of her family that was in the Order, the only one with a job that would have created any sort of target upon them, there had been a million opportunities to stop it.  She should have made sure the house was protected before they all gathered there, or demanded they wait to gather until they knew they could do so safely.  When she saw the shadow she should have thrown up a shield.  When Travers removed the immobilization spell she should have fought back.  There were a million things she could have done to save her family.  She had failed them once.  It wouldn’t happen again.

July 29, 1981.  She had two and a half years.  Thirty-two months to figure out how to save them.

The headache started setting in as the sun tipped above the horizon – the second night in a row she was up before the sunrise.  She sat on the window sill, watching the sun streak orange and pink across the street.  She sat, listening as the street became alive again.  Muggles stepping out on their way to work, cheerful and energized in that way you became after a short vacation, unaware that for some people everything had changed.

Eventually the hangover induced headache escalated to the point that she was motivated into moving.  Walking barefoot across the worn carpet, she made her way to the medicine cabinet, pulling out one of the hangover potions she kept for moments like these.

She had just unstoppered the vial when a quiet knock came from her front door.  She startled, the cool, glass bottle nearly sliding through her fingers.  Tipping the potion back, she swallowed it in a single gulp and already began to feel the comforting warmth working its way through her.  In another time she may have simply been confused by the door.  Literally no one she knew would be calling on her before noon.  But curiosity go the best of her and she stepped hesitantly forward, loosely holding her wand in her right hand.

But when she opened it and saw James she froze.  It had been a long time.  Maybe not in 1979 – but in 1981 it had been over six months.  And she understood.  She had understood the need for the hiding and for the secrecy without knowing the exact reasons for it.  If they thought it was necessary she supported them; truthfully, she couldn’t think of a circumstance when she wouldn’t have supported the pair of them.  She had always understood, but she missed him and Lily.  And here he was, at her front door as if nothing had changed.

But it had for him – she had seen the look on Lily’s face, heard the glass shatter as she dropped the mugs.  She had seen the way Sirius tensed when she approached him.  She had died, been murdered. They had accepted that and maybe even mourned her a bit – and she was back, some kind of fucking ghost.

With most people she wouldn’t have considered it, but with James it had always been different.  There was something different about someone who had seen you through nearly every stage of life, from an awkward child to an adult.. sort of.   She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him in a tight embrace.  She stood there like that for a long moment before letting out a breathy laugh.  “You look like shit, mate,” she said, her voice thick with emotion.  What a fucked up twenty-four hours it had been.  “Come on, let me make some tea.”

--

It wasn’t real.

It wasn’t real, it wasn’t real, it wasn’t real.

For how messed up the past day had been, how much information he and Lily had been forced to sit with and process, nothing had prepared him for this. Nothing could. Losing Marlene had taken an entire piece of his heart, ripped it right from his chest, and no force on Earth could have brought her back to him. He had tried to accept that, tried to live with it, had mourned every day since Moody had come to them to break the news, and James had to use every ounce of strength he had to keep Lily upright, to cling onto her like it was the only thing keeping him holding on, too. 

And now, she was here. Hugging him. Sane and sober enough to joke about how he looked.

The last time he’d seen her had been in a fucking grave.

She was everything like he remembered. Eighteen years old and bright eyed, even with the hangover that haunted her expression. Blonde hair in waves around her shoulders, wand in hand, still in the same clothes she wore the night before. Sirius had gone to see her, Lily had explained, and James had needed the few hours to reason with the fact that Marlene, his Marlene, had come back to them. As much as he’d wanted to run to her as soon as Lily had told him, James knew it was a reality he couldn’t face.

Hell, it was the exact same thing stopping him from running back to the estate, crying for his parents.

She was warm. Very much real, and very much alive. Her arms were tight around him, voice as choked up as he felt, and James stayed quiet as she suggested tea, the comment so bizarrely normal that some part of him refused to believe it was happening at all. Maybe he was still dead. Maybe this was some kind of purgatory, while Marlin or God or whoever was up there decided what to do with him, after he hadn’t done enough. Maybe this was hell, forcing him to relive the past two years of losing his friends, and his family, and fighting a losing war, and facing Voldemort again, and learning how to fucking handle everything he’d done wrong in this world.

Or. Maybe it wasn’t.

His hand lifted before he could stop it, catching Marlene’s cheek. 

They always could have been something.

“.. you’re really here?” he asked finally, still in the threshold of her home, afraid to take another step forward. James searched her eyes, looking for the truth in them, and felt tears in his own. “You’re -”

who: @mxrlenemckn​ when: january 2nd, 1979 where: marlene’s flat

He hadn’t slept all night.

It was impossible. Not when he knew what he knew. Not when his friends had been hurt, so badly, for so long. Trying to wrap his head around why he and Lily were back in the first place had been a challenging enough venture, but after facing Remus and Sirius, and hearing Lily had gone to Peter’s, all of it was simply.. too much. Too much for any one man. The exhaustion had settled deep into his core, had made a home right alongside his mourning, and James had learned to sit with it, alternating between staying in bed with Lily, holding her as she cried, to sitting out in the back garden, and simply looking up at the stars.

He’d become so accustomed to sleeping with a fussing baby in the night, that having the Hollow be so quiet was simply too unnerving. There was no pattern of feedings, or bedtime stories, or baths to take. Their routine had been entirely wiped clean, replaced by the pair working on autopilot to unpack what boxes they could.

The few moments of sleep he managed to get were plagued by nightmares, and flashes of green, and the haunting sight of his son, in that forest, ready to go. None of it felt right, like they had been nightmares, - more like prophecies. Visions. Memories of what could be.

Harry had been ready to die.

The guilt could swallow him whole.

Finding Lily after lunch had been.. a challenge. Not because she had gone anywhere, but simply because someone had come to her.

A ghost. A memory of what was, from their own past.

Marlene.

It was his final straw. The thing that broke him. Losing Marlene had been devastating, beyond all belief, and hearing that she was back, - how was he supposed to believe that? How was that supposed to help make any sense of what was going on? They may have been brought back from the dead, Remus and Sirius may have lived whole lives, gone on decades without them, but Marlene had died before them.

And now, two years in the past, she was visiting their house to steal their food, like she always had, as if nothing was wrong.

Lily had only just calmed him enough to get him to breathe again, arms tight around him as he choked on air. She had soothed him, healed him, petted through his hair until he could find his balance again, held his face and reassured him that he was alright, that Marlene was alright, and that she would be there, waiting, when he was ready.

Which was where he found himself the next morning, standing at the door to her flat. 

It looked the exact same. Cracking paint, a crooked number. A little imperfect, just like Marlene. 

If she wasn’t behind the door, he wouldn’t know what to do.

James knocked.