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The last strength she had left, Mary used to lift her hand and knock at Remus’ run down door. Lily would love it. She’d trail her fingers over the grotty wood, mumbling things about little keys to the past, and her eyes would shine in the way they do when they find another mystery. Something to solve. The same way they had shone when Lily had looked at her. Because that’s all that Mary had been to her. Some riddle, some closed book that had yet to be opened.
Exhausting. Every movement was exhausting. Lily. Lily. Her breath was laboured, and the walls were spinning, while simultaneously closing in on her.
“Remus,” she whispered, then again, louder, “Remus.” Mary was knocking, more frantic, more desperate than before, because Remus was in there, sitting in his flat, and he wouldn’t leave her out here while the whole world had turned against her, took everything away from her, he wouldn’t let her bleed out to death right here—
“Mary!”
The walls stopped spinning, moving back to their designated places.
“Jesus Christ, you scared the shit out of me with your hammering.” He paused. Mary felt him stiffening at the sight of her. Remus opened his mouth, closed it again. Then, “Mary?”
“Remus,” she returned. His silhouette was blurring into a flurry of colours. The tear burned as it rolled over her cheek.
An arm wrapped around her, followed by soothing, “Come on in, I’ll brew some tea, hm?”
It was tempting. To just lean into Remus, cry on his shoulder without a word leaving her lips and be comforted. But that wouldn’t be fair, would it?
No. No, it wouldn’t. But none of this is fair! she wanted to scream. She was a child all over again, inconsolable and selfish and ungiving.
“Remus,” she started again, only to be met with a, “Shh, it’s alright.”
“No,” nothing is alright, “No, Remus, you don’t—“ She stopped, digging her heels into the ground and pushing him away.
Something switched. In her brain, in her body, her spirit, she didn’t know. Mary MacDonald knew nothing. She never did.
“Dead. They’re dead. They say he killed them. I—he wouldn’t. I don’t—he can’t. No, that’s not—dead. They’re dead. Dead, never coming back—“
“Mary,” Remus interrupted. “What are you—who are you talking about?”
“Sirius. Sirius killed the Potters.”
They did have that cup of tea. Later. After hours of yelling, glass shattering against the wall, and threats, they sat opposite of each other, almost peacefully to the outside viewer.
“Thank you.”
Mary looked up, frowning.
“For—for telling me. In person.” Remus’ eyes moved to the shards and dirt next to her. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if I had to find out alone.”
Mary followed his gaze, then dragged her eyes around the room. “Drink, probably,” she said, eyes landing on the wine-stained carpet, green splinters of glass surrounding it, as if it were art.
Remus turned his head, shaking his head in disappointment at the sight. “Shame. Would’ve loved a glass right now.”
“Should’ve thought of that before smashing it into pieces.”
A weak smile. “Mhm.”
Another layer of silence.
“He didn’t do it.”
Mary looked at Remus. There were bags hanging from his eyes, purple as the old bruises decorating his skin. His clothes were crumpled. Scarred hands wringing each other until white.
She laid her hand on his. The stark contrast between his sickly white and her brown skin reminded her of—her.
I know, she wanted to say as she rubbed her thumb soothingly over his knuckles, stopping him from completely rubbing the skin away. Instead she said, “Harry survived.”
Remus stiffened, eyes widening. “Fuck,” he stood up, dragging his hand through his hair. “Fuck, Harry. Harry’s alive. Harry.”
“There’s—there’s more.” Her voice was trembling a bit, but for fuck’s sake, get yourself together Mary, you have to. “Dumbledore wants to give him away to the Dursley’s.”
Remus’ hand halted on his head. “No that—cannot be true. Dumbledore wouldn’t do that. Who told you that? Rita Skeeter?”
Mary shot up. “Dumbledore would, because he is fucking Dumbledore. He is the person he always has been. And regarding your stupid fucking question, no, Remus, I did not ask that nightmare of a woman about the aftermath of the death of the Potters, I was informed by McGonagall.”
They both said nothing first, heavy breathing being the only noise filling the room.
“Right. Right, of course. Why wouldn’t it be McGonagall telling you? Only you, as it seems.” Remus laughed. The maniacal sound of it made Mary flinch. “She didn’t tell you to tell me, did she?” Without waiting for her answer, he carried on. “No, of course not. Leave Remus to find out on his own. Because who the fuck cares?”
He laughed again. No, that’s not right. He wasn’t laughing. His shoulders were shaking, no, wait, his whole body, actually.
Mary walked around the small table and put her arms around him. Crying. Remus was crying. And she thought she was, too.
They stood there for a while.
“She cares about you more than me, you know she does,” she said softly, tracing random shapes on his back. “It was a coincidence. I was on my way to… them when I ran into her.”
“Professor?” Mary asked, because yes, Mary has still not gotten over the fact she’s not her professor anymore, and she will surely not call her “Minnie”.
“MacDonald?”
Mary smiled. “Happy Halloween,” she greeted. “How are you?”
“Mary,” McGonagall started, making her freeze. And then, suddenly, a pair of arms wrapped around her, so fragile Mary was scared to move.
“Professor?”
“Mary,” she said, but Mary couldn’t bring herself to return the embrace. A tremble. Mary was very sure she just heard a tremble in McGonagall’s voice. “I am so sorry.”
Remus is already out the door as Mary was pulling the coat tighter around her.
The car looked like it was about to break down any minute, but Mary gingerly climbed onto the passenger’s seat.
“Do you have your wand on you?” Remus asked. He was the first to find sense again. “Harry just lost his parents. That’s our priority now. He is our priority now.”
Mary nodded, feeling the familiar weight in her coat.
“Good. We’ll use them if necessary.”
“You want to use magic on the Dursleys?” Mary asked.
“No. But they get scared at even the mention of it, so the sight of wands will do.”
“What if they call the guards?”
Remus looked at her. “Then we take Harry, and run. Their home isn’t too big—wherever they put Harry, we’ll find him.”
Mary couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Selfish. She was so fucking selfish. One year old Harry had just lost both of his parents, but oh, poor, poor Mary, she lost her friends and her first love.
How long did she spend at Remus’ flat? Hours, it must’ve been. Hours, since Harry was orphaned, hours since the bodies had been found.
Bodies. That’s all that was left. Bodies. She’ll never see James’ radiant smile again, and Lily won’t make a witty remark about her every thought and move. No. They were bodies.
She turned her head to Remus’ hand, looking at the cold metal she had felt earlier. A ring.
You were there, she reminded herself, you were there when Sirius asked, so why are you surprised?
Because Remus’ and my—our Sirius is not the same as the one who was found with them. She recalled memories of Sirius, Sirius with James, joined at the hip, Sirius with Lily, singing drunkenly. Mary compared them to a Sirius, standing over James’ and Lily’s corpses, “laughing with a mad look in his eyes”.
Mary was about to be sick.
He didn’t do it. That’s what Remus had said.
Street lamps dimly lit the monochrome street, one house looking exactly like the other. Lily lived here. She did her entire youth.
The bile in her throat made her gag.
“You alright?”
She looked at Remus, when something far left to him caught her eye. A little bundle on a doorstep a few houses further.
“Oh my God.” Her hands went to undo her seatbelt almost on their own. “Oh my fucking God.”
“Mary?”
But Mary was already yanking the door open, only half-hearing Remus’, “Mary, the fucking car is still moving!”.
She tumbled out of the car, scraping her knee.
A child. Dumbledore left a child on a doorstep. Winter. It’s winter.
Mary was half running, half stumbling towards Harry. She heard Remus’ footsteps close behind her.
And there laid Harry. He was screaming. Bawling his eyes out. But no one was there. No Dumbledore. No Dursley.
A card.
Mr and Mrs Dursley
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey
Mary bent down, swept it aside and carefully picked up Harry.
“Shh,” she tried to calm him. “Shh.”
I’m so sorry. So, so sorry, she wanted to say, but breaking out in tears herself wouldn’t help much, would it?
Helplessly, she turned around. Remus was standing right behind her. The distraught look in his eyes gave away to the slightest relief.
“His cheeks are all red,” he acknowledged, gently pressing the back of his hand against Harry’s face. As if enchanted, he stopped crying and curiously watched him.
Mary waited for Remus to say something. When he didn’t, she whispered, “You take him.”
Remus looked up from Harry, frowning. “He knows you,” she explained, “You calm him.”
Mary didn’t meet his eyes when he gently took Harry into his arms, too ashamed.
He knows you. And if you hadn’t been as much of a coward to visit them at least once in a while, he’d know you, too.