𝙱𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝙻𝚒𝚏𝚎

𝟶𝟸𝟻-𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚏𝚏 𝙼𝚒𝚗𝚞𝚜 𝚃𝚠𝚘

┌────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──────┐

The last weekend of May was the day of the final Quidditch match. It was Gryffindor against Ravenclaw and Marilyn had not been speaking to her brother for a week because of their sibling rivalry and house rivalry. She had instead been spending quite a bit of time with Luna Lovegood, who she discovered to be a lovely person to have a good conversation with once you looked past her odd tendencies.

Marilyn helped her enchant a hat so that there appeared to be a live eagle on it for the match. Luna seemed to not care in the least about the amount of jeering she got from the Slytherins when she walked into the Great Hall the morning of the match.

Marilyn herself wasn't wearing anything nearly as creative as Luna's eagle, but she was wearing a dark blue jumper, white jeans, and her Ravenclaw scarf. She sat beside Luna in the Ravenclaw section of the stands and watched the game.

". . . Bradley . . . Davies . . . Chang," Lee said as the Ravenclaw team walked onto the pitch.

Marilyn had never even considered playing Quidditch. She could fly fine, but she wasn't particularly fond of it. She much preferred flying in her dragon form, even if she wasn't able to very often.

"And they're off!" said Lee. "And Davies takes the Quaffle immediately, Ravenclaw Captain Davies with the Quaffle, he dodges Johnson, he dodges Bell, he dodges Spinnet as well. . . . He's going straight for the goal! He's going to shoot — and — and —" Lee swore very loudly. "And he's scored." 

Marilyn cheered with the rest of the Ravenclaws and, the Slytherins who were just cheering for them because they took every chance they could get to go against the Gryffindors. 

Suddenly, to her great surprise, Katie streaked down the field with Marvolo at her side, beating away any bludgers getting anywhere near her and she scored, earning a loud roar from the crowd of Gryffindor supporters.

Marilyn couldn't help her small smile as she watched Marvolo kiss Katie quickly before streaking down the field in the opposite direction. Marilyn watched with grudging respect as Ron somehow managed to block nearly everything the Ravenclaw Chasers threw at him and even cheered slightly when the Gryffindors won. She supposed they deserved it. 

✮✮✮

As the fever for O.W.Ls and N.E.W.T.s set in, Marilyn found herself having to confiscate more and more items being illicitly sold by just about everyone to the unsuspecting fifth years. The seventh years were smart enough to know none of it worked and just locked themselves up in the library or their common rooms to study, but the fifth years were all unbearable naive when it came to anything of the sort and were coerced into buying all sorts of stuff that supposedly would give their brains a boost.

Marilyn even had to stop her own brother from selling some Hufflepuff fifth years something that would definitely not help their brains—melt them more like. She had hit Marvolo over the head with the huge book of wizarding laws Sebastion had given her for Christmas and he groaned about it for a while before accepting the fact that he had done the same to her several months before and he deserved it.

The first week of the exams passed easily for Marilyn and Marvolo, especially seeing as they didn't have O.W.L.s or N.E.W.T.s. It was rather discouraging to watch the students in both the year above them and the year below them struggling so much.

On Wednesday night, the following week, Marilyn was walking through the forests when she suddenly saw the door to Hagrid's hut open and his appear, roaring and waving his fists at the six witches and wizards who seemed to be attempting to apprehend him.

"Be reasonable, Hagrid!" She heard Dawlish shout, still attempting to stun the half-giant, who the spells were just bouncing off of due to his giant blood.

"Reasonable be damned, yeh won' take me like this, Dawlish!" Hagrid roared.

Fang was attempting to defend Hagrid as Marilyn remained frozen with shock. She watched as a stunning spell his the poor dog and Hagrid let out a howl of fury before lifting the culprit bodily from the ground and throwing him. The man flew about ten feet and did not get back up.

"How dare you!" McGonagall shouted, running down the slope from the castle. "How dare you!" 

"Leave him alone! Alone, I say!" said Professor McGonagall's voicethrough the darkness. "On what grounds are you attacking him? Hehas done nothing, nothing to warrant such —" 

Then, as Marilyn watched with horror, four stunners connected with her. For a moment she looked luminous, illuminated by aneerie red glow, then was lifted right off her feet, landed hard on herback, and moved no more. 

Coming to her senses, Marilyn quickly made herself invisible before casting spells left and right, taking down several of the witches and wizards as Hagrid made massive swipes at several others.

"COWARDS!" bellowed Hagrid. "RUDDY COWARDS! HAVE SOME O' THAT — AN' THAT —" 

As Marilyn watched (the only of Umbridge's helpers left looked terrified) Hagrid leaned over and picked up Fang, slinging him around his neck like a sack.

"Get him, get him!" screamed Umbridge, but her remaining helperseemed highly reluctant to go within reach of Hagrid's fists. Indeed,he was backing away so fast he tripped over one of his unconsciouscolleagues and fell over. Hagrid had turned and begun to run withFang still hung around his neck; Umbridge sent one last StunningSpell after him but it missed, and Hagrid, running full-pelt toward thedistant gates, disappeared into the darkness. 

Marilyn, after watching him go, turned toward Umbridge and her remaining helper. She was still invisible and they couldn't see her coming. In an instant, the man was unconscious with his colleagues, making Umbridge yelp and jump back.

After deliberating for a moment, Marilyn flicked her wand at Umbridge and made her cloak catch on fire. The toadlike woman shrieked and jumped around to put it out before storming back up to the castle. Marilyn raised an eyebrow at her retreating back, glancing at the unconscious people she had left behind before looking up at the Astronomy Tower where she knew an entire O.W.L. class had witnessed everything.

Sighing, she conjured up stretchers and levitated the six unconscious witches and wizards before moving up the hill to where McGonagall still lay. She crouched down beside the witch and checked her pulse. She was still alive, but she would definitely be needed serious medical help. Scowling, she levitated her onto a stretcher as well before making her way up to the castle with all seven stretchers floating along behind her. She supposed it looked very strange from an onlooker's point of view—her being invisible and all, but honestly she didn't really care.

That night, she didn't sleep at all after delivering the seven unconscious people to the hospital wing. Instead, she paced around the Astronomy Tower, deep in thought. Something bad was coming and she sincerely doubted there was anything she could do about it.

But, what was it?

By seven o'clock the next morning, Marilyn found herself in a terrible mood. Something was going to happen and she was nothing she could do to stop it. Marlene had tried to cheer her up, but her mood was terrible and it wasn't going to lessen anytime soon. Not until she knew what it was she was dealing with. 

A countdown had started in her head again and it was only a matter of time before it ran out. 

└────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──────┘

A/N: Sorry this one is so short, but it's kind of necessary. We're finally getting to the good part! :)