Watch It As It Lays

Prologue

September First, 1981

Ten years, that's all it takes.

Ten years to find your place in the world and then lose it.

To Marlene Mckinnon, those ten years had been everything. Half of her life. In those short years, she met the most important people in her life, and tonight would be the night she loses the most important one.

She couldn't do this, no way. They had made it this far in the war, this couldn't be it. But if she did it, the Longbottoms, the Potters. They'd be safe.

This isn't a goodbye, she kept telling herself. She would hold her again soon.

But whether Marlene cared to admit it or not, she knew deep in her heart she would never see her precious little girl again. But if that meant she was safe, then that's all that mattered.

But still, Marlene had a little hope. When she comes to get her, the war will be over, there will be no more funerals left to attend, the Potters, Remus, Sirius, Mary, Peter and Marlene would all be a little family again, just as it should be. This was going to work. It had to, or else they would lose the war.

How could all of this, the years of fighting, the deaths, just depend on a little baby? Her baby.

"Just let her survive please." She didn't know who she was talking to. She was alone on the porch of the orphanage where she intended to drop off her daughter. She wasn't religious by any means. Not like her stepfather. She was a witch for Merlin's sake. But she hoped someone up there was listening. Someone up there just looking out for her.

Please let something go right in my life for once. But then she looked down. Something had gone amazingly right in her life...

Casey.

Her baby girl yawned beneath her. Her pudgy cheeks rubbed against the side of her blanket. The cold September chill made Marlene need to bundle up both her and her baby. The chill whipped against Marlene's tears stinging her face...This couldn't be it.

The orphanage they stood before was much much bigger than Marlene had anticipated. She didn't want to think about her lovely baby in this cold brick building alone. Would she wonder if her mother didn't love her? Would she think that her mother didn't care? But Marlene couldn't think about that. Not now. This is for the best. she knows this is the only option. She couldn't just sit quietly waiting for Voldemort to murder them.

To be honest, she didn't trust Dumbledore. Everyone kept saying that he was the only one that they could trust. But despite what her stepfather had always told her Marlene wasn't stupid. She trusted her gut.

She of all people knew what Voldemort could do. She knew no matter how many charms and safety spells Dumbledore put on her house, that it wouldn't be enough. Marlene was stubborn and she wouldn't let that thing take anyone else to form her.

So many people. The brightest wizards she ever knew. Gone.

He took her everything.

Dorcas, oh Dorcas, her everything, her someone. Gone, in just one curse. He had done it himself. That monster didn't care that Dorcas had a child, a family, someone at home. God, she would rip his eyes out if he was here.

Ten years ago to the day, they had just met.

She remembered what her life was like ten years ago. Ten years ago today, she was boarding the Hogwarts express on her way to start her new life. She had walked into the great hall and been flabbergasted seeing magic being used in such a scale.

Ten years, that's all it takes.

How had it only been ten years since she met Mary on the train? It felt both such a long time and such a short one. Everything had just been so simple back then.