Darwinism | hp

024: Birthdays

✧༺ ☾ ༻∞

Marilyn Locke's summer holidays proved even harder than her time at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where she had been attacked by a prejudiced snake and practically in a coma.

Apparently, her being Petrified was much harder on her younger sister, Sandy, than it was on Marilyn. At first, she thought that was rather ridiculous, but then she thought she was being selfish. She barely felt the time pass when she was petrified - maybe it was harder on Sandy. 

Her younger sister had had a hard year, too. Apparently, she'd been possessed by a book to attack fellow students, though Marilyn's best friend Harry Potter seemed to believe she wasn't possessed, which is rather stupid. Sandy wouldn't attack anyone just for the hell of it.

But, this meant that the holidays were filled with Sandy complaining about how frightened she was to see the creature that had attacked Marilyn, and that the fear was worse than actually being attacked. Marilyn's family didn't seem to care much, for her being attacked. Only for Sandy.

Marilyn spent most of her time listening to how hard it was on Sandy, and cooking or cleaning for the family. It was how her holidays normally went, aside from the stories of Marilyn's woe apparently being Sandy's. But Marilyn put up with it, and went about her business.

What really set Marilyn from perfectly fine to hurtling off a cliff, was her birthday.

Of course, it wasn't her actual birthday. When Marilyn's parents adopted her, her birthday was just unknown, and so the day they brought her home was usually treated as her birthday.

Marilyn had always had a lot of problems with her birthday. She didn't like the reminder of time passing, or that she hadn't done enough, or any of the attention. 

But when her birthday was filled with Sandy bursting into tears whenever Marilyn so much as spoke to someone, Marilyn felt a grudge beginning to build like a wall between them. At one point, Marilyn was just asking her mother to get more toilet paper when she was out, and Sandy's howling sobs were so loud that she couldn't even yell over them. 

To make things worse, apparently Marilyn was the problem. She shouldn't be speaking around Sandy if it upset her, apparently. 

The only one of her friends who seemed to understand her. While her two best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, thought Marilyn was being a bit dramatic, Harry Potter was completely on board. He seemed to not really be that big of a fan of Sandy in general, but with his cousin, he knew what it was like to have someone constantly putting you down and taking any moment that should be yours. It was comforting to receive Harry's letters and be reassured that she wasn't going entirely insane.

And so, when the family arrived at Diagon Alley like they always did a week after Marilyn's birthday, she separated from them as soon as possible.

Harry had been staying in the inn at Diagon Alley for the past few weeks, and he, Hermione, Ron and Marilyn organized to go shopping for their school supplies on the same day, as they'd done the year prior.

She saw Ron and Hermione sitting outside of Fortrescue's Ice Cream Parlour, while Harry was standing beside their table, talking to them. 

"Did you really-"

Ron's question to Harry was interrupted when Harry was knocked aside by the force of Marilyn's hug, almost knocking him off his feet.

"There she is!" Hermione smiled brightly. "We've been looking everywhere for you."

She pulled away from Harry, grinning at them. "It's marvellous to see you, you lot don't understand!"

"One of those summers, was it?" Ron questioned. "I don't think Sandy was that bad."