Letters From A Stranger || James and Lily ||

Hold Me Tight

Disclaimer : I wouldn't be struggling with assignments and internal tests if I owned Harry Potter.

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Chapter 31

"What the hell, Sirius?" Marlene blurted out, watching the blood seep into the sleeve of her shirt.

She jumped down from the counter, letting go of his hand and pulling her wand out of her socks. Sirius was still stubbornly staring away, his bleeding arm held out just as she had left it. He didn't even bother to look at it.

"Did you duel with Regulus?" she asked, mentally going through all the healing spells she had learned and contemplating which one to use.

"No. We didn't duel. I've never raised my wand on him. Neither has he." he said. She could see his already pale skin becoming paler. "We were arguing and Avery thought it would be a good idea to hex me from behind."

Marlene winced as she muttered the spell and saw the skin on his forearm slowly mend itself. He didn't even flinch and it made her wonder what else he had been through. Knowing him for six years still hadn't been enough for her to figure out anything about him. "Please don't tell me you duelled Avery."

"I didn't." he said, his regret of not being able to clear on his face, "Narcissa got there before that and dragged both of them away."

"Why didn't you heal this yourself?" she asked.

"It was my wand arm." he said, turning to look at his now healed arm.

She then sat down next to him, running a hand through the long blonde locks of her hair. "Sirius, you shouldn't fight with Regulus for everything. He could have been completely uninvolved for all you know."

"Don't pretend you know everything that's going on in my life, Marlene. You don't know what it feels like to lose your sibling to a bunch of psychopaths."

Marlene flinched at the tone of his voice. It hurt and she knew why it did. A flood of memories came rushing back. A dimpled smile and chocolate brown eyes. A face she wished to forget but couldn't. The gash on his cheek, dripping blood, similar to the one she had healed now. Mark dragging her away. Memories hidden away in the corner of her mind. She blinked back tears because Marlene Mckinnon never cried. She couldn't let Sirius of all people know her weakness.

"You remember Luke?" she asked, voice oddly collected for a person who was containing an emotional hurricane inside, "He was head boy in our first year."

Sirius, confused at her reaction to his outburst, stared at her blankly. "Who? The tall blonde guy?"

She nodded. "Luke Mckinnon. My brother."

"What?" Sirius asked, confused beyond belief, "I thought you only had two brothers."

"That's what everyone knows." Marlene said. Her fingernails were digging into her palm, probably drawing blood. "Luke was in Slytherin. But I was more attached to him than I'd ever been to Mark or Michael."

Sirius's eyes widened when he realized what she was saying. "Don't tell me he..."

"Yes." she said, "I don't know how they convinced him because Luke was always so kind and caring it almost seemed impossible to see him fall into something like that. But he did. Nobody knows how."

Sirius couldn't find his voice to ask her what had happened because he could see what it was in the scarily calm storm brewing in her voice.

"He just left home one day." Marlene continued, "Said something about finding his own path instead of living under the family's shadow. But it wasn't long before he realized what he had gotten himself into. He saw what they were actually going to do with the power they were fighting for. And he tried to get out of it."