A Marauder's Guide to Falling Forever

Chapter Thirty Eight

Though the seasons were changing, everything still felt much of the same. The same agonizing nightmares continued to haunt Marlene, and even though Sirius never left her to sleep alone, his presence brought no relief from the demons that visited her every night.

She had seen too much; too many lifeless corpses, too much blood. Her life was filled impossibly with too much of everything. Aguish, primarily. Nothing could ever take that pain away, and she seriously questioned whether a good memory spell could even do the trick, something she selfishly considered once or twice during her darker periods. 

She hadn't been the one to do it, but she understood after the attack who the wife was that Travers blamed her death for. Rose. Rose had been a death eater all that time. She had been the one to leak out information from the Ministry. She had been the one to kill...

Even thinking about Patrick's death made Marlene's pain worse. She hadn't believed him. All that time he was trying to tell her he was innocent for crimes that James and Sirius had condemned him for. Sirius still didn't think he was innocent, and with Patrick dead they'd have no way to be absolutely certain. But Marlene's heart squeezed whenever she recalled her last memory of him, when she shot three stun spells to his chest rendering him unconscious. She had sealed his fate that night in the unit, leaving him alone with Rose.

Had she been the one to kill her own brother, or had it been someone else that stumbled unfavourably into the ward after Marlene's departure? Had it been quick? Had he fought them first? Her mind was unrelenting with intrusive thoughts and questions, wracking her with unsurmountable guilt day after day. Reprieve from her remorse always seemed to be just out of her reach, but truthfully she blamed herself, and struggled immensely to allow for self-forgiveness. 

But her grief wasn't limited to Patrick. The Order was even worse off than it had been prior. Too many members had been killed in either the St. Mungo's attack or the ones to follow. Hope within the Order was beginning to dwindle as the number of Order members continued to decline, and the realization began to settle in that they were vastly outnumbered. Even if they had the full support of the Ministry, which they didn't due to great suspicion that it was largely infiltrated with Deatheaters, they were hopelessly no match for Voldemort's rapid increasing of power.

But nobody wanted to admit that out loud, even though Marlene was certain she was not the only one to feel it. 

Even Tom's recovery was stagnant. While she had been so adamant to stay by his side prior to the hospitals attack, she could hardly bear to set foot in it again. But she did manage to drop by for weekly visits in order to check on his progress. The nightmares were the worst on those days.

It was early into summer when she received the first real sliver of good news from the hospital. Tom was beginning to respond better to his treatment, and upon visiting him she had been elated when he instantly recognized her as she entered the room.

"Marlene!" he had exclaimed with such joy before beginning to speak to her with a compilation of words that did not form proper, coherent sentences. Still though, Martha had assured her that his recognition of her face and name was a good indicator that he was on the right track to recovery.

His physical injuries had long ago healed, and though he had permanent scars and disabilities that would never fade the same, the smile he offered at her arrival was unmarred and gloriously familiar; a reflection of the man Marlene remembered fondly from her childhood. 

She had sat with him for an hour, listening to him talk nonsense with only a few moments where he seemed to recognize that he wasn't making sense at all. She wore her smile like a protective shield whilst in his company, and only when she had left the room did she break down and cry.