A Marauder's Guide to Falling Forever

Chapter Forty

Snape was gone by the time Marlene had recovered, and Albus offered neither of them an explanation as to his whereabouts. Overwhelmed with her grief, Marlene didn't feel bothered to care, and Sirius didn't seem bothered to ask. An unspoken recognition for the great peril awaiting their friends took precedence over anything else.

"I think it best we visit the Potters tonight," Albus insisted quietly. "If Severus is correct then they are in very immediate danger."

"Do you believe him?" Sirius asked wearily. "That we aren't walking into some sort of trap?"

"I do," Albus replied, a curt nod to accompany his admission.

"He's not that good of an actor," Marlene added, wiping at the tears still rolling down her cheeks. "He loves Lily. That much is abundantly clear to me."

It sat tucked away in the corners of her mind for many years, and since leaving Hogwarts she rarely had reason to think of it. But ever since she had met Lily back in first year, when they were both sorted into Gryffindor and Lily's odd friend into Slytherin, Severus Snape had been in love with her. Of course their friendship was nothing more than platonic on Lily's end, and things had taken a turn south in fifth year before Lily began to see him for what he truly was. Would she ever have believed then that he was capable of something like this?

Sirius broke her train of thought, "Alright then, let's go visit the Potters. Do you think that you can apparate?" Marlene's grief must have worn heavy on her face because Sirius looked at her with concern as he asked.

"I'm fine," she insisted, taking one last swipe at the tears on her face, and then the three of them left the tavern behind enroute to the small cottage in Godric's Hollow.

Sirius had already sent off a Patronus to James to let them know they were arriving, and a frazzled looking Lily stood next to her husband in the threshold of the doorway when they travelled up the pathway. James' trademark wind-swept hair was unruly and sticking out at odd angles just as it always was, but his face was missing his glasses, likely forgotten in the haste of the evening's events. Lily had a light housecoat wrapped around her that she pulled closely into her body, shivering to keep warm amidst the cool morning breeze. Her eyes were wide and alert with concern when they made contact with Marlene's. Her expression asked the question that Marlene didn't want to answer.

"What's going on Sirius?" James asked in a hushed whisper, unable to contain his curiosity before they had even made it halfway up the path.

"Not here." Sirius shook his head. "Inside first. Marlene, lock the door behind you and seal a protective charm over the house."

"Sirius, Albus," Lily's voice cracked. "What's wrong?"

"I'm afraid that some bad news has fallen upon us this evening," Albus replied gravely after they had all entered safely into the house. Marlene took her time casting a protective charm over the house in an attempt to drown out the conversation, but she was unable to block the horrifying account of their previous interaction with Snape.

She watched mutely as Dumbledore took on the task of informing her best friends that their son was in danger from Voldemort, that he had marked him as his equal and was determined to destroy a boy who couldn't even yet walk, let alone pose any sort of threat to the world's most dangerous wizard.

"How did you know?" Sirius whispered into her ear, thankfully diverting her focus from Lily's horrified weeping. "When we first got there, before Snape arrived, you already knew. How?"

"I dreamed about it," Marlene replied. The vivid imagery of the Hall of Prophecies came to mind, how she had touched the orb and somehow unknowingly changed the engraving. "It's this damn key." She shoved the sleeve of her sweater up her arm to where the dark ink glared back at her. "I was back in the Hall of Prophecies. I don't know how or why it happened," she sighed, "it just did."