8 July 1979 || You're Wasting Your Time || London Town || Alecto & Marlene
Alecto Carrow was strangely apprehensive.
Today had been a big day for her side in this war, a time when they had sent out a unavoidable message to the whole wizarding community, ‘they were not some silly play-group with small ideas, they were a revolution about to make the change that this world screamed out for’. Alecto was part of this revolution, not quite yet high up enough to be one of the main threats, but as drunkenly sure of the beliefs the death eaters held as anyone else. This had its disadvantages of course, but came alongside important advantages alongside it. She wanted to be more involved, wanted more control, more power, more trust, wanted to be one of the first names called for when business needed to be done. However, it allowed her to keep a stealthy underlay about her and her actions, she rarely was there during big missions, and instead delved in the smaller ones, as instructed by her Lord. The only things about the innocent looking schoolgirl that suggested anything but that image were her pure-blooded genes, and the mark on her arm that she treasured above all else, the dark mark. She stayed apprehensive though, when things like today happened; everyone, the ministry, the Order searched out for any evidence, scrapping away desperately in a one-sided war that they were never going to win. There was no telling whatsoever that this frantic search for people responsible wouldn’t lead someone, at some point to approach her and try to decipher how much she knew. There were no nerves within her to speak of, but she kept herself ready, prepared. Amycus had given her the teaching that every Death Eater would have killed to have had previously, as she would wield it like the secret superpower that it was.
This all went across her mind as she stood on the street corner of a random area of London. Nothing peculiar at all, just some innocent seventeen year-old girl, cigarette in her hand, and her mind far away thinking about things. Alecto despised the idea of becoming any type of stereotype, but right now that was the best word to describe her from an outside point of view, just a normal girl, having normal thoughts, in a normal place.
If only the idiots that surrounded her knew of the potential power she had within her.
They would never though, she was a complex puzzle that even she could never truly piece together entirely, a strange teenage girl everyone assumed had too many personal issues and vanity to risk herself in such a ‘dangerous’ situation as the war. In truth though she had just used it all to fuel her idea of what the world would become when the right side came through unscathed, she epitomised someone who needed something to believe, and she’d found the one person beyond her brother who made sense, Voldemort.
Alecto stubbed her cigarette out against the wall behind and started to make her way along the street, she would go home, where Amycus would be waiting, loving eyes and smile on his features.
She noticed a blonde witch staring intently at her as she made her way through the slowly thinning crowd, but she ignored it, the witch was just probably mistaking her for somebody else.
Marlene prided herself on her empathy but sometimes—like now, for instance, as she watched little children running and looking for their mums and the burnt carcasses of houses still smoldering in the evening sky—it overwhelmed her and suffocated her, till her heart throbbed and she felt her eyes brim with tears.
It was a weakness, some told her, with sneers. Don’t cry. Don’t show weakness.
But they had sent her out here for that reason. She was a humanitarian at heart, after all, always one to help. So she had gone without a second thought, with direct orders to provide aid, and while doing so, perhaps figure out who had started this dreadful fire. And she would do just that, with all her charms and her innocence, as she helped mothers with their children and little old women find their families. She would do that.
If she wasn’t so bloody lost.
Marlene was never good with directions. Never had been, never would be. She was supposed to make her way to a little pub, one of the few intact buildings, to check the names of the missing and see if anyone matched up. But the streets weaved in and out of each other like a twisted labyrinth. She had bumped into a few other Order Members on the way and they’d been kind enough to point her in the right direction, but then (it always seemed to happen) another blaze would break out, or there would be another rush of people, and Marlene would find herself lost again.
She stood a bit on tiptoe, trying to orient herself.
Among the slowly thinning crowd, one figure caught her eye. She wasn’t sure if she had ever met the dark-haired girl with the cigarette between her fingers, but something about this strange girl made Marlene stare for a bit longer. They made eye contact and Marlene pretended to look past the girl, at the street sign, and then turned on her heel. Probably just a familiar face from Hogwarts.
But she couldn’t shake the odd feeling in her stomach. There was something very very familiar about this girl.
She turned on her heel again, deciding to approach this girl, but by the time she had turned around, the girl was almost at the end of the street about to turn.
Was it worth it to chase her? Marlene deliberated for a moment, but then decided that she couldn’t ignore this odd feeling deep within her. She quickened her pace to a brisk walk, following the strange girl.
