Lovelines Assignment 001: Passions
If you asked Mary Macdonald what she was passionate about, what she believed in, she’d tell you that there was nothing. That she didn’t have any passions. She’d stare at you with wide eyes, trying to decide what you wanted her to say. That was what she always tried to be: whoever people want her to be. She doesn’t think that she’s anything on her own.
But just because she doesn’t see it, doesn’t mean that it isn’t there, inside her. If she was more than what she recognised, well, it’s hard to blame her. Over half her life has been dominated by a figure who tried his hardest to keep her docile, keep her believing that she was nothing, that the only meaning her life had was that which he projected onto it. So Mary doesn’t even realise the patterns in her life that weave the tale of what it is that she’s passionate about, a pattern that is about far more than just her Soulmate and his desires.
Something that Mary has always been interested in is books. When she was younger, she went to the library with her mother every Wednesday afternoon- the only afternoon her mother wasn’t working. She’d pick another book and often end up reading it by the time Thursday morning came around. She always found comfort in stories, using them as a way to escape from her dull existence. This tendency only got stronger when she went to Hogwarts. There were so many books there, so many new, exciting stories. It wasn’t at all strange to see Mary with a book in her hands, and to this day, she’s often reading. So much of her life is spent waiting, after all. She had to find some way to amuse herself, and reading was something that not even Julius could find it in himself to strenuously object to. For a time, he would often censor what she was reading, only allow her to read books he approved of, but she went through them so quickly that he eventually gave up on that pursuit. It wasn’t like she was reading spell books, after all. All she read were stories, and there wasn’t much harm in that.
More recently, there have been other things that Mary feels strongly about. There isn’t much that can make her fight back. She never raises a hand or a wand to defend herself- she won’t even raise her voice. But within recent years, there has been something that will make her eyes flash with anger and has lead her to speak out in her own timid way against the one person that everyone thinks she’d never gainsay. Julius hadn’t been expecting it at all when he’d mentioned off-hand the age of his latest victim; the last thing he’d thought would happen was his sweet, docile Mary going stiff and turning to him with blazing eyes, as if she had a backbone, as if she was an actual person. He’d punished her harshly for her outburst of You can’t do that to a child, but still the same response came every time it was mentioned, despite his attempts at curtailing her. The thought of anyone harming a child was something that Mary couldn’t reconcile in her mind, and is still the only thing that will cause her to react and at times even speak out.
But if there is one thing that Mary believes in, truly believes in, above all else, it’s love. She herself has found that she does love her soulmate, deeply. And she knows of others who do as well: just look at Ted and Andromeda. She’s never seen two people more in love with each other. But if she were to come across two people who loved each other truly, even if that wasn’t exactly what their marks said, Mary would support them. She doesn’t see that as a possibility for herself, and perhaps doesn’t even realise the contradictory nature of that sentiment. After all, she has been convinced that her soul mark means Julius has ownership over her, but she’d never expect to hear such a thing about Ted and Andromeda. Still, at the end of the day, she stays by Julius’s side as much because she loves him as because of any destiny. The very idea of love, to her, is the light that makes the world worth living in, and she cannot abide hearing anyone tell her that what she has isn’t love. She doesn’t pretend to think Julius is bound to love her, but she knows that she loves him, regardless of anything else.