Prompt: Marlene lives though everyone else in her family dies and she is asked to raise Harry Potter.
He Lives In You, He Lives In Me.
Marlene’s knees hit the ground with such a force it would’ve set anyone’s teeth on edge, but the witch was completely oblivious to pain, save for the one in her heart. Her hands sank in the burnt earth of the Potters’ garden and grabbed chunks of coal and ashes that were easily blown away by the wind when she opened her palms again.
She had lost it all.
Barely a couple of weeks ago, she’d been in that same position, knees muddy under the rain, in front of fourteen coffins that held all of her family inside. All of it. Her parents, her brothers, her sisters, her little nephews and niece.
Fuck’s sake! Eyrin had only been five years old!
Marlene had died, she had truly died. Depression had finally won. It had finally broken her spirit. If there was no family to protect, then there was no life to live. No smiles, no laughs, no piggyback rides and brotherly hugs. She was over. Her life was over. She had been reduced to nothing.
And yet somehow she had been able to cling desperately to her own life. Because she still had one brother, only one, left to remind her how she was supposed to breathe through this nightmare. A brother that didn’t have a drop of McKinnon blood in his veins, whose hair was a dark as a raven’s wing. But he was part of her soul, and he refused to let go of that part that they shared.
James had caught her before she’d hit the bottom of the whirlwind, and slowly, they’d initiated the long, arduous climb back to light.
But now that brother was gone too, along with his beloved red flower. That house in Godric’s Hollow that had become the center of Marlene’s existence, her home, her family, was reduced to ashes and black bones. The life had vanished from James and Lily’s eyes, and now, it would vanish from Marlene’s too. This time, for good.
Hours, centuries, seconds rolled by as Marlene knelt in front of the broken remains of her life, when she felt a gentle touch on her shoulder. With an intensity she’d never felt before, the witch hoped it was Death, who had finally taken pity of her and had come to reunite her with her loved ones.
But when she lifted her face covered in dirt, save for the faint white trails left by her endless flow of tears, she didn’t find a black silken cloaked figure, but rather a pair of half-moon spectacles and a long silvery beard, staring at her with intense, soul-bearing blue eyes.
But Marlene didn’t want to know what Albus Dumbledore had to tell her. She didn’t care if he was here to try and persuade her to continue living, when she was already on the verge of dying. She just wanted the old man to let her be no more.
Until, before she had time to refuse, the wizard placed a warm, stirring bundle in her arms. Marlene yelped in surprise, and nearly dropped the baby. Harry. It was Harry, dear Lord. He was alive!
“Harry” she whispered, finding a voice she’d thought she’d lost. Her heart was suddenly beating inside her ribcage again, a sensation she’d believed to be gone for good.
“Harry, Harry. Oh Harry!” fresh tears slid down her cheeks as Marlene clutched the child against her, hiding her face in the soft blanket that wrapped him, not caring about the dirt on her cheeks. Her body shook violently with the sobs of everything she’d lost, and that one thing that against all odds, she suddenly still had.
“How…how?” she croaked after, looking back at Dumbledore with Harry’s face still close to her neck. She could feel the baby playing with the little bells of her earrings.
Dumbledore was still staring at Marlene intendedly, wise beyond any other living soul on the planet. His eyes were a labyrinth of secrets.
“There are magical forces that not even the most powerful wizards can understand” he replied vaguely, thought Marlene could perceive the shadow of a bitter-sweet smile on his face before they both turned their attention back to Harry.
“What’s gonna happen to him?” Marlene asked, her voice still coming out in whispers.
Dumbledore rested a hand on the younger witch’s shoulder.
“That, my dear Miss McKinnon, is up to you”.
For a moment, the witch just stared back blankly at the headmaster, wondering whether if the man had finally crossed the line between genius eccentricity and utter madness. But Dumbledore’s gaze spoke of a mind that was as sharp as ever.
Definitely saner than hers. She looked down at the bundle in her arms and saw him so pure, so innocent, so touched by tragedy, that Marlene immediately felt that she was poisoning baby Harry with her sadness.
“I-I can’t, Dumbledore” she muttered, shaking her head “There must be someone else…Remus-
“Remus would gladly take him in, yes. But you and I both know, dear Marlene, that Remus’s life is hard, perhaps too hard to raise a boy who’s already been through so much”.
“And you think I could give Harry a better life!?” a sharp, bitter laugh escaped Marlene’s lips, cold and dry like a desert night. How could she? She couldn’t even give a proper life to herself. She was a fuckin’ depressive maniac with an alcohol problem and every intention of ending her life on a short term notion. Yeah, she’d make one hell of a foster mum.
However, Dumbledore did little more than look slightly amused “Of course. Who would know about family more than you, Miss McKinnon? Besides, you are more of an aunt to Harry than his own blood relatives would ever be”.
An aunt. Marlene felt a stab in the heart when she remembered how James used to joke around saying that Harry’s first words would be along the lines of “Autie Maly”.
She looked down once again at the baby, who had fallen asleep in her arms by now. A violent, unexpected wave of tenderness invaded Marlene’s chest and pushed her to get on her feet, still clutching the baby tightly against herself. This was James and Lilly’s son, for Christ’s Sake. She loved the kid. Who else would protect it if not her? How could she not take him?
No, she couldn’t die, not yet. Once again, just when she'd thought she’d lost all her family, an unexpected member returned to hold her beating heart between his tiny hands.
“It’s okay, Harry” she whispered to the little ear half-hidden beneath strands of messy black hair “Aunt Marley will take care of everything”.
~*~*~*~
FOUR YEARS LATER
“Harry, Harry slow down!”
The boy was tugging insistently at her hand, half-dragging Marlene towards the shed of sheep, his little red boots splashing mud in every direction. Behind him, the witch struggled to keep the pace, too surprised by the child’s strength. Bloody Hell, when had her baby grown so big and strong?!
“Sheep, Maly! Sheep!” screamed the little boy, throwing himself against the wooden fence with such force that he nearly fell inside the shed. Marlene’s hand darted out to catch the boy.
“Easy there, tiger” she said with a smile, kneeling to wrap her arms around Harry and scooping him up to get him across the fence before jumping over it herself. Drawing her wand, Marlene casted a summoning charm to fetch the bottle of milk. She extended it to a Harry that could barely conceal his excitement.
“Want to feed the lamb over there?” Marlene pointed at a small black thing on the corner, curled in a tight ball between the hay. Harry’s eyes nearly bulged out their sockets and he tripped towards the animal before Marlene had time to warn him about watching his step. His glasses had reached a point in which not even magic would be able to fix another break.
With patience, Marlene showed her little boy (she was used to considering Harry hers by now) how to hold the bottle so that the lamb could suck without taking it from his hands. The boy was a fast learner. He definitely took after Lilly. Marlene couldn’t help a small little sigh escaping her lips while she watched Harry feed the baby sheep.
“Why we give tis one milk and not te othels?” Harry asked suddenly, without taking his eyes away from the lamb.
Marlene shrugged and leaned over to adjust the boy’s scarf around his neck “Because this one doesn’t have a mother” she explained softly.
The boy frowned as if he was meditating over something very grave before finally asking Marlene with a hesitant tone:
“Like me?”
The question was an innocent one, and Harry didn’t even look sad when he spoke. He was still too young to fully comprehend death, but Marlene had explained him a couple of months ago why the other boys normally had a mother and a father, but he had an “Autie”. Harry had started crying, as it was to be expected, but it had seemed more like a natural reaction that an intentional one.
Harry, as harsh as it sounded, didn’t really miss his parents, since he hardly remembered them at all. For the boy, his whole life had been with Marlene. Marley tried to keep James and Lilly’s memory alive as best as she could, and Harry understood perfectly well that they were his real parents. However, he didn’t suffer very much with the fact that they were gone. At least not as much as Marlene did.
Anyways, the witch didn’t want to insist too much on the subject because the idea wasn’t to depress the boy with the death of his parents either. In a way, it was good that Harry hardly remembered them at all, as sad as it sounded. It was all awfully complicated at times.
“Yes, Harry” she replied carefully, touching his plump red cheek with her gloved hand.
The boy was silent for a long while after that, and Marlene couldn’t find anything to say either. It was still so fuckin’ hard to talk about James and Lilly, and the fact that she had to pull a strong facade in front of Harry when she did exhausted her. Sometimes, at night, the old grey demons still found their way to her bed and wrapped their chains around her heart. But she always woke up in the morning, with Harry poking her arm and insisting for breakfast. When she felt like she was going to fall again, she always held tight to that sensation.
Harry muttered something, but lost in her thoughts, Marlene didn’t get the words.
“What was that, cutie-pie?”
Harry pulled the empty bottle from the lamb's mouth and patted the woolly head with a giddy grin.
“That at least, the mama’s that go to Heaven always sen petty agels like you to look aftel us” he repeated cheerfully, before wrapping his arms around the lamb neck and burying his face in its thick black coat.
~*~*~*~
SIX YEARS LATER
Marlene pinched the bridge of her nose, looking down at her boy, but refusing to meet his pleading green eyes.
“For the tenth time, Harry, the school rules are clear. You can take an owl, a toad or a cat. But you cannot take a sheep to Hogwarts!”
“Then transfigure her into a cat!” Harry replied stubbornly, rolling his eyes as if the option was so obviously easy. Ugh, sometimes he was so like James, and not always in the best ways.
“Harry, even if I transfigure her into a cat, Norah Pandora will still be a sheep. The spell will wear off eventually, and then how on earth are you going to explain your teachers why you have a fat, black sheep sleeping in your bed?”
God, when she’d agreed to adopt the orphan lamb six years ago, Marlene certainly hadn’t expected to find herself in this situation now that Harry was about to start attending Hogwarts. Oh, she’d been and idiot to ignore the fact that the boy never went anywhere without his woolly little friend. It would be the first time in six years that they’d be separated.
The whole situation was a bit bizarre. But this was all her doing. James and Lilly had liked animals, but they’d never felt the same sort of love and connection Marlene had developed after growing up her entire life in a farm. No, no. Harry Potter’s attachment to Norah Pandora was entirely her fault. Well, that, and the fact that the little boy had established a special bond with the little lamb, finding comfort in the fact they were both orphans. It was heart-warming to see, really, and to separate them would be a cruel thing to do. Just…the puppy eyes those two were giving her. Who would’ve imagined sheep could even do puppy eyes…?
“Oh, don’t even think about it!” Marlene scolded herself.
“Cutie-pie” the witch was about to kneel, but she remembered that Harry wasn’t any longer a little boy, even if he was a bit lanky for his age. Instead, she bent over him to look him into those deep green eyes of his “I know that the idea of going off somewhere without your family can be very scary. But you’ll make yourself a new family while you’re there. Harry, Hogwarts is a wonderful place. It’s the kind of castle they talk about in fairytales, the ones where all of your dreams can come true” she cupped her boy’s cheek “I know it’s scary to leave your family behind, but we’ll be waiting for you right here. This will always be your home, Harry. I promise. But this adventure, you have to start it on your own”.
Harry lowered his eyes, one hand resting on top of Norah Pandora’s head, and the other gently intertwining his fingers with Marlene’s.“
’Kay” he agreed finally in a soft voice, kneeling to wrap his arms around the sheep. He looked into the big, poppy eyes of the animal for a second, before gazing up at Marlene “But can’t she at least come to the train station with us?”
~*~*~*~
A FEW DAYS LATER-PLATAFORM 9 ¾.
Walking around King’s Cross with a sheep on a leash earned Marlene more muggle stares than she had ever received in her entire life. So much for not drawing attention. No, the muggles wouldn’t think that Harry and her were wizards. They’d just think they were fuckin’ insane.
Once they’d crossed to platform 9 ¾, the looks were less puzzled, but they still persisted, even in a world were magic existed. Magic and madness were utterly different things, after all.
“You sure you ain’t forgetting anything, right Harry?” Marlene mumbled, fuzzing over her boy’s robes once more “Wand?”
“Up my sleeve”.
“Toothbrush?”
“Packed it just before we left”
“You’ve got all your books?”
“Brand new and safe inside my luggage”
Marlene nodded briefly “I suppose you’re not taking a comb with you as well, are you?” she added in a half resigned, half hopeful tone.
Harry shot her a matter-of-fact glare though the messy black strands of hair that fell over his eyes, despite Marlene’s best attempt to comb them “You know there’s no point in it, Autie Marley”.
“Yeah well” Marlene’s hand travelled self-consciously to the messy bun on top of her head, where she kept her wand tugged “I’m really not one to talk” she admitted, making Harry smirk knowingly.
Marlene took a deep breathe. How had it come to this? The past ten years had soared by like a gush of wind between her fingers, and the baby she’d received in her arms on that gloomy morning outside the ruins of the Potters’ house had suddenly turned into an eleven year old boy that looked so much like his father that Marlene was feeling the impulse of jumping on that train with him like she’d done with James in the past.
Somehow, she’d managed to raise James and Lilly Potter’s son, and make him just as much theirs as he was her own.
“Hey, cutie-pie” she said softly, rumbling through her pockets until she found the picture she’d come across the other day between the pages of her sketchbook “I thought you’d like to see this. It’s really stupid, but…I don’t know…now that you’re here…” she extended the photo for Harry to take “That’s your father and me standing right here on the platform, about to go off to our first year, just like you” Marlene pretended to be checking the leash around Norah Pandora’s neck so that Harry wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes.
The boy studied the picture for a long time, running his thumb with a mixture of longing and fondness over the laughing image of his father. Beside him, the well-known features of Marlene were recognizable even in that round, childish face.
“Can I keep this, Autie?”
Marlene blinked towards the boy, tears already dry. Her gaze shifted from the picture in Harry’s hands to his face, before nodding slowly.
“Of course, cutie-pie. It’s all yours”.
At that moment, the Hogwarts Express emitted a long, pestering whistle, announcing that it was time for the kids to kiss their parents goodbye and get on board in that magical iron machine that would take them off to their greatest adventure yet.
Marlene felt a pang of denial in her heart. She didn’t want to part with her boy, but she refused to let that fact show, or else Harry would never want to leave. For a while now Harry had been old enough to notice her aunt sometimes went through periods of sadness for apparently no reason, and the idea of living her alone had already bothered him for weeks. Now that she’d finally convinced that gold-hearted boy that she’d be fine, Marlene couldn’t just ruin it all at the last minute.
“Okay, listen” she grabbed Harry’s forearms fondly “Remember that the key is being a great student, but without forgetting that the most important thing is to have fun. Don’t get on the teacher’s bad side, because believe me, it’s more complicated than it sounds. Write to me once a week, or twice…or every day if you want to. Remember your uncle Remus will wat to hear from you every once in a while. And most important of all” she breathed deeply “No matter what house you get sorted in, you will always, always be worth the world for me. The person’s not defined by the house they get sorted in, but by the way they embrace said sorting in our hearts. And as long as you are happy and good, I’ll be the proudest witch in the world for having you” a sudden lump formed in her throat and Marlene had to take a deep breathe before continuing “I love you, you know that, do you?”
And easy smile appeared in Harry’s face, a smile that had turned into the center of Marlene’s existence. He flung his skinny arms around Marlene’s neck, smoothing her hair and kissing her cheeks repeatedly.
“Of course, Autie, I’ve always known” he replied, burying his face in her shoulder like he used to do as a toddler “I love you too. And I thank my mum and dad every day that, even though they had to go, they left an angel like you to watch over me like a mother”.
Marlene’s heart nearly stopped at those words, so deep for an eleven year old boy. But of course, her Harry had always been wiser beyond his years, and when he spoke, there was always something deep and meaningful to his words, even when he was joking.
There was so much that Marlene wanted to tell him, but the train was whistling again, and she wanted the boy to leave with a light heart to school. So instead, she hugged him tightly, and promised to write, and repeated over and over again how much she loved him.
Harry knelt to wrap his arms around Norah Pandora, whispering God knew what to his woolly friend’s ear, before standing on his tiptoes to place a quick, distracted kiss on Marlene’s cheek before hurrying off to the train with his trunk behind him.
Marlene never took her eyes away from him. She saw two red-headed boys (most probably, Molly and Arthur Weasley’s offspring) help him with his trunk. She saw him laugh when one of them said something. She watched him turn his head and offer her one last, loving smile over the crowd before jumping on the train.
Marlene finally allowed the tears to roll freely down her cheeks, but these were tears of happiness, of hope, of love. Of everything she thought she’d lost ten years ago, and then miraculously, she’d found again.
It had been nine years since Marlene had last touched a bottle of alcohol. It had been three since her last depressive break-down. It had been ten since the life in Lilly Potter’s eyes had vanished and James’s smile had disappeared from his face.
But they’d never left Marlene. Because there was still a spark of that life in Harry’s eyes, so much alike to his mother’s. And the easy smile that Marlene had once seen on her soul brother’s face, still lived in Harry’s.
Ten years ago she’d lost it all, yes. But she’d found a new everything too.