Vivienne always made good on her promises of macarons, but Marius hadn’t yet taken any. Instead he just stared at them, but not with the same expectant expression his sister had. He rubbed his eyes before speaking again.
“You know Beatrice—Beatrice and I left to make our own way, right?”
That was one way to preface everything.
“Not that I didn’t miss it here. There just wasn’t anything for me here. Not really. Avery got the business and you were assigned to Finley and all I wanted was to be happier than the both of you.
“And I almost did it. That’s what’s so tragic about all this is the almost. There’s no trying again for me. I didn’t have anything to lose after that. If I couldn’t be happy, then no one else got to be. I wouldn’t have killed Dominique—please, I wouldn’t have been capable anyway—but I just wanted to see her suffer in the way I did. And that kind of thing isn’t something I thought about, it just happened, and I can’t quite rationalize how or why I did it other than just... wanting to watch someone else hurt more than I did?
“So I do owe you something there. For the memory charm. I don’t know. How long ago did I burn Avery at that Quidditch game?”
Marius took a breath and leaned back into the cushions. How the hell was he supposed to keep track of all the months?
“There was a lot of back and forth between Hogsmeade and Diagon—whatever. Sometimes I made it with the muggles, asking them for a bit of help, and they were all perfectly nice to me. I mean, nicer than magical people, anyway. Some witch cornered me, asked me about my business—made a promise about looking for Beatrice’s murderer and immediately betrayed me. You can’t trust anyone these days, really.
“And I was just so damn pissed that I flipped a table at a Harvest Festival? The one at the village? But for good reason! They literally admitted to me that they were selling Veritaserum cupcakes to the goddamn Ministry of Magic! That’s—I am so sure that’s illegal, and they deserved it, obviously—but not without an Auror dragging me back to the castle and throwing me into a dungeon. This place is just so fucked up in so many ways and it’s like no amount of justice will ever turn it right again. So in prison I was. I thought about asking to write you to try to get me out—but I wasn’t just going to ask. I decided to wait.
“But I wasn’t the only one in a dungeon as a prisoner. I was probably there a few weeks before they threw someone else in—they were accused of an attack at the... the school? I think that place was a school but there were more Ministry people around—and more of them kept getting thrown into the dungeon. Some really liked to scream for help. Like it actually did anything. But maybe it worked.
“A couple of renegades had come to save us. Or one came for me—she was from the Zabini’s. It was a new life for me after that. The family took care of me for... months. It was the first time I felt like I was home, and I had forgotten why I left in the first place. I was falling in love with the Zabini girl... and then I felt guilty.
“I couldn’t save Beatrice and I couldn’t find her killer. I couldn’t make the world any better of a place for her. I wasn’t allowed to be happy until I figured it all out, and maybe the Zabini girl... knew all this. She was always a step ahead of me, and she never turned me out of the house—but I knew when my time had come to leave. I was planning on it on Valentine’s Day, during your party. Maybe I’d take the sleazy way and go home with someone. And there were a few I met where I thought to myself, maybe I could be in love with someone like you.
“I didn’t remember names really. Lots of faces. One of them was an athlete? Another was a girl, one I kissed during that bottle game. I wish I knew. But none of them were the Zabini girl, that’s for sure; I was back on the street trying to scrape enough to get from one place to another. And you know how it is with people like us, you can’t really ask any of your friends for anything. You wait for them to offer.
“And who was going to offer me anything? I didn’t have anything worthwhile to offer, other than the Lestrange family heirloom--my pocketwatch. You would literally have to pry that out of my cold dead hands. And even then, what’s it’s worth to anyone? You can’t really use it, can you? But I really thought I could make it on my own. And I almost did. Fuck, almost.
“I couldn’t keep myself out of other people’s business. This time around, I didn’t even mean to—would you believe I actually know Albus Potter? We met at a bank—well, I accidentally burned him, no idea how that happened since I’ve been without a wand for months now—and I have him some blood... as to not have me sent to that castle dungeon again. He’s so... I can’t even say annoying, can I? I want to punch him in the mouth so bad—but he’s doing some... interesting stuff. With the blood. Because I think I’m helping him—but we’re not like friends—what the hell do I do? Punch him in the mouth?”
Marius laughed. It was probably the first time in weeks that he had really felt relief—enough to make a joke, anyway. “If only. If only. I almost punched him in the mouth and that is the true tragedy. Wait, didn’t Finley actually punch someone in the mouth during the party? Or was I just so drunk that I imagined it?”
