A Chance You Only Get Once

Chapter Two
Fletchers Don't Blend In

Such pain, whispered the voice in his ear. Something I see more and more often in such young minds these days. But the loss has affected you more than any other head that I have sat upon in a century. With the death of your mother and neglect of your father, your sister was all that you had. How well I remember her, remarkable child that she was ... One of only two young women worthy of Gryffindor in her year. Not a thought in her head that wasn't optimistic and cheerful. But she had one very serious concern I remember all too well...

"Don't talk about Marissa."

It was you dear boy. Her very much beloved younger brother.

"I said don't talk about Marissa."

You'll have to learn to talk about her, young one. She is a part of you. Oh yes, she has affected you more than any other person ever will. And not just by her death, mostly by her life. She will always be a part of you.

"Leave her out of this. Just sort me into a damn house and shut bloody well up."

You resent this place, this castle, this world, for taking her. You would not come here if you had any other choice.

"Does any of this have a point you pompous, overgrown - "

She loved it, this world, as she loved everything and everyone. But you most of all.

"I said leave Marissa the hell out of this."

Poor boy, so hurt, so changed. She would barely know you now. I hope that Hogwarts teaches you more than spells. For that the best place is "HUFFLEPUFF!"

* * *

"Okay, Gus, you ready?" Marissa asked him, not sounding very ready herself. "Are you sure you want to do this?" Again she sounded far more nervous and unsure than Mundungus looked. He looked ecstatic, like his every wish was about to come true. "Okay, okay, let's go." Marissa put her hand on his shoulder, her grip very tight, and steered him quickly toward the barrier between Platforms Nine and Ten.

A nervous laugh escaped her as Gus flinched at what would have been the impact. Instead they slid through into the new world like a knife through butter, as Mavi would say. Mavi. She would be positively frantic.

"Welcome to Platform Nine and Three Quarters, Gus," Marissa said with a smile, trying to put Mavi out of her mind. Some of her nervousness evaporated at the sight of all the familiar faces. Most of the people were turning to wave at friends. Some were even exchanging late Christmas presents. This was Marissa's gift to Gus. That, unfortunately, brought her back to how very mad this plan was. "You know," she tried again, knowing that she was grasping at feeble straws, "The very fact that you got through to the barrier proves that you're magical ... you'll get to come to Hogwarts in less than two years anyway if you don't - "

"Riss, you promised!" he interrupted her, prying his eyes off the scarlet steam engine to stare at her with puppy dog eyes in that heartbreaking way he had.

Marissa pictured instead the look of anger and hate, on her father's face and heard his words to Mundungus louder than his plea. She nodded, "That I did." She thought of Mavi on the other side of the Platform, who would soon start looking around and realizing that Mundungus wasn't there, what horrible things that her father would say to her ... "That I did," and this time she was reminding herself. She'd send a letter. What she would say she had no idea. She wished that she'd already planned that part out.

"Okay, I've got to go check in at the Prefect's Compartment. A lot of first years haven't branched out to the other houses yet. There are some nice Ravenclaws over there. See if you can stick with them," Marissa told him, her hand on his shoulder. "The Hufflepuff's already know everyone and the Gryffindors and Slytherins are pretty closed groups this year." With this parting advice, she pushed him forward, praying that she was right that the Ravenclaws didn't have any classes with the Gryffindor first years. Even if they did, they were the only realistic choice.

Now it was Mundungus's turn to look apprehensive. Marissa swung herself up onto the first step of the train with an easy she usually couldn't achieve with her heavy trunk in tow, but she had left it with Mundungus to make him more believable. The problem was that he wasn't tall for his age, and he looked hopelessly young and small for eleven. She turned back to watch him easily striking up a conversation with boys two years older than himself. And the brainy boys, no less, who would have little patience with his ignorance. She smiled, her little brother was a charmer, and certainly a Fletcher.

After a moment, Marissa remembered that she would hardly want to draw attention to him and turned back into the train car. The Prefect's Compartment was, in Marissa's opinion, less welcoming than the rest of the train. It was, technically, more luxurious with nicer curtains and more comfortable seats, but it was large and the blasts from the very close engine had a habit of echoing loudly in the open space which seemed not to roll with the train as well as the smaller compartments.

Luckily, she did not have to spend all day in this compartment. She only had to find Remus. It wasn't hard; as her Gryffindor counterpart, Remus Lupin sought her out the moment she entered and guided her to their assigned seats. "Merry Christmas, only a little late," Marissa said, hugging him before they sat down. "How was your holiday?"

"I couldn't bear to dampen your ever bright spirits with that tale," Remus said, but more reflective than darkly. He often worried that she, who took such offense from his habitual foul moods, would eventually realize that they always occurred the week before the full moon, but she probably wouldn't think anything that dark could happen.

"You and Peter should talk then, he won't tell me what made the holidays so gloomy for him either," Marissa said and Remus felt like a charge was being laid on him. "And did you send that owl for me?"

"Yes," Remus replied, reaching slowly for a package from the bag at his feet. It was a box wrapped in bright Christmas paper and tied with a bow. A clever maneuver as it now looked as if they were doing nothing more mischievous than exchanging late Christmas gifts, if that could ever be believed of a Marauder or Marissa Fletcher. However, Marissa was impressed by his tactic. "James says to return it soon and wonders how in the world you knew about it in the first place, but is smart enough not to want to know what you want it for."

Marissa laughed, "And here I don't have anything for you! Oh, Remus I feel like such a. . .oh wait! I think I do have something!" She jumped to her feet and hurried out of the compartment. Now all she had to do was find Mundungus. She noticed Igor Karkaroff's wary eyes on her as she hurried out of the compartment but tried not to look even more guilty.

As a prefect, it wasn't hard to pretend that she was patrolling the halls, but she was beginning to get worried that the Hogwarts Express had realized that Gus had no business boarding and thrown him from the train back onto the platform, particularly when she saw the Ravenclaws she had shown him sitting in a compartment without him. She was almost frantic by the time she reached the last compartment and saw him sitting in it, calm as you please. He was regaling a group of third year Hufflepuffs (a clever move really considering it wouldn't seem odd for him to be shorter than them) with some old story he had picked up from somewhere and holding his audience captive. She'd said it once and she'd say it again, her little brother was good.

"Excuse me," Marissa said, entering the compartment, "But is this yours?" she extended the gift to Mundungus who pretended to be surprised that she would address him.

"Thank you, Miss Prefect, how did you get Mum's present?" Mundungus said, his eyes twinkling at her for a moment before going wide to perfect his sham.

"Don't run off where your mother can't find you before the train even takes off, it won't kill you to say a proper goodbye, she was practically in tears when she asked me to deliver this to you, frantic that you'd go even a moment without it," Marissa scolded him mildly just as she would any other first year. She turned and left the compartment without another word. Mundungus smirked at her back just like any other first year would.

On her way back, she found Lily Evans. "You holding up, Lils?" Marissa asked, stepping carefully into the compartment. Lily's head was slightly bowed and she was sitting in probably the only empty compartment in the train, staring moodily out the window. "She wouldn't even look at me," she said hollowly, gazing at the families waving last tearful goodbyes as the train jerked into motion. "Petunia used to - to love me, everything about me ... just ... and now..."

"Sounds like a better scene that we had in September," Marissa said weakly. "She's not over it, then?" Petunia had turned eleven last year, but she hadn't received her letter last summer. She had been screaming and crying when Lily came to board the train. Marissa, from the nightmares she'd overheard, knew that Petunia's agonized cries of "You promised! You promised I could come to Hogwarts! You liar!" still haunted her older sister.

"She wouldn't look at me, she wouldn't talk to me, she wouldn't even come to see me off," Lily said sadly, pulling her head down into her hands. "She hates me."

"Now, come on Lils, none of that talk," Marissa said, instantly sitting down next to her and putting her arm around her comfortingly. "Petunia doesn't hate you, not really."

"She wouldn't even give me so much as a Merry Christmas!" Lily cried despairingly, looking near tears.

"But I bet she'd pull you out of the way of a speeding car," Marissa said with a smile. Lily let out a strangled chuckle which sounded more like a sob than anything else, but Marissa took heart from it. "She's just taking it hard. It's a hard thing, to lose your sister and your childhood dreamworld all in one blow. You made Hogwarts her Neverland, and she was denied it. The bitter taste just hasn't faded from her mouth yet."

"So it is my fault?" Lily asked in that same horribly hollow voice, peering up at Marissa, ready to believe it.

"You will never hear me say that," Marissa said sternly. "No. With no ill will, no spite, no intention of hurting her, you filled her head with stories of a place beyond imagination, beyond yours and mine before we got here, but sometimes ... things just don't work out the way we thought. Sometimes for reasons we can't see and sometimes for no reason at all," Marissa said all this quietly, comfortingly. "Truth be told, it might be doing her a favor, taking it like this."

"What?" Lily demanded. "Doing her a favor? Something that's turned my sweet baby sister so sour?"

Marissa's faint smile turned away Lily's anger too effectively, Lily often decided at times like this. "The slow decay of reality can turn a person bitter just as easily as a sudden disappointment, and can be even more cruel," Marissa answered calmly, reflectively. "Think about it, every child has a dreamworld they grow up in, a place entirely of their own making, where anything is possible, even things you never dreamed, and the world is suddenly perfect once you enter it. Muggleborns have it hard. We enter Hogwarts like it's our own personal dreamworld, but life's far from perfect in this new world. Even if it's full of the things of our wildest dreams, it can never have everything that we ever wanted. For the good and the bad, Hogwarts is a real place. Some people, many of the ones with the highest hopes, take that rather hard. The ones who lose their hopes all in one day get the most sympathy, but losing them one by one can turn a person bitter just as easily."

"What about the third kind of person?" Lily asked, looking over at Marissa seriously. "Your kind? Who never let go of their dreams? Is there any hope for you?"

Before Marissa could muster an answer, the door swung open, making them both jump. Remus Lupin poked his head in. "Marissa! There you are! Lizzie warns that you better get in there before she ... makes you breakfast?"

Lily merely looked confused, but Marissa's eyes lit up with understanding then amusement, "You mean toast, Remus?" Marissa said with a weak smile at a pureblood's take on Muggle phrases. "Can you cover for me, Remus?" he looked highly taken aback by her serious tone as well as her immobility. He had fully expected her to jump up and come running. "Tell Lizzie not to have a cow."

Lily looked up at her, a faint twinkle back in her eye at Remus's reaction to yet another Mugglism. Marissa and Head Girl Lizzie Walker enjoyed playing this game with the other prefects, particularly Remus and the Head Boy Gideon Prewett. Remus, who had learned some of the rules of this game over his first term in office, seemed to be conscientiously memorizing the phrase so he could repeat it precisely. Then, without another comment, he slid the door shut behind him.

Lily was the first to speak, the twinkle in her eye diminished but shining gratefully. "You really should go to the first Prefect Meeting of term, it's probably very important," she said, trying to sound as if she didn't really need Marissa there. Just whom she was trying to convince of this was unclear.

"That's why you should have been the prefect instead of me," Marissa said casually, smiling.

"And I thought I had it too when you mouthed off to McGonagall end of last year," Lily said, seizing onto the topic almost desperately.

"I think that's when you lost it actually," Marissa said, smiling in a self-mocking way at the memory. They both chuckled. When they both fell silent, Marissa said, "I have something I have to tell you about Mundungus."

* * *

Marissa bounded lightly off the train and onto the platform of Hogsmeade Station. She wished that she could see exactly where Mundungus was, but then the whole point of borrowing James's Invisibility Cloak was that no one would be able to see him. Trying to blend in to the crowd was just too much of a liability for a Fletcher, especially under McGonagall's nose considering the only robes that Marissa had where Gryffindor ones. No, the Invisibility Cloak was better, even if it made her neurotic.

She stayed to the edge of the crowd so that he wouldn't lose sight of her, but had no way to tell if he was keeping up. And then there was the question of what to do if she ran into-

"Marissa!" James Potter yelled even as he popped out of nowhere and came pelting at her. He picked her up and swung her around in greeting, making her laugh. Then he stood back, running his hand nervously through his hair as he tried to look more gentlemanly as he peered about for her best friend. That was why Lily had not gotten off the train with her.

Marissa laughed again, yanking his hand down out of his hair, "She's not with me, James, and she's of the opinion you need a haircut anyway." James looked highly affronted, which was of course the only reason Marissa had included the haircut comment.

Before he could retort, Sirius Black voice roared from the other end of the platform, "WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS SHE I'M GOING TO KILL HER!" and James merely smirked at her. Then Sirius spotted Marissa and, brushing past his current flame without a second thought, came pelting towards her much like James had a moment ago, except that he looked fit to kill.

James, possibly taking the chance that Lily was watching from somewhere in the crowd milling about, stood in front of Marissa to protect her. "Oh no you don't PRONGS!" Sirius shouted, trying to move past him. "Your Gryffindor chivalry does not extend to the girl who had those giggling first and second years pawing all around the castle on a scavenger hunt that RUINED our exploits ALL HOLIDAY! It was like having all the PREFECTS back in the castle!"

"Nevertheless," James replied, "I'm going to force you to be a gentleman, Padfoot."

"Don't be self-righteous with me Prongs!" Sirius shouted angrily, lunging and very nearly getting past him. "Not after all the threats you made when the last item on the list was one of your boxers!" At that reminder, James lost his grip. Whether or not it was intentional is subject to debate.

However, the real protection of Marissa came in the form of an invisible force suddenly giving Sirius what looked, to the trained eye, like a punch in the gut. It probably was not a very hard punch considering it came from a nine year old and Sirius was used to much more serious forms of Muggle dueling with the Slytherins, but it took him completely by surprise. The unseen force used this surprise to knock him to the ground.

Marissa and James, who could probably guess something of what was going on, doubled up with laughter at Sirius who was now wide-eyed with fright and trying to duck unseen blows. He was whipping his head around very comically in his search for their source.

"What kind of new devilry is this, Fletcher?" Sirius demanded, still jerking his head back and forth wildly.

"Honestly, Padfoot," James said, shaking his head, now also trying to distinguish where the person inflicting the blows on his best friend was standing. "Don't you know that lionesses stick together?" James said, obviously thinking that Lily was the one under the Cloak.

"Well call whoever it is off, Fletcher!" Sirius shouted in annoyance.

"Is the great Sirius Black admitting defeat?" Marissa teased.

"I can't fight what I can't see," Sirius snapped irritably. "Now, please."

"Since you asked so nicely," Marissa said with a small bow. "Surely, oh mysterious defender of the righteous defenseless," she said ceremoniously in Mundungus's general direction, "The perpetrator has been punished enough for his anger and rash action."

Sirius waited a long moment after the barrage abated before he moved to stand. Judging by the grunt and massaging of his head, Mundungus had used the opportunity to land one last parting blow on the back of his head.

When Remus and Peter came up from the train, James was still doubled over laughing. Sirius growled, "Ignore the stag." Peter shot a look at Marissa but said nothing. "How's it going, Moony? Wormtail?"

"All according to plan," Remus replied immediately. Marissa suppressed an eye-roll with difficulty. The Marauders used that phrase even when they were admitting extreme boredom. "Let's grab a carriage, shall we?"

They tromped up to the carriages and stuffed all five on them in one, feeling slightly crowded but unwilling to kick just one person out to find their own carriage. Peter had looked rather terrified for a moment when he realized they were too many, apparently convinced that he would be the one sent from their presence. However, it was Marissa who had the real worry. How would she argue for an "empty" seat when they were already overcrowded?

James came to her rescue, making it into a joke that her "unseen protector" should have the place of honor. "An excellent idea. Come on, let's get in, I hate looking at those horrid horses. What are they anyway?" Marissa got in without realizing that James and Peter were rolling their eyes and Sirius and Remus were looking uncomfortable.

A few minutes later, they were marching up the stairs and into the Great Hall laughing and talking all at once as if they hadn't seen each other for ages rather than weeks. James and Sirius couldn't resist giving the Marauders who had been Missing-In-Action a blow by blow that made Marissa resort to covering her ears and humming loudly to herself at times.

When the doors flung open, James and Sirius were suddenly gone. Remus looked about for a moment, then shrugged and hurried up the marble staircase. Peter, not wanting to be left alone with Marissa just yet, ran after him.

For a moment Marissa was puzzled, then it all became quite clear. Very loudly so. "THERE SHE IS!" Natalie Blaise shouted, causing a huge group of girls to come pelting up to her. Marissa closed her eyes to steal herself for a mess of giggling as somewhere between thirty and forty girls rushed her.

"Hey! Hey! Quiet!" she tried to yell over them, getting jostled and nearly knocked over. Marissa realized she had to act fast before Mundungus thought that he had to come to her rescue again. She put her fingers between her teeth and whistled loudly. At last, they began to calm down enough for her to shout over them, "All right! All right! I don't know where James is!" Most of them moaned disappointedly.

"What about ... Sirius?" Penelope Henderson, a Ravenclaw girl with curly brown hair and a boyfriend, asked dreamily. This seemed to be a common sentiment.

"No, no, I don't know where he is either," Marissa assured them with a roll of her eyes.

"Well, when are we meeting?" a first year Gryffindor named Suzette Bones but called Suzie Q. asked excitedly.

"Full fan club this Friday, the new semester's theme song is posted on the houseboard, only registered members can read it, make sure that no busybody tries to take it down, I've already spoken to the house elves," Marissa said quickly, in a business-like manner. "Gryffindor Booster Squad, we don't have a Quidditch Match until the end of term. It'll be such a long absence I want to go over the top. Meeting Wednesday Night, the normal time. Now, break!"

Marissa hadn't really expected this American football huddle command to work even with the Muggle-borns, but it was the way she felt. If they didn't break off into smaller groups soon, she felt like they were going to snap her in half. "Where are you, Gus?" she said out of the corner of her mouth when they had dispersed.

"Right here," he hissed to her right.

"All right, let's go - " she began, but was interrupted by Professor McGonagall calling down the stairs at her.

"Miss Fletcher, I would like to see you in my office," she said sternly.

Marissa bit her tongue. Could she have one moment of peace in this castle to get Gus settled? "Now, Professor?" she asked, looking up.

"Immediately, Miss Fletcher."

Marissa sighed and struggled up the stairs toward her head of house. "Just stay close, Gus," she said, trying not to move her lips. She was already wishing for an Invisibility Cloak to hide herself under. It was going to be a very interesting term.

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©KatyMulvaney