A Chance You Only Get Once

Revenge, Dueling, Quidditch Fouls, and Other Distractions from Studying

Mundungus swore that Mariella Goring was behind this somehow. How else could Joy have possibly chosen this particular old movie to want to see? He was certain that the Healer girl had been very subtle in her methods: "You know he loved the first two Star Wars movies, but he's never seen the third. Don't you think that would be lovely? Have you seen them?"

So here he was, about to watch the original Star Wars trilogy with the woman he had fallen head over heels in love with, the only person that could possibly have convinced him to do this. As Mariella Goring knew all too well. Just how she had managed to "casually bump into" Joy he didn't know, but he was certain that she as behind it. Ever since they had called off their feud at Hogwarts she had thought she had the right to involve herself in his affairs. She was wrong. No one had that right. Except Joy now.

That is, if Joy wanted the job. It was only a fringe benefit that it would require Mariella Goring, the brilliant but bothersome potionmaster, to step down from the capacity of chief woman in his life. Even if she was his only friend in the world, wife trumped that. If Joy would agree.

Mariella Goring had to spoil even this date. He couldn't bear for the ring to stay in his pocket another week, but this torture session! To have to relive the good times, and to be forced to remember the bad ones. Those fleeting days were long past, and they had taken everything when they went. Marissa had taken everything with her when she left, everything but Joy. Joy Alvarez was the only thing that he had found since his sister's death that brought him happiness that was not bittersweet at best.

Lily and James taking him into their home until their death had been kind and wonderful, especially compared to the orphanage, but the deep, abiding grief they both shared and reminded eachother of was all too poignant in that house. Mariella Goring was a true friend, but she wanted too much to heal him. She didn't just let him be. She had to change him, make him face the demons that tormented him, tried to turn him from his path of revenge. He would make them all pay someday in the only way that could hurt them: through their pocket books. Mariella could not accept that.

But Joy Alvarez could almost make him forget it. She was exotic, from Brazil, and was so far removed from every demon that tormented him that he could forget them in her presence. Her accent only made her voice more beautiful to Mundungus Fletcher, and her darker complexion lovelier. She, alone among all in the British Isles, he could trust to not bear any fault.

Now he had to watch that movie with her. If he refused, he would have to explain, and he dreaded explaining. She would understand, she would pity him, but he would not be able to pretend with her anymore. And the ring would stay in his pocket indefinitely.

It was worse than he had ever imagined. She had definitely talked to Mariella Goring, who probably hadn't meant to be cruel he grudgingly admitted, for Joy had done her hair in the side-buns of Princess Leia. It took Mundungus back to Marissa, frustratedly trying to force her curly blonde hair into the difficult arrangement while laughingly trying to understand their importance. In truth, he had been far too old at the time to be "role playing," but his sister had been so carefree and almost like a child in demeanor herself that it had seemed natural. She had certainly had the enthusiasm of a child.

Joy's were not the lopsided, messy affair that Marissa had finally managed. They were probably magically formed they were so perfect and identical to Carrie Fischer's hairdo. Joy looked exquisite, and she was smiling proudly as she displayed them to him. Mundungus smiled at her, able even to remember the good times with Marissa without the bad when he was in Joy's presence.

Mundungus came in the house clutching three rented movies from a Muggle store near his house. "A New Hope" he had seen when his life was full of joy and at a time in his life when there was always someone who could blow up the Death Star for him. That was Marissa's movie. Joy loved it, sitting on the edge of her seat the entire time.

Lily and James had insisted on taking him to "The Empire Strikes Back" when it came out a few years later. That was darker, and it had a sorrowful ending. People who were beloved lost each other. Lives changed for the worse. At least, that's what he had thought. Joy had seemed surprised when he said this, "It's not so much a sad ending but an incomplete one. It's more, 'this isn't over' than 'there's no more hope.'" Of course, she was right.

As he found out as he watched "Return of the Jedi" for the first time. The obstacles that had seemed so insurmountable in the previous movie were beaten and all was well, better even, than it had been before. It was a movie of not just hope but victory. Of remembering your losses but dwelling on what was saved by your efforts and what the deaths of loved ones had purchased for the world.

Mundungus looked over at Joy Alvarez who was still watching the ending credits with a smile on her face and took the ring out of his pocket.

* * *

"She didn't sleep with him, you know," Marissa said by way of greeting, plopping down beside James in the Common Room. "She broke up with him because of that condom you found."

"Good for her," James said in the same brusque voice with which he had addressed everyone since returning to the castle. He didn't look up from his Transfiguration book, glaring at the print as resentfully as he had at the rest of the castle.

"She's been trying to apologize to you," Marissa said, staring at the boy who refused to look at her.

"I don't want to hear it," James replied shortly.

"Why the hell not?" Marissa demanded angrily, slapping her hand on the table in frustration. "What's wrong with you? You've been waiting a year for Lily to be willing to have a conversation with you, and now she wants to and you just can't let it go."

James did not even look up at her uncharacteristic use of profanity. "Do you know what I saw every time I closed my eyes on break? What I still can't get out of my head?"

"Something that never happened," Marissa cried in frustration. "It's not even the past you can't let go of, it's a figment of your imagination!"

"That will haunt me the rest of my life!" James shouted back, drawing every eye in the room.

Marissa just stared at him for a very long moment. When she spoke, it was in a very soft voice that revealed more disgust than he had ever heard in it before, "If you can't get over this, James Potter, then you will ruin any chance for you and Lily to ever be so much as friends again. If you cling to this, then you are everything that she's ever said about you. You're a prick, you're selfish, you're big-headed, and such an egomaniac you punish people for crimes that were only commited in your imagination. If you can't let go of this, you don't deserve her apology."

With that she turned and walked away up the staircase. A minute later, she came flying back down it again, this time she was almost yelling, "And have you even noticed, James Potter, in your utter self-absorbtion, that your friends need you right now? The way you were? Has it even penetrated that fantastically large head of yours that you are not the most wounded of the Marauders? For Merlin's sake, open your bloody eyes James Potter. Your friends need you."

She whirled back around again, and this time she did not come back down.

* * *

Unsurprisingly to those who knew it was coming, Severus Snape was the one who finally said in the Marauders' hearing the news that had been circulating the school. Somewhat surprisingly, it was Marissa that he chose to attack with the rumor that the rest of the school had been painstakingly careful to shield from the Gryffindor six. Even those who were good-natured, even those who liked them, even those who didn't believe the rumor knew that the Marauders had a tendency to shoot the messenger.

And no one wanted to be the herald of these tidings. All save one, who was quite enjoying it.

"So I hear the scarlet woman has finally dropped the act," Snape said in what was almost a hiss over the potions cauldron that he and Marissa were preparing. "Not that she was fooling anybody."

"Severus," Marissa said only a little tightly, "I have the feeling that I do not want to know what you are hinting at, and you probably don't want another reaction like the last time you upset me, so why don't we just concentrate on the Eutharos potion today?"

It was incredibly diplomatic and the closest that Marissa Fletcher had ever come to telling someone to stow it. Anyone else might have stopped, but Severus Snape could not be deterred. Especially when the Mudblood had the audacity to call him by his first name, as if she were his friend. Well he didn't have any friends, and he didn't want any, certainly not of her sort. "As much as I would loathe for Black to get another detention," he replied in reference to the last altercation, "I find that I cannot suppress this particular tidbit of information."

"Unless it's a less disgusting way to gut these spidercrabs, I'm not disposed to concentrate on it just now," Marissa tried yet again to shut him up. Of course it was unsuccessful. Only death or a coma could silence a Snape.

"I have a feeling what I have to say will distract you completely," Snape said with the air of a cat playing with his food. "And what kind of friend are you that you don't want to know the gossip about your supposed best friend?"

"The kind who's naive enough to think that gossip is never anything more than that," Marissa replied, sufficiently distracted though she pretended to still be working on the spidercrabs, "And thus perfectly uninteresting."

"Oh, but I think you'll find this particular piece of gossip downright fascinating," Snape said, seeing that he had her attention and relishing drawing out the moment painfully. "Truthfully, I'm rather shocked that Saints Gideon and Lizzie Prewett didn't feel the need to tell you that the truth leaked out about her."

"All right, I'll bite: what supposed truth?" Marissa asked. Severus Snape was all too happy to tell her.

It was a particularly finicky potion that they were working on, and the O.W.L. spirit had descended on even the least industrious of the class. As a result, everyone was concentrating very hard and working very diligently when all of a sudden they heard Marissa Fletcher of all people shout out, "Son of a bitch!"

Of course, all work stopped at once. Even Professor Delacour was too shocked at the outburst to respond immediately. "Bastard!" Marissa cried again, looking enraged in a way that was frightening on her cheerful face. No one could remember seeing Marissa Fletcher angry, and she was rarely even upset. She had never gotten into an argument with a Slytherin, which was more than anyone else in her house could say, and she had, in fact, never fought with anyone other than her father and Dumbledore. And that incident was hardly widely known.

Sirius and James were instantly at her side, waiting for their cue to start pummeling Snape for whatever he had done to provoke Marissa; and it had to have been bad to a get a reaction like that from Marissa for Merlin's sake. That was when Professor Delacour snapped into action, moving quickly to intercept her students. "Reeturn to 'our stations, Meester Black, Meester Potter," she said, staring the two taller boys down. When they had grudgingly started off, she turned to Marissa and Snape looking very angry indeed. "As for 'ou two, I weel see 'ou outside in a few meenutes. Wait fo' me there."

After satsifying herself that James and Sirius would stay put, Professor Delacour stepped out of the classroom. Five minutes later, all three of them walked back in, all of them were silent. Marissa still looked furious, Snape still looked amused, but Professor Delacour no longer appeared frustrated and furious with Marissa for the interruption or Snape for the provocation. She looked almost sick, disgusted. Of course, everyone was curious.

Marissa, however, refused to say when Lily almost pounced after class. All that she would reveal was that she had detention. However, behind Lily's back she shot meaningful glances at whichever of the Marauders whose eye she could catch. She barely managed to restrain them from attacking Snape.

In the end, all that she managed was that they waited until she and Lily ducked off to the loo on the way to Ancient Runes. Sirius and Peter were the only ones who weren't bothering with the subject, but they followed along the way, ready to bust Snape's head open at the earliest opportunity. As Slytherins (Snape among them) had this class with the Gryffindors on Thursday afternoons, several presented themselves.

It was James who confronted him, "Hey, Snivellus," he said in a ringing voice that filled the hall, his wand already out. Snape whirled, his wand also drawn. But he was not just ready, he was firing.

James had had too many similiar encounters with Snape to be surprised. He was ready instantly, springing into action. The crowd sprang apart then encircled the two duelers in some instinct that all humans possessed for spectating. As most of the combatants' energy was put into dodging and deflecting their opponent's curses, this was not an entirely wise decision on the part of the crowd as stray hexes abounded and it was a miracle that no one was hurt.

Half a miracle at least. James was gallant enough to carefully deflect away from the crowd and to dodge only if he knew that no one was behind him. Snape, who had no friends even among his own housemates, didn't care who suffered from Potter's stray hexes as long as it was not himself.

"Stop it! Stop it!" Marissa shrieked, breaking into a sprint as she realized that James and Snape were fighting. She broke right through the crowd, heedless of the flying curses. Remus made a grab to catch her arm, but she did an odd twisting movement and broke free of even his unnaturally strong grip. She slid to a stop in between the duelers, her arms spread out, her eyes flashing at both of them.

James, ever the gentleman, immediately stopped, and, to everyone's great surprise, Snape also pulled his wand up short. She looked angry again, "I will not be an excuse for the two of you to further this ridiculous feud!" she cried. Then she turned to James, "And it's not what you think in class, you don't owe him revenge, you owe him a debt. Now clear off! Both of you! Before I give you both detention!"

"Twenty points from both Slytherin and Gryffindor," Professor Garamonde said coldly, arriving on the scene. "And you were overly lenient, Miss Fletcher. Though you did do considerably more than Mr Lupin, Mr Karkaroff or Miss Penola. Five points to Gryffindor."

He gave the other prefects a more scathingly look than he had given James and Snape, "Five points apeice for not coming for a teacher or doing anything to maintain peace in the corridors. Now everyone, get inside."

Professor Garamonde was particularly harsh in his criticism if anyone missed a question on his hour long O.W.L. Review, but beyond that Ancient Runes elapsed in a highly uneventful fashion compared with Potions and the pre-class duel.

But things were most certainly not back to normal.

* * *

Knowing Marissa, Remus half expected her to want to go on with the dancing lesson they had that evening as if that afternoon had never happened. The other half was right. She was sitting in the classroom looking more fiercely determined than he had ever seen her. "Go get James, Sirius, and Peter, but don't let Lily know," was all that she said.

Remus set off immediately. Less than five minutes later, all four of the Marauders burst into the room, panting from running. Curiousity and loyalty were both very strong in the Gryffindor boys. They all looked up at her grave, set face expectantly. "You'll all want to sit down," she said calmly.

"Why?" Sirius demanded.

"So it will be more dramatic when you leap to your feet in outrage," Marissa said shortly, gesturing to the desks that she had not bothered to move to the side of the room as she usually did. They sat. And it was very dramatic when they lept to their feet in outrage. In addition, Sirius let off a stream of expletives that James echoed resoundingly. Peter began to hiss something so furiously under his breath that it sounded less like speech and more like a kettle boiling over. Remus let out a rather animal-like snarl.

"So I take it you boys are agreed?" she said, looking just as livid despite her calm demeanor.

"To what?" James said hotly, not meaning to round on her.

Marissa understood. "He's coming here in a few minutes." The boys set to howling again so that it took Marissa several more moments to calm them enough to continue, "Gideon owes me, obviously. Lizzie and all. Gave him a detention, giving me a perfect reason to meet up with him. I called you boys here for two reasons, I need your help with the enchantments necessary and it will be far more effective with more numbers, especially you boys. He knows how protective you are.

"So what do you say? Will you come to Lily's aid in her hour of need?" Marissa asked them all, but looked in James's direction. There appeared to be a war going on behind his eyes. No, not a war. Torture.

"What's your plan?" he said simply. Marissa almost smiled. Not a malicious smile, though she did smile that way a few moments later, but a relieved smile that James wasn't holding this pathetic grudge forever.

It took most of the time before they heard the knock on the door signalling Wemmick's arrival to explain her plan to the boys. "Okay, break!" she cried when she heard it. All the boys but Remus, who was far too used to such odd phrases popping up every once and awhile, gave her a strange look for her choice of words, then hurried to their station. Then Marissa opened the door and admitted Wemmick.

He started and let out an oath. "I should have known when Prewett went out of his way to give me a detention that you were behind it Fletcher," he snarled. "Your prefect abuse is getting positively rampant."

"You knew this was coming?" Marissa replied in a slightly tight voice.

"You're obvious," Wemmick retorted.

"But it did not save you," Marissa replied immediately shoving a sponge into his hand and abruptly vanishing from view as he felt a tug at his navel and the world began to whirl around him. He vaguelly heard a whispered, "Portus," before it all began.

Then his feet hit the ground and sent him tumbling over. Wemmick glanced up and looked around him. Instead of the worn, ancient stones of Hogwarts, there was soft earth under his feet, just beginning to recover from winter's hardness. Though the cheery candles of the castle had largely offset the darkness of the night, but here it was fully advanced and the blackness engulfed him completely. Then there was a flash of green light, and five vague figures stood before him. Before he could so much as blink, three of them had pinned his arms behind his back and rendered his legs useless and flailing under him.

They dragged him to a stone tablet that was lain down on the ground. A tombstone stood at the front of it. He was in a graveyard. The three figures who were each stronger than him, tied him to the slab before it with enchanted ropes that only tightened when he struggled. He soon ceased struggling at all.

Until he realized just who these five were. The Marauders and their bitch. He let out a stream of expletives and vague threats for what he would do to them "when he got free." "Oh I don't think we need worry over much about that," Marissa practically purred. "Oh no, don't gag him, Brother Percival," she said in a more normal voice when she saw Peter moving toward him. "There's no one to hear his screams out here."

Wemmick, who had indeed had his mouth half open in a cry for help, almost let out a scream of frustration but restrained himself lest he appear even weaker than his situation already caused. "Now, we have some issues to settle here. Are you prepared, Brother Harold?" Marissa said calmly but sinisterly.

"We don't need to go into the song and dance of a confession, Sister Jane. He's already given one to half the school," Sirius sounded nothing less than livid in contrast to the cold Marissa. At the moment, it was almost the crazy bitch that worried Wemmick more. He was beginning to lose all his grasp on rational thought in this situation, barely hanging onto thought at all.

"True, and it has been established beyond a doubt that the confession came unprompted from the guilty himself," Peter added helpfully.

"Let us then proceed to the penalty," James said in the most terrifying voice that Wemmick had heard all night for it was full of nothing but pure cold, hard anger. Then, in the flickering green fire light, a knife flashed in Potter's hand.

Wemmick gave a great jerk and let out a yell. "What - you - you - I'll - I'll have you! I'll - " he cried to threaten, but eventually degenerated into "HELP! HELP! Their mad! HELP!"

"I told you that was no use, Wemmick," Marissa whispered in his ear. In a slightly louder voice she added, "What I haven't told you is that the penalty for sleeping and leaving one of our own is castration." Another series of wild shouting followed this statement. Remus shoved him so roughly back down on the stones lab that he hit his head and was forced to lay still. He didn't notice (nor did anyone else) that Marissa's eyebrows knitted together for a moment as she regarded this unexpected display of strength. "As you have previously confessed, repeatedly, to having sex with Sister Violet, one Lily Evans, and professed to terminating your relationship with her directly afterward, you shall receive the penalty forwith."

"You psycho bitch!" Wemmick cried in panic. "You can't do this to me! You can't take - you bastard, get away from me - I'll have you all expelled! All see you all in Azkaban!"

"Wemmick, Wemmick, Wemmick," Marissa said in a patronizing voice. "You really haven't noticed whose headstone this is, have you?"

Wemmick lifted his head up, and swooned back down when he read his own name upon it. "Proceed, Brother Morgan," Marissa nodded to James who approached him menacingly with the knife brandished.

"Wait no! No! You can't do this to me! I - I didn't even sleep with Lily!" Wemmick cried desperately.

"Don't try that one on us, Wemmick," Remus snarled. "The entire school knows that you did."

"I didn't! I swear! I lied! She broke up with me! I swear to Merlin I didn't sleep with her!"

"So you left her during the night, then?" Remus replied.

"Well discerned, Brother Joseph, that calls for a more ritualistic and longer castration," Marissa said calmly.

"No, NO! Please, please, I never had sex with Lily Evans!"

There was a slight pause and James's knife stopped just as it came close enough to cause serious worry. "You know, Sister Jane, Brothers in arms, I do believe that he is telling us the truth."

"Oh thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" Wemmick almost sobbed with relief.

"It's too bad that that doesn't matter," James replied. "After all, the whole school believes that you did."

"I'll set it straight! I swear I'll set it straight!" Wemmick begged him desperately.

"And apologize to Lily? Then never come near her again?" Sirius demanded.

"Anything! Anything!"

"Swear an oath, a binding oath," James pressed him, moving the blade a little closer to his prey.

"I swear! I swear!"

"Put away the knife then, James," Marissa said in her normal voice. The boys also abruptly dropped out of character.

Wemmick was almost blind with the intensity of the warring emotions within him, relief and rage. "You - you set this whole thing up to - "

"Yes, and you may go, once we have performed one more spell," Marissa replied. She put her wand to his forehead and whispered very quickly in some very ancient sounding language. Then she pulled her wand away and said, "I suppose it's only fair to warn you that the spell just cast is one that prevents you from ever mentioning this meeting. However obliquely, however subtly it may be, even mentioning this detention you were assigned, and your balls will fall off. If you go to Dumbledore or any other authority or parent or any form of media and press, they won't grow back. Now, if you would open the door for him, Brother Percival."

Peter opened the door and Wemmick saw immediately that he had never left the school, indeed the room. Once his bonds were cut, he wanted desperately to spring at all of them and revenge himself upon them, but then the Marauders and that crazy bitch of theirs had already proved themselves to be masters of revenge. And Wemmick must call himself a novice by comparison. So he staggered for the door and slammed it shut behind him, and didn't look back until he was back in Hufflepuff Dorm.

Marissa lit the extinguished lights with a wave of her wand. "Well, chaps, that went rather well."

"Marissa, is there really a charm that - " James began, offended that he hadn't found such a thing first, charms being his forte.

"Of course not, didn't you recognize today's Ancient Runes lesson?" Marissa said with what was almost a laugh. The four boys stared at her. "It doesn't matter if it really exists as long as he believes it exists, and he certainly won't want to put it to the test, now will he? So where or not it's real, he will act as if he is under this curse. And that, my friends, is real magic."

Remus was the first to let out a bark of laughter. "I have an idea," he added, "Let's dance on the bastard's grave."

He immediately caught the hand of a laughing Marissa and twirled her around in a swinging dancestep, the other Marauders joining in more clumsily in a rhythmic, pounding tribal dance.

* * *

As the oath dictated (which was genuine magic), Wemmick stood up in front of the entire Great Hall the very next morning at breakfast and declared himself to be a liar. He further confessed that he had never had sex with Lily Evans, had been dumped by her for pressing and obsessing over the issue, and apologized publicly for spreading an untruth about her.

Lily glared at all five of them when this shocking display was over. Even over the roar of babble from the school as Wemmick seated himself, Lily's angry voice could be heard, "WHAT DID YOU DO?" She was glaring at James particularly.

"I don't know what you're talking about Lily, though I am dreadfully glad that your name was cleared," Marissa said in a picture of utter innocence.

"I wish you weren't involved in this at all, Riss," Lily said in such a calm tone that the Marauders started in surprise. "I wish you boys hadn't done whatever it is you did to him, how am I ever going to get a boyfriend now? But Riss, I'm sorry you even had to think of this. I wish it was one of the boys who found out. You've been violated worse than this was."

Marissa's smile flickered and died. Lily looked stricken for a moment, then Marissa managed to muster another smile. "It's not your fault any more than that was mine, Lils," she replied. "Wemmick and Mal-foy are the guilty ones." Peter looked Marissa up and down and realized that, despite her master plan and the emotional damage it may have done to the overly arrogant prick, she was right. Lily's reputation had taken a far more serious hit, and Marissa's psyche had suffered far more damage even from just the constant reminder that this scandal had proved.

Unfortunately, Peter had no more time for such thoughts (and rationalizations of his actions) because Professor McGonagall had come to the same conclusion as Lily when she heard Wemmick's confession. "You four," she said in a crisp, angry voice, "Come with me." Her lips were very thin, but nothing like they had been known to be at times in the Marauders presence. Thinner than when McGonagall chastened Marissa for the Potter's boxers stunt, but thicker than when she had learned about Mundungus hiding in the castle.

Marissa started to get up to say something, but Remus used her shoulder to push himself up and pressed her down onto the bench. "You're already on thin ice, don't you dare get yourself in trouble over this," he hissed in her ear. The other Marauders caught her eyes to agree and signal her to keep quiet. They followed McGonagall wordlessly from the hall, stopping only to pick up Wemmick on their way past the Hufflepuff table.

McGonagall took Wemmick in first, instructing the boys gruffly to stand outside her office. Five minutes later, they both came out, her lips thinner than before. Wemmick walked off without looking at anyone, and McGonagall beckoned the Marauders into her office. It was too familiar by now to be intimidating. "It appears that you are in the clear," McGonagall began sounding furious about it. "Whatever you did to frighten that boy into declaring the truth seems to have also been sufficient to silent him about the matter. However, I know it was the four of you."

The four boys very wisely said nothing. James and Sirius looked her boldly and shamelessly in the eye and Remus faced her calmly and proudly. Peter tried to imitate them, but kept glancing nervously at James and Sirius. Fortunately, this was not an uncommon thing for Peter to be doing under stressful circumstances.

"Mr Lupin, you will now alternate hosting all prefect assigned detentions for the remainder of the year," Professor McGonagall said crisply. "And I will tell all the prefects and teachers to keep an especially close eye on both you and Mr Wemmick. I am now issuing an unofficial restraining order on all of you not to approach, respond to, or go near Dennis Wemmick, is that clear?"

"Professor," James said shamelessly, "Is it fair to punish Remus if, as you say, you have no proof?"

"Of course it would be, Mr Potter," McGonagall replied though it was quite clear that she was annoyed by his gall in pointing something like that out. "But that is not my reason," she said though none of them were fooled, "It is simply that with O.W.L.s approaching, it seems like hosting detentions nearly every night will be quite a strain on Miss Fletcher and I wish that burden to be eased. Mr Lupin is quite willing to do that for a friend, I hope?"

"Of course, Professor," Remus said quickly before James could say anything else to annoy McGonagall with his smugness.

"Good, you may go."

* * *

Remus and Marissa decided to make up the dancing lesson that they had skipped on the first night that neither of them had to host a detention. What surprised Remus was that Marissa was furious about McGonagall's order which did, essentially, lighten her load, and it wasn't even because she thought that it was unfair to single out only Remus to be punished. "You have no idea how much studying I get done hosting a detention simply because I have absolutely nothing better to do," she had explained, sounding highly frustrated as she did. "Everywhere else there are so many distractions..."

Remus had laughed then, knowing just how easily Marissa could get wrapped up in the problems of others or entertaining people. He also knew just how to talk to her about things like this, "Don't be selfish, Riss, I can't seem to get any studying done either. I guess it's the price you pay for roommates who have no work ethic whatsoever."

After that, Marissa smiled and agreed laughingly that he could host all the detentions that he wanted. She did not, however, seem particularly eager to begin the lesson. She seemed content instead to sit on the window ledge and stare out at the rain. The look in her eyes was almost...melancholy. It was strange to think of her in such a way. Ever since he had known her, she had been so fiercely bubbly and happy. No, scratch that. Now that he thought about it, she had only been an excessively excitable person since Malfoy had...

Almost as if she had been reading his thoughts, she said abruptly, "Do you think of me differently since I thought of the Castration plot?" She did not look at him but continued to stare out the window hugging her knees. Remus didn't know quite what to say, "Because I think that it was...it was like my way of striking back at Malfoy." Lucius Malfoy was the one and only person that Marissa called by his last name. She didn't even adopt nicknames for most people, including the Marauders' chosen pseudonyms.

Remus still hadn't thought of anything to say what felt like a millenium later. Marissa spoke again into the silence, "I think of myself differently, so I thought you must. I didn't think I would...that I could strike at somebody for the sins of someone else. I, I punished Dennis for Malfoy's sin. Why am I like that? I mean, well, I'm mean."

"No," Remus cried almost involuntarily, hurrying over to sit next to her on the sill. He wasn't sure what to do when he got there so merely sat there feeling like he should do something to comfort her but not knowing what. "You're the nicest person that I know and Wemmick - "

"Don't tell me he deserved it!" Marissa turned and said rather fiercely. "Not when you talked Sirius out of doing the same thing to Belle when they broke up! You thought it was terrible but you certainly didn't think it was worthy of castration then! Or the threat."

"Riss, listen, no, listen to me," he said, trying to capture her unwilling attention and finally just grabbing her face and forcing it to look at him. "How you've dealt with Malfoy without help from any of us for all these years I'll never know, never be able to imagine, but I promise you this: it hasn't turned you bitter or spiteful or angry and certainly not mean. You are the brightest, happiest, cleverest, most forgiving and nonconfrontational girl that I've ever known. And not nonconfrontational because you don't stand up for yourself, you just don't pounce on other people's rights to protect your own. Unlike some people that I could name." That earned a slight smile. "Riss, don't beat yourself up about this. And don't hold on to the Malfoy...incident. You can talk to me about it you know." She had an odd expression on her face, so Remus immediately backpedaled, "Or Lily, of course. Or anybody, just so long as you talk to somebody."

"I never told Lily," Marissa said in a very soft voice. Remus gave a start of surprise and realized that he still had her face in his hands. He waited a moment, then released it. "She would have wanted to talk about it all the time and I just wanted to forget that it ever happened." Marissa shuddered. Then suddenly her eyes lit up with sudden realization, "He called me a halfblood!" she cried. "All these times when it's played itself over and over in my head, and I didn't realize! He knew about my mother!"

Neither Remus nor Marissa knew what to say after that, so they were silent for a long time.

Again it was Marissa who eventually broke the silence. "I almost feel like I can finally let it go," Marissa said, again in that soft voice. "Malfoy and the rape attempt." Remus blanched. Marissa didn't. "I can say the word at least," she said with a wry smile at his expression. "The Dennis ordeal was a catharsis, what I wish I could do to Lucius to pay him back for the way he violated me, took away my dignity, frightened me. I wanted to do that to him. I'm not proud of that, but I always knew that that's what I wanted, to take from him what he took from me. So I took it from Dennis because he hurt my friend and I saw my pain in hers. Even though she doesn't know about it. She would have been almost as exposed as me, felt it anyway, to realize the whole school thought her a tart." Marissa raised her eyes from her knees to Remus's face and said to him, "Thank you, Remus, for whatever it is that let you find me in time. Thank you. Because I don't think I've ever said it before."

Remus pulled her into his arms. She turned so that she was leaning against him with his arms around her. She rested her head against his shoulder and just rested there. Remus held her and tried to find words that would wipe away her condemnation of herself, that would erase her pain, that would stop her from calling her righteous anger evil. In the end, his silent presence was more than any words he could have mustered would have done.

The rain poured down on the window with a pleasant and soothing syncopated rhythm that almost eased them into sleep. They sat there unmoving for a long moment out of time, not caring if seconds or years had passed. They fell into breathing together without realizing it, their eyes half-closed.

"Thank you, Remus," Marissa said, turning her face a little to look at him, "For this." She smiled, a real genuine smile that he recognized as her own. "For listening. I guess it's not a good time for me to not understand what Gus is talking about."

"If it makes you feel any better, I never understand my parents," Remus replied, for once not broody when he spoke on this subject.

"My father actually took him to a movie," she said. "And I'm so selfish I'm not happy about it. You'd think I would have been thrilled that he took the time to go see Star Wars with Gus, but instead I feel left out because he loves it so much he has this whole new lingo I can't understand and that's all he ever wants to talk about."

"I always imagined that that was rather what your and Lily's families would feel when you first came home from Hogwarts," Remus said reflectively, "Except it's a whole world that they can never share with you."

"Gus'll be a wizard, I know it," Marissa replied, "But I take your point."

"You must really miss him."

"Yes, I miss having him here, but I don't think we ever really talked about too much," Marissa said, "And the more I think about it the more I realized that however much I tried to share Hogwarts with him, it kept us from sharing our lives anymore. We built most of our relationship on Hogwarts talk. Now he's seen that and wants to talk about Star Wars instead, but I can't base our relationship on that because I don't understand it. You and Lily are the only ones that I really talk to about important things anymore."

"What about James? And Sirius? I notice Peter seems uneasy around you - " Remus cut himself off, horrified at what he had implied about Peter.

Marissa, of course, sensed this. "Don't worry, I noticed too," but Marissa did not tell him anymore. "And I talk to James and Sirius about their lives. They need to change some things in them, but I - "

"Don't have anything to learn from them? Are perfect?" Remus teased.

"Don't want to burden them until they've worked out their own issues," Marissa corrected. "After all, James has to see me as the consummate fan so he eventually gets embarassed by the attention," Remus snorted his disbelief in the success of that tactic, "And Sirius needs to see somehow who can be happy all the time so that he believes that he can be happy someday too."

"But above all, they want to be your friend, Riss, and you need to let them be a part of your life," Remus said seriously.

"Is this your way of telling me you're tired of hearing me whine about my family?" Marissa laughed.

"Believe me, I'm in no position to complain about that, the way I go on about the vultures," Remus laughed. "I know one mistake that I would never make if I could be a father."

"What, you won't have kids?" Marissa said in surprise.

Remus struggled not to stiffen and give himself away completely. The intimacy of their conversation had disarmed him so that he almost gave himself away. He backpedaled quickly, "I suppose I don't trust parenting not be a disaster anymore," he said. "But the main thing that I'd warn people about is never be rich."

Remus had expected Marissa to laugh or ask why. Instead she nodded in agreement, "To get rich you have to be around the office constantly. To be a good parent, you have to be there. That's the most important factor. And I think it's better to have a big family, so there's always someone around, taking care of each other."

"A big, poor, happy family," Remus said wistfully.

"That's the only way to do it," Marissa sighed.

* * *

©KatyMulvaney9-9-2004