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Maybe that was a bad idea. Maybe the whole thing was a bad idea. God, why did she ever thought leaving the house should be a possibility? She hated it.
Even so, she let the hand guide her. She thought that might be a bathroom, maybe? It had hard fluorescent light and cold walls and cold floor. She was cold. They must be too, too cold. Things needed blood to be warm. Their blood was cold now.
She bit her lip, hard. It was dry, and chipped, and it was easy do make it bleed, to feel the sticky texture and taste metal, and she was kising someone else. She hated kissing. Hated feeling someone else's thonge against hers. There were very few people who knew how to kiss her right. Those were zero, now. She kept her eyes open, not that she could see anything. She hated that. She didn't push the mouth away.
There were hands on her, traveling her skin, exploring her body, those hands were too warm. She hated it. Hated the feeling against her skin, made her feel gross. She put her fingers into hair, strshe keepaight hair. Hair should not be that straight. Not under her hands, not like that.
Warm hands made their way under her shirt and she had no bra on and she wished she had, because she hates it. She hates that the kiss never stops, just moves brom her mouth to her neck to her shoulder, and she hates that the hands never leave, and she hates that what's happening is happening. She hates it, but she doesn't stop it. Because feeling gross is better than feeling nothing and right now she can't feel anything.
She moves her head to face a broken mirror full of poorly made grafitty, and stares at a face she can hardly call her's. It's like she's whatching everything from outside, that body and whatever's left of her mind disconnected and mismatched and she hates it. She hates that the drinks make her dizzy and whatever was in that cigarrette makes her nauseous and that those pills were good for a second but now she feels overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the same time. She can't breathe but she doesn't strugle for air, she know it won't come. All her surroundings look like those weird dreams she keeps having, everything kinda smoky and melting and twisted and all the wrong colours and shapes and textures, always with those Things in the corners, that feeling she's trapped and that they are coming for her.
She wishes for pain, and pain does come, with nails and fingers and theeth in place they shouldnt be. Her legs go numb, and a hand is holding her agains the wall while it's owner finishes what they were doing. She hates it, but she doesn't want to stop, because she needs to feel something, anything, and joy is gone and sadness' numb, and anger chocked to death, and fear became a memory so overwhelmingly present all the time she actually became sanitized from it. So she chooses pain, and gross, over numb, because something is better than anything and she's not gonna be here tomorrow anyway so better feel one last thing.
And maybe she's dissossiating, and maybe she's too far gone, and maybe she prefers it like that.
And everything goes dark.
Her name is Mary. She wonder's how she forgot that.
She feels tired, which is something, and she wonders where she is.
There's a street, though she can't seem to find it's name. And houses. All of them look the same, and yet she feels like there's something there. She finds a house, one with a child's trycicle in the garden, and she walks to the door, because what else is left for her to do?
There's a boy. He might be two, or maybe three, and that boy feels awfully familiar, with scrawny little legs and messy wavy black hair. He's sleeping in a naked matress under the staircase, even if the sofa is right there, big and empty and comfy, and Mary knows there are more rooms upstairs, so why is that little baby sleeping in a cupboard.
He's crying, but he doesn't make a sound, like he learned not to.
Mary sits by his side in the sad little matress, and brushes his hair with her fingers. It's all tangled, and messy, and she feels, for some reason, devasted. There's something about that oy, that little skinny baby boy, that makes her feel something. She hasn't felt anything in quite some time, so it's too much at the begining to even understand what it is, to even comprehen how massive and strong is that feeling. So she just sit's there, silent, and brushes his hair.
He opens his eyes, just a crack, and she smile at him in the softest way possible. She didn't think she was capable of that anymore. She hushes him back to sleep, and her heart just fills up with something she can't quite name.
Love, she figures, after what felt like an eternity. She loves that boy, in the most adoring, endearing, and undying way. She love's him with all her heart and her soul and her body, it's so much love it hurts.
But, in a new light that was not there before, she can see the boy better, the boy she adores. His ribs are showing under his too pale skin, under watercolour bruises in black and blue and purple, and red and brown and yellow-green. His lip is split, and there's a scratch under his eye, and he holds himself like he's all he's got.
Mary scoots over, and takes him from his too thin pillow, and put him in her lap. He shifts unconfortably, looking for a position where no bruise is pressed, but doesn't wake up. Instead, he hugs Mary with more strength she thought he'd have, and let her lay down, still resting on top of her.
That boy, he's so tiny, and there are already way too many scars. They might not last, but they are there. Who could ever be so cruel to a child this tiny, who has not even understood life yet? Who could be such a monster to such a precious little presence in this world? How could it be, that Mary loved such a little creature with such intensity it hurt, and some other person loved so much to hurt him?
How was that fair, that she only got to love like this again in a dream, and yet the world was so cruel to said love at the same time?
It became brighter, and the boy opened his eyes again. He looked at Mary, and for a second she saw another pair of green eyes, bighter and shinier, instead of those dark grey-green eyes that were still hazy from sleep. He rolled from her lap and she found herself following that little child to the kitchen, where he sat in a wobly wooden chair with a plastic bowl full of cereal and cold milk, while another boy, taller and bigger, ate a grilled cheese cut in half, with no crusts, and drank hot chocolate from an expensive looking cartoon cup.
The tall woman at the sink turned to the boys at the table. She, too, was odly familiar. Mary's boy was ignored, and a plate full of cut and peeled fruit was placed in front of the bigger kid. A plate that was left untouched.
The green eyed boy ate his food in silence, and Mary had never seen a child that tiny be so quiet before. It felt unnatural, to stand and watch. He put his empty bowl inside the sink, and longingly stared at the plate, full of food, left behind by the toddler who was now loudly watching TV. Her boy did nothing more than walk to the table and eat the crust cut off from the sandwich, putting it in his mouth like he was a little squirrell. He looked around, as if to check if nobody saw him.
The tall woman was at the sink, washing dishes and looking at the neighbor's house.
He put a slice of banana in his mouth, and Mary saw her boy almost cry from sheer happiness. Then, a mistake. He bit an aple piece, and it crunched between his teeth with a juicy, crispy sound. It sounded cold and ripe and sweet, but all it did was make the boy froze, and the woman turn her head to look at him.
Mary had seen scary. She had seen her mother when she pushed her sister in the lake, and her father when her brother got caught after running away, and her teacher when she got detention. She had seen ghouls and vampires and werewolfs and ghosts. Nothing would be as scary as that dream, when the woman looked at her little boy, inocently eating an apple, and walked over to him. Nothing would be as scary as her boy frozen while the woman kneelt down and gripped his cheeks, forcing him to open his mouth and spit the apple he ate. Nothing would be as scary as the other toddler coming to watch, or the woman slaping Mary's boy when silent tears began running down his face, making the scratch under his eye reopen and start to bleed. Nothing would be scarier than that huge man showing up, and taking off his belt, and hitting Harry, her boy Harry, little Bambi, her baby, again and again and again, while calling him tief and greedy and ungrateful entitled brat.
Nothing would ever be scarier than seeing all of that, seeing her baby boy cry, silent, so silent, because screaming make it worse, and realizing she could not move. She had to watch it, watch as they beat her Harry into unconsiousness, and then threw him away in the tiny cupboard, and she could do nothing.
Then she woke up, and threw up on the floor.
It was morning, and she was on the cold ceramic floor of a bathroom that smelled like alcohol, cigarrettes, weed, sex and now, puke.
She could feel the taste of blood, vomit and alcohol in her mouth, and god, that was awful. Everything hurt, expecially her head, and her clothes were disheveled, sweaty ,and kinda stinky. But she found out the buttons in her short had been closed, her jacket had been put over her shoulders, and that she had sleept leaning into her backpack (that she definetly hadn't brought with her to the bathroom), so ten out of ten to whoever the hell was that girl she was kissing last night.
She didn't have headache meds with her, a practical choice she was kind of regretting (wow, where was that Mary who wanted to feel something, anything really? Mary had the feeling she was left in the doorsteps of a suburban house where a little boy lived), so she got up, and stared at her face in the dirty mirror.
God, she looked like a zombie. Her hair was a mess, her mascara was all over the place, she had drool on her shirt and looked terrible, considering everything. She also felt terrible.
She felt. It made something inside her chest warm up with what seemed to be the echo of a memory of something called hapiness.
Mary put her whole head under the tap of the sink and let cold water run down her head. She shaked her wer hair (that made her think of Pads, and that made her ache with longing), and washed her face and her mouth, and put up a ponytail (it made her think of Lils, and Mary almost choke, he throat thight and dry), and put her backpack over one shoulder (Dorcas and Prongs used to do that), and left the bathroom.
The outside was way too bright, even if it was a cloudy day, that kind of day where there's no sun and no wind, and the whole place just feels hot and suffocating like a greenhouse, but with less green, pretty plants and a lot more hard concrete and cars and annoying people staring.
She could feel the stares piercing her and she didn't find in herself the strenght to care. She could only walk, walk and think about everything.
Mary had kinda procrastinated during that. She was very good at procrastinating stuff. So, when Reggie died, she put it in the corner of her mind. Then, when Marls died, she put her with Reggie, and when Dorcas disapeared she put her with them. But then all that happened with Alice and then Lils and Prongs and Worm- no, Pete- no, Pettigrew being a traitor, and Pads being a killer, and Moony shutting off, and Dorcas body, and she just... broke. She put it all away, enough not do deal with any of it, but not enough enough, so she still felt everything and and felt overwhelmed and then went numb, and never properly grieved, never really coped, never let herself see the wound so she could heal.
And now it was kinda too big and ugly and infected and she didn't want to deal with all of that. So she wouldn't. She bought the shittiest, strongest booze she could find, and bribed a lot of people into giving her both drugs and meds, and sharpened the knifes, and put it all in the coffee table in the middle of her run down apartment. There was no one left to read a letter, so she didn't write one, but she made sure to get it all ready for somewhere near the rent day, so her landlord would come and find her soon enough so her body didn't start to rot and became a problem for the other people living in her building.
Just now she had Harry.
Little, baby Harry, who was not that much of a baby anymore (He'd be three in july, only two months away). Little Harry, who Dumbledore granted was safe with Lily's family, protected by the blood magic and very much loved and well cared for. Harry, who was very much not well and safe.
How could she do that to him? Die and leave him alone, in a place that did to him pretty much everything that was supposed not to happen? Abandon him like Dumbledore did, because that was abandon, to leave a child in a doorstep of a home who hurt him like that. For the first time in months, she felt something. She felt angry, angry at Dumbledore, who left her boy, Lily's boy, there, alone and unprotected from the monsters that shared his blood. It was a cruel thing to say, but all the friends she missed had fates less cruel than the kid who was still alive.
And deeper, under that anger and rage and hate for the man who had caused all of that (wasn't he the one who helped the potters hide? Wasn't he the one who made Petigrew the secret keeper? Wasn't he the one who made them fight, and made them bleed, but who had been watching while the Dark Lord went from a student to a man, and yet never once saw any signs of the monster he would become, despite being oh so intelligent?), she had love. Love and devotion for that little boy, Harry, her child as much as it was Lily's, because best friends were family all the way in.
So, for the first time in months, she felt more than an empty shell.
When she got home, she opened the blinds over her bed, and the window. She threw her backpack on the floor and flushed every single pill down the toilet, and washed all the drinks down the drain in the kitchen sink, and put the knife back in the drawer where it belonged. Then, she took a shower so hot it made her skin red, threw on an oversized t-shirt (that she pretended didn't once belong to Remus), and let her body fall face first into her bed. She slept like a rock, over the blankets, and stayed there, unmoving, for hours.
When she woke up, it felt like noon, and a quick glance to the clock over the table proved to her it was, in fact, 14:37, already way past midday, but still too far from dinner or tea. But almost 3pm was a reasonable time for a snack, she suposed. Aparently, not when you have no food at home.
She had three slices of molden bread, a banana that was well past the point of consumption, and a single can of beer. That was honestly humiliating.
She could, probably, go to a bakery. Mary stored that idea for later while she threw away the bread and the banana (it made her think of Harry, and how he probably would eat that, and how sad that was), and put the ale back in her empty fridge. That was actually a good excuse to clean the entire ting, so she did (she was running low on detergent. She quickly added that to the growing list of things she had to do, now that she decided she was sticking around for a little longer). Then, she cleaned the counter, and the sink (there were three days worth of dishes there: gross. But not her worst job), and the stove. Then, she saw the washing machine, and thought about that huge pile of clothes behind the batroom door, and suddently the list was a litlle bit bigger.
And maybe the appartment looked messier now, with little piles of dirty clothes in the kitchen floor, but at least all of her panties and bras were being washed (and she had enough soap! That was a weird thing to be happy abut, if you even could call it "happy"), and she could open the bathroom door to the full extent.
Then she moved on to her bed, and straightened up the sheets and put the pillow in the window to try and get at least some light in it. She fixed the stack of books she had on the other wall in a weird kind of tetris, and was pretty sitisfied with the way it ended up looking. She whiped the little table she had and the drawers in her dresser, and turned on her (sirius') record player. She didn't think she had ever used that, after it was handed to her. It just sat there, red and beautiful and tragic. But now it was playing music, and she hummed along as she cleaned the bathroom sink and the mirror and threw away her old brush and put the trash next to the front door, to take out when she left the house.
It was almost six when she stopped, after hanging the first round of clothes and putting in the second (her t-shirts and tops and that pretty flowy dress that didn't belong to her), and cleaning the whole bathroom. The house felt better than it had been in weeks, and she felt better, and yes, maybe she was barefoot and with only a shirt that reached the middle of her tights, and maybe her hair was damp and her feet were dirty and cold, but she felt better.
Maybe it was not a good idea to leave the house yet. It was a mess, she was a mess, and honestly, Mary didn't really trust herself right now, so she picked up the phone and ordered a pizza just for herself, with a coke, and ate it from the box, on the floor, one hour later, while the radio played music full of static that made her remember Marlene and the way she'd dance in the middle of their dorm and sing in a voice so beautiful she'd make bad music seem good.
By the time she went to sleep, more than half the pizza was gone, together with most of the coke, her shirts were hanging from the ceiling by a thread that divided the apartment in the middle and her jeans and shorts were in the washer, for her to hang up by morning, and she very much felt like her life had snapped back into place. Her apartment, sure, was ridiculously tiny, but it was kinda clean now, her clothes were mostly washed, and she had taken a real shower, instead of just casting a cleaning spell on herself.
In the morning, she'd buy some food, pay her bills and cut her hair. Marlene always said a clean bed and a haircut were the starting point of every major life change, and if she was going to live, you know, without all the self harming and self destruction and barely scraping by situation, well, damn, that was pretty life changing, wasn't it? And Mary was willing to do justice to her friend's motto. So, she laid down to sleep when it was barely ten, even if she usually stayed up way later, and silently counted the stars she could see from her open window. There weren't many of them.
"Goodnight Marls and Dorcas, I hope you're holding eachother, and I hope you're a little proud of me now. I know it's not easy to be proud of before me, I'm not either. Sweet dreams, Reggie, I miss my little brother. Sleep tight, Lils, and I hope Jamie's with you and I hope you know I'm not giving up on Harry. I'll take care of our boy, I promisse, Lily. Pinkie promisse. And I won't let him be stupid like we were. Maybe just a little." She snuck under the covers, and kept muttering those tiny prayers. "Good night, Rem, I wish I could be with you, and goodnight Siri, I hope you don't forget us, and goodnight Panda, I wish I knew how you're doing."
She let out a sigh, and looked at the bightest star she could see in London's cloudy sky. She read once, in one of those muggle books about wichcraft (they were more religion than magic, honsetly, but a good amount of stuff did actually work. Mary could only wish her rune professor had teached her how to create actually functional runes), that magic is all about intention. And maybe that was not quite true, but she just ignored the facts and wished, wished so strongly and from so deep within her heart, that the universe would have no other option but to make it work.
"Goodnight, Harry, sweet dreams, sleep tight, I love you from the bottom of my heart, all up to the moon and stars. Wait for me, Bambi, I'm gonna get to you."
And maybe tomorrow she'd worry about actually doing this, and about getting her life together before she even got near Harry, and about the huge amount of things she needed to unpack from that gigantic pile of problems and traumas and suffering she had left unnatended for so long, but right then and there, under her blanckets, with moonlight shining in her face through the window, she just let her heart be, and her eyes close, and her magic work it's way to a little boy under a staircase, who, on that night, felt very very loved.