A/N: Hello, all. For this story, you're going to have to suspend your disbelief in some places. I made the internet more prominent than it probably actually was during '96 and implied that Youtube had already been created. I know that Youtube was created in 2005; please don't fuss at me about it. For the sake of my story, let's pretend otherwise.

Also, if you're one of those that are following one of my other stories . . . well, sorry about the wait. I was typing up another chapter for Picture Perfect when I was body-slammed by several plot bunnies all at once. In fact, I'm compelled to call them hares instead of bunnies since none of them are short one-shots. I was even struck with an idea for an original children's book. I did warn ya'll that updates will be sporadic.

DISCLAIMER: This is the only disclaimer for the entire story so pay attention if it means a lot to you. I don't own anything you recognize and even some of the things you don't recognize. I'll mostly include things from other stories that enjoyed so I'll apologize for that beforehand but I will give credit where it's due if I remember exactly what story I'm borrowing from.

The hottest day of the summer so far was nearly at its end and a drowsy silence lay over the large, square houses of Privet Drive. Cars that were usually gleaming stood dusty in their drives and lawns that were once emerald green lay parched and yellowing; the use of hose-pipes had been banned due to drought. Deprived of their usual car-washing and lawn-mowing pursuits, the inhabitants of Privet Drive had retreated into the shade of their cool houses, windows thrown wide in the hope of tempting in a non-existent breeze. The only person left outdoors was a teenage girl who was lying flat on her back in a flower bed outside Number Four.

She was a thin, black-haired, bespectacled girl who had the awkward look of someone who has grown a lot in a short space of time and was still getting used to the changes. Her jean shorts were torn and faded, her cropped T-shirt hung off her shoulders, and her sandals were worn so thin, she had opted to stuff them into her back pocket and just go bare-foot instead. Marie Potter's appearance did not endear her to the neighbours, who were the sort of people who thought scruffiness ought to be punishable by law, but as she had hidden herself behind a large hydrangea bush this evening she was quite invisible to passersby. In fact, the only way she would be spotted was if her Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia stuck their heads out of the living room window and looked straight down into the flower bed below.

Speaking of her Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia —

"Glad to see the girl's stopped butting in," Uncle Vernon said, his voice drifting through the open window. "Where is she, anyway?"

"I don't know," Aunt Petunia replied, sounding not at all concerned. "Not in the house."

Uncle Vernon grunted. A common form of expression for him.

"'Watching the news,' she says," He continued scathingly. "As if that's what she's really up to. As if any normal child cares what's on the news — Dudley doesn't care about anything of that sort, I doubt he knows who the Prime Minister is! And what's the workings of our government got to interest her? It's not like any of her lot is going to be mentioned on our —"

"Vernon, hush!' Aunt Petunia admonished. "The windows are open!"

"Oh, right — sorry, dear . . ."

The Dursleys fell silent. A chirpy jingle for a children's breakfast cereal was ignored by Marie as she watched batty Mrs. Figg from Wisteria Walk amble by slowly. The old woman was frowning and muttering to herself. Marie was then doubly happy with her hideout; Mrs. Figg had taken to inviting her over for tea whenever they saw each other in the streets. The girl idly watched the cat-loving older lady as she rounded the corner and disappeared from view, her ears perking when Uncle Vernon began speaking again.

"Dudders out for tea?"

"At the Polkisses'," said Aunt Petunia fondly. "He's got so many little friends, he's so popular . . ."

Marie repressed a scoff but didn't manage to fully silence the sound. The Dursleys really were astonishingly blind about Dudley; they had swallowed all his lies about having tea with a different member of his gang every night of the summer holidays. Marie knew perfectly well that Dudley had not been to tea anywhere; he and his gang spent every evening vandalizing the play park, smoking on street corners, and throwing stones at passing cars and children. Marie had seen them at it during her evening walks around Little Whinging; she had spent most of the holidays wandering the streets, scavenging newspapers even while trying to forget about the horrible end of the previous school year.

The opening notes of the music that heralded the five o'clock news reached Marie's ears and her heart jumped. Perhaps today — after a month of waiting — would be the day —

"Record numbers of stranded holidaymakers fill airports as the Spanish baggage-handlers' strike reaches its second week — "

"Give 'em a lifelong siesta, I would," snarled Uncle Vernon over the end of the newsreader's sentence, but no matter: Outside in the flower bed, Marie's stomach seemed to unclench and drop at the same time. If anything had happened, it would surely have been the first item on the news; death and destruction were more important than stranded holidaymakers. . . .

She let out a long, slow breath and stared up at the brilliant blue sky. Every day this summer had been the same: the tension, the expectation, the temporary relief, and then mounting tension again . . . and always, growing more insistent all the time, the question of why nothing had happened yet.

She couldn't keep doing this to herself. Since the beginning of break, Marie had been following the news like a woman obsessed, paying attention to even the minutest details in case there was something shady that could have passed as something commonplace by the Muggles — missing people, strange accidents, anything. She had driven the Dursleys to distraction with her hovering, Uncle Vernon now so paranoid that he thought she was plotting against them.

Not that they didn't fully deserve someone plotting against them. Marie was considering doing so just for the sake of propriety.

Marie couldn't remember a summer back at Privet Drive more loathsome — at least, at first — not even the summer before second year, when they didn't even let her out for chores. An anxious dread filled her when she wasn't distracting herself, a cold sort of unpleasantness, like some cannibal had managed to rub fresh peppermint all over her lungs and stomach without having the courtesy to make sure she was dead first. Why wasn't anyone sending her any news? Why wouldn't they tell her anything? Were people getting hurt? That the Dursleys were more or less avoiding her — as they had been when they found out that Sirius was her godfather — actually did not help; instead of mind-numbing chores to soothe her, she had to find other means of distraction.

Marie plus desperate need for distraction equalled practices she was sure Hermione would scold her for. Not a full week into summer, she had been ready to do anything.

Wandering the streets just not doing it for her? That crowd of questionable-looking youths that hung out in the backyard of one of the low-end houses next to the parking-lot of park looked promising; people with hair that colourful and attitudes that blasé were sure to be full of lovely distractions. Sick of backing down, holding her tongue because she was told to be good? Those same delinquents posted music videos of covers on the internet — under their band name of Knuckle Bones — and had been looking for a girl to sing the female vocals and occasionally front. Marie screamed, growled, belted, beat-boxed, stomped, and danced for the camera until she lost herself in the moment and she could pretend that she was just a normal muggle girl with normal muggle girl concerns.

It was reckless, but she let herself fall into the scene of degenerate youth. She didn't care much for alcohol — disgusting aftertaste — but the little tattoo one of the older girls had given her had been liberating in its distracting pain and Marie rather liked the cigarettes, especially when she was taught how to blow smoke rings. She also rather liked the bitter taste of smoke when the bloke that gave her her first cigarette also taught her how to kiss.

Anything to not think of how angry and miserable she was. Which was compounded by the knowledge that she was being pathetic. Marie knew she was being ridiculous. What was she doing? Rebelling against people that weren't even around to know they were being defied? How was that helping anything? Running around didn't stop the nightmares, did it? Pathetic uselessness.

Marie could write an essay on why she should stop — mostly centered on what her friends would say — but she still refused to. She wouldn't stop — because when she was goofing around, playing at being teenaged riff-raff, she was just another face in the crowd. When the mothers with their children frowned in disapproval at them, Marie was not singled out. The others of the crowd didn't question her worthiness; they didn't care about who she was when she wasn't with them. She was not expected to be anything else than what she showed herself to be.

The serenity of being 'just Marie' and having people appreciate her when she was nothing more than that settled her into a sort of lull where the pressures and worries of the wizarding world eased themselves to the back of her mind. At least, when she was away from Privet Drive.

Truthfully, she had been feeling wretched since Cedric had nearly died when he had damned near cracked his head open on a tombstone jumping back from the Killing Curse. She had been too caught up in the battle and escape to give him much thought at first, but there weren't words to describe how relieved she had been when they had been dragged to the Hospital Wing and it turned out the Hufflepuff hadn't been hit by the curse. They were more friendly acquaintances that friends, but Marie knew she wouldn't have been able to live with herself if he had actually died.

And then that nonsense with the Minister! It was one thing to have some doubts about the story of a hysterical girl that had just been traumatized, it was a completely different matter to reject the whole fiasco altogether just because he was too scared to believe parts of it. If Marie had let herself be frightened into uselessness by the size of the basilisk back in second year, both Ginny and she would have been dead! Of course, this was also the man that had Hagrid sent to jail simply to be seen doing something despite the fact that the half-giant was innocent.

Honestly, there were days when she wondered why she even tried. A mass-murdering, serial killing terrorist had come back from the dead with plans that included taking over the country and killing her; to deal with that was a lot to ask of even from her. Maybe she should follow the example shown to her and look out only for her own affairs. She could pocket all of her funds from Gringotts and leave the country. She could change her name and move to the States, living out the rest of her life as Violet Tsirblou, the formerly French housewife of some aging sugar-daddy with a heavily-warded house. Someone else could worry about Voldemort.

If only she didn't have so many attachments to the people here. If only she could just stop caring.

Marie sighed quietly at her fantastical line of thought and closed her eyes against the blazing late afternoon sky as the newsreader said, "And finally, Bungy the budgie has found a novel way of keeping cool this summer. Bungy, who lives at the Five Feathers in Barnsley, has learned to water-ski! Mary Dorkins went to find out more. . . ."

Marie opened her eyes again. If they had reached water-skiing budgerigars, there was nothing else worth hearing. She was due to meet up with one of her new friends at the park anyway. She rolled cautiously onto her front and raised herself onto her hands and knees, padding like a cat through the small space that separated bush from wall. She turned the corner of the house and peeked through the foliage, checking to see if the woman next door was looking out the window.

Fortunately for Marie, there was no one in sight as she uncurled herself from her hiding place. She stretched luxuriously — her joints giving juicy pops — and shook the leaves from her hair, taking care to comb out the tangles with her fingers. Alice, one of the girls of the backyard crowd, had explained to Marie how she actually made it harder for herself by not separating curls every once in a while. If she kept ignoring it, it could start forming dreadlocks, and that style of hair was firmly on the side of indecent in the Dursley household. Resembling a dandelion was better than looking like 'one of those useless vagrants that care more about the blasted trees than they do bathing.'

Making her way up the street, Marie hummed the tune of one of the songs they had been blasting yesterday to stave off the melancholy that filled her when she accidentally let herself wallow. Wallowing was depressing and useless, she actively avoided doing so. But sometimes, she couldn't help but . . .

Tears of hopelessness prickled her eyes before she hastily wiped them away.

"Damn it all!" Marie cursed under her breath, picking up her pace. This had to be a surge of hormones or something. Another irritating part of puberty. Hormones made girls all weepy and stupid, right?

Marie refused to believe that she was naturally this pitiful, it had to be one of those stupid mood-swings she heard about. She had been initially excited that she seemed to be growing over night, but she would have happily lived her life as a twiggy midget if she could have avoided all the squishy sensitivity that apparently came with having breasts. She couldn't afford to be silly and girly now that Voldemort was back.

It all kept coming back to Voldemort.

Shaking herself of despair as she let her legs lead her to the park, Marie twisted her thoughts to the first available option that could overcome misery. Anger took main stage.

Lack of information — information purposely being kept from her, in particular — had always ruffled Marie. How was she supposed to make a potion with shoddy instructions? How was she to protect herself from Voldemort if she didn't know why he targeted her? Why did they think it was such a good idea to keep her out of the loop? Especially now?

Marie thought unhappily to the letters she had been exchanging with her friends. Any expectation she had had that their letters would bring her news had long since been dashed. "We can't say much about you-know-what, obviously. . . ." "We've been told not to say anything important in case our letters go astray. . . ." "We're quite busy but I can't give you details here. . . ." "There's a fair amount going on, we'll tell you everything when we see you. . . ."

But when were they going to see her? Nobody seemed too bothered with a precise date. Hermione had scribbled, "I expect we'll be seeing you quite soon" inside her birthday card, but how soon was soon? As far as Marie could tell from the vague hints in their letters, Hermione and Ron were in the same place, presumably at Ron's parents' house.

She could hardly bear to think of the pair of them having fun at the Burrow when she was stuck in Little Whinging. Stuck without anyone to talk to about her fears or ease her guilt. They knew how much she hated it; why did they dangle it in front of her? And didn't they say that they would keep her filled in? She was so angry at them that she had thrown both their birthday presents of Honeydukes chocolates away unopened, though she had regretted it after eating the wilting salad Aunt Petunia had provided for dinner that night.

What were Ron and Hermione busy with? Why wasn't Marie allowed to be involved? Hadn't she proved herself capable? Had they all forgotten what she had done? Hadn't it been she who had entered that graveyard and watched Cedric's body fall lifelessly, and been tied to that tombstone and nearly killed — ?

Don't think about that, Marie told herself sternly for the hundredth time that summer. It was bad enough that she kept revisiting the graveyard in her nightmares without dwelling on it in her waking moments too.

She turned a corner into Magnolia Crescent; halfway along she passed the narrow alleyway down the side of a garage where she had first laid eyes on her godfather. Sirius, at least, seemed to understand how Marie was feeling; admittedly his letters were just as empty of proper news as Ron and Hermione's, but at least they contained words of caution and consolation instead of tantalizing hints:

"I know this must be frustrating for you. . . ." "Keep your nose clean and everything will be okay. . . ." "Be careful and don't do anything rash. . . ."

Well, thought Marie, as she crossed Magnolia Crescent, turned into Magnolia Road, and headed toward the park, she had done as Sirius advised; she doubted that hanging around people that could be labeled as hooligans was 'keeping her nose clean,' but she had at least resisted the temptation to tie her trunk to her broomstick and set off for the Burrow by herself. In fact, Marie thought her behaviour had been very good considering how frustrated and angry she felt at being stuck in Privet Drive this long, reduced to hiding in flower beds in the hope of hearing something that might point to what Lord Voldemort was doing. Nevertheless, it was irritating as hell to be told not to be rash by a man who had served twelve years in prison, escaped, attempted to commit the murder he had been convicted for in the first place, and then gone on the run with a stolen hippogriff.

Her friends refused to give her answers, her godfather told her to keep her head down and be a good girl, and Dumbledore seemed to have forgotten all about her. Sit tight and wait was what she had been told to do, but how long would she have to wait? They had said a few weeks but it had been over a month already. No one else seemed to be bothered by her current exile in the muggle world.

Marie vaulted over the locked park gate and set off across the parched grass. The park was as empty as the surrounding streets. When she reached the swings, she sank onto the only one that Dudley and his friends had not yet managed to break, coiled one arm around the chain, and stared moodily at the ground. Her thoughts of resentment and worry whirled around in her head, and her insides writhed with anger as the sun began to sink, the air full of the smell of warm, dry grass and the only sound was that of the low grumble of traffic on the road beyond the park railings.

"I've seen sweeter expressions on a rabid dog," said a voice from Marie's right not five minutes into her brooding silence. Tramping through a well dug sandbox was a freckled strawberry-blonde dressed in paint-splatter jeans and a tank top of similar build as Marie. Her pin-straight hair was pulled up in a high ponytail, revealing every lovely inch her face that was currently settled in a wry smirk.

"Fudge you," Marie retorted, pumping her legs so that the swing began to move.

"Did you just say fudge?" the other girl snorted. She grabbed the chains to stop the swings and bumped a hip against Marie's, forcing her to scoot over.

As they wiggled and swung their legs about, trying to both fit on the seat, Marie replied, "I'm trying to break my recent swearing habit before I lose all control of it. If I start throwing out 'fuck' and 'shite' in between every other word, I'll never get Hermione off my back."

They eventually settled with both of them straddling the wooden seat back-to-back, clinging onto their respective chains like exotic dancers. It wasn't as uncomfortable as it could have been if either of them had been bigger, and Marie was glad for that when she had to curl tighter around her chain as the other girl forced the swing to start swinging suddenly by shifting her hips.

"Sally-Anne Perks!" Marie yelped, relying on her uncanny balance to keep her from somersaulting from her seat. She pressed her back more firmly into the other girl and added her own strength into the swinging, causing them to fling about higher off the ground.

"God, Potter, you sound like my mother when you pull that full name rubbish."

"I wouldn't have to impersonate authority figures, Perks, if you didn't try to fling me off park equipment to an ignoble death."

"I doubt it would kill you."

"Save it for the bobbies, hooker-hips. When they come to collect my crumpled corpse, you can explain how your stripper-pole trained thighs swung about a chain aggressively enough to send a girl into orbit before she face-planted into a sandbox."

"At least it would be a memorable way to go," Sally-Anne said solemnly, not missing a beat. They both looked over their shoulders and watched each other with completely straight faces. Marie broke first, an indelicate guffaw burst up from her belly, and they dissolved into helpless giggles, still flying through the air.

Marie had discovered that Sally-Anne Perks, a Hufflepuff girl in her year, actually lived only a handful of blocks away from Privet Drive, within shouting distance of Marie's former primary school. At least, she had lived there since the summer after third year, after her mother had panicked from hearing about the soul-sucking monsters that had wandered the grounds. She finally had enough of her daughter at 'a dangerous farce of a school for unbalanced crazies', and decided that moving to a new area that oozed mundanity would be the perfect way to begin their fresh start. Through excessive arguing, Sally-Anne had been allowed to learn magic through an owl-correspondence program for the home-schooled, but she had still been enrolled in the local high school. It wasn't a surprise to discover that the young witch was furious about being pulled away from the world she had planned to spend the rest of her life in.

Fortunately for Sally-Anne — and unfortunately for Mrs. Perks — they moved near where 'that odd Potter girl' lived.

They had stumbled across each other during one of Marie's walks to escape the Dursleys during the summer before fourth year. Sally-Anne had been hanging out with her neighbour, Alice — one of the girls from the backyard crowd that later introduced both witches to the rest of the gang — when Marie had come tearing through the park to get away after insulting Dudley, vaulting over park equipment like she was training for the Olympics and flinging herself onto the branch of the most convenient tree. Coincidentally, the tree she chose was the only tree in Alice's backyard. She scrabbled her way up like she had been born in it and perched herself on the highest branch she could reach like she was preparing to start a nest up there.

The gap-mouthed stare of Sally-Anne and Alice was soon mirrored by Marie after she realized she had an audience. The absurdity of the situation increased when the two witches had blurted each others' names out in disbelief at actually meeting another magical person in the depressingly normal town that was Little Whinging.

They had hung out together a few times — testing the waters a bit since they hadn't spoken much before and both were reserved around strangers by nature — before Marie went off to the World Cup with the Weasleys. They had caught up again when Marie came back for the summer and had wasted no time in venting to each other about the injustice in their lives.

Suffice to say, they had been almost attached at the hip since then, both excited to have someone that understood what it was like to be a wizard in the muggle world that they also got along famously with. Marie had been completely horrified for Sally-Anne's plight and Sally-Anne had been righteously appalled for Marie after hearing about the year that she had missed. The empathy that they shared brought forward an astonishing amount of confessions and worries from both of them to the point where they weren't sure if they ever had anyone who knew them as well as the other. Marie could now comfortably count Sally-Anne as one of her closest friends.

"So what's with the bitch-face you were wearing?" Sally-Anne asked.

Marie sighed. And she had just started to feel better. "There's still nothing on the news about Vol — I mean, You Know Who. Nothing in the papers or telly. And Ron and Hermione are still telling me jack-shit. Not to mention that I've stayed here longer than they promised me I would have to."

"More of the same then." Sally-Anne tossed her hair and slowed their swinging. "I, of course, am perfectly happy with you around so I'm not completely alone with the suburban zombies, but it is rather shoddy of them to not keep their word."

"I know, right? I'm pretty ticked about being here to begin with, but I'm properly pissed that they don't seem to even care. Did I tell you that I'm pretty sure they're all together too? Fucking arses."

"They could at least have the decency to mention every once in a while that they miss you."

"I think it was supposed to be implied. You know Ron's no good with even realizing what he's feeling and Hermione doesn't do sentiment unless there's a logical reason for it. In a way, I'm just happy they're writing to me at all."

"You're too generous. Maybe I'm a black-hearted bitch, but I don't see how you benefit from any it. I remember that time Brown was crying after Divination about her rabbit and Granger not understanding why she had been scared about it dying. If she's proving a point, no one else's thoughts or feelings matter."

"I think you might be exaggerating just a smudge."

"Oh, please. They're hardly writing about anything important to you, right? And none of them — I'm including the teachers and the other adults too — even care that you could be mentally scarred or traumatized? What is this, the Middle Ages? They must think you as some divine being that can just brush off that nightmare you and Diggory went through."

"I supposed that since I'm the legendary Girl Who Lived, I shouldn't be bothered by things like a little death and dismemberment. I shouldn't be bothered by a near death experience."

"A near death experience? Are you saying the dragon and the acromantulas don't count? I think all four of you that had to survive that sodding tournament deserve counselling."

"You say 'deserve' as if counselling was some reward," Marie quipped, forcing the swing to fly higher again.

Sally-Anne huffed. "It might as well be with the way no one seems to believe it's a necessity. Oh!" She twisted suddenly, making the swing to jerk awkwardly, an excited expression on her face. "Speaking of necessities, I just read this article in Witches' Weekly . . . "

They then dissolved into a discussion on the morality of muggle make-up versus glamour charms, Sally-Anne pointing out pros and cons of both while Marie wondered why she should bother to buy products if she could achieve the same effects through magic.

Marie didn't know how long they had chattered on, swinging like little girls, before the sound of voices in the distance, growing louder, interrupted their conversation. It had to have been quite a while since the sun was sinking, the streetlamps from the surrounding roads were casting shadows long enough to reach a group of people making their way across the park. One of them was singing a loud, crude song while the others laughed. A soft ticking noise came from several expensive racing bikes that they were wheeling along.

Marie knew exactly who those people were. The figure in front was unmistakably her cousin, Dudley Dursley, wending his way home, accompanied by his faithful gang.

Dudley was as vast as ever, but a year's hard dieting and the discovery of a new talent had wrought quite a change in his physique, making him look more like a meat-head than a bowling ball. As Uncle Vernon delightedly told anyone who would listen, Dudley had recently become the Junior Heavyweight Inter-School Boxing Champion of the Southeast. 'The noble sport,' as Uncle Vernon called it, had made Dudley even more formidable than he had seemed to Marie in the primary school days when she had served as Dudley's first punching bag — that is, until he was caught by a teacher and severely punished for hitting a girl. Marie was not remotely afraid of her cousin anymore but she still didn't think that Dudley learning to punch harder and more accurately was cause for celebration. The neighbourhood children were terrified of him — even more terrified than they were of 'that Potter girl,' who, they had been warned, was a hardened hooligan who attended St. Brutus' Secure Center for the Incurably Criminal.

Sally-Anne followed Marie's gaze to the pack of goons pedalling nearer. The corners of her mouth turned downward and her eyes narrowed. She had held a grudge against Dudley's gang since one of them — Dennis maybe — tore up her homework after she refused to give him a kiss. "I wonder who they've been beating up this time," she scorned.

"If only they didn't scare their victim into silence, they could be locked in a detention center right now."

"If only dreams came true." The blonde girl pulled herself up from the swing and stretched obviously.

"What are you doing?" Marie hissed, noticing how Dudley's gang had slowed a bit at seeing Sally-Anne stand before speeding up again. The blonde lifted her chin daringly as Marie said, "They're going to come over here now!" This was directly in contradiction to Sirius' warning of avoiding conflict. Marie wasn't sure if she was put out or excited that she couldn't be blamed for instigating this fight waiting to happen.

"I've been waiting for a chance to really give it to them," Sally-Anne explained, her gaze still on the approaching boys. Abruptly, she turned back to Marie and gave the swing a push from where she stood, sending the swing going from side to side instead of front to back. "You said that tub of lard's avoiding you, right?" she continued. "That means you're the perfect back up since he knows you can hand him his arse. They wouldn't dare try anything beyond words."

"Careful, Badger dear, your scales are showing," Marie muttered for only her friend to hear as Dudley's gang screeched to a halt not twenty feet away. The girls feigned disinterest, striking up a conversation about Matt — the drummer for Knuckle Bones — and his new dye job, not sparing the lumbering morons even a glance.

"Well, lookie here," Piers Polkiss said, the arrogant smarm all bullies had oozing though his tone. He gave both girls appreciative leers.

Dudley stood at the front of the herd with his arms crossed, trying looking superior, but Marie could tell that he had been nervous and confused since the moment he realized she was there; he didn't know she had any friends outside of school. They had barely seen each other all summer, what with him terrorizing the neighbourhood and her staying away from the house as long as she could in the next neighbourhood over. The other three goons — Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon — looked excited for the confrontation, though they didn't look blood-thirsty, so this was most likely their attempt at flirting. Marie couldn't wait to see Sally-Anne slap them down.

"Ladies," Polkiss tried to purr, but failed. "What are you two doing out here all alone?"

Marie leaned into her chain indolently as Sally-Anne put her hands on her hips and stared them all down. "It's hardly any of your business, is it? Why don't you lot get lost?"

Gordon sneered when he remembered his last confrontation with Sally-Anne. "Watch your mouth, Perks. Wouldn't want us teach you some respect, would you?"

Dudley's eyes widened minutely in alarm when Marie scowled at his lackey. He was clearly already regretting coming over, but held his ground; he couldn't lose face in front of his friends.

Sally-Anne scoffed and flipped her hair. "Oh, please. I don't know who you think you are, but we could take you easy." Marie couldn't believe how brash the blonde was being. Why did she have to choose now to channel her inner Gryffindor? "And wouldn't that just put you in your place?"

"'Ere," Polkiss said, regaining attention. He looked mildly curiously between the girls and Gordon. "You know them, Gore?"

"I know Perks," Gordon affirmed. "She goes to school with Dennis, Malcolm, and me. Dunno the other one though."

Marie scowled more heavily at this, pulling away from her chain and swing her leg over to face forward. They had spent five years chasing her around and bullying her and they didn't even remember her? She clutched at the swing angrily when she saw the idiots watch the movements of her thighs and the sway of her breasts instead of looking at her face. Even Dudley, though he looked disgusted with himself when he caught himself looking. No wonder they didn't recognize her, they were too busy thinking with their knobs instead of their heads.

"I see you're even less intelligent than I thought," Marie said scornfully. She brushed her bangs out of her eyes and glared at them balefully, the same glare she had given then multiple times in the past, the one that made her eyes glow terribly and made them pause in alarm even when they had her pinned down. They froze in alarm this time as well. "You'd think you'd remember one of your favourite victims."

"Potter?" Malcolm grunted. This was actually impressive in itself, since Malcolm and Dennis were the equivalent of Crabbe and Goyle to Dudley's Draco Malfoy, and considering how Dudley was also equally more intelligent than them as Malfoy was too his own goons, it was amazing Malcolm and Dennis were even toilet trained, let alone capable of speech. The sandy-haired idiot looked surprised even as he gave her another once-over.

"Lovely to see you again, too, toe-rags," Marie sneered. Her expression softened in confusion when Sally-Anne leaned up against her without looking away from the boys. She then gave her friend an exasperated look when she realized they now looked like they were posing for a girlie magazine with they way their breasts were pressed together. Honestly, what was that girl thinking?

"Oh, dear," the blonde girl said mockingly. She took amusement in the way the guys gaped more obviously at their breasts. Marie always thought that Sally-Anne was a femme fatale in the making. "You should definitely go now, I prefer my men with more than two brain cells collectively."

"You're a girl?" Polkiss finally blurted. The question was echoed by the three other morons. The girls and Dudley looked at them disbelievingly, an odd trio joined together by the sheer stupidity of Dudley's lackeys. Polkiss flushed an unattractive red when he noticed even Dudley looking at him strangely. "Don't look at me like that! How were we supposed to know with her running around as scrawny as any boy?"

Sally-Anne and Marie shared a glance. "Well," Marie said, giving them a patronizingly pitying look. "I see there won't be any conversation of use today. Why don't you lot trot off then? Go rest your poor brains after all the hard work they had to endure just now."

"Don't you talk to my friends like that, Potter!" Dudley said, finally coming to their rescue.

"You tell the bitch, Big D!" Gordon cheered.

The girls shared another glance, this one highly amused.

"Big D?" Sally-Anne giggled. "Does the 'D' stand for what I think it does?"

"I think it stands for Dudley," Marie assured. "But it could mean what it sounds like. Even though I've seen him running about the house naked as a kid to know well enough that that particular D is not at all big."

They giggled harder when Dudley reddened in anger and embarrassment.

"Shut your gob," he growled, taking a threatening step forward.

"How long have you been Big D, Dudders? It's a cool name."

"Shut it."

"Of course, you'll always be Ickle Diddykins to me," Marie carried on, maliciously enjoying her cousin's anger.

"I said SHUT IT!" he roared. His gang looked like they were ready to back up their leader while also uncomfortable about harassing girls, they had enough chivalry in them for that at least. Sally-Anne started to look wary when Dudley shouted but didn't waver; this fight had been her idea after all.

"Don't your boys know what your mum calls you? Or have you all conveniently forgotten all about mums and what they would think if they knew what you lot got up to?"

"Shut your face." Dudley's ham-like hands curled up into meaty fists.

"I'll take that as a yes then. Wouldn't it just break Aunt Petunia's heart if she knew you refuse to acknowledge her existence when you're off being big and bad."

Dudley's face was near puce coloured by this point, looking awfully like his father, but he said nothing. The effort of keeping himself from hitting Marie seemed to be demanding all his self-control. She snorted and eyed his conflicted gang. They seemed content to let them argue it out, if only because they didn't know what else to do.

"So who've you been beating up tonight?" Marie asked, disapproval written all over. "Another ten-year-old? I know you did Mark Evans two nights ago — "

"He was asking for it," snarled Dudley. His friends made weak sounds of agreement out of habit.

"Oh, did he? Sounds like an odd thing to ask for."

"He cheeked me."

"Is that so? Did he say you look like a pig that's been taught to walk on its hind legs? 'Cause that's not cheek, Dud, it true . . . "

A muscle twitched in his jaw as Dudley lunged at her, looking ready to choke her. His gang exclaimed, "D!" as Sally-Anne raised her hands to cover her mouth and gasped, "Marie!" Their alarm was for naught for as soon as Dudley managed to get a grip on her neck, Marie dug her carefully sharpened fingernails into her cousin's fleshy wrists, making him gasp and loosen his grip as nail scraped across bone painfully.

Marie scowled at him. She hissed dangerously, "You take your hands off me, Dudley Dursley, or I'll rip the flesh right off your bones. What kind of man do you think you'll be when you have to resort to violence during an argument with a girl? We'll see how tough you are when you're bleeding your way to the hospital."

Dudley tore his hands out of Marie's grip and bared his teeth at her, trying to ignore the droplets of blood that oozed from the small fingernail gouges. They weren't too deep, but they certainly made a statement. Piers and Gordon looked at Marie warily while the other two looked confounded by Dudley bleeding.

Sally-Anne looked a bit shaken. She clearly was regretting starting this. She had underestimated the animosity between the cousins.

"You think you're so big carrying that thing, don't you?" Dudley said, after a few seconds.

Marie tilted her head and gave him a questioning look. "What thing?"

"That — that thing. You know you're hiding it on you!"

Marie grinned viciously. Was he actually doing this in public? He knew he'd get his friends' mind-wiped if they caught on. "You mean this?" she asked, patting the pocket where her wand was stashed. She made a show of about to pull it out, stopping when his expression grew alarmed. "Why mention it if you don't want me to bring it out?"

"You're not allowed," Dudley said at once, frightening his lackeys further. They had also grown alarmed when they saw Dudley's expression, wondering what kind of deadly weapon Marie had on her to make him look like that. "I know you're not. You'd be expelled from that freak school you go to."

"How do you know they haven't changed the rules, Big D?"

"They haven't," he retorted, though he did look uncertain. Marie just laughed.

"Think you're so big. You're not this brave at night are you?" sneered Dudley.

"What are you on about?" Marie scoffed. "What does it matter what time of day it is? And doesn't it count as night already? That's what we call it when it start to get dark like this."

Marie was completely right about it almost being night. The sun had already set and the street lights were lit. Sally-Anne looked like she wanted to home already but her loyalty to her friend made her stay. God bless those steadfast Hufflepuffs, Marie thought.

"I mean when you're in bed!" Dudley snarled.

Marie stared at her cousin in incomprehension. His large face wore a strangely triumphant look.

"I'll repeat, what are you on about?" she said, completely nonplussed. "I'm not brave in bed? What am I supposed to be afraid of, monsters under the cot?"

"Sounds like he's propositioning you," Sally-Anne murmured, attempting a nonchalant expression.

"I hear you at night," Dudley carried on, ignoring her friend's comment. "Talking in your sleep. Moaning."

Marie, getting an inkling of what Dudley was trying to get at, adopted a scornful expression. "I think we'd all like to know what you were doing listening to me sleep. Especially if I'm moaning as you claim."

Dudley flushed but didn't back down. Instead, he adopted a high-pitched whimpering tone, a horrible mimicry of her own. "'Don't kill Cedric! Don't kill Cedric!' Who's Cedric — your boyfriend?"

Sally-Anne gasped again and looked indignant. "You shut your mouth, Dursley! Don't talk of things you don't know anything about!"

"And you do?" Dudley sneered, turning on the blonde girl. No one besides Marie and Sally-Anne's mother knew she was a witch. "You don't know anything about this freak!" He turned back to Marie and whined again, "'Dad! Help me, Dad! He's going to kill me, Dad! Boo-hoo!'"

Marie stared into his eyes, her eyes glowing and her expression chilling. In her coldest voice, she said, "Don't you ever talk of that again. I don't expect you to understand true terror, you spoiled, pampered house-pet, but I had thought there was enough humanity in you to hold your tongue about someone having nightmares about the psychopath that damn near murdered them. I think after being kidnapped and tortured, I have every right to a few FUCKING NIGHTMARES!" By the end of her statement, she had leaped to her feet and her voice had escalated to a shout as she shook in fury.

Magic crackled under her skin. Sally-Anne reached out a hesitant hand to soothe her friend but the tingle of magic made her withdraw. The blonde girl whispered, "Marie," in concern, wondering if the dark-haired girl was going to accidentally blow up her cousin like she did her aunt.

Marie breathed deeply through her nose. She reigned herself back and gave Dudley a black look.

Dudley looked shocked and almost reluctantly apologetic, he obviously had no idea such a thing had happened. His gang, on the other hand, looked as if they were wondering what kind of demented school Marie went to that such a viciously violent girl like herself had actually been in mortal danger.

"You lot," Marie said, addressing the loitering gang of moron. They jumped when her luminous gaze landed on them. "We're done here; go home." Her tone brooked no argument and the four bullies turned tail to escape. Dudley looked like he was about to protest her commanding his troops but a look of pure murder shut him up.

"Annie," Marie continued, softening her expression for her friend. "I think it's time you head home too."

Sally-Anne merely nodded. She obviously wanted to say something in apology for dragging Marie into a such a dreadful fiasco of a conversation, but instead just smile a quivering smile and left for home. "See you later then."

Marie fixed a blank gaze on her squirming cousin but said nothing. Despite herself and all the resentment she had against him for being so horrible to her — in the past and just now — she found her heart softening just the tiniest bit at his terrified expression. He looked like he expected her to whip out her wand and gut him on the spot. With his wide blue eyes, he reminded her of a house elf — albeit an enormously fat one — and she couldn't help but think him rather cute with such an expression.

Damn fluffy, girly hormones. Wasn't she ready to eat him alive not five seconds ago?

She nodded her head in the general direction of the house and sighed, "Let's go, Dudders." She took off without another word. After a moment, she heard him following her.

Marie frantically pounded at the door of Number Four with all the strength she could spare while half carrying a violently shivering and swaying Dudley. "Stay awake, Dudley, please," she murmured, re-wrapping the arm she had used to knock on the door around her cousin's front to keep him somewhat in place.

She heard agitated grumbles from the living room along with a surly "What the devil?" before the front door was pulled open and Uncle Vernon frowned out at them.

"What do you think — ?" he began but cut himself off with a gasp. He surged forward, grabbing hold of his son with a frightened, "DUDLEY!" He pulled his boy farther into the house while shouting, "WHAT THE DEVIL DID YOU DO TO HIM, GIRL?"

"Vernon, what in worl — DUDLEY!" Aunt Petunia had come running out at the sound of shouting and shrieked at the sight of her son. "Diddy, darling, what happened to you?"

Marie had hustled into the house behind the two men and shut the door before shouting started. She darted toward the kitchen, shouting over her shoulder, "Get him to sit down but make sure he stays awake!" She rummaged through the cupboards, but to her frustration, she didn't find what she was looking for. She jogged back to the sitting room where the Dursleys were bundling up their son and asked, "Don't you have any chocolate in this place?"

"My son is hurt and you're looking for sweets!?" Aunt Petunia yelped indignantly. "What's wrong with him?"

"I'll tell you as soon as we get some chocolate in him!" Marie replied, resenting the fact that they thought her so heartless as to eat when Dudley was obviously injured. "they'll help!"

"What utter — "

"SHUT YOUR TRAP AND TELL ME WHERE YOU'RE HIDING THE BLASTED CHOCOLATES!" Marie roared when Uncle Vernon tried to disagree with her.

Fear for his son made Vernon comply to his niece's command. He lumbered over to where he kept his cigars and cracked open a case that was stuffed with chocolate bars. Saying nothing about how pathetic it was that he had to hide sweets from his wife, Marie snatched up and swiftly unwrapped a Mars Bar. She shoved it at Dudley's mouth and said, "Eat."

At first, Dudley did not respond, but then Marie pried open his slack mouth, shoved half the bar in, and lifted his jaw up, forcing him to chew. He then started chewing automatically. He gave a sigh of relief after he swallowed his first bite, his shivering noticeably lessening, and the sentiment was echoed by the other three people in the room.

Marie slid down from where she had been leaning over Dudley to make him eat the chocolate, and sat on her knees in front of the couch, leaning against the coffee table and running a hand through her hair. If he hadn't eaten . . . That would have meant . . . she had been so scared she had been too late.

The walk from the park had been tensely silent, the usual enmity between them strained even more so from their earlier argument and the actual physical harm they had caused each other. Dusk had fallen, the streetlamps looked like miniature suns illuminating the empty streets. All the houses had cars parked in the drive and all had their windows firmly shut and curtained. The distinctly bland feel of the area was re-enforced by the way the darkness faded out the personal touches of each house, making the neighbourhood look like it enforced a uniform code.

The had been ambling through a dimly lit tunnel went it happened.

Something had happened to the night. The star-strewn indigo sky was suddenly pitch-black and lightless — the stars, the moon, the misty streetlamps at either end of the opening of the tunnel had vanished. The distant grumble of cars and the whisper of trees had gone. The balmy evening was suddenly piercingly, bitingly cold. They were surrounded by total, impenetrable, silent darkness, as though some giant hand had dropped a thick, icy mantle over them blinding them. For a split second, Marie thought she had done magic without meaning to, though it was an odd moment to have done accidental magic since she had already calmed herself down from her fury with Dudley — then her common sense caught up with her — she didn't have the power to turn off the stars; she wasn't doing it. She turned her head this way and that, trying to see something, but the darkness pressed on her eyes like a weightless veil.

Dudley's terrified voice reached Marie's ear. "W-what are you d-doing? St-stop it!"

"I'm not doing anything!" She hissed, turning her head in the direction of his voice. "Shut up and don't move!"

"I c-can't see! I've g-gone blind! I — "

"I said shut up! There's something out there and they'll hear you if you keep on!"

Marie stood stock-still, turning her sightless eyes left and right. The cold was so intense that she was shivering all over; goose bumps had erupted up her arms, and the hairs on the back of her neck were standing up — she opened his eyes to their fullest extent, staring blankly around, unseeing . . .

It was impossible. . . . They couldn't be here. . . . Not in Little Whinging . . . She strained her ears. . . . She would hear them before she saw them. . . .

"I'll t-tell Dad!" Dudley whimpered. "W-where are you? What are you d-do — ?"

"Dudley, be quiet!" She grabbed blindly for him and managed to grip at his arm on her second try. She felt the chill of his flesh and pulled him closer. He clutched desperately at her as he shook, trying to get at her body heat. "I'm not doing this. Shut up or they'll find us! Let me lis — "

Her voice cut off abruptly when she heard exactly she had been dreading. There was something in the tunnel with them, drawing wheezing, rattling hoarse breaths. She felt a horrible jolt of dread as she stood shivering in the unnaturally freezing air.

"Oh, god," She breathed, fear pooling in her stomach. She grappled at her pocket and pulled out her wand. Everything was still until —

WHAM

Dudley shoved Marie harshly away from him, lifting Marie off her feet before she landed heavily on her arms and knocked her head against the pavement. Small white lights popped in front of her eyes and she wondered if it was her lot in life to fall into the shoddiest situations as her wand — the only weapon against dementors — flew out of her hands.

"You moron!" Marie yelled, her eyes watering with pain, as she scrambled to her hands and knees, now feeling around frantically in the blackness. She heard Dudley blundering away, hitting the wall, stumbling. "Damn it all! YOU'RE RUNNING RIGHT AT IT!"

There was a horrible squealing yell, and Dudley's footsteps stopped. At the same moment, Marie felt a creeping chill behind her that could mean only one thing. There was more than one.

"DUDLEY, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT! WHATEVER YOU DO, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT! Wand!" Marie muttered frantically, her hands flying over the ground like spiders. "Where the hell — come on — Lumos!" Desperation made her say the spell, though she knew there was barely a chance in hell anything would come of it.

As if the universe was delighting in defying her expectations, a bright light a number of meters away from her lit up a length of the tunnel wall. If she hadn't been so frantic, she might have been delighted at her first success of intentional wandless magic; as it was, she was more concerned in reaching her wand before it was too late. She stumbled forward only to have her heart plummet as the light suddenly went out directly after the sound of a body hitting the ground and wood cracking.

Oh, god, was that — ? Did her wand just — ?

Marie didn't have time for further thought as the chill up her spine turned to pure ice. She spun to face the thing behind her. A towering, hooded figure was gliding smoothly toward her, hovering over the ground, no feet or face visible beneath its robes, sucking harshly on the night as it came.

Stumbling backwards, Marie did the only thing she could think of. She raised her hands and cried, "Expecto Patronum!"

It was a foolish hope but it was her only thing she could think of. The light making spell had worked, that clearly meant Marie was capable of doing wandless magic. And if she could do wandless magic, theoretically, that meant she was capable of a wandless Patronus as well.

Her theory was proven true as a silvery wisp of vapour shot from the palm of her wand hand and the dementor slowed. Her heart leaped at her mild success, but it wasn't enough! She tripped over her feet as the cloaked wraith loomed over her. A pair of gray, slimy, scabbed hands slid from inside the dementor's robes, reaching for her. A rushing noise filled Marie's ears.

"Expecto Patronum!" Her voice sounded dim and distant. . . . Another wisp of silver smoke, feebler than the last, burts from her hand. She couldn't do it, the spell wasn't working —

There was laughter inside her head, shrill, high-pitched laughter. . . . She could smell the dementor's putrid, death-cold breath, filling her lungs, drowning her — Think . . . something happy. . . . But there was no happiness in her. . . . The dementor's icy fingers were closing on her throat — the high-pitched laughter was growing louder and louder, and a voice spoke inside her head — "Bow to death, Marie. . . It might even be painless. . . . I would not know. . . . I have never died. . . ."

And wouldn't that be an effective way to get away from the nightmare that was Voldemort's return? She could die right here and she'd no longer have to worry about fighting, or people being suspicious of her, or the effort of keeping on anymore. And no one could think of her dying this way and saying she had chickened out by committing suicide since death by Kiss was not a way anyone would want to go, suicidal or not. And likely many people would be happy if she did die.

But was she really going to decide to die or keep living based on what people would think? Fuck them! Had she dwelled so long on other people's expectations, that she was now going to base the way she would leave this world on what the most amount of people would want? Fuck them all, not once had anyone been there beside her at those truly life and death situations, and she certainly didn't owe them anything now that she was the one that was going to die.

Damn it all, she did not make it so far, fought so desperately to live, and taken on atrocities that had older people running away in terror, to give up now. She had a life ahead of her, far more than she had ever thought possible when she was younger. There were people that wanted her; there were friends, there were possibilities. She had something to live for!

She focused her intent and desperation outward, pouring out the elation of her realization that had brought tears of joy to her eyes and —

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

An enormous silver stag erupted from Marie's outstretched hand; its antlers caught the dementor in the place where the heart should have been; it was thrown backward, weightless as darkness, and as the stag charged, the dementor swooped away, batlike and defeated.

"THIS WAY!" Marie shouted at the stag. Wheeling around, she sprinted down the now dimly lit tunnel. "DUDLEY? DUDLEY!"

She had run barely a dozen steps when she reached them: Dudley was curled on the ground, his arms clamped over his face; a second dementor was crouching low over him, gripping his wrists in its slimy hands, its hood lowered. It drew a suck breath right in front of Dudley's face and she saw her cousin's facial features were blurring —

"GET AWAY FROM HIM!" She roared. Not waiting for the Patronus, she flung herself at the wretched creature and tackled it away from her cousin, not letting the despair that came along with close contact with the beast deter her. In fact, the despair made her angry. As she felt a painful tugging at what felt like her being, rage overwhelmed her. Murderous, almost insane rage that made her want to sink her teeth in the creature and rip it apart with her bare hands.

Who the fuck did these disgusting things think they were, coming here and terrorizing helpless people? What if she hadn't been here? How many ignorant muggles would have died?

She actually landed a couple solid punches to where it's nose would have been, if it had a nose, and gotten what must have been dementor blood on her fists, before the silver stag she had conjured came galloping back past her. The dementor's eyeless face was bared, it gaping mouth a hideous hole not five inches away from Marie's face when the silver antlers caught it; the thing was thrown up into the air and, like its fellow, it soared away and was absorbed into the darkness. The stag cantered to the end of the tunnel, throwing it's head aggressively, and dissolved into silver mist.

Moon, stars, and streetlamps burst back into life. A warm breeze swept the alleyway. Trees rustled in neighbouring gardens and the mundane rumble of cars in Magnolia Crescent filled the air again. Marie climbed to her feet from where she had been crouched, all her senses vibrating, taking in the abrupt return to normality. Her adrenaline driven fury started to fade and she rushed at Dudley's prone form, hoping she hadn't been too late.

The next few minutes had been a confusing whirlwind. She had somehow pulled Dudley to his feet, when Mrs. Figg of all people had shown up — shrieking "Are you completely mad, girl! You TACKLED that monster!" — and Marie had learned of the secret guard that had been set up by Dumbledore to watch Number 4. After fully comprehending that she had been watched secretly by people that apparently were not at all effective — the dementor attack that she had to fight off by herself being very telling — Marie wasn't sure if she was relieved that she hadn't been completely looked over, or furious that she had been kept out of the loop about yet another thing.

And that repulsive man, that Mundungus, had the gall to try to excuse himself when he had abandoned his post for cauldrons of all things! She wanted to strangle him!

"What the bloody hell have you done, girl?" Uncle Vernon growled, when they were feeling more secure about Dudley's health. Aunt Petunia had her twiggy arms wrapped as far as she could manage around Dudley's shoulder and hand her face pressed into his hair.

Marie matched her uncle glare for glare. She just saved that bullying bastard of an overweight food-disposer from having his soul ripped form his body and eaten by a creature of nightmares after he made everything worse by breaking her wand, thus lowering their chances of surviving from iffy to less than a chance in hell; she was not about to take any blame for him being in less that perfect condition.

"I didn't do a thing!"

Marie barely got her protest out of her mouth before she was cut off. "Don't give me that codswallop!"

She refolded her legs until she was sitting cross-legged on the carpet. "Why the hell would I lie about that?"

"Don't you swear at me, you wretched girl!" Vernon shouted. "Dudley comes home half dead with you dragging him along, and I'm supposed to believe you don't have something to do with it?"

"I don't care if you believe it or not, I didn't hurt him!"

"And what did if it wasn't you?"

"Well, if you'd let me get more than a few words in edgewise, I'd tell you," Marie replied scornfully. "We were attacked by dementors — "

"What the ruddy hell are those?"

"SHUT UP and I'll tell you!" Marie waited in angry silence, making sure she wasn't about to be interrupted again, when she was cut off by Aunt Petunia instead.

"They're the guards at the wizard prison."

The remaining two people in the room that were not still mentally disturbed by the influence of dark creatures, gaped at the now horrified Petunia Dursley, who had slapped a hand to her mouth in shock of her own words. Fortunately — or unfortunately, based on one's way of thinking — a procession of owls attacked the closed windows of the sitting in an attempt to get at Marie, turning the attention away from Petunia's out if character words.

The conversation pretty much went down hill from there.

A/N: And there you have it, yet another story that isn't anywhere near complete. I hope you find it at least mildly interesting and forgive me for it not being my other stories that already have some fans. This one will probably get updated even more slowly than the others since I'm not completely sure where I'm going with this even though I do have a few future scenes already in mind.