He remembers her vividly. A man could happily drown in hair like hers -- a soft mess of chestnut that hung at what he considered the perfect length. Her slate-blue eyes were shot with sparks of gold, giving them a green-but-not-quite-green hue in just the right light. But maybe the most stunning thing about her was just . . . her. She had a kind word for everybody and a superb sense of right and wrong. Perhaps she was overly-idealistic and even naive, hence why she was drawn to the Order of the Phoenix and why she was so outspoken about social reform. It might have even got her killed. But she cared about what was right more than anything.

The snapshot he has of both of them together is tattered along the edges, turned over countless time in his hands despite already knowing every corner of it from memory. But she had taken it for him, back when they were together, and it is the only tangible bit of her he has left. The rest had been committed to the earth hours earlier and lost to him for good.

His eyes close, banishing her wide smile and periodic winking as he stows the picture underneath his pillow. It doesn’t do to dwell on things he cannot change. Marlene is gone, and he still has responsibilities that can’t be shirked. The planet simply doesn’t stop spinning for the loss of one woman, no matter how remarkable. And wars don’t stop to grieve for the people they take.

Remus only wishes that it didn’t feel like the sky was falling in on him.

“Oh, Remus, it’s . . . it’s beautiful! You did this just for me?�

“It’s not that good,� he murmured, staring fixedly at the grass and far away from the delicate sheen of tears he had seen collecting in the corners of her eyes. She had given him a beautiful snapshot that she’d conned Peter into taking, and all he’d been able to do was cobble together some words. “I thought . . . thought you might like it, but it’s kind of --�

The rest of his stumbling explanation was knocked out of his lungs as Marlene pushed him down in the grass beside the lake and, with a mischievous grin, lowered her mouth to his. She tasted of the pumpkin juice they had just shared, with a hint of spice he could only identify as her own brand.

As she deepened the kiss, the parchment holding the terrible poem he had written for her slid from her grasp unnoticed.

They’d found it on her. Remus hadn’t thought she would keep it, especially after things had ended between them, but it was in her pocket. Unless he is mistaken, he recalls seeing that same yellowed paper alongside the other bits and bobs that had survived the fire. The box hadn’t meant anything to the other Order members who had responded to the Dark Mark putrefying the sky above the McKinnon home, but he knew.

Her favourite things. Remus had recognised that small chest immediately; he had seen it before. She had shown it to him, the cache of things she treasured. It had taken a mere glance at what lay inside to send him running outside to the smouldering garden to relieve his stomach of its contents. There was nothing left of her to find save for that collection of stuff. Just stuff. She was so much more than that stuff, but that stuff almost amounted to more than the pieces and parts of charred flesh that were found in the rubble.

He had screamed. Oh, he had screamed with everything he had at that Dark Mark in the sky, hating every photon that made it shine so brightly in broad daylight. How could it live on when she was gone? With rage, he had aimed his wand at the sky and roared an Obliteration Curse at it, determined that it would be as dead as her, until Sirius and Peter had come outside to pin him down in the grass. Neither seemed to know what to say, but Remus wouldn’t have listened anyway.

With a hiss of annoyance, he pulls the picture from beneath his pillow and tears it in two -- a gaping divide between them, just like the one now.

“Remus, let’s get married!�

He stared at her like she had grown a second head. “What?�

Her beaming smile retreated somewhat at his remark but remained mostly intact. “James and Lily got married, and I think it’s terribly romantic that they want to be together no matter what.�

Remus harrumphed to himself as he recalled the small matter of Lily’s accidental pregnancy as a mitigating factor in that decision. Not the most romantic thing on the planet, but they loved each other and would be all right. There was a world of difference between James and Lily’s relationship and his and Marlene’s: the one giant secret that he hadn’t told her, that he didn’t plan on telling her until the war ended.

She seemed to catch on to his hesitance. “I know what you’re about to say, but what I don’t know is why. Don’t you love me?�

That accusation punched him in the stomach like a point-blank Stunner. Without even realising it, she was giving him a choice, one he hadn’t intended to make on anyone else’s terms but his own. He knew what answer he wanted to give her -- the one that involved dragging her to the nearest private location and showing her exactly how much his love for her was not in question. It was not, however, anywhere approaching the intelligent option.

His silence was as loud as a shouted denial would’ve been, but Remus honestly couldn’t think of what to say. A ‘yes’ was not in their cards at the present, and ‘no’ seemed too blunt, too cruel. So he said nothing and, therefore, everything.

“I . . . I think I should go,� she said, looking away from him.

A plea for her to stay stopped in his throat as she swept out the door for the last time.

As soon as the photograph tears beneath his fingers, Remus scrambles to repair it, but the damage is done. It melds back into a single piece; however, the spell is broken and her visage is still -- mockingly enough, in mid-blink. He can never look her in the eye again, can never tell her face to face that he was an idiot and of course he had wanted to marry her if not for his ‘furry little problem’. There was nothing in the world he ever wanted more.

He closes his eyes, and the image is clear once again. Marlene -- his Marlene -- is in his arms for the last time, just how they used to be.