All You Wish For and All You Need

Marcus stood beside the lake. It had been three days since he had thrown the stone into the depths of the water. It gnawed at him every moment it could – nearly all of the time. He wasn’t listening in class and he hadn’t spoken to Anne since that day. He didn’t know what to feel; should he be relieved that he no longer has to listen to his father, should he be happy now that he only need listen to Anne, or should he regret what he did and do everything in his power to retrieve it?

This last option was the one gnawing at him mostly. He didn’t know what to do without his father telling him what to do next to help him achieve the goal of eliminating Harry Potter.

Marcus shuddered when he thought of Harry’s name and clenched his fists against his sides. He could taste the bile in his mouth and shook his head in an attempt to dispel the name. Surely he would be free of this consuming hatred now that he no longer had that connection to his father.

But, he had hated Harry Potter long before he had found that stone. He had hated that man all of his life. It had been drilled into him by relatives – Harry Potter is a bad man who killed his father and must pay for that. All of his youth, Lord Voldemort had been made to seem the good person – that he had been fighting a worthwhile cause in his quest to eliminate all mudbloods from the wizarding world. But, perhaps they were wrong. Marcus closed his eyes tight and his nose wrinkled as he thought of Harry Potter being right. But perhaps he was. His own father had not been pureblood. Neither was Marcus himself. In fact, in his year at Hogwarts there were only twelve purebloods. Eleven of them in Slytherin. The last was Anne. The rest were half-bloods and a few were muggles.

Surely, if Voldemort had known that Anne was pureblood, he would have changed his view of her. He probably would have seen her of some use. Marcus coughed as he bit back a hiss of frustration. He had been brought up to believe that Lord Voldemort was trying to do the wizarding world a favour, but now Marcus’ beliefs were crumbling.

“Marcus?” he didn’t turn around or respond in any way to Anne’s hesitant call. She would only be a few metres away and in a few moments would close that gap herself.

He waited silently and, as expected, she closed the gap and reached for one of his clenched hands.

“Marcus?” her voice was soft and questioning. “Are you okay?” he loosened his fists and entwined her fingers with his own. He could feel her dark eyes boring into his cheek and he turned to look at her.

“Yes Anne?” his voice was soft and she felt his breath brush against her cheeks.

“Stop it Marcus. It’s gone and it isn’t coming back.” She tightened her grip on his hand. “Do you want it back?” her voice quavered.

Marcus paused for a moment. This was what he had been thinking about before she came along. Do I want it back? Part of him did, the other part did not.

He sighed and looked away at the lake before replying. “Yes….and no” he frowned and bit his lip, turning his head back to Anne. “I don’t know what to think,” he admitted, his voice a mere whisper.

Anne lowered her eyes as the thoughts raced through her head. He doesn’t know what to think? Marcus cupped her chin in his hand and lifted her face so that he could look at her eyes.

“Please Anne,” he wanted to tell her what he had been thinking about before, but had no idea how to put it into words. He had never had this sort of problem before. He always knew what he wanted.

Anne smiled slightly to herself and wrapped her arms around his neck. For the first time he was asking for her help. Not directly, but she knew that he wanted to say something. Marcus wrapped his arms around her waist and dropped his head onto her neck. He wanted to tell her everything that he had been thinking before she had come along. And he would, today, no matter how long it took. His resolve was solidifying; he just needed a few moments to work out what he wanted to say.

They stood still for a few minutes before Anne pulled away from Marcus and pulled him over to the roots of a tree. She sat down amongst them and he sat beside her.

“Why do you want it back Marcus?” she asked as they sat wrapped in each others arms.

Marcus was silent for a few moments longer before opening his mouth to reply “Because that was my father. The only way I had ever known him. We have no pictures of him - those were destroyed after he was killed.” Marcus stared off into the distance as he spoke, watching the ripples of the lake as the creatures beneath played in their watery home. “I only knew what he looked like through newspaper articles, and those images were always distorted so that he would look even worse than he actually did.” Anne leant her head against his chest and listened to the steady beating of his heart as he spoke. “Growing up all I was told was how fantastic Voldemort was – that he was trying to purify the wizarding world. I never thought of the hypocrisy of it all until that day, when you said he was only half-blood. I knew that before, but it still hadn’t occurred to me.” Anne smiled again as she thought of the fact that she had made an impact on his thoughts, “And so, truly, I should be better off without him. But instead I feel lost, as if I’ve lost some sort of compass that was telling me where to go,”

“He was telling you where to go,” Anne said as she sat up. “He was telling you to murder people. Innocent people Marcus.” She placed her hands on either side of his face so that he would look at her. “Would you be able to live with yourself if you killed someone?”

She has no idea Marcus thought bitterly I have killed two people. Anne searched his eyes desperately, his continued silence made her nervous.

“Marcus?” she questioned.

He shook his head softly, but it was not in response to her question. Rather his own. Would he be able to live knowing that Anne knew he had killed people? Two innocent people?

Anne sighed in relief and he let her believe that he would never kill someone.