Interlude One: Frustration by sarinileni

**CHAPTER THREE OF SILENCES BETWEEN LEAVES IS UP**

This can stand alone, but these interludes will make much more sense if read along with Silences Between Leaves. Read them AFTER every third chapter in that story, otherwise you’ll find spoilers, and it won’t be my fault…

There are five interludes in Silences Between Leaves. Each focuses on three characters, two of which are original characters or very, very unexplored canon characters. The third character of each interlude will be either Peter Pettirgrew, Remus Lupin, Severus Snape, Sirius Black, or Petunia Evans.

This is an interlude that will cover time UP UNTIL the end of Chapter Three in Silences Between Leaves. Each interlude has a theme.

Interlude One: Frustration

……

Marigold Evans

{Full of Grace, by Sarah McLachlan}

September 2, 1947 to August 15, 1977

It was raining heavily the day Marigold Cooper was born. She came into the world with a lust cry and several strong kicks, and she refused to quiet once she was in her mother’s arms. She grew up that way, never quiet, always yelling, always too much for her demure mother to handle. Her father died two years after she was born after being hit by and automobile, and Marigold was never allowed to cross the street without an adult present from them on. She did not do so until she was seventeen and in the company of her first, forbidden boyfriend.

Marigold always portrayed the angel in nativity plays. Her golden curls shone like a halo about her dainty, white, heart-shaped face. She looked like the perfect, blue-eyed child, but of course, she hardly was.

“Why doesn’t Jesus come to see us, Mummy?” she asked one day, and her mother fixed her with a stern eye.

“No one man is great enough to see Jesus, Marigold. You may see his angels, but anyone who tells you they have seen Jesus is trying to corrupt your faith.”

Marigold did not know what corrupt meant. She asked her mother.

Her mother sighed and put aside her rosary. “If someone asks you to reject the teachings of God as you have learned them, if someone tries to introduce to you a new aspect—a new part of your faith that you have never before seen, they are trying to ask you to commit a sin. Do you know what happens to those who sin?”

Marigold nodded her seven-year-old head. “They’ve got to do Hail Marys and Our Fathers.”

Her mother shook her head impatiently. “Yes, Marigold, but that’s not all. Those who sin have done something bad, and they must atone—make up—for it. You just pray, my love, and nothing bad will ever happen to you.”

This was a terrible lie.

Her mother remarried when Marigold was ten. Marigold barely remembers the wedding; all she remembers of the marriage was meeting her new sister, a stately fourteen-year-old with a plain face and fierce, devout nature. Marigold’s faith was nothing compared to Amelia’s. The day they moved into her stepfather’s house, Marigold knew her mother would never feel the same way about her, not after seeing how good and pure Amelia was.

From that day forth her life became a contest with Amelia, although the older girl never acknowledged this or admitted it. Marigold spent days trying to gain the approval of her mother and new stepfather, but nothing seemed to work. When Marigold turned fifteen, she finally decided to rebel.

She told her mother she was going to begin to date boys; her mother dragged her to church and had the priest pray over Marigold, pray for her to be a good Catholic girl and listen to her parents.

She asked her mother whether God had made homosexuals the way they were; her mother lectured her for and hour about God’s work and man’s corrupted soul.

She told her stepfather she was considering the idea that she might be a lesbian; she thought that would at least get her an exorcism, but all she received was a worried look and an order not to tell her mother.

For two years she did her best to make herself stand out, but nothing happened until she was seventeen, and she met Alan. He made her the most un-Catholic she ever was—she lied to her parents, took her first drink of alcohol, talked about pre-marital sex, and regularly skived off school and church. When he died three months later in a plane crash, Marigold came clean to her parents and finally turned back to her faith.

“Christ will forgive you for your sins,” was all her mother said, her lips drawn tightly into a line, unable to look at her daughter. “He will forgive you this if you accept him into your heart and you will find a good man--later.”

And so she stayed dormant for three years, until she met Reed Evans.

He was neither ugly nor gorgeous, but the glorious, average in-between. He had strong hands and arms and chiseled legs and he could pick up with one arm. She was mad for him; and he for her. Her parents flatly told her no—he was not a man of means, and worse, he was not a devout Catholic—he was not the good man Marigold deserved. Amelia simply said it could be worse, he could be Jewish, and Marigold, who had more than enough Jewish companions, slapped her across the face.

Her mother and her stepfather told her to leave the house or leave Reed. In the greatest act of rebellion she had ever committed, Marigold married him. He agreed to have a Catholic ceremony—if he had not, Marigold was sure her parents would have refused to attend.

In keeping with the botanical theme of their two names, they named their first child Petunia, and the second Lily. Marigold could never pinpoint when things began to go wrong. Reed did not have a university degree and neither did she; at first, their meager income from Reed’s moving company supported them, but caring for two children forced Marigold to find a job. She became a secretary in a real estate office.

Marigold frequently cried during her lunch break and before shewent to bed and while shewas cooking. She could never escape the thought that her parents were right and that the reason for her pain and suffering and lack of wealth lay in her marriage to a non-religious person—an atheist, even. Shehad done her best to raise her two children as Catholics, desperately calling her mother and asking her to visit so she could see that Marigold was doing so well with the children, raising them to be perfect little replicas of the favored daughter, Amelia.

And then Lily turned eleven.

It was a hot, hot day. They were out shopping for a present for Lily, just Lily and Marigold. Lily was gripping Marigold’s hand tightly, skipping along next to her mother and asking for this and that and this and that. Marigold’s heart wrenched every time she had to give her young child a “no” for expensive items. She let go of Lily’s hand for a moment to adjust her purse, and when she reached her hand out to take Lily’s, she found that her daughter had disappeared.

“LILY!” she shrieked, and she could only think clearly again when she heard Lily’s bright laugh behind her. To Marigold’s surprise, Lily was holding a thick letter.

“Look, Mum! An owl gave it to me!”

And just like that, their lives changed.

Of course it bothered her, that her daughter was practicing witchcraft. She never gathered the courage to tell her mother, although she told Reed that she did. She smiled when Lily came home with magical items and surprises for them. And marigold saw how Petunia’s face grew sullener and sullener, and how her shoulders drooped every time she heard Lily’s name, and how her eyes flashed with a particular, unidentifiable emotion when she looked at her little sister.

How terrible I was to Lily, Marigold thinks during Agatha Pierce’s Confirmation. She apologizes to her daughter, who smiles and laughs it off. Marigold does not think her lapse into religious fanaticism is any laughing matter.

Perhaps if Lily loved me as much as she loves Reed, Marigold muses, watching her daughter chat with a friend from elementary school, glowing and radiant in her worn white summer dress. Perhaps if she did not expect me to berate her for everything…

Lily is not happy, and Marigold knows this. There is something always off about Lily, something quiet and reserved. Something is fundamentally wrongwith Lily's inability to go after what she wants.

Marigold's greatest fear is that this is her fault, that her absence has caused this. If only Lily had gone to school closer...

“Maybe if I weren’t scared of her,” Marigold whispers, following her beautiful daughter with her eyes. “For her,” she corrects herself. So many boys would want her, and Marigold has no idea whether Lily dates at school. She doesn’t really know. She finds herself hardly caring sometimes, not when sheis tired and her husband is getting on her nerves. These times, she can't care less what Lily does.

She hates herself for this. Marigold is horrified when she cannot muster concern for Lily, who is so far away and far from her parents' advice and love.

When Marigold has her accident and she is lying at the bottom of the cellar steps with her ankle twisted and her consciousness ebbing, she can hear her mother’s voice drifting up from abyss of darkness…Christ will forgive you for your sins…and when she sees that angel appear and tell her that life will be better, only if she rids her life of sin, Marigold closes her eyes and smiled.

Christ will forgive you for her sins…

……

Next in Frustration: Becky Denby

Please remember to review. Also, I’ve posted a new chapter of Silences Between Leaves, but I fixed the split between the two halves of Chapter Two and had to replace to post Chapter Three, so the story didn’t jump to the top of the updated list.

Look for an update to this in a two or three days.