I’m Gonna Go Ahead And Say It:

marlene mckinnon was like a window that looked into the sea in a prisoners cell.

sirius black was a star that didn’t get his wish.

it was the window of his cell in azkaban he was looking out.

No new work :) catch old drawings

i might’ve landed in my very own dark!blackinnon au.

don’t get me wrong, i’m 100% sure orion defended his wife with claws and teeth, specially when it was sirius the one fighting her.

i imagine sirius rebellious strike reminded walburga too much of herself so she was definitely worried how he would turn up. and because of that they bickered often. and while sirius also picked up fights with his dad, orion didn’t react as badly unless he felt sirius had gone too far with walburga.

he might not thought it as: that’s my wife you’re disrespecting, boy, but more importantly that’s YOUR MOTHER.

orion understood the sacrifices walburga made for the sake of her family and while he accepted with dignity the fact that she might never love him, he did protect her (not that she really needed it).

that’s the reason walburga don’t mind that much, cause he’s present in all the ways she needs him to be.

and that’s why when and if ever he is unfaithful, he goes out of his way to pick a witch outside their circles. but with druella is personal, it’s has to do more with himself than with her wife.

just in general i think that however wrong and misguided their actions might be, pure blood families, especially old ones like the blacks and malfoys, valued their families above anything else.

there’s a reason they got to be MOST ANCIENT but also, there’s a reason the family finally crumbled.

(we all know if sirius had survived he either wouldn’t have had kids or would’ve done MUCH MUCH MUCH differently).

i think walburga wouldn’t care for orion being unfaithful as long as 1) he was discreet about it and 2) he didn’t get involve with anyone near her circle. after all, their marriage isn’t rooted in love.

problem is, orion and cygnuss have been feuding ever since they were kids (orion is closer to him in age than walburga) and finally he decided to start an affair with druella, who happens to be not only is his cousin’s wife but also the one woman walburga despises the most (she never wanted for her to marry his brother).

meanwhile alphard knows all this is happening and stays as far away as possible from all the drama, cause even if he tells his sister, she would find a way to blame him somehow, shot the messenger and all that.

day 27 - you don’t understand - blackinnon - @blackinnonfest

“it’s not that simple,” said marlene.

they weren’t exactly fighting, but it felt strangely similar.

“i don’t get it. a few months ago you weren’t speaking to me cause you thought i was taking you for granted, that i was using you somehow, while i thought we were on the same fucking boat, mind you.” sirius paused, taking a second to compose himself before continuing. “so we talked through it and fixed things or so i thought, cause how in the hell are we in the same situation again, marls?” he wasn’t exactly desperate, but exasperated more like.

marlene could barely stand to watch him in the eyes, so she was grateful they were on the move again.

“it’s not the same, not at all” she replied.

“no, you’re right. you’re right it’s not. it’s worse. cause this time i know you want to be with me much as i want to be with you and yet you flinch every time i breath near you.” sirius was on the edge of screaming, but they weren’t supposed to be making any noise, trying to sneak back into the gryffindor tower before a prefect caught them.

“i told you, it’s not that easy” she repeated for the tenth time that day, trying to keep up with his longer strides.

“you haven’t told me shit, mckinnon. why do you resist taking the easy way into this?” finally, sirius had stopped and turned to look at her.

and again, marlene wanted nothing more than to look at anything but him.

because how could she explained to him that she was terrified. frightened. even more so than the time she had finally explained to him why she felt so hurt last time he had ditched her for some other girl while expecting her to be there once he got bore.

that being a teenage witch was an entirely different thing than being a teenage wizard. and that there were layers to it as well, because sirius black wasn’t just any wizard, even if he was, according to the one and only howler walburga had ever sent him last year, the disgrace of the family.

sirius wasn’t free of them, not really. marlene had the suspicion that still, everything he did or didn’t do was a statement back to his family, whether it was on purpose or not. he couldn’t help being who he was much more than she could blame herself for falling for him.

because she had fallen for that stupid, smug faced moron. yes, moron. not that insulting him on her mind and frequently to his face had made much for her.

she had still being stupid enough to fall for the boy.

and worse than loving him? was the fact that for whatever reason, he loved her back. well, liked her back at least. enough so that he had been pushing for them to go public, to stop with all the secrecy and running around.

but she couldn’t, it scared her too much.

“are you…?” started sirius, taking a breath in. “are you done with me?” he finally asked.

marlene couldn’t be sure with all the darkness around them, but there was something akin to hurt in sirius’ eyes.

“what?” marlene mouth opened in surprise at the question, the implications of it.

“seems to me the only logical explanation”

“no, that’s not… i told you, it’s not—“

“that simple, yes, i’ve heard.” frustrated this time, sirius passed a hand through his face. they were near the entrance to the tower now. “i’ll make it easier for you then” he said and marlene knew before he said it where this was gonna end up.

she braced herself for it, cause really, what else could she do?

sirius took a while longer before speaking, as if expecting her to say or do something to stop him, but nothing came.

“alright then, we’re finish. i’m finish” and after that, he turn around, gave the password to the fat lady and marlene saw him disappear behind the portrait.

she felt her heart clenched in her chest, her whole body going cold.

trying to console herself over the fact that, at least, they wouldn’t have to explain anything to their friends, she followed him into the tower only to fall apart once she reached her bed.

who would’ve bet that she would’ve been the one to fucked it all up.

omg i haven’t picked up on the fact she was the youngest and sirius the oldest!! so true.

too me the whole take on her blood status or, more specifically, her position in the political issues, varies depending on when do the mckinnons show their support to muggleborns and halfblood.

i hc marlene to be the only one in her family to be part of the order, to the point of even keeping it a secret. that doesn’t mean her family doesn’t show the alliance to the “good side”, after all they raised her. but aside from the fact that someone might caught wind of marlene’s involvement in the order and that’s why they went after the whole family, i also like to play with the idea that some other member might be keeping a potentially dangerous secret.

i just ask myself a lot what it would take for some to wipe out an entire family. cause it doesn’t seem to be the case were they kill them one by one as a torturing device or something like that.

and the aspect of whether sirius was canonically disowned your right, we don’t know it for sure. my take is that since he left before regulus died, orion did change the will favoring regulus first in the line of succession and sirius second. so alphard gives the money as way of having his back. then obviously reg dies and everything comes back to sirius. cause again i feel like alphard knew something in order to take that decision after sirius leaving and right before his passing, cause he’s the one carrying the family business on sirius mother’s side of the family.

obviously all of this speculation, but since sirius managed to alter the will to favour harry despite him not being a black, there’s room for other members altering things through history without defaulting immediately and without say into the first male heir.

also walburga hating blondes it’s just too funny. people portray her as being so serious that it’s fun to give her totally biased or ridiculous opinions from time to time.

what do you think would be marlene's standing with the black family? like what she think of walburga, orion, and regulus and what they think of her?

god what a hard question!

i think she struggles with them.

i tend to think of marlene as a pureblood witch to put her in contrast with lily (muggle born) and mary (half-blood), so while her family is obviously not on the same level as the blacks, she knows a lot of them much like the rest of society.

during school and even before they get closer, she starts picking up on the subtle ways sirius tense up or slightly flinch when someone brings up his family. whenever she can she change the subject. she also imagines he struggles at times with the way he was brought up and the way gryffindors behave. she has a brother in ravenclaw and that puts sirius at ease in a way when it comes to him being the outcast of his own family, not all is lost and it might no be that big a deal for his parents.

also marlene was in school at the same time his older cousins were and even at a distance she could tell they were a force to be reckoned with. marlene has only brothers so, aside from her mother, it’s such a sight to know powerful young witches. and this translates to walburga as well. sirius turns out to be so annoyingly good at everything and without even trying that she wonders where all that natural talent comes from. they obviously care enough in some regards to making him comfortable and well educated so his talent won’t go to waste. but believe they’re misguided though, cause their trying too hard to turn him into something he’s not and things might’ve turned up differently if they acknowledged that from the beginning. but it’s a scary thought to think of sirius as, possibly, a DE or a supporter of voldemort in some capacity.

marls doesn’t share the black family beliefs and neither does sirius, but that doesn’t change the fact that, even if you stripped them down from it, they are still a powerful family. she also hates the way more traditional families put the wizards above the witches which is hard to reconcile when she thinks of walburga, a big blood supremacist, having the same power as a man. it hard to reconcile someone with opposite beliefs to your own being in some capacity able to effect change, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be allowed to just cause they happen to be women, right?

i don’t think she ever gets introduced to them, but if she did, she would probably confront walburga. she’d tell her she’s just jealous because his son might turn up to be whoever he wants to be, an option she either didn’t have or didn’t felt she had. she’s also scared, because he’s a man, he’s the heir, and he’s smart and powerful enough to change the trajectory of his entire family if he wishes, something she couldn’t have done even if she had wanted to.

she would think orion to be spineless for trying to dim his own son light, a son who only ever tried to make him proud despite everything. if he doesn’t want to see how special he is, it’s his lose. and no, buying him expensive stuff doesn’t compensate for any psychological abuse he might’ve done to sirius.

as to where walburga and orion stand on her is, well… they think sirius picking her might be a good sign. orion is not that impressed because he knows sirius to be much like walburga and while she change her ways and eventually fall in line with the family, he also knows sirius might turn up and do the complete opposite. so no girl it’s gonna get in the way of that.

but walburga is impressed in a small way. regulus is the one feeding her information on her (which i find funny), and marls comes across, to her, as an unapologetic witch. she is who she is and wont make concessions to make other people like her more. much like her. but she thinks she’s misguided. she could be exactly the right girl to straighten up his son, even if she isn’t , say, a greengrass, but more likely than not, she’ll be his ruin (in her eyes). also she’s blonde and i hc walburga loathing the malfoys and by association anything that reminds her of them even in the slightest way. it would be a curse for the next black heir to be blonde.

about regulus marls thinks he’s young and naive. she sees the way sirius gaze follows him around in school, specially when he starts hanging around mulciber and that sort of crowd. regulus naively thinks maybe marls would be the one the bring his brother back to him and his family, which is why he talks walburga about it.

she’s not surprised they finally disowned him. she is, however, taken aback by alphard leaving him his money. again there’s that struggle that somewhere in the family there’s actually care and concern about sirius, but they’re are too caught up in their own prejudices and stupid beliefs to be able to show up properly for their son/nephew and in someway that might be reciprocated by sirius, even if he don’t want to. you could also say that his prejudices to blood supremacist steams from his relationship with his family and it’s the reason he can’t look pass it when he thinks of them, even if he related to them as family and smart and talented humans in the first place.

during war times she’s concern how the family dynamics would translate in battle. again, she knows bellatrix to be powerfull and she knows sirius to be reckless, he becomes even more so after regulus death, which he keeps downplaying and telling her it didn’t affected him (showing that he cared, at the very least, for his brother, if not the rest of them).

all in all, she’s constantly torn between her desire for sirius to have a loving and supportive family and the implications of it and the way he turn up to be such a loyal and talented defender of what’s right despite them pushing him otherwise.

in the end, marlene knows the only way for sirius to thrive it’s to cut them out completely and is grateful for the existence of james potter, and eventually lily and harry too. while she loves her family and could never properly grasp how sirius felt towards his, she’s so glad he gets to experiment some resemble of family dynamics with his best friends.

The Black Sisters

pre Andromeda's disowning.

(first time drawing andy, yaaay)

“you don’t need to be everybody’s cup of tea. be gasoline. set shit on fire” — marlene mckinnon

Andromeda Black

OMG BLEUR! There’s a really good fic called The Cursebreaker’s Wife that not only follows their story but also fills the gaps during OotP, highly recommend 💓

Romione and Remadora are the hottest canon couples.

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