1866: To be born the fourth child was never going to make Marlena a novelty but for a couple who were hoping for another boy she is a mild disappointment. They quickly get over it but all her life Marlena struggles with the feeling that she is a mistake.

1869: Helga is born and immediately spoiled, though Marlena is too busy building a fort in the nursery to really notice.

1870/1872: Veronica and Louisa head off to school two years apart. When Vero goes Marlena is yet to perform magic, which doesn’t worry anybody, but when Louisa goes and the six year old is still magicless her parents begin to get slightly antsy.

1873: It is not until Helga performs magic for the first time that Marlena really starts to worry herself. What if she’s a squib? What do squibs do anyway?

1874: Eugene goes off to Hogwarts and Marlena, now near panic at being a squib, makes herself ill and has to be confined in bed for the majority of September. When she emerges the leaves have begun to turn golden and the only person she has to distract herself with is Helga, which makes her decidedly grumpy.

1877: The family move to Hogsmeade along with the majority of wizarding society and Marlena takes her own sweet time in adjusting thank you very much. She does not care overly for change, is still losing sleep over what her squib life will be and spends most of the time locked away in the library, determined to know more than her siblings even if she can’t actually perform magic. On one such date, locked away and reading, Marlena loses the key to actually get out of the room and panicking that she will starve she finally, just one week short of her eleventh birthday, she performs magic and opens the door herself.

Year One 1878-79: With her worst fear thoroughly put to bed Marlena finally gets to be properly excited as she prepared for her first year at school. She is probably unbearable during this period and almost certainly a terrible know-it-all about everything, putting the governess through the ringer with endless questions, and finally in September she heads off to the castle with her siblings. She is sorted into Gryffindor which, based on her extensive research, is obviously a mistake but the hat is not to be swayed. Gryffindor it is.

Year Two 1879-80: By her second year, the first without Louisa, Marlena has settled in to the castle and is thoroughly enjoying the academic rigour of education. What she is less thrilled about is her inability to make any real friends which she blames entirely on the hat and its clear error in putting her in a dormitory with noisy Gryffindors. At the end of the school year Eugene graduates.

Year Three 1880-1881: Helga joins her at school but, thankfully, not in the common room and Marlena adds Arithmancy and Ancient Runes. She considers others but she doesn’t care about creatures half as much as her brother does and the lack of logic behind Divination upsets her sensibilities.

Year Four 1881-1882: Already planning to enter into some kind of career when she graduates Marlena has no use for the excitement that takes Helga when Veronica marries Nathaniel Gallivan.

Year Five 1882-1883: Quite possibly the only person in her year to be actually excited for OWLs, largely so she can prove her educational prowess, Marlena has finally managed to at least become friendly with her dorm mates, particularly Begonia Belby, and if asked she would cite this as being her favourite year at school. She misses the castle more than ever before during the summer though cannot put her finger on precisely why; she writes frequently to Begonia, spending almost as much time crafting those letters she she does on her summer homework.

Year Six 1883-1884: After months of being consumed by confusing feelings for Begonia it is a relief to know she isn't the only one, even if the relief is short-lived. There's no good way to be caught half-naked in a broom cupboard but by some miracle Marlena becomes less notorious afterwards, quite probably because she is wearing marginally more clothing and basically nobody knows who she is.

In other news fire and plague barely touch the Scamanders but her father does attempt to become the Minister of Magic, which she definitely thinks is a bad idea, but she certainly did not want to be proven right by him having a heart attack! Fortunately he recovers and sensibly retires from the Ministry, for which Marlena is incredibly grateful: she fully intends to go there herself after she graduates and has a feeling she’ll be more successful without being in her father’s shadow.

Year Seven 1884-1885: Suffice to say things are awkward during the first night back, but Marlena is usually awkward about most things so it's nothing new to her. Still, they do have to make a conscious effort to not be seen together too much, and never alone, which is torturous for Marlena; the only time she is able to actually look at Begonia without feeling like she is making matters worse is in the middle of the night when everything in the dormitory is dark. Fortunately her abundant NEWT classes keep her quite busy during her final year and when she eventually graduates she is a great deal sadder to leave the castle than she had thought she would be. It is, after all, just a place, but she has become seriously attached and attends the Coming Out Ball with a heavy heart.

1885: Wasting no time on even pretending to do the season Marlena throws herself straight in at the Ministry, securing a secretarial position in the Department of Mysteries and feeling immediately at home amongst the other oddballs.

1887: In November, as soon as she turns 21, Marlena becomes an official Unspeakable and takes great pleasure in being contractually obliged to tell people to mind their own business. Her mother makes a last-ditch effort to try to get her to attend a few balls but it is not to be: Marlena goes to please her but spends the entire night hovering near the girls she knew at school who actually are proper debutantes but not THAT one and makes no effort to even speak to a man, let alone dance. Luckily Helga graduates and actually does do the debutante thing, which makes their mother happy, and Marlena is extremely grateful to be left alone.

1888: Due to illness and poor timing Marlena is unable to take part in investigating the fog in Irvingly, a fact that will forever gall her. Afterwards she takes a great interest in the artefact and bother Aldous Crouch about liaising with the Egyptian Ministry as much as she can.

1890: On Leap Day Marlena wakes up in a flat of her own in London that she has apparently always lived in. This suits her down to the ground frankly but she could wish to be in a less tempting part of London.

1890-1894: Over the next few years Lena strikes out on her own properly. She makes friends of some of the ABC regulars, becomes more confident at work (despite being overseen by ...her) and encountering both Bronwyn Moody and Ester Montgomery: there could hardly be two less alike women of her acquaintance and yet it is the latter with whom she finally loses her virginity. Not her best move.