Chapter 2
Oh god does she ever stop talking? Some people just can’t stand silence and talk and talk and talk, it’s honestly the most annoying thing Dorcas has ever had the pleasure of encountering. Why can't people let silence just be silence, what is their problem with it?
She has prefect patrols with Emma Vanity, her former roommate. The only thing she will ever thank Dumbledore for was making her head girl, which gave her a separate room for her alone. She had to fight Lily Evans for the position, but Dorcas won in the end, and although she would rarely admit it, Lily Evans is a pretty smart witch.
Vanity and her were paired up to patrol tonight and after a few ‘cool’ s and ‘you don’t say’ s, Emma still doesn’t get the message. This girl is really giving her a headache.
“Hey shall I check the astronomy tower, you should check the classrooms there.” Dorcas points in the direction of the hall.
Emma gives her a look before giving Dorcas a nod.
“Got it partner.” Dorcas still doesn’t know if she sarcastic most of the time or not, but it hardly matters.
This choice is not entirely for selfish reasons, she assumes Regulus is up there like he always is whenever he comes back to Hogwarts after summer vacation. He needs time to acclimate to the environment again after a whole two months spending time in that house with his parents. And honestly, Dorcas can’t blame him.
“You up here?” She whispers as she opens the door to the tower.
“Yes.” A tiny voice answers back.
She looks around and sees him sitting against the wall, his head laid on his knees that he pushed against his body. She sees him slightly shivering, which isn’t strange, it is September after all.
Dorcas pulls out a pencil that was still in the pocket of her uniform and transfigures it into a blanket. She walks to Regulus and gently puts it around him but stops when he flinches away from her touch.
“Okay?” she asks him.
“Yeah.”
She continues putting the blanket around him so that he is fully covered.
“I gotta go now, see you tomorrow.” Dorcas says as she walk back out. Regulus doesn’t answer and with one last glance she closes the door.
“No one up there.” She says to Emma when she comes back from checking all the classrooms.
The rest of the patrol is spent with an excruciating headache and an ongoing voice besides her yapping about nothing and everything. So when Dorcas finally returns to her room she takes a moment to relish in the silence.
“Thank Salazar for this.”
It wasn’t like she really hated her former roommates, she just preferred to be on her own. The only ones she could really stand were Regulus, Pandora, Barty and Evan. But Pandora is in another house and for obvious reasons she can’t share a dorm with the rest.
But because two of her roommates were sister, even worse twins, there wasn’t a lot of bonding between them. They stuck together like they were actually born attached to each other. And to be honest Dorcas couldn’t tell them apart most of the time.
And then Emma Vanity, who you would assume she became fast friends with. Wrong.
They had such opposite personalities in every aspect that it didn’t work. Everything that Dorcas semi liked, Emma hated and vice-versa. So Dorcas had spent most of her time in the boys dorm or studying in the library till late in the night so her roommates would be asleep. This did give her an academic head start, which paid of this year. With a room of her own.
Now she could do her 5 step night routine without the judging glances that Emma would regularly throw her and also, she didn’t have to hear her music all day long that she put as hard as she possibly could, claiming she was deaf in one ear.
Still, one thing she hadn’t taken into consideration. The head girl dorm was located very closely to the Gryffindor tower, so maybe she didn’t have to deal with Emma’s music, but she sure as hell had to deal with the music from the Gryffindor tower, which yes, she could hear all the way in her room. Currently she could hear ABBA playing, dancing queen.
Look Emma didn’t have such good taste, but the Gryffindor people at least put on bearable music, because ABBA she could stand.
Still with a charm to block out any sound she went into bed, that was on another note, bigger than her bed in her previous living arrangements, another perk.
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The first day back they were always free. The first-years spent it exploring the grounds and learning the magic that Hogwarts offered. But for the older years it was spent sleeping in for the last time and for some, catching up on all the homework that they were supposed to complete.
Although Dorcas did sleep in, she, of course, had no homework to catch up on and went to the Ravenclaw tower to pick Pandora so they could go down to the great hall together.
They had agreed to meet each other by the Ravenclaw tower this year because Dorcas slept closer now. In the first four years Pandora would meet all of them in the great hall, where she would sit with them. At first she got a lot of weird stares, it isn’t quite common for a Ravenclaw to be sitting at the Slytherin table. But Regulus and Barty made sure no one could say anything, with their absolute resting bitch faces and their blank stares they made everyone shut up pretty easily.
Unlike Emma’s chattering, Pandora’s is nice. Her voice is soothing and Dorcas doesn’t mind listening to all her adventures and dreams. Like today she’s telling Dorcas her fear for pumpkins, especially the ones on Halloween, she tells her specifically.
Pandora was also someone she actually enjoyed having a conversation with (apart from regulus, Barty and Evan of course). Normally she wouldn’t engage in conversations at all, she doesn’t really know how to do small talk, it’s so unnecessary. But with Pandora it was never awkward, nor did she start a conversation about the weather or their grades, which Dorcas found incredibly boring.
Dorcas has been called cold or distant more times than she can remember. She doesn’t mind that, her being distant keeps other people at a distance and she has more than enough friends. Especially with Barty and Evan, the both of them are a walking headaches for Dorcas, but she loves them.
Regulus and Evan are already at the table when the walk in the great hall, so Dorcas and Pandora proceed to sit with them. Barty isn’t with them, never was such an early riser.
Regulus looks a bit rough, and that’s Dorcas being nice. He has dark circles around his eyes and isn’t talking to Evan, or to anyone else for that matters, but he wouldn’t do that anyways, even if he was in a good mood.
When she sits down she decides to pretend she’s not concerned about him, he doesn’t really appreciate people caring openly about him, he doesn’t know how to handle it.
Pandora decides to do the same, as she probably also knows how Regulus is feeling. She always seems to know those kind of things.
“So when he left I had to put two times the amount of crystals than usual around me to cleanse the energy. He had such a bad aura that I almost considered digging up my big big crystal.”
“You buried a crystal?” Evan asks with raised eyebrows.
“Well yes, the energy would be too much for daily use, I had to put it in a safe space.” Pandora answers while sipping at her tea.
“And you went with .. the ground?”
“Where else would I put it?”
Evan seems to be thinking about it, when regulus interrupts his thinking process.
“Someone’s coming.” And Dorcas sees Lily Evans walking towards them. She doesn’t mention that Regulus had his back turned to the Gryffindor table, but still saw her coming.
“Well you don’t see that every day.” Evan says turning back to his breakfast, deciding not to engage in this particular situation.
Dorcas looks at Pandora who is looking at Evans, her eyes closed a little. Then she turns to Dorcas and gives her a nod. Evans is coming here with good intentions.
“Hi Meadows, Frank asked me to give this to you, he forgot.” She says with a sheepish smile.
“Oh, thanks.” Dorcas takes the paper Evans handed her, with on it the prefect patrols and partners. She searches for her name and lucky for her, she’s not with Emma, but-
“We’ve been made partners,” She looks at Dorcas for a moment. “Vanity complained and got another partner.”’
“Of course she did.” Not that Dorcas really minds, she would have done the same herself, but she doesn’t like to ask for favours. What does annoy her is the way Emma acted whenever they were together. She would be so nice and talking non stop as if she actually liked you, then in just a second her whole demeaner would change and she would give you the dirtiest of looks.
She honestly hates that, if you hate someone, don’t pretend to like them.
“It’s probably not your fault, I heard she’s difficult to deal with.” Lily tries.
“Don’t believe everything you hear Evans, although the rumours are correct in this case.”
Lily shifts uncomfortable from one foot to the other. “Well I’ll leave you to it then, see you later Meadows.”
She walks back and Dorcas glances at the paper again. Honestly there were worser options. Like Emma.
“I think she’s slightly afraid of you cas.” Evan says, deciding to participate in the conversation again.
“She should be.” Dorcas looks up and smiles.
“You shouldn’t worry about the patrols, I’ll give you some of my crystals and you’ll be good to go.” Pandora says.
“I’m not worried.” Dorcas is now looking at Pandora and she raises her eyebrow. How is it that she always knows what Dorcas feels before she herself knows it? Still Dorcas accepts Pandora judgement.
“Thank you.” She whispers and Pandora smiles at her as she pushes Dorcas’ cup of tea towards her.
“Always.”