Chapter 3
September 5th 1976
Finding a boy who doesn't want to be found has been proven rather difficult as Dorcas has been trying to find Regulus all weekend.
By Sunday afternoon she finds him in the Slytherin common room together with Evan and Barty. When Regulus notices Dorcas, he gets up from the sofa he was sitting on and heads for the stairs to the dormitories. Dorcas doesn't wait and follows him but gets blocked by Evan and Barty.
"Are you his bodyguards or something? Move." Dorcas says but when she doesn't get a reaction from either of them she shoves them to the side and follows Regulus up the stairs to his dorm before they can stop her again though she hears them hurrying along behind her.
"Meadowes wait!" She hears Evan yell but she doesn't care and ignores it. Pandora deserves to know what's going on with one of her best friends who hasn't talked to her properly in months.
She opens the door to the dorm and finds Regulus sitting on his bed looking at her as if he's not surprised in the slightest to see her here.
"Figured they wouldn't be able to stop you." Regulus says when Barty and Evan catch up. "Leave us." Regulus says calmly to his friends.
"But she-" Barty starts arguing but Regulus interrupts him.
"I said leave." He says in the same calm voice. Barty huffs and leaves with Evan after giving Dorcas a nasty look, as if she cares what they think of her.
"You need to talk to Pandora." Dorcas says wasting no time when the door behind her closed.
"I don't need to do anything." Regulus says.
"You're her oldest friend. She cares about you, she deserves an explanation."
"Not if it'll only hurt her." He says quietly as if he's ashamed of something.
"You're hurting her now." Dorcas states but Regulus doesn't seem to care. "I don't give a fuck what's going on with you but she does and she's worried about you."
"Tell her there's nothing to worry about." He says as if that would solve all of Pandora's problems involving him.
"Tell her yourself, coward." Dorcas says. "Even if you don't tell her what the fuck happened to you this summer, let her know you're still her friend. She misses you and you're being an arsehole. Pandora is upset and I don't like to see my friend upset, do you? If you don't talk to her, you're off the quidditch team, I'm sure there are plenty of Slytherins who'd be happy to take over the seeker position." She doesn't give Regulus a chance to answer and leaves him alone in his dorm.
Dorcas would hate to have to replace Regulus as seeker, he gets the job done better than any other Slytherin could but she isn't bluffing. Pandora is the single most important thing to her in this castle and she'll do anything to get her the answers she wants. If it takes sacrificing the Quidditch Cup to make that happen, she sure as hell will do that.
She finds Barty and Evan waiting in the common room. They look at her but don't say anything. "You're a terrible brother." Dorcas says to Evan and leaves the common room to find Pandora.
Dorcas finds Pandora in an empty classroom where she usually goes on weekends to work on her potions. She tries to open the door but it appears to be locked. That's strange, Pandora always forgets to lock the door until Dorcas reminds her to do it.
"Pandora open up, it's me." She says while knocking on the door. She hears some moving around inside. After a full minute the door opens just a little to reveal Pandora's face. "Can I come in?" She asks confused as to why Pandora is being so secretive. She never tells Dorcas what exactly she's doing but she does let her hang out with her while she does whatever she does. Dorcas doesn't need to know as long as Pandora is safe.
"Uh not right now." Pandora says nervously. Something is definitely going on.
"Why?" Dorcas asks, confused.
"No reason in particular, just busy. Don't you have to go to the library to work on that essay with Marlene?" Pandora says like she's in a rush for something. "See you later." She says and before Dorcas gets the chance to respond, the door gets slammed in her face and hears Pandora locking it once again. She is lucky she's her best friend because Dorcas wouldn't let anyone else slam a door in her face without consequence.
Something is going on and she will find out what that is but it'll have to wait. Unfortunately Dorcas does have to go to the library. She hopes the blonde won't show up so she can finish the essay on her own after all.
She arrives at the library 5 minutes before she is supposed to meet McKinnon. She doesn't find a sign of her anywhere yet so she finds a table in the far back of the library where all the books are collecting dust. The quietest place here.
The Gryffindor doesn't arrive until 15 minutes later, still in her quidditch uniform. Dorcas can't help but stare at her looking up and down. Dorcas hates that McKinnon looks so bloody amazing in her quidditch gear.
"You're late and didn't even bother to change." Dorcas pretends to be annoyed taking her eyes off of Marlene as she takes place opposite of Dorcas.
"Would you like it for me to be even later?"
"I'd rather you didn't show up at all." Dorcas would give anything to do this alone. She hates how distracted she is when she is near Marlene. If she wasn't around, Dorcas would have finished the bloody essay in class like they were supposed to. "Let's just get this over with."
"Got somewhere to be Meadowes?" Marlene asks suggestively, raising an eyebrow.
"No, let's start." Dorcas says not playing into Marlene's game. She doesn't need this right now. She wants this over with so she can go back to a McKinnon free life as much as her mind would let her.
"You're boring." She says though Dorcas doesn't care.
"And you're irritating. I take it you don't have your textbook with you once again?" Dorcas asks as she notices that Marlene didn't have a bag or anything at all with her.
"I told you, I don't need it." Marlene says with a smug face.
"How else are you gonna write the essay?" Dorcas asks, annoyed. Why can't Marlene ever take things seriously. The sooner they get this done, the sooner McKinnon can get away from her, isn't that what she wants?
"I know everything about Fire-Dwelling-Salamanders there is to know about them." Marlene shrugs her shoulders smugly.
"And I'm the Queen of England." Dorcas replies sarcastically.
"I'm serious." McKinnon says though Dorcas still doesn't believe it. It's not a secret to everyone that knows McKinnon that she doesn't study at all. During exam periods, when everyone is studying and stressing over everything they have to learn, Marlene together with Sirius and James are wreaking havoc upon the school with too many pranks. It seems impossible to Dorcas that Marlene of all people would know everything about a subject they haven't been directly taught about in class. "Believe me, don't believe me. You just write, I'll dictate."
Dorcas opens her textbook to the page about Fire-Dwelling-Salamanders and grabs some parchment to start writing on. She's going to let Marlene tell her what to write but she sure as hell won't trust her on her word. The essay needs to be good and she won't take any chances.
As Marlene starts talking about the Salamanders in detail, Dorcas checks the facts in her book before writing it down. To Dorcas' surprise, McKinnon doesn't get a single thing wrong about them and doesn't leave any information out. It's like she knows the textbook by heart.
"Well McKinnon, I guess you're not entirely useless." Dorcas says when she looks down at the finished essay and can't help but think Marlene studied the subject obsessively to show off. She wouldn't put it past her. "Though we could have finished this in class if you lead with that."
"Where's the fun in that if I don't make you fuming with anger first." She winks, making Dorcas' stomach feel weird once again. "Admit it, you're impressed."
Dorcas is slightly impressed if Marlene really did know all of this before they even started this assignment, but she won't and never will admit that to Marlene. "I'm impressed you let us get through this without saying something stupid."
"I've got better things to do then sit here with you being insulted." Marlene says getting up from her seat.
"And here I thought you enjoyed it, my bad." Dorcas says. Marlene leaves without another word and Dorcas watches her wishing the girl didn't look so good walking away from her, it'd be so much easier to completely hate her. How can her heart betray her like this?
That night, Dorcas is sitting in the Astronomy Tower waiting for Pandora to show up so she can get some answers on why she was acting so strange earlier but the girl never showed.
30 minutes after they usually agree to meet she decides to light up the spliff she has rolled for Pandora and her to share when all of a sudden she hears the door opening.
"Dora?" She asks hopeful, turning her head towards the door but she gets disappointed when she sees a tall Gryffindor.
"Sorry I, uh, didn't think anyone would be here at this hour." Remus Lupin says and stands awkwardly by the door.
"You thought wrong." Dorcas answers rudely which isn't fair since Remus is the least obnoxious person in his friend group but Dorcas is annoyed by Pandora not showing up. "Sorry." She says next when she realises Remus did nothing to deserve this tone from her.
"Mind if I stay?" Remus asks.
"Don't you have somewhere better to be than hang out with a Slytherin." Dorcas asks, lifting her eyebrows.
"Can't be worse than my dorm right now." Remus says and closes the door behind him to sit a few meters away from Dorcas. She doesn't ask for further explanation since it's none of her business and frankly she doesn't really care.
"You smoke?" She asks, offering the spliff to him by holding her arm stretched out since he's sitting quite far away from her as if he's scared of her.
"You know I do." He says, accepting it. Dorcas does know. Remus often buys from Pandora and often Dorcas is with her when they have these exchanges. "Thanks."
They sit in silence as they pass the spliff back and forth between them. Dorcas has known Remus to be the quiet one from their friend group but Dorcas wasn't expecting him to not say a single word to her. Though she doesn't mind it.
Now that she thinks about it, from all that time staring at McKinnon during meal times, she has noticed Remus more separated from the others, same thing with Sirius. Sirius seemed to be spending time with McKinnon more than anyone else which is unusual since the 4 boys, Remus, Sirius, James and Peter, seemed inseparable and were always together.
There haven't been any pranks yet either, which wouldn't be that strange if you weren't a Slytherin since the pranks were usually directed at them. The Marauders, as they liked to call themselves which Dorcas found ridiculous, are always quick with their first prank of the year. The Slytherins have learned to keep an eye out for any pranks from them.
Last year all their beds were missing from the dormitories the first day back from summer. How idiots like the Marauders pulled that off, Dorcas will never understand. Remus probably had a lot to do with it, he seems the only one smart enough to figure it out. So 4 days into the new school year with nothing of any kind of prank does seem strange.
Even from afar it's becoming clear something has happened within the friend group. Dorcas guesses Sirius is the person responsible. Must be if the tension is between him and Remus.
She concludes that this is why the tall Gryffindor boy is sitting next to her right now in the Astronomy Tower, sharing a spliff in complete silence instead of having fun with his friends.