Chapter 5
October 1st 1976
Dorcas and Pandora were hanging out again like they used to. They ate meals together. Pandora joins her in the Astronomy Tower again most of the time.
Remus still joins them every now and then. Pandora was surprised to find out how close Remus and Dorcas had gotten in her absence which followed with a lot of teasing that Dorcas wasn't such a cold bitch anymore, to which she would reply with, "I can be a cold bitch and enjoy someone else's company."
She doesn't need to be cold around Remus and certainly not around Pandora. This place has become her safe space in this castle. She feels free. Here, she is allowed to laugh or cry or let any emotion she’s feeling go and let it be what it is.
She wishes she is there right now but instead of Remus and Pandora sitting next to her in The Astronomy Tower, she's sitting next to McKinnon in class listening to Kettleburn's instructions to collect food for the creature they're getting next week.
During the first month they've had to prepare everything for the Fire-Dwelling-Salamander when it will be in their care.
Most people were able to get the creature to live with them and they made a habitat for the creature to be comfortable in in their dorms. Marlene and Dorcas don't trust each other so they decided to go a different route.
Since the salamander likes to live in forests, they decided on keeping it in the Forbidden Forest. They had to adjust and cast protective spells so the Salamander wouldn't run around the entire forest because it'll be very unlikely to be able to find it back.
Dorcas wasn't too keen on this decision though Marlene seemed thrilled. Dorcas doesn't like the forest. It's dark and no one really knows what's hiding in there. She isn't scared but it's a creepy place to spend time in. Marlene, however, was excited that she would be allowed in there now since it's technically forbidden for students. For good reason, Dorcas thinks.
It's better than letting it live with Marlene and her idiot friends. Kettleburn messed up assigning partners for this one. Why not pair people up who are in the same house, no one would have a problem on where their creature would live. Instead almost everyone had a partner outside their own house.
Pandora and Lily didn't seem to struggle all that much though. They were assigned a fairy and they decided on building a habitat inside Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Dorcas found this weird at first but putting Pandora and Lily's brilliance together, they made the place perfect for a fairy. Since they spend quite a bit of time in there for potions, it does make sense to place it there.
"Do you think we'll get a boy or girl?" Marlene asks her millionth question not giving Dorcas the chance to pay attention to Professor Kettleburn.
"Who cares." Dorcas answers annoyed.
"I do, and you should too. They're going to be our child." Marlene says like she's offended and Dorcas just insulted her entire family.
"I will be buried alive before having a child with you."
"I hope it's a boy." Marlene says ignoring Dorcas' comment. "A girl Salamander would bring us a lot of trouble." As Marlene keeps rambling on about Salamanders, Dorcas blocks her out of her mind.
Yet Dorcas still couldn't focus on what Kettleburn was telling the class. Dorcas found it intriguing how a person like McKinnon could care so much about animals and creatures. She doesn't think Marlene is heartless, how could she be, with so many annoying friends, unless they're all heartless too. But Dorcas never noticed before this assignment how passionate McKinnon is about the subject. She was under the impression she only cared about creatures to use as a tool for pranking.
But that is far from true. If she thought Pandora was good with creatures, Marlene was on a whole new level. She studied them and understood them. She finds joy in figuring out each individual creature.
Dorcas has noticed Marlene keeps a notebook with her all the time. She may not have her textbooks but she always has a brown notebook with her, no matter where she is. Dorcas’ curiosity has taken over more than once over the past month. Whenever the girl was scribbling in her notebook, Dorcas felt a strong urge to look. When she did, she found herself looking at beautiful drawings of magical creatures. She never knew Marlene could draw so magnificently.
"Why do you like Magical Creatures?" Dorcas asks, interrupting the girl who was still talking.
"Because they're cute." She says, shrugging her shoulders and taking Dorcas’ question as a joke.
"That's it?" Dorcas asks, disappointed she didn’t get a more genuine answer to her question though what should she have expected?
"It's a valid point." Marlene argues. Dorcas rolls her eyes. It's a pathetic reason, there must be more to it but Dorcas doesn't go further into it though she wants to. She wants to know more, she can’t help but be intrigued by the girl sitting next to her. "Why don't you like them?"
"Because they're filthy." Dorcas blurts out returning the favor of not taking the question seriously. Dorcas likes Magical Creatures to a certain point, they can be truly fascinating but it's never been her focus so she doesn't care much for them, she's only in this class because of Pandora, she'd never choose this for herself. Though she has been more interested in it than she thought she would be when she first started 2 years ago.
After a few seconds of Marlene not saying anything, Dorcas turns her head towards her to find McKinnon staring at her as if she's trying to figure something out. Was she genuinely asking? Does she want to get to know her? Or is she searching for the best way to make fun of her?
Dorcas snaps out of it when she realizes she was staring right into McKinnon’s gorgeous blue eyes. She looks away, putting her focus back on Professor Kettleburn where it should be. She silently curses at herself once again for fancying her bloody rival.
"For the last 30 minutes of class you can collect food and such. Remember to stay close to the class area. I don't want to have to report any missing limbs from students." Kettleburn jokes but no one laughs, neither is anyone concerned by this comment. Sure there are dangerous things in the forest but Care of Magical Creatures can get dangerous too.
They've had to deal with all sorts of dangerous creatures in this class so no one is really that worried about what's in the forest. Besides if they didn't go too far like Kettleburn said, they wouldn't encounter anything but a harmless bowtruckle.
They got it pretty easy since Salamanders mostly eat insects. According to Marlene they really like lacewing flies, which wasn't mentioned in the textbook so Dorcas suspects McKinnon made it up, though McKinnon ends up only collecting lacewing flies. Dorcas just moves a tree branch and finds different kinds of insects that surely a Fire-Dwelling-Salamander would eat too.
"For someone so academically driven, you are doing a lousy job at this assignment." Marlene says holding a full bag of lacewing flies, not a single other insect to spot in there.
"It'll eat these too." Dorcas says holding out her own bag of insects.
"True but we know who'll be their favourite." Marlene says, sticking her tongue out. Oh she wants this to be a competition. Game on McKinnon.
Dorcas focuses on the bag Marlene is holding as she's waving it around Dorcas to boast. She thinks of the spell she wants to cast and suddenly Marlene's bag rips in half causing all the lacewing flies to fly away before their eyes.
"Mhm looks like that'll be me." Dorcas smirks.
"How'd you do that?" Marlene asks furiously because she has nothing left now.
"I didn't do anything, maybe get a stronger bag next time." Dorcas winks which makes Marlene even angrier.
"I don't know how but I know you caused it." Of course Marlene isn't smart enough to figure out it was wandless and wordless magic. Even if she was, no one would think a 6th year would be capable of that.
As a child her magic was already very strong. Dorcas first showed signs of magic when she was only a month old. That's when her mum found out she married a wizard. Not long after that, her father left which made it hard for her mum to raise her. A muggle mother with a very gifted witch as a daughter.
It was hard for Dorcas to control her magic. She often got in trouble for it at the muggle schools she went to before she received her Hogwarts letter. She learned very early on that the stronger her emotions were, the more accidental and powerful magic she performed. So she hid her emotions, became cold and distant with everyone besides her mum.
At Hogwarts she learned how to control it more. Becoming friends with Pandora was scary for that reason but their friendship has never accidentally caused something to explode or catch fire. Her rivalry with McKinnon, however, has.
In fourth year, they had an assignment to brew Polyjuice Potion. She may not have been partnered up with her rival but she still made sure to insert herself into Dorcas’ life by messing up her assignment.
Marlene had thrown a whole Boomslang Snake into Dorcas’ Cauldron causing the potion to start bubbling and eventually it overflowed covering the entire floor around Dorcas’ Potions table.
"McKinnon!" Dorcas had yelled. She had grown tired of Marlene's pranks against her. This wasn't the only time she had ruined Dorcas' potions. She was good at potions and her marks were dropping rapidly because Marlene did or tried to ruin all of her potions.
Dorcas had had it at that moment and before she realized, every single cauldron in the classroom had exploded. No one knew how it happened and no one, not even McKinnon, suspected Dorcas was the culprit but she knew she caused it. It was the first time since she came to Hogwarts that she made something explode without any intention to.
Since then when she is around Marlene strange things do happen. Not always in the sense of exploding but she has made objects fly, or made things change color or size. Sometimes she just vanishes something to never be found again as far as Dorcas knew.
Casting Diffindo on McKinnon’s bag was purely intentional though and Dorcas found it very amusing to see Marlene so confused on how it happened.
"Prove it." Dorcas says smugly because she knows she can't prove anything. Marlene grows frustrated and grabs her wand out of her pocket.
"Evanesco." Marlene casts and Dorcas' bag in her hand disappears with nothing left behind.
"What will your child eat now?" Dorcas says dramatically but she truly doesn't care. Let her have a bad mark for this class, she does well enough in all her other classes. Marlene doesn't answer but instead stares at Dorcas as if she's imagining to rip her head off her body.
Marlene groans in frustration realizing what she had done. They’d have to gather insects all over again.
Kettleburn announces to the class that it has ended. “Each group will receive their creature next lesson, anything you still need to get ready for, will have to be done on your own time outside of class.” Kettleburn also reminds them to take this assignment very seriously as taking care of another living being is not an easy thing.
“You better find some new insects to feed your child or it might starve.” Dorcas says to Marlene who groans again in reply and leaves to meet up with her friends.
Her eyes follow the girl walking over a few meters away from where Dorcas is standing. She finds Pandora still deep in conversation with Lily that seems to be interrupted when Marlene and her friend Mary join them.
Dorcas notices Marlene talking to her friends as she realizes she must be talking about her since it made Pandora look away from Lily to Marlene and then Dorcas.
Pandora says bye to Lily and walks over to where Dorcas was still standing. "Trouble in paradise?"
"As if it's ever paradise." Dorcas says and they both head back to the castle.
That night in the Astronomy tower, it was just Dorcas and Remus. Pandora apparently had plans with Lily which was strange to Dorcas since Lily Evans wasn't one to break school rules and it was well past curfew already.
"You're friends with Lily." Dorcas says more as a statement than a question.
"Yeah." He says, skeptical on where this is leading to. There's no reason for Dorcas to bring up Lily of all people so his confusion is understandable.
"Have you noticed too that she and Pandora have been spending a lot of time together? Like a lot." Dorcas asks.
"Too much, I nearly always study alone in the library now since Lily ditches me for Pandora." Remus answers. Though Dorcas doesn't believe Remus doesn't like studying alone. Especially this year, he's more alone than Dorcas has ever noticed him to be.
"Think they fancy each other?" Dorcas asks.
"Oh yeah definitely, you should hear Lily talking about Pandora." Remus says and they laugh. Pandora hasn't talked much to Dorcas about Lily but she notices the way she looks at her. As if Lily is the only person in the universe.
"I think it's nice. Pandora deserves something nice." Dorcas says. "Too bad it had to be a Gryffindor." She jokes, or half jokes more like. Dorcas can't help her mind jumping to Marlene once again. Dorcas too fancies a Gryffindor though she wishes she didn't. At least Evans isn't as infuriating as McKinnon.
Dorcas has had endless fights with herself in her mind on how it is she likes Marlene of all people. Marlene is an infuriating, arrogant, self absorbed person yet Dorcas also saw she could be kind if she wanted to be, she could be brave but at the same time stupid and just like Dorcas, she'd do anything for her friends. It also doesn't help, though she tries to deny it to herself, that she finds McKinnon to be the most beautiful girl she has ever laid eyes on.
"And what's so wrong with that, Meadowes?" Remus says acting like he's offended.
"Oh absolutely everything." She says only thinking of Marlene now and what she would give to not care even a little bit about the girl.
October 2nd 1976
Slytherin has the first Quidditch match of the year, against Hufflepuff, in just a week's time. Dorcas still has a lot of training to get through with her team. Now she is regretting neglecting her Captain duties. Mallory’s flying was still not perfect but she has made improvements since tryouts. Barty and Evan act like idiots during every practice. Regulus doesn’t talk to the team and just does his own thing which is the least of her problems to be fair.
Her biggest problem however is Avery and Emmeline. They are playing together and practicing together but they’re leaving Mallory out as if she is lesser than them. Dorcas has had a conversation with the two but not much good has come from it. Neither has it gotten worse so at least there’s that.
The Hufflepuff team has a very good seeker. They lost against that seeker last year so either Regulus has to become even better than he already is or the chasers have to score goals and Evan and Barty just have to distract the Hufflepuff seeker as long as they can to score enough goals to have the lead that even catching the snitch won’t make a difference.
Dorcas watches the three chasers play with the Quaffle around her goalposts waiting for the right opportunity to get it past her into one of the three hoops. Emmeline and Avery throw it back and forth, flying around in circles until Avery throws it towards the left hoop but Dorcas catches it.
During this Mallory is just hovering around close by. Dorcas figures she doesn’t want to get in the way since her two co-chasers won’t pass to her anyway so she just watches and observes.
Dorcas throws the Quaffle as far as she possibly could expecting Avery and Emmeline to race after it, and they do. She shakes her head and sighs at how predictable her teammates are. How will they ever win the Quidditch cup with a team like this?
She looks over to where Mallory is still hovering on her broom and catches her attention by calling her over and she does.
“I need you to take the Quaffle from them and score a goal.” Dorcas demands and the girl looks at her in shock.
“I can’t.” Mallory says like the idea terrifies her more than anything in the world.
“Why?” Dorcas asks, showing no sympathy.
“They hate me.” She says very quietly but Dorcas understood her.
“They don’t. They think you’re weak, I need you to prove them otherwise. I didn’t choose you to be on the team if you’re just going to be hovering around every game.” She says to the girl who looks at her with shame. She should be ashamed if she isn’t willing to bloody play the game, Dorcas thinks to herself. She should have known taking a shy, muggleborn person on the Slytherin team would be a pain.
Of course it’s tough for every muggleborn in the school but the ones in Slytherin suffer more than others. They are stuck living with the people who go after muggleborns for fun, to bully them daily. Dorcas knows everyone on the team has called her names, at least once. Whether it’s behind her back or straight to Sawley’s face. Especially Avery has had a lot to say about it, including to Dorcas.
She has been told multiple times by Avery that Mallory wasn’t fit to be on the team. Dorcas needs Mallory to take a stance and prove to Avery that she is fit to be on the team, if she doesn’t they’ll be guaranteed to lose the match against Hufflepuff next week.
“Your flying is better every time we practice, you’ve taken the Quaffle away from me in private practices and you have the best aim out of all three of you.” Dorcas says trying to be more encouraging now.
“But you don’t hate me for who I was born as.” Sawley says and looks over at Emmeline and Avery who were passing the quaffle back and forth again, coming closer again towards the goalposts.
“If you can’t stand up to your teammates, how will you help win the game next week?” Dorcas genuinely asks but doesn’t get an answer from Mallory. She sighs. “Listen, Avery and Emmeline are the kind of people that think they’re better than anyone else, they’re not.” She states and sees Sawley paying attention to every word she is saying.
“They think you’re scared of them and maybe you are, maybe you’re not but right now that doesn’t matter.” Dorcas says as the two other chasers are approaching closer and closer. “They’re not expecting you to do anything, so you’ll take them by surprise, grab the Quaffle from them, get past me and score a goal.” She looks at the girl hopeful but Mallory still looks unsure. “Do it or you’re off the team.” This makes her look at Dorcas with a worried expression though Dorcas doesn’t budge and stays behind what she said.
Mallory takes a deep breath and quietly mutters an ‘okay’ before leaning forward on her broom, racing towards her teammates.
As she approaches, Emmeline and Avery don’t seem to notice the threat coming their way. Emmeline passes the Quaffle to Avery giving Mallory the perfect opportunity to take the Quaffle but Avery notices the girl just in time and catches it before Mallory gets the chance to.
He races faster towards the goalposts but Mallory doesn’t give up and races after him. Avery approaches Dorcas, ready to throw the Quaffle but he doesn’t notice Mallory right behind him. Mallory swerves in front of Avery just when he is about to release and Mallory catches it.
Dorcas smiles proudly at what her coaching methods have succeeded. Mallory swerves around again, bringing her focus on Dorcas, looking her straight into her eyes with pure determination in her own eyes.
“Please do it.” Dorcas finds herself begging. She tries to figure out from Sawley’s body language which goalpost she’ll try to score in but she can’t figure it out as Mallory keeps staring at Dorcas, not breaking any eye contact.
Mallory comes closer and closer but Dorcas doesn’t see any intention of her actually throwing the Quaffle as she is still holding it under her arm instead of in her palm, ready to throw. But to Dorcas’ surprise, Sawley’s actions are so quick that she barely had a moment to think in which direction the Quaffle would go. It went right through the left hoop while Dorcas flew up to the middle goalpost.
Dorcas knew Mallory could do it, she just needed the confidence and she guessed she got that from Dorcas threatening her that she’d be off the team if she didn’t do it. Dorcas’ lips slightly perk up, proud of what she has accomplished even if they might not have been the nicest methods.
She flies over to where Mallory is flying now to congratulate her. “You did well.” Dorcas says and Mallory smiles.
“So I’m staying on the team?” She asks and Dorcas nods her head.
“She got lucky.” Avery says flying over to them too probably butthurt that Sawley snatched the Quaffle from him. “She flies like crap every practice and now suddenly she was able to not only take the Quaffle from me but also get through you and score?”
“Yeah, I smell favouritism.” Emmeline joins in.
“Not even I get past you, Meadowes. Feeling bad for the little mudblood?” Avery says and Dorcas notices Mallory getting scared and slowly moving away from the situation.
“Feeling bad for being out flown by a fourth year?” Dorcas says. Avery knows full well that Dorcas is past doing people any favors even if the person in question is muggleborn and not the best flier.
Mallory didn’t ‘suddenly’ get good at flying. She’s been practicing so much that she has improved a lot the past month. Avery didn’t see her coming and wasn’t expecting Mallory to try anything so he underestimated her immensely causing her to succeed.
Dorcas would never give anyone a pass by letting them get past her so easily. She couldn’t figure out where Mallory was going to throw the Quaffle, she knew where the goalposts were, she didn’t need to look at them to aim it right so the girl didn’t keep her eyes away from Dorcas which made it incredibly hard to read her body language.
Sawley performed flawlessly and she’s not going to let Avery take that away from her.
“Next week during the game, I expect both of you to pass the Quaffle to Mallory and let her score. She’s got the best aim out of all of you and I expect you to respect her ability in order to win this match.” Dorcas says to Avery and Emmeline and as she expected they aren’t happy with it.
“She’s been on the team for a month!” Emmeline yells in anger.
“And yet she nicked the Quaffle from you two who have been on the team for how long?” Dorcas questions them and they stay silent. “That’s what I thought.”
Dorcas leaves the two who are still fuming but can’t come up with a decent argument as to why they should do all the scoring instead of Mallory.
“You did well Mallory, I expect you to do just as well in the game next week.” Dorcas says and relieves the team from practice to go change.
Outside the changing rooms, much to her disappointment, she finds Marlene McKinnon in her Quidditch gear scribbling in her notebook with her Magical Creatures drawings. She can’t help but wonder which creature the girl is drawing though she doesn’t try to find out.
She tries to move past McKinnon without being noticed but her hopes crash down when she hears that obnoxious voice calling out her name.
“Practicing losing to Hufflepuff next week, Meadowes?” Dorcas sighs quietly and turns around to face the Gryffindor.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, McKinnon?” Dorcas says. “Would certainly give you and your team a tiny chance to win the cup.”
“Are you saying we couldn’t beat you?” Marlene asks, closing her notebook and walking closer towards Dorcas.
“How’d you decipher that? Don’t hurt yourself by thinking too much.” Dorcas winks at Marlene and her face goes red in anger.
“I’m not stupid.” She says in her own defense. Oh the fun Dorcas gets out of getting under Marlene’s skin. It’s so easy, she doesn’t even need to try.
“Of course not.” She says turning back around and walking into the changing rooms.