Chapter 9
November 7th 1976
Dorcas Meadowes
Dorcas likes how well her quidditch team turned out this year. Her chasers are in sync and have been able to score against Dorcas during practices more and more. They’ve only had the match against Hufflepuff but if the other matches go as well as that one, they’re guaranteed to win the Quidditch Cup.
Their next match is against Gryffindor. It’s just before Christmas break so they still have enough time to practice.
Next week is the Gryffindor against Ravenclaw match. Ravenclaw doesn’t have the strongest team this year so it’s pretty much expected that Gryffindor will win. Dorcas is confident that they don’t stand a chance against Slytherin though.
Every Sunday morning, the Slytherin team has practice on the Quidditch pitch. Since Dorcas has been up for hours thanks to sleeping on the hard forest floor all night, she has been here long before her teammates had shown up.
To say she is tired is an understatement. She’s exhausted but she won’t let fatigue win. She still blocks most of the Quaffles that her teammates try to throw through the hoops just as well as if she wasn’t tired at all.
Being entirely focused on quidditch also helps her not to think about things she doesn’t want to think about. Like that picture. Marlene drew her and it was breathtaking. She didn’t draw Dorcas in a vicious or rival way at all. Marlene made her look like a goddess in that picture and it’s hard to erase that from Dorcas’ mind.
She can’t figure out why Marlene did that. Why did she draw Dorcas like she doesn’t hate her? She finds herself thinking that maybe McKinnon doesn’t hate her as much as Dorcas thought.
Marlene doesn’t draw anyone else. She only draws creatures. And, well, now that one picture of Dorcas. Not once has she seen Marlene draw one of her friends or any people at all but she has watched her draw dozens of creatures during their time in the forest together. Did she just get tired of drawing Newt over and over again? She could have drawn the manticore though. Why did she draw Dorcas? It’s a question Dorcas can not find the answer to.
As Emmeline is charging towards the goalposts with the Quaffle in her hands, Dorcas readies herself to catch it when she throws.
Though her focus gets interrupted when she notices a blonde girl stepping onto the quidditch pitch. It’s Marlene and suddenly her mind goes completely blank and just stares down at the girl.
The Quaffle shoots past her and goes through one of the hoops but Dorcas doesn’t pay it any attention.
“What’s the matter, Meadowes?” Emmeline asks, flying closer towards Dorcas.
“Uh nothing. Back to practice.” Dorcas says snapping herself out of her McKinnon world and back to quidditch. Which she would have been able to if McKinnon didn’t show up by her side on a broom just when Emmeline flies back into the field to practice with the other chasers.
“Slytherin has the pitch booked.” Dorcas says not daring to look at McKinnon right now or she thinks she’ll lose her mind.
“Newt is sick.” Marlene says which makes Dorcas look at her instantly. “He has scale rot.”
Dorcas decides she doesn’t need to hear anything more. She has no idea what scale rot means but it sounds bad. She whistles loudly with her fingers in her mouth.
“Practice is over!” Dorcas announces and flies down immediately. She figures McKinnon is following her but she doesn’t bother to look.
She doesn’t get changed. She just drops her broom next to the tent of the changing rooms and carries on to the Forbidden Forest as fast as she can.
“We need chili to rub on the rotting parts.” Marlene says as they’re about to reach the habitat.
“Then get it.” Dorcas demands. She opens the door and enters in a hurry. She picks up Newt to take a better look at him. How is this possible? A few hours ago he was still completely fine. Now his flames are out, he’s covered in spots and he doesn’t move much.
“Where do we find chili?” Dorcas asks.
“Kitchens, I’ll go get it.” McKinnon says and is already on her way out.
“McKinnon.” She calls after the girl which makes her stop in her tracks and look back at Dorcas. For a second she is thinking of thanking Marlene that she came to get her instead of handling it alone but instead she says, “Don’t screw up this time.”
Marlene leaves without another word and Dorcas sits down, placing the salamander in her lap and letting him rest there while they wait on the chili.
It might be a while until Marlene returns with it. Dorcas hopes she’s fast.
As the minutes pass by though, Dorcas thinks she should have gone after the chili. What’s taking McKinnon so long? It’s a long way from here all the way to the kitchens but Dorcas would have been back by now if it was her.
If Marlene screws up yet again, Dorcas doesn’t know what she’s gonna do about her. McKinnon has caused so many problems. The least she can do is to quickly return with the chili to cure the salamander under their care.
Dorcas doesn’t even care about how bad her marks would be if something bad were to happen to Newt. She cares more about Newt. She refuses to let anything happen to him.
It can’t be that bad yet. Dorcas was here just a few hours ago and Newt still seemed to be okay. He still had his flames and he was just sleeping peacefully. What happened in the time she was gone?
Was the scale rot growing and Dorcas didn’t notice it? What causes scale rot anyway? Dorcas doesn’t know, she’ll have to look it up later. Right now they just need to get him better. Back to his beautiful white flames.
More and more minutes pass and sitting here with Newt in her lap, she starts feeling more exhausted. Her eyes are trying to shut themselves but Dorcas fights it. She can’t fall asleep, Marlene will be back with the chili any second now.
She looks down at her lap, Newt is still quietly breathing. “You’re gonna be okay.” She says and strokes 2 of her fingers along Newt’s skin that’s covered in white spots.
Couple more minutes pass until Marlene bursts in and announces that she got the chili. Dorcas looks up at her and sees McKinnon holding an entire jar full of chilis. Bit much, Dorcas thinks, but it’ll do.
“So what do we do? Make him eat it?” Dorcas asks. She honestly has no idea what to do about this. She’s hoping Marlene does.
“No, we’re supposed to rub it over his skin.” McKinnon says and places the jar on the ground. Immediately jumping in action, Dorcas takes one out of the jar, rips it open to get to the seeds and she rubs it against Newt’s skin.
“It’s not doing anything.” Dorcas stresses as she keeps taking more chili’s out of the jar when she feels like the one she is using isn’t doing anything. She shivers when she feels a cold breeze go past.
“It will.” McKinnon says. How is she so calm about this? Newt is barely breathing and she is just sitting there watching it all. Dorcas feels the breeze getting stronger. “He’s gonna be okay.”
“This is your fault, McKinnon.” Dorcas says. She feels the need to put the blame on someone and obviously this is the cause of his little adventure in the wilderness which happened because of Marlene.
“I know.” She says softly. She feels bad, Dorcas hears it in her voice. Good, she thinks, she should feel bad. “He’s going to be okay though.” She says assuring Dorcas but she doesn’t believe her and keeps rubbing the chili over Newt’s skin as the wind keeps growing stronger and stronger. “I’ve seen it before but with a snake, it’s a bit different but since their skin types are close to the same. I have no doubt Newt will make it out of it as well as the snake did.”
Without taking a break, Dorcas is still rubbing more and more chili against Newt’s skin. She figures more is better. Dorcas has gone through half of the huge jar and still nothing is happening. Why isn’t this working, she thinks to herself as she grows more frustrated and along with that, the wind grows stronger as well, nearly turning into a full on storm.
“Hey.” Marlene says softly, placing a hand on Dorcas’, making her stop frantically rubbing chili on the poor unmoving salamander. Dorcas looks up and is met with Marlene’s sky blue eyes and in an instant, the wind completely stops and every little sound is gone. “He just needs some rest now.” She says and she doesn’t even seem to notice the sudden changes in the weather.
“Right.” Dorcas says, still looking into Marlene’s eyes. She finds it oddly calming and she can’t bring herself to look away. She’s afraid, if she does, the storm will start back up again and grow worse.
They keep looking into each other’s eyes. Dorcas is grateful for it, it grounds her. She feels a sense of clarity looking into those blue eyes. She believes now that Newt will be okay. He just needs rest, like Marlene said.
Suddenly their eye contact breaks when Marlene coughs and looks down at the salamander instead. For just a moment Dorcas doesn’t like that those blue eyes weren’t looking at her anymore but it’s quickly replaced with relief when she can feel herself breathe again. She didn’t even realise she was holding her breath.
Marlene McKinnon
“Look, it’s starting to go away.” Marlene says, pointing at the white spots that are slowly crumbling off Newt’s body. The chili burns it off the skin leaving white flakes behind on the ground.
Meadowes looks at it and Marlene notices her relaxing her muscles finally as she watches the rot burn away. She has never seen Dorcas care so much about anything. Marlene always saw her as one of the most heartless people she has ever met. Yet which heartless person would have a reaction like this to a sick creature.
Everything Marlene knows about Dorcas feels like a lie now. She is always so cold and uncaring about her surroundings, but maybe that’s not the truth. She doesn’t know but she does know now there is more to the girl she has hated for more than 5 years than she thought and she can’t help but want to find out everything there is to discover about her.
Like that strange wind that came as fast as it went away, and that happened the moment Dorcas looked into her eyes. She can’t help but think Meadowes caused it, but why?
“So what do we do now?” Dorcas asks, looking at Marlene as if she has all the answers and will fix everything. Maybe Dorcas hopes she can and she wants to be able to give that to Dorcas.
“We wait.” Marlene says and Dorcas sighs, she was clearly hoping they could do something to speed up the process. “I can stay with him, you can go change.” She suggests as Dorcas is still in her quidditch gear.
Dorcas looks at her as if she just said she is going to murder her entire family. “I’m not leaving him.” She threatens.
“Okay.”
Marlene takes her notebook out of her bag and opens it to the last page she drew on. Her eyes land on the picture she drew last night of Meadowes. She didn’t even realise she was doing it until she was halfway through and then she just couldn’t stop. It was like she wasn’t in control but just had to draw her.
Meadowes saw it. Marlene knows she did. Dorcas had left her a note right on top of it. She wonders what the girl thought of it. Knowing her, she probably didn’t like it at all. She probably found it very creepy and unsettling. Marlene doesn’t blame her though, she’d think the same if it was the other way around.
To be fair, she, herself, doesn’t know why she drew her. She could have drawn the manticore or even another one of Newt. But she couldn’t take her eyes off of Meadowes so she drew what she was looking at.
She’s tempted to draw another one as she looks at Dorcas who’s not taking her eyes off of Newt watching all the white spots leave Newt’s body slowly. Marlene feels a smile creep on her face watching the girl.
Failing to stop the urges, she picks up her quill and starts drawing the scene in front of her. She doesn’t care if Dorcas finds it creepy. She just wants to capture this moment where Dorcas is so soft and caring. An image not a lot of people see, Marlene assumes.
Both Dorcas and Marlene had stayed the whole day with Newt. They skipped lunch and dinner and Marlene also missed breakfast since she searched for Dorcas straight away when she noticed Newt’s scale rot. They didn’t want to leave until they could see that Newt was better.
He hasn’t gained his full strength back but by the time they left, Newt had gotten up and he reignited his flames by himself so they figured it was safe to leave him.
Dorcas didn’t want to leave at first but Marlene made her see that there was nothing else to do for him. Dorcas eventually complied, probably eager to sleep in her bed tonight and not on the forest floor again, Marlene certainly is.
She enters the common room. It’s almost curfew. She sits down on the sofa in front of the fireplace where she and her friends usually hang out at night. The common room is practically empty, 2 fifth years are by the bookshelves studying but other than that there is no one there.
Lily is probably with Pandora, though she always comes back before curfew. She doesn’t know where Mary could be though. Maybe she’s up in the dorms already.
Marlene takes out her notebook once again and opens it to the drawing she did earlier today of Meadowes and Newt. She stares at it and can’t help but smile at the picture. It’s hard to hate someone who looks the way Dorcas looks down in complete worry at Newt. Marlene can’t quite remember why she hates the girl in the first place when she looks at the picture.
“There you are, Marls, where have you been all day and yesterday?” Mary’s voice breaks through her and she shuts her notebook in a hurry to then look up at Mary who just came down from the dorms.
“Newt was sick so I spent the entire day in the forest with him and Meadowes.” Marlene says and pretends to be annoyed by it. Despite the awful situation they were in, Marlene didn’t really have a bad time. “He’s okay now.”
“More than 24 hours trapped with Meadowes and both of you are still alive?” Mary says like it's unbelievable.
“Almost didn’t.” It’s not really a lie, Marlene thinks when Newt escaped she feared Meadowes would kill her though now she thinks she wouldn’t be capable of killing Marlene no matter how much she hates her. The way Dorcas looked into her eyes and instantly the weird wind stopped, it had to mean something though she can’t point out what exactly.
“I saved you some dinner.” Mary says. “Figured you’d be hungry.”
“You’re the best friend ever.” Marlene says and launches herself at Mary to hug her. “What would I ever do without you?”
“Die of starvation.” Mary jokes and they both laugh. “It’s upstairs in our dorm.” Marlene nods, she’ll eat it later.
“Where is everyone else?” She asks as she looks around the empty common room. Usually at this hour the room is still filled with her friends talking and laughing or when they have a lot of school work they’re sitting in silence studying. But very rarely, it’s empty in the common room at this hour.
“I was just with Sirius in his dorm, don’t know about the other three though, according to Sirius they’re off on marauders business.” Mary explains. “Whatever that means.” Marlene finds the entire situation with the four boys incredibly confusing. No one has told Marlene and Mary why Sirius had been cast out the way he has.
He was kicked off the quidditch team, he moved dorm rooms, he has detention nearly everyday and for a long period of time Remus, James and Peter didn’t speak a word to him.
James and Sirius seem to have worked out their issues and they’re talking like normal again. Nothing can keep those two separated for too long.
Peter seems to tolerate Sirius’ presence in the group again though he seems to have more issues that need solving.
Remus still seems to avoid Sirius as much as possible but Marlene has seen them talking to each other again.
Obviously Marlene has asked all of them what’s going on with them but never does she receive a straight answer. Eventually she gave up trying to figure out the drama between the boys. It never affected her individual friendships with each of them. But the dynamic in the group did change.
She has gotten closer to Sirius. He only seemed to be hanging out with her and Mary. They had no reason to be mad at him so they weren’t despite that the rest of their friend group were. They spend a lot of time together in class and outside of class more than usual since Sirius wasn’t always around the three other boys.
‘And well you can take a wild guess where Lily is right now.” Mary says.
“Pandora.” Marlene says and Mary nods. Of course, Lily spends every waking moment with Pandora. It’s kind of sickening how much those two love each other. It’s like one can’t live without the other.
Of course Marlene is happy for her friend but she misses her too. They don’t see much of Lily anymore. They see her when they’re about to go to sleep and in the morning when they get ready for the day. Every second outside of class, she spends it with Pandora.
“Why is Sirius up there if the others are playing pranks?” Marlene asks Mary though she knows Mary won’t have the answers. She’s been left in the dark as much as Marlene has been. “I thought they made up?”
“I thought so too, apparently they have more stuff to work through.” Mary replies, shrugging her shoulders.
“They’re so dramatic.” Marlene says and just then the portrait of The Fat Lady opens and Lily walks in.
“You’re later than usual.” Mary says. “We were beginning to worry that Pandora kidnapped you.” She jokes which makes Marlene snort out a laugh.
“Ha ha.” Lily says, clearly tired of their constant teasing about Pandora. The girl is so head over heels in love with her girlfriend, she probably wouldn’t mind being kidnapped by her. “Dorcas came a little before curfew,” Lily says, looking at Marlene to take a pause before she continues. “She was upset, and angry mostly.”
“It wasn’t my fault!” She jumps to her own defense knowing what Lily is implying by the way she is looking at her. “Maybe a little.” She corrects herself when she feels the guilt in her chest about not closing the door and letting Newt run free in the Forbidden Forest.
Marlene wonders what Dorcas would have said to Lily about the whole thing. Did she just express her frustration about Marlene causing Newt to get sick. Or did she mention the looks, the drawing, the strange wind?
“She wouldn’t say much while I was there, eventually Pandora told me I’d better go so that’s when I left.” Lily says and Marlene already knows what she’s going to say next. “What happened?”
She doesn’t want to talk about what happened. She feels guilty for what she did but now Newt is okay and it’s all good. The details in between are too messy for Marlene to process right now let alone tell her friends about it.
She has openly hated Meadowes for years and now she isn’t quite sure what she feels for the girl but she is certain the hatred has lessened.
She thinks through all the events of yesterday evening and the entirety of today and it’s all too much. Lily and Mary are expecting an answer and Marlene doesn’t know what to say. So she says the only thing she can say and hopes she can get out of it, “I don’t want to talk about it, I just want to eat and sleep.”
Dorcas Meadowes
Even with Pandora, Dorcas doesn’t share everything about herself. She knows her better than anyone but still she keeps most things completely private.
She came straight to the Astronomy Tower not even going to change out of her quidditch gear, hoping to be alone. But when she found Pandora and Lily in there, she was secretly grateful for it.
Seeing Pandora made her want to tell everything to her and that’s what she did and she wasn’t able to stop herself.
She was rambling, she wasn’t making much sense which is unusual for Dorcas. She’s always clear-headed and always straight to the point but for some reason, this time she couldn’t.
She tried to be careful not to say too much while Lily was still there. Pandora sent her away eventually which Dorcas was grateful for. She didn’t want to go through all the Marlene stuff with said girl’s best friend in the same room.
After she left though, Dorcas spilled every little detail about what happened.
She started talking about the party when McKinnon called her beautiful. She told Pandora about Marlene letting Newt escape. Then the manticore, the drawing, the way Marlene wouldn’t stop looking at her following with all of the events of the day.
She didn’t know what to think of it all, she still doesn’t but she is glad she was able to talk about it with her best friend. Who knew talking could bring so much relief? Dorcas didn’t, until now. It doesn’t mean she’ll keep doing it. Hell no, not again.
She hasn’t allowed herself to feel so many emotions at once so strongly in years. She’s furious with McKinnon for the trouble she caused yet at the same time she feels cared for and hopeful for every kind thing Marlene did. But then she is scared of what all of that means.
Before this year, Marlene hasn’t said one kind word to her. She is used to the girl’s obnoxious and hateful behavior towards her. Now that it’s changing, she feels overwhelmed. She wasn’t made to feel this much.
She doesn’t want Marlene to take care of her or snap her out of her ‘magical accidents’. She needs Marlene to keep hating her so Dorcas can do the same.
“Do you think it’s crazy of me to think that McKinnon might l-“ She says after a couple of minutes of silence when she finished telling her best friend everything. But she can’t bring herself to finish the sentence. She can’t even think about it.
Even if she does, Dorcas can’t allow herself to get closer to McKinnon. It’s too much for her to handle. She doesn’t want to handle it.
“I know you’ll hate hearing this but,” Pandora starts, Dorcas closes her eyes preparing herself for the words coming from Pandora next. “I think she does.”
“No.” Dorcas doesn’t accept it.
“You want it.” Pandora says because she knows Dorcas. She does want it. She wants it more than anything.
“I can’t want it.” She says and looks at Pandora and for the first time in years she feels a tear rolling down her cheek.
Pandora wipes it away with her thumb and gives Dorcas a reassuring smile. “I know.” She says. Dorcas isn’t fond of physical touch but in that moment she breaks down and launches herself to cling to Pandora for dear life as more tears fall down her face.
She hasn’t cried since she was a child. Not a single tear has shed from her eyes since she started Hogwarts. She forgot how it feels.
It’s an awful feeling. She can’t breathe properly and her eyes are starting to hurt.
“It’s not fair.” She says as she thinks about Marlene and what they could be if Dorcas could just feel like any other person can. It’s not fair Pandora and Lily can have that, and she can’t.