Chapter 1
Dorcas Meadowes never thought she’d be a mother. Obviously she was a lesbian and despite being a wizard it was still impossible for two women to create a biological child and adoption was a long arduous process but also she’d just never seen herself as the nurturing type. She looked at Lily and James with Harry and saw two people who were born to be parents —hell they’d been parenting their friends long before they had Harry— but she wasn’t like that. If you asked everyone who knew her to describe Dorcas Meadowes in one word she highly doubts the word they’d choose would be “nurturing”. Her love was tougher, it had edges. There was a reason she wasn’t placed in Gryffindor or Hufflepuff; she didn’t value loyalty and kindness above all else, that was not her way of loving. Her way was quiet, pensive, and deliberate. It wasn’t easy for Dorcas to love, she didn’t stumble and fall into it she dipped her toe and if she liked the feeling she lowered herself slowly. There was one exception however. Dorcas felt lips on her neck and arms circling her waist and she melted into Marlene Mckinnon’s embrace.
Marlene was the exception to Dorcas’s every rule. It was impossible not to tumble headfirst into her. Marlene was bright and sharp edged and so gentle it made Dorcas’s heart ache. Marlene was a genius idiotic walking contradiction. Marlene was the love of Dorcas’s life.
“You alright love?” Marlene asked, voice sounding less haggard and frayed at the
edges than it had in a very long while. And for the first time in a very long while Dorcas found herself answering that question with a yes.
It had been a long few years. They’d barely been adults when they were asked to be soldiers. They never really got to be teenagers, reckless and wild going out to clubs, instead they were infiltrating Death Eater meetings and fighting in the streets. They almost didn’t make it to this night— Dorcas couldn’t even count how many times she’d had to hold makeshift tourniquets to her friends bleeding wounds— but now war was over and for once the room was full of joyous laughter rather than terse silence.
Dorcas looked across the room at Regulus watching everyone from a corner. He was the reason they were all here together. Six months ago he’d shown up at Dorcas and Pandora and Marlene’s shared flat with a hollow look in his eyes and a broken locket in his hands. That had been the beginning of the end for the so-called Dark Lord. Long nights spent searching for the pieces of his soul and dark days researching the best spells to destroy them had finally paid off and two days ago Voldemort was defeated and his followers who hadn’t been taken to Azkaban had gone underground. Dorcas knew he wouldn’t accept their praise and gratitude but she could tell he was noticeably more open with his small smiles and sarcastic comments.
Across from him were Remus and Sirius looking sickeningly in love in a way they hadn’t since graduating. Dorcas knew the war put stress on relationships but it hit the two of them harder than most. Many a night she’d go out to the kitchen for a late night cuppa to see Marlene sitting up and talking through the floo to Sirius trying to reassure him that Remus would talk when he felt ready. Their relationship couldn’t immediately return to the way it was before but it was nice to see the couple that had made her believe in soulmates acting like it again.
Her gaze flitted to James and Lily bouncing a chubby giggling Harry between them. When Dorcas first found out Lily was pregnant she was horrified, they were so young and Lily had so much potential to be more than just a mother, but when Harry came along she saw her friend happy in a way potioneering or healing had never made her. Being a mom didn’t mean Lily couldn’t still be everything else she wanted to be; it just meant she had so much love to come home to when everything was too hard. And Harry, well he was the only one who’d not forgotten how to smile in these last months. He made the rest of them remember what joy felt like.
Finally her eyes rested back on Marlene. Marlene had made Dorcas feel more loved than she ever thought possible. Her parents saw her as a ticket out of obscurity, her professors saw her as one of the brightest witches in her class but Marlene just saw her as Dorcas and loved her in her entirety. She knew she would give Marlene everything she ever wanted.
Marlene’s eyes were trained on the Evans-Potters, a smile on her face as she looked at Harry. As much as Mary and Dorcas protested it was undeniable that she was Harry’s favorite aunt. Dorcas loved watching her with Harry, seeing her brash tough exterior fall away to reveal an unyielding softness, it was a magic all its own. Dorcas knew she and Marlene had had vastly different childhoods— Dorcas was an only child in a cold vast house while Marlene had three brothers and a sister and infinite love and laughter cramped around a tiny dinner table— but she also knew they both would do anything to protect little Harry and Neville and make sure they had it better than both of them.
Suddenly Dorcas wondered why she’d never considered having children. Of course there was the biological near impossibility but she was a Ravenclaw she was resourceful enough to find her way around that. There was the fact that a war was raging on around them but that was over now. There was the fact that she didn’t think she would ever be ready to raise a child but then she never thought she’d be ready to be a soldier either. There was the worry that she wouldn’t love her child enough in the way a mother is supposed to but then she looked at Marlene. It was impossible for her to not love anyone or anything that was part of Marlene Mckinnon.
“Let’s have a baby” she said and felt Marlene’s whole body freeze in shock.
“Ummm what?!”
“Let’s have a baby” she repeats voice calm and even.
“You do realize neither of us has a penis right?”
Dorcas didn’t laugh and shake off the idea like Marlene had expected her too instead saying “There are ways around that.”
Marlene gaped. “Ok love you’re gonna have to tell if you’re being serious or not right now” she said (too engrossed in the conversation to retort when a yell of “I'm the only one who’s allowed to be Sirius” came from Remus’s lap). Dorcas nodded.
“I am. I didn’t think I’d want this either but I want everything with you.”
Marlene looked at Dorcas, the girl she’d insisted she hated for three years, the girl who challenged her and always made her better, the first girl she’d ever fallen in love with. “I want everything with you too” she said smiling as her eyes prickled with tears.
“Let’s do this then” Dorcas said, pulling her partner into a deep loving embrace.
——
14 years later
“Ev get down stairs we need to leave in two minutes if we’re gonna make the train” Marlene shouted up the stairs.
“One minute mom.” Evelyn Mckinnon Meadowes looked into her mirror adjusting her robes and Hufflepuff tie. Her blonde butterfly locs hung down to her waist and were tucked behind her ears to show off the thestral earrings Luna had made her. She smiled as she touched the small charm hanging from her ear.
“Alright I’m ready!” she shouted and bounded down the stairs into the waiting arms of her mums who fussed over her in a way that just barely didn’t pass the embarrassment threshold and grabbed her hand walking into the fireplace declaring “Kings Cross Station”.