A True Witch
“Keep your head up high and stay proud. You are a Selwyn. Perhaps not in name, but in blood”
Those had been her mother’s words to her when her letter arrived. It had seemed so much simpler back then.
Keeping your head high is easy when amongst those who respect and love you. It was much harder to stay proud within the gossip mill. Especially a gossip mill poised against you.
If she had been any other First year, the mill would have mostly ignored her. But her reputation preceded her.
Dorcas Arwen Meadowes was an anomaly. Her mother was the notorious Calliope Selwyn, the wizarding world’s own Juliet. The summer after graduation, when everyone had been expecting news of an engagement to the wild playboy Alphard Black, Calliope had abandoned her duties and ran off with a poor Muggle dockworker.
Dorcas was the result of that misaligned love affair and as such occupied a precarious position in society as true half-bloods always did. Too pure for the rabble and too dirty for the top of society.
This was something she had always been vaguely aware of. But now it stared her in the face, clear as day.
She heard titters as she walked past a small group of third year girls, she resisted the urge to snap at them by recalling another piece of her mother’s advice.
“You are above the masses Dear, don’t stoop to their level. Show them what a true witch looks like.”
So she walked past them, cool as a freezing charm.
They weren’t the only ones but Dorcas kept true, summoning her inner Narcissa Black as she sashayed to a lovely section of compartments near the back.
When she found a suitable compartment, she utilised her mother’s lessons and levitated her trunk up into the compartment and then attempted to daintily perch herself upon the leather seat.
She nervously tucked her dark braids behind her ear. Her mother had told her that all the Sacred set used to come back here, yet so far not even a clueless muggleborn had wandered into the area.
Had her mother misremembered? Had they changed meeting spots since her time? Or had they purposely chosen to forgo their usual spot in hopes to avoid that scandalous Meadowes girl?
Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on her compartment door. Dorcas slid open the door to see her first arrivals; Two girls about her age, one with gorgeous platinum hair and alabaster skin and the other with bouncy strawberry blonde ringlets and sky blue eyes as big as a baby crup’s.
She quickly sunk into a polite curtsy and prayed her mother’s etiquette lessons paid off. The girls reciprocated with light curtsies, more like delicate bobs then traditional curtsies.
Ah, Dorcas thought, that was her status among them then. Light curtsies like that were for peers. These girls had acknowledged her and had decided to accept her at their status. Somehow such a small gesture curbed her fears.
She soon gained the courage to introduce herself and said, in what she hoped was a steady ladylike voice, “Hello I’m Dorcas Meadowes”
“I’m Pandora Malfoy” the pale girl said in a light airy voice “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance”
“The pleasure is all mine” Dorcas assured, feeling confident in the niceties being exchanged.
She then turned her attention to the other girl who brashly announced herself to be Morgana Fawley.
“Welcome to my little compartment, girls.”
The girls came in and quickly made themselves at home in the compartment.
And sitting there in between the two witches, Dorcas felt as if she had passed some sort of initiation.
“You are a Selwyn” her mother had said to her every single day of her life but for the first time ever, Dorcas truly felt like one.