Scar Tissue

They didn’t even really know what they meant to each other.

Dorcas kept reminding herself of this fact as she lay down in Marlene’s bed, their fingers intertwined. Her room was filled with trinkets - things she’d collected, mismatched objects that she’d shoved together. It was as if Marlene’s brain had leaked all over the room: Dorcas didn’t understand how the other girl was able to leave her imprint on all that surrounded her. She thought that, if she could, Dorcas would probably surround herself with everything that Marlene touched and simply rot there forever, breathing it all in. 

It struck Dorcas that this was a very strong feeling to have about someone she wasn’t even officially dating. 

They didn’t even really know what they meant to each other. 

Marlene was casually playing with the other girl’s hand - one of those mindless, intimate gestures that Dorcas simply didn’t know what to do with. 

“And then Alen said ‘I wouldn’t trust her with costuming, isn’t she, like crazy?’ and I was like, who the fuck are you to say anything? You’re wearing a bright yellow bow tie and you’re bald. Like, people with no hair and bad fashion sense shouldn’t be making judgements on anything. Anyway, I didn’t say that ‘cause Frank would have had some sort of PR-related fit, but I did give him a stare for good measure.”

Dorcas smiled as Marlene recounted her day, “A stare?” 

“Yeah. Like a really good, withering one.” 

Dorcas laughed at that. 

Marlene continued in a serious manner, “No, you should have been there. It really pierced into his soul.” 

“I believe that.” Dorcas nodded, “You used to give me some pretty withering stares back in the day.” 

“That was different.” Marlene waved a hand, “I’m not jealous of Alen. Nor do I want to fuck him.” 

“Jealous, huh?” Dorcas smiled. 

“Don’t let it get to your head.” Marlene looked up to meet the other girl’s eyes, face cracking into a smile. 

Dorcas smiled to herself. There was something so sweet about how Marlene Mckinnon showed affection. She would’ve thought it would be big, brash and sure, sometimes it was, but Dorcas was starting to see a new side of her. 

As long as she could remember, Dorcas didn’t think she’d ever been cared for in a simple way. She liked it. 

“So… are we ever going to get out of this bed or are we going to spend the whole day here?” Marlene asked. 

Dorcas raised an eyebrow, “Are you complaining or something?” 

“Never.” was the other girl’s simple reply. 

Dorcas leaned down to kiss her before she could get a good look at the warmth on her face. Before she was found out. 

Because to be cared for by Dorcas was to be given an impossible burden. To love someone they had to be warm, fluid, and Dorcas was cold and wound impossibly tight. She’d grown up too small, too weak. She had made herself strong. Sure, she wasn’t perfect, but she was her own design. Like a wrung out, rusted iron gate, Dorcas knew she could survive a storm; everything could decay around her and she’d remain. 

Her mom had once told her how she loved bluebells. 

“You can’t plant them,” she had smiled, “They just grow wherever they want. Everytime I see them, I feel like it’s a little gift.”

Dorcas thought that if Marlene was a plant she’d be a bluebell.

And Dorcas, if anything, had made herself into a weed. She grew between the cracks in the pavement, choking the life out of the flowers around her. 

But when she was around the other girl, she felt that she could let herself pretend that she was something beautiful - a daisy, perhaps. 

They didn’t even really know what they meant to each other

When she left Marlene’s house it was getting dark. She didn’t know how to feel. Her mind was exhausted, wrung out. She returned home - her friends had gone out to a party or something. It was one of those rare moments that Dorcas had the apartment to herself. She turned the radio on and hummed to it, cooking herself a bowl of pasta on the stove. 

It wasn’t until the next morning that she saw it - it was published in the Daily Prophet.

She walked into the kitchen to see four pairs of eyes watching her. 

“What?”

Regulus just pushed the large newspaper on the table towards her. On its front cover was a picture of Marlene and Dorcas lying next to each other on a sunlounger next to the other girl’s pool. Dorcas’ head was on Marlene’s lap. It was a small, intimate moment. Now it was splattered on the front cover of a magazine. 

The words ‘SECRET AFFAIR? GRYFFINDOR TOWER’S HEARTBREAKER WITH NEW BEAU - THIS TIME, IT’S SLYTHERIN’S BASSIST DORCAS MEADOWES’ were printed above the picture. 

“There’s a bunch of quotes in the article from ‘anonymous inside sources’” Barty huffed, “Frank’s working on it.”

After a beat, Dorcas replied. 

“Okay.”

She didn’t really know what to say apart from that. She needed to process everything: how she felt, what this meant for her, what she would do. 

She walked into one of the bedrooms, shutting the door behind her and lying on the bed. The four walls around her felt like armour, protecting her from spying eyes. She guessed that this is what it meant when she said she wanted to be famous - well, congratulations, she thought. I’ve finally made it. 

A few minutes later she heard a knock on the door. Regulus lay down next to her on the bed.

“What are you feeling?” he asked in that straight-forward way of his. 

Dorcas took a few seconds to think of a reply, “I feel… I feel like I was in this bubble and now it has all popped.”

Regulus’ face told Dorcas that he could see every emotion on her face, “It doesn’t have to be this huge deal.”

Dorcas sighed, “But it is.”

It was no longer this small little thing she could manoeuvre. It felt like it had all spiralled. Like everything she did now had consequences.

“I hate the idea of other people watching us, observing our every move, trying to get down to the bottom of what our relationship means.” she continued. 

“It was always going to be this way.”

“I know, I know.” Dorcas nodded, “I guess I just forgot that she’s Marlene Mckinnon.”

The other boy sighed, “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“That.” he replied flatly, “Don’t resent her for being in the public eye.”

Regulus was right. She was being unfair

“I know, it’s just… now everyone’s going to ask if we’re dating and what we are to each other and…” she turned to face Regulus, “I can’t be what she needs me to be, Reg.”

The other boy looked at her blankly, before rolling his eyes.

Dorcas scrunched her face up in offence, “What?”

“Are you being serious?”

“...Yes?”

“Oh my god.” Regulus rolled his eyes again, “Do you even see yourselves? Being around you two is like being around two people who have known each other their entire lives. I’ve never seen two people understand each other so deeply so quickly. Yeah, you act differently, but it’s… it’s like you’re cut from the same cloth.”

Dorcas didn’t follow.

“You have this image in your head that she’s some ball of goodness and you’re everything that’s wrong with the world but that can’t be true because you’re the same - don’t you get it? She gets you. There’s not a perfect version of yourself that you would have to become in order to be her girlfriend, there’s not some secret, horrible part of you just waiting to jump out and hurt her because she already knows that side. She’s lived that side. You’re both people who have spent their entire lives trying to prove themselves. You don’t have to do that anymore.”

Dorcas was left speechless. She didn’t know how to deal with that.

Regulus sighed and picked up the phone from the bedside table, “Call Idoya. She will say what needs to be said better than I can.”

He offered her the phone before peeling himself off the bed, closing the door behind him. Dorcas resented his explosive words and his abrupt escape. She called Idoya anyway. 

“Hello?” her mom picked up immediately.  

“Why do you always pick up so quickly, do you not have anything to do?”

“Oh, it’s my loving daughter,” Idoya replied sarcastically. Dorcas smiled instantly, her mother’s voice grounding her, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Have you seen the Prophet?” she asked. 

“Hmmm.” her mom hummed, “I was wondering when you’d call.”

“Am I that predictable?”

“To me, yes.” Idoya replied simply.

“So…”

“So…” the older woman mimicked, “You’re having a bit of a freak out.”

“No.” Dorcas replied defensively, “I’m just…”

“Having a freak out.” Idoya repeated. 

“Yeah. Okay.” she confessed as she fiddled with the edge of the blanket on the bed, “I just don’t know what to do.” 

Her mother gave a long sigh, “Look, Cas, you clearly like her. I think - and I know why you think this, I do - but I think that you believe that there will come a time when a relationship won’t feel scary, that something will magically fit into place or someone will come along where you don’t feel any fear at all.”

Sometimes, she hated how much her mother knew her.

“I hate to tell you this, kid,” Idoya continued, “But there won’t be. It’s scary. It’s always going to be scary.” she paused a little “Look, do you feel happy when you’re with her?”

Dorcas paused. Happy didn’t even begin to encompass it.

“I feel… at peace. Like a skeleton that has found skin to sit comfortably in.”

Idoya chuckled in that way of hers, “There’s a reason you’re the poet in the family.”

Dorcas also laughed, “Being scared is exhausting.”

“Would you rather feel nothing?” was the reply, “For the rest of your life? Would you rather have to open a magazine and see a picture of Marlene on there with someone else?”

The thought of it made her chest harden, “No.”

“Then do something about it.” Idoya’s voice softened, “Dorcas, you have so much love to give. You do. And I know you, I know you want love as much as the next person - maybe more. And, I don’t know much about Marlene, but she seems like the type of person who has a lot to give. Don’t let this pass you by, Cas. To hide and bury your love… it’s such a waste.”

They didn’t even really know what they meant to each other, Dorcas thought again.

Well, maybe it was time to find out.