Knowing Me, Knowing You

Deep in my heart there's a trembling question

Still I am sure that the answer, answer's gonna come somehow

Out there in the dark, there's a beckoning candle, yeah

“If I can dream” By Elvis Presley, 1968

Marlene

Wednesday 17th November 1976

Marlene was late to potions. Again. She and Mary had been sitting in the toilets doing nothing in particular during the lesson change, but just before they left Marlene decided she actually needed a wee. Mary had offered to wait but Marlene told her to go ahead. It was all quiet from every direction, not even a lost first-year passing through the corridor sheepishly on the other side of the stone wall. Marlene decided to smoke her last half-crushed cigarette from the front pocket of her rucksack. She would probably regret that later when she genuinely needed a puff. She let the smoke fill the stall and gently rise up out of the top. There was something so attractive about the way it rolled. She finished up and headed to the lesson, alone in a desolate corridor, extremely late.

So now as she twisted the door knob and entered the room she received a familiar disappointed head shake. Slughorn was never angry, at least not that she’d seen. But he always pulled this frown and disapproving shake of his head combination, meant to make her feel guilty. It never did. “Late again Miss McKinnon, keep this up and I will have to report it to your head of house,” he sighed. He was being sincere but the look on his face and the dramatics made her want to laugh. Not awkward nervous laughter, full cackling in his face. It proved less than ideal a lot of the time. She slipped into her seat at the back of the room as he held his arm out gesturing her to do so. No points were taken off this time. A small victory from months of conditioning the old geezer. 

Meadowes was staring. Marlene straightened up a bit.

Slughorn might not have been angry, but she bloody looked like it. “Where’ve you been?” She whispered harshly. 

Marlene’s jaw dropped and she started exaggeratingly looking around the room. “Sorry? Have I missed somethin’? Did you just turn into a middle-aged Irish woman?” She asked, sounding entirely taken aback.

Dorcas hated her theatrics, she rolled her eyes. “What?”

Marlene followed up with, “Oh y’ didn’t. My mistake, it’s just you’re starting to sound a lot like me fuckin’ mother.”

Dorcas closed her eyes for a minute, presumably to regain some kind of control before slamming Marlene’s face into the worktop. “Are you finished?”

“I’m whatever you want me to be?” Was that an innuendo? Because it wasn’t meant to be. It just came out like that, all wrong. Dorcas raised a brow. Shit. Oh well, it was better to commit to it and play it off now than make it a big thing. She added a massively unattractive wink to top it off. Dorcas scoffed and turned away to look at the front. She placed her chin on her palm and her curled-up fingers over her mouth. Marlene hadn’t looked properly but out of the corner of her eye, it looked almost as though Dorcas was hiding a smile.

Exactly a week later they hadn’t exchanged another word. Marlene had stopped meeting Dorcas in the library at their scheduled time, but occasionally she would walk past with Remus or Lily and see Dorcas sitting their on the usual table. She felt slightly guilty for not seeing to her arrangements but she attributed guilt more to McGonagall than Meadowes who didn’t want her in the first place.

Potions had always been a bit of a shit subject but she was arriving later and later each day dreading the prospect of an hour-long silence. “What are you doing?” Dorcas asked breaking up the quiet air. Stupid fucking question really.

Marlene rolled her eyes “Picking off my nail polish,” she scowled.

Dorcas sighed as if she wasn’t the one asking the irritating questions. “We’ll I can see that but why aren’t you doing the work.”

“Snapped me quill,” Marlene shrugged. “Third one this week,” she added further.

A heavy sigh came from Dorcas nose. “Do you want one of mine?” Dorcas offered. Marlene could tell she was trying her very best to be civil. To make this whole thing easier.

Marlene didn’t want it to be easier. She wanted them to be at odds. Whatever happened on the stairs had burned something about Meadowes into her mind. A distaste if not disgust. She made jokes and was sarcastic towards her but never to be friendly. She didn’t want to share a laugh. “Not really,” she replied.

Dorcas tilted her head looking at her feebly half-attempted homework, Marlene shifted her arm to cover it up. “Do you need a pen?” She asked in a hushed tone.

Marlene gave a frank reply, “Well I haven’ got one and neither do you so why bother askin’.”

The interaction ended there. Nothing more to say between them. In the moments after Marlene thought about how she may have been just very slightly unnecessarily rude, but something about Dorcas aura made her boxed in. Like in a dream where you’re trying your hardest but you just can’t run fast. She was constantly scrambling away trying to give an excuse for her existence, all for Dorcas to ask another question.

Saturday 27th November

Dorcas

The common room was quiet when Dorcas came in from her room. The other girls remained sound asleep while she showered and dressed. She brought down a coat for her excursion, decidedly not wanting to return to her dormitory after breakfast. Students were scarce in the great hall, at most sat five to a table. It was considerably nicer like this. Large golden platters of every food imaginable were displayed intermittently across the table. Despite this most of it was unpalatable. She hated the taste of the bacon and sausages which most people enjoyed. She didn’t mind jam with cream on scones at afternoon tea, but it was too sickly for breakfast. She nearly always had toast, sometimes with a soft-boiled egg, but it was too well done she hated the texture.

She wrapped breakfast up quickly and put on her coat. Dorcas always walked through the woods, it was incomparably faster. The suggestion of trekking that god-awful path the other students took was unimaginable to Dorcas. Hogsmeade was only a ten-minute walk on her route. She got there before most shops had opened but the shops were not what she was after. Dorcas headed straight for the Hogshead pub. Fortunately for Aberforth, her arrival had nothing to do with underage drinking.

She had to knock at the door as the pub had not yet opened. He was quick to appear a blurry face in a grimy window pane. He fiddled with a great ring of keys before shoving one into the lock and turning it. When the door swung open he greeted her with a gruff, “Well you had better come in then.” She smiled at him and then rolled her eyes after passing by him. He was so rude at times.

“Thank you.”

“What exactly is it in this,” he asked sounding predominantly uninterested and disappearing into a back room. “Nothing that could get me into trouble?” He kept the door open with one foot behind him and rustled around with unidentified objects. 

“Of course not,” she defended crossing her arms. Not that he could see her change of stance, but her pitch shot up at his accusatory nature.

He scoffed, “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

She hummed something non-committal. In truth, every interaction she had with him would get them both into trouble. “Well not this time. It’s just something I can’t get here.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

“Okay,” he nodded. “So what is it then?”

“You’re chatty today-” she trailed off hoping he would take the insinuation and back off. Usually, their exchanges were much shorter. More curt. But for some reason, the contents seem to have greatly intrigued him.

His eyebrows furrowed, something flipped like a switch.“I believe I asked a question.”

“Since when have you been interested in my business?”

“Since you had the Prewett twins telling everyone about ‘your business’. I hear everything, Dorcas. I don’t want you in trouble and I’d prefer to keep out as well.”

Dorcas swallowed thickly, how could they be so incredibly stupid as to go around spurting her name? She added a mental note to pay them a visit. She needed to prevent everyone from the fallout of such an incrimination secret. She and Pandora would be expelled without question. 

“It’s a pen Abeforth,” she revealed, surely to comfort him. He was no longer angry, instead, he looked more confused as she pulled another smaller more bespoke box from the larger wooden crate filled with her other usual crap. It was long and fairly thin, brown. It looked similar compared to the boxes wands were stored in. This made her remember she’d left her wand in her bedside drawer. 

“Pen?” He repeated.

She gently lifted the top off, attempting to keep it pristine and tilted in towards him. “Well, it's not just a pen. It's a black senator gold tip. German.” The pen itself and the ink jar lay nestled in a silky champagne-coloured fabric.

He whistled in poor pitch and pointed to it. “What’s that for then?”

She laughed a little bit at his unusually inquisitive mood. “Bloody hell with the questions. It’s what muggles write with,” she said mildly exasperated.

He rolled his eyes as though it was Dorcas making the stupid comments. “I’ve heard of a pen but what’s it for, I’ve seen your handwriting with a quill and you’ve never needed one before.”

“It’s for a friend,” she shrugged, not knowing how to describe McKinnon in any other way without amounting a million more questions.

He laughed, snorted even, “Since when has Dorcas Meadowes had friends.”

She tilted her head in confusion, “You’ve seen my friends. Quality over quantity.”

He smiled somewhat knowingly, even though Dorcas had no idea what he was getting at. “That remains true. I don’t know much about muggles but this friend seems to be a lot more expensive than the weird girl and her sickly boyfriend.”

She argued defensively, “She’s not weird and he’s not sickly.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

“Well, who is this new friend? A boyfriend perhaps,” he said passing the point of insinuation.

“Don’t be ridiculous Ab, I’m far too busy with school. And all the respectable families have trolls for sons.”

“You’re avoiding the question. It must be a girl. Why won’t you tell me who she is?” Truthfully she had no reason to keep McKinnon’s name from him. He wouldn’t know any better. But she didn’t as McKinnon's name should never be uttered in the context of friendship, they were acquaintances earlier in the year at best but that had blown up in her face. Now they were back to disgruntled peers. 

“Because if you’d met her, you wouldn’t want to be associated either.”

“She’s ugly?”

“No,” she replied hesitantly.

“Stupid?”

“Not always.”

“Crude?”

“Extremely.”

At this, he smiled, “I’d like to meet her.”

“Maybe,” she said trailing off. “I’ll think about it.”

The Gryffindor boys' dorm was, frankly, a pig stye. Never mind that a pig wouldn’t be caught dead in here. It was a room that could only be suited for Sirius Black and James Potter. Dorcas couldn’t help but feel sorry for Remus and little Peter. She sat on Remus’ bed, the only one to be regimentally organised. Few people saw Remus for who he was, he was austere and strict with himself. Everything had to be in place and arranged right. Remus said his mum said he’d been like that since he was bitten, always wanting to be clean and tidy. Refusing to touch messy things. 

When he was six and hated painting in school. And when he was seven he rejected other kids who would knock for him to play out. When he, at eight watched the boys running around with a football at lunchtime. When he was nine and refused to learn to ride a bike for fear of falling off. When he was ten and went camping with scouts but refused to sit down on the forest floor. At Hogwarts, he’d managed to befriend the dirtiest people there were. Going as far as falling in love with one. Sirius Black had to be the only person Dorcas hated as much as Marlene. Their only difference is that she wouldn’t gift Black a broken pen she'd found on the floor.

Arriving just after 10:30, Remus appeared before her, his tall frame slinking into the door. He headed straight for the bathroom not even glancing in the direction of the bed where Dorcas sat, legs crossed on his folded blanket. That was another thing, Remus hated people sitting anywhere but the blanket otherwise it disturbed his pristine top sheet. He complained frequently about how James and Sirius would leap onto his bed or leave crumbs.

“Hello Remus,” she stated abruptly as he reemerged from the toilet. To say he shit himself was an understatement, she’d never seen him so afraid of anything.

“Fuck you, Dorcas, why’ve you got to do that!”

“Do what? You walked right past me the first time,” she shrugged, smiling.

“The first time? ‘ow long have you been in ‘ere?!”

She looked at the watch on her wrist, “quarter of an hour-ish, there or thereabouts.”

“Right then. What do I owe the pleasure?”

“I’m returning this,” she handed him the copy of Jane Eyre which technically belonged to his dead Nan.

“Oh, okay thanks. Ey ‘ow come you’re not playin’, James said they had a league match with Slytherin."

“They’re training my replacement,” Dorcas explained. “Mulciber Sr wants me off the team."

“What? Why? They can’t do that.”

“‘A girl is too weak to play keeper’,” she quoted. “Regulus told me he’d just let them play a few league games and hope he’s shit.”

“Regulus won’t kick you off, surely.”

“You know he won’t rock the boat. Prince of Slytherin,” she shook her head. “He wouldn’t dare.” Her relationship with Regulus was extremely complicated. All her relationships were complicated, except for Pandora. The problem with Reg was that he was always silent when he needed to speak. All the Slytherins clung to his few and far-between words and did his bidding without question. But when there was actual injustice and a need for action, he froze and was quiet as a church mouse.

“Do you want me to speak to Siri-?”

“Don’t you dare?” She spoke clearly. “Don’t even joke about that. I’m not a rat, snakes eat rats.”

Remus scowled fiercely, “Where on earth has that come from?” Dorcas shrugged, she did not in truth remember from whom she’d heard it. But she wasn’t the first to say it. “I don’t need to hear the Slytherin propaganda crap.”

Then she remembered they were words of the dark lord, ’Snakes eat rats’. He gave a toast last year at the Selwyn Christmas party. She cringed at the thought of his words in her mouth. “I’m going now,” she said sliding off her place on the bed and exiting the wooden door. She lingered outside momentarily holding onto the knob, considering an apology before deciding Remus didn’t need one. They were not that kind of friends and he would understand.

In all honesty, Remus’ book return was not at all why she’d come to Gryffindor Tower, merely an excuse. And when younger years saw her pacing outside she lied telling them she did not know the password. She raced up the boys’ stairs instead of the girls in nervousness and found herself on Remus’ bed for comfort. Now she’d run out of excuses and found herself outside the girls' dormitories, once again pacing. She thought about knocking but realised nobody would be in. They were all watching the match or playing in Marlene’s case. She would leave it on the bedside table instead. Dorcas put her fingers out to grip the cool doorknob but under all her strength it did not turn. She tried all the usual spells which did not work. No amount of focus on the word ‘revelio’ did anything. She wondered if her words were concentrated enough or if she needed her wand. That extent of effort felt more like a break in so she settled with the fact she could not get in. She placed the parchment-wrapped box outside on the floor with the hope that nobody would kick it away. 

The curious door did not quickly escape her mind. She went up to her hideout to think.

Marlene

They slashed Slytherin well and truly. Their new keeper was abysmal. He let in every goal but one. Marlene would’ve felt bad for the lad if she wasn’t feeling so good. It was such a high to win so easily until James had to go and ruin everything.

“Is Meadowes alright?”

“Yeah,” she shrugged. “I don’t know, why would I know?”

He looked around almost completely avoiding eye contact. He knew Meadowes was a topic of hot water. “I just thought 'cause you have lessons and all. I only ask 'cause she wasn’t on today.”

“Right and?”

“And this new kid was… Godric…” he hummed looking for kind words until he finally blurted, “was shockingly bad. And I heard some of the Slytherins saying she was booted.”

Dorcas was “booted’? What for? Marlene knew they’d won the last game but it was only the one. And it wasn’t all Dorcas’ fault that they’d lost. Marlene hit her far harder than necessary and she was getting almost no help from the beaters on her won team. “I don’t understand.”

He further explained, “Dorcas is a perfectly good keeper. It’s no fun if you just win. With her, it's a challenge.”

Marlene made a purposeful attempt to remove interest from her face and became once again disengaged. “Fucking hell James it’s her or Lily you can’t be in love with both.”

He rolled his eyes. “First of all I can have any bird I want-“ Except Lily, she thought. “And second it’s nothing to do with that I just wanted to know where she’s gone.”

“If you’re so arsed I’ll ask,” she shrugged. Her head spun with all the possibilities of what could’ve happened to Dorcas. Maybe she had a fight with another teammate or maybe she’d really hurt Dorcas and she couldn’t play anymore. Perhaps that’s why she was so angry with her the other week. Marlene felt an uncomfortable twist of guilt horribly similar to that of the night when all the other girls met up.

She skipped the changing rooms and trudged up to her bedroom, Mary and Lily a few paces behind struggling to keep up. She was halfway up the stairs when the other girls made it to the common room. And by the time she'd locked the door and started stripping, she heard their voices outside. Muffled and low. She shuffled towards the door to hear it better.

“-ine, if it was for me they wouldn’t have written that.”

“Well, it's definitely not mine,” Lily’s voice whispered.

Mary replied back quickly, “Maybe it's from Potter.”

“Don’t make me laugh if it was from Potter it would be bright red and would probably sing me a a song before exploding with confetti. Mary, I think it’s hers.”

“I hope so,” Mary let out a stifled giggle. Marlene rolled her eyes and got in the shower ignoring them both. She filled the sounds outside with the rush of running water. The whole room was packed with a cloud of steam. She washed her hair scratching her nails harshly into her scalp and decided to shave to delay her exit as well. Whatever surely awaited her outside could not have been positive. Towel wrapped around her and water dripping down her back she braved her bedroom. Mary and Lily's eyes almost instantly lit up. “Marls guess what!”

She scowled, “Oh god what?”

“You were meant to gue-” Lily sighed.

“You have a special gift,” Mary interrupted erupting with excitement. She held it in front of her with two hands. Absolute freaks, the pair of them. It was probably just dropped by the owl from her mum or something. Although, it had writing on it. “Read what it says,” Mary grinned.

‘Don’t ruin your life. That would be stupid.’ Simple Marlene thought. Blunt. 

“Sooo,” Lily stretched. “Who’s it from?”

“How should I know?” Marlene had a very unfortunate feeling. “It doesn’t say.”

“How can you not know? What about the handwriting?” It was haunting and familiar. It belonged to Dorcas Meadowes. Marlene greatly feared the contents.

“Never seen it before,” Marlene passed off.

Mary's face dropped when Marlene refused to entertain them both. “Marlene my dear you have a gentleman caller and-”

“How do you know it’s a boy?”

Lily chimed in this time, “We just assumed. It's surely not Alice, Emmeline or Emma who else would send you something? Surely not your family, the owl would’ve brought it inside.”

Mary gasped, “Although, the lads can’t get up the stairs so-”

“I’m opening it so you two can piss off,” Marlene announced. It was easier to bite the bullet and find out what dung bomb or other atrocity Meadowes must have enclosed. She squinted slightly expecting something horrible but in the wrapping, she found a box, an oddly pretty wooden box, with clean edges and embossed lettering. It read ‘Senator’. 

Lily scrunched he face up slightly, “what is it?”

“Open it,” Mary encouraged. Marlene did so eagerly. Inside lay a black fountain pen with gold embellishments, an ink pot and instructions. An unwanted grin split her face, she spun it around for the others to see. It nestled in a champagney satinish fabric. Mary’s face dropped into a scowl, “ugh its a pen.”

“A pen? For you?” Lily squinted at Marlene. She rolled her eyes in response. “Sorry, that came out wrong. But who on earth is buying you a pen? You don’t even use the quills you have.”

“Not a clue,” she replied, just barely tucking away her smile. There would be no way to answer the questions if she found out about what Meadowes had done. Marlene could not even answer her own questions about Meadowes’ gift. The other girls left her to her own devices after that, they went down for lunch while she played with the new pen.

Oh God, it was so much better than a quill. Marlene couldn’t actually remember the last time she used a pen, in primary school they always had pencils and then she came straight to Hogwarts. The wizarding world was truly missing out. It glided instead of scratched and there was no interrupted flow when the quill had to be dipped in the ink every ten seconds. Also, there was no constant worry of snapping the quill under the smallest touch of pressure.

It was thoughtful and nice and not at all like Meadowes. Marlene could not wrap her head around it.