Characters: Dorcas, Marlene
Location: Gryffindor, girls' dorm
When: Shortly after Sirius's "discussion" with Dorcas on that fateful day in November, 5th year
Mentioned: Pomfrey, James, Sirius, Caradoc, Lily, Peter, Severus, Remus
Complete
Dorcas sighed with relief when she got back to the girls' dorm. It was still soon enough after dinner than she hadn't met anyone worth mentioning on the way, and she was glad to be back in the solitude of her room. None of the other girls were back yet. She flopped on her bed, drained. It had been a full day. She thought about taking a run to reinvigorate herself. A twinge in her arm reminded her why that wasn't such a good idea. Dorcas sat up and unwrapped her hand.
It was bad, even after the trip to the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey had just about had a fit when she saw it, even now Dorcas felt a bit queasy about how close a call it had been. She made herself look at the arm dispassionately. It was not a pretty sight. Her hand was a mottled angry red with trails all the way to her elbow, as if she had crushed a living thing in her hand and let the blood drip down her arm. The skin on the palm was puckered, some places rough, others frighteningly smooth, with the letters "tcefe" etched in reverse. She held her hand up to the mirror. efect, the last letters in prefect. She tried to flex her fingers, still looking at the mirror. She stopped when she felt the skin across her palm start to pull. Pomfrey had told her that if she extended her fingers too much, it would start to bleed again. Dorcas tried closing her hand instead. If she concentrated, she could just barely touch the thumb to her middle finger. She looked at it in the mirror again. efect as in defect. Dorcas smiled a bitter smile, returned by her reflection. "Had a busy day today, didn't you, love?" she asked her other self.
Right. That's enough. Talking to yourself is not a good sign. Dorcas was not the type to wallow in self pity. She'd made her bed, and now she was going to learn to sleep in it. She got up briskly, perhaps a little too briskly, according to her throbbing arm. She got out her History of Magic textbook and cracked it open. Madam Pomfrey had told her to unwrap the bandage whenever she was going to be still for a while, and nothing was more sedentary than History of Magic. Arm resting lightly in her lap, Dorcas sat at her desk and began to read.
| | Dorcas Meadows (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1){kind=small} dorcas_gi) wrote in ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif?v=92.1){kind=small} goodlntentions, |
August 17 2005, 08:02:31 UTC 6 years ago
She pushed open the door to the dormitory. She wanted nothing more than to fall face-first into the mattress and sleep for a long, long time. Upon entering the room, however, she noticed Dorcas sprawled on her bed, a rather mangled looking arm draped over her lap. Wordlessly, Marlene approached the bed. She'd heard rumors of course.
"So that's what Sirius was so worked up about, eh?" she raised her eyebrows knowingly, moving over to her own bed and unlacing her shoes. "You're quite the icon aren't you? Standing up for all that's good and noble by charing your fingers off?"
August 17 2005, 13:25:42 UTC 6 years ago
August 17 2005, 14:40:18 UTC 6 years ago
She tried to gague Dorcas' reaction, but her eyes fell again to her friend's arm. "Going to scar, is it? What were you thinking, anyway, reaching into the fire like that? Have you gone mad? Dorcas, surely there was a better way to get your point across..."
August 17 2005, 15:25:58 UTC 6 years ago
She followed Marlene's gaze down to her arm. She fought the impulse to hide it underneath the sheets. Honestly, Dorcas had been asking herself the same question ever since it happened, why had she done it?
"Well, I was angry. The boys had just jumped Snape in the courtyard, and Remus didn't do a thing to stop them. Yes, I know, it's hard to stand up to your mates, but he's a prefect, it's his job, and if he couldn't do it, he shouldn't have accepted the badge. I mean, he wants to be an Auror for heaven's sake, he needs to be able to stand up to people!" Dorcas realized she had raised her voice and took a moment to calm herself.
"Anyway," she continued, at her normal volume. "I was confronting him about it later, but he wouldn't talk about it, not really, so I got upset and threw his badge on the fire. Oh Marlene, the look on his face..." Dorcas remembered the image vividly. Shock and hurt, and all her doing. "Then there he was, on his hands and knees, scrambling for the badge with the poker. And I just looked down at him. And I felt like a brute, like I had just kicked a puppy. But at the same time, I think I hated him for it too. Hated him for being a puppy, for being so easily hurt." Dorcas stopped. Her feelings were very complicated, hard to understand, and even harder to put into words. "So I burned my hand at him."
"But it should be all right," she added hurriedly. "It looks like hell, and I guess there was some sort of varnish on the badge that sort of got in, but Pomfrey's a wonder, did all kinds of crazy stuff to it. She wanted to keep me there, but let me come back here if I promised to come see her twice a day. I'll get my full range of motion back, but the scars are a bit more iffy. She's hopeful. We're hopeful."
August 17 2005, 20:42:54 UTC 6 years ago
"I see," she pursed her lips. "I mean, I see your point. About Remus," though the look on his face she imagined, when Dorcas dropped his beloved badge into the fire, pained her. "He has a lot of issues with his self-concious. It's like he's afraid his friends would leave him." She crossed her arms over her stomach, wriggling her feet to get them under the blankets. "Why, though? They're so loyal to each other. Too loyal. What reason would Remus ever have to even think that they would abandon him?"
"But really, Dorcas," she continued, scrunching up her nose. "They're boys. It's not worth burning your hand over, and it's certainly not worth kicking a puppy." She watched Dorcas squirm uncomfortably on the bed. "I'm sure you'll be fine, though. Pomfrey's really a wiz with that kind of thing."
August 17 2005, 22:46:47 UTC 6 years ago
Dorcas got up and sat on the edge of Marlene's bed. She hoped Marlene would hold her, one of those big, enveloping, "everything's going to be fine" hugs that mothers give. Or that mothers are supposed to give, Dorcas couldn't remember the last time she got one from her own. Maybe Marlene would just know. She was good about things like that, the big sister things. Dorcas didn't like herself very much at the moment. She wanted to be honest with Marlene, about how she was feeling so they could work it out together, but was worried that then Marlene wouldn't like her very much either.
She tried telling Marlene the other thing that was bothering her. "See, that's the problem, he's not just a boy. Black can insult me until his tongue falls out and I couldn't care less. But Remus is a good person, and I'm afraid that he won't forgive me." She took a deep breath, looking dejected. "And I'm also afraid that he will forgive me when he shouldn't."
August 18 2005, 02:40:46 UTC 6 years ago
August 18 2005, 03:43:29 UTC 6 years ago
Marlene squeezed her hand and smiled and told her it would be all right. Dorcas nodded and smiled back. The tension in her body start to melt. It was going to be all right. Dorcas had a friend, someone who loved her. She wanted to say something profound, about how much their friendship meant to her, how sometimes she needed help but didn't know how to ask, how this dormitory was the one place she felt at home, but all she managed was a quiet, "Thanks."
August 18 2005, 03:51:21 UTC 6 years ago