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-O-
Dorcas stared despairingly at the proposal on her desk. This was madness! Insanity! She couldn't put it forward; it would be a crime in on itself! Centaurs were intelligent creatures with their own culture and society; they were sentient! How could she in good conscience propose a law making it legal to hunt them like animals? How would it be any different than Muggle hunting? It was immoral, twisted, depraved! Yet, what could she do? Evan knew about this proposal, he had come up with the idea for it, in fact. If she didn't present it on the meeting today he'd know something was up, and that could lead into an investigation and end up blowing her cover.
Maybe, a small voice whispered in her ear, Minchum would veto it. Maybe she could put it forward and hope that the Ministry just wouldn't let it pass? A dark chuckle escaped her the second the thought entered her head. The Minister for Magic having any say in the goings on at the Ministry—what a joke. The only thing that buffoon was good for was to keep up the illusion that the damn place still had some semblance of autonomy, but anyone actually working at the Ministry knew who really pulled the strings.
Knock knock knock.
Dorcas looked up, only to see her boyfriend leaning against the door frame.
"You ready for the meeting?" Evan said, taking a step inside.
"Just about," Dorcas replied quickly, shoving the proposal in a parchment folder.
"You don't have to be nervous." Evan drew closer, smiling slightly at her. "The Dark Lord knows you are loyal. They'll pass it."
Dorcas returned the smile and stood up, trying to resist the sudden urge to scratch the tattoo on her forearm. "I'm not nervous. Let's go."
-oOo-
Much later, when Dorcas arrived in the Order HQ and unceremoniously burst into the house, the first thing she said was, "It passed."
The members of the Order of the Phoenix scattered around Moody's living room turned to look at her, their faces a mixture of surprise and dark acceptance. Gideon cursed under his breath.
Mad-Eye was the first to speak. "Well, if we had any doubts about it before, it's confirmed now. Minchum was completely lost control of the Ministry."
Fabian scoffed. "Doubts? Was someone here doubting it? Last month they made Acromantula Eggs, Manticore Venom and Werewolf Claws legal tradable goods! The import laws are becoming beyond ridiculous, and the Chief of the Department can't do a thing about it!"
Frank nodded. "The Aurors feel it as well. Instead of chasing suspected Death Eaters, we're being handed 'criminal cases', 90% of which are Muggle-borns that have no idea what the charges against them are. This wool they're trying to pull over everyone's eyes is more transparent than a Demiguise."
"There must be something we can do about this," Edgar piped up. "We can't just leave the Ministry as Voldemort's puppet forever!"
"And what do you propose, Bones?" Moody growled. "Should we storm the Atrium and fire hexes at anyone in sight? Corruption isn't something you can point a wand at."
"The only way to get the Ministry back is to defeat him," Elphias added, nodding wisely.
"We don't have time for this!" James interrupted, surging to his feet. "There'll be time for political debates later; right now what we need to do is warn the centaur tribes. It won't be long before someone takes advantage of this new law and takes a hunting party to the nearest forest."
"You speak as if centaurs are easy to hunt," Caradoc drawled with a roll of his eyes. "They'll be just fine."
James whirled on him. "Are you out of your mind?! We can't just sit here while they're being hunted for sport!"
"Dragons are hard to hunt too, Dearborn," Sirius added lazily from his armchair. "Do you see many of them around? Do you remember why that is, or did your streak of Ts extend to History of Magic as well?"
Caradoc's face turned red, but Remus, ever the peacemaker, stood up with his hands up in a pacifying gesture. "Even if centaurs are able to defend themselves, we should still warn them. At the very least they'll be ready for an ambush, when it comes."
"Potter's right," Moody said. "Enough petty squabbles. We'll go to the biggest known tribes tonight, give them a heads up. The Potters will take Thetford Forest; The Longbottoms—Forest of Mercia; Lupin and Pettigrew—Kinver Forest; Dearborn and Dogde—Delamere Forest; the Prewetts—Whiteleaf Hill; McKinnon and Podmore—Heartwood Forest; Black and Meadowes—Winterfold Forest. I'll take Dung to Backmuir Wood. Everybody got that?"
Murmurs of agreement accompanied the screeching of chair legs against the wooden floor as the pairs found each other and headed to the door, ready to Apparate to their location. Dorcas and Sirius shared a charged glance. They hadn't really had the chance to talk since Dumbledore revealed her true mission to the Order.
He stood, breaking the eye contact, and Dorcas walked out with the others. Looking up at the night sky, she waited.
Sirius stopped next to her; she didn't need to look to know it was him. It had been so long, but she still remembered... Pieces of a forgotten life swirled in her head, images of something that was not meant to be. Kisses on London sidewalks. Buttons of a coat coming undone. Light reflecting off a chain as he puts it around her neck. A steaming cup of coffee she places in his hand when she finds him on the steps of her apartment building at midnight.
One by one, the other couples disappeared, until the two of them were the last ones left standing in Moody's backyard.
"Shall we?" he said quietly, offering his hand.
Dorcas finally looked at him, then down at his hand, apprehensive, almost afraid to take it. It had been more than three years since the last time she'd been this close to him.
"Yes," she said in the same muted voice, slipping her palm in his.
The second they touched, she got that feeling again. Her heart beat fast, static cackled between them, and all those memories, those unspoken wishes and regrets, it all rushed back. Her eyes met his, and she wondered if he could hear the deafening thumping of her heart, if he could still hear her voice in his dreams and still remember at night what it was like to kiss her.
They looked at each other for a second lasting a century, but when Apparition whisked them away from the dark street and to the gloomy woods, the moment was suddenly over. His hand left hers, and Dorcas felt an odd sense of loss as she realised... that she wanted it to last.
"If we make enough noise, they'll come to us," she said, trying to distance herself from that moment of weakness and quickly taking a few steps forward. This was hard enough to let go of the first time.
Sirius, however, didn't seem to share the sentiment. "Why didn't you tell me?" he said, grabbing her hand.
She kept facing forward. "You didn't need to know."
"Didn't need to know?!" he exploded, his grip tightening slightly. "I didn't need to know you hadn't betrayed us? I didn't need to know you had no choice?"
"I did have a choice!" Dorcas turned around, finally facing him. "I could have said no. I could have told Dumbledore to find another spy, but I didn't, and you know why. It's easier for a Slytherin to go undercover; they constantly filled the common room with propaganda and threats. It wasn't that hard to make them think they got to me. Who else was going to do it? You?"
"I'm a Black!" he objected heatedly. "I could have said I've seen the error of my ways!"
Dorcas scoffed. "Please. No one would be stupid enough to believe it, not after what you did when you ran away."
"Don't try to change the subject! This is about you not telling us what you were really up to! Why was Dumbledore the only one allowed to know for so long? Why did we have to think of you as a Death Eater?"
"Firstly, I am a Death Eater," she said flatly, raising her hand until the sleeve fell down and revealed the snake-and-skull tattoo. "And secondly, because I knew this exact thing would happen! You would have never let me do it, or you would have hesitated to hex me out there, or you would have run your mouth and given me away. It was just safer—for everyone—if you knew nothing."
Silence fell on them like a heavy blanket. He still refused to let go of her wrist, and she refused to be the first one to look away.
"And him?" Sirius asked. "Was Rosier just part of the ploy?"
"... That doesn't concern you," Dorcas replied stubbornly.
"Like hell it doesn't!"
One step to shorten the distance. One look in the darkness. Not much, but it said enough.
"Don't," she whispered, though there was no fight left in her. "Don't cross that line."
His hand rose to caress her face. "Why?"
"Because there's no going back if you do."
"Who says I want to go back?"
Lips crashed, and the world ended.