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Dorcas shivered as she stepped onto the roof. It was summer, yes, but it had stormed last night and the night air still held a chill that, while not unpleasant after a long day, still made her wish she’d thought to bring her jacket. Warming charms never felt quite as good, after all.
“There you are,” she said, a helpless kind of smile gracing her lips as she finally found the object of her query.
At the sound of her voice, Marlene, who’d been sitting on the ledge and staring up into the night sky, startled backward. “Dorcas?!” she asked, her voice bright with surprise as she scrambled up to her feet. “What are you doing here?”
“I told you,” Dorcas replied, still smiling. “I came looking for you. You weren’t home, so I thought you might be here.” She shrugged. “Seems like I was right.”
Marlene’s surprise eased into a softer smile as Dorcas approached. “You know me too well.”
“No such thing,” Dorcas retorted, grinning fondly.
They didn’t speak of it, but Dorcas slid down to sit on the ledge, and Marlene followed, retaking her former spot.
Their fingers grazed, sending a jolt through Dorcas’s chest, and she hooked their pinkies together with a sigh.
“I missed you, you know,” she said, the words bigger than they seemed in this quiet darkness.
She saw Marlene swallow. “I missed you too,” Marlene replied.
There were so many questions Dorcas wanted to ask — where did you go, were you safe, what happened, did you get whatever you were after — but all that would fall from her lips was, “Are you okay? You look tired.”
She did, too. There had always been a liveliness to Marlene, an inner fire that had made Dorcas love her long before they were even together — before they were even friends, maybe, however long ago that was. It wasn’t gone, now, but it was dimmed, and Dorcas’ heart ached and raged to know something had to have caused it.
She leaned in closer, brushing their shoulders together, the heat of Marlene’s body so close sending a shiver of another kind through her.
Merlin, but every single inch of her yearned to keep Marlene safe.
“Are you okay?” she repeated.
Marlene sighed. “I… I’m fine, I guess.” She shrugged, curling in on herself a little. “It was just a bad day. A bad few days,” she corrected.
Dorcas swallowed. “I wish you’d let me help you,” she said.
Marlene shook her head, letting out a humorless laugh. “You had your own shit to deal with. Your own mission. That couldn’t have been easy either.”
For a moment, Dorcas closed her eyes and remembered. As a former Slytherin, even one semi-publically dating a Gryffindor, she had connections the other members of the Order didn’t.
She’d spent the past few weeks schmoozing it up to people who made her skin crawl and her stomach roil, but…
“It’s not the same,” she said, shaking her head, shifting her grip so she was now holding Marlene’s hand. She faked a smile. “Worst danger I was in was indigestion,” she lied. “Well, and throwing alcohol at Dolohov’s face, because he is simply terrible.”
As she expected, Marlene let out a chuckle at that, and Dorcas smiled back.
“Nobody would have blamed you for that one,” Marlene said.
“Still not very good manners,” Dorcas retorted, though she agreed, and Marlene knew her well enough to tell.
They sat there in companionable silence for a few more moments before Marlene sighed. Her body seemed to sag forward, and Dorcas let out a helpless kind of sound as she surged toward her, pulling her close.
Marlene had always fit so well against her, she reflected, her eyes stinging.
She was glad that hadn’t changed.
Marlene laughed as she cuddled closer. “You worry too much,” she said. “I’m fine.”
Dorcas hummed dubiously. “Seems like it, yes.”
She couldn’t see it, but she could tell Marlene rolled her eyes at her, and she buried a smile in Marlene’s hair.
“I can’t help it,” Dorcas continued. “You make me want to worry over you.”
Marlene tensed in her arms for a second before relaxing with a deep, heavy sigh. She sounded tired, Dorcas realized, and her heart ached even more for it.
"You know, you almost make me believe in happy endings," Marlene said suddenly, twisting in Dorcas’ arms until they were facing each other.
Her eyes shone with something Dorcas couldn’t name, and she wanted to drown in them. She was so, so beautiful.
“Almost?” Dorcas asked, her throat so tight it hurt.
Marlene sighed again, her lips curling up into a bittersweet smile. She reached up, twirling Dorcas’ hair around her fingers. “Fine, not just almost,” she replied, and though she still sounded tired, amusement rang clear in her voice.
Dorcas’ heart soared.
“I just…” Marlene looked away, her fingers unwinding from Dorcas’ hair and caressing her cheek on their way down. “I guess sometimes I feel like this war will never end.”
Dorcas swallowed and blinked back tears, leaning in to press a kiss to Marlene’s temple. “It was that bad, huh?”
Voiceless, Marlene nodded. She clenched Dorcas’ hand tightly in hers.
Shuffling closer, Dorcas asked, “What do you need?”
Marlene shifted to lean on Dorcas, her body soft and pliant in Dorcas’ arms. “Just this,” she said, and Dorcas’ breath caught in her chest. “Just… Watch the stars with me, and keep holding me. Remind me there’s a future for us out there.”
Dorcas felt like screamed. She felt like crying.
She felt… So many things.
Instead, she held Marlene closer, and said, “Of course. Marlene, love, you don’t even have to ask for that.”
Inwardly, Dorcas promised Marlene would be proven right, and together, they watched the stars shimmer and shine, like so many silent witnesses to Dorcas’ vow.