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Dorcas Meadowes was careful with her secrets.
She knew how this world worked. She understood that most people she knew wouldn’t hesitate to use her secrets against her if there was something to gain. She knew, because she’d do the same to them without hesitation.
She also knew the price of tarnished reputations in pureblood society; the price of giving people too much to talk about. Everyone did, because Narcissa Black had recently reminded them all.
The headlines had been heinous. Cygnus Black’s Disgrace: Youngest Child to be Disowned? Had been on every front page. Opinion pieces from every journalistic nobody and mastermind to tear apart at Narcissa’s decision to transition and her father’s call to have her back.
It was a big deal. Dorcas understood this.
Cygnus Black had had one son, as far as anyone had been concerned. The perfect heir — as Narcissa had once ceaselessly reminded people.
Over the summer, the news that the eldest heir of the Black family was transitioning had blown up in every publication available. Narcissa Black was a girl and no one expected — barely anyone wanted — her to live it down.
Dorcas had never liked Narcissa Black, but she held a begrudging respect for the way Narcissa held her head high now that they’d returned to Hogwarts.
It’d made her wonder what would happen if the papers found out that Dorcas had done the same, years ago now. What would’ve been if she hadn’t been given the chance to transition outside of the public eye.
No one in England even knew and barely anyone in Italy remembered that her name hadn’t always been Dorcas. She hadn’t told anyone. She preferred to keep it that way. Narcissa had reminded her why.
Better not to give anyone a fair chance at hurting you.
She didn’t fully understand why she’d changed her mind yet, when she entered the Slytherin girl’s dormitory to find Narcissa Black sitting on her bed. Perfectly still, perfectly pretty, looking lonelier than Dorcas could picture anyone being.
They looked at each other without saying anything.
They’d never gotten along.
“Narcissa?” Dorcas asked, and Narcissa only hummed, raising an eyebrow at her. “Pretentious name.”
“Thank you,” Narcissa said, as stoic as ever. Dorcas sighed. She sat down on Narcissa’s bed and pretended not to notice Narcissa’s frown.
“A star?” she asked, only to be polite. To stall time.
“No.” Narcissa did not elaborate. Dorcas knew there was a reason they’d never gotten along. She reconsidered her original plan — maybe it was stupidly naive to come out to Narcissa.
But Dorcas had prepared herself to do it, and she was getting curious — maybe morbidly so — what it’d be like for someone to know.
“You sat down to insult my name?” Narcissa asked, not sounding particularly upset.
Dorcas shrugged. “No. It suits you.”
“I’m pretentious?”
“Yes,” Dorcas told her. She was surprised to see Narcissa laugh at that. It didn’t last long. When it was quiet again, Narcissa waited expectantly for an explanation. A tray of chai biscuits sat on Narcissa’s bedside table and Dorcas took one without asking and without taking a bite, twirling it around in her hands nervously.
“My mother chose the name Dorcas because one of her friends had once suggested it during her pregnancy,” Dorcas started casually, only the fidgeting with the biscuit betrayed she might have been anxious.
Narcissa gave no indication that she cared about her mum’s friend or her nervousness. She was oddly comforted by it.
Dorcas stopped looking at Narcissa. “She picked it for me when I was six or seven. A while after I’d started telling her I was a girl. Back when we lived in Italy.”
Even Narcissa Black couldn’t hide her surprise all the time.
“Do you mean to say that you…” Narcissa trailed off hesitatingly for once, Dorcas made an effort not to show her impatience too blatantly. “Alright.”
She didn’t say anything else immediately. Dorcas took a bite of the chai biscuit, wondering if Narcissa had gotten one of the elves from the kitchen to bring them to her. She chose not to feel uncomfortable in the silence.
“I had no idea,” Narcissa said eventually. She placed the half-eaten biscuit that had been in her lap back on her bedside and looked directly at Dorcas. “No one does.” A brief pause. “I must say I envy you right now.”
“I can’t say the same for you,” Dorcas told her, at which Narcissa hummed with a displeased frown on her face.
In Italy, where her parents had been respected members of a wizarding community not as obsessed with blood purity and family names as England had become, Dorcas hadn’t known much trouble. Her mother, an esteemed potion’s master, had welcomed the opportunity to experiment with transfigurative potions. Her father was every bit as happy with a daughter as he’d been with a son.
As she’d grown up, and after they’d moved especially, kids her age hadn’t had reason to find out. After a while, she’d almost stopped worrying that someone might. Narcissa had been a cruel reminder that she might want to be careful still.
“I hadn’t expected it to be much better,” Narcissa admitted. “I’d already packed my trunk before I told my mother.”
She brought that like it was normal and Dorcas didn’t know what to say. She was let off the hook when Narcissa added “Don’t acknowledge I said that.”
“I thought about writing you over the summer,” Dorcas said, giving the door a cautious glance before she moved further onto the bed, sitting more comfortably with her back against the back post. Narcissa asked what made her change her mind. “I remembered I don’t like you very much.”
Narcissa laughed again. She seemed like a nicer person when she was laughing. It didn’t last long this time, either. “You don’t like me now, either,” she reminded Dorcas, as if Dorcas was capable of forgetting that.
Dorcas shrugged. “Not particularly,” she agreed. “But I used to be the only around here who couldn’t stand you.”
She didn’t like the implications of her words, but there was no point denying it. The Black family’s name meant a lot in their world, but many of Narcissa’s former friends had dropped her like she’d ceased to exist. The exceptions were the Lestrange twins — two boys Dorcas also disliked.
“And you just have to stand out from the crowd, Meadowes?” Narcissa asked her, then took a bite from the biscuit she’d previously abandoned on her nightstand. She looked less lonely than she’d done when Dorcas had come in.
Dorcas rolled her eyes, but she didn’t feel particularly annoyed with Narcissa. “I can get back to justifiably disliking you for rightful reasons when the rest of your awful friends have turned around,” she said simply. “Don’t read too much into it.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” Narcissa promised. A few crumbs of chai biscuit fell on her robes and Dorcas watched, feeling strange to look at Narcissa so closely, but said nothing about it. Narcissa vanished the crumbs with a wave of her wand.
Another silence followed. The other girls in their dorm might come back soon, Dorcas knew, and when they did she’d have a natural way of ending the conversation as abruptly as it required. She wasn’t sure what else to say. She didn’t want to pry about Narcissa’s summer — she didn’t care for the Black family, and the Prophet had done all the nasty digging anyone could have desired already. She also didn’t really care that much about Narcissa.
She very briefly considered telling Narcissa that she admired, even slightly, the way she’d handled everything. Dorcas decided not to. It would only feel forced.
The quiet “thank you,” that Narcissa said next surprised Dorcas greatly. She didn’t know what to say in response.
She considered, again, asking about her summer. What it had really been like, what it was like now still, when everyone knew the only reason she walked the halls as safely and confidently as she did was the perceived protection of her family name.
Narcissa looked less lonely, and terribly relieved for it. Dorcas found herself smiling at her. “You’re welcome,” she said, hearing footsteps coming up the stairs towards their dormitory. She wasn’t as happy about that as she’d expected to be. “Don’t get used to it,” she added quickly. Narcissa laughed.
“I’d never,” Narcissa assured her, just as Emmeline Vance and Elaheh Shafiq came into the dormitory in a fit of giggles. Dorcas turned towards them, but didn’t get up from Narcissa’s bed immediately.
As Elaheh, though desperate attempts at catching her breath, tried to explain her attempted flirtations with Rodolphus Lestrange, Dorcas and Narcissa shared a small smile.
Dorcas absolutely didn’t like her, still, but she was glad she hadn’t backed out. She wasn’t sure what to make of Narcissa Black — she certainly didn’t trust her, and she would have to find a moment to make sure Narcissa wouldn’t tell anyone else.
But the comfort she felt knowing that Narcissa knew, or perhaps that anyone knew, regardless of it being Narcissa Black, was undeniable. It even made Elaheh’s dreamy sighs over Rodolphus Lestrange, a right prick if Dorcas had ever met one, more bearable.
Narcissa even offered her a second chai biscuit, which Dorcas gladly accepted.