Chapter Text
“Everyone, this is my girlfriend Dorcas. Dorcas, this is.. everyone.”
Everyone at the table looks up from their food. Remus, confused, says, “Marlene, we know who Dorcas is, we’ve gone to school together for 5 years.”
“Yeah but you didn’t know she was my girlfriend, and now you do.” She says matter-of-factly and takes a seat on the bench in front of me, pulling Dorcas now with her.
Everyone, including Dorcas, tries to hide their tittering by going back to eating, because we all did in fact, know they were dating. Sirius is the only one who fails, turning it into a loud, violent coughing fit. This causes Marlene to shoot daggers at him, until Dorcas touches her arm, pulling her attention away.
Things calm down again, and we’ve all resumed our breakfast and conversations when Dorcas looks up and starts speaking to me. “So Peter, Marlene told me that you’re in the choir, what’s that like?”
I feel my face blush slightly, “Oh well, it’s nice, I’ve always liked to sing and we practice once a week. It’s a pretty small group, but that just means we get more say in what we sing so, not all bad.” I say, quickly taking a bite to shut myself up.
Dorcas smiles at me, I can tell why Marlene softens around her. “That sounds lovely,” she says, “Which songs are your favorite to sing?”
I fight a deeper blush wanting to make its way to the surface. There’s no reason I should be this flattered by someone asking me about the choir. “Oh, well, there was this song we did last year, it was all in Latin,” I say in a bit of a rush, then catch myself, “but my pronunciation was a bit shit, so I said we should stick to English.”
“Ahh well, I’m sure it wasn’t that bad, you could always try again, yeah?”
“Uh, yeah, maybe,” I mumble and turn my head back to my food. Thankfully, less than a minute later, James stands up.
“C’mon boys, we’ve got planning to do.” The girls roll their eyes like they normally do, long since trying to stop us from getting into mischief. As I stand and start to follow them out, Dorcas calls out to me. “Peter, let’s hang out soon, yeah?”
I briefly flick my eyes to Marlene, expecting to see… I don’t know, but she just smiles at Dorcas before replying to whatever Lily had just said. So I just give a quick nod, before jogging to catch up with James, Sirius, and Remus.
We make our way back to the common room, they talk the whole time about… something, but I’m too busy thinking about talking to Dorcas. I spent the whole walk thinking about what I should have said instead. About what would’ve sounded cooler. What James would’ve said, or Sirius, or Remus. I think about quitting choir for the millionth time because it isn’t cool, but I know I won’t. My mother gets so excited coming to the concerts, I already know I can’t take that away from her.
“Alright, Pete?” Remus asks, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“Huh? Oh, yeah, alright, you?”
He gives me one of his famous looks, that look that sees right through you, that knows what you’re trying to hide, but he never pries. I appreciate the about Moony. “Yeah, alright.”
We both nod.
Arriving at the portrait hole, we shuffle in, and once in the safety of the common room, we start discussing potential targets for our next prank.
“I still don’t see why we can’t just keep pranking Slytherin as a whole,” Sirius huffs.
“We’re not pranking Slytherin,” James says firmly.
“I can’t believe you, you get a crush on one person, and suddenly the whole house is off limits,” Sirius says rolling his eyes.
James looks at him in disbelief. “It’s not a crush, we’ve been dating for almost a year, and that one person is your brother in case you forgot.”
“Yeah, yeah, semantics,” Sirius says waving him off, “but Snivellus is still a Slytherin.”
“We can’t prank him,” James says, “Lily said he’s off-limits.”
“Is there anyone left in this bloody school that we can prank? Or are you and your partners going to put a ban on pranking altogether?”
James narrows his eyes at Sirius, “Why are you acting like this? What’s gotten into you?” Then quickly turns to Remus, “What’s gotten into him?”
Sirius tries to grumble back, “Nothing.” At the same time, Remus explains, “Mary bet him that he couldn’t go 3 days without touching me.”
James’ confusion turns to realization, then to humor, “How many days has it been to make him this grumpy?”
Remus starts, “They made the bet this mor-”
“Oh just fuck off, all of you!”
We all chuckle while Sirius groans. Ever the drama queen.
They eventually decide to prank Filch instead of any students. Remus and I gave minimal input like usual, contributing more to the carrying out of pranks than the planning. In the last few minutes before we leave for class, it’s decided that it’ll happen tomorrow night, in the dungeons, during Flich’s regular patrol.
We head out, going our separate ways at the staircase. Gone are the days when we had all our classes together. Part of me misses it, but part of me doesn’t. I try to focus on the part that does, otherwise I start to feel guilty. They’re my best mates, I should want to be around them, I do want to be around them. Just not all the time, maybe. And that eats at me. I try to shake it off as I get closer to the greenhouses. Herbology’s always been a neutral subject for me, but this year it’s grown on me. Maybe it’s because Lily’s in the class with me, and she tends to make things better.
Speaking of, as soon as I walk in, she waves me over. We start chatting, and when class starts, sit at a table together. The class isn’t very large since it’s Advanced Herbology, but there are a couple of other people I know. Xenophilius from Ravenclaw, and Frank from Hufflepuff, I chat with them sometimes too. There’s also the Rosier twins, though I’ve never spoken to them.
They seem to get on with everyone, but the habit of avoiding Slytherins is hard to break. Maybe talking to Dorcas will help with that.
After Herbology, the rest of the morning goes quickly, and soon enough, I’m walking toward my normal seat for lunch.
I greet everyone and start filling my plate when someone taps me on the shoulder. I look up to see Dorcas standing behind me. “Hey, Marlene and I are sitting at Slytherin for lunch, but I know you have a free period coming up, we were gonna use it to study, you should join us.”
Before I can even think of a reply, someone on the other side of the hall calls out “Dorcas!”
“Coming!” She calls back. “Right, see you in the library!” She says while heading back to her table.
I sit in stunned silence for the rest of lunch.
And all I can think is ‘Why?’