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There is a minimal moment. A charged pause. A turning point (so to speak) that forever marks a before and an after in someone’s existence. She didn’t know it then, but for Dorcas Meadows, that drop of clarity came at the age of eleven, with the onset of her teenage years.
All it had taken was a fleeting glance across the Transfiguration courtyard, during the languid hours of a downcast October day. A cosmic pull made her turn, then a chiming laugh, and she was done for. The very second she discovered the leafiness of those startling green eyes, Dorcas was helplessly smitten.
Mairead O’Flaherty was the prettiest girl of the lot. There was just no other first-year like her. It was a mystery how Dorcas had missed (for almost two months now!) her effortlessly tousled dirty blonde hair . Dorcas had grown surrounded by the shimmering fabrics of her father’s clothing shop— to say nothing of her mother’s quaint side of the family —and yet, never before had she experienced something as bright as Mairead’s easy smile. Mairead was a Gryffindor through and through, come what may.
Dorcas hadn’t fully grasped it then, but as months of stolen glances and scribbling on parchment corners followed, she faced a singular, undeniable truth : she was into girls— and not just any girl , but the most confident and dashing there ever was.
Drat and double drat. Dorcas was in a right mess. If Nana only knew, she’d die of shock… or lock her behind iron grates.
Fear of Mairead’s burning presence marked Dorcas’s early years at Hogwarts. She peeked behind books and took desks near her in every shared class, but of course, ogling in peace was too much to ask for.
The first time Mairead caught her looking happened during Binns’s class, and it took Dorcas several embarrassing seconds to realize the blonde's nonplussed look was directed at her.
Shit! Dorcas was practically invisible— or was supposed to be . How did she let Mairead catch her like that? Now, she’d think Dorcas was a half-witted girl and, on top of that, a creep.
Mairead caught her looking at least two more times before third year, until one afternoon, she bumped into Dorcas on her way out of Potions. Dorcas thanked the heavens above that her darker skin masqueraded any flushing— a small reprieve when she went to make a FOOL of herself the next moment, oh-so-cleverly babbling: “Y-Y-Your eyebrows are brown .”
Eyebrows?! It was, for some bloody reason, the only thing Dorcas could voice! And an incredibly daft thing to say! Doubtless Mairead knew her eyebrows weren’t as blond as her hair. The giggling band of girls always by Mairead’s side must’ve thought Dorcas was the most thickheaded girl in school. If only the ground could swallow her whole…
Mairead played Quidditch. She made the team in fourth year, and Dorcas watched every one of her games from the stands— and some practices too. Now Mairead wasn’t the best player on the field; some of her housemates even blamed her for a horrid loss against Ravenclaw that cost them the cup. Dorcas didn’t care. She secretly cheered for Mairead, celebrating each complete pass she made—even when it meant rooting for the WRONG team. Mairead was an angel on a broom, only faster and more fit. Whenever she passed too close on her way to the showers, Dorcas couldn’t help but stare, *boggle-eyed. She took in Mairead’s heat-radiating shape with a gulp, as her eyes traced the drops of sweat down Mairead's flushed collarbone and under the confines of her training garments.
It goes without saying, but Dorcas nearly fell off her chair the blissful afternoon of sixth year when Mairead took the seat next to her in the library. “ Merlin ! Tell me you understand a lick of what’s goin’ on in Transfiguration. I’m in serious need of a bit of a tutorin’ session .”
Dorcas blinked incredulously. Once convinced this was no figment of her imagination, she stuttered. “ You-u-u… Want help from ME ?”
Mairead smirked with that cocky, loudly-Irish, and downright endearing accent of hers. “ Sure, don’t you have top marks in old McGonagall’s class, so .”
“ I-I-I’m… not that good at human Transfiguration .”
Then, her heart skipped a whole beat, for she’d certainly blown her one chance she had of talking to Mairead. Now the girl will go and look for someone who could actually help. Dorcas made an effort not to bang her head against the table.
And yet, Mairead moved closer. Too damn close. “ Ah, bummer. Won’t be learnin’ how to make me eyebrows lighter, then ?”
“ Your… eyebrows ?”
“ Yeah, this meddling girl once told me they were darker than me hair. Has been bugging me since. You known her, no? Always snoopin’ at me with those big eyes of hers, though a nasty cute voice she has .”
She couldn’t have said what Dorcas thought she’d said. If a Nundu had jumped and kidnapped Madam Pince then, Dorcas wouldn’t have noticed a bloody thing.
“ Are you just gonna stare like that all day, then? 'Cause I’m grand with it, but we won’t have any time left to spend on the grounds, and it’s a lovely day out .”
Mairead leaned back in her chair. The corner of her soft, luring lips curled upward while she closed her eyes smugly.
Dorcas had never pulled out her Transfiguration book quicker.
Friendship between them blossomed in a natural and effervescent way. They spent weeks glued to the hip; sharing late-night secrets as easily as chuckling over freshly dewed grass. There was a growing sense of anticipation set aside as they enjoyed their escapades. While Dorcas helped ground Mairead’s unbounded spirit, the blonde girl pushed Dorcas to try new things— and how compelling she was! Dorcas now cheered publicly for Mairead at every game, unbothered by the curious looks.
It came both as long-time coming, and the most blinding of surprises when, one evening, while running away from Peeves, they hid behind a corner laughing their asses off, and Mairead’s hands found their way to Dorcas’s hips. The world came to a halt, and Dorcas’s expression went blank as her heart reached out. It was almost gravitational when their lips met.
They were a peculiar couple— two girls who couldn’t be more different. Mairead was fire captured in a porcelain vessel. Dorcas was kindness in an ebony mantle. And even then, there were no questions or doubts. They fell straight into a bond that, for a heartbeat, felt suspended in time; infinite. Then came the war.
Granted, the war had always been there— a distant rumble —but the moment they graduated it morphed into brutal reality. They’d barely touched the edges of a more serious, passionate relationship when Dorcas decided to join the Order of the Phoenix— a decision Mairead vehemently opposed.
“ I’m the Gryffindor, why should you fight? Let’s go away. Find a place for the two of us! The Prophet says they don't bother purebloods ,” Mairead pleaded.
It pained Dorcas, more than anything, to refuse. But news of attacks had grown frequent, and people they’d spent seven years with had been hit.
“ You put too much credence in The Prophet. Besides, even if that’s so, it means they suspect purebloods less .”
Dorcas didn't share details on her assignment, for Mairead's own safety. She argued, of course, but in the end, Mairead’s shoulders slumped . “ Fine. But when all this rubbish is done, you come back to me .” Mairead took off the necklace that always hung around her neck and placed it around Dorcas’s. “ For good luck. Mum says it once saved grandma .”
“ Isn’t that superstition ?” Dorcas quipped. A small, pained smile touched her lips.
“ I don’t know. But if it keeps you from dying, I’ll take it .”
There was a single tear, a touch of stardust, the pristine evidence of a dream cut short. Mairead caressed Dorcas’s cheek and gave her a tight kiss, full of hope and promise. Then, they said goodbye.
Dorcas returned one summer afternoon. She stepped into Meadows Magical Fabrics with a pixie-cut and eyebrows dyed purple. The top shelves didn't seem that high anymore, but the garments on display still shimmered, more like an unfocused dream than anything else.
She was home.
“ Why, isn’t it lil’ Dorcas? Not so little anymore ! ” A chair scratched the floor, and an old man stood up behind the counter.
There was a hug, and a wistful smile.
“ Haven’t been for a while, Pip. How’s business ? ”
“ It’s wartime, miss. Could be worse though. If we didn’t have Albus Dumbledore for a client, we’d be feeling the brunt of it , ” Peregrine Bloom informed her. “ Your father is in the back. ”
Lovemore Meadows looked older than when Dorcas left for France, where she gathered intel from the Lestranges on the guise of operating a branch for her father’s shop. When he saw her, her father's whole face brightened. He was speech-impaired, but their embrace was a hundred unsaid words released at once.
“Father, what was so urgent? I know it’s been three years, but — ”
“It’s your Nana ,” he hand-signalled.
The Forest of Dean extended in its perpetual state. Light dust and clouds thickened at their feet as they approached the hidden grove. Lyraëll rested a hand upon Dorcas’s shoulder.
“ Thank you .”
The smile upon Dorcas’s mother was ethereal, with that aura that made you doubt if she was even smiling at all. It was the one thing Dorcas never told Mairead about. Lovemore Meadows hadn’t explained his wife to the world; how would Dorcas even begin to share? Lyraëll Thistlewhisper-Meadows was a Nargle, and hence, Dorcas was a half-Nargle herself.
Her wide eyes and pointed ears could pass as human. Only Saturnine Guirnalde— the leader of the Dames Blanches —had ever recognised the Nargle blood in Dorcas.
They reached the secret meadow. Dorcas hadn’t been there since childhood, but the dreamlike setting revealed itself a nostalgic carbon-copy from memory. The Nargles— neither elves nor faes —streamed among the trees as a giggling breeze. At times immaterial, at times solid beings half the size of humans; they made Dorcas wonder how her father had found one, not to say shagged one. A thought she exiled.
Would Mairead have minded?
Rhÿsande and Saerphïn— Dorcas’s full-blooded cousins —met them along the way, and as expected, they teased Dorcas about her diminished confounding magic. If it were for them, life would be nothing but hiding people’s belongings.
They found Dorcas’s grandmother bedridden, voice low as a lullaby’s echo. It pulled from Dorcas’s heartstrings, yet she remained still while her mother soothed Nana. It was a day of emotions and well-wishers, after which Nana asked to talk to Dorcas.
“ I’ve heard you’re caught in a storm, child ,” she rasped.
Dorcas took the chair by the bed. “Didn’t think the war mattered here .”
“ Evil permeates everywhere. But still, that’s not what I meant ,” Nana smiled knowingly. “You left someone, aye ?”
Oh, Dorcas was going to murder her mother. Why did she tell Nana? The woman was old but fierce, even in her state. Nana wouldn’t mind Dorcas fancying a girl, as long as it were a Nargle girl.
Rubbish, in any case. Mairead may have moved on. Dorcas herself had known other women: Lestranges when the mission required; Emmeline Vance when she came for a report on lonely days.
“I stopped writing to her .” For her safety. “I won’t be a disgrace ,” Dorcas half-joked. With tender hesitation, she held the amuletry surrounding her neck.
“Oh, my little-light. Following one’s heart is never a disgrace ,” Then her lips curled. “Besides, it’s Rhÿsande who dared date a Wrackspurt .”
“She didn't !”
Now that was gossip.
A summerlike peace turned more solemn two days later, when they held a Vesperaë Procession for Nana. The very trees seemed to hum her old motto in farewell: ‘Keep it fresh, yo’ .
Afterwards, a snowy-owl swooshed down with a letter. Dorca's aching heart suffocated with each hastily-scribbled line.
“What is it, dear ?” her mother asked.
“Mairead O’Flaherty is marrying Paddy Finnigan, a Muggle .”
It shouldn’t matter. Mairead deserved happiness. Yet, the words shattered Dorcas's carefully-weaved pretense.
“Mother,
Fin… or is it?