you have more kindness in your pinky
than most possess in their entire body. dorcas meadowes entirely (extra)ordinary. hufflepuff. seventh year. mudblood, with a muggle sister.
Dorcas sat in silence as she laced up her shoes. It had been a long while -- too long -- since she had wandered the grounds like she used to, when she was a first year. There were too many questions running rings around her head for her to stay still, although that task was already virtually impossible on a day to day basis before all the theories floating around about Bagnold disappearing.
She bounced up from her spot on the cold, dusty stone stairs and glanced up at the statue in the middle of the courtyard. Some days, she could swear itโs gaze followed you, but today it was stationary. Still. Dull. A shame, she thought to herself, squashing all thoughts of anything else away. These walls, these statues, see so much. Even though the paintings talk -- and move, and hadnโt that given her the fright of her life when she first started at Hogwarts -- there were some things that Dorcas wanted to see do more. Magic, although it seems to be, is not a finite resource.
Sheโs pulled out of her reverie -- out of not-thinking-about-Bagnold by catching sight of Sirius, presumably in the middle of jail breaking out of a lesson.ย โHey, wait up!โ
โYou know,โ Dorcasโs voice was quiet,ย โthe halls really have been far too quiet today.โ She spoke as she turned her head to the person sat beside her, her arm tucked in the crook of their elbow as she glanced up to the setting sun. Her smile was soft, tender, although nearly everything about her was -- her beating heart was still held on her sleeve. Her naivety sheltered by utter disbelief. She refused to ask the question that seemed to be sticking to her skin, the worry that evaded capture, that refused to stay still, until it latched onto another concern.ย โHave you eaten today?โ
One of the stipulations of Ted coming back to Hogwarts to complete his final year was biweekly checkups in the Hospital Wing. It was a pain, to be sure, but he did it without fuss, if only because he knew it provided his parents with some much-needed peace of mind. They nearly hadnโt let him come back at all, and if a few hours in the hospital wing every fortnight was the price he had to pay, then so be it.ย
Madame Pomfrey had just finished looking him over, and he sat on the edge of one of the beds, feet swinging idly below him as he waited for the all clear. It was a quiet night in the wing, so the sound of footsteps entering the room caught his attention. He saw the approaching form of his fellow housemate and called out in greeting before even Madame Pomfrey could turn to address her.ย
Sleep was a rare thing for Dorcas. Not that it was a good thing -- lack of sleep really wasnโt fun, especially for someone who was usually as energetic as Doe, and people had begun to notice. After the party, her lack of sleep was becoming more and more pronounced. The nightmares had been worse recently. She pretended she didnโt know why, but she could feel the restlessness in her bones scratching at her grief, pouring like an open wound at all hours. Smiling was easier than feeling the pain. She wasnโt good at pain. She wasnโt good with pain. What she was good with was being the light, when everyone else needed one.
She barely shuffled past the doorway, the wood door creaking open heavily despite her light touch. Her lips twitched up into a tired smile, not making a haphazard attempt to hide the haunted look in her eyes because she knew Ted could see through it. Some days, on days like this, she thought they were too similar for their own good. Too good for their own good. She raised her hand, giving a tiny wave as she presses forward and launches herself onto a bed.ย
โHey, T. Iโm...โ She tried to think of the right word, of the word that haunted her, but she came up blank. The grief gnashed at her throat with sharp claws and teeth like blades. She coughed, instead.ย โIโm just tired. Need help sleeping, most days. Missed a few doses, but Iโm hoping I can get some sleep tonight.โย
Sometimes it feels like there are so many things in this world that we canโt control. Earthquakes, floods, reality shows. But itโs important to remember the things that we canโ like forgiveness, second chances, fresh starts. Because the one thing that changes the world from a lonely place to a beautiful place is love. Love, in any of its forms: love gives us hope.
When you grow up as a girl, the world tells you the things that you are supposed to be: emotional, loving, beautiful, wanted. And then when you are those things, the world tells you they are inferior: illogical, weak, vain, empty.
And Iโmโฆ just stuck. And thereโs all this pressure โcause everyoneโs hovering around me waiting for me to do something or say something or flip out or yell or cry some more. And Iโm happy to play my part. Iโm happy to say the lines and do whatever Iโm supposed to be doing if it will make everyone feel more comfortable.But I donโtโฆ I donโt know how to do this. I donโt know how to be this person. I donโtโฆ I donโt know who this person is. How did this happen? How did we end up here? Why am I alone?
โโ Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness.ย โโ โ Iain Thomas
001. ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐โฆ
sun or moon?
stars or clouds?
sea or sky?
sunrise or sunset?
early morning or late night?
snow or rain?
pastel or primary colours?
hot chocolate or coffee?
dusk or dawn?
baths or showers?
swimming or running?
singing or dancing?
paperback or hardcover?
misty mornings or rainy mornings?
soft pillows or hard pillows?
pop or punk?
002. ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐โฆ
โฆ forced to choose between saving your best friend or yourself, what would your choice be?
โ My best friend. โ It seems as though thereโs a lump in her throat as she speaks, her voice sure and strong. โ Far more readily than I would save myself. Itโs --- Itโs not right. It wouldnโt be right for me to --- for me to not save her, save them. โ She goes silent for a few more seconds, her eyebrows raising as she asks a simple question. โ Why, what did the others say? โ
If ever youโve already asked a question but already know the answer, itโs this one: Dorcas suffers from chronic heroism, and would save her best friend far more readily than she would ever consider herself worth saving. Thereโs noย โforcingโ about it - Dorcas would choose others over herself in a heartbeat.ย
โฆ trapped on a deserted island, who would you want to have with you?
โ Probably Calliope or Emmeline. Maybe, maybe Lily. Or Alice. I mean, itโs kind of impossible to choose, right? You can have someone you get along with, or someone who you know is better at magic than you, or someone who knows stuff about surviving on a deserted island, or literally anyone famous. โ Dorcas shrugs. The question is more casual than the others, and her shoulders droop as she breathes in and out deeply.
โฆ able to turn back time and given the chance to change one thing, would you?
โ My - my brother. Iโd go back, for my brother. So I could save him. Or die in his place. Anything. Just - my brother. He should be here. โ Her voice is panicked, now. Itโs a question she hadnโt been expecting, and she knows traveling through time is possible - time turners - but she doesnโt trust herself to use them. She doesnโt trust herself to save him without breaking everything. She didnโt save him the first time. Whatโs to say fear wonโt paralyze her again?
โฆ able to see the future, would you try to change it, or let it happen as it should?
โย I mean, if things are happy in the end, Iโd probably let it happen as it should. But iโs not about me or my happiness. If the people that I love are happy, then Iโd keep it the same. But Iโd change it in a heartbeat if I knew the end of all this was anything but simple, pure happiness for any of them. โ
If Dorcas knew what would happen to her, to her friends, her life wouldnโt be the thing that sheโd want saved. No. Marlene dies soon after she does - they think itโs by Travers and his crowd, but nobody ever finds out. He gets her entire family. There are no more McKinnons that will ever grace the grounds of Hogwarts. Gideon and Fabian Prewett - brave, strong, good - are killed by five Death Eaters that same August. The ground becomes hallowed, sacred, and nobody can speak their names without thinking of Molly - poor, dearest Molly. Lily and James have a son, they get to be happy, but theyโre locked away in Godricโs Hollow, and itโs there that they die, only months after Dorcas had. Their son lives, but his life is scarred, and set out for him, already. The life of a martyr. Sirius wastes away in Azkaban, and when he gets his only taste of freedom, itโs tinged by imprisonment in a house he never wanted to call home again in his life, and then he dies, and thereโs no body to bury. Peterโs a traitor, until he has one moment - one shining moment of humanity - and then he is dead by his own hand. Remus lives an entire life without his best friends, goes near mad with the grief of that loss, and after finding Sirius again, he loses him so soon, and then dies himself, too.ย
Emmeline lives. She gets to live, for a shining, glorious number of years, but theyโre numbered. Theyโve always been numbered. He comes for her, as he came for Dorcas, and she dies in the street. Alice is tortured into insanity like Frank is - they become Aurors and are successful pillars of the community and then it happens. They get their happiness, their son, but it is ripped away. Heโs raised by his grandmother - formidable and strict, always criticizing him for not being the father heโd never known. Nobody ever knows what becomes of Regulus Black. Nobody ever talks about his story, or how heโs a good person, in his own way. Andromeda and Ted get married. They have a daughter, with a name as long and complex as Andromedaโs own, but then Ted goes away. He goes into hiding, and he doesnโt come home. His name is on the list of deaths announced on the radio, and Andromedaโs world stops, too, when she loses her daughter as well. Emma Vanity has a career in Quidditch - she lives through both wars, and is happy. Sheโs not untouched by the ravages of war, on either front, but it doesnโt hurl her into the waves like it had with the others. Lucius and Narcissa live. Lucius, imprisoned for far less years than he deserves, gets a pardon at the very end of things - they both see their son grow up, see the son they had raised to be a snake marry, and have children of his own. Mary survived, but, God, at what cost? At what cost? She loses her best friends, her family.ย
Severus dies as he had lived - hopelessly in love with Lily Evans, staring into the last piece of her has left - her sonโs eyes, but he has become someone not even Dorcas would recognize - a man of casual cruelty, who bullies young Neville Longbottom until heโs his worst fear. But there are no more McKinnonโs. No more Meadowes. No more Prewettโs. No more Blackโs. No more Tonksโ. The war that they had thought would be final isnโt. They are raised to become soldiers, some less touched by this reality than others, but it comes to them in the end, and one by one, their lives are torn apart. But, in the end, they get to be happy. Thereโs happiness even in their failure to surely end things. They donโt get to live until their eighties, sit back on their rocking chairs and reminisce about the old days. They die young, but some of their children live. They fight like hell to live, but they do. Itโs the question of whether or not itโs worth it. They are children born to be soldiers, who bring soldiers of their own into the world without knowing it. Harry Potter is saddled with a fate worse than death - heโs raised like a pig for slaughter, and people donโt talk about that enough. He survives, he wins, but at what cost? Nightmares, pain, horror? For the rest of his life? His scar may not hurt anymore, but his limbs ache, and he remembers the feeling of someone in his mind more vividly than he ever wanted to. His friends, his friends, die. Fred and George Weasley? Dead. Remus? Dead. Tonks? Dead. Colin Creevey? Dead. Happiness isnโt something easily measured - they are happy, but itโs always tinged by the fact that a lot of their problems havenโt gone away. Psychologically, the harm of war stays with you forever.ย
Dorcas would want everyone else to live. Sheโd throw herself in front of that Killing Curse for anyone, for anything. If she knew, sheโd want everything rewritten. It would begin and end with her, nobody else, and sheโs so foolishly optimistic that it might actually work. But the thing is she doesnโt know, and if she did, sheโd surely go mad with the weight of it, but that doesnโt mean she wouldnโt change it - just that she wouldnโt be the same. And in the end, when she dies, she isnโt the same as we know her now. She still doesnโt kill, but sheโs raised her wand far more times than she ever thought sheโd have to, and she still holds out hope for everyone, but itโs not rose tinted anymore. The sad truth of the matter is that right now, sheโd die for any of the people I mentioned above. Any of them.ย
whatโs your characterโs myers-briggs personality type?
INFP โ The Mediator
Mediator personalities are true idealists, always looking for the hint of good in even the worst of people and events, searching for ways to make things better. While they may be perceived as calm, reserved, or even shy, Mediators have an inner flame and passion that can truly shine. Comprising just 4% of the population, the risk of feeling misunderstood is unfortunately high for the Mediator personality type โ but when they find like-minded people to spend their time with, the harmony they feel will be a fountain of joy and inspiration.
whatโs your characterโs alignment?
Neutral Good
Creatures of neutral good alignment believe that there must be some regulation in combination with freedoms if the best is to be brought to the world--the most beneficial conditions for living things in general and intelligent creatures in particular. Creatures of this alignments see the cosmos as a place where law and chaos are merely tools to use in bringing life, happiness, and prosperity to all deserving creatures. Order is not good unless it brings this to all; neither is randomness and total freedom desirable if it does not bring such good. Neutral goods value both personal freedom and adherence to laws. They feel that too many laws may unnecessarily restrict the freedom of good beings. They also believe that too much freedom may not protect society as a whole and encourage counterproductive divisions and in-fighting. They promote governments which hold broad powers, but do not interfere in the day-to-day lives of their citizens.
if you had to use one tv trope to describe your character, what would it be?
all things considered, lily couldnโt bring herself to be surprised that hogwarts hadnโt gone one day without a partyย โโ itโs just what happens when you stick a bunch of teenagers in a castle that holds hidden rooms and a surprising lack of adult supervision.ย well, technically supervising wasย herย job.ย no, what surprised her was that the marauders seemed to have nothing to do with this particular social event. red hair swished as she took a breath and tilted her head, deciding whether or not to go inย โโ her rounds were done, but maybe it was best to not completely muck up her job as head girl on the first night. and yetโฆ here she was. she never could resist a good party.ย ย โ oh, sod it.ย โย the words were mumbled under her breath with a smile, freezing only for a second when she heard footsteps approaching, looking back at the person they belonged to with a bright, sarcasm-filledย ย โโย ย โ yโknow, youโre supposed to hide the firewhiskey. โ
the party was a welcome escape for dorcas โโ it wasnโt that she was unhappy about returning to hogwarts, to her home, to the place that had given her emmeline, alice, james, ted, lily, but there was a part of her that missed her sister desperately. calliope had grown up so much in the years that dorcas missed โโ there was very little dorcas could do to stop it, to turn back the clock to be there. sheโd missed her sisterโs first heartbreak, first boyfriend, her first school trip beyond england. her blonde hair bounced on her shoulders as she fiddled with the bottle of firewhiskey sheโd stashed in her jeans โโ sheโd shrunk it down so it fit in her pocket, but it was heavy, and she resorted to carrying it, a whisperedย โ engorgio,ย โ as she flicked her wrist and wand and felt the liquid swell in the bottle. she narrowly avoided stumbling over her own feet when she caught sight of another figure, although her smile blossomed as she realised just who the red hair belonged to โโย โ whereโs the fun in that ? โ she bounced back on her heels before she launched herself forward, ending up with her arms tight around lily and her laugh in the otherโs ear as she tamped down on the squeal.ย โ i didnโt get to see you on the train, itโs so good to see you !ย โ
