Sacrificium
By Woode Seren
She doesn't know it but it's the last time she'll see him. Regulus is waiting for her in the otherwise empty flat when she steps through the creaking door, his face lined with the same weariness she sees when she looks in the mirror.
"You're sure you weren't followed." His voice is cold as usual but she has learned to detect the quiet sincerity beneath the overly formal, distant words.
"Yes." She is careful. "There were death eaters outside The Leaky Cauldron but they didn't recognize me." She indicates the muggle scrubs she is wearing, grubby from a day of tramping around the streets of London. There is blood on her knee and the dried tears of some child at her shoulder. She is a specter in his world, as out of place as he would have been in the Gryffindor common room a lifetime ago.
This time his voice is steady. "I know."
"You're sure?"
He nods. "The papers you found all but confirmed it. We were right. He's making Horcruxes."
Dorcas doesn't speak for a moment, the terrible finality of what they have found hangs heavy in the air as her gaze lingers unconsciously on his left forearm. "And you know what he's used… who…"
Regulus shakes his head. "It's not her. The Dark Lord has been dropping hints since long before the McKinnon's murder."
Dorcas nods.
"I doubt that it was anyone particularly important. He's probably been experimenting for a years now."
"Every life is important." Their eyes meet and for once Regulus sees the distance between them.
Dorcas speaks again. "Why are you doing this?"
He pauses, considering her words and finding only the truth. "I don't know."
The answer seems to satisfy her. "We still don't know what the object he's used is."
"No. But we will." He does not tell her that the Dark Lord knows who she is and what she has done. He does not know what he feels for this fragile, steel eyed young women and even if he did, revealing his secrets would do nothing but destroy them both.
"Yes." She is quiet for a moment. "I should go. The Order will be worrying."
"Yes." His eyes are dark. "And I must return also."
She nods and turns to go but before she reaches the threshold he calls out to her. Her name is stone on his lips. "Dorcas."
She turns but he has nothing more to say. As though possessed she reaches out to him, her hand lingering over the mark covered by his pressed shirtsleeve. Her voice is soft, like a mother comforting a child, the cold resentment gone from her eyes. "It will be alright. In the end."
She is gone as swiftly as she'd come and Regulus has never felt more alone.
…
Dorcas wakes before Fabian and watches the dawn, gray blue and pink through the moth eaten curtains. She half expects to see Marlene standing below in the courtyard, blowing pale smoke through the grubby cigarettes she always preferred. It strikes her as a strange and broken thing that Marlene has been dead for four months. She cannot contemplate what loss would be worse because it would break her already poorly patched heart.
As if aware of her thoughts Fabian snores beside her and Dorcas leans down to kiss his forehead before falling back into bed, a tangle of long limbs and knotted hair. Fabian is her everything, the light against the darkness in her heart. He is the only thing that hasn't fallen to ruin in the wake of this terrible war.
"I hope you weren't thinking of me with that lovely expression." Fabian's voice is heavy with sleep but laced with the mirth he has managed scavenge.
Dorcas smiles, a rare prize and Fabian grins back. "Good morning."
He yawns. "I was having the best dream."
"About what?"
"It's really not appropriate."
She swats at him with her pillow and he laughs, pulling her to him in a protective embrace. Dorcas inhales the deep woodsy, clean smell of his hair. For one moment everything is as it should be and they are just two young people hopelessly in love.
"I wish I didn't have to go."
Dorcas shakes her head and closes her eyes tighter against the world that threatens every day to destroy them. "I know."
"It has to end soon." Fabians voice turns dark. "Either way."
She takes his hand in hers, rough and worn beyond his years. "No matter what. It wasn't for nothing."
Fabian doesn't answer until a long moment has past. "No."
"And we look to our Aurors to keep the faith."
The ghost of a grin danced across Fabian's features. "You're marvelous you know."
Dorcas shakes her head as she rises, handing Fabian his socks that sit crumpled on the floor. "Only because of you."
Fabian stands and draws her to him. "I love you."
She does not answer but leans on her toes until her lips meet his. When they break apart the world seems lighter. He takes her hand in his, a long ago gesture from another life and gathers what cheer he can.
"See you tonight."
"Be safe."
She turns back to the window as the door shuts behind him, watching the stone clouds that have claimed the early beauty of the sky. Frost hangs in the air, waiting.
…
"Clever girl." His voice is poison laced with murder as he kicks her wand away. "Foolish girl. Always where you shouldn't have been looking."
Dorcas doesn't answer but brings her hand again to her side where it comes away scarlet. Wincing she steadies herself against an overturned armchair, blasphemous in its cheerful floral pattern. The air is stale with dust and malice.
He surveys her like a disobedient child, speaking aloud to himself more than to her. "I was it seems, not careful enough. But no matter." His smile is cruel. "I know the feel of your mind."
Trembling Dorcas shakes her head. "There are things you don't know."
He sneers and laughs. "Is it love again?"
There is steel in her voice. "More powerful than anything in the world."
He looks at her curiously as he raises his wand, all ice and hate. "Then consider this your education."
She doesn't hear him caste the unforgivable because the force of the spell has her on the ground before the sound can reach her. She writhes in pain so fierce she wants to die and bites her lip until she tastes blood to keep from screaming but it is no use. The sound that escapes her is foreign and strange and her scream echoes eerily through the empty house. The pain is over as quickly as it began. Dorcas struggles to pull herself to her knees, ignoring the burning at her side. Broken ribs are the least of her concern.
This time he does not hide the anger in his voice. "Try again. What else do you know?"
She feels him breach the edge of her mind but she holds her ground, Moody's late night Occlumency lessons have proven true. He cannot take what she will not give.
He raises his wand again with a sharp, slashing motion and she falls for the sixth (or is it seventh) time, blood blossoms across her chest and neck.
"Fool." He looks with contempt at her struggling form. "If you had been wiser this might have been quick."
She rises for the last time, elegant and broken, graceful in the face of death. "You won't win."
Voldemort's expression is cold and unreadable as he raises his wand. She closes her eyes and savors the dark as Fabian's face swims in view. He is laughing (she hates herself to know that his smile will die after today) but he is older. Gray tinges his auburn hair as he swings a laughing child in his arms and her heart skips to see her own green eyes framed by auburn hair. She sees herself, her face lined with age and worry and love. Fabian stands beside her as they watch another sunset, hands laced together. She will give this future away to those who would have the chance to cherish it.
She would die for Fabian a hundred times over and she lives their stolen future with her dying breaths. She holds his memory close and does not despair because she finally understands.
When the green light fills the room she falls like a broken doll. His errand complete he crosses the room without so much as a glance.
…
Fabian has never liked the taste of firewhiskey but when Sirius Black offers him the muddy brown bottle he has clutched in his hand he takes a swig. It burns going down but he suppresses a grimace. There isn't enough drink in the world to numb his pain. He barely feels Gideon's hand on his shoulder. Lost in his own darkness he is only vaguely aware of the others in the room.
Even now it seems a mockery that Dorcas is gone, murdered personally by Voldemort himself. He wants to scream at the world, shatter each brittle, wilted dream one at a time until there is nothing but broken glass. He wonders how she could have been so brave. His Gryffindor courage failed him a long time ago. He knows now what he wouldn't admit then.
There will be no tomorrow for most of them sitting clustered in this poor excuse for an order, the dead sit among them as clearly as day. There is the old closet that Marlene used to lean against so that she could be close to Remus without looking obvious. The faded, robins egg colored loveseat once sported Carodic and Emmeline (the latter has moved to a bench near the fireplace, the former has yet to be found) and Benjy's place by the door has long since sat empty. Perhaps most glaring of all is Edgar's empty green armchair set to the right of Dumbledore's, Ed who was murdered with his whole family, right down to their baby. But the worst is Dorcas' spot on the creaky oak bench beside him. Fabian sees her loss everywhere.
Wordlessly, Fabian rises from his seat and strides from the room. Gideon's hand lingers for a moment in space before he sits, his head in his hands.
Without meaning to Fabian finds himself outside, standing in the little graveyard. Most of the inhabitants are long dead members of the family that used to reside in the old manor the Order uses as headquarters, save for one.
Another figure lingers in the shadows but Fabian doesn't need to wonder who he is. Albus Dumbledore is steady even in the darkest night.
"Good Evening Fabian."
Fabian nods and leans against another's grave. He pauses to consider his words before they spill out. "How do you do it?"
"Beg pardon?"
He quivers as he speaks. "How do you always look so bloody calm?"
Dumbledore sighs. "I'm an old man Fabian. I've seen many terrible things and many wonderful things."
"But not this."
"No." For once Dumbledore sounds as old as he is. "Not this."
"How do we know it will be worth it?" Fabian looks at the ground. The flowers have all frosted over and the ground is silver gray.
"We don't" Dumbledore's voice is gentle. "But you know as well as I do that not trying would be far worse."
This time Fabian's voice breaks and his stoic façade fades away. "I can't believe she's gone."
Dumbledore sighs, regretting for once that Fabian can never know the secret that led Dorcas to her early grave, the secret that confirmed his worst suspicions. "It is better to have loved and lost than never loved at all. Fabian..." This time his voice is firm. "She would not want you to throw your life away."
Fabian shakes his head. "No. As much as I might want to… I don't think she'd ever forgive me."
An ancient twinkle lights in Dumbledore's eyes, an old memory come back from the dead. "Remember Fabian, love is the most powerful thing in the world. It lives on long after we are gone."
Fabian nods and Dumbledore leaves him to his troubled thoughts.
…
It happened very quickly. He and Gideon had been the first to arrive to the attack; an attack they had quickly realized was an obvious trap. Dolohov was there, angry and out for blood. They had succeeded in getting the frightened victims to safety but it didn't take long for Fabian to realize how horribly outnumbered they were.
He and Gideon fought as though they had never fought before, one then two Death Eaters fell before them before Gideon's life was snuffed out in a burst of vivid, scarlet red. Alone, Fabian fought on. There were things much more frightening than death.
When at last the flame of his life burnt out Fabians only thought was for her. He felt her embrace as he fell, saw her eyes in the April sky above and he had no regrets. His life was fair payment for all those they had fought so desperately to protect.
She rises from the fog and takes his hand. Together, they great death as equals, to live beyond the veil with all the love they shared in life.
Fin.
Authors Note: I had wanted to write this for a while but it really didn't want to be written. It's a strange piece, specifically because of the present tense but I hope that it works. I've always wanted to write a long story about Dorcas, Fabian and the Order but lack the talent or the time so hopefully this covers the important parts. As always I love constructive feedback and critique. Thank you for reading!
Sacraficium is Latin for sacrifice.