AN: I have a real fixation for taking on minor character that we know very little of in the books and exporing them in my own ways. I hope you all like this version of Dorcas Meadows.
Let me know your thoughts! :D

How can you hurt someone who feels nothing?

The unfeeling

There was an ambush in the first floor corridor, as I expected. Some of the thickest, proudest Gryffindors, and maybe others from the other houses had been waiting for us, for me specifically. I knew it would happen of course, I was counting on it.

They liked to pick on us, taking advantage of our view of the world, when in fact they just needed someone to be the villain so that they could get the fight they so wanted. They needed us, so they could vomit on us the hate and pain that the outside world, was causing them.

I let them brawl; I even got the party started a little and enjoyed the show for a while, before hiding away when I knew Filch would show up. The commotion could be heard to the end of the corridor. I ran for it, in the back of my mind jaded by the repetitiveness of these situations despite the adrenaline that was rushing in my veins.

Halfway to my dorm, I saw Filch approach. I sighed and rolled my eyes. He was running, looking like a confounded duck. He saw me all dusty and yelled for me to stop. I had a chalk-ball thrown at me, right over the head ... and the one who threw it would not be able to walk straight for e few days, no matter what Madame Ponfrie did to him. I held my steps but before he could even start, I spoke first.

"Well, what are you waiting for? They are tearing each other apart up there! Move it, Filch!"

The idiot fidgeted for a moment and then started running again. God, how can someone be so dense?! Sometimes he actually managed to amaze me with his idiocy!

When I got to the corridor that led me to the hole that was my common room, I saw four Gryffindors standing on both sides of the hall. It was a little strange to see them missing out on an opportunity to hex some Slytherins, but of course, they were here waiting for me, so all might not be lost for them yet…

I didn't falter in my steps thought, gave them a look of cold disregard as I slid past them. They did nothing to stop me. Maybe the cold demeanor was getting to them.

"Meadows!"

I stopped and turned as gracefully as I could, trying to point out more differences between us. I knew it always got to their nerves how I never directly gave them an excuse to fight. Though I knew that if it had been in Black's hands, he would have hexed my bones inside a matchbox years ago.

"I know it was you." Black said through gritted teeth. A simple, but still unsubstantial statement. I just raised my eyebrow at him, trying to stop every other muscle from moving. What I really wanted to say was:

So?!

I suppose they read it in my face, because their expressions furrowed in unison.

"Don't do things like that anymore, or you will get an adequate response." Glasses spoke this time.

If I had been susceptible to their judgment, I would have found their nerve in confronting me irritating. They should have known I didn't care and the fact that they still persisted was pathetic. They had co connection with me whatsoever, except for the presumed beliefs they had about how one of my status should be like.

They did not know anything of me. All they saw was my reaction to their perception of me.

All they knew was what I showed them, nothing more.

And still, we were bound to each other by the kind of union that brings together life-long enemies. Distrust and hate were part of it…

Funny how some things turn out just the way you wanted… and then you get bored of them.

Fate was not without a sense of irony apparently. How well I knew that!

"Are you really stupid enough to think that you can intimidate me with anything you say?" My voice sounded contemptuous even to my ears. It should.

And they just stood there, looking at me, unable to say anything. Unable to do anything. They just stared menacingly, and I hated them for it. Their powerlessness to reach me, to get to me in any, suddenly became their only fault.

Do something! Hurt me, hex me.

Do something!

I felt like screaming in their face. My own invincibility was hurting me and suddenly being so out of touch made me feel, for the first time in years, the taste of true hatred… I couldn't stop the fury from taking over… Which was stupid because as soon as I let that happen, I could hardly control myself.

I had to leave. I had to, or I was liable to do something stupid like send one of them in the nursery with irreparable damage.

I went inside my common room and barricaded myself in my room. I felt so explosive that I was liable to tear apart the first person to step in my line of sight.

What the fuck was wrong with me?

Suddenly there was this pressure in my chest that kept getting stronger and I had no idea where it came from, but it was making me want to tear something apart with my bare hands. I paced back and forth like a caged animal, trying hard get my temper under control.

This was not the first time it flared so violently, but usually there was a tangible reason behind my outbursts. Usually, I could comprehend myself. This time the feelings inside me were battling so fiercely that I could not make sense of them.

Was I really so close to my breaking point that now I couldn't even understand myself?

I stopped, and tried to search my own emotions… but I found I had no words for them anymore. There was no more simple anger or contempt or distain. Feelings had formed chains of indissoluble emotions that didn't tell themselves apart. One long chain whapped around me, made of sadness-that-preludes-disaster and despair-that-comes-through-loneliness and anger-that-cements-the-insides so strongly that nothing can get through…

…a frozen eternity inside me, so long reigning in me that I was surprised my skin had not turned into stone yet.

And I realized why I was feeling like a rabid tiger.

I was my own prisoner now. Nothing hurt me, nothing could reach me. There was such despair in that realization that it was almost like falling into an abyss of pitch blackness.

I knew I would be grateful for every second of pain anyone would be so strong to inflict me. If only someone - anyone - could get through these walls I had built and that I could no longer escape from.

Maybe if they got through, they would show me the way out as well.

oOoOoOo

The boys watched her retreating back, her long and normally pitch black hair whitened by the chalk dust, as she walked away from them in a slow pace, seemingly impervious to their threat. Her bottomless black eyes had looked at James with the ultimate emptiness in them, with just a hint of mockery, when he made a threat that should have at least put her on her toes.

And then when they had been unable to say anything else, they had watched as her numbness took on a different shape and they had watched the hatred burn in her eyes like fire. Her face had almost contorted with it. That was the only moment she tensed, when her own anger took over.

Their presence hadn't drawn any reaction from her not even a change in her breathing patter, let alone get her wand out or any other form of protection or aggression. They had been four, their reputation preceding them and she was by herself. Yet nothing, no response from her except cold disregard and contempt at best.

Of course, her reputation had preceded her as well, so maybe they shouldn't be so surprised.

"She is creepy," Peter said, looking at the corner where Medadows had long disappeared. "She reminds me of Bellatrix, but she is a lot creepier. Bellatrix had something wrong in her head, but Meadows… she is like, downright evil."

He sounded serious and the look on his face suggested that he meant it not as a joke, but as a real evaluation of the personality of the girl that had just left. Nobody contradicted him.

The boys started walking away of the stiff air that filled the dungeons.

"I think we should keep an eye on her, for real this time. The way she is going, someone could really get hurt. Her pranks are getting… well Slytherins have always been eerie, but she is getting dangerous now that she is on her own." James looked worried and the other boys were silent.

"Have you guys ever thought that maybe we could be wrong?" Remus murmured, his tone hesitating, as if he himself hardly believed what he was saying.

The three other boys looked at him with amazement.

"No!" the three of them gave the same response at the same time, looking at their friend in confusion. Remus sighed wearingly and tried to explain the trail of thought that he himself was very skeptical about.

The boys knew that Remus had a very limited amount of patience for people of her kind, especially after what happened to his father. Therefore, they decided there must be a real reason for Moony to think that way, even if the facts were against him.

"I know who she is, but think about it: no-one has ever found a shred of evidence to connect her to anything. We always just assumed that she did those hoaxes after Bellatrix and Malfoy left, since not many others would have the balls to. But she doesn't look like the kind that would be entertained by them, does she? And Dumbledore would have done something if she was really what we think she is, wouldn't he? Yet nothing! Not even today did I see anything and I was looking!"

"She is Dorcas Meadows, Moony. Do you think she leaves signs? She is smarter than Malfoy and cares for nothing, unlike Bellatrix! It's what makes her so bloody dangerous." Sirius seemed very convinced of what he was saying.

He didn't need to talk to Dorcas Meadows to know her. He had seen her every day, in a minimum of 6 hours per day, for 6 years straight. He knew her without actually knowing her, because he knew every other variation of people like her.

It wasn't like there was much to know about her anyway. Sirius had seen her with her family once, on an official party he had been made to attend.

Her mother and sister were as fake, pompous, posh and prejudiced as all the other people of their status. With those they deemed under themselves, they were as cold as the Scandinavian beauty they possessed.

But Meadows was another story.

Sirius would have never believed her to be related to the other two, with her olive skin and raven hair, and black-as-night eyes. But the shape of those eyes was exactly like her mothers, their faces shadows of each other.

But unlike her mother and sister, Dorcas never even bothered to fake a smile, she was snooty and sarcastic with all, looked down on everyone, even on his own mother (which had been fun to watch, he had to admit). There was distain in her eyes, ridicule in her tone, malevolence in the glare of her vacuum-like eyes, pure selfishness behind her every gesture.

Still, despite all that, she never lacked company.

Company like Malfoy, Nott, Avery, Mulciber and the lot of them. All older, all destined to end up as Death Eaters – if they weren't so already. He remembered how Bellatrix and she would always be seen together, even though their relation was hard to be thought as friendship. Neither one of the girls looked or behaved too friendly toward the other.

But they were on the same page on lots of things: Like hexing first years or playing cruel jokes on people.

Sure, the Marauders were pranksters as well, but they knew the line. Meadows and Bella had been about three miles ahead of that line every single time.

"Do you think she did that in Potions just because of what Meg said? You guys think she heard that?" Peter asked again, not really directing his question to anyone in particular.

"What did Meg say?" James asked turning to face Remus. He had missed this part, he was too concentrated on keeping Sirius at bay.

"She commented on the fact that no-one sits with Meadows ever since Bellatrix left, and that she had heard that the Slytherins are even wearier around her than others… 'Since they knew her better, and what she is capable of'.' Those were her exact words," Remus looked the other three. He sighed deeply and rubbed his eyes as if they ached.

"I think that was hardly the reason though. Meadows doesn't exactly strike me as someone that takes her revenge as it comes. She must have planned on today. That is, if it was her in the first place." Remus mused tiredly.

"I don't care why she does it, if she ever hurts anyone again, she is going to get a dose of her own medicine," Sirius mumbled, his eyes telling a longer story.

That girl was not an enigma to him. She was just as cruel as her kind had always been. But what made her dangerous weren't her sadistic methods, it was the fact that she was a tad stronger than most and a little smarter, and that she was less emotional then a corpse. It looked like nothing could possibly faze her. There were only two reasons for it to be that way, but Sirius found himself uncaring of either.

Remus sighed again, this time in defeat.

"I don't think that anything we say to her will put her off anyway. We need to find her weak point if we want to stop her. I don't want to hurt her physically; it sounds like something they would do." The disgust was palpable in Remus's voice as he said the words. Apparently the boys' silence showed that they agreed on that particular point. However, Sirius was not so sure.

"That is if she even has a weak point. For God's sake, I've seen corpses show more emotion that she does! I've known people like her for the best part of my life - I was raised by one. She is a scheming little bitch with her nose in the air who needs a good beating. Nothing will make her stop, if we don't show her that, we can stop her."

AN: So, what do you make of it so far? Can't wait to hear your opinions of this my take on this character.