Chapter 9: Changes
cw: some internalized homophobia
It became abundantly clear by the middle of Dorcas' third year at Hogwarts that puberty had reached every third year to some extent. For the boys, it was only the beginning, as they began to slowly get taller and look more their age. For most of the girls, however, it had accelerated from the slow and steady pace that it had been at before to a rapidity that caught them all off guard.
Some developments they were pleased with, feeling very "adult" as they grew taller, began to have more curves, and got their periods (which they all soon learned were not as exciting as they had earlier believed, despite Marlene's warnings). Emmeline Vance's hair had darkened and developed a pronounced wave, and Marlene's blonde hair began to frizz and curl, as well.
Other things were much less exciting: namely the pimples that had decided to set up shop on all of their faces. Mary got the worst of it, and she lamented the painful red cysts that had formed on her cheeks and forehead. Still, all of the girls in the dormitory had to deal with it on different levels, and each of them hated their spots with a fiery passion, though they found solace in their collective struggle.
Another unpleasant side-effect of their maturation was that both the girls' and the boys' emotions were on edge more often than not, both their tempers and tears closer to the surface than ever before. Some dealt with it better than others. Much to the Gryffindor third years' chagrin, however, Sirius and Lily, who had the hottest tempers out of any of the rest of the group, had started taking out their anger on one another. Dorcas, who was the only person who was relatively close friends with both, was exasperated and perplexed with the situation. She had absolutely no idea how to intervene, or if she even dared to.
It had all started in early December, with what both Lily and Sirius would affectionately refer to as 'The Slime Incident' in later years. Sirius had planned what he thought was a very amusing prank, where a bucket of lime green slime would be overturned on the head of a random person entering the library on one Friday afternoon.
Unfortunately, it had been Lily who ended up covered from head to foot in the goo when she went in to get a book after her Ancient Runes class, and, quickly deducing that Sirius was behind it, strode over to him and began to scream as he laughed. Of course, he promptly stopped laughing when she hit him with a stinging jinx.
His prank, along with her jinx and the disruption of the quiet library, had landed them in a double detention together, where they had presumably proceeded to thoroughly verbally abuse one another for two hours. Ever since then, the two had been at each other's throats, exchanging passive aggressive comments in classes as well as having shouting matches in the corridors and common room whenever they were particularly pissed off.
James, who Dorcas knew Lily disliked, but with not quite the same fervor as she did Sirius, seemed wearied by the whole thing. Of course, he agreed with Sirius that Lily needed to remove the stick that was lodged up her arse, but he also wished that his best friend would just leave her alone so that the two could go back to being troublemakers without her interference. Dorcas knew that he had made this point several times to Sirius, but Sirius was like a dog with a bone with Lily: he didn't back down from a challenge, and he refused to let her have the last word. Marlene was no help at all, as her opinion of Lily hadn't improved much from first year, and she enjoyed watching Sirius take Lily down a peg at times.
Lily was quite impossible to reason with, as well. She insisted that he always started it, which was perhaps technically true, but it was also a fact that Lily used the mildest excuses to snipe at Sirius, so in Dorcas' opinion, her friend was not innocent in any sense of the word. If Dorcas attempted to point out Sirius' good qualities, suggesting that the two were similar in some ways and perhaps they could find some common ground, Lily would only go off on a rant, and therefore Dorcas gave up quickly. It was tiring to listen to them argue all the time, but soon all of the Gryffindor third years got used to it and it faded into the background. Dorcas, for one, had bigger things on her mind.
When she was not hauling herself from class to class, working through her coursework, and trying to keep Sirius and Lily from killing one another, Dorcas' head was a haze of confusing thoughts, her heart full of perplexing feelings. Now, Dorcas considered herself a rather smart witch. She was one of the best in her year, and excelled in all of her subjects. She was organized, efficient, and thoughtful in her work. There was rarely a problem that she couldn't eventually find a solution to.
Nevertheless, Dorcas thought she had found such a problem now, one that no amount of intellect and organization would fix. With all the changes that she and her classmates were going through as they entered their early teens, she was surrounded with young witches and wizards succumbing to their first flutters of attraction towards one another. Crushes were popping up left and right, and now that they were all old enough to recognize them for what they were, some students even started "dating," a term which loosely meant talking to each other a couple of times blushingly, perhaps holding hands in the corridors, and sharing their first fumbling, closed-lip kisses. Indeed, James was currently "dating" Sarah Flemming, a cute Hufflepuff girl with a round, friendly face and baby blue eyes, who wore her hair in two blonde pigtails.
But none of this was what was bothering Dorcas. She didn't care about her friends' crushes, the way that the girls in her dormitory had started to talk about boys, or the silly little notes that Sarah Flemming passed James in Charms with hearts on them. No, she was happy for her friends, but she was also troubled, because she found that there was a new barrier separating her and the rest of them. This wall had to do with the fact that the new interest Dorcas had in some of her peers was not in boys, but in girls. Dorcas had tried, she had really tried, to find out what made her roommates so interested in boys these das. She had studied them, trying to single out their attractive qualities, but it would always end with her getting bored, or observing them doing something disgusting like picking their nose or burping loudly, and then she would wrinkle her nose, looking away.
At first Dorcas had thought she was just a late bloomer. One day in February when they were walking around the grounds together, Mary had admitted to Dorcas that she wasn't quite sure what all the fuss was about, herself, but that she supposed she would figure it out eventually. Dorcas thought she must be the same until the day that she had become inexplicably fascinated with the way that Iris Liu's long, shiny black hair reflected the firelight as they were tending to salamanders in Care of Magical Creatures, her dark eyes twinkling mesmerizingly. Dorcas' stomach had given a slight lurch, her breath catching as Iris tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear, and Dorcas knew what that meant, even if she didn't want to know it.
Dorcas tried not to think about it, that moment when her brain had lost all rational thought at the sight of Iris tucking her hair behind her ear. She absorbed herself in her studies, but when she wasn't studying, when she was lying awake at night, she thought about the other girl's silky skin and soft, dark hair, her laugh, and her look of concentration as she bent over the fire in Care of Magical Creatures, prodding it with a stick to keep it from going out. Iris was a very nice girl, Dorcas reasoned. She was a Hufflepuff who came from a wizarding family, but was nothing but accepting of others' blood statuses. She was funny and non-judgemental, and for a short time, Dorcas tried to convince herself that she just admired the other girl. She gave that up quickly, however, as her thoughts continued to stray towards Iris at inopportune moments. It was a useless pretense, and Dorcas refused to lie to herself.
After more thinking, she realized that she did indeed like Iris a bit; she couldn't deny it. Still, it was only a slight crush, and she thought that maybe it would go away if she just avoided the other girl. Guilt in her heart, she partnered with Hestia instead in their next Care of Magical Creatures lesson, hoping that she wouldn't offend the Iris, but needing to keep her distance from her. The strategy worked, at least in part. She stopped thinking of Iris so much over the next few weeks, and began to feel less anxious over the whole issue, better able to concentrate on her schoolwork and her friends. Still, the thought of boys didn't make her swoon, either.
Dorcas had noticed recently, due to Hestia Jones' hints, that Peter Pettigrew seemed to have a bit of a crush on her. The Latina girl had nudged her one day in Charms, stifling a giggle, and whispered in her ear: "You have an admirer." Dorcas had followed Hestia's gaze over to where Peter was sitting alongside James. The small, mousy boy blushed, caught in the act of staring at Dorcas, and turned his gaze back to the front of the class, his ears slightly red. Dorcas looked at Hestia in dismay.
"You think Peter has a crush on me?"
"Of course!" The other girl exclaimed, sounding surprised, as if Dorcas should have known that already. "Haven't you seen him looking at you these last couple of weeks?" Dorcas shook her head. She had been utterly clueless about this, too busy with her own confused thoughts and feelings to notice. "Well, he has been staring at you an awful lot," Hestia explained. "It's okay, you know, if you don't feel the same way. Peter's nice, but I'm sure he'll get over it if you don't encourage him."
"He is nice," Dorcas agreed. "But I just think of him as a friend."
She was a bit flattered by the attention, but she had never even contemplated thinking about Peter in that way before. He was sweet, and a good friend to James, Sirius, and Remus, but that was the extent of her thoughts about him.
Later, Dorcas gazed at her own reflection in the mirror of the girl's dormitory that evening, studying her own features. She had come up with the hypothesis that Peter liked her for a few reasons: she knew that she was pretty, she had been told that enough by her parents, relatives, and friends. She had soft brown skin with a few freckles across her nose and cheeks, dark brown eyes, high cheekbones, and tightly curled brown hair which she had grown out over the years so it fell just past her shoulders now. Both of her parents were mixed race, giving her one Black and one white grandparent on each side of her family tree, all of whom adored Dorcas unconditionally, their only granddaughter and the heir to all of their love. Between all of them, she had no shortage of people who continually praised her looks, and therefore she was not insecure about them.
The second reason that Dorcas supposed Peter liked her was the fact that Dorcas was outgoing, popular, and confident. She knew many people, had lots of friends, and was nice to almost everyone, except those who hurt the people that she loved. Her nature as a social butterfly was very similar to James, but she was missing his natural affinity for mischief making.
The third and final reason she supposed that Peter liked her was a simple matter of proximity: she was around often. Both she and Marlene hung out in the Gryffindor boy's dormitory often, as they had been close friends with James before starting at Hogwarts, and had since then developed friendships with all the boys in his dorm, in addition to him. Marlene, however, was too loud and brash for the timid Peter, so naturally he had developed a crush on Dorcas instead.
It made sense, but the problem was that she did not have feelings for Peter in return, and she did not want to lead him on in any way. Therefore, the next day she sought out James after Arithmancy, a class that Peter was not in with them.
"Hey, Jamie," Dorcas called out to him as he walked ahead with Sirius, causing him to turn to look at her curiously.
"What's up, Dee?" James asked, ruffling his hair as he waited for her to catch up, waving Sirius along ahead of him.
"Does Peter have a crush on me?" Dorcas asked without preamble as she fell into step beside him. James smirked at her sideways.
"He's been a bit obvious about it, hasn't he? I'm surprised you haven't brought it up to me before."
"You knew and you didn't tell me?" Dorcas demanded indignantly.
"Of course I didn't tell you," James said, looking offended. "He's my mate, isn't he? I wasn't going to just tell you that he liked you. Principles."
"Oh, fine, I get that," Dorcas said, rolling her eyes. "Nevermind. The thing is, please don't encourage him, alright? With his feelings for me, I mean. He's very nice, there's nothing wrong with him or anything, it's just that I don't think of him that way."
"Sure," James said carelessly. "I never actively encouraged him to ask you out or anything like that, though Sirius did suggest it for laughs one day. But I get it. Sometimes you just don't like someone that way. It is what it is."
"Yeah," Dorcas said, suppressing a sigh. What James didn't know was how much Dorcas would give to have feelings for any boy. Perhaps if she did, she would feel less confused. But, then again, Dorcas reasoned, having feelings for a boy wouldn't make the memory of how her heart had quickened upon seeing Iris Liu tuck her shiny black hair behind her ear that day in Care of Magical Creatures go away. "How's Sarah?"
"Oh, she kind of dumped me," James said, ruffling his hair sheepishly. "She said I was blowing her off too much to hang out with the boys. Also, I accidentally set her Ancient Runes homework on fire."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Dorcas said absentmindedly, then turned to stare at him. "Wait—you set fire to her homework?"
"Accidentally," James emphasized, but grinning slightly. "It's okay, though. Having a girlfriend is a bit too much time commitment for me right now. Maybe in a year or two."
"Maybe in a year or two you'll be a better boyfriend," Dorcas said, rolling her eyes. James laughed.
"It ended okay, though," James said. "She's really nice, you know? Hopefully we can still be friendly."
"I'm sure you'll be able to, if it ended alright," Dorcas assured him. "I mean, we're only thirteen, aren't we? It's not that deep."
"True," James replied, smiling. "So, if you don't like Pete, who have you got your eye on, Dee? Don't tell me it's me."
His voice was teasing, but Dorcas shoved him slightly, making a disgusted face. "That's never happening, Jamie," she said. "Merlin, you're too cocky for your own good sometimes. It would be like having feelings for a brother."
James laughed. "Good, glad we're on the same page on that," he said, carelessly ruffling his hair again. They continued to chat amicably as they made their way back to the Gryffindor common room, James either not noticing or not commenting on the fact that she had never answered his question.
Dorcas had a moment where she was on the verge of telling James about everything she had been thinking about for the last few weeks, about Iris Liu and her moment of realization, about not having feelings for any of the boys that her roommates commented were cute. She almost opened her mouth to start, but then he was laughing about something that had happened in Transfiguration on Monday. Before she knew it, they arrived at the Fat Lady portrait, and she had missed her chance.
Part of Dorcas really wanted to tell her friends about how she was questioning her sexuality, but another part told her to stay silent forever. She had no idea what their reactions would be, and while she thought that James at least would be accepting of it, she was scared that it would change things, nevertheless. It would make her different from everyone else she knew, and she wasn't sure if she was ready to be different in such a way. What if people started treating her like an outsider?
Over the next few weeks, these fears dogged Dorcas, though she had not thought specifically about Iris in a while. Her biggest fear was of things changing, both within herself and with the people that she cared about, once they knew this fact about her. Therefore, Dorcas told no one, but her world changed around her despite her efforts.
The first signs of the change emerged in mid-April, when, after weeks of pushing thoughts of her sexuality out of her head, Dorcas was confronted with a situation that made it impossible to ignore. It was as if her mind, frustrated with her constant efforts to suppress her attraction to girls, had decided to get her back in a way that she could not ignore. It found her weakness, picked it open like a half-healed scab, and, with a triumphant 'ha!', schemed up the key to Dorcas' downfall. Of course, she knew that if she told James or Lily any of this, they would say she was being dramatic, and maybe she was. At the moment, however, Dorcas hated whatever sinister force had cast its spell on her, causing her to fall into the trap that, if she was honest with herself, she had been dreading from the moment that she realized she liked girls.
It's an old cliché, really, falling for your best friend. At least, that's what Dorcas thought derisively when she first realized what was happening to her. Not only am I in a situation with no possible happy ending, she thought, I'm also a cliché.
It was hard to pinpoint exactly what caused her feelings, or when they emerged, but Dorcas thought it had something to do with the constant closeness of the two girls ever since they were toddlers. Therefore, it was by no means uncommon to see Marlene or Dorcas climbing into the other's bed to cuddle at the end of a day, even as they were now thirteen, or Marlene slinging her arm over Dorcas' shoulder, affectionately pulling her close as they walked together through the halls of Hogwarts.
Even disregarding the platonic physical intimacy they shared, there was also the feeling of emotional and mental closeness. Because of their long friendship, even with the vast differences between Marlene's and Dorcas' personalities, it often felt like they were of one mind, which was no more apparent than when they did wandless magic together. For Dorcas, at those times it felt as if their thoughts were brushing up against one another and overlapping, their minds joining in one purpose.
Thinking of it now made her shiver, and she wrapped her cloak around her tighter, standing at the edge of the Great Lake in the gathering darkness. It was a Friday evening after a long week in which Dorcas' professors seemed intent on making her suffer with piles of homework. She supposed she had rather brought it upon herself by taking all but one of the possible elective classes that started in third year, but she couldn't bring herself to regret her choice. Along with all the usual classes, she had elected to take Muggle Studies, Arithmancy, and Care of Magical Creatures, and she loved them all quite a lot. She might have taken Divination, too, if it was being offered, but currently there was no Divination teacher at Hogwarts. Still, the classes she was taking were a lot of work, and her situation was made harder with all the other things on her mind. At least she didn't have Quidditch practice, too, unlike some of her friends.
Speaking of Quidditch practice...Dorcas heard the soft footfalls behind her, and even before she turned, she knew it was Marlene, as Marlene often took the long way back to the dormitory after Quidditch practice, walking around the castle before going in. Marlene's wavy blonde hair was damp, as she had clearly just showered in the locker rooms after the Gryffindor practice. Sam Thomas, the seventh year Gryffindor Quidditch Captain, didn't usually hold practices on Friday evenings, but Marlene had told her that Florence O'Connor and Marcus Ellerton, the fifth year Beaters, had been put in detention during their usual practice time for starting a fight, so Sam had reluctantly rescheduled.
It was amusing, Marlene told her, to see Sam react to the younger team members' antics. Sam, the only seventh year on the the Gryffindor team, was something of an older brother to the rest of his teammates, and, unfortunately for him, this often meant that he had to deal with the fallout of their poor decision making. Emmeline Vance, Dorcas' roommate and friend, had been made Gryffindor Keeper at the beginning of the year, and she was not a big problem for Sam, both in that her performance as Keeper was exemplary, and that she wasn't much of a troublemaker. James and Marlene, on the other hand, like Florence and Marcus, were only still on the team because of their brilliance in their respective Quidditch positions, as they all created a lot of issues for their Captain. Sam sometimes said they were more trouble than they were worth, but Marley and James insisted that he loved them, and Dorcas believed it.
"Why are you out here? I saw you as I was leaving practice," Marlene said as she drew nearer to her best friend. Marlene's blue eyes sparkled in the faint light of the setting sun, her cheeks pink from the wind and the walk over to the lake. She was wearing a red hoodie, zipped up to her neck, along with a pair of jeans and sneakers. If Dorcas had been dressed in her outfit, she knew she would be far too cold, but Marlene ran warmer than she did.
"I just fancied a walk to clear my head," Dorcas said truthfully, giving her friend a slight smile. Marlene didn't need to know that she was the reason why Dorcas needed to clear her head.
"Well, come back up to the castle with me," Marlene said, smiling mischievously. "James said we should celebrate the end of a truly soul-crushing week, what with all those essays we had to do."
"Oh, and what did James have in mind for this celebration?" Dorcas asked, raising her eyebrows doubtfully at her friend. Marlene laughed and linked her arm with Dorcas', the two girls heading back up to the castle together.
"No idea, but I'm sure we'll find out soon," she said cheerfully.
They found out exactly what James intended when they got back to the Gryffindor common room. It was loud and boisterous, with Gryffindors of every age excited at the prospect of the weekend ahead of them. Dorcas, led by Marlene, made her way over to where James sat, laughing with Sirius in the corner. When he spotted Marlene and Dorcas, he straightened up, grinning at their approach.
"There you two are!" He exclaimed. "I was wondering where you got off to, Marley."
"I had to fetch this one from the grounds," Marlene said, nodding to Dorcas before flopping down and smirking across at Sirius and James. Dorcas rolled her eyes and sat down next to her.
"Marley tells me that you have some idea on how to celebrate the end of the week," Dorcas said. James smirked.
"That I do," he said, the look on his face mischievous in a way that Dorcas knew rarely boded well. "I was wondering if you could help, actually. It would be nice to get the girls to hang out, too."
"Hang out and do what?" Dorcas asked suspiciously. "I'm not sure I want to be the one to convince them if it's only going to get us all in trouble, James."
"Oh, come on, it's not that kind of idea," James replied, laughing. "I just thought we could have some fun. Sirius and I nicked some butterbeer from the kitchens, and I thought we could have a little party in our dorm, play some games, you know?"
"Okay, that does sound fun," Dorcas admitted, smiling. "Just promise me that no one will get injured over the course of the night, and I'll persuade them to come."
"Cross my heart," James said, grinning at her and mockingly crossing his heart. Dorcas smiled.
"Okay," she said, standing and looking around the common room for her roommates.
"Why didn't you ask me?" Marlene asked, looking at James with an offended look on her face. "They're my roommates, too, you know."
"Hey, you're the one I ask when I need someone scared," James said, smiling at her. "Dee's who I ask when I want someone persuaded. She's more of a people person."
"I'm a people person!" Marlene said, scowling and shoving him. "Plenty of people like me."
"Yeah, but you're not very friendly," Sirius piped up, grinning at her, too. Marlene shoved him as well, but Dorcas ignored them as she set off to where Hestia was sitting with Emmeline and Mary, the three girls laughing together.
"Hey, Dee!" Hestia exclaimed in a friendly way as she walked over to them and sat down.
"Hey," Dorcas replied, smiling. "What are you talking about?"
"Oh, nothing much," Emmeline replied, smiling pleasantly, her fingers playing absentmindedly with the Star of David pendant which hung around her neck. "I was just telling them about Sam's griping at practice about Marcus and Florey. He's always asking what he did to deserve being stuck with all of us hellions."
Dorcas laughed. "He doesn't really mean it, though, does he?" She asked, casting a glance over to Sam Thomas, who was sitting by the fire with his seventh year friends, smiling.
"Oh, no," Emmeline said, smiling over to him as well. "He adores Marcus and Florey, really, and the rest of us, too. He doesn't like to admit it, but I think his life would be much more boring without everyone to look after. Anyway, Marcus and Florence have both been on the team since their second year, so he's been like a big brother to them for a while."
"It seems like he quite likes looking after them," Mary said, smiling. "I mean, it's not really his job to look after his teammates outside of the pitch, as Captain, is it? But he does it anyway."
"He goes above and beyond," Emmeline said, smiling. "He's a great Captain."
"Well, anyway," Dorcas said, clapping her hands together. "I was sent over here to ask if you all would join the boys, Marlene, and I in the boys' dormitory. James and Sirius got butterbeer, and suggested we play some games and let off a little steam after the hard week we all had."
"I've never been in the boy's dormitory before," Hestia said, looking interested.
"Nobody's going to get blown up, though, are they?" Emmeline asked, raising her eyebrows and smiling jokingly. "The boys don't have the best track record."
"James promised me that no one would be injured over the course of the evening," Dorcas assured them, smiling, too.
"That sounds fun, then!" Hestia exclaimed, smiling excitedly.
"Okay," Emmeline agreed. Dorcas turned to Mary.
"Mary?"
The shorter girl hesitated for a second, then nodded. "Okay, sure, I'll come."
"Great!" Dorcas exclaimed excitedly. "Is Lily around?"
"She's up in the dormitory reading, I think," Mary said. "But do you really think that she will agree to go? She's not the biggest fan of James, and she hates Sirius."
Dorcas shrugged, standing up to go and convince her red-haired friend. "It's worth a try, and she likes Remus and doesn't mind Peter. That's a fifty percent chance in my book."
Surprisingly, however, Lily did agree to accompany Dorcas to the boys' dormitory. Dorcas thought that her friend seemed rather lonely when she wasn't around Severus Snape. She liked the other girl immensely, but she sometimes got the feeling that Lily didn't quite trust her, or the other girls in their dormitory. Of course, she knew that Lily didn't like Marlene, but Marlene often hung around the Gryffindor boys, and even when she was gone, Lily wouldn't always hang out with the other girls.
That evening, for instance, she had been sitting upstairs with a book in her lap instead of with Emmeline, Hestia, and Mary, talking and joking by the fire. Sure, she talked with them in lessons, sat with them at mealtimes, and joined them in discussions in the dormitory, but she had put up a wall between her and truly being close with any of them. Dorcas couldn't explain it, but it saddened her, and she was glad that Lily had accepted the invitation to hang out with the Gryffindor third years that evening.
Dorcas and Lily went down to the common room to find the rest of the girls, then headed up with them to the boys' dormitory, knocking on the door that had a sign saying "Third Years" over it. Someone inside (likely James) yelled that they could come in, and Dorcas opened the door to find Marlene, James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter already lounging on the ground there. It was cleaner than the last time she had been up there, so she supposed that they had made a bit of an effort to tidy up for the impromptu gathering.
"Hey," Dorcas said, smiling and entering, sitting down on the ground next to James, who was lying on his stomach, concentrating hard as he placed a card on the card house he was building. Dorcas supposed he was using Exploding Snap cards, and was proved right when the card exploded, causing James to move back hastily as the rest of the cards fell to the ground, a couple more of them blowing up. Luckily, none of the explosions reached James' face, and he turned to the door, smiling and sitting up to greet the newcomers.
"Hi, come on in," he said in a friendly way, looking to Emmeline, Hestia, Mary, and Lily who were all still hovering at the doorway uncertainly. Hestia didn't need to be told twice, closing the door behind them all and immediately taking a seat next to Marlene. Emmeline went to sit by Sirius, Mary next to Remus, and Lily sat between Dorcas and Peter, completing their little circle. Dorcas noticed that Lily looked slightly nervous, but doubted that anyone else had.
"Want a butterbeer?" Sirius asked Emmeline, and she nodded, smiling. He passed her one, and James began to pass the rest of the drinks around, too. Dorcas opened hers, taking a sip, and smiled at the delicious taste, wiping a bit of foam off her upper lip. They sat around, talking and laughing for a little while. Emmeline did a very convincing impression of Sam Thomas, which had them all in stitches, especially after James broke in to imitate Florey firing back. Their butterbeers didn't last as long as they might have hoped, but Sirius was soon passing around sweets they had also gotten from the kitchens. Sirius handed Remus a chocolate eclair, grinning at him knowingly, and Remus took it with a slight eye roll, but looked pleased.
The conversation quickly turned to games they could play. "Wizards Chess is no good for a group of people," Emmeline said. "If only I had brought Monopoly, that would have been fun!"
"What's Monopoly?" James asked, looking intrigued.
"You see, this is the kind of thing that they should teach in Muggle Studies!" Hestia exclaimed, laughing. "It's only the best game in the world, James!"
"It's a board game," Lily explained, piping up for the first time that evening. "You get fake money and stuff and you have to buy property as you roll the dice to move around the board."
"When you get properties of the same color, you can build houses on them and collect rent when other people land on them," Mary continued, smiling. "The goal is to get other people to lose all their money on your properties, and whoever is left last wins."
"Sounds fun," Sirius said, grinning.
"It can get quite competitive at times," Emmeline admitted. "But it is good fun."
"But we don't have the board, so we can't play that," Hestia pointed out. "We have to find something else."
"What about Truth or Dare?" Sirius suggested, a mischievous look on his face. Dorcas laughed slightly, rolling her eyes. Of course Sirius would suggest that game, he lived for the drama and would likely only pick Dare for himself. The other Gryffindors put up little resistance, some of them rolling their eyes like Dorcas and protesting slightly, but it was clear that they were all excited at the prospect.
James went first, of course, and Emmeline, sitting across from him, asked him: "Truth or Dare?" James, as Dorcas knew he would, picked Dare, and the group brainstormed together for a moment.
"Ok, ok," Emmeline finally said, putting her hand up to quieten them. "James, I dare you to serenade someone in this room in the most ridiculous way that you possibly can think of."
James laughed, and looked around the circle. His eyes landed on Remus, and he grinned, making Remus sigh in exasperation. Dramatically, James lifted himself to his feet and made his way over to Remus, pretending he was holding a microphone in his hand as he began to sing "Love Me Do" by The Beatles, making dramatic hand gestures and facial expressions as he serenaded Remus, who began to laugh. The whole group was in hysterics by the time he finished, bowing and resuming his seat. Even Lily was laughing, looking much more at ease than she had earlier. Maybe she liked the fact that James had sang a Beatles song, Dorcas thought. She knew Lily was a fan, as she sometimes slept in an oversized band t-shirt with their band name on it.
They proceeded around the circle, moving from the perpetual 'dare' choosers—James and Marlene—to Hestia, Remus, Mary, and Emmeline, who all picked 'truth.' The truth questions were pretty standard of young people their age: Who is your crush? Have you kissed anyone yet? What's a secret you've never told anyone before? Hestia asked Emmeline who she thought was the most attractive professor at the school was, which started a round of laughter. Emmeline giggled herself into silence before thinking, then answering that she thought it was probably Professor Cyprus, who taught Astronomy, because he was the youngest of all of their professors.
When the circle got all the way back around to Dorcas, she decided, uncharacteristically, on 'dare.' She would usually pick 'truth,' but she felt a bit wary about what her friends might ask her, and didn't want to have to lie if it went in a dangerous direction. They all considered her for a moment, trying to think up a good dare that hadn't already been used, but it was Hestia who finally piped up.
"I dare you to kiss someone in this room," she said, smiling mischievously. Everyone in the room sat up straighter, then. They had yet to go down this particular path with dares, but it was an intriguing one. Only two members of the group had kissed people before: James and Hestia. There was an air of slight excitement and nervousness. Dorcas swallowed nervously, her cheeks suddenly feeling very hot.
"What—" she cleared her throat, which felt dry even as her palms began to sweat. "Who do I kiss?"
"Up to you," Hestia said, smirking widely across at her friend. Dorcas' eyes widened, her heart beating fast as she looked around at the group, who were all looking expectantly back at her, eager for her decision. Peter was blushing, too, not meeting her eyes when they passed over him, and she remembered about Peter's crush on her.
Dorcas' breath seemed to catch in her throat as her eyes flitted around her gathered housemates, making it feel hard to inhale and exhale. Of course, Dorcas knew who she would have liked to kiss, but that was precisely why she couldn't pick Marlene. Even if she could play it off as a joke, say she was most comfortable kissing her friend because of their closeness, it would mean something different to Dorcas than it would to Marlene, and she couldn't have that. She couldn't give herself false hope, or allow herself to kiss Marlene in a game when she really wanted it to be real. It would be a stupid decision, she knew. Why, then, was she so tempted to make it?
"I can't just pick who to kiss," Dorcas protested, her voice catching nervously as she tried to look at anyone but Marlene. As she looked around at them, she knew there was no right answer. She couldn't kiss a girl, it would bring up awkward questions and speculations that she had already decided she wasn't ready for, but kissing any of the boys would make the whole group think that she liked them, and she couldn't stand that prospect, either. Of course, she supposed, that embarrassment she could endure as long as they didn't like her back, so Peter was out of the options. It would be cruel, too, to kiss him when when she had no feelings for him, and Dorcas wouldn't do that. But between Remus, James, and Sirius, there was no easy choice, either. She didn't want to kiss any of them!
Just then, Mary shifted forward, her movement catching Dorcas' eye. Mary had been observing Dorcas in her quiet way, and she seemed to have seen Dorcas' blind panic at the prospect of having to choose who to kiss. "This is ridiculous," Mary said, letting out a slight laugh. Grabbing her empty butterbeer bottle, she placed it down in the middle of the circle, then leaned back. "If this game is going to go down that road, we might as well transition to another one."
"Spin the Bottle?" Hestia asked, her face lighting up with delight at the prospect, effectively taking the attention off of Dorcas. Mary nodded, smirking slightly, an expression Dorcas had never seen on her face before.
A murmur of interest went around the group, some looking excited, some looking apprehensive. Most of them readily agreed, sitting up or rearranging their positions so that they could observe the people around them better.
"Fine," Lily conceded, not quite suppressing her amused smile. "As long as I don't have to kiss him," she added, pointing her finger at Sirius. Sirius rolled his eyes.
"Trust me, I have no desire to kiss you, either," he said, rolling his eyes.
"Okay," Mary said, clearly trying to head off a fight before it happened. "If either of your bottles land on the other one, you get to spin again. Happy?"
"Yes," Sirius and Lily said in unison, but both of them leaned forward, making it clear that they were both just as interested in the game as the others.
"Since it was Dorcas' dare, she can spin first," Mary said diplomatically, gesturing to the bottle. "Whoever it lands on, she has to kiss." Everyone nodded in agreement, and Dorcas looked around slightly nervously before leaning forward on her knees to give the bottle a good spin. It was better, though, to kiss whoever the bottle landed on rather than having to pick the person herself. The bottle spun in a full circle several times before slowing, everyone's gazes intent on it as it spun to a stop, pointing squarely at Sirius.
Dorcas swallowed nervously, then shrugged at Sirius, a rueful expression on her face. He grinned back, sending her a joking wink. "Pucker up, Meadowes," he said, before lifting himself up onto his knees and scooting to the middle of the circle. For a split-second, they met each other's gazes awkwardly, but Dorcas reminded herself that it's just Sirius, and she rolled her eyes, smiling, before leaning forward to press a quick kiss to his lips.
His lips were soft and warm, not dry or chapped, which she was grateful for, but when Dorcas pulled back, she registered that she had felt very little as his lips pressed to hers. It was a strange feeling, pressing one's lips to someone else's, getting that close to another person's face, but other than that strange feeling of closeness, the brief pressure on her lips didn't make much of an impression on Dorcas. She wasn't sure if this should upset her or not, the lack of feeling, but she resolved not to think too hard about it. Sirius sent her a little smirk, then moved back to where he had been sitting, and she did the same. All things considered, it could have been worse, Dorcas thought. She might have even chosen Sirius to kiss out of the three boys, as he wasn't one to take things very seriously (no pun intended).
"Who's next?" Dorcas asked, smiling pleasantly around the circle, ready for everyone's eyes to leave her.
Hestia shrugged, grinning widely at her. "Pick a direction," she said. Dorcas considered for a moment, then pointed toward her right, at Lily. At least her friend would get it out of the way, she reasoned. James, on her left, pouted slightly, but looked on eagerly as Lily shrugged, leaning forward to spin the bottle. After a few seconds, it slowed to a stop, the top pointing at none other than James himself. James let out a laugh, and Lily rolled her eyes, but turned to face him. James, a cocky expression on his face, briefly ruffled his hair with one hand before moving forward and kissing her confidently.
Dorcas noted that the kiss was a bit longer than her and Sirius', but she was unsure if it just looked like James knew what he was doing more because of his confidence, or because he had already had his first kiss with Sarah. Either way, when the two parted, James sent Lily a careless wink, and she rolled her eyes, but her cheeks were slightly flushed nonetheless, as she resumed her spot beside Dorcas. Next was Peter, and his bottle landed on Hestia, who smiled at him and moved to the center of the circle to kiss him. He blushed hard as he leaned forward to peck her lips, even his ears going red. Sirius let out a little whistle as they moved apart, and everyone laughed. After that, the ice was sufficiently broken, and the group cheered each pair on as they moved into the circle.
Sirius, next, spun and landed on Marlene, and Dorcas knew a heavy pang of jealousy as she watched Marley lean forward to kiss Sirius, her frizzy blonde hair falling into her face like a curtain separating their two lips from Dorcas' gaze. As she gazed on enviously, she noticed Remus' expression of slight resignation from across the circle. When the two pulled apart, Dorcas thought she might have imagined it, as Remus' face went back to his normal expression of casual interest, but she could have sworn there was still something off in his blue eyes.
Next up, Emmeline was the first to land on someone of her same gender, as her bottle landed on Hestia. There was an outbreak of laughter, and Emmeline raised her eyebrows to Hestia, who scooted forward, grinning widely at her friend. Emmeline rolled her eyes, but complied as well, and, uncharacteristically, gave Hestia a large, joking wink after they separated, leading to more laughter.
Around the circle they went, and Dorcas watched as Remus kissed Mary, then Mary kissed Lily. She was called back into the circle again when it was Hestia's turn to spin the bottle, and it landed on her. Dorcas tried not to blush as Hestia's lips met hers. Hestia's lips were soft and tasted of cherries, which Dorcas assumed must be the flavor of her lip balm. Close to the other girl, she smelled the sweet smell of her shampoo and what might be perfume, a smell that she was used to around the dormitory, but had never been this close to before. She only realized that she had closed her eyes when Hestia pulled back, and they fluttered open again. Hestia smiled brightly back at her, her cheeks rosy, and Dorcas returned the smile as sincerely as she could.
She barely felt any jealousy when she saw Marlene kiss Peter next, so preoccupied as she was in her thoughts about her kiss with Hestia. (She did manage to register the irony, though, of seeing Marlene, who Dorcas had a crush on, kiss Peter, who had a crush on Dorcas himself.) Still, it was merely a blip on her radar as she searched her mind, trying to figure out how she had felt about her second kiss.
It was neat, she thought, that she got to compare the effects of kissing a girl and a boy so close together. The results, she thought, were quite clear. She had liked her kiss with Hestia. She didn't like Hestia as more than a friend, she knew, but she had rather enjoyed the kiss, if she let herself think about it. It was sweet, it made her heart beat faster (in a good way), and it felt natural for her. The kiss with Sirius had been alright, but it hadn't made her feel anything. Comparably to Hestia, though, she considered Sirius a good friend. The only real thing that could have made a difference in how she felt about the kiss was their genders.
What this meant, Dorcas thought as she watched James laughingly tell Peter to pucker up as his bottle spun to land on his friend, was unable to be refuted at this point. Dorcas liked girls. And, really, was it so bad? Girls were pretty, they smelled good, and some of them wore sweet-tasting chapstick like Hestia. They had soft skin and silky hair, and their eyes twinkled beautifully in the light of a fire, or the sun. Then she looked over to Marlene, who was laughing and cheering as Peter turned beet red, drawing back from James, who had a wide smirk on his face, and Dorcas remembered that Marlene was her best friend. Yes, she thought sadly, it really is that bad. It really is that bad if I have to watch her and want her and never be able to show it.