Casting Shadows at Noon
The Darkest Choice
It had been four months before the fatal attempt on the Potter's life when Voldemort first tested the controlling potion Severus worked so hard to perfect. A cloaked figure, slipping into a bar, tipping a vial into a stranger's drink, a whispered suggestion. Dorcas Meadows had slipped up the steps beneath her Invisibility cloak; an Auror, too powerful for the Imperius, had obeyed, silently, quietly. Severus always felt dizzy, remembering his pride in that moment. She snuck up the stairs to spy on Dumbledore, a simple test with no particular benefit, just intended to test the spying and reporting procedure. Snuck into the second floor, and heard the final words of Sibyl Trelawny's interview for the Divination Professor.
The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...Born to those who have thrice defied him, Born as the seventh month dies.... Severus remembers the pacing, the worrying, the regrets that the spy was only told to listen for two minuets. Remembers the counting, the figuring of those who would resist.... Black: Joined the Order of the Phoenix, saved Pettigrew's life, killed a Death Eater, but he isn't married, won't ever be the way he's going..... Lupin: Joined the Order, nothing more.... Potter: Joined the Order, killed McNair's son, ruined an assault on Surrey, Expecting a son in July.... Longbottom: Joined the Order, Put five Death Eaters to death at once, escaped by a hair's breath the first time he destroyed their house, Frank Longbottom had apparated away at the final instant from the old Ministry building and destroyed vital files as he left... Expecting a son in July.
Worried, seeking to destroy this threat, the Dark Lord had turned to his adviser: which child will it be? There was time, of course, to kill both children, but that fool Dumbledore will try to protect them, best to act fast against the greatest threat.... Severus thought, remembered Potter with his lazy drawl and fast wand, and Longbottom, with his gift for charms and his friendly stutter, and said, easily and fluidly .
That night, Dorcas Meadows became the first resistance member to be personally killed by Voldemort himself, though the honor seemed rather lost on her.
