femgenficathon

Title: Much As She Had Lived
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling and her various publishers. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Length: 4900 words.
Notes: Thanks go to

krislaughs for the beta work and the, er, horse-picking. And, in all honesty, for giving me the idea in the first place, with her talk about black boots and riding crops.
Prompt: "Before a war, military science seems a real science, like astronomy. After a war it seems more like astrology." -- Dame Rebecca West

Summary: "...That's Dorcas Meadowes, Voldemort killed her personally..." -- OotP, page 174

~ ~ ~

Dorcas Meadowes died at four o'clock on a Thursday afternoon. Later, they would say that she died alone, much as she had lived.

They would say it because it was poetic, not because it was true. There were, in fact, several witnesses to her death: her murderer, the man who had once been Tom Riddle; her horse, called Pegasus, though he had never been able to fly and wasn't about to start now; and her entire family, all of them several years dead, now somewhat awkward and malodorous as they lurched about the open graves and crumbling stone walls of the Meadowesheart cemetery.

They would also say she had died instantaneously, but that was a lie as well. Between the brilliant green flash and the last sensation of her face sinking into the sodden ground, Dorcas Meadowes had time enough for three thoughts.

First: Derbyshire is beautiful.

Second: Don't hurt Peg.

Last: I wonder if they'll know how brave I was.

Then she died, facedown in the mud.

The animated corpses of her ancestors did not notice. They lumbered through the crooked tombstones and overturned earth, crushing new spring blossoms beneath their burial shoes.

~ ~ ~

Every week since she was a girl, Dorcas rode across the barren hills of Meadowesheart to visit her parents' graves.

She led Peg from his stall, smiling when he butted his nose playfully against her shoulder. On a blanket in the corner, the old wolfhound raised his head sleepily but did not rise. Sir Dog (she had once thought that he deserved a noble name but not a complicated one) was Peg's only companion these days. The two creatures passed the days lazily, whuffling and whickering quietly in the hushed comfort of the stable or dozing in the grassy fields. They graciously allowed Dorcas to join them for a brief time each day.

Muttering nonsense words and unnecessary reassurances, Dorcas saddled Peg and led him into the stableyard. The rain had slackened to no more than a cool mist. She mounted, and they trotted onto the narrow path that led to the cemetery. Dorcas looked back at the great stone house atop a barren hill. The buildings of the estate were muted and obscured, a vague, colourless sketch of a home. The windows were like dark empty eyes, the creeping vines like hair growing over a long-dead countenance.

The day after her parents' funeral, more than thirty years ago, she had closed the house and moved into the gatehouse at the base of the hill, ignoring the protests of her aunts and uncles. This was her ancestral home, they admonished, tutting disapprovingly while she latched the shutters. This was Meadowesheart, the home of her forebears, the land of her blood. This was where her entire family had lived and died, where they still lurked as portraits and ghosts.

She had always thought it was a silly, whimsical name for such a bleak place. The old name was more fitting: Hardblood. There were Hardbloods on these lands centuries before William the Conqueror crossed the sea, if the stories were to be believed, but even great lineages did not last forever. The oldest stones in the cemetery were worn smooth, names and dates long forgotten.

A great-great-grandmother had rechristened the estate when the last Hardblood son was killed over the honour of a cousin who, it was generally agreed, hadn't been very honourable at all. Long-repeated familial gossip was somewhat lacking in details, but a favourite story was that the young woman had taken a lover who was not quite human, a phouka or a kelpie who had been masquerading as a groom (or as a horse, some said) in the Hardblood stables. Enraged, her proud cousin, the last Hardblood son, challenged the creature to a duel, but before the duel could take place the he was found dead, and the woman vanished along with the groom -- or with the finest horse in the stables.

After his death, there were no more Hardbloods, only Meadowes who were thought to resemble their finely-bred horses just a bit too much.

Dorcas urged Peg to a canter and didn't look back at the house again.

Everyone told her that she should move to London. She told herself, when she thought of it, that she agreed. It was dangerous for her to live out here alone, in such a remote and isolated place, and even just the gatehouse and the stables were quite expensive to maintain. She could buy a flat in one of the nicer magical neighbourhoods, find a place near the city to board Peg, and remind herself what it was like to live with people again.

She told herself the same thing with every changing season. When she was being honest -- which was more and more often these days, as it became so difficult to lie -- she admitted that she would be telling herself the same thing for many years to come.

~ ~ ~

He didn't hurt Peg.

He thought about it. The man who had once been Tom Riddle wondered if he should kill the beast, then bring it back for his own use. He imagined himself riding at the head of an undead army, sweeping down and trampling his opponents beneath thundering hooves. It was certainly a stylish way to crush his enemies, but he wasn't certain the technique for creating animal Inferi was the same as for humans. He would have to read up on it, when he was finished here.

While he was considering the idea, the horse whinnied in terror and shied away from the Inferi. The man who had once been Tom Riddle let it run and turned his mind toward the more important task of transporting the herd of newly-risen Meadowes and Hardbloods away from their resting place.

He raised his wand and called them to him. It was an easy Capture Charm, one he had mastered years ago, practicing on schoolmates and owls and other mindless creatures. As he cast it, he let his mind wander. The Inferi stumbled across the cemetery, their arms comically outstretched, bumping into gravestones, trodding on Dorcas Meadowes' fallen body. Before they surrounded him, he bound them together, weaving a magical net over the pallid skin and ill-fitting, dirt-stained clothing. The undead did not look fierce in the grey afternoon light. Their faces were pasty and twisted in pathetic attempts at menace. He grew bored of them quickly.

Dorcas Meadowes. Her middle name was Hardblood, he knew, after her ancient warrior ancestors. She had told him that one day, when they were in school, because he had said he wanted her full name for a spell. He couldn't remember now what spell he had been pretending to practice, but he remembered that her middle name was Hardblood. Dorcas Hardblood Meadowes.

A good name, with a good number of vowels. Low. Door. Owl. Lord. Across the graveyard, the animated corpse of a young girl in an atrocious pink dress fell into an open grave and immediately began trying to climb out. Scarab. Shredded. Sacred. Her skinny hands, clad in once-white gloves, clawed at the moist soil but found no purchase. Mad. Odd. Owe. Woe. The man who had once been Tom Riddle watched her struggle, amused by the way she kept slipping into the grave again. Oh! Do wed so, mad scarab lord.

He closed the shimmering magical net around the Inferi and lowered his wand, turning the words over in his mind. His smile faded; there was something missing. He had forgotten an e.

~ ~ ~

The trail dipped into a hollow then climbed again. Peg loved to gallop up the gentle slope, so Dorcas gave him rein and let him run. His hooves kicked up earth and grass, his neck stretched toward the summit. Light drizzle still wet her face, but in the west the clouds were breaking and the late afternoon sun filtered through, setting the hills aglow with green and golden light. It had been raining for seven days; the Order had been organised for seven months; her last aunt had died seven years ago.

That ought to be significant, Dorcas thought. Three sevens aligned on the day of the spring equinox. Somewhere in her memory, the dry voice of Professor Quotidien filled the Arithmancy classroom with whispers and predictions, charts of power, calculations of promise, numbers and nuances and nudges toward greatness.

Professor Quotidien had been dead for more than ten years. His magical slide-rule and self-counting abacus had not been able to warn him about the influenza epidemic that swept through Hogwarts; his careful calculations and endless numerological charts had not predicted the grim January morning when his hundred-and-fifty-year-old heart decided not to struggle anymore.

Dorcas had read the obituary in a tea room on Diagon Alley, while waiting to meet a woman from Kent who was interested in buying the last of her mother's antique scrying basins. She remembered the front page of that day's Prophet vividly. Huge block letters proclaimed that doom and destruction would befall the world because the Muggles had been careless enough to let people walk around on the moon. Renowned astrologers wailed for months about the disruption of magical balance in the universe; Seers issued warnings for the evacuation of coastal areas; indignant Ministry officials hotly declared that the Muggle moon mission was a hoax.

But in the end, after the tumult died, nothing changed. Muggles left footprints on the moon, Professor Quotidien died from the 'flu, and Dorcas Meadowes sold her mother's last antique scrying basin for thirty-five galleons, a fraction of what it was worth.

Dorcas tugged on Peg's reins gently to slow him to a walk. The trail became rocky, uneven and deeply eroded as it wound up yet another slope, toward yet another horizon. The crumbling stone walls of the cemetery edged a distant hill, smooth and worn, blending into the landscape.

~ ~ ~

They did not know how brave she was at the end, though they stood by her graveside and claimed that they did.

Albus Dumbledore gave a brief eulogy, speaking of courage in the face of danger, hope when surrounded by despair, light against dark, loyalty against lies. He spoke automatically, his mind so accustomed to funerals that the words came without much effort. He was thinking about Dorcas Meadowes when she was younger, about the staff meeting in which he had convinced Headmaster Dippet to name her Head Girl, about the strange, quiet way she used to watch the Head Boy while he was dazzling everybody else. She never looked on in awe, she never seemed to be impressed, she never stammered and blushed in his presence like the other young ladies did.

He remembered the day he asked her to join the Order and the look of bemused disbelief that crossed her face.

He remembered saying, You knew him as well as anybody did, which was perfectly true.

And he remembered saying, That's why we need you to help us, which was a lie he would always regret. He wondered if he would come to regret all the lies he had told.

Beside the open grave, Dumbledore's voice faltered for just a moment, and he found he had nothing more to say. They could not bury Dorcas in her family's cemetery. Old Ministry laws, remembered and dusted off in light of recent events, did not allow continued usage of graveyards that had been recently vacated.

Instead, they were gathered in a churchyard near Meadowesheart, watched by Muggles who seemed honestly dismayed that the last member of their village's own mysteriously eccentric family had died. The witches and wizards were dressed discreetly and clustered close to the grave. Dumbledore saw no faces that he did not recognise; Dorcas hadn't known many people. There were friends from the winged horse farm where she had worked for most of her life and distant relations who likely hadn't seen her since childhood.

The Order members who had come looked anxious and preoccupied rather than grief-stricken, and Dumbledore could not fault them: Minerva looking stern enough to scold the gravestones, Emmeline with her tears that fell so readily, Gideon who always had a handkerchief to catch them, Fabian with his face that might be carved from stone, Caradoc gazing across the hills as if expecting an army to appear on the horizon, Alastor watching the other mourners with thinly-veiled suspicion. He knew what they were thinking, as uncharitable as it was. They had all wondered about Dorcas, worried and whispered, They say she was friends with him at school. They say she knew him well. She never talks about him.

It was odd, Dumbledore thought, how in those hushed conversations and awkward confidences, her name became as taboo as Voldemort's. She who would not be named, because she knew him in school.

They would have no trouble naming her now; her loyalty was proven. The Order was running out of people to suspect.

Dumbledore became aware of the mourners' eyes on him, so he hurriedly said a few final words, then looked toward the land that Dorcas had always called home. The blocky silhouette of Meadowesheart was visible on a far hill, a lifeless grey block against the blue sky. Unbidden, unexpected, a memory rose in Dumbledore's mind: the low, hoarse voice of his grandmother, sharing stories by the fire in the wooden house in the glen, tales about ancient warriors and fantastic creatures chased from the land long ago. He remembered the light in her bright blue eyes and climbing eagerly into her lap with his endless questions, Where did they go? Will they ever come back? Will I ever see them? He remembered her face crinkling with laughter, her gnarled hand poking his stomach playfully, her teasing reply, If you know where to look, maybe you will.

They had found Dorcas Meadowes' body among the empty graves of her ancestors, but they did not find her horse.

Albus Dumbledore smiled sadly and turned away from the grave.

~ ~ ~

She walked Peg through a gap in the cemetery wall before she noticed that anything was wrong, and then it was too late.

The cemetery was the oldest part of Meadowesheart. Dorcas' father had once invited magical historians and archaeologists to examine the hill, with its ancient burial sites and crypts that had been used for centuries. The researchers had been excited for the opportunity; the old Hardbloods had used burial customs and preservation techniques that were quite rare in England. She remembered a warm summer day when she was a child, making a crown of wildflowers while her father spoke to a man in a tweed jacket and a wide-brimmed hat.

There was no rhyme or reason to the cemetery. The graves and crypts and walls were placed wherever there was room, a rambling, sprawling maze on the top of the hill. One Hardblood ancestor, two or three centuries ago, had tried to enclose it all in a single high stone wall, but even that was falling down now. The oldest gravestones were worn smooth and completely unreadable.

As a child she had thought it nothing more than a pleasant spot for playing, full of flowers to pick and stones to climb, but with each passing year she felt the weight of the place more and more, the gravity that tilted the gravestones and sunk them into the ground, pulled the stones from the walls, kept the trees stunted and sparse.

Dorcas dismounted and looped the reins through a stirrup. Suddenly, Peg snorted and stepped sideways, his ears perked and nostrils flaring. Dorcas grabbed the rein to keep him from darting away and stroked his neck reassuringly.

"What is it?" she murmured, glancing around. "Silly boy, there's nothing--"

A movement to her left caught her attention. She turned her head quickly.

At first, she thought it was a ghost. There were old ghosts at Meadowesheart, so old they seemed to be tattered and fading, whispering long-forgotten languages. Dorcas glimpsed them occasionally, in unexpected places: a stooped woman with wild hair and a necklace of bones, a band of bearded warriors with ghostly spears in hand, a mournful Roman soldier in a blood-stained tunic.

This one was different. He was pale, but not silver; his flesh was shrivelled and shrunken around his limbs, stretched taut across a grinning face. Strange, bluish designs marked his skin -- or what was left of his skin, visible beneath a ragged tunic of fur and leather, all stained and spotted with mud. His hair hung in a tangled mat around his shoulders. He held his arms before him, as if reaching or balancing, and took a few stumbling steps forward.

He opened his mouth -- a grinning black, toothless hole -- and exhaled a broken, rasping, wheezing noise, almost a laugh. He was solid, moving forward, crushing the grass beneath his feet.

Dorcas gaped at the man, dimly aware of Peg blowing loudly and wrenching her arm in an attempt to run away.

Not a ghost. A corpse.

She stepped back, holding Peg's reins tightly. Her mind was racing. Of course. Of course -- she should have seen it, made the connection, all those petty crimes they didn't understand. The burgled apothecaries. For the blood, she thought, grasping at long-forgotten Defence classes, fish blood, or lizards, something cold. Three separate pet shops attacked, the proprietors killed. Newts, for the sacrifice, take a life to recall a life. The break-in at the wizarding museum in London, nothing stolen except for a collection of Greek coins, more a curiosity than a treasure. Payment for the bodies, payment under the tongue. The old woman in Brussels, her senseless murder, her stolen book collection. Even he would have to look it up, how to make Inferi.

She should have seen. You see patterns, Dorcas, Dumbledore had said, and even then she'd thought it a weak compliment. She wasn't brave or powerful or strong, but she was supposed to watch and listen and make connections. That was what she was supposed to do; that was all they asked. And she had failed.

She had to warn the Order.

Dorcas turned quickly and fumbled with Peg's reins, pulling them sharply to keep him from jerking away. He danced in an anxious circle, his eyes wide with terror.

Then she glanced up, over the saddle, and saw the others.

She recognised the robes first.

They were still brilliant scarlet, shimmering and bright even under the clouds, a flame of impossible colour despite the mud. Don't be ridiculous, Dorcas. That is an inappropriate colour for a burial. The golden clasps were still in place, the rich embroidery still edging the fabric. But she loves -- loved -- red. It was her favourite colour. The fine necklace and the exquisite earrings still shone, rubies and gold, around a pale, flaccid, leering face. Her vanity is no matter now. These black robes will suit perfectly. The Inferius stumbled, its eyes blank, its hands grasping the air like claws. On the left hand, a diamond ring caught the light and sparkled. It's not vanity, Aunt Deliah. Mum just loves -- loved -- pretty things.

A low, smooth, mocking chuckle broken through Dorcas' shock. She froze, and even Peg went still for a moment. Her grip on Peg's reins tightened, and she realised, belatedly, that she was holding her riding crop in her other hand. Her wand was tucked into the top of her tall black boot, where she always kept it while riding. She glanced at the crop, at Peg's wide eyes, at her gloved hand on the leather reins, at her mother's corpse stumbling through fresh spring grass. The laughter wrapped around her like a snake, slow and insidious.

Dorcas took a deep breath. Her heart was racing, but her hands were no longer shaking.

Without turning, she said, "Hello, Tom."

~ ~ ~

Alastor Moody stood up, his knees cracking audibly, and grunted with disapproval. She hadn't even drawn her wand. It was still there, tucked into the top of her riding boot; she was holding a riding crop instead. What had she expected to do, thwap the Dark Lord with a whip until he went away?

Moody had thought she had a good head on her shoulders, the Meadowes girl, but there was no telling what people would do, how they would act. How they would die.

She was facedown in the mud. Her hair was the same colour as the earth, her riding clothes muted and dull. Moody hesitated, rubbing his neck thoughtfully. He didn't want to turn her over. He didn't like seeing their faces, when it was too late.

Instead, he looked up and squinted into the sunlight. He'd sent Dearborn to search the perimeter, look for anything out of place -- anything more out of place than dozens of empty graves. The lad had a good set of eyes on him; he tended to notice things that other people missed. It was the brain attached to the eyes that caused the problems. Moody finally spotted him and scowled. The boy was standing on a remnant of stone wall, silhouetted against the morning sun, staring over the hills. More than once, Moody had wanted to ask him what he saw, when he looked toward the horizons like that, but he always swallowed the foolish question, knowing he would get an equally foolish answer. The lad was odd, but he was smart and he was on their side. In the Order of the Buggering Phoenix, Moody thought, scoffing to himself. Order of the Misfits and Outcasts was more like it.

And now they had one less misfit, one less wand. One more body.

"Dearborn!" Moody shouted.

The lad turned, paused, and dropped gracefully to the ground. He walked slowly across the cemetery, his hands tucked into the pockets of his Muggle trousers, and stopped beside Moody. Together, they looked down at Dorcas Meadowes' body.

"She didn't draw her wand," Dearborn observed.

Moody grunted.

"All the graves are empty, even the old ones."

It took a powerful spell to make ancient, crumbling bodies walk again. Powerful magic and a lot of planning. He was always one step ahead of them, Moody thought, one step ahead and laughing as they tripped over themselves trying to catch up.

"She told me once that she used to come out here and lie in the grass, on her back by one of the headstones, to pretend that she was dead like the rest of her family."

Moody looked at Caradoc Dearborn in surprise. He didn't know that the Meadowes girl had ever confided in anyone, or ever spoke to anyone about anything other than horses. Dearborn was staring at the western horizon, frowning slightly.

"Why did she tell you that?" Moody asked, his tone harsh with disbelief.

Dearborn shrugged and didn't answer.

Moody looked down at her body again. He thought of Dorcas as a young girl -- the same long face, the same solemn eyes, the same black boots -- riding out here alone, letting her horse graze while she lay on her back in the sun, eyes closed, hands crossed over her chest.

"Come on," he said gruffly. "Let's turn her over."

Neither man moved.

~ ~ ~

The man who had once been Tom Riddle fancied he could smell her fear. He resisted the urge to open his mouth and flick his tongue out, searching for a taste. She looked small and weak, clinging to the terrified horse, a worthless little stick clutched in her hand.

When she turned around to look at him, he smiled. Then something other than fear -- revulsion? -- flickered across her face, and his smile became a sneer. She was not a pretty woman; she never had been. The rumours of fey blood in her family were obviously absurd. He just had to look at her to see that the other rumours -- rumours that her forbears hadn't just bred animals but bred with them -- were more likely to be true.

"You should thank me," he said, with affected casualness. He held his wand with both hands, drawing the smooth wood through his fingers.

The horse jerked her arm again, and this time she let it go. The beast wheeled away, whinnying shrilly, but found its escape blocked by the growing crowd of corpses. It reared and cried again, dancing in a panicked circle.

"Thank you, Tom?" Her voice wavered.

He flinched at the name. "For giving you a chance to see your family again."

She watched the Inferi warily. He saw her gaze fall on her father, her grandfather, her aunts and uncles.

She glanced at him quickly, not meeting his eyes, and said, "Thank you, Tom."

His mouth twisted involuntarily. "I've left that name behind," he said, waving a hand in the air. "Now they fear to speak of me. Amusing, is it not? I was quite entertained when I read about 'He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named' in the Prophet."

She didn't answer at first.

Then: "I know who you are." As if it were the simplest thing in the world.

"I'm going to kill you, of course."

He gripped his wand tighter and pointed it at her. He waited for the fear to flare in her eyes again, but there was nothing. She looked only mildly interested, glancing at the wand, then looking back at the Inferi pressing closer all around. He should let them have her, he thought suddenly, let them trample her to the ground, crush her bones, smash her head. He should see what they could really do, these wretched creatures who stank and moaned and tripped over their own feet. He would listen to her screams as they tore her to pieces.

He lowered his wand. "I don't want to kill you," he lied. "You have a lot of valuable information." He stopped and waited. They always did the thinking for him, when it got to this point. He watched carefully, waited for the hope to light her eyes, the last glow of desperation.

She was not looking at him when she said, "I do, don't I." It wasn't a question.

"I know who leads you." He did not let himself spit on the ground in place of that name. "But I'm certain your merry band has many secrets from me."

She nodded. "And if I tell you?"

"I'll spare you." It was hard to say that without laughing, but they always believed it. They didn't have a choice.

"For how long?"

"Until you are no longer useful."

She tilted her head to one side thoughtfully. "It's not difficult to be useful," she said, "to either side."

Then he did laugh. "What's this? Having a change of heart, are we? Rather be on the winning side?"

Shrugging, she said, "I don't want to die."

The man who had once been Tom Riddle grinned. "Neither do I. Not as loyal to the old man as he thinks, are you?"

"I don't know what he thinks."

"Let's not play," he said warningly. "I'm a busy man, you know."

She sighed, as if deciding something. "Don't be ridiculous, Tom."

She looked at him then, with her dull brown eyes, the same eyes that had looked at him over the top of an Arithmancy book, the same eyes that had flicked from the Head Boy badge to his face then back, the same eyes that had dispassionately watched his every move, every manoeuvre, every charm.

His grin vanished. He raised his wand again. "Avada Kedavra!"

She fell slowly, forward into the mud.

The man who had once been Tom Riddle exhaled and scowled.

"I left that name behind," he snapped, then immediately felt foolish. She would have made a good spy, he thought, but too much trouble, too much -- well, her eyes were part of the mud now, mud then worms then nothing at all. He could find somebody else.

He gathered the Inferi to him and transported them away, to a safe place he was had prepared weeks ago. They were only the first, the beginning of his army, and already he noted that the oldest corpses were too awkward and slow to be of much use, too prone to leaving bits and pieces of limbs behind. That was a disappointment; he had hoped to use ancient warriors, still remembered and feared for their ferocity.

She was fresh enough, but he decided to leave her. It was almost poetic, a single body alone in a pilfered graveyard. His lips twisted into a smile, and he turned away, ready to Apparate.

A flicker a motion on the horizon caught his eyes. He squinted into the afternoon sun; the clouds were breaking, washing the countryside with light. There was a shadow moving smoothly along the crest of a distant hill. It couldn't be her horse, he thought, a bit uncertainly. He should have killed the stupid beast, but it couldn't have run that far, that quickly.

As he watched, the shadow seemed to mutate and grow, as though wings or sails were unfurling in the afternoon light. Then it was gone.

The End