DOROTHEA {fred weasley}

seventy two

Lilith apparated the pair to outside St Mungo's, landing with a crack that echoed down the street. Dorothea stumbled slightly on the cobbled path, and Lilith, not unkindly, shoved her forward.

"Go on," she muttered, gesturing for her to head towards the gate. 

But when she caught sight of Dorothea's face: pale, rigid with held-back tears — something in her twisted. Dorothea, so perfectly composed, so irritatingly superior most of the time, turned and collapsed into her arms with a muffled sob.

Lilith softened, she knew she shouldn't, that she should berate her, threaten her, but she'd grown up with Dorothea, she couldn't.

Lilith had only heard whispers about Dorothea and Fred Weasley. It sounded like nonsense. She couldn't picture a time at school when Dorothea hadn't looked like she'd rather hex him than speak to him.

But the boys joked. Flint especially. He'd dig at Ezra in the dormitory about it, loud, laughing jabs about a redhead and a Rosier. 

She'd never believed it, none of the girls did.

Lilith felt stronger than Dorothea for the first time in her life, now. She was hurting too, though, the shop was a sobering reminder of lost childhood. She hid it well.

She missed Elvira too, not the same as Dorothea did, of course. But the four girls had grown up sisters. Elvira had been bright. Gentle. Real.        

"Sorry, Lil," Dorothea said awkwardly, pulling away from the witch, expecting a stern face.

"Don't be," she muttered. She pulled a watch out of her pocket and glanced at it, "no one will have noticed you're gone. Come on."

"Good shop," the blonde witch sighed under her breath. 

"Yeah," Lilith said thoughtfully, pausing on the spot. She forced a smile "they did well."

"Vira was in there," the other whispered. 

Lilith's expression suddenly tightened and her eyes darkened a little, she looped Dorothea's arm and started marching her towards the gates. 

"What is it?" Dorothea asked, heart pounding that someone had found out about Elvira being a muggleborn.

"She's a traitor," was all that Lilith said. "She was meant to be on our side."

"Oh."

She didn't know what to say. Didn't know how to explain that Elvira had never belonged to either side. That she'd just existed — quietly, beautifully — until the world had turned too dark for her to stay visible.

They walked in silence, footsteps echoing against the slush-dark pavement.

Dorothea's thoughts drifted to Fred, to the flicker of red in a window, to the smile that had almost undone her.

It all felt impossibly far away now.

But somewhere, deep in her chest, she knew: it wasn't over.

A week after, Dorothea was breathless, panting on the cold, stone floor in the drawing room of her home, Lord Voldemort opposite her, willing her to her feet with a casual flick of his wand.

He still scared the witch, but she hated how accustomed to their training she was becoming. 

It had become even more of a task too, since it now required both blocking her mind and  practicing her wandless magic.

Dorothea stood shakily in the centre, breathing hard, her hands trembling at her sides. Her wand was nowhere near her. It hadn't been in hours.

"Again," the man hissed, raising his own wand.