The Marauders: Year Six #Wattys2017

Morning Glories

Morning Glories

"Sirius, what are those scars from?" Dorcas Meadowes nodded to Sirius's wrists.

It was the second day in a row Sirius had gone to talk with Dorcas. This time, instead of the exam room where they had met originally, Dorcas suggested that she show Sirius around St. Mungo's.

"There's a lot of stuff people don't know about the place," she'd said when she suggested it, "There's a tea room and a gift shop and a game room for children. Well, they say it's for children, but all us healers go up there all the time to play games, I'm not going to lie."

"What kinds of games?" he'd asked.

That's how they'd ended up sitting on the floor of the game room, playing Gobstones. Sirius had borrowed a jumper from James and it was rather warm in the game room, so he'd rolled the sleeves up without thinking about the stripes across the underside of his forearms.

He stared at her.

"Did you do them?" she asked.

"Maybe," he replied.

Dorcas nodded slowly, then she reached down and rolled up her own sleeve and held out her wrist for Sirius to see. She had a tattoo there - a climbing vine that wrapped around her wrist several times with small flowers that dotted the vine, each in full bloom. Sirius stared at the tattoo a moment, then looked up at her. "That used to be all scars just like yours," she explained. "I had them covered because that's not who I am anymore."

He shifted and looked over the gobstone table, then made a move casually, his eyes flicking between her tattoo and the game. "Why the flowers?" he asked.

"They're called morning glory," she said. "The flowers close at night, but they reopen every morning with the sunrise." Dorcas smiled, "They remind me that even when it's dark and I'm afraid, the light's coming back soon." Sirius stared at the tattoo a moment longer before Dorcas pulled her wrist back. "I understand if you did it yourself is what I'm saying."

Sirius watched her make a move on the board. Then, "Why did you make yours?"

She smiled sadly, "It isn't easy being a kid names Dorcas, whether it's Greek or not... I didn't have a whole lot of friends in school."

Sirius felt bad for his sort of rude approach the day before, asking her what sort of name Dorcas was and he flushed about the cheekbones and diverted his eyes from hers, looking down to the board again and pretending to be busy selecting his next move. He took a deep breath. "My mother hates me."

"Your mother... the bitch?" Dorcas asked, remembering the underlined, circled, and neon-starred note on the clipboard from the day before.

Sirius nodded. "She sends me letters. At least once a week. Sometimes more." He paused, then, "There's also Achlys."

There was something about the way he spoke the name, with a slight tremor to it, that Dorcas knew - just knew - this was something important. She asked, "Who is Achlys?"

"My shementor," Sirius replied, keeping his eyes on the board. He still hadn't moved any marbles. He just stared, his hands in his lap, chewing his lower lip, very carefully not looking at Dorcas. "That's a girl dementor, in case you didn't know. She lives in my chest."

"That must be awful, having a dementor in your chest," Dorcas said.

Sirius looked up. This was the first adult that hadn't told him off for it, that hadn't told him it wasn't possible. Aside from Newt Scamander, that is. Sirius stared at Dorcas for a long moment, "It is," he said.