Who: Evan Rosier & Dorcas Meadows Where: Pub When: 9 July (yes yes i know, super late in posting sorry!! ) Rating: Pg- Pg-13 cause its borderline speaking about violence but only sort of :) Status:complete
Evan was sitting at the pub, sipping on a glass of whisky. It wasn’t firewhisky, but it did it’s job. He had gotten to the pub early, to scout it out before Dorcas showed up. He still didn’t know the island very well, and it sounded like she needed to talk to him about something serious. What, he had no idea. That and it was always nice to be the first one there, Evan liked being able to choose where to sit.
Today, he had chosen the dark corner in the far back from the entrance. Even if there wasn’t anyone who was tracking him or anyone who had the ability to kill him, he still wanted to be careful. Old habits died hard, and he still wasn’t really past the shock of having Moody barge in on him.
Dori wasn’t too far behind Evan at his pub of choice and, even though she’d seen him almost immediately, she stopped by the bar. She ordered a glass of wine and, after thinking it over for a moment, asked for the entire bottle and an extra glass. She had a feeling that they’d need it.
“Hello, Ev,” she said, slipping into the booth tiredly. It had been a stressful, exhausting few days and she just didn’t have the energy to argue with him. Not right now. “Care for one? If you don’t, I’ll probably have the whole bottle.”
Evan had looked up when Dori had walked in, watching her out of the corner of his eye as she ordered. She didn’t exactly look happy to see him, and her words only confirmed his suspicions. He nodded in response to her question.
“Sure.” He took another sip of his whisky before grabbing the bottle and pouring the wine into the extra glass. “What’s on your mind?”
Dori swirled the wine around in her glass, letting the liquid release its bouquet before she sipped. The sip was quickly followed by a larger gulp because, really, did wine etiquette matter any more?
“Well,” she started, setting her glass down, “I’ve been talking. A lot. To one young man in particular. A young man by the name of Potter.” She watched Evan’s face to gauge his reaction to the name. “He’s the grandson of James and Lily Potter.”
Evan knew that the concept of time was very different from what they were used to, but the grandson of someone he had gone to school with? Was it that boy who knew how to charm broomsticks to fly? His eyes narrowed slightly as he tried to figure out what this meant. He knew that James and Lily Potter had been targets for the Dark Lord, and quite important ones at that. Does this mean that the Dark Lord didn’t succeed?
“Is it Al?” He asked quietly, a million questions shooting through his mind. “And how are good old James and Lily?” His tone was slightly biting, with a hint of contempt. He had never held the same hatred for the Potters that Snape had, but it didn’t mean that he liked them.
“It is,” Dori confirmed, still watching Evan carefully. “He’s... a very intelligent, thoughtful young man. And an alum of your old House, so play nicely with him if you at all can,” she added. She took another drink, licking the liquid from her lips before setting down the glass on the wooden table between them. “... He learned about us, you and I, in his History book in school.” Her voice was soft as she spoke, like she was still digesting the fact that the two of them had been important enough to put into a book and their lives would be significant enough to bear any kind of mention. “We’re blips, from what he told me, but we’re in there.”
Another deep drink and Dori had to refill her glass. “James and Lily... Aren’t doing too well. They’re dead. Killed by your master for defending their son, Harry, when your master moved to kill the boy.”
Evan bristled slightly at the fact that Dorcas was telling him to play nice--but that thought was quickly pushed out of his mind when she continued to speak. He must have been hallucinating--maybe all of this had been a dream. Maybe Moody hadn’t killed him, maybe he had just captured him and fed him to the dementors in Azkaban.
“History books?” He repeated, taking a sip of the wine. “When...did they die?” His second question was more hesitant--he knew that Dori had been good friends with the Potters, and despite the fact that one of his hobbies had been to torment her, he wanted to know everything, now.. Antagonizing her wouldn’t help the situation.
Dori stared down into her glass, swirling the wine around in it again. “James and Lily were killed about a month after we...” She didn’t know how to phrase it. Depending on the point of view, they’d both been murdered. After all, wasn’t every man the hero of his own story? Dori knew she was certainly the hero of hers, but Evan had fought for his life to the very end, just as she had. Did he consider himself the hero of his own tale? She didn’t know and sitting in the pub musing over such questions did nothing but waste time.
Waste time. What a funny notion. It was all they had before them now.
She cleared her throat. “But yes. At the end of October.” Dori looked up at Evan then, wondering how he’d react to this news. “Voldemort didn’t succeed then. He tried to kill Harry, but Harry survived the curse because of his mother sacrificing her life for him. The curse rebounded and struck Voldemort instead.”
The news that Voldemort had died should have been great news to Dori, but she didn’t seem to be that happy. Was it because all that he had to do was wait a month before he found her, before they both would have been able to stay alive? Not that it would have done him any good, he would have been captured and taken to Azkaban--and he probably would have resisted and gone out in a similar fashion.
“So the Dark Lord is dead.” He finally replied after a long silence. “Why aren’t you celebrating?” There had to be something else she wasn’t telling him, and he was quickly running out of patience. If the Dark Lord was dead, it meant the cause he had sacrificed the last several years along with his life was a waste. He wondered what had happened to his sister and to the rest of his family. His thoughts flitted briefly to the others in the inner circle, the Lestranges, Malfoys, Crabbe, Goyle, Karkaroff and Snape and wondered about their fates. Had they renounced the Dark Lord and claimed their freedom? Turned each other in? Or had they chosen to die for the cause or to be imprisoned for it? He wanted the answers to these questions, but doubted that even the Potter boy knew.
“It’s more complicated than that, Evan,” Dori said, her somber tone darkening her already husky voice. “People died. A lot of innocent people died or were hurt or were tortured. That’s not something to celebrate.”
She took a deep breath. “The whole situation is complicated. Because Voldemort did... despicable things in order to ensure his immortality, he didn’t die that night, but he was incapacitated. Harry Potter was sent to live with his mother’s muggle family and Voldemort retreated to gather his strength. The Lestrange’s tortured the Longbottom family for information and were sent to Azkaban for their troubles. They later escaped. Most of the rest of your fellow associates... They claimed to have been under the Imperius Curse and publicly renounced Voldemort’s cause.”
Evan let out a low hiss at the idea that people had dared to renounce the Dark Lord, rather than own up to their crimes. It was despicable and cowardly, and although Slytherin was not the house known for courage and definitely not for honor, there was still a code of conduct that needed to be followed--renouncing the Dark Lord and pretending they had committed their crimes under an unforgivable? That was unforgivable.
“So...” Evan gripped the rim of his glass tightly. “He came back then.” Evan sneered slightly. “And all those that had renounced him...they were all welcomed back into the flock, despite their lies?”
“Yes,” Dori said, keeping herself calm, fingers playing with the rim of her wine glass. “He came back and the ones that escaped death returned to the fold.” This was the more painful part to tell, mostly because of the Order’s failures. “He... assumed control of the Ministry of Magic and began placing sanctions on muggleborns and half-bloods. Rounding them up. Killing them. Refusing their children’s entrance into Hogwarts. He made Severus Snape headmaster after Snape killed Albus Dumbledore.”
That was unexpected. Snape was talented, yes, but how could he have killed Dumbledore? In Evan’s mind, Dumbledore was untouchable, and even part of him believed while he was still alive that if Dumbledore had tried, he would have easily beaten the Dark Lord.
As to the former piece of information, Evan had agreed that wizarding society should remain pure--he had strongly advocated and worked towards the cause that suggested that pureblood wizards and witches should remain at the highest echelon of society, and that those who were half-bloods or muggle-borns, though they could be talented, could never have the same social standing.
But in all his work, his torture and in playing with the dark arts, he never realized that what Voldemort wanted was to destroy those who were not pure. After all, every society had niches to fill, and although Evan would never want to marry those who were not pure, they still had their uses.
He took another, much larger sip of the wine as he continued to grip the glass tightly. “And then?” He prompted her, wanting her to continue. A part of him had begun to hope that the Dark Lord had not ruled this second time for too long, though he quickly pushed the traitorous thoughts to the back of his mind.
Dori took a deep breath, and another drink, before refilling her glass. She wasn’t much of a drinker and, before long, she’d be right smashed. It would serve her right. “Dumbledore depended on Harry and his friends, who were little more than children, to destroy the horcruxes he was creating and kill him. It took them nearly a year, but they succeeded.” Her face looked pained then. “But... not before Voldemort and your fellow Death Eaters attacked the school. And the children inside it.”
Of all the things the Dark Lord had done during his lifetime, that was the most abhorrent of them all. It was one thing to attack adults, fully trained witches and wizards capable of at least theoretically defending themselves. It was another entirely to put the future of the wizarding world in jeopardy and kill children.
“There were a lot of casualties. But in the end, the Dark Lord was defeated.”
Evan had been wearing a long sleeved button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up--it was much too warm to keep the sleeves down, but Evan had not ever been in the habit of wearing anything with short sleeves. He looked down at his forearm where his dark mark was barely covered. He hasn’t bothered with charms, for most of the people he had run into assumed it was merely a tattoo of sorts. An odd one to have on the inside of ones arm, but nevertheless, they didn’t question it.
He finished off the glass of wine and loosened his grip on the glass finger by finger, everything and nothing going through his mind at once. He wondered how his family had fared through it all--whether or not his sister had survived all that had happened, or if she was wandering around in the afterlife.
He now realized that he had spent so much of his time for a cause which didn’t seem to matter to anyone except their small band of followers. It was so much time and potential wasted on serving and fighting the Dark Lord--instead, they could have been doing other things. He should have married instead of scoffing at the idea, should have produced heirs instead of letting the Rosier name die with him--there were so many things he could have done, had he not believed that he was untouchable and that what he was doing was worthy of the highest praise.
Evan let the long silence hang between them, lost in his thoughts. He picked up the glass of whisky he had been nursing before Dorcas had arrived and took a large sip, letting the burning liquid run down his throat and warm his insides.
Dorcas just watched Evan, not saying anything for a long time. She could only imagine how hard this was for him. Everything he’d dedicated his life to and thought was important had been destroyed. That was the ugliest thing about unnecessary wars... No matter who the victor was, both sides were hurt in the process.
After what felt like a year, Dori set her glass aside and reached across the table, tentatively taking Evan’s hand. “Are you okay?” she asked quietly, concern evident. She should, by all rights, not care. All things considered, she should not only hate him to the very depths of her being, but take pleasure in knowing that “his side” had lost. But she didn’t. Dori wasn’t that mean-spirited and, no matter what had happened later, Evan would always be the little boy who, yes, while mean to her, had still played with her in the garden of her mother’s house and was always willing to invite her into the Quidditch game, even when the other boys said no. Theirs was a complicated relationship that she didn’t begin to understand most of the time, and nor did she desire to pick it apart at this late stage.
He had almost forgotten that Dori was still there sitting in front of him. He had gripped the whisky glass much too hard, and it had cracked just after she had spoken. It always baffled him how she could still care after all that had happened. Joking aside, he knew he was responsible for her death. And instead of gloating in the victory of the Order and everything she had been involved in, she was sitting here enquiring after him. He placed the glass on the table as he tried to form a coherent sentence, something that would make sense because he had to speak now.
“It’s..” He paused. “I’m-” For once, he was at a loss of words. He didn’t know where to begin--even though he was sure that he would have probably gone and died in the same way at a later date, her death had been unnecessary. He would start there.
“I’m sorry.” He finally pushed out, his lips twisting in a bitter smile. He had never apologized to her for anything he had done before, but he supposed that even in the afterlife, there was a first time for everything.
Dori had a feeling she knew what he was apologizing for. And, at that, she shook her head, gripping his hand a little tighter. “If not you, then it would have been someone else.” She had known going in that there was no way she was going to survive that first war. From the moment she had set herself to the task given to her, she’d known there was no way for her to come out of it in one piece. It would have taken a miracle for that to happen. “And I... I’m glad it was you. Because if that bitch Lestrange had gotten the better of me, I don’t think I could sleep at night.” Even if that sleep was nothing more than an illusion.
She pulled her hand away and took up one of the paper napkins from a box on the table, dabbing at her eyes, then wiping her nose. “It’s all just so pointless and needlessly destructive,” she said, ducking her head so she could get control of herself again. “Proves that we’re no better than the muggles with all of their fighting and wars. First Grindlewald, then Voldemort... Before you know it, there’ll be someone new, vying for dominance. That’s a small comfort... Being dead, we won’t have to deal with it.”
Evan resented her comparison of their war to a muggle one--she was right, but she had hit a sore spot, something that he was having problems dealing with and had tried to push away by focusing on her and what he had done to her. Was everything he had been taught as a child, everything he believed in a lie? That there was no difference between him and someone without magical ability? Someone who had to rely to awful loud contraptions to get around or to even just to have light at night?
He felt as if these thoughts were ripping at the core of who he was, of what he believed and had lived by. Of what his parents and generations before them had believed to be true.
“And..you trust this boy who claims to be Potter’s grandson?” He asked harshly, now trying to find a flaw in her logic. He knew it was futile, but hadn’t they learnt that trust was a foolish trait to have? That no one could be trusted and everyone could be deceived? Evan was now grasping at straws and he knew it, but he wasn’t going to let his universe be turned upside down because of a boy if he could help it.
“Yes, I trust him,” Dorcas said tiredly, willing to put up with all of Evan’s ire and his questions, if he had any. She owed him that much. “He looks like James. Not exactly like him, but the features, the hair... And he has Lily Evans’ green eyes. I don’t doubt that he’s their grandson and I don’t doubt what he told me. There’s no benefit to lying to me, just as there’s no benefit for me to lie to you. We died decades before the boy was even born.”
She refilled her glass and took a deep drink before topping it off once more, closing her eyes and leaning her head against the high cushioned back of the booth. “Most people in my position would be celebrating, I think. I just think it’s sad.”
Evan poured the last of the wine into his glass and held it up to her. “Nonsense. To your victory.” He struggled to keep his tone nonchalant, as if he was already done processing all that she had told him. In all honesty, he didn’t know if he was capable of processing it all. Unfortunately, he had an eternity to figure it out.
“No,” Dori said, shaking her head. She wouldn’t toast to that. “To... To hoping that our brethren are smart enough to not allow history to repeat itself. Again.” She raised her glass then and clinked it with Evan’s. She took a small sip and then set it aside, not feeling like having any more. She’d already had way more than she was accustomed to and it was making her a little dizzy. “I think I should have eaten something before having a drink.”
“Dinner?” Evan asked. He didn’t really want to be alone with his thoughts at the moment, and Dori was probably much better than any other company he could find at the moment. At least she understood somewhat, what he was feeling. He finished off the rest of his glass of wine and set it down on the table, watching her. There was a very large possibility he was going to get drunk tonight and food was probably a good idea.
“Snacks,” Dori countered, calling the bartender over to their table with a wave of her hand. She would have signalled a waitress, but there didn’t seem to be one on duty. “Because I really don’t mind the prospect of being absolutely pissed right now.” She gave Evan a weak smile. “I’d go back to my room to do it, as that’s probably a safer bet, but that would mean drinking alone. Which is just... pathetic.”
Evan shrugged. “Sounds fine to me.” He replied in response to her plan. He didn’t want to be able to think tonight. But he was also nowhere near drunk, his tolerance has been built up after he had first graduated from Hogwarts, when he first believed that he had all the time in the world to be an adult. He watched as the bartender walked over and ordered a bottle of whisky and a new glass, along with some snacks before looking at Dorcas and waiting for her to order.
Dorcas waved her hand, dismissing the man. “Yes, yes, whatever he said, but more of it.” She honestly didn’t care what it was she was ingesting as long as it was strong and there was a lot of it. Not that it would take a lot for her to get drunk.
Too many thoughts were bubbling inside her brain, roiling the normally cool, calm thoughts. What was it all for? Really? She’d dedicated years of her life, years that she could have been having a life, to one purpose and one purpose only and to what end? So an old man could manipulate a young boy into acting as his pawn? Yes, “her side” had won, but at what cost? How many lives, including her own, had it taken? How many families were blasted apart? How many wounds would never heal because of it?
She sniffed, grabbing for a napkin in case the water works started up again. “What’s your biggest regret in all this, Evan?” she asked, twisting in her side of the booth so she could put her feet up.
Evan looked at her warily. His biggest regret? That wasn’t an easy question to answer. He pondered for a moment, fiddling with an empty glass in front of him. Did he regret any of it? All of it? He’d had fun playing around with the Dark Arts, that was for sure. He didn’t think he was crazy or that he was in any way a sociopath that enjoyed hurting others, but he hadn’t thought of muggles as actual people. Sure, he had found a muggle girl from time to time and had fun with her but he thought of that differently.
“Biggest regret?” He repeated thoughtfully now. “Leaving Abby to fend for herself, I suppose.” His sister was someone he was extremely overprotective of and he practically worshipped the ground she walked on. She was probably the one female in his life that he had told everything to, the one he completely respected and if she had ordered him to, he would do practically anything for her.
Evan always had had something of an obsession with his sister. Dori nodded, staring at the tabletop while they waited for their drinks. “I’m sure she came out fine,” she said after a moment, trying to put more feeling into them than she truly felt. She believed it, though. Evan’s family was smart. They would have been among the ones making excuses and asking for forgiveness, because that was what was smart. Not brave, but smart. “I didn’t think to ask Al about my family, or yours, because he’s not an encyclopedia. I do wish there was some way to find out about them, though.”
“Screw it.” Evan replied, giving the waitress a small smile as she set down his whisky and poured him a drink. “I don’t want to know. It’s just going to make me feel like shit.” It was true though. If he had heard that they hadn’t done fine, he would have been upset for them. If they had, and Abby had lived a long life--a thought which was confusing considering he didn’t think he had been dead for that long, he would have been sad he couldn’t have been a part of it.
He downed the glass and poured a new one for himself. “I’d rather not know...” He trailed off. “I was a lot happier a few hours ago when I didn’t know all of this.” Sure, he had wondered, but knowing that his cause had been forgotten, that they had lost? From what Dorcas had said, it sounded like the Dark Lord had deserved to lose, but what now? He couldn’t do anything with this information, he was still dead regardless.
“And you...your biggest regret?” He asked downing another shot of the bittersweet alcohol.
Dori poured herself one and tossed it back after a moment of staring into the amber colored liquid. “Not having the opportunity to have a life, I guess,” she said eventually, setting the glass down. “I would have liked to find someone. Get married. Have a family. All that.” Still, she’d had enough brothers. The elder ones had already had children by the time she’d gone underground, so she was sure her parents, whatever had happened to them, had enjoyed being grandparents. Hell, maybe they still were. It was possible they were still alive and in their dottage.
“It’s better it didn’t happen, though. Cleaner that way.”
Evan didn’t know what to say to that. He stayed silent, pouring himself another glass. At this rate, he would be getting drunk quickly. At least he hoped he would. Sobriety didn’t seem to be the answer at the moment.
“So what else is on this island?” He asked, changing the subject. He hadn’t explored much beyond the area which he lived in, and didn’t know if he would anytime soon.
Dorcas shrugged, pouring herself a second glass. “The beach. The town. Some shops and pubs like this one.” She sighed, swirling the liquid in the glass. “Not a library to be found, though. What kind of bloody reward is this if I can’t find a library?”
She took a deep swallow, savoring as the liquor burned its way down her throat. “You should get out more. There’s nice people here, when you can find ‘em, and as fabulous as I am, you can’t live on my company alone.”
“I met some blonde girl the other day.” Evan downed another shot of whisky. “Quite a pretty little thing.” Evan wasn’t trying to imply anything, he stated it as if it were fact. She had been a pretty girl, even though he didn’t know what she was--not that it mattered here, muggles were everywhere.
“There’s quite a few pretty girls here,” Dori chuckled, still sipping on that glass. “And quite a few blondes. I’m sure you won’t have any problem finding a ‘friend’ you can pass the time with.” She was sure of that, too. Evan was quite the charmer, when he wanted to be. He always had been and women seemed to just suck it right up.
Women had always seemed to be like putty in Evan’s hands. Evan never understood it, but he had taken advantage of it in life. He didn’t think he was going to behave any differently in death. After all, what was the point in being celibate? He now had an eternity of time to kill and not that much to do with it.
He poured himself another glass and filled Dori’s. “Could be worse.” He shrugged, downing his drink. “How long do you think we’ll be here for?” It would be nice now, but for the rest of eternity? That sounded exhausting, and Evan didn’t know what should come next but he didn’t want this to be it.
“I wish I knew,” Dori said wistfully, biting back a sigh. She nodded her thanks when Evan filled her glass, staring into the depths of it for a moment before taking another drink. “I suppose... we could try to build a life here,” she said, thinking out loud for the most part. “Build homes. Find things to occupy our time. Can’t have families, but you can make families from friends, which is better than nothing.” It’d be just like life... only a bit more dead.
She sighed then, tossing back the rest of the glass. “This is supposed to be our Heaven, or something like it. So why not? Why shouldn’t we do what it is we’d like to do?”
To Evan, it wasn’t exactly what he had imagined what heaven would have been like. It sounded...well, it sounded exactly like living. It made it seem like the fear of death was redundant--one can live a full life in the world, but they were bound to do the exact same thing for all eternity. How boring.
“I’d like to get off this island and go back to the real world.” Evan mumbled, after pouring himself yet another drink. At this pace, he was going to be drunk a lot quicker than he thought.
“I don’t think that’s in the cards for us,” Dori said, slipping down into the cushions on her side of the booth. Still, it posed an interesting question. And she wondered , idly, if it were possible to return to life. If one were able to survive the mist monsters. Hmm...
“What would you do if you could?” she asked, watching Evan through heavy-lidded eyes. “Provided you went back... say, within a year of your death.” Time was so fluid in this place. It could have been a couple of weeks since she’d they’d arrived or it could have been a couple of centuries. There was no way of knowing. Not really.
That was an interesting question. What would he do? The knowledge that the Dark Lord would have fallen anyway, that he had been determined to destroy the muggles rather than to just dominate them was something that would have altered his options.
“Probably would have left England.” Evan admitted. “Don’t know if I could go on supporting the Dark Lord knowing what he wanted was different from what we believed was right...” He trailed off thoughtfully. “But I don’t think I could ever try to work with the people...with your people.” There was too much history, and even though he considered Dori a friend, he knew that the others who had been in the Order would have trusted him--if it had been the other way around, he wouldn’t have.
“No, I’d probably leave too, if I were in your shoes,” Dori said quietly, staring into her glass for a few moments before taking another drink. Her vision was starting to blur around the edges and her head was starting to swim. She’d hit her threshold, she figured. Anything beyond this last glass and she’d likely have the mother of all hangovers in the morning. Provided she could still get a hangover.
“I think... I’m done drinking,” she said, giving Evan a tired, sad, swimmy little smile. “And I think... I need to get back to my room before I pass out here.”
Evan gave her a dismissive nod as he poured another glass. “Get home safe.” He replied, taking a long sip of his drink as he looked around the place. He was going to finish off the bottle and find somewhere else to go, it was too empty to stay here and he didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts just yet.
Dori stood, leaving her glass half-empty, making sure she had a hand on the table for safety’s sake. Dead or not, head trauma hurt like a bitch and she’d really rather avoid the added pleasantness of a concussion to go along with her hangover in the morning.
She looked at Evan, forcing herself to focus on him. “... Are you alright?” she asked one last time, her slight inebriation unable to wipe away her obvious concern for him. She should hate him. She had every right to. Dori just... couldn’t.
Was he okay? He was sure that he wasn’t. He couldn’t be. He couldn’t even bear to try to process any of this, much less be all right with it. He stood up, forcing a smile on his face and giving Dori a light peck on her cheek.
“Just..get home safe, all right?” He replied. He didn’t think anything bad could happen, but he couldn’t answer her question. At least, not right now.
“You too,” Dori answered, looking sad and tired and worn and a whole lot of other things she didn’t necessarily want to think about at that moment. She wanted a bed and some sleep and, maybe when she woke up, after the inevitable vomiting, some chocolate. It really did make everything better. “You know where to find me if you need me.”
Giving Evan’s arm a light squeeze, Dori turned and wobbled (just a little) out the door and to her apartment, leaving Evan where he stood.