dorcas meadowes is glad she's not dead (ewoksrule) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2015-04-01 18:47:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !log, dorcas meadowes, ginny weasley |
Who: Ginny Weasley & Dorcas Meadowes
When: March 11, 2015. (backdated, obvs)
Where: Apartment 2045.
What: Roommates (re)united!
Status / Rating: Completed. Low.
Ginny, a frequent inhabitant of London and other European cities (being, as she was, a famous Quidditch player now), had never really seen anything like New York. The buildings seemed to be tall enough to touch the sky; Potts Tower was just one out of hundreds of similar stature. And then, there were the cars, and the sound of trains rumbling underground, and the Muggles. Muggles were everywhere. As she opened the door to her flat, she didn't know what to expect. SWORD had told her the bare minimum: she was here for the duration of her stay, and she'd be given a place to stay. She'd been aware throughout the entire ordeal of two things: the SWORD agents knew an extraordinary amount of information about her life, more so than she expected Rita Skeeter to know, and she'd lost her broomstick. It had been in her hands only a moment before the blinding light had grabbed her, and then -- nothing. "Hello?" she called out, shutting the door behind her. She'd been told of her flatmate, but she hadn't recognized the name. It was just another piece of information in an already too long list of where she was, and when she was, and -- Merlin. She just wanted to lie down for a bit, and maybe wake up back in her own flat. Dorcas had hopes that sticking to her flat would prevent her from falling victim to the plague that seemed to be sweeping through not just Potts Tower but the world at large. It had spread quickly and it kept doing so, even with a quarantine in place. Maybe that made staying in futile, but Dorcas was enjoying a quiet evening in with Cricket, anyway, catching up on some reading. Her work with SHIELD didn’t exactly leave a lot of leisure time. Cricket scrambled quickly off of her lap at the sound of the door opening. Dorcas was up in an instant, too, her wand in her hand. She wasn’t expecting anyone and most people would knock rather than just come through the door so abruptly. A moment later, though, a familiar voice rang through the air and Dorcas grinned as she slipped her wand back in her pocket. “Ginny!” she cried, more to herself than to the new arrival. A moment later she appeared in the main room of the flat, still grinning. She would have rushed forward to hug the younger woman, but at the last moment she remembered that Ginny wouldn’t have any recollection of her time here before. “Er, hello, I’m Dorcas,” she said a little awkwardly. “Sorry, sometimes I forget that no one ever remembers being here before.” She saw the cat first, just before it disappeared with a swish of its tail around the corner. The sight brightened her mood just a little bit, and she grinned as her flatmate appeared in the room. She'd never seen the woman before, but she thought they must be about the same age, and she was glad for that, too. She didn't want to be rooming with someone closer to her mum's age, not now that she'd finally escaped the Burrow back home and all. "Hello," she said, again. She'd have offered Dorcas her hand, except they were full. She was still carrying the Quidditch robes that she'd worn through Tesseract, folded up neatly in one hand, her access card in the other. "And er -- sorry about that, it seems I've been here before?" That much should have been obvious. Dorcas had said as much herself, and none of the SWORD agents had been surprised at her arrival. That she couldn't remember any of it bothered her. "I shouldn't be worried about Dark Wizards coming out of the walls. Should I?" She spoke lightly, but she was feeling a little bit apprehensive now that she thought about it. Dorcas shook her head and waved off Ginny's apology. "Don't worry about it, no one ever remembers. I don't really understand the science behind it, but the Tesseract seems to strip people's memories when it sends them home or maybe when it brings them back, I'm not sure, but I've been here for more than two years I've seen loads of people come and go and none of them have remembered being here before. She understood the redhead's wariness. It wasn't something she'd felt, too, when she'd been new to this reality. Seeing Sirius so much older than she remembered at the time had helped to convince her of the reality of her situation. She'd seen him come and go a couple of times since and the same for Remus, James, Lily, Harry, even Ginny. There weren't many people who'd been here the entire time she had and certainly none of her loved ones from home had been, but she had grown used to this place and all of its quirks. That certainly didn't mean she couldn't remember or appreciate what it was like to be a new arrival, though. "No dark wizards," she assured her roommate with a smile and another shake of her head. "This reality had it's share of, er, quirks, but we're perfectly safe in here." More or less, anyway. There was that plague going around, but she hoped the fact that she hadn't gotten sick, yet, meant it would pass her by. "Oh, that sounds a bit awful." She didn't know how else to describe it. The idea of people coming and going was a powerful piece of magic in itself, but that no one ever remembered any of it was strange. It reminded her too much of her own experiences with memory loss and being possessed by dark objects, memories that she was all too eager to forget. "It's a good thing we don't have to worry about dark wizards, or I'd, er, pack up my Tesseract bags and head back through the light." She was aware, even as she said it, that that wasn't possible. She didn't have to be told that one of the perks of such powerful magic was a seeming lack of control over the comings and goings. That seemed to go without saying. "And I'd grab my broomstick on the way back…I already feel lost without it." She realized that here she was chattering on about the Tesseract and dark wizards when she had a flatmate whom she knew nothing about standing before her. "Say, you're from Britain, yea? Are there more of us here?" “It is, but you get used to it after a while,” Dorcas admitted. Truthfully, she was understating things a bit. Some of those departures had been devastating. She still missed Marly more than she could express and if she stopped to think about Oliver- well, she just didn’t allow herself to dwell on it, She was here and alive and that was what counted, that and appreciating the people who were here, both mates from her own reality and those friends she’d made since her arrival. It was better to focus on that than all the people she’d lost. She shook herself out of the darker thoughts that threatened to bring down her mood and focused now on her new-old flatmate, who clearly had no memory of who she even was. There were probably a lot of questions she had, Dorcas had been here long enough to expect that, and it wasn’t the time to be thinking of herself or anything else. Grinning once more, she answered Ginny’s question, as it occurred to her that she hadn’t quite gotten around to introducing herself properly, beyond a first name, which really wasn’t as much as she should have said. “I am, and from your reality, too, actually, although we’re from different times, but I knew your parents, in the Order. Dorcas Meadowes, Gryffindor class of ‘78, at your service.” "Class of '78?" Ginny repeated with a look of disbelief. She didn't have to do the math to know that put them at about a twenty year difference, and yet here was Dorcas not looking a day over her mid-twenties. "But that's -- you're -- Merlin's beard, I don't know if that's marvelous or horrible." She tried to place Dorcas in what she knew of the original Order, which wasn't exactly easy. What Ginny knew about the original Order of the Phoenix had filtered down to her through so many diluted channels that it was practically useless. "My mum and dad were part of the Order when You-Know-Who returned after…everything, but I was too young to know much about it. I used to think that was completely unfair, but now…" She let the sentence drop without finishing it. The war had really changed her opinion on what was fair and unfair. Yes, she had successfully led Dumbledore's Army, and yes, she had fought against Bellatrix Lestrange. But at what cost? "I'd introduce myself, but you've probably heard it all before. Since we're new-old-best of the best flatmates?" She smiled her most charming smile. "Who else from our world's here? They mentioned a few, but it was all such a whirl… All I remember is them talking about Harry, and they seemed to know everything. Which isn't unusual. He is Harry." “Yeah, I know, I look good for an old lady, don’t I?” It was one of her favorite jokes, one she and Marly had cracked often in the early days of being here. It was one that still amused her. “It made all this Muggle technology even more of an adjustment, but it’s all pretty cool.” Of course, the knowledge she’d be dead at home made this feel all a little better, too. It was nice to get a second chance at living. She nodded, understanding completely what Ginny wasn’t saying. “It all sounds exciting until you’re thrust into the middle of the fight, doesn’t it?” It was a rare serious moment for her, but she did understand. Dorcas had lived through that first war and she’d seen enough. She’d lost enough. It wasn’t anything like she’d thought when she was still in school. “They know everything about all of us, actually,” she admitted. “I’m not sure how much you got of the usual explanations, but there’s a series of books in this reality. They’re about Harry, mainly, starting just after he went to Hogwarts and ending after Voldemort was defeated for good, There’s all this information about all of us on the Internet and there was a whole series of films based on the books. It’s all pretty mad, I know, but it’s true.” Ginny didn't quite understand what Dorcas was saying. Of course, there were books about Harry. He was Harry Potter, savior of the Wizarding World, hero. She could have listed his good qualities ad infinitem; though in doing so, she'd have to admit that she still had a thing for him. And Merlin, was that public knowledge, too? She thought back to her initial arrival and everything that had happened in that short period of time. If anything had been mentioned about her and Harry, it hadn't come up. Perhaps SWORD was simply too official to talk about school romances. Or, perhaps, that hadn't made it into the series of books. "You're saying the Muggles know all about us? But what about Diagon Alley and Hogwarts and everything…" It occurred to Ginny as she listed familiar and comforting aspects from her world that they might not exist here. They might, in fact, simply be anomalies that were found between the covers of books. That thought made her pause. "They're not here, are they?" "Those places we know from home aren't real to people here. For them, we're all, well, a work of fiction, just a story. That's true for everyone who comes here through the Tesseract." She considered telling her about the theme park in Florida, but she knew it was a lot to take in as it was. "It's all a bit confusing and you'll get a headache if you think on it for too long. Sometimes it's seems mad to me even now,matter over two years being here. You get used to it after awhile, but at the same time you never quite do." She felt like she was messing up this whole explanation. "The information's out there, I can show you how to look it up when you're ready. Maybe after you've settled in a bit, hmm?" She suggested. "Hmm, alright," agreed Ginny. She could let it drop for now. All of this being fictional and not here was starting to give her headache, like Dorcas had said it might. And what did it matter? She was stuck here, and she might as well make the best of it. She looked around the flat again, remembering the swishing tail when she'd first arrived. She decided that this world might not be too bad, after all -- whatever it might decide to throw at her. "So, we have a cat?" Ginny’s last question brought Dorcas’ grin out again and she nodded her head. As if summoned by the word “cat,” Cricket reappeared just them and Dorcas bent over to scoop her up into her arms. “Ginny Weasley, meet Cricket.” |