#coragreengrass

LOCATION: McKinnon Estate DATE: March 11, 1982 @coragreengrass​​

Things had not been going great for Dorcas, lately. (She supposed that was fair: things had hardly been going great for the Order of the Phoenix, either, or for the Wixen World at large, but still.) She still winced at the sight of soapy water, although at least making a blithering fool of herself in front of Emma had ended with her learning that her friend wasn’t engaged so that could, at least, have gone worse...

Still, she’d needed a little bit of solace. A little bit of space. And while normally losing herself in the shops and side streets of Diagon Alley did the trick, being anxious about running into Sirius Black and having to think of something else to say to him undercut the sense of ease that that pastime usually brought, and she was too antsy to drop with ease into the pages of a comforting book (although it would probably do her good to try) and there weren’t many other places she could go and feel calm...

So she’d come to the farm. It wasn’t the best place, with the itch of the Dissendium Task Force ever-present and the chance of running into another member of the Order who might bestow a lecture for perfectly reasonable behavior...but it had space, and if that much greenery wasn’t familiar enough to be comfortable, it was also different enough to be calm. So here she was, walking in from a long walk through the trees and fields for a bracing cup of tea before she went back to the shop to at least pretend to do some of the work her parents keep pressing on her, and feeling calmer than she had in weeks...and then she spotted Cora. Or, as she’d thought of her initially, Not-Emma.

Dorcas grimaced, but forced herself to keep walking. Here was a conversation that was hardly going to improve her sense of calm, but she had managed to avoid the other witch since she’d so unceremoniously and incorrectly brought her to their former headquarters after the disastrous events at the Rosiers’ party and it was well past time to stop avoiding things, no matter how potentially unpleasant. Dorcas knew she could only hope that her mistaken recruit turned out half as well as Emma’s Sevie... “Uh, hi,” she said, mustering a smile. “Cora, right? We weren’t, uh, properly introduced and I looked uhhhh a bit different last time we saw each other but, uh...how are you settling in?” She stuck out her hand.

Date: Evening of February 14 Location: Rosier Study Starter: @fletchermundungus​ (next) @coragreengrass​ (after)

Sirius chuckled, partially just to feel and hear the difference in how it sounded as Morgana. They’d slipped away from the main party quick and easy enough. Sirius didn’t actually know the Yaxley’s well enough to know if Morgana was usually so glued to her husband, but he’d kept his arms entwined firmly around Mundungus’ to help them get through faster. A little PDA could have people’s eyes skittering away from even the most beautiful of people. 

Now that they were in the office, though, they had no need to stay so close together. “I’ll check on the desk, you check on the bookshelves?” he suggested, already striding forward. He almost tripped on his skirt again, so Sirius shoved it to the sides, letting the slit widen to expose both legs. Sirius leaned over the desk, scanning file names and document headers to help get a sense of the Rosier’s sense of organization. 

Future

Cora fell to the ground.

There was no doubt that the woman towering over her knew her, ready to speak an incantation through her silver mask. She drew her arm and --

Her wand was whipped from her hand. She jumped to see where it had coming from, turned around herself but couldn’t see anyone. Then she scrambled for her wand. It was gone a moment later again. “Who’s here?” she yelled, but there was only another spell fired at her feet. On her way out, she leaped after it.

Edgar let her. She didn’t look like she wanted to come back any time soon.

Once she was gone he slipped down from the dark timber that crossed held the roof upright and landed before Cora’s feet. “Miss Greengrass,” he said, offering his hand to help her up.

“Mister Bones, I’m so relieved. I thought everyone was already gone.”

Ryland stared down at the grave. He hadn’t dared stay long after the funeral, not wanting to draw any more attention from unhappy family than he could help. With the way she had died, too, Ryland couldn’t be sure if all the tears and mournful faces were genuine. How many of them hated her for dying in an Order attack? Had one of them been the one to do it?

“We should go,” Isla said quietly, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Ryland reached up to squeeze hers automatically. It had grown dark while they’d been standing here, and he knew Isla was right. Still, he focused all of his magic on the red glove from his pocket and managed to reshape it with his wand into a flower. It wasn’t necessarily a perfect rose, but he hoped Cora would appreciate the thought.

LOCATION: Rosier Family Estate DATE: February 14, 1982 @coragreengrass

Dorcas was going to murder Ndulue Travers. One scream, one blast of shattered glass, and the wix was gone? Were they part of the Order of the Phoenix or not? If you were fighting in a war, you had to be prepared to stand your ground when things got scary!

Not that Dorcas was exactly standing hers right now -- but that was only because she was running instead. Straight down the upper stairs and through the ugly scene in the hallway (don’t think about James, dead on the floor; don’t think about James, dead in Lucius Malfoy’s stupid robes; don’t think about James, dead!) counting on the weight of Perpetua Bullstrode’s reputation and the perceived frailty of her erstwhile “age” to bully her through the little gathering crowd -- no one would think she’d had anything to do with it, after all, and of course the old lady would want to get away from the trouble and sit somewhere quiet, right?

Dorcas wasn’t doing that, either. Instead, she had shoved her way through the steadily-increasing chaos of a posh party beginning to turn to panic, looking for Emma. Where was she? Was she all right? Daisy-slash-Igor couldn’t possibly be trusted to keep Emma safe by herself; Daisy hadn’t even used a wand in a year! She was useless, that’s why she’d been stuck on distraction duty rather than one something useful like Dorcas -- but Emma had been stuck there with her, to make her look good, and now Emma was in danger and Dorcas couldn’t find her and--