#lucius002

The scratching of quills against parchment was driving her mind to unravel. Her finger pads slapped into the desk—

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

The scratch of trousers on leather pulled Dorcas from her tapping when her coworker turned around and shushed her insistent tapping. The Auror office was hardly this quiet but it was a slower evening. Dorcas had been put on desk duty after pushing it too far with someone who was not Moody. She was just an inquisitive person and wanted to know the purpose of the training exercises, Dorcas needed to be challenged and yet she was not finding those challenges with the current training exercises. They always were able to beat the hypotheticals, but she knew that was not always going to be the case when it comes to magical law enforcement.

The slam of an office door and lock made her jump from her seat. The last of the more senior Aurors were heading home for the day and Dorcas was becoming increasingly more and more jealous as the time passed. The clocks ticked through the everlasting seconds that she was stuck in the office. The only light coming from desk lamps and Moody's office. The door shut tight and the light just peeking out from the space between the floor and the door.

She had spent the last few shifts, nervous, that she would be called into that office and reprimanded for the curse she had sent flying into Lucius Malfoy’s back. Lily had warned her that she had made a powerful and dangerous enemy but the only person that put any terror in her was her boss.

The relationship between Moody and Dorcas was a complicated being in itself. Sometimes she could fight tooth and nail with him until one of them passed out or; he would give her a firm no and all would be fine. She was unrelenting in her push and pull when it came to Moody, but the reality of her world was that if Moody would be the one to decide her fate: If she spent a long life getting the bad guys or if she would be stuck at a desk until her knees become too weak to support her.

Her stare was broken by the all too familiar black envelope. Her skin prickled as she followed the envelope spiral down to its place. The gold seal of the ministry gleaming in every dim light leak that escaped and it took everything in here to not run to it, seeking any kind of action. Her fingers just grazed the edge of the envelope before it was snatched from her hands by no other than the man of the hour.

Moody read it over for what felt like hours upon hours of time before throwing it down. “No,” is all he said to Dorcas before walking away for the evening, knowing the tip was barely worth any attention for someone who has done this a million times but she could not help herself and whatever it was had to be something right? It wouldn’t have made it the whole way to their office if there was not a reason. It was enough justification in her mind to grab it and take it to her desk.

Death Eater mission.

The White Wyvern.

That’s all she needed to know before grabbing her coat and excusing herself to the restroom, she just omitted that she wouldn’t be at the restroom in the Ministry.

The smell of wet cobblestone filled her lungs with every quiet step she took to the pub in question. Rain plastered itself on her hood and the overall mist was making her nose run. The alleyway felt like it was tunneling around her. The last of the lampposts dulling as her steps slowed.

Just ever so slightly.

Dorcas came up slowly on the door. A dark, nondescript door. A door that would either show her to be a fool who yearned for glory or…

She felt her body hit the floor before the sensation of falling came. Her arms and legs bound together by the curse that she almost sent flying at the man before her. She knew the voice. The low draw of a smaller man. She started to scream through a wired jaw, anything to get even the smallest peak of attention from someone walking past or a tenant of the scrawling flats above them, but nothing. No one could hear the quiet screams over the rain. Her face becoming pelted by water so all she could do was keep her eyes fastened shut.

Trying to follow his movements by the clap of a heeled shoe but nothing… She had nothing. The cobblestones digging into the entirety of her back, feeling the pain of bruises starting to build kept her screaming, her eyes trying so desperately to plead with the house elf that he dragged into this mess. She knew that the reality was that the house elf had no regard for her and neither did any of the people in Knockturn Alley.

Nothing and no one would come.

She continued to fight until the first came flying into her body. The most unimaginable pain she had ever felt in her entire life scorched every muscle, every bone, every childhood scar. Her pain did not belong to her anymore, it was someone’s else and all she could do was pray and pray that it would pass or kill her first before she ever felt it again.

When it did stop, her heart pounded in her chest, her head. Her limbs throbbed from the denial of being able to writhe and scream. Every instinct was pushing her to run, pushing her to do something other than lay there and take it from Malfoy. Yet, she couldn’t and when his hands ran down her cheek and through her hair, she felt panic start to set in. His words went through one ear and out the other.

Crooked breathing left her nose with each dash of patronizing. Her demeanor breaking when he said that she would be his broken marionette doll. Feeling a chill run down her spine, Dorcas continued to push and squirm, but screams stopped coming. Her throat bruised and vocal cords shout from the screams she tried so desperately to muster.

For the first time in a very long time, Dorcas felt tears fill her eyes and fall down her cheeks. Time slows down as she watched Malfoy move but never heard the words. She stopped hearing the ruffle of expensive robes, the soft hits of the house elf’s tears. All sound left the world when the second curse sent fire through her bones and as her eyes shut for the last time and her world pushed into black.

By the time her eyes started to flutter open, she grumbled and groaned, her body still bound by the curse. Fear pulsating through her body with every notch in the wood of Malfoy’s audacity. Her mind screaming for freedom and screaming for justice as she saw what Malfoy did to his house elf. Forcing them to take the blame for a crime they did not commit. She tossed and squirmed and pushed and…

Nothing.

He apparated away. Every last trace of Malfoy gone with the smallest stomp of cowardice. She continued to scream through locked lips and closed eyes, tears mixed with makeup leaving skid marks on her cheeks. What felt like hours of time passed until she felt the hand of someone on her shoulder, panic rising in her once more as she screamed and tried to move her arms and legs.

A soft “Meadowes,” was said and her eyes sprang open, meeting Moody’s. She froze. A calm filled her as she continued to cry from the pain and the heartache. Her current world melting away when her the curse was released.

Her lungs expanded fully before grabbing her own stomach. Her tattered tights and dress only showed the superficial layer of damage Malfoy had caused. Bruises turned her back tight and warm liquid ran down her face. On instinct, she wrapped her arms around Moody’s neck, trying to find a sort of grounding. Running each millisecond through her mind.