To Catch a Death Eater: Love, Enmity and Discord

It was the weekend following the Order meeting, and Gideon and Fabian were having breakfast in their small flat in London. Their legal guardian since childhood, Aunt Mabel Prewett (their father's sister), had only recently died at the hands of one of Voldemort's many supporters. The two boys who had loved their aunt greatly determinedly set their jaws and decided to join the Order of the Phoenix. Anything, to catch the villain who killed her, they thought as one. As it was only their first summer out of Hogwarts, neither had a really steady job. Gideon was an assistant in the Department of Magical Games and Sports and Fabian had chosen a part-time job in Dervish and Banges Joke Shop.

Gideon stuffed another piece of well-earned toast in his mouth and straightened The Daily Prophet as Fabian walked uneasily around the small living room.

"For Merlin's sake, Fabian. What is it?"

"Oh! Well I was just thinking that I'd promised Dorcas that we'd call her to set up a time to strategize for our little trip coming up and-"

"And you were afraid I'd bust if you told me?"

"Well...yes, actually."

"Call her then, and stop fidgeting. Far be it from me to uphold the great strategizing meeting..."

"Don't be a prat Gid, this stuff is serious as you bloody well know. This may be the chance we've been waiting for to get the guy who-"

"Don't think it hasn't crossed my mind Fabian," replied a cross Gideon from behind his newspaper.

"Would you happen to know Dorcas' number?"

Gideon sighed exasperatedly. "It should be in the address book, wouldn't you say?"

"Oh, of course," Fabian stumbled off into the other room to find the object.

Gideon once more delved into the newspaper and ended up rereading the same few lines: "Crouch Cracks Down: Three Death Eaters Convicted" as he listened intently to the conversation in the other room. Those fellytones really are wonderful things, Gideon thought.

"Oh, hello Dorcas," came Fabian's muffled voice from the bedroom, "I was just ringing about the meeting...Oh, you can't make it until then?... Alright, well, we'll see you then...Bye Dorcas." Gideon heard the receiver click.

"So, what did she say?"

"She can't do it until two weeks from now... She says she's booked solid." Gideon rolled his eyes from behind the newspaper and wondered why he was always so bitter about her, and yet so embarrassingly taken in.

"What can she be doing for two weeks?" scowled Gideon.

"Practicing her jinxes?" Fabian replied with a smirk.

Gideon didn't laugh. He was too busy reading about the three Death Eaters and the horrors they had perpetrated to land them indefinitely in Azkaban. Gideon shivered and put down the newspaper.

***

Dorcas hung up the phone, and sighed. She didn't know why she was putting off this meeting so late. She knew they needed all of the time they could get if they were going to be facing Death Eaters and possibly worse... But for the moment, the prospect of seeing Gideon again was more terrifying than anything else, and she felt a full two weeks were needed to recover from the encounter she had just recently endured.

Dorcas spent those two weeks blearily reviewing countless painful memories in her head, taking long walks at dusk, and sleeping in until almost noon. She wondered to herself after one week whether or not all this was doing more harm than good, but kept right at it, having nothing else to do. She did not call the Prewetts again, and she did not go and visit Marlene. She had no desire to see anybody, and spent her days holed up with a book on...you guessed it: jinxes.

It was just the day before Dorcas' meeting with the Prewetts and Sturgis and Caradoc had gotten wind of a big-to-do brewing up amongst the Death Eaters. So far, no one had been hurt, and Sturgis and Caradoc just assumed they were lying low until they were exactly ready to strike. All sorts of locations had been discussed, but so far no one in the Order knew precisely who or what their target was.

Dorcas finally decided it was time to hold up to her promise to see Marlene and she was walking over to her cousins house, slightly uneasy, on the day of her meeting with Gideon and Fabian. The air was close and heavy today like it was trying to conceal something, and Dorcas found herself constantly checking over her shoulder to make sure no one was following her. When she arrived at her cousin's house, normally a bright, jubilant place, nosily happy with neighborly gossip, the house felt unnaturally silent. Dorcas' heart was beating alarmingly fast as she rang the doorbell. She would swear on her grandmother's wand she heard somebody inside... But nobody answered. She waited for minutes that felt like hours... but still nothing. Dorcas decided she needed to know if something was wrong and bravely grasped the door handle and swung open the door.

The house was unnaturally dark and still. None of the family appeared to be home, but Dorcas knew that something wasn't right. Her breathing quickened as she walked through the house. Nothing on the ground level. She was about to go up the stairs when a creaking practically made her heart stop. Pulling out her wand and gathering her courage, she walked silently up the stairs. She pushed open a door, and to her horror saw the entire McKinnon family dead in the room, looking almost frozen with looks of terror on their faces. She screamed and as she did so, several black-hooded figures emerged from various hiding places on the upper floor. They surrounded her. She quickly concealed her wand in her bag and faced them one by one.

"Well well, what do we have here, Rodolphus?" sneered the one closest to her.

"It appears to be a little trapped rat, eh Wormtail?" jeered the one they called Rodolphus, and a smaller, portly one sniggered appreciatively. "My dear Bellatrix, won't you do the honors?" Rodolphus continued.

"My darling, I wouldn't think of depriving you of the pleasure," Bellatrix laughed.

"I know," said the first one, "Let's get Regulus to do it!" he laughed. "Wasn't this one a favorite of your brother's Regulus?"

"Malfoy, I pay no attention to my brother's sordid affairs. Although, she does look quite pleasing... Let's play with her a bit before we do her in!"

Dorcas was watching each masked figure in turn with increasing horror. She tried to remember the names as she struggled with a plan of escape. Suddenly an idea came to her; she left her wand in her bag, but quickly disapparated as the Death Eaters were still plotting what to do to her first. She ended up surprisingly in Gideon and Fabian's living room, clutching her bag and looking pale as death.

***

Gideon had ended up pacing around the flat most of the morning and by noon frantically started to tidy up the place, much to Fabian's annoyance and aggravation. Gideon was just trying to think of a good scouring spell when a pale and terrified Dorcas apparated right in the middle of their living room, took one look at her surroundings and fainted. Fabian was standing right behind her luckily or she would have had a very painful collision with the floor.

Gideon, distraught with this sudden appearance of the woman he loved and rejected, ran for a glass of water, while Fabian took out his wand and attempted to remedy her. It took a full half an hour before Dorcas would come around again, and when she did, she emitted a piercing scream that Fabian quickly smothered with his hand. Dorcas looked at Fabian and then at an anxious Gideon standing over her and nearly passed out again but managed to mutter- "Marlene! Whole family gone... Death Eaters!" and she promptly swooned in terror.

Gideon and Fabian exchanged panic-stricken looks before Fabian stood up quickly and sent a message to Dumbledore.

Gideon looked agonizingly at Dorcas, pale and trembling before he roared:

"Where the BLOODY HELL were Sturgis and Caradoc! They were supposed to be keeping an eye on all of this!"

It was only a matter of seconds before Dumbledore had apparated in their living room as Dorcas had done a half an hour earlier. Dumbledore quickly approached Dorcas, with a sort of fire burning behind his blue eyes. He spoke a quiet incantation and she was instantly revived.

"Now Dorcas...I need you to tell me exactly what happened..." Dumbledore began quietly. Dorcas looked apprehensively from Gideon to the Professor and told them everything.

***

About an hour later, Dumbledore had gleaned all the information he wanted from Dorcas, and put her into a dreamless sleep. Gideon was still uneasy as he paced the small flat over and over.

"My dear boy, I advise you to sit down and calm yourself. Nothing can be gained by wearing a hole in the floorboards."

"What are we going to do? Is the mission still on?"

"I'm afraid it must. Now, more than ever. I'm sure Miss Meadowes will be more than willing to come along now."

"Why should you think that? She's had a severe shock, Dumbledore! Is she really going to want to go right back out again and face the monsters that killed her friend, cousin, and her entire family?"

"Miss Meadowes is an extremely passionate young lady, as I'm sure you are aware, Mr. Prewett," at this moment Gideon wondered how much Dumbledore knew. "Avenging her cousin and her family is, I'm sure, paramount in her thoughts. I must be off, now I'm afraid. I advise you to keep her here, and not to let her out of your sight."

"Why? Is she still in danger?"

"We are all in danger..." he sighed, and the Professor exited the small flat in the same manner he had entered it. Gideon cursed him for being so vague. Gideon walked over to the couch where Dorcas was enjoying a deep slumber. He knelt down beside the couch, and taking her hand, kissed it, and vowed never to let her leave his sight again.

***

Only a few surprising miles away, in a dingy yet highly useful basement, little Peter Pettigrew stumbled as he made to kneel in front of his master, his bulk getting in the way of any imagined graceful descent. Lucius Malfoy sniggered at him from a dark corner, and Bellatrix Lestrange gave her brother-in-law an appreciative glance from under her heavy-lidded eyes.

"My Lord...?" the one known more familiarly in the putrid den as Wormtail tentatively asked.

"You say you know the whereabouts of this young lady who escaped my incompetent Death Eaters, Wormtail?" As Lord Voldemort uttered this, the smirks were wiped off the faces of the others present.

"Y-yes, My Lord. Her name is Dorcas Meadowes, and she lives not too far from the McKinnons..."

"Well, we shall have to pay the dear Miss Meadowes a visit, shan't we?" he oozed. Wormtail shivered in the presence of his all-powerful master as he unfurled a plan to make sure the now slumbering Miss Meadowes would never reveal the names of some of his most trusted Death Eaters.

***

Fabian Prewett, who, the night before, had futilely urged his brother to go to bed, Dorcas would be fine, awoke to see the living room scattered with empty coffee cups and his groggy brother attempting to fix a Pepper-Up Potion.

"Drat! I knew I should have picked up more syrup of hellebore when I went to Diagon Alley yesterday!" the unshaven Gideon proclaimed from their very small kitchen. He looked up quickly to make sure he hadn't woken Dorcas, and upon seeing her sleeping frame, heaved an obviously exhausted and anxious sigh.

"Forget it, mate. I'll go and get some ready-made," shouted Fabian from his bedroom as he pulled a clean shirt over his head.

Gideon sighed again, and threw down a large metal bowl in abandoned resignation. The raucous clanging finally woke Dorcas with a start.

"WHAT? Where am I?" she practically shouted as Gideon rushed over to her. He grabbed her hand, which was anxiously shaking. She lifted her frightened eyes to Gideon's face, and upon recognizing it, instinctively grabbed him. Slightly shocked, but relieved nonetheless, Gideon held on to her as she sobbed into his shoulder.

"Oh, Gideon! What are we going to do? We simply must do something! They killed her whole family!"

"Shh, Dorcas. We are going to do something. Dumbledore said we're to proceed with the mission in a few days," Gideon smiled inwardly at Dumbledore's conjectures about his friend.

"So, I've been here all night then?" Dorcas asked, slightly more composed as she released Gideon from her desperate embrace. He nodded. She looked down, slightly embarrassed, once more owing Gideon Prewett for saving her, protecting her.

With a sigh, she said: "Look Gideon, I know I'll never be able to make up for what I've done to you, or all of the generous things you've done for me, but just know that I'm eternally grateful, and so desperately sorry about it all. Sirius doesn't mean anything, and he never did...compared to you. I only ever cared about you and I never meant to hurt you in any way, I just-"

"You don't have to do this Dorcas, you're upset. I know. I've known for a long time, I was just too stubborn to tell you. Hurt pride, I suppose. Let's just forget it for now, okay? We've got more important things to worry about."

"Well, just kiss me, okay? For old times' sake," she said.

"Its not just gratitude that's inspired this, is it?" Gideon said with a skeptical look that so often flushed across his handsome features.

She kissed him, and he got his answer. His suspicion was forever quelled.

***

Fabian returned in about forty-five minutes with the now perfectly useless Pepper-Up Potion that cost him seven precious sickles. Fabian sighed as he looked from his brother to Dorcas and said,

"Now what did you go and do that for? You both owe me the seven sickles it cost to buy this ruddy potion! Why couldn't you both just carry on being eternal enemies? It would make things a lot simpler..." Gideon and Dorcas laughed, a sensation that neither of them had delighted in for some time. But Dorcas seemed disgusted that she laughed, and quickly frowned in honest mourning.

Gideon hugged her, and then said: "Well I suppose since we're all here, we should really start strategizing. And Dorcas, I really think you should stay here tonight again."

"Fresh!" she said with a slight smile, appearing not to realize the real danger she was in.

"No, I'm serious. Dumbledore said that we're all in danger..."

"Well, he would, wouldn't he?" said Fabian as he stuffed a large sandwich into his mouth. Gideon couldn't help but be concerned at the lighthearted manner in which the two dearest people in the world to him were behaving.

"What can I do to make you two take me seriously? Dorcas, I thought what you saw yesterday would assure you of the danger-"

"Gideon- it did. I assure you, I've never been more serious in my life than I'm being right now. I just figure, the time we have left...in life...is by no means certain, and I'd rather enjoy it than agonize over it. I just-" tears welled up in her eyes and she swallowed to fight them back, "I just don't want to think about losing... this," she finished awkwardly.

Gideon thought he finally understood her. All of her life she'd been pretending to be happy-go-lucky and really she was burning on the inside. Why else would she try to jump off the owlery tower? He applauded her for having such a realistic and appealing attitude. He went over and kissed her for it, and she smiled at him.

"All this time we've wasted," Gideon said quietly in disbelief that he endured such agony when he could have had such joy.

"All my time you've wasted..." Fabian said with a mocking sentimentality, mimicking Gideon's honest tone of voice. Dorcas laughed at the two brothers and said that she just had to run home for some things and she'd be right back in twenty minutes. It was only when those twenty minutes turned into an hour and an hour into two that Gideon looked uneasily at his brother, who grabbed their wands and made led the way over to Dorcas' house, both hearts beating rapidly at the thoughts running through their heads.