To Catch a Death Eater: Love, Enmity and Discord

Dorcas apparated home in a flash, and smiling, went upstairs to pack a small bag. She skipped the stairs two at a time and almost sang she was so happy. When she reached the upper floor she burst into her room and screamed.

"So, Miss Meadowes... We meet again," said the sly voice she remembered! It was Malfoy! Each of the several Death Eaters miraculously concealed in her bedroom removed their masks... Bellatrix Lestrange revealed herself along with her husband Rodolphus, Regulus Black, Sirius' brother, and of course Lucius Malfoy, who languidly pulled off his mask and smiled at her, the small man Wormtail, did not take off his mask.

"Now that we're all such good friends, it seems silly to use the masks, wouldn't you say Dorcas?" Bellatrix sneered at her, "Crucio!" she shouted and Dorcas' body exploded with pain. She collapsed on the floor and clutched at her stomach. Someone was laughing, who it was she couldn't tell. Suddenly, the pain stopped but she felt that biting ropes had wrapped around her legs and arms and she struggled to move, but the more she moved, the more the ropes tightened. Someone was laughing again.

"That's right...You can try, but you're not going anywhere..." SNAP. Someone had snapped her wand.

"Well, you'll be going somewhere alright, but we'll be escorting you this time," said the one who was supposedly Sirius' brother. Dorcas had thought plenty of harsh things about Sirius, but looking on this man, twisted with evil, she wished desperately that Sirius were here, that anybody was here...

"Stupefy!" shouted another voice, and Dorcas was knocked out cold.

***

Gideon and Fabian burst into Dorcas' house and shouted her name. Fabian ran frantically through all the rooms on the lower level while Gideon dashed up the stairs three at a time, still shouting "DORCAS!"

Gideon wouldn't stop until he had looked through every room under and behind every piece of furniture and into every closet.

"Is she down there Fabian?" he shouted from the top of the stairs when his search had proved fruitless.

"No!" came the frustrated cry from a back room. Gideon descended the stairs quickly, found his brother checking the kitchen cabinets and said,

"Fab, it's no use! She's not here! Those- those bloody bastards took her! I KNOW IT!"

"All right, calm down. We have to think... Where was Dumbledore going to send Frank and Alice?"

"How should I know? I didn't even know where he was sending us!"

"Ok, um...we need to find him then... Where is he?" Fabian asked while he looked hopelessly at his equally clueless brother.

"I know! Aberforth!" said Gideon to an incredulous Fabian; "He's at the Hog's Head isn't he? He could probably help us! After all the two of them have been planning this whole mission... COME ON!" And Gideon and Fabian disapparated to Hogsmeade to find Aberforth, leaving a quietly knowledgeable rat sitting in the sinister darkness.

***

When the Prewett brothers arrived in the Hog's Head Tavern, Hogsmeade, they found Aberforth at his counter, gradually making a clean glass dirty with a greasy towel. A smelly, straggly sort of person was sitting at the bar, or rather draped across it, and grunted as the door slammed upon the entrance of the two panicked young men.

"Aberforth! Dumbledore! Where is he?" shouted Gideon.

Aberforth simply pointed at a darkened doorway at the end of the greasy counter and went back to soiling his glassware. The two of them raced to the door and hurled themselves up the stairs and found themselves facing three doorways. Gideon grabbed the first handle and heaved the door open, but the room was empty. Fabian tried the second door, and still nothing. They grabbed the third handle at the same time and pulled. There was Dumbledore in a corner, staring into the fire. He leapt up with a surprising spring for his age when the Prewetts entered and said,

"They've taken Dorcas, haven't they?" Gideon and Fabian could only nod; they were desperately dragging in breath. Dumbledore paced the floor a minute and then turned to them with a piercing stare.

"The next place the Death Eaters were supposed to mark is the home of Peter Pettigrew. His mother has been ill lately and has been in St. Mungo's for two months. I was going to send you all there in a few days, but now it seems you must go. I'm sure you understand what the dangers are... Miss Meadowes could already be dead." Gideon drew a sharp intake of breath and grabbed his brother by the wrist as they both apparated to the very place that Dorcas was being brought to. An unusual stroke of luck, and possibly the last bit of it that they would find that evening.

***

Dorcas was first aware of herself in a dingy basement, crawling with rats and smelling of decay. She tried to move again, but the ropes were still bound to her tightly as she remembered what had just happened. She tried to cry out but found that her lips were sealed by a Silencing Charm.

Suddenly she felt a sharp pain in her head and twisted around to see what it was. She found herself staring face to face with Bellatrix Lestrange, who was holding a few of Dorcas' hairs.

"Cheers, love," the degenerate woman had said as she added the hairs to what was undoubtedly Polyjuice Potion. She swallowed the potion in an instant and Dorcas watched in horror as the sepulchral features of Bellatrix melted into her own.

"So my Dear," Bellatrix oozed with Dorcas' voice, "my friend Wormtail tells me your Prince Charming will be arriving soon. Shall I give him a kiss for you? Or should I leave that to the dementors?" Dorcas squealed and writhed as she tried to get free. "Oh, my dear, you'll never get loose that way... You'd better wait until the Dark Lord comes and um...sets you free." Bellatrix made to leave when something made her stop in the doorframe. "Oh, and by the way, your parents were lovely helpers to our dear little cause here. They were most unwilling to agree to our plan at first, but I managed to persuade them in the end," she grinned and waltzed out the door in Dorcas' green dress that she had pilfered from their little adventure in Dorcas' house. If Dorcas could have screamed it would have brought the house to its knees.

***

The demure house of Peter Pettigrew had an odd, foreboding aura as the brothers Prewett crept towards it in the dark. The two of them slunk behind a tree and watched for any sign of movement inside the small house. In awful suspense they waited, and merely fifteen minutes had passed when they saw the distinct glimmer of wand light. A dark figure was moving across the lawn... her wand pointed straight in front of her. Gideon's breath was caught in his throat as he discerned who it was through the murky night. It was Dorcas! She was moving tentatively towards their hiding place. Gideon couldn't stand to stay hidden when Dorcas was out there, and most likely in danger! He burst out of his hiding place, and shouted "DORCAS!"

Fabian couldn't believe the stupidity of his brother... that woman obviously wasn't Dorcas.

"Gid! STOP! THAT ISN'T HER!" he shouted, but it was too late. The woman who looked like Dorcas flashed her light on Gideon, and as she did, about twenty-five Death Eaters emerged from various hiding places, surrounding the two brothers. One figure stepped out from the ranks circling menacingly around them. He flicked his wand and the two were writhing in pain on the ground before they recognized the figure as Lord Voldemort.

Suddenly the pain stopped and when Gideon looked up, he met a sneering Dorcas, pointing her wand at his heart. Gideon closed his eyes in horror at his deathly mistake. Struggling, he got up, and pulled up his brother at the same time. They were both still grasping their wands, but made no attack against their enemies yet.

"You fools of Dumbledore's are so easy to predict," said the cold, high-pitched voice of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. "You'll always do the right thing. Take Miss Meadowes for example... She met my most faithful Death Eaters once, and upon seeing their little doings at the McKinnons, ran straight off to tell Dumbledore. We don't imagine Miss Meadowes revealed the names of her new friends or else we would have been most disappointed with her. You see, we deal in secrecy, and the fact that Miss Meadowes knows the names of some of my most important Death Eaters and is still alive-" Gideon gasped, and Voldemort smiled, "to tell the tale, doesn't suit us I'm afraid. With another small flick of his wand, the real Dorcas was transported into the dark spacious yard that belonged to Peter Pettigrew. She was bound tightly with many ropes, and could not open her mouth.

"Normally, I wouldn't bestow such an honor upon such an urchin of Dumbledore's but this dear young lady has interfered to the point where it is absolutely necessary that I should kill her myself-"

"NOOO!" shouted Gideon, his blood boiling and adrenaline rushing as he leapt towards Dorcas, immobile behind Voldemort. The twenty-four other Death eaters, anticipating a foolish act such as this rushed towards him. Fabian leapt up after his brother and dodged all of the shouts of "Stupefy!" "Avada Kedavra!" and "Crucio!" as they fought towards Dorcas. Gideon was flinging spells over his head left and right as he inched his way towards Dorcas. Surprisingly several were stopped short from his Impediment Jinx and others were Stupefied and fell flat on the ground. It was when Gideon was within ten feet of Dorcas that one of the Death Eaters hit Gideon with the Cruciatus Curse. Writhing in pain, he still managed to send a few more spells and curses out into the ranks of Death Eaters and crawl his way towards Dorcas. He could vaguely see Fabian, struggling amidst at least ten Death Eaters, charging his way over to his brother.

And all this while Dorcas was looking on in terror from behind the robes and wand of Lord Voldemort. He was laughing maniacally and pointing his wand at her heart.

The pain Gideon felt receded again and he struggled to his feet but was quickly surrounded by ten more Death Eaters. Abandoning all mercy, Gideon aimed his wand at each of them in turn, dodging spells as if he had some sort of extra-terrestrial sense of where the next hit would come from. He had hit five of them, but the other half were moving in on him now. He glanced over at Dorcas, her eyes bulging in terror and he roared in frustration. Forgetting his wand he leapt at the nearest Death Eater and knocked him to the damp ground. One by one the other Death Eaters closed in around him. He could hear Fabian's angry shouts from a few yards away, but felt his strength slowly draining from his body. He no longer had the will to fight these monsters. He heard something collapse to his right, and then heard the joyous, raucous laughter of the Death Eaters and knew his brother was gone. A sudden jolt of fury raised him to his feet once more, and he literally jumped to where Dorcas was laying trembling. He tried to free her from her bonds, but they wouldn't come loose. Voldemort was slowly turning on him; he could sense it. He looked Dorcas straight in the eyes as several Death Eaters dragged him away from her and he said, "I love you Dorcas," for the first and last time in his life.

Gideon knew he was going down, knew it absolutely. He strained to see the place where his brother had breathed his last, and one angry tear ran down his cheek as he looked his attackers straight in their eyes, and felt his life drain from his body in one blinding green flash of light.

***

Dorcas watched her hero fall from what seemed like miles away. She saw how he had killed what looked like seven Death Eaters... Then she looked over to where Fabian lay and knew he had vanquished his fair share of them as well. She looked up at the star strewn sky and wept. The remaining Death Eaters closed in around her and Voldemort, and as she looked up at his face and at the faces of those around him she cursed them and prayed that someday, somebody would finish what her heroes had started here tonight. Now Dorcas knew that her end was near, and she closed her eyes as she heard the laughter of those around her. She never saw the green light that flashed before her, she didn't even try to dodge it. She knew she would be with Gideon and she was happy to surrender. For, what is life when there is no one to live it for? She was alone now, but was going to a place where she would always have company, where she would always be loved, where she could be Dorcas, and nobody else. She was going to a place where she would be free.

***

"Good Gobstones, will you look at this place!"

"There must have been at least twenty of the blackguards if not more."

"What did Peter say happened?"

"Well, Peter told me that he was walking home from the Potter's place, when he saw flashing lights coming from around his house. He stayed back in case they saw him, and when he crept cautiously closer, he recognized Gideon and Fabian Prewett fighting those devils like anything. He told me it took five Death Eaters to get Gideon Prewett down."

"But, didn't Peter go and... try to save them at least?"

"He said that by the time he got there, all three were already dead and the Death Eaters had all disapparated. I can't blame him for being afraid," here Mad-Eye paused, "From what I understand Minerva, You-Know-Who killed Dorcas himself..."

Minerva McGonagall shuddered as she looked down at the peaceful faces of Dorcas, Gideon and Fabian.

"They all fought valiantly... And now they're in a better place. We can all learn a lesson from their valor and courage," she said as tears rolled down her usually staunch face.