Disclaimer: Dorcas, Regulus and their universe belong to JK Rowling and Warner Brothers, not me.
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1978
Dorcas sat huddled in a dark corner of the tiny cell, her arms wrapped tight around her legs and her nose between her knees. Unconsciously she stopped rocking back and forth and wiped at her eyes, dirty hands on a dirty face not quite managing to remove the trails of tears on her cheeks. Her clothing, drab and worn to begin with, was now torn and bloody and, try as she might, her filthy brown hair wouldn't stay out of her face.
She hung precariously on the edge of life. Her mind had already vacated her current surroundings and situation and she had retreated somewhere within herself, where there was golden light, a vibrant green of spring leaves and the warm scratch of bark on her fingers.
A single sound penetrated into her deep hiding place. It came from the gently pulsating locket around her neck hanging onto her chest, and the vibrations pierced right to her very soul.
Radiating out from the locket, his heartbeats throbbed, the beats quick and uneven. She didn't know when it would end or if her own heart would give out first.
She was minutes away from death. She had no hope left. She had only the image of a tree and the heartbeat from a locket wrought of silver.