A/N: I've been a Lurker until now. This is my first fanfic. I am actually a poet/memoir writer and have written several chapbooks. You can message me directly to find out more about them. But I am a huge Potterhead, and while I have written a little fanfic in the past and read more than a few fanfics online lately (*cough* Grad School Distractions *cough*), this is the first I've ever tried to complete, and the first I've ever posted, and of course, I will try hard not to be such a Lurker now that I am directly involved in the fandom! Please message me if you'd like to beta/you've found mistakes or passages that don't settle well. This is my best attempt to write fanfic that passes the Bechdel test, and the DuVernay test! R&R!

**** All rights belong to JK Rowling, I own nothing ****

Chapter 1: Intelligence and Reconnaissance

The light from the rising sun was bleeding through the lace curtains; the roosters were calling into the light and the birds in the trees outside the window shattered the silence of night with their chatter. Soon the sound of cookware hitting the stove, voices, the smell of coffee, the sound of a kettle whistle, and the bleating of the goats would rise up into the attic room where Dorcas shut her eyes against it all.

It was the morning of the first of September. In a few hours, Dorcas would be boarding the Hogwarts express.

Dorcas finally opened her eyes just as her mother called from downstairs.

The sun was slowly filtering through to touch with golden light the candle stubs grouped on various surfaces, the fringe of brightly colored floral-patterned scarves, making the gold thread of Persian-style embroidered pillows twinkle. The sun touched the moving pictures on the wall— adolescent versions of Dorcas and her schoolmates Alfred and Mary waved hello, younger versions of her father and brother with their hands on their hips against a southern Italian vacation background regarded a young Dorcas with adoring exasperation. Paintings of apartment blocks and public parks that Alfred did looked strangely still next to the moving pictures, but they also had a life of their own. The sun was moving. It was catching in the panes of the window. It was being absorbed by the wood-paneled walls.

Throwing on a sweater over her nightgown, Dorcas went downstairs. In the kitchen she found her father, looking very tall and very bald in his royal blue house-robe; out the window, Dorcas could see her mother coming down the hill from the stable where the cow lived. She had thrown a green house-robe over a night shirt and her pajama pants were tucked into wellingtons.

A little voice was coming from the wireless radio, and Dorcas reached out and turned up the volume. The voice grew; it was that of a news-wizard, and he was saying, "...crisis. Within minutes Obliviators were on the scene. Minchum is now calling for the resignation of head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Robert Ogden, calling him a 'useless old bat….'"

Mr. Shacklebolt moved at that moment to turn the volume down on the radio, and Dorcas set to work beside her father. She threw sausages into a frying pan as he charmed the whistling kettle to pour hot water into a teapot. A third steaming mug of coffee was already floating at Dorcas's wrist height.

"Good morning, Dorckles," said her father. "Take your coffee. It's by your wrist."

"Only Kingsley can call me that," Dorcas responded as she grabbed the mug out of the air and lifted it to her lips. Her mother came through to the kitchen, having changed her wellingtons for slippers at the door.

"Are you going into the office this morning, Lem?" said her mother as she put down a basket of eggs and picked up the teapot to pour steaming tea into two cups. She put down the teapot and turned on the faucet; with two eggs in each hand, she rinsed them quickly, saying "good eggs from Vashti and William today." She handed them to Dorcas, who cracked them in another pan. Dorcas turned up the heat underneath the pan with the eggs as her mother reached into the cupboard above her and took out three plates. Dorcas's father flicked his wand at the plates, which slowly began to revolve into the air. Dorcas's mother frowned her disapproval.

"Lemuel," she said warningly. "She won't learn the value of hard work if you do every little thing with magic." The plates clustered themselves next to Dorcas as she prepared to slide sausages onto them. They nudged her elbows, making the task difficult.

"Dad, the plates," said Dorcas.

"Sorry, dear," said her father, who flicked her wand to the left a little. The plates hovered more peacefully in front of Dorcas as she slid the sausage and eggs on.

Mr. Shacklebolt sighed and, finally responding to his wife, said, "No Fati, dear, I won't be going into the office today." He pointed his wand at the frying pan from over Dorcas's shoulder. The eggs were white and bubbling at once, causing the yokes to quiver. Mrs. Shacklebolt harrumphed. "Thought I'd take Dorckles here to King's Cross."

"Good," said Fatimah Shacklebolt. "I've got to go to St. Oswald's early today."

As she spoke a large gray and white kneazle wended its way in from the garden, looking like a small lynx, with huge ears and a tufted tail. Dorcas reminded her parents once again that "Only Kingsley can call me that."

"Oh no you don't, Potato," Fatimah said without even looking at the Kneazle. Potato the kneazle paused mid-step, then sat at the threshold, eyeing Fatimah. Lemuel turned to Dorcas.

"Looking forward to school?"

"In a manner of speaking," said Dorcas as she brought the pan of scrambled eggs to the table.

"Getting your education is important," said Lemuel. Dorcas grabbed a piece of toast and put it on her plate. "Do you still want to be an auror?"

"Yes, just—"

"Like Kingsley," Lemuel finished. He smiled, the corners of his eyes wrinkling.

The family owl, Bard, chose that moment to come swooping in to land atop a kitchen chair.

"Not over the breakfast table, Bard!" said Fatimah sternly. Bard ruffled his feathers, regarded Fatimah in a somewhat apologetic fashion and stuck out its leg. Fatimah leaned over and untied the letter and opened it.

"Kingsley says good luck at school, Dorckles," she said.

Dorcas coughed and said in a sing-song voice, "only Kingsley can call me that!" Fatimah kept reading and glanced up at Lemuel. They seemed to exchange a significant look. Then Fatimah handed Lemuel the letter, and he scanned it as well. His face darkened. Dorcas leaned over her eggs and coffee to try to get a look but Lemuel just shook the letter out of her line of sight. He folded it carefully and stowed it in a pocket of his robes.

"Shall we get ready, then? You're all packed, aren't you Dorckles?"

"Only Kingsley can call me Dorckles. And yes, dad."

"Good. Kingsley's hooked us up with a portkey, it's at half-past ten."

After breakfast, Dorcas helped her father clear away the plates,while he charmed the scrub brush to wash them of its own accord. Then Lemuel went up the stairs to his study.

Dorcas had packed the night before; being a very neat person, organized and precise, there wasn't much for her to do. She checked her watch. There was an hour before the portkey would take her to King's Cross. She'd take a walk.

Walking around the Shacklebolt farm was one of Dorcas's favorite pastimes. Walking allowed her to think more clearly, she felt. And there was a fair amount to think over.

She made her way up the hill, sloshing in her tall yellow wellingtons through the muddy grass, which was still brown from the drought that summer, toward the barn that she'd seen her mother walking away from earlier while Dorcas had been in the kitchen listening to the wireless. She passed two chickens who were pecking the ground outside the coop.

"Hello Vashti, hello William," said Dorcas. The chickens did not even acknowledge Dorcas as she passed. The animals never responded to Dorcas the way they responded to her mother.

Dorcas mused on the radio broadcast she had caught earlier in the kitchen. A crisis. That's what the news-wizard had said. Probably another attack, either on a muggle community, or a magical one, probably by the extremists who call themselves death eaters.

Dorcas felt an involuntary shudder roll through her. The death eaters made her physically ill. The name of their organization had been associated with the most violent acts ever in a conflict that had started when Dorcas was just ten years old. She was there the day it all started, not far away from the columns of smoke that rose up into the sky over Diagon Alley, the distant screams that rent the air, causing Dorcas's blood to run cold. Her father had picked her up in his arms and ran, carrying her out of the alley, along with dozens of others, through the Leaky Cauldron and out into the muggle street. The muggles must have been very surprised to see fifty or so witches and wizards appear out of a doorway that was otherwise for all intents and purposes not visible, all at once, but Dorcas didn't have time to observe at the moment. Her father ran with her into another smaller alleyway where they disapparated home.

If only Dorcas were two years older, she could join the aurors and fight the death-eaters, the ones who'd started all of this, the ones who threatened the peace and calm of everything. The only thing for it, of course, was to do exactly as her father reminded her, and to not only not quit school, but to excel in every required subject, ace the Auror Academy entrance exam, and train to be an Auror. If only Dorcas didn't feel so impatient.

Dorcas was going over the crest of the hill now, passing the barn, heading to the glen at the bottom.

The sun was rising, burning away the mist that rose from the little stream behind the house; the birds were chattering away as they warmed up. At the same time, a chilly breeze blew through the trees, reminding Dorcas of the cold to come.

And the letter. What had been in the letter Kingsley had sent? It couldn't have been much, Kingsley never writes anything really useful in letters in case they were intercepted. But whatever he'd written was enough to cause Dorcas's parents to look worried. She'd have to find out.

Dorcas turned right around and began walking back to the house. She felt something like glee bubbling. She wanted to rub her hands together. She'd go in search of her father, track down the robe with the letter in the pocket, like practice for the Auror Academy training course in Intelligence and Reconaissance that Kingsley had told her about.

In the house, the wireless had been turned up again. The news-wizard was going on about markets.

"... With gold gaining in value this week, the Dragot is now worth sixteen sickles. The galleon is…."

Dorcas did her best to be as quiet as possible, so as not to alert her parents to her presence in the house. She suddenly thought that a Disillusionment Charm would come in handy right then, but she wouldn't be learning about it until later that year. Dorcas made a note to ask Kingsley to teach her how to cast it.

Dorcas could hear the water running upstairs. She'd have to rely on the water and the radio to cover her.

She crept up the stairs, avoiding the steps that creaked, and was on the landing when the water stopped. The news-wizard's voice was very clear now: "rain expected in the midlands. Blue skies in the west and to the north, lasting throughout the week…."

Dorcas could now hear her father humming. He must be applying oil to his bald head. Dorcas only had a few minutes. She looked around.

Hanging on her parents' bedroom door was her father's blue house-robe. Dorcas could hear her father humming a tune. Dorcas stuck her hand in one pocket, then another, but they were both empty. Dorcas could hear things clattering in the bathroom, bottles of oil, razors, toothbrushes.

Dorcas had another look around. There was no paper in sight in the bedroom. She needed to go to the study to see if there was anything she could find there.

The bathroom doorknob was turning. Dorcas, heart beating wildly, moved back into the wood-paneled hall.

Then the doorknob stopped turning, and Dorcas could hear more clattering within. He must have forgotten something. Dorcas stuck her head in the doorway of her father's study. Dorcas's father's study was full of the sort of things he did while he was at home, being semi-retired. There were bits of yarn and wool which he crocheted in his spare time, books he was always reading, re-reading and marking up about defensive magic and cursed objects. And there was a lot of paper: folders full of D.M.L.E paperwork and stacks of letters. Dorcas moved towards one stack, and started flipping through them. Mostly they were requests for her father to come to visit the D.M.L.E., some straight from department head Bob Ogden himself. Some letters just asked for specific information about a type of curse. Some were requests for research.

Dorcas heard the bathroom door open.

She threw down the stack of letters and spun out of the study, landing in the hallway just as Mr. Shacklebolt appeared there, brown bald head freshly shaved, shining with oil, his graying black beard freshly combed. He was wearing a bathrobe.

"Dorcas, why were you in my study?" He asked.

"I was looking for a quill. To write with." Dorcas hoped that would be enough to convince her father.

"Well, I'll get you one, just a minute," said Mr. Shacklebolt distractedly.

"Actually, I was also waiting to use the bathroom, so if you don't mind…"

"Yes, of course," said Mr. Shacklebolt. Dorcas slid into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. She hadn't needed to use the bathroom, so she turned to the mirror and played with her black curls, arranging them just so, knowing they'd blow about in the wind and de-arrange as soon as she left the house. She inspected her brown skin, poked at a purple-ish pimple, looked into her own dark brown eyes and sighed. Just then, she spotted something in the mirror behind her. On top of the closed toilet seat, a folded piece of parchment. Dorcas turned around, picked it up and unfolded it. Spotting Kingsley's name at the bottom she knew she'd found what she'd been looking for.

A knock at the door. "Dorcas, I forgot something in there, can you hurry up?"

Dorcas hurriedly unfolded the letter, saying, "Alright dad, almost done." She reached out and flushed the toilet while she read.

Dear mum and dad,

I'll make this short, as I've just been assigned to the Irish coast and don't have long before my departure. I've a contact in the Transportation department who has organized a portkey to take Dorcas to King's Cross. It'll arrive at half-past ten and leave at a quarter-to.

There's something else. I can't tell you much because so much is top-secret these days but we've intelligence about extremist activity near Hogwarts. They're gathering. I don't want to alarm you, but once I heard, I couldn't not tell you. All I can say is, we're working on it. Make sure Dorckles doesn't do anything stupid.

Love you mum, dad. Take care. I'll be back soon, and I'll see you on my next furlough.

Kingsley

The door opened suddenly. Mr. Shacklebolt was standing in the doorway holding a quill, looking at Dorcas holding a folded piece of parchment out to hand to him. He took it slowly. She smiled widely. His eyes narrowed with suspicion.

"Did you…" he began.

"Find what you were looking for?" she asked, wide-eyed innocent. "Well, I found this piece of parchment."

"Go get your trunk. It's almost time to go."

The portkey was a broken handmirror. It appeared in the center of the kitchen table, glowing blue, just as Dorcas had finally heaved her trunk into the room, where her parents were now both readying to leave the house. She had changed out of her pajamas and was wearing her favorite set of casual robes— crocheted squares of red and yellow yarn, homemade by her father. It somehow made Dorcas feel more like herself.

Lemuel had changed into his casual robes as well, a blue and orange paisley pattern with a simple cut and a matching blue and orange paisley cap.

Potato the kneazle was sitting on a kitchen chair, watching the glowing handmirror with interest. With one look from Fatimah, Potato leapt off the chair, but kept watch from a distance.

Fatimah was now dressed in her silver St. Oswald's work-robes, which denoted her status as ward-supervisor. Her smooth black hair was braided and looped around her head, and laid over her robes was a necklace of bright cord, leaf-shaped bits of painted metal and re-purposed, azure-blue bobbins, made by one of her patients. She leaned forward and kissed Lemuel on the cheek.

"Goodbye dear," she said before kissing Dorcas also. "Good luck at school, get good marks and write often!"

"I will, mum," said Dorcas. Fatimah grabbed her handbag, reached into a bronze urn on top of the fireplace, and tossed a handful of powder in, causing green flames to whoosh into life.

"Oh!" Fatimah grumbled, turning around. She grabbed a piece of toast off the table and walked up to Potato.

"One piece. That's it." She presented the toast to Potato, who took it in his mouth, and swished his huge, fluffy tail around with satisfaction.

Then Fatimah walked back to the fireplace and stepped in, waved to her family before saying, "St. Oswald's Home for Old Witches and Wizards!" And she disappeared into the flames.

Dorcas turned to her father, who was studying his watch.

"Two minutes to transport. Got your trunk?"

"Yes dad."

"Got your wand?"

"Yes dad."

"Thirty seconds to transport," said Lemuel as he laid a finger on the handle. The handmirror had started to glow blue again. "Grab on, Dorcas,"

Dorcas grabbed the portkey and nothing happened for five seconds. Then suddenly, she felt a swooping sensation around her navel, as though a hook had grabbed her around her middle. The familiar, but unpleasant sensation of traveling through space at an accelerated rate always made Dorcas a little nauseous. Colors whooshed past, and the air pressure squeezed Dorcas until the colors settled around them again, in the shape of brick walls and trash cans. The sky was a blue square, smushed between the roofs of tall buildings. They'd landed in an alley behind King's Cross.

"I have to ask," said Mr. Shacklebolt as Dorcas heaved her trunk onto a trolley. She wheeled it into the station entrance.

"Did you read it?" said Lemuel as they made their way through the station. "I'm not mad. You're as nosy as your brother. I can only hope that means that one day you'll be a great auror just like him. The Shacklebolts have a long legacy of fighting Dark wizards and the Dark Arts."

"And mum's family," Dorcas asked, hoping to evade answering his question.

"The Shafiqs? Well, only one of your mother's brothers is in law. The others are more involved in business. And if you're as nosy as your brother, you're as clever as your mother."

Dorcas wheeled her trolley around to face the barrier, and together Dorcas and her father walked through onto the platform, through clouds of steam and crowds of students, to the bright red Hogwarts Express.

Dorcas waved hello to students she knew— fellow Slug Club members, Ravenclaw Wilfred Chang and Gryffindor Alice Macmillan, and her friend from Hufflepuff, Alfred Thomas…

Dorcas turned toward her father. He regarded her very seriously. "You mustn't speak about what you've read in the letter," he said.

"It wasn't much. Kingsley's not one to give up information in a letter," said Dorcas.

"Yes," said Mr. Shacklebolt. "All the same, you're not to go blabbing. Kingsley told us, your parents, in confidence, so that we could protect you. So don't—"

"Do anything stupid. I already know." Dorcas gave her father a little smile.

Lemuel gave Dorcas a kiss on the forehead and Dorcas hurried forward to find a compartment. Alfred hurried after her.

"I'm in this one! Quick, I'll help you with your trunk. You made it just in time!"

Dorcas beamed in return, and looked back at her father just once. He waved cheerily, and Dorcas waved back, before he turned to disappear into the crowd heading toward the barrier. The train whistle blew. It was time.