Chapter 53

26 February, 1959 14 South Audley Street, Mayfair, London

Dorcas was trying to be detached and clinical as she watched the events unfold that would lead to Tom using her husband's body to sexually assault her.

This is just another patient's memory you are viewing. You've done this hundreds of times.

All of the self-talk didn't work.

She felt bile rising in her throat as she watched her memory self drop to her knees and undo Tom's trousers.

She pressed her palm to her lips, trying to keep the toast she'd had for breakfast down.

Gentle fingers moved to the back of her neck and turned her face away. Cal tucked her against his chest where she could hide her face from the shame of the tableau playing out before them.

She hadn't wanted Cal to see this. Ever.

But she'd become so alarmed when he actually began to consider the risks of turning the memory over to the authorities on the slim chance that it could be proven as Tom.

The risk to Cal was too great.

Dorcas had no doubt that Tom already knew this.

"Cal, bedroom" she heard herself gasp.

She knew she needed to pay attention to every detail. Lifting her head from Cal's tear-soaked shirt, she turned in his arms and watched as she and Cal-Tom studied each other.

Dorcas remembered what was going through her head as he ran his eyes greedily over her. She thought she was looking at the one person she loved and trusted the most. She felt safe and happy and wanted.

She pushed the tears from her cheeks as Cal's grip on her tightened.

"I love you, Cal," she heard her memory say. She recalled Cal's dream earlier that morning and the first time she'd ever said that to him.

It was something special that only Cal should have been able to hear. These words were wasted on someone who was not Cal. Someone who didn't love her, cherish her, or protect her.

"I love you too, sweetheart," Cal-Tom replied.

She should have known. How did she miss this? He didn't sound like Cal. There was no sentiment behind the words at all.

Dorcas watched her memory self climb on top of the man who was not her husband.

Cal-Tom planted his hands firmly on her hips and controlled her movements. When she ran her nails along his torso, that was when he seemed to lose control.

She watched him dump her onto the mattress and then settle himself over her, drawing her hands up over her head, pinning them above her, driving himself into her.

She felt Cal flinch as he held her and inhale sharply.

"Cal," memory Dorcas gasped. "Slow down, my love. Not so rough."

She heard the headboard beating against the wall, his voice in her head, "Come for me, Birdie!"

"Oh my God!" Cal whispered.

"I can't." Dorcas broke Cal's grip on her and surfaced from the memory.

She could feel it in her body. His rough thrusts, his hand pinning her wrists, his fingers crushing her throat. She didn't want to relive another second of it.

When she lifted her face out of the Pensieve, she staggered to the couch in her office and ducked her head between her knees. She was struggling to breathe again. Her lungs felt paralyzed and unable to draw in breath. She pictured Cal in front of her as he'd done earlier, coaching her to take a breath and count to three. Release.

She stayed in that attitude until she felt Cal's hand resting on her back.

When she sat up and looked at him, he had tears in his eyes.

"Dorcas!"

She pulled him into her and wrapped her arms around him.

"I should have been there. I should have stopped him," Cal cried. "I didn't protect you. I left you."

"It's okay, Cal," Dorcas soothed, running her fingers through his hair as he wept bitterly into her lap.

"It's not okay! You deserve better!"

Dorcas shook her head. Being the comforter instead of the comforted was a different dynamic in their relationship. Dorcas felt more at ease consoling him than being consoled.

"I have someone far better than I deserve," Dorcas said, bending to kiss the back of his head.

"I don't know how you bear to be around me, touching me. I'll understand if you don't want me around. I would never want you to suffer my touch because you felt you had to."

"Cal, I know it wasn't you. At first it was difficult because I couldn't hear your thoughts. I couldn't be sure it was you."

Dorcas recalled hearing him shouting at her from the other side of the door when she'd locked him out accidentally. Her bladder had let loose when he'd startled her. He would never know how traumatized she was at that moment.

"Now that your mind is open to me, I'm easier around you. I can distinguish between you and that memory."

Cal lifted his head from her lap and looked up at her. "He hurt you far worse than I imagined. I can't get the picture of me doing that to you out of my mind."

Dorcas bent down, pressing her palms to his cheeks and kissed him. He tried to pull away from her, but she held him firmly in place.

"I know that wasn't you." Dorcas held his gaze. "One day, we'll be able to move past it and things will go back to the way they once were."

Dorcas ran her thumbs over the trails of tears on Cal's cheeks. "I love you, Cal."

"I know. And I don't deserve it," Cal answered darkly.

:::

24 December, 1941 Hackney Road, London

Dorcas perused a display case with jewelry laid out on dark navy cushions. She eyed a ruby pendant and wondered how her mother would react to opening it tomorrow morning.

She thought back to last Christmas Eve and how dazzling her mother looked in a flowing red velvet evening gown. Red was definitely Mary-Ellen's color.

Clutching the string of her gas mask case, Dorcas moved on.

She knew how her mother would react. She would call it an extravagance and tell Dorcas that she couldn't accept it.

"I want to get Betty a ring," Morty announced, scanning the jewelry case next to her.

Dorcas took her uncle's hand and pulled him toward the shop's exit.

"Why do you want to buy Betty a ring?"

Morty tugged on his gas mask case as well. Dorcas guessed they would both have to reacquaint themselves with the accessories of London life again.

"Because I love her and her hair is yellow and pretty," Morty answered simply. "And I want to kiss her and marry her."

Dorcas's eyes grew wide momentarily at her uncle's declaration. Why hadn't Betty done more to discourage him in her letters?

"Do you know what it means to be married?" Dorcas asked carefully.

Morty nodded and walked beside her, sliding the toe of his shoe over an icy puddle as they went.

"It means I can kiss her whenever I want and that she'll cook me supper sometimes."

"I cook you supper. And you've kissed my cheek plenty of times. But we're not married," Dorcas pointed out.

"You can't marry me, D. I'm your uncle," Morty countered. "Plus, I'm spoken for."

Dorcas laughed, not paying attention to where her feet fell on the treacherous ice. One foot slipped out from under her and she clutched Morty for support.

They stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, stunned into absolute stillness. Dorcas concentrated on shifting her back leg forward without toppling them both into the mud.

"I've got you, Dorcas!" Morty said.

"That was a close one! What do you mean by making me laugh like that?" Dorcas teased, digging her elbow into her uncle's ribs.

Morty shrugged. "Sorry!"

"So, you want to marry Betty?" Dorcas continued.

Morty nodded. "Don't be jealous. I still love you."

"I'm not jealous," Dorcas insisted. "And I love you too."

They stepped into another shop. This one held stationery and art supplies. Dorcas pulled Morty over to a case of monogrammed stationery, pointing to a stack with a beautiful calligraphy B on it.

"If you got her nice letter-writing paper like this, think of how many letters she could send you?" Dorcas explained.

Morty leaned over the case, fogging the glass with his breath. "It's pretty. But I still think I want to get her a ring. My friends Linden and Joyce like each other and Linden gave her a ring."

"Joyce likes Linden as much as Linden likes her?"

Morty shrugged again and pushed off of the case.

"She wears the ring. So I think so," Morty answered.

"Joyce and Linden live at the hospital with you, don't they?" Dorcas tried to remember the names of the people Morty wrote about in his letters. They sounded familiar to her, but she couldn't recall specifics.

"Yes. Joyce takes art class with me. And Linden likes football."

Dorcas waved the clerk over and asked for the monogrammed stationery. If she couldn't talk Morty out of jewelry and a declaration of eternal love, then she would give it to Betty instead. It was really too pretty to pass up.

They moved on to the next shop where Dorcas found a pair of gloves in luxurious oxblood leather for her mother. A practical gift always received gracious praise from Mary-Ellen.

"What do you want for Christmas, Morty?" Dorcas asked.

Morty thought about this while he scanned a row of model planes in a hobby shop.

Dorcas watched him expectantly and then Morty shrugged his shoulders. She immediately sensed that he was becoming withdrawn.

"Do you fancy sweets? Would you like to have a puzzle to put together? How about paper in all of the colors of the rainbow to make cranes with?"

Morty turned away from the shop window and started walking down the street.

Dorcas trotted carefully behind him on the slippery pavement. She tugged his jacket sleeve.

"Morty, what's wrong?"

"I want to go in here," her uncle responded, indicating an antiques shop.

"Okay," Dorcas conceded, following him up the steps.

Morty turned and pushed her back to the pavement. "I don't want you to come with me. I can go in by myself. I can be by myself," he insisted.

"Are you sure you don't want–"

"Dorcas, I can go by myself!" he repeated, raising his voice.

She stood outside of the shop's entrance trying to gauge his mercurial mood. She wondered if she should push in and follow him, or if she should give him space.

Dorcas tried to peer into his mind, but that was always tricky. He'd always been hard for Dorcas to read. His mind flickered from one thought to the next in rapid succession. Dorcas felt something akin to vertigo whenever she tried to venture into his thoughts.

Dorcas turned to survey the opposite side of the street. She realized that she was about a half a block from the Columbia Road flower market.

She turned back to the shop and went inside to find Morty.

"Dorcas! I don't want you here," her uncle said, clenching his fists and unclenching them.

"I know, Morty. I just wanted to tell you that I'm going to go to the flower market. Please don't leave the store until I come back," she explained, holding up her hands to pacify him.

She supposed that she could keep an eye on Morty through the gray haired gentleman that attended the shop. Testing it out, Dorcas reached for his mind and saw herself and her uncle reflected there.

"Fine."

Dorcas stepped back out onto the pavement and crossed the street. She tried to think back to the conversation she'd been having with Morty before his mood turned sour. What had she said to set him off?

She shoved her hands into her coat pockets, securing her packages under one arm and turned onto Columbia. It was a bit sparse in the wintertime, but a couple of stalls had heartier winter varieties of flowers on offer.

Dorcas took in the array of colors; violets, pansies, camellias, crocuses, snowdrops. There were also some fresh cut roses and tulips and peonies that had clearly come from hothouses.

Stepping up to a seed stall, Dorcas reached for a packet before realizing what she'd picked up and why.

It was Star of Bethlehem seeds. This was the substitute flower for the Valerianella afinis that she'd researched for Tom. Dorcas frowned to herself, reminded of the day of the discovery. She'd been so happy to share the breakthrough with Tom. But then Oliver Nott and Wes Rookwood had caused a fuss with their cruel prank and Tom had decided that he would rather not defend Dorcas to his housemates.

She'd broken up with him the following day.

Part of her wanted to bring these back to Tom. Part of her was still bitter about their last conversation.

Drop the pursuit of a Horcrux if you care about me. That was the gist of the gauntlet Dorcas had thrown down. Tom rebelled against the ultimatum and stormed off. She hadn't expected anything else from him. She was making a point: he could profess strong feelings for her, but when it came down to it, those feelings were not strong enough to place Dorcas above all else.

Would he really be Tom Riddle if he'd meekly given in to her challenge?

Dorcas smirked and grabbed up the seeds.

When she'd paid and checked that Morty was still in sight of the antiques dealer, she turned back up Hackney to fetch him.

She was extremely proud of Morty for managing the shopping on his own.

When she looked up to cross the street, she was alarmed to see Morty standing on the stoop outside of the shop being harassed by two young men.

"–while others are bleeding and dying. Why do you get a pass?"

"I'm Christmas shopping," Morty explained.

As Dorcas approached, she noticed that the men were wearing uniforms. Soldiers.

The one who was interrogating Morty shoved him. Morty stumbled back into the other bloke, who shoved him again.

"Hey!" Dorcas shouted, sprinting across the street. "Leave him alone!"

"Is this your girlfriend?" the one on Morty's left said.

The soldier to Morty's right sneered at Dorcas. "A coward alright! His girl fights his fights for him!"

The left replied, "How come you're skipping out on the war and you get the pretty bird also?" He flicked his cigarette in Dorcas's direction.

"He's not a coward!" Dorcas shouted.

Morty put his hands over his ears when Dorcas raised her voice.

The soldier on Morty's right threw his head back and laughed. "Not a coward, eh?"

"Come here, darlin'," the soldier on the left said, grabbing Dorcas's waist and pulling her into him. "I'll show you what a real man is."

Dorcas looked around her for help. A woman on the opposite side of the street shouted to the soldiers to stop their nonsense. But otherwise, no one cared to come to Dorcas's defense.

"I don't see a real man. I see an imbecile," Dorcas began to explain, wriggling free of the man's grip. "That's my–"

But she was interrupted when someone came up behind her and yanked her away from him. She dropped her packages as she lost her footing and stumbled.

The Good Samaritan had dark hair and a navy overcoat on. Dorcas couldn't see his face. His back was to her and his collar was raised against the wind.

Dorcas cringed when he cracked his fist against the soldier's jaw.

"DON'T TOUCH HER!" he shouted.

"Tom?" Dorcas asked, hardly believing her ears when she heard his voice.

Hearing his name, Tom turned to speak to her and received a punch to his kidney when he did.

Dorcas clapped her hand over her mouth, sorry to have distracted him.

Tom doubled over, clutching his side. "Hi, Birdie," he wheezed.

When the soldier on Morty's right moved to join his partner's defense, Dorcas blocked his path.

"Stop!" she pleaded. "This is all a misunderstanding. Morty–" the man, who's hair was light under his soldier's cap, grabbed the lapels of Dorcas's coat and threw her aside.

Tom and the soldier with darker hair were exchanging blows once again.

"Morty!" Dorcas shouted, pulling on her uncle's hands to bring them down from his ears. "Where's your Disability Waiver?"

She patted down her uncle's coat until she found his wallet.

"She's his niece, not his girlfriend, moron!" Tom said as he pummeled the dark-haired soldier, who had his forearms raised like a boxer on the ropes.

The soldier with the lighter hair was moving around behind Tom. Dorcas couldn't think of anything else she could do to stop him from taking Tom unawares, and so she kicked him hard in the shin.

"Stay out of it, bint!" the soldier said, turning to her and backhanding her across the mouth.

Dorcas spun around with the force of the blow, throwing her hands out to the shop window in order to stop herself.

Morty was curled in a ball on the shop's steps, rocking back and forth.

A crowd had started to assemble. Dorcas clutched the waiver in her hand and shouted at the crowd.

"Help us! My uncle is mentally disabled," she explained, indicating Morty's huddled form. "The boy they're beating up is only fourteen!"

Dorcas's shoulders drooped in relief when three men stepped forward and pulled the two soldiers off of Tom. She shoved Morty's waiver into her pocket and raced to Tom's side.

"Are you hurt?" she asked, then realized it was a stupid question. Tom was bleeding from a cut on his eyebrow and a busted lip. He was grimacing and holding his ribs.

"Fifteen," Tom corrected her, turning to spit blood out of his mouth.

"What?" Dorcas asked, bewildered.

Tom removed a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his mouth with it.

"I'm fifteen in a week."

Dorcas cracked a smile at the absurdity of Tom's correction and then winced when she felt the skin at the corner of her mouth split.

Tom raised his hand and the handkerchief to her lip.

:::

27 February, 1959 14 South Audley Street, Mayfair, London

Dorcas sat with her feet tucked under her skirt on the rug beside the coffee table in the sitting room.

She was situated across the table from Wren and they were playing a game where they blew a feather back and forth to each other. There were really no official rules. They just tried to keep the feather from falling to the ground.

Dorcas inhaled deeply and sent the feather sailing across to Wren.

She screamed with excitement and giggled before sending the feather back to Dorcas.

Cal walked in and startled Dorcas. Usually, he mentally announced to her when he was coming to avoid spooking her.

He had an Occlumency shield up today. Dorcas wondered why.

Then she saw the paper in his hand.

"Mama! You let the feather drop!" Wren squealed.

Cal bent to kiss the crown of Wren's golden curls.

Dorcas picked up the feather and blew it toward Wren. But she was watching Cal.

"Is that today's paper?" she asked, pointing to the Prophet in his hand.

Cal kissed her forehead and laid the paper in front of her. "Bowtruckle."

It was their code for when Ryann was home and Cal couldn't keep his mind open to her. But Ryann was at school. She didn't understand why he wanted to keep her out.

He sat down behind her and leaned back into the sofa.

Dorcas flipped the paper open, confused as to Cal's dark mood.

"Where's page one?" she asked.

She sent the feather back to Wren and turned to face Cal, leaning against his knee.

She felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach.

"That bad, eh?" she asked, propping her chin on his knee.

Wren came around the coffee table and dropped heavily into Dorcas's lap.

"It's just a lot of fanciful nonsense about how you've built your success on weeding through the minds of hapless witches and wizards."

"What a success I've made!" Dorcas replied sarcastically. "I suppose no one will want to see a shrink who can literally read their thoughts. It's curtains for my practice."

Cal lifted his hand and ran his knuckles along her cheekbone lightly. Dorcas leaned into it, savoring it. Since he'd seen the memory of Tom's attack, he'd carefully avoided her.

She wondered if he'd even slept next to her last night. She was in bed and asleep long before he'd retired, and she'd woken up alone this morning.

Slipping her hand under the hem of his trousers leg, Dorcas stroked his calf soothingly.

Cal cleared his throat and shook her hand off.

"Will you be okay here if I go into the hospital?" Cal asked.

Dorcas smiled bravely. "Mrs. Danvers and I will get along like a house on fire."

Cal furrowed his brow. "That's an interesting turn of phrase, considering the house burned down in that story."

Dorcas laughed. She hadn't meant to make that connection. The Daphne du Maurier novel had a creepy housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers who was the overseer of a dark secret.

"Do you imagine you're Joan Fontaine in this scenario?" Cal smirked, his humor lightening.

He was referring to the actress who'd played the heroine in the Hitchcock film.

"No," Dorcas winked. "You are. I'm Maxim de Winter. I have all the deep, dark secrets to hide."

Cal laughed. "I hope the house is still standing when I return."

"No promises!" Dorcas singsonged as he left.

Her smile melted from her cheeks and she stared at the censored newspaper, thinking about Cal's blank mind.

:::

24 December, 1941 Hackney Road, London

"Were you following me?" Dorcas asked as she walked beside Tom.

She had a firm grip on Morty's hand. He'd been silent through the entire encounter with the soldiers and Dorcas was apprehensive that he could have a fit coming on.

"I was in Columbia Road when I saw you. I followed you to where those soldiers were making trouble for your uncle. So, yes, I suppose I was."

Dorcas slipped her hand into Tom's coat pocket to wrap her fingers around his.

"Thank you for your help," she said for the fifth time. "I'm sorry you got hurt."

"You don't have to keep thanking me and apologizing," Tom insisted. "Those people make me angry. They just stood there and watched."

"There's not much sympathy for a seemingly healthy-looking man in his twenties who isn't in uniform. Not since the draft anyway," Dorcas explained.

Tom was silent for a moment, dabbing his handkerchief against the cut on his eyebrow.

"I thought you were at school for the holiday," said Dorcas.

Tom nodded. "I was. I am. I just popped down to London for the day."

"What were you in Columbia Road for?"

There was a hesitance from Tom and Dorcas immediately sought his mind for the answer. Tom was evading her mental probe by thinking through the fight they'd just walked away from.

"I was visiting the flower market, same as you."

"A Christmas bouquet for a new girlfriend?" Dorcas teased.

Tom laughed quietly to himself. "Something like that."

Dorcas felt the smile slip from her face. She knew he was joking, but she didn't like the idea of Tom buying another girl flowers. She reminded herself that they hadn't been an item for nearly a year. Tom was allowed to move on and so was she.

When her mind settled on Jack, the jealousy disappeared.

"I'm tired, D," Morty complained beside her.

Dorcas squeezed his hand. "We're nearly home, Morty. One more block."

She turned to Tom again. "Do you have to hurry back to school? Will you be missed?"

Dorcas had never spent the Christmas holiday at Hogwarts and so she didn't really know how accountable the students were to the teachers while on break.

"No."

"Stay for supper? I made a bacon and potato pie."

"Alright," Tom agreed.

Once they'd reached the first landing of their building, Morty took off into the flat. When Dorcas stepped through the door she saw him wrapped up in Mary-Ellen's arms.

"Finished Christmas shopping already?" Mary-Ellen asked, kissing the top of her brother's head. When she looked to Dorcas for a response she gasped.

Dorcas remembered the cut on her lip. It was now a swollen lump. When Tom entered behind her and closed the door, Mary-Ellen's eyes bulged.

"Heavens!" Dorcas's mother exclaimed. "Whatever has happened? Dorcas explain this!"

Dorcas set her packages on the kitchen table and shrugged out of her coat. Tom's hands were quick to assist her.

"Some soldiers started harassing Morty because they thought he was a conchee. They wouldn't listen to me."

"Everyone on the street just stood around and let it happen," Tom added through gritted teeth. "I happened to come around the corner when one of them grabbed Dorcas, so I hit him."

Mary-Ellen scanned Morty for injuries as Dorcas took Tom's coat and hung it up beside the door.

Satisfied that Morty wasn't hurt, Mary-Ellen pulled out a chair and ordered Dorcas to sit.

"You too, Tom," Mary-Ellen commanded. "Although I don't condone violence, I am grateful for your defense of my daughter and brother."

"Yes, ma'am. Sorry," Tom muttered, taking a seat at the table next to Dorcas.

As Mary-Ellen retreated to the bathroom for a cloth and antiseptic, Dorcas kicked Tom's foot under the table. She mimicked the simpering tone he'd taken with her mother.

Tom laughed at her and winked, tweaking his swollen eye and wincing. He kicked her back playfully.

Dorcas heard a door slam and knew that Morty was going to be difficult all evening now.

When Mary-Ellen returned with her supplies and wand she faced Dorcas.

"Don't tell me you were brawling as well?" her mother asked sternly.

Dorcas exhaled impatiently. "It was two on one! I couldn't stand back and watch them beat Tom up."

"All she did was kick one of them in the shin. He slapped her," Tom defended.

Mary-Ellen cleaned the cut on Dorcas's lip and then healed it with her wand. Then she turned to Tom.

"The very idea of two grown men beating up children, it defies the imagination!" Mary-Ellen cried. "What is the world coming to?"

She pressed the cloth to Tom's eye and he hissed as the antiseptic bit into the cut.

"Baby!" Dorcas teased.

When Mary-Ellen finished with Tom's face, she stood back to survey him. "Where else are you hurt, Tom?"

When he didn't speak Dorcas answered for him. "He was clutching his ribs on the right side."

"Snitch." Tom's voice was loud in her head.

Dorcas leaned around her mother's back and stuck her tongue out at him.

"Dorcas," her mother said over her shoulder.

"Yes, mama?" Dorcas answered innocently.

"Will you go check on your uncle, please?"

Dorcas slid off of the chair at the kitchen table and turned toward the hall.

"Yes, ma'am."

She suspected that her mother wanted Dorcas to leave the room to give Tom his privacy.

Rapping on her uncle's door, Dorcas paused and listened for his permission to enter.

Morty was sitting on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands. Dorcas sat next to him and slipped her arm around his waist.

"That was scary back there, wasn't it?" Dorcas asked gently.

Morty shrugged.

"Talk to me, Morty!"

She pulled his hands away from his face and realized he was crying.

Dorcas leaned over and placed her head on his shoulder.

"They weren't angry at you, Morty. They just didn't understand why you don't also have a uniform on. Most young men your age do."

"Then I should get one. I'm supposed to have one," Morty said.

Dorcas squeezed his hand. "You have a piece of paper saying that you're allowed to wear normal clothes. Those soldiers just didn't know you had that paper. You're supposed to take it out and show them. Remember? We practiced it."

Morty nodded. But he still looked dejected.

"Is it something else?" Dorcas asked.

Morty nodded.

"What is it?" she prodded.

"I didn't get to buy Betty a ring," he cried pathetically.

Dorcas smiled. "How about we make her a ring? She'll like that better than anything you could buy her."

Morty nodded and wiped his eyes.

:::

27 February, 1959 14 South Audley Street, Mayfair, London

Dorcas gathered her handbag and gloves, checked her hair one last time in the mirror, pinning her hat in place and stepped out into the gusty wind of South Audley Street.

She flipped up the collar of her overcoat and stepped to the curb to flag down a cab.

When a black car heeded her summons, she slipped into the back seat and gave a Charing Cross address.

She'd left Wren in the care of Frost, who was less like Mrs. Danvers the more Dorcas became comfortable with her presence in the house. She looked rather like Cherry's mum, now that she stopped to think about it, motherly and warm.

Dorcas felt guilt bubble up in her when she thought about tracking down today's Prophet. If Cal hadn't wanted her to see the front page after she'd outed herself in court two days ago, she should honor that wish.

But when she'd sat down at her desk to write Anneliese and Cherry to apologize for the secret she'd kept from them for all these years, she found she couldn't find the words. She needed to know what was being reported first before she could apologize for it.

When she was let out on the curb beside the Leaky Cauldron, Dorcas paid the driver and slipped into the dark and grimy pub quickly to avoid the cold.

"Dory?" a voice said when she'd made it nearly to the back alley of the pub that led to Diagon Alley.

Dorcas froze mid-stride at the sound of the voice she hadn't heard in an age. She recalled the last time she'd heard the booming voice of Rubeus Hagrid. She was trying to leave Diagon Alley through the pub, but cowered in the doorway when she saw the overly large man.

She also recalled Tom Apparating her away from the scene in order to avoid the awkward meeting.

Pivoting on the toe of her navy pump, Dorcas turned toward the voice.

"Rubeus?" she smiled and clutched her handbag tightly, twisting its strap in her gloved hands.

"It's bin an absolute age, hadn't it?" he said, standing and grinning from ear to ear.

"It has," Dorcas agreed, extending one gloved hand to him in greeting.

"Don' be daft, Dory!" Rubeus laughed, pulling her into a suffocating hug. "How yer bin? Sit down! Sit down! Have a drink wi' me!"

Dorcas obliged and sat down at Rubeus's table. She saw a Daily Prophet spread out before him with a copious amount of ale splashed on it.

"What'll yeh have?" Rubeus asked, motioning to Tom the barman.

He appeared at Dorcas's elbow.

It was eleven o'clock on a weekday. Dorcas ordered coffee.

"Bin readin' 'bout the trial in the paper, I 'ave," Rubeus said, taking a long drink from a pewter tankard. "Read all 'bout yer testimony." He pointed to the front page that was missing in the Prophet her husband gave to her this morning. "Tha' was a brave thing yeh did."

"Really?" This surprised Dorcas. She thought Rubeus, like all of her other school friends, might feel duped by the revelation.

"O' course!" he said. "I agree wi' Dumbledore's take on things."

"Dumbledore's take?" Dorcas asked, looking between the paper and Rubeus's ruddy face.

"Yeh have read it, haven't yeh?"

Dorcas shook her head.

Rubeus slid the paper across the pockmarked oak surface of the table and Dorcas picked it up, reaching a nervous hand into her handbag for her reading glasses.

The barman brought her coffee, but Dorcas ignored it.

Her world seemed to narrow to just one line of newsprint.

MIND HEALER OR MUGGLE QUACK?

By Ines Nott

The impressive list of accomplishments of Healer Dorcas Meadowes, self-professed Muggle Psychiatrist, may be nothing more than a fraud. In court proceedings held on Tuesday, Healer Meadowes (who goes by the Muggle title Doctor to distinguish herself from her healer husband) made an alarming confession on the witness stand at the murder trial of Stephen R. Muybridge. The mind healer claims that she can hear the thoughts of others. This has led to a number of questions about the legitimacy of the healer's training and accolades that she has touted.

"I always knew that she was not as clever as she wanted everyone to believe her to be. I often suspected her of cheating to maintain top grades," fellow Ravenclaw Zelda Weston commented on her former housemate. "How else do you explain all Os on the N.E. as a pregnant sixth year? She obviously saw the answers in the teachers' minds ahead of time."

Dorcas felt her pulse quicken as she read.

She turned frantically in the direction of the bar and caught Tom's eye.

"Fire whiskey," she called and turned back to the article.

Is it ethical for a mind healer to keep a stunning fact such as the ability to read minds from patients? Can patients feel safe in the care of a professional who has cheated her way through healer's exams and clinical residencies? One patient voices exactly these concerns. Gus Hawkins came to St. Mungo's a year and a half ago when his wand backfired and he was injured by his own Stunning Spell. Dr. Meadowes was the specialist mind healer in charge of his care. "I was making real progress," he explained. "When she had a mental breakdown following the death of her unborn son and abandoned my care. How can I have confidence in a healer who is battling her own mental problems? I never felt completely safe in her hands."

Dorcas felt her eyes swimming with the betrayal from Gus. She thought he was indeed making progress and she'd handed off his post-hospital care to Healer Crawford when she'd begun maternity leave. She didn't abandon Gus when her baby died.

She threw back another fire whiskey, waving her glass above her head as a signal to the barman to keep 'em coming.

Others stand by the disgraced healer's work despite the mounting evidence that suggests her meteoric rise to prominence in the healing community is based on deceit. "I've seen Dr. Meadowes in the act of mind healing and I have never been more impressed with the skills of a former student in all of my years of teaching at Hogwarts. To suggest that she is anything less than professional and capable is short-sighted and slanderous," Headmaster Albus Dumbledore commented. It does not surprise this reporter that the Good Healer has the approval of wizards who deal in their own fair share of questionable activities.

When Tom approached to refill her glass, Dorcas took the bottle out of his hand.

Hagrid laughed nervously and hid behind his tankard of ale.

The woman at the center of this murder trial, Theresa Allen-Prewett, a former patient of Dr. Meadowes declined to comment for this story. Her attorney cited the ongoing trial as the reason for her silence. This reporter suspects that Meadowes's former patient may have been coerced into silence.

Dorcas blinked and removed her reading glasses, slowly placing them back into her handbag.

"Oh, Rubeus!"

Hagrid brightened and pulled the paper back toward him.

"See, Dumbledore would never let 'em say those awful things 'bout yeh without tellin' 'em a thing or two!"

Dorcas buried her face in her hands. Now she understood why Cal was in a dark mood and had blocked her from his thoughts.

This was so much worse than she'd imagined.

She pulled the spout from the whiskey bottle's opening and tipped it up to her lips.

"Drown yer sorrows, Dory! Tha's what I say! Don't give 'em a chance ter swim!"

:::

24 December, 1941 Number 19 Strattondale, Poplar

Dorcas watched Tom eat a second piece of bacon and potato pie while she tried to fashion a ring out of silver wrapping paper.

Morty refused to leave his room, even for Mary-Ellen.

Before her mother left for work, she told Dorcas to let him be, but check on him every so often.

Then she'd turned to Tom and said, "You're welcome to stay here tonight if you need to Tom. Dorcas can make up the couch for you."

Tom had smiled and thanked her. Dorcas knew he wouldn't stay. He would steal away like a thief in the night and head back to Hogwarts.

"What are you doing?" Tom asked while he ate.

Dorcas sighed. "I promised Morty that I'd help him make a ring for Betty. He wanted to buy her one and then, well, you know what happened."

Tom snorted.

"What?" Dorcas asked, exasperated.

"You're helping him like you help Weasley with her homework, Birdie."

"Shut up," Dorcas half-laughed, half-whined. "He's really upset. I think he likes her a lot."

"Who's Betty?" Tom shoveled more pie into his mouth.

Dorcas tried the ring on for size. "She's our upstairs neighbor."

Tom's eyes became wide and his eyebrows disappeared into his hair. "The blonde American? Morty likes to swing for the fences, doesn't he?"

Dorcas rolled her eyes. Of course Tom had taken notice of Betty.

"Yes, he informed me today that he wants to give her a ring and marry her," Dorcas explained.

Tom dropped his fork in shock. "Is it that serious between them?"

"On his part, yes. On Betty's...I don't know."

"What's the problem?" Tom inquired.

Dorcas scoffed. "There's the obvious mental disability that Morty's going to live with for the rest of his life."

Tom shrugged. "Maybe Betty's up for it."

"Be serious, Tom!"

He scraped his plate clean for the second time and sat back.

"What? You don't think it could work?" Tom challenged.

Dorcas hadn't thought seriously about Morty and Betty. She'd known they were close friends, but she had always assumed that Betty would keep a certain distance because of Morty's condition. She didn't know how to answer Tom.

"I'd better go and check on him," Dorcas said, pushing away from the table.

When she knocked on Morty's door he didn't answer.

Dorcas opened it slowly and found him in bed reading. She handed him the wrapping paper ring she'd crafted.

"What do you think?"

"It's paper, Dorcas! Betty is pretty and special. Her ring should be pretty and special too!"

Her uncle grabbed the ring from Dorcas's palm and crumpled it, chucking it across his bedroom.

"That wasn't nice, Morty!" Dorcas admonished, placing her hands on her hips.

"Go away, Dorcas!"

When Dorcas came back into the kitchen Tom was doing the washing up.

"It wasn't well received?" Tom asked.

Dorcas shook her head.

"You treat him like a child, Birdie. He's a twenty-six year old man."

Dorcas sat down and stared at Tom. "But he's not like other twenty-six year old men. He doesn't understand how things are."

Tom turned to her and flung the tea towel he was using over his shoulder.

"He has seizures and difficulty with some cognitive processes," Tom summarized.

Dorcas placed her palms on the table. "Yes."

"But he still has eyes, Birdie. He knows what a pretty girl looks like. Do you think his feelings are less valid because of his condition?"

She blinked and tried to think of a response.

Tom began to rifle in his trousers pocket, finally pulling out a coin. From his other pocket, he drew out his wand.

Dorcas sat up straighter in her chair. "Tom. What are you doing?"

"Your mum's a witch. We're not breaking any rules by doing magic in her home," explained Tom.

He met Dorcas's eyes and sighed when she raised her eyebrows at him. "I'm making Morty a ring to give to his sweetheart."

"Why?" Dorcas asked. She didn't think Tom cared very much about Morty.

"Because I know what it feels like to swing for the fences. And I hope he doesn't strike out like I did," Tom admitted.

Dorcas ducked to hide a blush that came to her cheeks.

Tom transfigured the coin and made Morty a shiny gold band. He left the kitchen and knocked on Morty's door.

When Tom returned he stopped beside her chair with his palm out to her. There was a silver band in the center of his hand.

"For you. Because I know a pretty girl when I see one, too."

Dorcas inhaled. He was never going to stop trying to wear her down.

She took the ring and pointedly slipped it onto her right ring finger.

"Thank you, Tom."

Morty never emerged from his room though Dorcas tried to lure him out by playing Christmas tunes on the piano.

Tom was her willing audience of one and began to make requests after Dorcas warmed up to playing.

When Dorcas ran out of songs to sing and play, she joined Tom on the sofa.

He reclined, placing his head in her lap and closed his eyes when she started to run her fingers through his hair.

"What were you doing in Columbia Road today?" Dorcas asked softly.

When Tom didn't answer right away, she thought he might be asleep.

She probed his mind only a little bit to see if he'd heard her.

He was debating how to answer because he didn't want to upset her.

Dorcas felt herself stiffen, wondering why she would be upset by his trip to London.

Then he inhaled and spoke. "I was looking for one of the Horcrux ingredients. But then I saw you and followed without getting it."

Dorcas felt herself relax and then she laughed.

It was clear that Tom was confused by her reaction. His eyes opened and he looked up at her.

"What's the joke?"

Dorcas tapped his forehead gently and said, "Sit up for a moment."

Tom did and fixed her with a puzzled stare as he watched her move across the room and dig into her coat pocket.

"Merry Christmas!" She said, returning to her spot on the couch. She tossed him the seed packet and laughed again.

Tom studied the gift for a moment before his face broke into a grin.

He laid back in her lap once again. "Does this mean I'm forgiven?"

Dorcas shrugged and her fingers resumed stroking his hair.

"Let's call it a truce. I won't stand in the way of your dream if you'll agree not to declare your undying love for me again."

Tom shot her a stern look. "I think I said I have strong feelings for you, Birdie. I don't want to marry you."

Dorcas held her right hand up to his face. "I have a ring that says otherwise."

Tom swatted her hand away.

She placed it on his chest and he covered it with his own hand.

There was a comfortable silence that stretched out between them.

Dorcas wanted to understand him, wanted to understand why he would risk tearing his soul in two for eternal life. It didn't sound the least bit attractive to her.

"Why are you afraid of dying, Tom?"

Again, Dorcas wondered if Tom had drifted off to sleep as she carded her fingers through his hair.

Then he spoke.

"Not everyone is as brave as you are, Birdie."

"What do you mean?"

"The remedy for a boggart that's in front of you is your own dead body. You don't fear death."

"No," Dorcas admitted. "But there are plenty of other things I fear."

Tom shook his head in her lap. "There's only been one thing I fear."

"We all die, Tom."

He took a long breath of air. Dorcas thought that was the end of the conversation. She was no closer to understanding Tom now than she had been yesterday.

Would this boy always be a mystery to her?

"There was an outbreak of typhus in the orphanage when I was eight."

"Really?" Dorcas asked. Her voice was soft and compassionate. She wondered if he'd lost any friends.

"Have you ever been at the mercy of a force that you couldn't see, something that you were helpless to fight against?"

He looked up at her.

Dorcas shook her head. What a privileged life she led in her tiny humble flat.

"I watched three kids get sick with some unknown disease, weaken, and die. And when I started to get chills and a rash, I knew it was going to take me too. When I was delirious with fever, I remember thinking that no one in the world will have known I existed. It would be like I was never there."

Dorcas imagined a little Tom, afraid of dying in obscurity and understood his quest for immortality.

"And you felt that way all over again when you almost died in Birmingham?"

Tom smiled a little at this question and squeezed her hand as it rested on his chest.

"Nearly the same way. The only difference between when I was eight and last year was you."

Dorcas blinked.

"Me?"

Tom nodded from her lap.

"I knew that if I died in Birmingham during that air raid, at least one person would know me and be sorry that I died."

Dorcas took his hand and lifted it to her lips, kissing his palm.

"I'm glad you didn't die Tom."

:::

27 February, 1959 Leaky Cauldron, Charing Cross, London

Dorcas felt her cares slip away by the end of the first bottle of fire whisky. She held the empty bottle above her head, waving it to get the barman's attention.

She had a carefree smile plastered to her face and everything had a warm and pleasant haze around it.

"You know, Rubeush," Dorcas slurred. "You're my best friend in the whole world."

Hagid smiled broadly.

"Now how can tha' be, Dory?" he reasoned, taking a swig of ale and sloshing more down his beard than into his mouth. "We haven' spoken in," he blew out and looked off into the distance, thinking, "Whot? Sixteen years?"

"I feel so guilty about that!"

Tom the barman brought her another bottle.

Dorcas blinked up at him and took the fire whiskey.

"I don't like your name," she informed him.

The barman paid her no attention and left them alone.

"Guil'y 'bout whot?" Hagrid prompted.

"Getting you kicked out of Hogwarts," Dorcas informed him.

Hagrid waved her off and took another long pull on his ale.

Dorcas nodded and dumped half her bottle of fire whiskey in his tankard.

"I should have been kicked out instead, I was the one who–" she began to confess.

An angry voice cut her off.

"Dorcas! What are you doing?"

It was Cal. Dorcas was surprised to see him because he was supposed to be at the hospital today.

"Rubeush, look it's Cal!" Dorcas called, grinning wider.

"Hullo, Cal. It's bin a while!" Hagrid said, holding out his hand for him to shake.

Cal shook hands with his former housemate, but Dorcas could tell he was not pleased to be here.

Dorcas waved him to the seat next to her. "Come! Have a drink with us, sweetheart!"

"No, thanks! I don't drink," her husband replied woodenly.

"Oh right! I forgot!" Dorcas laughed. Hagrid joined her.

Cal took Dorcas's elbow and hauled her to her feet. "It's time I took you home."

"But we were talking, Cal," Dorcas protested, jerking her arm from his grip.

Cal pulled her against him, holding her firmly around the waist. "And you're finished now. It's time to go."

"Maybe we kin finish our talk 'nother time?" Hagrid said.

Before Dorcas could respond or wave goodbye, she was being ushered out of the pub and back onto Charing Cross.

"We were jus' havin' a drink, Cal. Why're you mad?"

"One drink? You look as if you were trying to match Hagrid drink for drink. He's four times your size!"

"Oh lighten up!" Dorcas said as she collapsed into the back of a cab, Cal sliding in beside her.