Author's Note: I never want to catch a reader off guard so I will disclose a little about the chapter you're going to read for that reason. This chapter has some mild descriptions of sexual violence that Dorcas experienced during her years at Hogwarts. Please read cautiously.
Chapter 54
27 February, 1959 14 South Audley Street, Mayfair, London
Dorcas stared into a forget-me-not blue sky. The kind of blue that made her pupils dilate uncomfortably, but that she couldn't seem to take her eyes off of.
She floated on the surface of a still pond. The water was cool and the places where her skin emerged from the surface were warmed by the delicious rays of the sun.
This was one of those rare moments of equilibrium when one finds oneself completely content, contained in one instant, floating above any pain, insecurity, fear, or despair.
But those things lurked below the surface. It was impossible to remain in that state of contentment indefinitely. Even now, as she acknowledged their existence, the dark shadows seemed to rise up to join her on the surface.
Waterlogged flesh, like curdled milk, falling from the bones of fingers, hands, and arms that clawed at her and tugged her below the calm glass and into a fathomless, black deep.
As she struggled against the skeletal clutches of dozens of dead bodies, she knew she would become one of them. Even as her instinct to fight still stirred within her, another part of her began to understand that this was her ultimate end.
And it would be better to surrender. There was no fight left. None left in her. None left for her.
There was a certain seductive release in letting go. When the part of her that appealed for surrender overrode the part of her that instinctively fought for the light. There was nothing left to do but sink languidly to the bottom of the black pool.
Dorcas sprang up from her bed, gasping for air.
As her lungs expanded and filled, there was a moment of bright jubilant redemption.
It had been a dream.
And then her head seemed to split and her eyes watered with the pain of it.
A glass of water appeared before her.
"How do you feel?"
Dorcas blinked, trying to bring the glass into better focus. She smacked her lips together. The most horrible taste lingered on her tongue.
When she reached for the glass, she realized her hands were slower to obey the commands of her mind.
She groaned in response. Forming words seemed a bit beyond her ability at the moment.
A hand cradled the back of her head and held the glass to her lips.
The cool water that trickled into her mouth awakened her senses, beginning with her tongue and lips, reconstituting dried vocal chords.
She nodded and took another gulp before sputtering and dribbling the mouthful down her front.
"Do you remember anything?"
As if the words had been an incantation, her memories reignited in her mind and flattened any hopeful joy she'd had at being readmitted to the land of the living.
Living meant carrying burden.
Part of her longed for the dark, cool depths once again.
Did she remember anything?
Yes. She remembered everything.
"I had a few drinks with Hagrid," she answered. It came out scratchy and weak.
Now she was being offered a potion.
Without even identifying it, Dorcas opened her mouth and tipped her head back to receive the concoction. It didn't matter what it was.
When she swallowed it there was almost instant relief from the pounding in her head.
"A few drinks?" Cal said, sitting on the bed facing her. "Try a few bottles."
Dorcas recalled the bottles. She recalled the article in the Prophet.
"I invited you to drink with us."
Cal nodded. "You did."
"I'm sorry, Cal," Dorcas whispered. She felt ashamed of her behavior. The public spectacle. Cal having to scrape her up from a pub and dump her into a cab.
Cal slowly shook his head. "This isn't about me. You don't have to apologize."
He looked like he wanted to say more, but pressed his lips together.
"What is it?" Dorcas asked. She felt a horror creep over her skin. What had she done? "What did I do?"
Cal set the glass of water on the bedside table and placed his hands on her shoulders.
"You didn't do anything. Only I wish you hadn't gone off like that without telling me. I was worried. I thought something had happened to you."
Dorcas hung her head guiltily. She didn't want to add to the troubles of her husband.
"I just wanted to see what was in the paper that you were hiding from me."
A dark look passed over Cal's features. "It's not so much a paper as a gossip rag. There wasn't a single fact in the article except for Dumbledore's quote. I didn't want it to upset you. I'm sorry I kept it from you."
Dorcas settled back on the pillows feeling drained at remembering what she'd read about her career.
"You have to take more care, Dorcas. Getting plastered like that. Anything could have happened to you!"
Dorcas laughed darkly.
"Tell me, Cal. What could have happened that hasn't already happened?"
Cal flinched as the callous words and the biting tone.
"Dorcas, please don't put yourself in danger like that."
She stared at her husband. There were fresh lines of worry on his forehead and his eyes had a sort of downcast look in them. She wanted to reassure him that there was no danger.
"I was with Hagrid. Who in their right mind would harm me with him around?"
Cal sighed and looked down at her hand resting on the sheets in her lap. He took it gently in his and squeezed it.
"Am I going to have to quit my job to be by your side constantly?"
She found she couldn't meet his eye after he'd asked that. She was right back where she was in the fall, struggling to cope with the loss of her baby, taking potions laced with strong narcotics. Cal was looking at her the same way. He was using the same tone. The one that suggested he was at the end of his rope.
"No," she answered in a small voice.
He was right. Cal was constantly berating himself for not being able to keep her from being hurt by Tom. It was wrong for her to place herself in jeopardy carelessly. It would only add to his guilt if she was hurt again.
Dorcas silently vowed to herself that she wouldn't fly off half cocked and worry Cal needlessly any longer. Her responsibility now was to find the rest of the altered memories and to lift them from her mind. She couldn't control much else in her life at the moment. But that was one realistic goal she could set for herself.
Her mind settled on one annoying little detail of the events of this afternoon in the Leaky Cauldron.
She looked up at Cal and narrowed her eyes at him.
"How did you know I wasn't at home? Didn't you go to work?"
"I did. But I left again when Mrs. Frost informed me that you'd left the house."
"Mrs. Frost? The housekeeper?" Dorcas wondered why she would tell Cal she'd left.
"She's more than just a housekeeper, Dorcas. She's here to protect you and our daughters when I'm not around."
Dorcas blinked as she took in the information. Her first instinct was to become angry. But when she thought about how furious Cal had been at himself for not being around when Dorcas was assaulted it made sense. She wished Cal had been up front with her about Mrs. Frost's double occupation. But she didn't chastise him for it.
She nodded and then turned over onto her side, away from Cal. The conversation was done for now.
:::
21 January, 1942 Secret Room, Seventh Floor, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Dorcas had been eager to visit her new piano but found she'd had little time since returning from Christmas break.
It really was a beautiful instrument. It didn't have the same sentimental value as the family one she played on at home. But the gesture of the gift had been a meaningful one.
She smiled to herself when she remembered receiving the gift over a month ago. And then the smile faltered when she remembered the conversation that followed the gift.
Tom always seemed at war with himself. As if two personalities dueled within him for supremacy. He was brooding and angry sometimes. Then he could be sensitive and caring.
Dorcas thought about her chance meeting with his uncle when she went to the Riddle House to interview for a serving position. She'd recognized some family trait that Morfin and Tom shared when he'd threatened Dorcas for following him. When his eyes flashed in anger, she saw Tom there. Uncontrolled rage. An impulse for cruelty. Was lunacy the right word to describe it?
There was a loud explosion followed by cursing.
Springing up from the piano's bench, Dorcas flew around the wall of stacked books and into Tom's potions laboratory.
Tom stood back a step from the bubbling molten mess of a melted cauldron, cradling his right hand and shaking with repressed fury.
"What happened?" Dorcas asked softly, touching Tom's arm in a request for him to lower it so that she could inspect the burn.
Tom was glaring at the mess. He hated to botch a potion. He was meticulous in his work. Dorcas knew this was the reason that he was such a favorite with the teachers and the most talented student in his year.
He was prideful and this failure could trigger a black mood. Dorcas had developed a bit of an instinct concerning Tom's moods in her three years as his friend. She knew she must tread carefully.
Tom gave her his hand wordlessly. His eyes never left the melted cauldron. Dorcas noticed a vein throbbing in his neck.
She wondered which of the Horcrux ingredients had just been destroyed. With any luck, Dorcas thought, it was one of the rare ones and Tom would be forced to give up this daft quest.
With Tom's hand resting lightly in her left palm, she plunged her right hand into the pocket of her skirt to retrieve her wand.
She remembered the spell for healing a burn from the Compendium of Common Complaints and Calamitous Catastrophes. When she bought a copy for Cal to give him as a Christmas gift, she couldn't help buying herself one as well.
I knew it would come in handy, Dorcas thought wryly to herself as she studied the livid burn that turned the skin of Tom's palm a shiny red and blistering in places.
"Does it hurt?" Dorcas asked sympathetically.
"I don't even feel it," Tom answered through gritted teeth.
It must have been a rare ingredient he lost, Dorcas thought at Tom's reaction to the burn.
She healed his hand and released it.
Tom flexed his fingers, stretching the skin across his palm, opening and closing his fist.
"Thanks, Birdie," he said dismissively, turning to the mess and taking out his wand to clear it.
"What happened?" she repeated.
There was a long silence as Tom cleared the workspace with an incantation. Dorcas thought he might be ignoring her. She would give him another ten seconds to respond before taking the cue to leave him alone.
"I needed to reduce the heat incrementally to dissolve the basilisk feather. I think I reduced it too quickly."
"The basilisk feather," Dorcas repeated. Part of her was thrilled that he no longer had an essential ingredient that he needed to move forward with the Horcrux potion. Part of her felt bereft for him.
"I'm sorry, Tom."
He heaved a frustrated sigh and turned to her. "It's a setback, but it's not the end of the world."
Dorcas blinked. She was not expecting such a reasonable response.
"Can you get another one?" she asked.
"Yes, the basilisk will grow another. But it could take weeks yet. And we still need to obtain mercury, so we still have a few more steps to complete before I can make a Horcrux."
He seemed to only see Dorcas in that moment, his eyes focusing on her intently. Dorcas felt uncomfortable under his examination.
"Were you hoping that I would mess up and fail at my quest, Birdie?"
Dorcas forced herself to meet his eyes. "No. I never want you to fail at anything, Tom." It was a lie. She wanted him to fail at ripping his soul in half. She wanted him to be unsuccessful at murder and dark magic. But she knew that Tom was too talented to fail.
Tom approached her, studying her closely. She had that feeling again as if he was trying to read her thoughts.
"Come on," she said, cutting across his attempts to lay her bare. "Relax for a bit and take your mind off of the plan. I'll play you something."
He allowed Dorcas to take his hand and lead him to the other side of the stacked book wall. When she turned away from the sofa to go to the piano, Tom refused to let her hand go.
"Sit with me," he commanded.
"I want to play you something," Dorcas replied.
Tom raised the wand in his right hand and flicked it at the piano. It began playing 'Just The Way You Look Tonight'.
"Sit with me," he said again, tugging her down to the sofa with him.
As soon as Dorcas sat, Tom reclined and placed his head in her lap.
Dorcas carded her fingers through his hair in order to relax him, watching the signs of his dangerous mood recede as he closed his eyes.
"Sing for me, little Birdie," Tom whispered.
Dorcas couldn't help but smile. Tom could be a raging inferno one moment and an innocent little angel the next.
"Yes, you're lovely, never ever change, keep that breathless charm, won't you please arrange it 'cause I love you, and the way you look tonight."
God help her, she thought. It would be so easy to slip back into her old ways with Tom. It would be so easy to slip back into loving him.
:::
2 March, 1959 14 South Audley Street, Mayfair, London
Dorcas stood cross-armed in the middle of her office. Tucked into her fist that rested under her left elbow was a full memory phial. She tapped it with the nail on her index finger and stared at the Pensieve as if it had offended her.
For three days she'd promised Cal that she had been cloistered in her office following this new lead on altered memories. Every time he asked her if she needed help, she'd smile at him and say that she'd be sure to let him know if she did.
The truth was that she could not face replaying every memory where she had shared an intimate moment with Tom. She'd quickly run through the most innocuous part of the process, cataloguing every memory she could recall when she and Tom had sex. There were five memories she had of being with Tom.
But a paranoid voice in her mind reminded her that those may not have been the only instances of intimacy that had occurred. And she shuddered to think of what these false memories covered up.
The one in her hand was confirmed to be an alteration. But Dorcas could not muster the courage to lift it and discover what was underneath. She was frightened to return to a trauma that was still fresh in her mind. An assault that was barely a month old. And she was beginning to understand that the rape was not an isolated event, but the repeating of an old pattern.
Could she revisit a memory that had been wiped and rewritten from a time when she was only fifteen? How could she stomach witnessing her own rape at an age that was so close to Ryann's age when she couldn't even stay in the memory of Tom's assault from a month ago when she'd shown Cal?
Dorcas began to weigh the mental damage that the altered memories were doing in her brain at this very moment with the emotional damage that would be inflicted on her psyche once the altered memories had been lifted.
She couldn't decide which was worse.
And the very fact that she was considering leaving the memories altered, even though they were slowly destroying her brain, instead of lifting them because of the new trauma it would surely introduce into her life was twisted.
Dorcas set the memory on the table next to the Pensieve as if it had stung her, backing away from it like it was an angry Acromantula.
Cal could not be allowed to help her recover these memories. She wasn't entirely convinced that he had let the most recent assault go. If he had to witness a school age Dorcas being attacked by Tom…
Dorcas shuddered at the idea of it.
Instead, she did what she always did when Cal thought she was diligently working to lift the spell damage from her mind. She sorted through the box of trinkets that she'd retrieved from her school trunk.
She always lifted the alabaster bird pendant from the box first. She'd studied every inch of this gift from her schoolhood sweetheart, Tom. She took out the sapphire earrings and the tortoiseshell comb from Anneliese and Cherry. Her Prefect's badge and the curious key tied with a black ribbon.
Dorcas let the Prefect badge drop unceremoniously back into the box. It reminded her of all of the accomplishments that she'd once been proud of. The accomplishments that now all of the vast readership of the Daily Prophet believed she'd cheated to attain.
In front of her eyes, Dorcas held the key aloft by its black ribbon.
It had also become part of her ritual to stare at this artifact, the lone one that she couldn't account for among her possessions. She thought maybe it had been a key to some closet or cabinet in the London flat she'd shared with her mother and uncle. But she should be able to remember it; to remember an accompanying lock on a piece of furniture or a door. There was no place in her childhood home that had been locked to her. No place that needed a key.
It was a smallish, brass thing that was dingy. There was a design of sorts on it. Or writing. The satin ribbon was stiff near where it looped through the key, dried with some sort of liquid.
There was a knock on the door to her office and Dorcas let the key drop back into the box before turning her attention to Mrs. Frost.
"You have a visitor, ma'am," Mrs. Frost announced.
Dorcas raised her eyebrows in question.
Mrs. Frost answered. "Mrs. Prewett to see you, ma'am."
"Theresa? Send her in, Frost. Thank you."
Dorcas snapped the lid on the trinket box closed and set it back on the coffee table.
"Would you like me to bring in some tea?" Frost added.
"Tea would be nice, thank you," Dorcas said, standing to tidy up the memory phials and notes strewn about the room.
A minute later, Theresa Prewett was shown into the room.
"Dorcas! It's been ages!" Theresa said in her cheery voice, she crossed the room to pull Dorcas into a hug.
Dorcas hastily tucked her journal and notes into a desk drawer and allowed Theresa to throw her arms around her.
She could see in Theresa's mind that Dorcas's altered appearance was a shock.
Dorcas admitted that Theresa's altered appearance was also a shock. How long had it been since she'd seen her last? Three weeks? Four?
Theresa wore navy colored cigarette pants and a sage green top that wasn't quite a maternity blouse, but provided a lot of room around the middle. Even with the flowing garment, Dorcas could make out the swelling of her tummy.
She wasn't quite expecting the pang of jealousy that struck her at the sight of her pregnant friend.
"It has!" Dorcas said, cringing at the false ring of glee in her voice. "I heard the news from your husband. Congratulations, Mama!"
Theresa's hands settled on her midsection as she beamed at Dorcas. "Thank you! I wanted us to tell you together, but he's been so excited. Gideon's been beating me to the punchline every time we tell someone."
Dorcas smiled. "I'm happy for you both." She meant it. Theresa and Gideon were good people who deserved every happiness in the world.
Theresa looked around the office, larger and grander than the one she'd spent time in as Dorcas's patient.
"This house is impressive," she said. "I knew healers made good money, but I had no idea!"
Dorcas laughed. "This is one of Cal's family homes. We left Aylesbury kind of suddenly and so we've been living here temporarily."
"One of Cal's family homes? Is your husband loaded, Dorcas?"
"Yes, titled and all. It's ridiculous, really."
Theresa laughed in shock. "You're both such humble people! I had no idea that I was friends with an aristocrat. What else have you been keeping from me, Lady Dorcas?"
Dorcas cringed at the title and at the insinuation of secret-keeping.
She watched as a shadow of understanding passed over Theresa's features. Her face fell at her clumsy statement.
Theresa was spared from saying anymore by Mrs. Frost who brought in the tea things on a tray and set them down on the coffee table.
"Will there be anything else, ma'am?" Frost asked.
Dorcas and Theresa sat next to one another on the patient couch.
"No, Mrs. Frost. Thank you," Dorcas replied.
She remembered that Theresa took her tea with lemon and sugar, no milk. She handed the cup and saucer to her friend and prepared her own.
"I thought I would have seen you at the trial this week," Theresa said, sipping.
Dorcas ducked her head and took longer to fix her tea.
"No. After my witness stand confession that I hear the thoughts of others, I haven't been out much anywhere."
She sat and looked at the murky brown liquid in her cup. Dorcas knew that she would have to go on an apology tour to her friends. But she just wasn't expecting to have to begin so suddenly.
"You know that what the papers wrote wasn't true, right?" Theresa placed a hand on Dorcas's knee. "I would have defended you to that awful Ines Nott–" she ran the letters of the reporter's name together like Ines Snot. "But Gideon advised me that it might affect the trial. I wanted to tell her to keep her big nose out of it!"
Dorcas nodded. "I just thought I'd steer clear. My part is over. I just hope I did enough."
Theresa gave her knee a squeeze. "You did everything, Dorcas! The only reason Stephen Muybridge is standing trial today is because of you."
"I'm sorry that I didn't tell you about my ability," Dorcas choked. "That was unprofessional."
Theresa shrugged. "Why would you need to tell me? Personally, I think an ability like yours might be an asset to your work. You know when a patient is hiding something from you and you can get right to the heart of the matter. I think that makes you the most effective psychiatrist in the business."
"But I shouldn't have kept it from you." She finally fixed Theresa with a direct stare. "I didn't use it at all when I was helping you. I want you to know that."
"Dorcas, I'm not angry at you. I'm worried about you. You don't look well. Is it those memories you're trying to find? The false ones?"
Dorcas swallowed her tea. It scalded on the way down.
"I found some that I know will be disturbing. And I don't want to have Cal help me because I know that they will hurt him if he sees them."
Theresa considered this while she sipped her tea.
"Do you think that maybe I could help?" Her blue eyes became round and hopeful as they studied Dorcas. "I helped you lift one before. I think I could do it again. And I won't pry. You can tell me about them, or not. Or you can cry on my shoulder, or scream, or break things and I won't say a word."
Dorcas thought about this for a moment. Theresa may actually be the best person to help her with this latest batch of altered memories. She would not insist, as Cal would, to know what the memories contained.
"Okay," Dorcas replied hesitantly, thinking through the guidance she would need to give Theresa.
She stood and moved to her desk, removing stationery and an ink pen from the top drawer.
Theresa watched silently while Dorcas wrote.
"Say this when I tell you to. I'll inject myself. You just need to monitor my heart rate."
Theresa set her tea down on the table and took the script that Dorcas wrote out for her.
"Sure. No problem."
:::
24 January, 1942 Great Hall, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Dorcas was anxious to read a long-overdue letter from Jack that was burning a hole in her pocket. She hadn't received a letter from him since before Christmas. The jolt she received from finding his letter among the small stack from her mother, Hattie Finnigan, and Morty along with her copy of the Great Hangleton Gazette caused her to bounce out of her seat along the Ravenclaw table before she knew what she was doing.
She would often find a spare moment to duck into the toilets and crouch in a cubicle to read and respond to his letters. Until Gretchen Bulstrode nearly beat down the cubicle door on her and told her that Dorcas could "go find another throne room to hold court in".
There seemed to be no safe place to correspond in the entire school.
She'd quickly scanned the Slytherin table for Tom. Confirming that he was deep in conversation with Oliver Nott and Evlyn Rosier over his morning meal, Dorcas tried to exit the Great Hall as casually as possible and headed for the secret room.
When Dorcas hit the stairs, she took them two at a time, wanting to maximize the amount of time she had before Arithmancy lessons started to read and reply to Jack's letter.
She threw the Gazette in a waiting bin, happy for the first time in weeks that she wasn't going to open it and scan the names of the local war dead; holding her breath and praying that Jack's name wasn't among them.
As she waited for the door to the secret room to appear, she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, silently pleading with the air that she could have a quiet moment to herself with no interruption.
When the door finally materialized, she pushed it open and was brought up short.
The room was not the vast, cavernous space that she was used to inhabiting with Tom. Instead, a small sitting room with a sofa, a chair, and many cushions replaced the mountainous piles of cast-offs and broken furniture.
Dorcas's mouth fell open in awe and when she turned around, she was sure she would see something different than the tapestry showing Barnabas the Barmy teaching trolls ballet. But the tapestry was the same. This was the secret room.
But it had changed.
Dorcas smiled and shut herself inside. She set to work immediately opening Jack's letter, wanting to waste no time in hearing his words and sending him hers in return. Her eyes lapped up his writing eagerly.
Darling Dorcas,
Thank you for the Christmas wishes. It is hard to be away from home for the first time during the holiday. I cannot recall many Christmases with my mother when she was alive, but my Aunt Penny managed to make the occasion merry with all kinds of home cooking and puddings. Verity had a record of The Nutcracker ballet that she would play on repeat until I found myself unconsciously humming it. I wanted to break that infernal record into pieces! It's funny the things that once seemed inconsequential or even annoying. I would give anything now to hear that stupid ballet and to see Verity sitting at the kitchen table stringing a cranberry garland for the Riddles' towering Christmas tree.
I bet your house is a merry scene at Christmas. I can picture you at the piano singing Christmas songs with your mother and your uncle. I hope I don't presume too much when I say that I'm looking forward to spending many holidays like that with you and your family.
I heard a nightingale the evening before last and its lullaby reminded me of you. I imagined you were singing to me as I drifted away to sleep, floating off on the melody of your beautiful voice.
Dorcas laughed and thought that she might point out in her reply that only males looking for a mate sang. There was no mention of the photograph she'd sent to him just after Christmas on Betty's suggestion. She'd developed it with a potion to make it come to life and sent it with a caution to be sure to show it to no one. Dorcas was certain that if he'd received it, he would have written about it straight away.
She kept reading.
The letter seemed to continue in a later addition or postscript. The writing was more hurried, even frantic, Dorcas thought.
It's been two days since I wrote the above message. Dorcas, I wish you were here with me. I need to hold you and reassure myself that you are real. I received my first taste of war yesterday when the convoy that I was driving with was hit by Italian mines along the Libyan border. The lorry in front of mine drove right over it and exploded. Part of the rear axle fell from the sky and landed on the windscreen of my lorry. It could have been me lying there in a pool of my own blood and guts like the poor driver ahead of me. It could have just as easily been me.
And it was so eerily similar to the way Verity looked bleeding to death as she laid across the bonnet of my father's car. I can't close my eyes without seeing her face again, pale and lifeless.
I wish I hadn't come here. Why didn't I listen to you, angel? You tried to tell me that I shouldn't go. Why didn't I listen to you? I don't want to die and leave you behind. If I do die, Dorcas, I want you to know that I love you. I've loved you since the moment I laid eyes on you. I don't want to scare you, sweetheart. But I didn't want it to go unsaid.
I love you, angel.
Jack
Dorcas felt as if she hadn't drawn a breath since she laughed at the nightingale reference. Her arms seemed to physically ache for want of holding him. She was reminded of the inner turmoil she'd seen inside him when he visited her right after Verity's death.
A large teardrop landed on Jack's signature and Dorcas blotted it, wanting to preserve his name on the page.
She threw open her bag and found parchment and a quill.
Jack, my love,
I'm glad you were not seriously injured when that mine exploded. Take heart in knowing that someone is looking out for you. You could have been in the vehicle that exploded, but you weren't. You're still here and I am paralyzed with gratitude that you were spared and fear that next time you might not be. I know that you had the purest intentions to serve king and country when you signed on. But you couldn't have known how horrible the risks would be when you did.
I wish I could wrap my arms around you and never let you go. I would enchant a bubble around the two of us where nothing in the world could harm us and we could live blissfully unaware as the world passed by without us. When you're afraid and you close your eyes and see things you would rather forget, think of me and picture me laying beside you with my head on your chest and an arm wrapped around you, warm and happy. When that nightingale visits you in the evening, know that it's me checking on you to see that you're safe and content.
You are wonderful and kind and brave. And I love you. The war can't go on forever. And when it's over, you and I will have the life together that we both dream about. Be safe and don't take risks. Come home to me as soon as you can!
I love you, my brave soldier. I'll be seeing you.
Dorcas
Dorcas wiped her eyes and then sealed and addressed the envelope. She hadn't thought she would make the trip to the Owlery before her first class, but now she knew she wouldn't feel easy until the letter was en route to Egypt and to the love of her life.
She left the secret room and ran down to the courtyard, not caring that she didn't wear a cloak or that it was freezing out on the grounds.
Climbing the steps two at a time, Dorcas's heart raced with the exertion and then stopped suddenly and leapt into her throat when she slipped on ice. She threw a hand out to catch herself and pushed back up to her feet to complete the journey.
It was only as she watched the owl wing its way into Hogsmeade to the post office where the wizard in charge would direct it to the Muggle post office that she realized that she was late to class.
She entered Arithmancy after Professor Lin had already begun instruction. Dorcas wished that her seat was not in the front of the classroom and walked stiffly to her partner and slipped in beside him on the bench.
Professor Lin paused in the middle of her lecture.
"Miss Clerey, you're fifteen minutes late."
Dorcas felt tears stinging her frozen cheeks. "I'm sorry, professor," she said in a weak voice.
"Let's speak after class," replied Lin, turning back to the blackboard and the diagram she was explaining.
"Yes, ma'am," Dorcas answered, ducking her head to remove her book and her notes. She intermittently dried her eyes as she busied herself, feeling the eyes of every student on her.
"Birdie,"Tom's voice cut across her mind. "What happened? Who hurt you?" In her head his voice rang with alarm and anger.
Dorcas shook her head almost imperceptibly and continued setting out her school things.
Cal tore off the corner of his notes and slid it across his desk to her.
Clerey, why are you crying? Is your family alright?
Dorcas dipped her quill in her inkwell and scribbled a response. Yes.
Is there anything I can do to help?
She didn't know why, but the kindness in the words he'd written renewed the flood of tears. She swiped at them with the back of her hand.
No. Thank you.
Cal reached into the pocket of his robes and retrieved a handkerchief, pressing it into her hand and giving her fingers a comforting squeeze before returning to his notes.
"Sure. Tell Meadowes then," Tom spat mentally at her.
Dorcas's eyes flicked over to Tom. He'd turned away from her and begun to follow Lin's lecture intently. Dorcas prepared herself for the silent treatment from him.
:::
2 March, 1959 14 South Audley Street, Mayfair, London
Dorcas tried to control her sobs, but she couldn't seem to pull enough air into her lungs to calm herself. The more she tried, the more lightheaded she became.
"You don't have to explain. I'm here, sweet friend. I've got you," Theresa said, holding her to her chest as Dorcas keened loudly. "You once told me that nothing in those memories can hurt me anymore. It's true, Dorcas. It's in the past. It's done."
Dorcas clung to the sleeve of Theresa's blouse and shook her head in response. She couldn't make the words come out and was mute in her anguish.
She wouldn't tell Theresa about the memory they'd uncovered together. But she knew it would haunt her dreams for countless nights to come.
Underneath the memory of Dorcas's first time with Tom was an assault that she'd expected to be lurking there. But even though it was expected, it wasn't any less traumatic to witness.
Dorcas didn't even know what had set Tom off on that particular occasion.
They were in the secret room and she recalled him flying into a rage. That he'd hit her was even expected. But when he used the Imperius Curse on her and told her to lean over the scratched surface of an old table, Dorcas remembered her terror at being magically shackled within her own body, prone and waiting for Tom's violation.
Instead of a first time experience with a boy she loved and trusted, she watched as he took her savagely by force. He even quieted her cries against her will, muzzling her magically so that her final protest against the act had been removed.
"Can I get you anything, sweetheart?" Theresa asked, sweeping Dorcas's wet hair out of her face. "Water? Do you feel like you might be sick?"
Dorcas found her voice shaky and knotted, but managed a reply. "I keep a Sleeping Draught in the cabinet over there." She indicated the memory cabinet with a limp hand.
Theresa released Dorcas to stand. Dorcas turned toward the back of the sofa and laid down. She wanted to sink into oblivion where she could no longer see her own face reflected in the broken mirror propped in front of her, hitching forward across the table as Tom thrust painfully into her. She wanted to drown out the sound of the zipper on his trousers being undone or the sound of the table's legs screeching on the floor when his hips pounded into her backside.
Theresa pressed the potion to her lips and tipped it back into her waiting mouth.
"Don't leave me," Dorcas pleaded tearfully.
Theresa kissed her temple lightly and then settled herself carefully on the couch behind Dorcas, her pregnant belly pressing into the base of Dorcas's spine. Her friend's presence eased something tight within her chest.
As her eyes fluttered closed and her lungs spasmed with an exhausted sigh, Dorcas drifted off as Theresa encouraged her to think of a time when she felt safe and loved.
:::
24 January, 1942 Great Hall, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Standing at the entrance to the Great Hall, Dorcas decided she wasn't hungry for lunch and turned away again.
She'd managed to escape a detention for being late to Arithmancy when she gave Professor Lin a flimsy but tear-filled excuse that she'd received news about a family friend who was injured in the line of duty.
The war was encroaching even onto the grounds of Hogwarts as a number of students could claim similar experiences of loved ones on battlefronts overseas.
Lin was sympathetic to Dorcas's troubles and told her to be sure and let her head of house know if there was anything she could do.
Dorcas felt bad for stretching the truth. Jack was mercifully not injured. And he wasn't exactly a family friend. But his words had shaken something loose in Dorcas; a fear for his safety that was always present, but seemed to loom greater in her mind since reading his panicked words to her.
She wanted to hold him and tell him that everything was going to be alright. Dorcas couldn't bear that he was alone in the world without family and frightened that he could die and that she might forget about him. She wished that she could reassure him that could never be the case. He would always be at the forefront of her mind and at the center of her heart. She prayed she'd never have to prove her devotion to his memory and that he would come home to her whole and happy so that they could live out the future that they planned together.
Dorcas was rounding the corner, wanting to reread his words in the solace of her newly discovered little sitting room. Instead, she nearly smacked into Tom, whom she realized was also headed to the secret room.
"Birdie, I'm glad you're here. I hope everything's okay."
Dorcas schooled her features quickly into a mask and shrugged.
"It's fine. I just got some difficult news is all." Dorcas was surprised when Tom simply nodded and opened the door to the secret room, stepping back to allow her to enter ahead of him.
Dorcas was inwardly disappointed to find the cavernous room with heaps of stuff piled up. But she was glad that her special little nook was not revealed to Tom. It was a space that Dorcas wanted to reserve for her own private letter reading and writing. It was certainly better than crouching over a toilet in the girls' lavatory.
"I wanted to talk to you about the next phase of the plan. I think I've worked out how we might obtain the mercury we need."
Dorcas latched onto the use of the word "we". She wanted to point out to Tom that this was his plan and his Horcrux. She was simply helping him, though she didn't quite understand what compelled her to do so.
She silently followed him back to the discarded furniture cave feeling drained. She thought about the plush red velvet sofa in her little sitting room and longed to stretch out on it and run her eyes lovingly over every word that Jack had written to her. Instead, she braced herself for feigning interest in Tom's pursuit of Horcrux ingredients.
I suppose my refusal to disclose my difficult news and Tom's jealousy toward Cal will take a backseat to Horcrux planning, Dorcas thought as she dogged Tom's steps deeper into the lofty room. She was partially glad for his distracted mind and partially frustrated that her troubles didn't rate that highly on Tom's list of priorities.
Once again, she was struck with the realization that her relationship with Tom was one-sided.
Instead of ducking under the opening of the makeshift cave, Tom passed the structure and settled on the sofa in front of the piano, pulling a piece of parchment from his pocket.
"Why don't you play something, Birdie?" Tom asked as he scanned his notes.
Dorcas sat on the opposite end of the sofa as far away from Tom as she could. "I don't want to," she replied woodenly. She knew Tom had looked up from the page and was studying her. She could feel his eyes boring into her. She leaned against the opposite arm of the sofa and stared listlessly at nothing, willing Tom to leave her to her thoughts which were consumed with Jack.
"What's gotten into you, Birdie? Tell me what's wrong," Tom demanded. The tone in his voice was perfunctory. It communicated his impatience to hear Dorcas's concerns so that they could then be free to get down to the matter at hand.
"No," Dorcas responded flatly. "Are you going to tell me the plan or not? I want to take a nap before afternoon classes."
There was a silence in which Dorcas listened to Tom debate internally whether he should insist that Dorcas share her troubles, or brush off her mood and continue with his thoughts on obtaining mercury.
"Well, the problem with this final ingredient is that we can't risk using magic. So I thought we might use the spell I invented before leaving Hogwarts so the Ministry won't pick up our underage sorcery again–the Chameleon Charm–and leave the way we usually do. We'll take Muggle transportation since we won't be able to take the Knight Bus like we did to London and Little Hangleton. There are still a few kinks in the plan."
Dorcas turned and fixed him with a skeptical look just then. He was scanning a hand-drawn map of a building. Dorcas wondered if it was one of the medical instrument factories that she'd listed out for him back in the fall as a mea culpa for fumbling her part of the Professor Binns plan.
"A few kinks?" she snorted at Tom. Her frustration at not being able to comfort or help Jack on an entirely different continent was boiling over and causing her to stoke tensions with Tom.
"Yes, but between the two of us–" Tom began in a measured tone.
Dorcas cut across him. "How do you expect us, an underage witch and wizard, to break into a factory without magic?"
Tom's eyes widened at her challenge. "Well, I admit that the plan is not finalized yet, but–"
Dorcas huffed. "Right. Good luck with that. Come find me when you've got something more than become invisible and sneak into the factory with fingers crossed."
Tom's eyes flashed at her but Dorcas was already rising from the sofa and flinging her bag over her shoulder.
"I'm tired. I'm going to take a nap before fifth hour. Bye, Tom."
Dorcas stormed away before she knew what she was doing. Her pulse began to race at her daring. She would pay for the way she'd spoken to Tom. She knew it. She even expected him to charge after her and make her stay and hear him out. But he didn't.
She left the secret room and headed across the castle to Ravenclaw Tower. The only other place she could go for some peace and quiet was her own four-poster with the curtains drawn. If any fool girl in her dormitory dared to disturb her, they would meet a Stinging Jinx.
:::
2-3 March, 1959 14 South Audley Street, Mayfair, London
Dorcas felt the effects of the Sleeping Draught dull before finally wearing off, remembering the sounds of Theresa and Cal talking softly over her as she slept.
When she opened her eyes it was dark. And as she lay still and tried to orient herself to her surroundings, she realized that she was no longer reclining on the sofa in her office.
Her hand crept out from beneath the sheets and brushed lightly against the cold pillow beside her head. Cal was not sleeping next to her.
This was often the case when she woke in the morning.
Dorcas sat up and peeled the sheet back. In the dim light from the street lamp outside, she could see that she was no longer wearing the trousers and jumper she'd fallen asleep in, but a flannel nightgown that Cal must have dressed her in.
Her feet searched the ground beneath her bed, until at last she found her slippers and slid them on.
She went in search of her husband, expecting to find him working late in his office. Dorcas suspected that working late was really a pretext for staying away from her. The memory that she'd shown him of Tom on top of her, wearing Cal's features as he choked her and raped her had shaken him to his core. Dorcas wondered if he would ever be able to touch her or make love to her again.
Maybe, she thought. Once they'd both had time to heal.
He wasn't in his office when she cracked the door slightly and peeked in. It was dark and silent.
Dorcas searched the east-facing sitting room and the west-facing one, the kitchen, the dining room, the library, and the potions laboratory. Maybe he'd gone out, or was called in to the hospital.
She went to the front entryway to look for a note. That's when she saw the light escaping from beneath the closed door to her office.
Dorcas knocked and waited for his voice, granting her permission to enter. It didn't come.
Turning the knob, Dorcas let herself into her office and saw Cal huddled over her Pensieve. That was why he hadn't heard her knock. Dorcas stretched her hand out to touch his back lightly, but hovered when she thought he might be viewing her memory that she'd recovered with Theresa earlier that day. The one where Tom had her bent over a table in the secret room at school.
Her throat became thick and she felt tears prick at her eyes. Cal didn't have permission to watch her suffering in the small hours of the morning. The thought of him taking the memory and watching it like a voyeur gave her a creeping sensation over the surface of her skin.
She reflexively gathered the yards of flannel around her and hugged herself tightly, wanting to snatch him back from the memory and rail at him for the violation. As if she'd needed anymore of her own agency stripped away from her!
"Mummy?" a small voice startled her from the doorway behind her.
Dorcas jumped and turned to find Wren, eyes red-rimmed and pouting at her.
She pushed down the feelings of hurt and anger at Cal, leaving him to his memory viewing.
Scooping up Wren, Dorcas shuffled quickly from the office. Her daughter's nightgown was damp and it began to seep into Dorcas's nightgown as well.
"I had an accident," Wren informed her.
Dorcas kissed her daughter's plump cheek and whispered, "It's okay. Mummy's had accidents before too. Let's grab my wand and clean us all up."
Wren had been reverting to some of her toddler behaviors the way she had when they'd made the move from America back to England nearly two years ago. It would seem that this new adjustment, suddenly moving houses, was having a similar adverse effect on her child.
Dorcas took Wren into the room she shared with Cal (but inhabited simultaneously less and less since he'd seen that horrible memory). Placing Wren on her feet, she reached for her wand that had been placed on her bedside table and she pulled her soiled nightgown over her head and tossed it into the laundry in the closet.
She threw on clean pajamas and took Wren's hand and her wand in the other and shuffled back to Wren's room where she changed her out of her wet nightgown.
Dorcas cleaned and dried the sheets and the mattress with a spell and tucked Wren back under the blankets. She crawled in beside her and cradled her youngest against her chest, trying to will her back to sleep again.
"When are we going back to our house, Mummy?" Wren asked, opening her mouth wide on a yawn.
"We're not going back to our old house, baby. This is our new house."
"But I miss school. I miss Charlie."
Wren was not settling into homeschool well, even though Miss Moody, the tutor Dumbledore recommended, was kind and patient and good with Wren. It was a lonely life for a five year old. No friends. No class hamster.
Dorcas heaved a regretful sigh. She wished her actions hadn't led to the upheaval of her family, but it had.
"You have your kitten, Pippa. Would you like a hamster too?"
Wren seemed to be picking up on her restless spirit and Dorcas turned over, reaching for Ryann's enchanted book. One Thousand And One Arabian Nights lay beside Wren's bed and was often used as a nightlight.
"I dunno," Wren said after a long pause. Her reply was punctuated by another yawn.
The golden glow of the magical tree and goldfinches emitted a soft tune.
Dorcas sang to calm her own mind as well as to lull her daughter back to sleep.
"Beautiful dreamer, out on the sea, mermaids are chanting the wild lorelei, over the streamlet vapors are borne, waiting to fade at the bright coming morn."
:::
Dorcas slept cradling her daughter and woke every so often to remind herself that whatever memories she uncovered from the past could no longer hurt her.
"Think of a memory from when you felt safe and loved," she challenged herself to cancel out the memory of Tom and his cruelty to her as a girl.
But she couldn't think of anything. It's as if the memory of Tom had driven all of the happiness and security from her past, sowing pain and shame in its place.
She felt hot tears pooling on her daughter's pillow beneath her cheek and she hugged Wren closer to her.
The next time she awoke, the rays of the morning sun were peeking through the pink, ruffled curtains of her daughter's room. Dorcas heard slow and heavy breaths coming from the floor behind her.
Untangling her arms from Wren's sleeping form, Dorcas rolled over to find Cal asleep on the white, low-pile area rug beside her, his head cushioned by an over-large stuffed teddy bear.
Dorcas smiled to herself. He had to be dreadfully uncomfortable all night. The gesture made it nearly impossible to continue her hard feelings against him for violating the privacy of her memories the night before.
Wren, sleeping beside her and Cal on her other side made Dorcas feel extremely content and safe. Tom couldn't chase away every good thing in her life.
Her head turned to her right, watching the early morning light make Wren's hair into a golden halo of curls. She never wanted any harm to come to her precious little girl. She felt the same way about Ryann who was probably just rising at this hour and getting ready to begin the school day at Hogwarts.
But her own mother had loved her and wanted her to be safe from harm. And Dorcas hadn't been. She hadn't been safe at Hogwarts. She had become the victim of a predator, not once, but continually during her time at school.
An all-consuming fear began to settle over Dorcas's chest.
She carefully laid Wren against the pillow and rose from the bed. Her youngest would be safe here with her daddy asleep on the floor beside her. But who was keeping Ryann safe?
Taking one of the blankets from the bed, she tucked it carefully around Cal.
Dorcas walked quickly on silent feet down the hall to her bedroom, hurrying to the closet, pulling her nightgown over her head. Her hands reached for clothes without seeing what she grabbed and put them on.
She ran into the bathroom, her panic making her hands shake as she tried to squeeze toothpaste onto her toothbrush.
Not bothering with her makeup or hair, she slipped on some canvas flats that would be impractical in the snow if she was in any state to care. Grabbing her handbag and her wand, Dorcas scurried to her office to pen a quick note to leave for Cal.
She knew he would worry that she'd slipped out of the house before he woke and disappeared. She reassured him that she was safe and that she'd just gone to Hogwarts to get Ryann. She would be back soon.
The moment she placed the note on the table in the entryway, she turned on the spot and Apparated to Hogsmeade Village.
:::
Dorcas Apparated just outside of the gates of Hogwarts, which stood open and inviting in the midmorning mist. The sun was just beginning to peek over the mountains, setting to work burning off the fog that ringed the Astronomy Tower and the Owlery.
Her shoes landed unpleasantly in a slushy puddle of mud and melted snow, but Dorcas paid it no mind as her feet became instantly chilled and numb.
She should have brought a coat with her, Dorcas thought absently, as her bare arms and torso under a thin, short sleeve blouse began to prickle with goosebumps.
Following the familiar path up to the tall oak doors at the entrance to the school, she flew up the stone steps, slipping a little on a patch of ice before recovering and pushing inside.
The doors would have been heavier and harder for Dorcas to open on her own, but as the door swung back to admit her, she noticed that her arrival coincided with Hagrid's departure.
"Dory! Yer nearly scared me ter death!" Rubeus bellowed, his voice ringing over the stone of the entryway. "Is summat wrong?" He surveyed her light pink pedal pushers and rust-colored blouse with the buttons done up hurriedly. Dorcas noticed that she'd skipped two buttons in the middle of the placket and it gaped across her chest.
Dorcas saw this reflected in Hagrid's mind and on the fierce blush that came to his cheeks beneath his rough beard. She ducked quickly in response and corrected the misbuttoning.
"Rubeus! I need to find my daughter. Have you seen her this morning?"
Hagrid stepped back to allow Dorcas to come in out of the cold. The change in temperature made her sodden feet sting and her cheeks and nose burn.
"I haven'," Hagrid admitted, nervously twisting his hat in his hands. "But let me just' fetch Dumbledore, 'n he'll find her fer yeh."
Dorcas nodded and watched the giant gamekeeper lumber off into the Great Hall.
The sounds of clattering plates and cutlery indicated that a large number of students have already risen and made their way down to breakfast.
Impatient to have her daughter safe and away from this place, Dorcas followed two Gryffindor students into the dining hall.
She scanned the Ravenclaw table, stalking down the aisle between the long benches on one side and the Hufflepuff table on the other.
Feeling the eyes of a hundred or more judgemental teenagers on her, scrutinizing her poorly coordinated and completely inappropriate seasonal Muggle attire, tousled hair, and frantic pace, Dorcas wished she could just find Ryann and leave.
"Ryann?" Dorcas called.
Those students who hadn't marked her odd entrance were now turning in her direction and staring boldly. A quiet fell over the entire hall. It would have been embarrassing to make such a spectacle under normal circumstances, but Dorcas's only concern at the moment was having Ryann safe from the clutches of these little teenage predators.
"RYANN?"
She made eye contact with some of the larger male students at the house tables and glared at them. Anyone of them could corner her daughter the way Tom had cornered her.
If any of them so much as touched her child, she'd hex them into the beyond without hesitation.
She charged at a sympathetic-looking redhead who was innocently making her way to the Gryffindor table. Perhaps this was a Weasley. Dorcas saw a potential ally.
"Have you seen my daughter, Ryann Meadowes?" Dorcas blocked the girl and grabbed her by her school robes with shaking fingers.
The girl shook her head in the negative, her startled eyes wide as saucers.
"Dr. Meadowes!" a cheery, but measured voice came from behind her. "I didn't expect the pleasure of your company this morning."
Professor Dumbledore smiled down at her beatifically, his face passive but concerned.
"How can I help you this morning?"
Dorcas released the student, who scurried away quickly.
"I'm looking for Ryann. She's not safe here. I've come to take her home," Dorcas explained in a rush, shifting her weight from foot to foot impatiently.
Dumbledore looked down the length of the Ravenclaw table.
Dorcas wanted to cut across Dumbledore and tell him she'd already looked at the house table for her girl. She was not there.
She pushed down the fear that something could have happened to Ryann, wringing her hands in front of her.
"Has Miss Meadowes come down from Ravenclaw Tower yet?" Dumbledore asked a girl that looked to be the same age as Ryann, perhaps a roommate?
The girl shook her head and answered, "No, sir," before turning back to her eggs and an open textbook.
"Fear not, Dr. Meadowes," Dumbledore said, placing a gentle hand on her back between her shoulder blades. "Let's go to my office and sit by the fire. You can tell me why you need to take Ryann and I'll have Professor Lin bring her to us."
Dorcas nodded, accepting the compromise. If for no other reason than the realization beginning to dawn that Dorcas may have unwittingly embarrassed Ryann by showing up in this frazzled state and caused a scene in front of most of the student body.
Dumbledore nodded to someone at the teacher's table on the dais at the near end of the hall. Dorcas saw someone rise and leave from a side entrance, perhaps the Ravenclaw Head of House.
She allowed Dumbledore to lead her from the Great Hall, silently following him up the stairs. She was attempting a mental list of the things she wanted to tell Dumbledore and trying to arrange how she would break the news to Ryann that she would need to give up her classes and friends and Quidditch because this school was no longer a safe place for her to attend.
Dorcas was confident that she could teach Ryann all she needed to know in most Hogwarts subjects. And under her roof, surrounded by her family, Dorcas would never have to worry about anyone hurting her child.
She didn't speak and neither did Dumbledore all the way to his office. Dorcas was grateful for the silence so that she could frame her argument in favor of removing Ryann from school. If Dumbledore had attempted small talk, Dorcas was positive she would have had a nervous breakdown right there on the stairs.
"Please have a seat," Dumbledore offered, using his wand to draw one of the high back chairs closer to the fire.
Dorcas did as she was told out of habit, but hopped up and began pacing in the next instant.
"Can I send for some tea, Dorcas? You look frozen through."
Dorcas turned impatiently at Dumbledore. "No. I don't want tea, professor! I want my daughter!"
"And she is being brought right here to you as we speak, but I must know what has happened. Are Cal and your youngest alright?"
"Yes, they're fine," Dorcas answered dismissively.
Dumbledore stood in the center of the room and watched Dorcas pace and fidget before the fire.
"Then I don't understand the interruption to the beginning of our school day, Dorcas. If there is no emergency, then surely you would wish for Ryann to complete the school week. Perhaps we can arrange for her to visit on the weekend?"
"Of course you don't understand, you old fool! That's the reason that it's unsafe for her to be here!" Dorcas spat, approaching the older wizard who listened calmly, not reacting to the insult.
"Unsafe?" Dumbledore questioned. "My dear lady, I have promised to look after Ryann and I do not intend to shirk that responsibility. I fully understand the threat that Tom Riddle poses to your daughter, and I–"
Dorcas cut across Dumbledore. He didn't fully understand a damn thing.
"You don't understand. You never have. You and all the rest of them went about your lessons willfully ignorant of the danger this place posed to me. I will not let my daughter stay here and get hurt."
"The danger posed to you?" Dumbledore repeated. "What danger am I accused of being ignorant of, Dorcas?" Dumbledore asked gravely. His eyes probed Dorcas, unblinking.
"Never once did you or any other teacher put a stop to what he did," Dorcas began, her voice hitching on a sob as she recalled the memory of Tom taking her by force, holding her captive under the Imperius Curse.
"Put a stop to whom, Dorcas?" Dumbledore asked softly. "Tom? What did Tom do?"
"He–"
Dorcas felt a spasm work its way from the pit of her stomach into her esophagus, settling as a knot in her throat. She collapsed into the chair Dumbledore offered her earlier and buried her face in her hands as a sob wracked her.
"Dorcas?" Dumbledore asked, approaching her slowly.
She heard his light gray robes swish about him as he moved to sit in the chair across from her.
"Tell me what you're accusing me of overlooking, child. I must know," Dumbledore urged in a low voice.
Dorcas kept her head bowed. She couldn't bring herself to look at him.
"There's a room at the other end of this corridor," Dorcas forced herself to say around her tears.
"I know the place. It only appears when someone is in need of it."
Dorcas nodded. "Tom and I would hide out in there. That's where he–". Here she cut off again, her throat closing up every time she tried to force out the words.
"He hurt you," Dumbledore finished for her.
Dorcas nodded again as a fresh wave of tears erupted within her, spilling out on her red, stinging cheeks.
Dumbledore reached into the pocket of his robe and produced an embroidered handkerchief, leaning forward to offer it to Dorcas.
She took it grudgingly, telling herself that this offer of kindness did not make up for the shirking of his responsibility to his students.
"He raped me. Repeatedly. No one noticed. No one stopped him," explained Dorcas.
Dumbledore was silent.
Dorcas took the opportunity during this lull in conversation to wipe her eyes and calm her breathing.
"I wish I had noticed, Dorcas. I wish I had stopped him."
This admission caused Dorcas to break down again. She was surprised by the simple statement. Dorcas wondered if she'd expected Dumbledore to excuse his ignorance or justify his inaction.
"Professor Dippet entrusted Tom's introduction into the magical world to me," began the professor.
Dorcas tried not to acknowledge the audience she had in the former headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts. But at the mention of her old headmaster's name, she cast a furtive glance at the wall of portraits behind the headmaster's desk. She met his sad eyes as he listened to the exchange.
"I failed to take Tom under my wing properly because of a personal bias that I allowed to cloud my judgement. I am deeply sorry that my dereliction of duty caused you such unimaginable suffering."
Dorcas raised her head at the admission.
"I will count it as one of my most shameful regrets that I didn't take a keener interest in Tom's progress as a young wizard. There is no excusing my neglect, but he reminded me too much of someone I dearly loved and lost."
She blinked, wondering if he referred to his sister, who had died as a young girl. Her body was the form the Boggart took when it was before him.
"Ariana?" she asked, casting about her memories for the name he'd told her ages ago.
Dumbledore's lips turned up into the ghost of a smile. He clearly cherished the memory of her.
"My sister? No. Though her death, along with countless others were the shameful consequence of my weakness for the one I dearly loved."
Dorcas blinked again and shook her head in confusion.
"Dorcas, I think I understand your relationship with Tom better than anyone."
Dorcas scoffed. "How could you?"
"I once loved someone who used that love to bind me to him and blind me to all of his darkest impulses."
"Who?" Dorcas asked, wondering how Professor Dumbledore could possibly understand the hopelessness of the struggle Dorcas had made against the lifelong shackles Tom and placed on her. She briefly noted that it was a he Dumbledore mentioned, but this didn't shock or surprise her.
"I once loved a boy named Gellert Grindlewald."