"A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier times."
-Alfred Lord Tennyson
Chapter 1
People disappear all the time. A soldier vanishes on the field of battle; missing in action. A housewife fed up with the routine of her life; runaway. A child last seen playing with his mates when the streetlights come on and dinner is laid on the table; abducted.
There's that woman pilot who took off into the great wide whiteness of the clouds, Amelia Earhart. Or the journalist Ambrose Bierce. Glenn Miller. The Lindbergh baby.
In my fifth year at Hogwarts, a boy vanished like a puff of smoke. Callum Sayre. He dated my cousin, Gemma–had proposed, I think. She wore a ring from him, anyway. And then he was gone. No trace of him was left. He just disappeared.
But he turned up twelve years later. A black and white photograph of a dead body on a London street.
People disappear all the time. Some, like Callum, reappear.
I prayed that I wouldn't be making a similar reappearance.
:::
Days in captivity: 0
"Ryann! Oh God!" Dorcas gasped, having turned one hundred and eighty degrees in the unfamiliar room, willing it to be a lie, willing that voice to be a figment of her imagination.
Her daughter was there with her, snatched away from her life just as Dorcas had been.
"Where's your wand, baby? I need it."
Dorcas frantically tugged Ryann's arm from their protective grip around her torso, snatching her fingers open.
"They took it from me," Ryann responded in a small voice.
In her frantic search for a wand, Dorcas poked her daughter with the letter opener in her hand.
"I'm sorry, baby!" Dorcas cried, rubbing the scratch on her daughter's forearm, stowing the letter opener in her pocket. "Who took it?"
Ryann was shaking her head, frightened by Dorcas's manic state.
"I don't know. I never saw them before. I was getting ready to head to breakfast with my friends before our last day on the loch. I reached for my comb and...then I was here."
A Portkey. Dorcas had experienced the same when she picked up her pen to complete paperwork at the hospital.
Dorcas grasped Ryann around the shoulders and pulled her away from the wall, holding her stare with intense focus.
"Describe them to me," she demanded. Her fingers were probably a little tighter around Ryann's arms than was necessary.
Ryann blanched a little and tried to pull back.
"One was a man. He was taller. And he spoke, so I know he was male by his voice. They were both wearing cloaks and hoods. They had on masks. Like the ones I saw at Cherry and Jonas's wedding."
"What about the other one?"
"The second was shorter and didn't speak. I can't describe how I know, but it was a woman. She didn't move the same way the taller one did."
"Could you hear their thoughts?" Dorcas pressed.
Ryann shook her head. "No. They both blocked me out, like Daddy can do."
Dorcas sat back on her heels and released Ryann.
The girl leaned back against the wall again and brushed her dark hair back from her face.
"Where is Daddy? Is he coming too? Is Wren coming? What is this place, Mama?"
Dorcas stood and scanned the room, being more careful now to inventory the space. She and Ryann stood beside a door. When Dorcas tried the doorknob, it gave way and revealed a white tiled bathroom. Clawfoot tub and pedestal sink, white porcelain toilet. This place seemed a bit antiquated. Not modern.
Along the same wall as the bathroom door sat a large roll top desk in a dark wood, cherry maybe. Dorcas went to the desk and opened the top revealing many cubby spaces and drawers. There were assorted quills and parchment, but no ink. Besides a blotter and a stick of red wax for sealing, there was nothing else there.
Moving along the wall, Dorcas came to a window with heavy drapes, dark sage velvet with tassels. Peering out of the window, Dorcas could see a large walnut tree and a boxwood hedge that marked the boundary of a garden beyond that. The quality of the light from the window told her that it was early afternoon, around the same time as when she'd settled down to complete the patient files in her office at the hospital.
So they were in the same time zone, roughly. That is, if she could believe the scene that the window presented. It could be a conjured image.
They could be anywhere.
Oh God!
"Mum? Are Daddy and Wren coming too?" Ryann asked again, her voice strangled with growing fear.
Dorcas had to be calm. If she stayed calm, then Ryann would take cues from her.
"No, baby. It's just you and me. Daddy and Wren are at home."
Dorcas hoped that Cal and Wren were safe. Thinking about the rest of her family in peril was too much for her mind to cope with. She had to believe that they were safe.
"But why are we here?" Ryann asked.
There was a large four-poster bed, its counterpane was the same color green as the drapes. And another window adjacent to the table beside the bed. Dorcas rushed to it.
The scene was the same, except from this vantage point, she could see less of the walnut tree and a sliver of water off to the...east…? She couldn't be sure.
A chest of drawers and a vanity–all drawers empty–completed the furnishings.
The walls were decorated with a rich wallpaper in a damask pattern of chocolate and ivory quatrefoil design. One large oil painting hung on the wall above the desk, facing the bed. It had a bucolic scene; a golden harvest and a tree in the foreground, off center. A hay cart in the background gave it that sense of Romanticism that Dorcas associated with Constable or Gainsborough. The center and right hand side of the painting seemed to be missing something, as if the subject had momentarily stepped from its frame. If this was a magical residence, Dorcas supposed it likely the subject had vacated their canvas presently.
"Mama?" Ryann called from the corner where she cowered.
Dorcas reeled, snapping her eyes from the canvas. "Hmm?"
"Why are we here?"
Behind Dorcas was the only other door besides the one that led to the bath. It had to be the only way in or out, unless you counted the spent Portkey that lay benignly on the Persian carpet in the center of the room. She tried the handle, calmly at first, and then more frantically.
"I don't know where we are, baby." Her own voice trembled as she admitted this to her daughter.
Removing the letter opener from her trousers pocket, she gouged at the keyhole of the lock, blinking tears back from her eyes.
How long would it take for the directors of Ryann's camp to notice she was missing? How long until Cal missed her at the hospital?"
She began to beat on the solid oak of the door.
"Hello? Somebody?" Toe, knee, fist, hip. She barraged the door with every part of her body.
So much for staying calm for Ryann.
:::
18 July, 1942 The Black Dahlia, Upton Circle, London
Dorcas allowed her mind to wander, fingers dancing over the keys as she played a Jimmy Dorsey tune. The band sounded great and there was a good crowd for a Thursday night.
Her mind tallied all of the reasons why her scheme wouldn't work. The idea of breaking into Hogwarts over the summer sounded insane to her. But she promised herself that she would do everything she could to make sure Jack had the Liquid Luck and the other potions he needed.
The logical part of her mind reminded her that she didn't know where Tom had hidden his stash of Felix Felicis. He could have used it all in his quest to keep the tricky process of making Horcrux potions from going off the rails.
She knew she had to try.
The singer on stage tonight was Gigi, a redhead with an inflated sense of her own talent.
When Dorcas and the rest of the band looked to her to cue up the next number, she signaled for 'I'll Be Seeing You'. It was the song that she and Jack had danced to right in this very club a year ago. If Dorcas had believed in signs and other cosmic hooey, she would have taken this as fate's push to put a plan in motion. She needed to get the Liquid Luck from Tom.
A small group of handsome and well-dressed young men had just come into the club and taken a table near the bar.
Dorcas glanced their way curiously before returning her attention to her work. The Savile Row set didn't often venture to this part of the city, preferring the ballrooms of the large hotels along the Strand instead. She glanced at them often, anticipating a row between them and the soldiers and sailors that liked to frequent the Dahlia. The university boys always riled the lads in uniform. Dorcas predicted a fight would break out before the night was over.
When the song ended, Dorcas stood to follow the band backstage, but was stopped by one of the cocktail waitresses, Gladys.
"One of the lads bought you a drink, sweetie," Gladys said.
About to refuse, Dorcas's customary response to the overly friendly patrons of the club who bought drinks for the performers in order to bring about an introduction, Dorcas smiled. "Did you explain that I'm not yet fifteen, Gladys?"
Her age usually put off most pursuits before they started. Sometimes, it didn't. Martin, the club's manager, was behind the bar tonight. He usually ran interference between Dorcas and any fan that wanted to become familiar. Dorcas was surprised that he'd poured the drink.
"I did. He said he knew that already. It's club soda and cherry juice," Gladys explained.
Dorcas took the drink, reassured that it wasn't alcoholic, and followed Gladys's finger as she pointed out the presumptuous patron.
"Cal?" Dorcas chirped, stunned to see him in this setting.
He laughed at her shock. "Hey, Clerey. Cracker performance. You looked like you were having fun." He gestured to the stage, now taken up by a trombone and an upright bass, doing an artistically paired down Glenn Miller.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, coming off ruder than she'd intended.
She realized belatedly that he was with the posh group that had come in late in her set. He was dressed similarly to the others in a light suit and jacket.
"My brother's in town, visiting from the Croydon aerodrome."
Dorcas sipped the drink he bought for her, eyes widening at the news that Cal's brother was with him. He seemed to be the most important person in Cal's life and Dorcas was excited for the chance to meet him.
"Introduce us, Cal!" she said, straightening her black dress.
Cal shook his head, as if clearing away a fog. "Of course! Where are my manners?" Turning, he placed a hand on the shoulder of a man slightly taller than he was.
"This is Benjamin Meadowes, my brother. Ben, this is my friend from school, Dorcas Clerey."
Cal's brother took her hand and kissed it gallantly. "Miss Clerey. Enchanted."
Ben Meadowes bore a striking resemblance to his younger brother. There were a few differences that Dorcas noticed. He was about two inches taller than Cal and his hair was maybe a touch darker blond. He had striking hazel eyes and an intelligent, if perhaps a bit mischievous, smile.
"Well, I must insist on dancing with this heavenly creature," Ben said, taking Dorcas's drink and handing it off to one of his mates.
"Hey! What are we? Old sardines?" one of Ben's mates objected, pointing out that Dorcas hadn't been introduced around to the rest of the gang.
Ben ignored the protests, pulling Dorcas onto the dance floor and into his arms.
"You are every bit as pretty as my brother described."
Dorcas blinked in surprise. "Cal told you about me?"
Ben made a lopsided grin that was reminiscent of his little brother, but more roguish. "Every letter he writes to me has some mention of you in it. I've pieced together quite the sketch, you know."
The admission drew a wide smile across Dorcas's face. "Well, how do I measure up?"
"I was expecting some combination of Claudette Colbert, Harry Houdini, and Babe Ruth," Ben summarized.
"Heavens! What a fearsome creature!" Dorcas scoffed, laughing. "I wonder how he's described the rest of his friends to you. I hope I'm the only mischaracterization that Cal has to answer for."
Ben chuckled and pulled Dorcas closer. "You're the first classmate of his that I've met. You must tell me everything. Is he absolute rubbish at the old abracadabra?"
Hogwarts, and the entire magical community, being reduced to abracadabra caught Dorcas off guard and she threw her head back in mirth. "He's actually really brilliant. One of the best in the school, actually."
"Oh? Not the best, then?"
Dorcas's smile faltered. Tom was indisputably the best and demanded that everyone take notice of it. Cal was far more unassuming about his natural talent.
"Tell me, Dorcas. Who is my brother's competition?" The way he asked this made Dorcas think he wasn't talking about academic rivalry. "I'm bound by my fraternal bond to hamstring anyone who stands in Cal's way."
Her smile quirked a little. "Oh, so you know how to duel with magic, then?"
He shrugged. "How hard can wand waving really be?"
Dorcas felt her eyebrows raise. "You'd be surprised."
Ben adjusted his grip on her waist. "It's hard to believe an entire world exists where people can do the things that Cal describes to me. And yet, they have no interest in helping out in this bloody mess of a war. It's difficult to respect that world when all they want to do is look the other way and hide."
She couldn't help herself, the smile spread across her face without her permission.
"What did I say?" Ben asked, nervously searching her face for some hint at what amused her.
"You sound just like Cal, d'you know that?"
He startled her by twirling her about expertly. "He sounds like me, you mean."
"I suppose so," Dorcas conceded. "I was very relieved when Cal said you'd returned home. You seem quite recovered."
Dorcas noticed how graceful he was in his movements. She imagined that he was very popular with the ladies around the base where he was stationed in Croydon.
"You're as kind as my brother described. He was touched by how genuine your concern was. You seem like a good friend."
"You approve?" Dorcas teased.
"Heartily!" Ben said, squeezing her hand. "That was the scariest several weeks of my life, I don't mind admitting."
"It's quite bad on the continent, then?"
Ben made a nervous sound. "France, Belgium, Denmark. They all have Nazi governments now. There's a sense of danger and paranoia everywhere you turn. If I hadn't spent summers in my childhood in Nice, developing a convincing accent, I might have gotten caught once or twice on my way to Spain."
Dorcas knew her eyes were wide and she was staring as the song ended and Ben led her back to the table. Cal, pulling out a seat for her, glared at his brother.
"What have you been telling her?"
"Your most embarrassing stories from childhood, little brother," Ben joked, knocking back the remainder of his whiskey and signaling the server to bring another round.
Cal slid Dorcas's drink back to her. "Great. Excuse me while I step in front of a bus…"
Dorcas set his mind at ease. "He was telling me about his time in France. I'm glad you survived the dangers," Dorcas added, turning to Ben.
Ben shrugged. "Some didn't." He lit a cigarette and his eyes became a little darker as he sipped at his fresh glass of whiskey.
"Dorcas, meet the rest of my brother's Harrow mates. Tommy, Ralston, and James," Cal introduced Dorcas as she gave her hand over the table to each in order. Tommy was fair and blue eyed and could have passed for Ben and Cal's brother. Ralston was darker and thin. Dorcas had the impression that he was what some might describe as the artistic type. James was reserved. Shorter than his friends, Dorcas noticed, when they'd been standing earlier; with strawberry blond hair and freckles.
Drink in hand, Dorcas swirled the contents, watching the light pink liquid dance in the glass.
"You're a bit young for this scene," the one called Ralston observed.
"I don't sing. I only play the piano. I keep to myself," she assured him with a smile. "Mostly, anyway."
"I find that hard to believe," Tommy smirked, throwing his whiskey back as another one arrived by virtue of Gladys's timely waitressing. "I noticed you the moment we walked through the door. I can't have been the only one."
"I don't usually accept the drinks," Dorcas amended.
Tommy winked at her. "Do you accept invitations to dance?"
Dorcas stuck out her chin in challenge. "Never."
"Well, bully for you then, Miss Clerey," the posh blond boy replied.
Ralston blew cigarette smoke from his nostrils as he laughed. "Tommy isn't used to rejection, Miss Clerey. You'd better dance with him before he has a crisis of identity."
But Dorcas was saved from having to answer for wounding Tommy's pride. Martin approached her and told her that Gigi went home sick.
"Sick?" Dorcas scoffed. "She was in fine form twenty minutes ago."
"Claims she's lost her voice. Laryngitis, or some bullshite," Martin explained.
Dorcas raised her eyebrows skeptically at her boss for that flimsy excuse. "Is that slang for a tall, handsome serviceman that I haven't heard of yet?"
Martin snorted. "Probably. You'll have to sing her second set."
"What?" Dorcas felt her cheeks grow cold at the idea of standing up on stage and singing to a bunch of strangers. "I don't sing, Martin. I only play piano. Who's going to do that if I have to take Gigi's place?"
"You can sing, Dorcas. You'll be great!" Cal chimed in. He'd been mostly silent until this moment. Dorcas felt her eyes bulging as she turned on him.
"I don't, Cal! I only play!"
"Nonsense! You sang at the Halloween dance. And you were wonderful!"
"Wonderful, eh?" Ralston interrupted. "Now I can't leave until I hear this wonderful songbird."
"Come on, beautiful! If your pipes are anything like the rest of you, the performance will be sensational." Tommy waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
"Alright, fellas!" Ben cut across his friends as they heckled Dorcas good naturedly. "If she doesn't want to, we shouldn't pressure her."
"Thank you, Ben," Dorcas said appreciatively, turning to Martin to decline the offer.
"But, it'd be such a shame to spend my last night on leave, before going back into battle," Ben continued, emphasizing his sacrifice for king and country. "Having been denied the one thing my heart longed for most in this world…"
Dorcas narrowed her eyes at Cal's brother. "Your heart longed to hear a stranger you've never met sing in a smokey club? You poor thing!"
"Cal's letters were practically poetic, the way he described your voice and your stage presence. I don't think of you as a stranger at all!" Ben argued.
Dorcas turned to Cal, shaking her head. "You realize this is all your fault?"
"I do," Cal grinned.
"If I didn't know any better, I'd think you four had something to do with Gigi's hasty departure," teased Dorcas.
James, the silent one, chimed in finally. "There were five of us. You never met Laryngitis because he's off seducing your friend."
Dorcas threw her hands up in defeat. "I give up, Martin! I'll do it. But don't blame me if all your customers disappear."
:::
Days in captivity: 5
Dorcas had learned very few things about this house and the people that held her and her daughter captive.
The first thing she learned was that the house must employ at least one house elf.
Shortly after she'd ceased banging on the solid oak door of the room, a tray appeared on the chest at the end of the bed. It contained bread, a bowl of broth, a plate with beef and asparagus, and boiled potatoes. It wasn't the nicest meal Dorcas had ever been treated to. But she wouldn't have called it prison fare either.
She was hungry by the time the tray had arrived and Ryann had been there longer than she had, so she knew her daughter must be as well. She sampled everything on the tray hurriedly, even scalding her mouth on each of the cups of tea before she deemed the meal safe for Ryann to consume.
A house elf seemed probable as well, because there was no electricity in the room. But as the ambient light began to fade from the windows, sconces on the walls and a large chandelier in the center of the room glowed to life.
The room was also a mild temperature, despite having no fireplace to heat the space.
Blackpool Abbey was similarly managed by two house elves in her youth who kept the place climate controlled and lighted by their own mysterious magic.
Secondly, she assumed the house itself was not a magical one. Aside from the portrait on the wall across from her position beside her daughter on the bed, nothing else in the room struck her as particularly magical in the slightest.
As for its subject, Dorcas had sworn she'd seen the briefest glimpse of a white ruffled petticoat when she woke this morning, but could not be certain. The frame stood empty once again as she stared at it over the morning meal.
Scones, clotted cream, strawberry preserves, and tea beckoned from the tray between her and Ryann.
Well, whomever was responsible for their captivity did not intend to starve them to death, she thought grimly.
She'd tasted everything on the tray as she customarily did before allowing Ryann to tuck in. But she sipped her tea silently and stared at the large canvas.
Her mind returned to their captors. It seemed that her extraction from the hospital was intentional. The pen that served as a Portkey was placed on her desk in her office. It was unlikely intended for any other person to pick up.
From what Ryann described of her abduction, Dorcas began to notice a pattern. She glanced at the hair comb that lay on the bedside table at Ryann's elbow. The choice of a personal item of Ryann's as a Portkey told Dorcas that whomever had taken her daughter wanted to ensure that no one else accidentally touched the object.
She could only think of one person who had an interest in kidnapping both her and her daughter.
Dorcas forced herself to swallow her tea around a knot forming in her throat.
This had to be the work of Tom Riddle.
"I can get to you anytime. Anywhere," he'd told her.
And he'd made good on that threat.
But Dorcas had done all that he had asked. Why was he taking her and Ryann away from their lives and their family? He wanted her to desist in helping Dumbledore. She had.
"Tomorrow is Wren's birthday."
What had she done to provoke him? She didn't know what it could have been. In fact, if he'd waited just three more weeks, Tom could have been rid of her for good. She would have been back in America and far away from him and his schemes.
"Mum!" Ryann said, exasperatedly nudging Dorcas in the arm.
"Hmm?"
"I said tomorrow's Wren's birthday."
Dorcas nodded. They'd slept in this room, unaware of why they had been brought to this place, for five nights now. Which meant today was August 2nd.
Reaching under her pillow, Dorcas retrieved her letter opener and hopped off the bed. She set her tea lightly on the bedside table next to her and slid the small piece of furniture away from the wall.
"The day after is Ben's," Dorcas replied.
"What are you doing?" Ryann asked, setting her half-eaten scone down, watching Dorcas warily.
"I'm recording the days," Dorcas answered, taking the letter opener and gouging four hash marks into the paneling below the chair rail. She finished these with a diagonal mark across the first four.
"Do you think we'll really be here that long?" Ryann's voice shook as she anticipated the reply.
Dorcas didn't give her one. She was tired of meeting Ryann's frantic queries with the response, "I don't know."
If she could just speak to someone, she was sure she could gain some idea of what the intent was behind this abduction.
She pushed the table back in place, covering her tally. The letter opener went back to its place of concealment beneath her pillow.
Dorcas couldn't get the voice out of her head. She recalled his words when she'd confronted him after Cal learned of their kiss last November.
"Ryann is mine, isn't she?"
"I want to know my daughter, Birdie. You kept her from me for thirteen years."
Dorcas sucked in a fortifying breath. She knew why she and Ryann were here.
"Ryann," she said, endeavoring to keep her voice even and calm. "I have to tell you about your father. I have to tell you about Tom."
:::
18 July, 1942 The Black Dahlia, Upton Circle, London
Dorcas was ready to fall out with Cal over his insistence that she sing tonight. She anticipated being booed off the stage.
The band leader, Donald suggested a tune that was simple and settled within her range comfortably. But her nerves sent electric waves through her body that caused her to warble.
She was uncomfortable in one of Gigi's evening gowns of silver and sequins, resisting the urge every thirty seconds to hoist the neckline over the tops of her breasts, which were adamantly displayed in this get up.
"Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you
Embrace me, you irreplaceable you
Just one look at you and my heart grew tipsy in me
You and you alone bring out the gypsy in me."
She was thankful that the light glared so brightly in her eyes that she couldn't gauge the reactions of the audience in the dancehall. But she could hear shouts and cheers, encouraging her on. She couldn't tell if they came from Cal and his brother's mates, or from other patrons of the club.
"You were indescribable!" Cal said, after he'd waited patiently for Ben and each of his friends to take a turn with Dorcas around the dance floor following her set.
"I can describe it perfectly: flat, pitchy, vomit-inducing."
Dorcas felt an odd sense of comfort in Cal's arms, as if she'd always been there; familiar, safe.
Cal laughed. "You shone up there, Dorcas. I couldn't take my eyes off of you."
"Blinded by the millions of sequins, I reckon," Dorcas joked, brushing off the comment.
She watched Cal's eyes make a cursory glance downward at the reference to her gown, but his eyes bounced back to her face at once, realizing that far more of her was on display tonight than he'd been used to seeing.
"You look beautiful, Dorcas. But you always do. That's not why you shone up there."
Dorcas rolled her eyes. He was too sincere to let her cast off a compliment. "Oh? Then what was it?"
"You were happy. You were having fun. I like seeing you that way."
"It's all a disguise, Cal. A stage persona. The gown, the hair, the makeup."
"No," he insisted, holding her tighter, forgetting that they were in a crowded dancehall. "It's you. Other women might need the dress and the makeup. On you it's redundant, Dorcas."
Dorcas didn't know what to say to such a speech, so she changed the subject.
"I like your brother."
Cal took the turn in the conversation in stride. "I do too."
"He mentioned that he reports back to the base tomorrow?"
"Yes, I'll be sorry to see him go. It's been nice to have him home again. Takes the pressure off me."
"Do you still get a lot of grief from your father?" Dorcas asked. She recalled that Cal's father had insisted he leave Hogwarts when his brother was missing and presumed dead.
She felt Cal's shoulder shrug under the hand that she'd rested gently there. "Some. Less now that Ben's alive and well."
He was looking over her shoulder at his brother and friends. Dorcas heard some good natured jibing and whistling. His eyebrows pulled into a harassed slant as he frowned. She allowed him to pull them to the other side of the dancefloor and away from their jeering.
"Will you be at Cherry's party?"
"Oh, damn!" Dorcas stopped right in the middle of the dancers at the mention of Cherry.
"What is it?" Cal said, looking instantly at his feet to assure himself that he hadn't trodden on her toes.
"I've been working nearly every night at the club and spending the days with Morty, I haven't gotten Cherry a present yet!"
"Oh," Cal said, relief loosening his tight features. "You've got tomorrow to get something sorted. She likes really any Muggle contraption you get her. She still uses the lighter you got her last year."
"To commit arson, no doubt. She's dangerous with Muggle gadgets," Dorcas laughed, remembering Cherry nearly setting Anneliese's house ablaze last year. "What about your race car? D'you still have to honor that bet you made at the baseball game?"
"Well, yes," Cal said, swallowing and pulling a little on his tie as his Adam's apple bobbed. "I'm hoping she'll let me talk her into a ride. But I think she'll probably insist on driving."
"You could always do something to the car, you know. So that it won't go. I don't know much about cars, but could you mess around under the bonnet subtly so that when she cranks the engine, it won't start?"
"That's a very Slytherin attitude, Clerey. I'm impressed!"
"You forget I'm half Rackharrow!" Dorcas laughed. "I've got more dishonest solutions to your problems and I'll be here all night!"
Cal smiled, leading her through a series of dance steps that surprised Dorcas. He moved confidently and smoothly for his size; Quidditch Keepers were known for their presence on the pitch, not for their maneuverability. She wondered if he'd be just as effective on the field as a Seeker.
"Can I walk you home?"
Dorcas shrugged this off. "My shift was over half an hour ago. Don't you want to stay with your friends?"
"I'd feel better knowing that you got home safely."
Dorcas shook her head. "This is my neighborhood, Cal. It's perfectly safe for me. You're the one that's not safe here!"
Blinking, Cal scoffed at her statement. "I'm not safe here? Why?"
"Look at you!"
Cal straightened his jacket and looked down at his shoes. "What's wrong with me, then?"
"Well, you're too posh. You practically scream 'rob me blind!'"
"Well, will you walk me home, then?" he laughed.
Dorcas nodded. "Let me change. I can't defend you properly in this," she said, motioning to the sequined number and the heels she wore.
"I'll wait for you," Cal said.
:::
Days in captivity: 5
"I have to tell you about Tom."
Ryann's head snapped up at the sound of the name, abandoning the tray and her breakfast completely.
"About my real father?"
Dorcas's gaze flickered to the massive canvas on the opposite wall. The subject hadn't reappeared, but she got the impression that whomever occupied the frame was lingering just out of the field of vision. Her thoughts drifted to the letter opener under her pillow. The moment the figure reappeared, she meant to slash the painting to ribbons.
"Yes, but not too loudly. We don't know who might be listening," Dorcas said, pulling Ryann closer to her.
Ryann laid her head against her mother's chest, reminding Dorcas of when she was much smaller.
"Is he the one who's kidnapped us?" Ryann whispered.
Dorcas inhaled and dragged her fingers through Ryann's dark tresses. "I think so. Yes."
"Why?"
"One of the last times I spoke to him...months ago now, I told him to stay away from my family. He said he couldn't do that because he knew that you were his daughter and he wanted a relationship with you."
"Was this after daddy found out that the two of you kissed?"
Dorcas nodded, inwardly cringing as she remembered how sloppy she'd been about containing that bit of scandal between her and Tom.
"It was, yes. He was at the train station when I took you back to school after the Christmas holiday."
Ryann began tracing the pattern on Dorcas's plaid trousers as she listened. "That's why we left the station and flooed to Professor Dumbledore instead?"
"Yes, my darling. I knew he was there to force a meeting between us."
"But I thought he didn't care about me. He didn't want to know me."
"I don't know that he even realized he had a child, Ryann. When he found out I was pregnant in school, he assumed that you were Cal's. I never corrected that assumption."
"Because you were afraid of him."
Dorcas had told Ryann a little bit about her complicated relationship with Tom when they were at school. But she'd left out most of the shocking details, many of which she'd only uncovered the truth of after that encounter at King's Cross.
"That's right. Remember what I told you about him at school?"
Ryann nodded, bobbing her head against Dorcas's chest. "That he was cruel to you and that you worried he'd be the same way with me."
"He would sometimes control me and make me do things that I didn't want to do. And he would change my memories so that I always trusted him, even when he hurt me. He relied on my gift of seeing the thoughts in other people's minds."
"You told me that you taught him how to do it too."
"That's right. I did." Dorcas glanced at the vacant painting and pitched her voice lower. "But you and I can hear thoughts even when wards and protective magic prevent others from doing it."
"He can't hear people inside of Hogwarts?" Ryann asked cautiously.
"No," Dorcas replied. "He always needed my help to do that. And I don't think he can use what he learned in the Ministry or other guarded places."
"Is that why he wants you and me here?" Ryann asked in a small voice.
"I don't know, baby," Dorcas admitted. "But he may wish to turn you against me."
"How would he do that?" Ryann looked up at her, bewildered by the motives of the man she'd never met.
Dorcas remembered the way Gemma snapped at her the night Cal was honored by the Healer's Guild of Britain. She threatened to tell him that Dorcas had slept with Tom. He'd reframed the narrative of his assault so that Gemma would believe she'd been unfaithful to Cal.
Tom could convince Ryann that Dorcas was keeping him away from her for different reasons. He'd make himself appear innocent and trustworthy. She had no doubt that he was capable of such a thing.
"He'll have a different version of what happened between us at school," Dorcas said, trying to maintain her composure, all the while knowing that she was going to have to tell Ryann everything.
Ryann sat up, fixing an intense stare on Dorcas.
"What happened at school, Mama?"
"Do you know how Memory Charms work?" Dorcas asked, buying herself time before she had to explain the difficult facts of her relationship with Tom to her daughter.
They were pretty advanced magic, so Dorcas wasn't surprised when Ryann shook her head.
"You can pinpoint a specific moment in the past to alter, changing how the person perceived that specific event. Tom did that to me. Mostly when he lost his temper and beat me. Once it was so bad that he broke my wrist. Another time it was my rib he broke, puncturing my lung. Tom always changed the way I remembered what happened. I could only recall slipping on ice, or tripping over furniture. So I always trusted him. I had no reason not to."
"And no one else knew what Tom was doing to you?" Ryann asked, aghast at Dorcas's confession.
"I don't think so. We began dating in my second year at school. We'd been friends for over a year and I never remembered when he hurt me, so I grew to have feelings for him. He was almost killed in an air raid in Birmingham, and my feelings for him became more when I nearly lost him. But I was too young to be in a serious relationship with a boy. I was only thirteen. The same age you are now."
"That's not so young," Ryann objected.
Dorcas smiled. Ryann was wise for her age. She was relieved that her daughter wasn't quite as gullible as she was at thirteen. A boy like Tom would probably have a much harder time getting past Ryann's defenses.
She was extremely proud of the realization.
"We continued to be friends even after I broke up with him. I think he worked to maintain the relationship because he needed me every so often in order to see into someone's mind or help him with some plot. He was always executing some plan or another.
About a year after I broke up with him, we were away from school–unsanctioned, of course–and started to fool around." Dorcas paused to clear her throat. It was humiliating to admit what she and Tom did at school after she'd preached to her daughter not to be alone with boys.
"He wanted to...go all the way. And I wouldn't. He got forceful with me."
"Oh, Mum!" Ryann gasped. "I'm sorry. I don't know what to say."
"It was a long time ago," Dorcas said, stroking her daughter's hair and bringing her head to lay back on Dorcas's chest again. That was a lie, of course. It was only six months ago that Tom had assaulted her the last time. But Ryann didn't need to know about that instance specifically.
"That wasn't the only time he forced me to do something that I didn't want to do. We ended up dating again by the end of my fourth year at school and remained together until nearly the end of my sixth."
"When you were pregnant with me," Ryann finished. There was a small catch in her throat and she jerked back to a sitting position. "Is that how…?" Her voice became strangled with emotion. "Am I…?"
Dorcas anticipated Ryann's agonized thoughts. She leaned forward and grabbed her daughter's face between her hands, swiping at her tears with her thumbs.
"You were not the result of rape, sweetheart. No." Dorcas drew her daughter close and kissed the crown of her head. "We'd been together for a while. And I truly thought I loved Tom. I was with him willingly toward the end of our relationship. And that's when we conceived you."
"So," Ryann sniffed back her tears. "Why didn't you marry him, if you were having his child?"
"The Memory Charms that he used to make me think that all of our encounters happened by my consent, they worked on my thoughts. But my body, driven by my instincts, told me to be afraid of him. My muscles would involuntarily tense when he touched me sometimes. And he didn't always bother altering the small assaults against me; the twisting of a wrist or pulling of my hair. I was with him because I loved him and I put up with the small acts of violence. But when I became pregnant, I knew I couldn't take the risk that he might be cruel to you too.
But he saved me the trouble of having to break off our relationship. He did it before I could muster the nerve to tell him I wanted out. And it broke me…" Dorcas choked on a sob, remembering how she felt when he told her that he didn't love her; that he never loved her.
"What did you do?" Ryann asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
"I almost killed myself," came Dorcas's barely audible reply. "I knew it would hurt when I told Tom that I wanted to end our relationship. But I never dreamed that he would tell me that what he felt for me wasn't real. That I imagined it all. In a way, that was true. I had imagined something different than what really was between us."
Ryann squeezed Dorcas tight, as if she could absorb some of her mother's remembered heartache. "But you didn't kill youself. Why?"
"Your father stopped me."
Ryann looked up at her, surprise throwing her eyes wide. "Daddy?"
Dorcas felt a deep tearing pang in her chest thinking about Cal. What was he doing right now? He was probably frantic trying to discover what had happened to her and Ryann. He probably guessed that Tom had something to do with his missing wife and child. He'd likely put all of the pieces together much faster than Dorcas had.
She found that her sobs were too big, preventing her from answering Ryann.
"Don't worry, Mum! He's going to find us. Daddy's going to find us and take us home."
The odds that Cal would know where to look for them being negligible was something that Dorcas could never admit to Ryann.
"You're right, baby," she murmured instead. "I'm sure you're right."
:::
The twilight that Dorcas could see from the windows announced that her fifth day in this room, locked away with her daughter, was coming to an end. They hadn't spoken anymore about the past horrors that Dorcas had revealed to Ryann.
Her conscience see-sawed between confidence and doubt. It was terrible to have to relay such violence to her thirteen-year-old daughter. But on the other hand, she couldn't risk Tom sinking his claws into Ryann and shaping the narrative to suit him. She had to know the sort of man he was.
She found herself thanking God, as she'd done so often, that Cal had come into her life, picking up the shattered pieces of her and making her whole again. She was grateful to him for showing Ryann what a good father was; a loving father. Tom would never be able to measure up if he attempted to playact a devoted parent to Ryann.
A self-satisfied twinge in her confirmed that what she'd told Ryann was right. She needed to know who Tom Riddle was.
Dorcas scarcely believed she heard the noise that her ears picked up when the doorknob rattled and turned.
Her hand plunged immediately beneath the pillow, grasping her weapon tightly in her fingers. The other hand flew to Ryann's shoulder, nudging her awake.
"Get behind me, sweetheart," she whispered to her groggy daughter as she stood and planted her feet.
The two hooded figures that Ryann had described to her emerged from the other side of the door. The masks they wore were identical to the ones she'd seen the wedding crashers wearing at Blackpool Abbey last February.
They both held wands aloft. Both were pointed at Dorcas.
"What do you want?" she challenged, holding the letter opener in front of her, while backing Ryann into the corner behind her. "Why are we here?"
"Put that down," the taller one commanded her. His wand gestured toward the letter opener.
Dorcas dismissed the order, slashing threateningly downward as he approached. The smaller figure, the woman, circled widely around her. Dorcas kept her in her periphery.
Ryann's fingers dug into Dorcas's blouse behind her.
"Don't come any closer!" Dorcas warned, slashing again with the sharp blade.
The man impatiently swept his wand across the space in front of Dorcas, magically ripping the weapon from her grasp. At the same moment, the smaller intruder lunged and grabbed Ryann by the arm.
Dorcas felt the silk fabric of her blouse tear as Ryann struggled to maintain her grip on her mother. The sound mingled with Dorcas's own shrill protests, flinging her hands out to grip Ryann.
"Please!" she begged. "Don't take her. Take me instead."
The larger male figure stepped between her and Ryann, savagely bending her fingers back and forcing her to release her daughter. She heard the pop of bone being snapped from joints and felt the crushing pain in her hand.
The woman was wrestling Ryann's flailing body closer to the door.
Dorcas struggled against the hooded male, knowing that if she allowed the woman to take Ryann from the room, she would never see her again.
"PLEASE! DON'T TAKE HER FROM ME!" she wailed.
Her ears were filled with Ryann's protests and cries.
A muscular arm clamped down on her chest, hauling her onto the bed. He was on top of her, pressing her into the mattress with his full body weight on the arm across her sternum. Dorcas gasped and fought to hang on to consciousness beneath him.
She shifted her weight enough to get her teeth around his wrist. Biting down with a force that strained her jaw, she tasted blood and heard his agonized scream.
"Fucking bitch!"
All sense was knocked from her when his fist connected with her temple.