Dorcas derived great joy watching Philippa read these books like they were fairy tales of which they were to her. How would she find a way for her to actually see a dragon in real life? Dorcas wondered. Philippa pieced together words and ideas and shapes and histories. She developed a working knowledge of the things she couldn't use in her own life that were simple to others and literally impossible for her. She began to speak a language with no practical implications to herself.

"Can you make them up too? Spells, I mean.," Philippa said one day without looking up from her notes on her right hand side and writing without looking at the paper on her left. A book with a bowl full of untouched stew used as a weight to keep the pages open. Lupin looking at the stew with longing.

She had always been the far superior student, Dorcas knew. If they had both attended Hogwarts, Dorcas might not even be an auror now. Everyone would have just considered Dorcas to be Philippa's competent but uninspired friend. She could keep pace, memorize, even think on her feet in her way. As it stood, she was one of the better in her class and certainly one of the greatest of the seventh years at the time but, that was only because Lydia had left school early. How unjust that she had everything she wanted but wasn't the more creative of the two, the funnier or more charismatic or kinder? That she only had this gift because of foolish luck?

"These two can you mix them together? And these, could you make one that makes this spin and that leap and that soar at the same time?"

That's how Philippa and Lupin met. Dorcas's potions skills, remained largely underutilized and Dorcas called him in and he had turned into Philippa's tutor of sorts. All of these questions, hours worth, where they would sit and talk about this and that and it got the better of him as it had of Dorcas earlier. He had to try himself. Could these two spells be said at the same time? Can you make that paper burst into flames and float at the same time though? The end result isn't the point, it's the idea! Exasperated Philippa looked over at Dorcas her expression saying, why doesn't he get it? He found he could not do both simultaneously as Dorcas had tried alone so as not to embarrass herself and she too had tried and failed and it was like this with many, many more combinations and spells and ideas until she resolved to practice like she had done in training and found that, this is a muggle equivalent, it was not unlike singing while playing the guitar with both hands while shaking someone's hand with a third. The intention changed in a way and from then on she sat at the table and listened to Philippa's ideas and got over the embarrassment of not being able to do and she failed, Merlin's beard did she ever fail, until she could do a great deal of what Philippa dreamt up and several more that she could not do.

Dorcas thought sometimes that it may frustrate her. That Philippa couldn't do these things herself. That she had to watch other people try and fail and try and fail again knowing that if she had just a little bit of what they had, just a little bit of it, she could have accomplished everything sooner and more elegantly and developed more besides. Instead Dorcas, now long over her fear of being made a fool of in front of someone she had looked foolish in front of several hundreds of times before, tried.

"Does your wrist need to be held differently, it says here that…"

When she finally got it, there was no trace of resentment or impatience or envy. Just her friend pleased and awed, shaking her head silently and smiling, almost to herself only "unreal".

At this party though, her awe extended to the magic she read about that could not have been done in the comfort of the kitchen and dining space in the house that they had grown up in. The childlike magic that Lupin did, the combination spells that Dorcas tried. IT was at this party that she witnessed what she read about in some other radical form that made her suddenly interested in the tales of duels. Philippa herself had walked though a fire drawn at the edge of the door. A great blue flame that reached the top of the door frame and walked though it and nothing happened. Not nothing, how would she describe it? Nothing that a fire could do happened. And it was blue. So it must have been hotter, burning something else, she knew. She had heard pieces of conversations and places and people and things she had never read about. She could admit to herself that some of this magic was becoming commonplace, by my goodness. She could really put her knowledge to use. Combined with the new letters from Lydia (who remained unmoved by Philippa's insistence that they be sent by owl as the Royal Mail had always been and would continue to be faster) and sitting and talking with Lupin who brought the books and the notes and the plants? She reached a type of nirvana and comfort at that party. She had finally found her people. A comfort in her own home and in herself. Who would have known? A witch who couldn't do magic. And then she met a kid named Peter, one of Lupin's friends and they spent time discussing very obscure magic. He could answer some of the questions she had been waiting on answers for. He promised to find an answer to this problem of the bursting window. A way to communicate with Dorcas, he would find a way to call her if she needed to all in exchange for a to-go plate which she would have given to him anyway. And while the party had been beautiful, she hadn't noticed the time passing speaking with him, he had been a complete delight and a sweetheart. Since he had shown up empty handed, he would send a gift through Lupin, he promised, but he had only meant to pass through and got distracted. He had given her the best gift of his complete attention and seriousness to finding a solution to a problem that had been bothering her and she felt a deep fondness for someone whom she had just met.

Sirius? Sirius, right? Lupin's other friend who brought the wine which couldn't be refilled (this was not a foreign concept to Philippa but seemed to confuse many wizards and witches in attendance) made from some berry that she had enjoyed and enjoyed some more. Who else? Lydia and the Prewett's were there of course. Lupin was there. Basil came with a bouquet of roses looking very sheepish but relaxed over time. He too enjoyed the wine. And she finally met Alastor and Mr. Shacklebot and even though she had been told that they were very important, she knew right away when they walked in that important people, celebrated people, had walked in for all the side conversations and commotion they caused. Mr. Shacklebot brought a cake and Alastor a broach that she couldn't touch with her bare hands. He remembered that Philippa wouldn't, or rather shouldn't have known what a Duobus Signis was.

"A type of portkey," Philippa said as if reciting from a book. "It has the power to transport to more than one place. Very difficult to make. You need to the incantation to one place and then another set of incantations for the other, it can takes months to make these. Did the Ministry approve?" She said still marveling at what was an otherwise unremarkable, even ugly piece of jewelry.

Dorcas watched Alastor's eyebrows go to together in a type of uncharacteristic confusion. At Philippa's question, his eyebrows had raised even as she answered her own question.

"I can't imagine they would approve but there's no way to monitor the movement of portkeys anyway." She smiled a warm, genuine smile. "Thank you, it's incredible."

She closed the lid and Alastor regaining enough composure to return the kindness. He looked at Dorcas and she looked like the hippogriff that ate the bezoar, a sly, impressed smile. Philippa, a muggle had caught the great Alastor Moody off-guard. So much for constant vigilance. I'll tell you later she said as Philippa was called away to impress and stun and laugh and dance and become everyone's new best friend and be loved by everyone there. Alastor nodded. He would not hear the end of this. "It is an incredible gift," Dorcas said trying not to laugh but also meaning it but also knowing that he was trying to cover his surprise at who he had been told was a muggle-born muggle. Dorcas was impressed by her friend and proud.

All of these strangers had come to the birthday party and she thought then that they had left as friends. It had been such a good time and Philippa could forget about what happened before and relax and enjoy herself. The memory, the memories were tucked away in the back of her mind but they slept undisturbed as she bounced through the party with Dorcas. Even after she thought of it, which was rarely, it seemed so far away and receded farther away in time but, when she did even after everything that happened, that would happen, she reveled in the memory of the event and the magic of it all. Ha.