Chapter 5

6 September, 1957 Watermead, Aylesbury

Dorcas woke on her white office couch. She remembered her dive into her own memories, though she could not recall what had prompted her to do so. She sat up and placed her bare feet on the floor. She was still in her black cocktail dress from the night before.

Someone had placed a blanket over her in the night. She hadn't done it. She smiled warmly.

Cal.

He was a better man than she deserved by far. He had made it his life's mission to take care of her every need. He was supportive; he pushed her to be a better person. He motivated her to seize opportunities in life. He was her champion.

When she thought of the good in Cal-everything that she had no right to expect, but that he gave freely to her because of his deep and abiding love for her-her mind often enumerated the many ways in which she failed to be the wife he needed, the wife he deserved.

Here was the proof, on a breakfast tray in front of her.

He had laid out eggs, bacon, toast, and grapefruit. The steam in the coffee mug told her that everything was still hot and fresh. She was usually a grapefruit-and-coffee-only kind of person. This morning, however, she devoured all of the contents of the tray hungrily. Maybe it was the alcohol in her system that gave her such a robust appetite.

Cal hurried into her office tying his tie.

"Good. You're up." Straightening his Windsor knot he added, "I was coming to wake you. We're due at the hospital today. Wren's already fed, dressed, and with Mrs. Peake across the street."

Dorcas swallowed the last bit of toast with the remainder of the coffee.

She nodded, recalling her full diary for the week. Between patient visits for her psych practice, laboratory work, medical journal submission deadlines, and clinical trials for their latest potion at St. Mungo's underway she had no time really for a girl's night out. She was regretting her decision to meet up with her friends.

She stood and her regret was twofold as she swayed on the spot with a momentary headache. She really could not hold liquor.

After her tense encounter with Tom, she had distracted herself with trying to keep pace with Cherry. She should have known that it was a fool's errand.

Muttering a quick thank you to her darling husband and placing a kiss on his freshly shaven cheek, Dorcas grabbed her wand and shuffled from the office and down the hall to her bedroom. She slipped off the wrinkled cocktail dress, leaving it in a heap on the floor and turned to the closet. She pulled out a dove gray sateen jacket and skirt and dressed quickly.

Sliding the side zipper up on her skirt, she raced into the bathroom for a quick removal of last night's smudged makeup, teeth brushing, reapplying of makeup, and an attempt to tame her hair. A professional knot at the nape of her neck was all she could manage at the moment.

In the hall, Cal was holding his and hers matching lime green St. Mungo's robes, his briefcase, and her silk evening bag.

Slipping into the cast-off black pumps from last night, Dorcas transformed her evening bag into something more professional and followed Cal out the door.

He was never a complainer. One of the multitude of things that made Cal the perfect man. She knew that her late night dip in the Pensieve and her lie in had cost him a treasured opportunity to drive his cherry red sports car into the city. Today they would have to Apparate.

They came out at the storefront entrance of St. Mungo's a moment later. Stepping through the grimy abandoned shop window, Cal handed Dorcas her robe as he slipped his over his shoulders. They hurried to the Dai Llewellyn Ward for Serious Bites. Here they had been testing a Blood-Replenishing Potion for several weeks. The results so far had been very promising.

:::

21 October, 1939 Library, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Dorcas hurried to her corner in the library. Her mind was full of the Potions lesson that she had just come from. In class, she and Cherry chatted quietly while concocting a Pepperup Potion following Professor Slughorn's instructions. Dorcas loved Potions for two reasons: one reason was her friend, Cherry. The other reason was that she found the precise ingredients, heating, and mixing instructions to be a challenge that was thrilling to her.

Slughorn was beginning to take notice of her skill. He often came over to her cauldron at the end of class and remarked on her potion's textbook-perfect color, consistency, and smell.

She grabbed a book from the shelf that stood behind her seat. That section contained the potions references that were for general use. Dorcas had not dared to venture into the Restricted Section yet. She laid her bag and book on the desktop top in front of her, pulling parchment, a quill, and some ink from her bag.

Tom sat in the chair next to hers as usual. He was feverishly writing, quill scratching the parchment rhythmically.

She opened the thick reference book, scanned the Table of Contents for Glover Hipworth, the potion's creator, and set to work like Tom. Professor Slughorn's assignment was to explain the side effects of the Pepperup Potion and possible causes for the side effects. She was intrigued to find out what she could dig up.

As she worked on her essay, checking facts and scribbling sentences, a tune popped into her head. Duke Ellington's 'Ring Dem Bells'. She found that the uptempo melody helped her energetic writing.

As she worked, she hummed.

Tom's foot tapped along to the beat.

They worked in tandem like this for about thirty minutes. Scratching quills, a low-hummed tune, and a tapping foot.

She did not notice when Tom stopped tapping and writing.

"Birdie, can I ask you something?"

Dorcas stopped writing and looked at Tom. "Sure."

"That girl yesterday," he pointed to the Potions references behind them. "The one who was scanning the books over there."

"Yes," Dorcas recalled that the girl had given her a strange look, but didn't take one of the books on antidote theory that Dorcas had suggested. "She was looking for antidotes but didn't take any of the books that I pointed out."

"Exactly," Tom confirmed. "She didn't say anything, so how did you know what she was looking for?"

Dorcas tried to recall the details precisely as they happened yesterday.

"Of course she did," Dorcas said, covering her awkward answer by standing and searching for more titles in the stacks behind her chair.

"No, she didn't."

Dorcas pulled two more books from the shelf. She looked at Tom. He stared at her, unblinking. She had the feeling that he had been containing the impulse to ask her about this slip up since she had taken the seat next to him.

She didn't know what to say. She was angry with herself. She had tried to be careful about this little eccentricity of hers and had blundered so spectacularly. Maybe Tom would find her odd and not want to be her friend. Her heart sank at the thought.

"Can you hear people's thoughts, Birdie?" He whispered this so that only she could hear him.

Dorcas blanched and looked around. No one was near.

She took her seat again with the other two books, but did not return to writing.

"I've been able to do it since I was eight."

Tom nodded but didn't say anything. His silence was prompting her to continue.

"I can sometimes get pictures from other people's minds. Sometimes I hear the words that they're thinking. Sometimes it's just a name or a phrase. I try to push them away, I don't go looking into other people's thoughts," she rushed on faster in a whisper, trying to reassure him that she was not sifting through his mind every time they shared this corner together. "The thoughts just come to me. Sometimes, they push into my mind and I don't want them to."

Dorcas was desperate to make Tom understand that she did not want to do this. She wanted to make him understand that she would never spy on his consciousness or that of any other.

"Please don't tell," was Dorcas's final, whispered entreaty.

Her face must have plainly communicated her fear and embarrassment. Tom smiled back at her and moved his chair just inches away from her.

"Birdie, your secret is safe with me." He held her gaze, communicating the gravity of this vow. "All of your secrets are safe with me."

The apprehension left her and she seemed to deflate a little in relief.

"But tell me something," he continued. "How did you learn to open your mind to the thoughts of others. You've been doing it since you were eight. Who taught you?"

Dorcas was confused by the line of questioning.

"Taught me?" She blinked and stared back at Tom.

"Yes, who taught you? Can your parents do it? Did they teach you?"

Dorcas thought about this for a moment. She honestly could not say if her mother could do it or not. If she could, she had never given Dorcas any indication. As for her father, he was dead before she was born. She didn't know much about him at all. Her mother did not talk about him. She told Tom this.

He seemed to be considering something. He continued to stare at Dorcas as he thought. Dorcas resisted the urge to defy his mental autonomy, she was so desperate to know what he was thinking.

"Can you flip through people's thoughts? Could you search them for something the way one could search a book?"

Dorcas considered this. She felt confident that if she were comfortable breaching someone's mental boundaries, she could sift through thoughts the way she could sift through a card catalogue to find what she sought. But she didn't think she could ever do that to another human being. The violation of it sat sourly in Dorcas's stomach.

"I don't think so," Dorcas lied. She didn't know why she said this instead of the truth. She trusted Tom, liked Tom even. But she didn't want him to know about this capability.

"I get the images and words and phrases that people are projecting. I think it's just what is at the forefront of people's minds at the time, pushing to get out."

He leaned forward. All of this time, he had never broken eye contact with her. His brown eyes held her gaze as if he were trying to breach her mental walls.

"Do it now," he said. It was a command. He was ordering her. "Do it to me."

Dorcas slid back in her chair as far as she could. A fear began to rise in her. She couldn't decide if it was a fear born from having her secret laid bare, or if she was afraid of Tom.

"I d-don't think I c-can, Tom," she stuttered.

He was leaning very close to her now. Intimidating.

"Try."

Her mind was assaulted with a picture of a younger Tom in a field. Other children laughed and played in the background. Tom sat separately under a tree, tearing grass out of the ground beside him. He looked at the other children indifferently. He selected one of the longer strands of grass and held it cradled between his thumbs, cupping his hands and blowing into them, he made the blade of grass whistle faintly. Dorcas noticed a movement in the grass near Memory Tom's feet. Dorcas wanted to speak, to call out to Memory Tom in warning. The snake hissed and Tom dropped the blade of grass. He returned the snake's greeting.

Dorcas pushed the scene to the back of her mind. She had only seen memories that vividly from her mother on two occasions. Both were related to her two uncles. Both had been when her mother had been mentally vulnerable, tired, or frustrated. Dorcas didn't like the feeling of someone else in her mind, controlling the thoughts that she had there. Her mother had never done it intentionally.

But Tom had.

"I am trying," Dorcas lied. "I can't see anything." She wanted to flee.

Standing abruptly, she pushed her chair back so forcefully that she nearly toppled it backwards. She shoved her unfinished essay, ink bottle, and quill back in her bag. She tried to fix her features into a neutral expression. Tried to make her movements less frantic.

Tom sat back and gave Dorcas some space. She was grateful for the small concession. He would not push her any further.

Placing the strap of her bag on her shoulder, she lifted her three books and took them to the desk beside the entrance to check them out.

Please don't follow, Dorcas thought.

A moment later she felt Tom tugging at her arm, urging her to turn and face him.

"Clerey."

The cheerful greeting stunned her. It apparently had the same effect on Tom. She felt him withdraw his hand.

The boy who stowed her trunk for her on the Hogwarts Express was standing at the desk ahead of her checking out a book from Madam Poole.

She cast about in her jumbled mind for a name to put with the face.

"Caleb," she said, pasting what she hoped was a convincing smile to her face.

"It's Cal," he corrected. "Please call me Cal. My mother calls me Caleb when I'm in trouble." He flashed a wide and genuine grin.

"What's going on?" Cal asked this question as he stared between Dorcas and Tom.

"Nothing," Dorcas said casually, hefting her books into one arm to adjust her bag on her shoulder. "Just getting some books to write my essay."

Cal nodded, only half convinced.

"Hey, Tom," Cal looked past Dorcas.

Tom nodded to Cal but didn't say anything.

"Mr. Meadowes," Madam Poole said, holding Cal's book out to him.

Cal took the book with a, "Thank you, ma'am." Stepping aside for Dorcas, he turned to address Tom.

"The Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson was good today, right?" Cal said genially.

Dorcas handed her three books to Madam Poole to scan with her wand.

"Yes," Tom conceded.

Dorcas looked back and caught Tom's eye briefly. Hands in his pockets, looking innocent and benign, Dorcas wondered if she hadn't projected her fears of being caught out in her secret onto Tom. He looked the same as he always did, kind and polite now. Maybe she had imagined the forceful and demanding ring to his tone when he leaned into her space and commanded her to see into his thoughts.

She felt ashamed of the scene she had made.

Madam Poole handed Dorcas her books and she turned to exit the library. Whether she imagined the rapid shift in Tom's mood or not, she did not want to be around anyone right now. She wanted to hide in a corner somewhere and decompress. She felt as if her muscles were wound tight like a spring.

Cal and Tom finished their exchange as Cal asked Tom, "Are you coming?"

Tom made some excuse about finishing his work.

Cal turned to Dorcas with a smile.

"Can I carry those for you?" Cal asked, adding her books to his. He grabbed the strap of her bag and shifted it to his shoulder instead.

She followed a loaded down Cal out of the library, sparing a look back at Tom who stood where they left him.

He returned her stare with a dark look. It seemed to confirm Dorcas's instinct to flee.

"I've been hoping to run into you," Cal said, beaming down at Dorcas.

"You have?" Dorcas responded distractedly. "Why?" She grimaced to herself. That last part sounded rude and she hadn't meant it to. Her interaction with Tom was still fresh in her mind.

Cal seemed to consider the question honestly. He shrugged and said, "I liked talking to you on the train. I like what you had to say." He smiled at her.

He was tall. Dorcas noticed that her head was even with his shoulder.

"Oh." She knew that this was a lame reaction to his genuine reply.

"Do you like Quidditch?" Cal asked.

"I don't know," Dorcas replied. "I've read about it and it seems entertaining, but I've never been to a match."

Cal nodded in understanding, looking down at her. "The first time I saw a match was in my first year too-that was last year," he added. "I loved it!"

"Some of my friends who grew up in the Wizarding world told me about it, Darren-you met him-and my other friend, Nelu Patil. They are Puddlemere United supporters all the way!"

Dorcas watched Cal's face as he talked on about Quidditch. He was animated and enthusiastic. He made Dorcas smile and took her mind off of her conversation with Tom.

"So you're Muggle-born?" Dorcas probed, picking out the detail about being rather new to Quidditch.

"Yes," Cal answered. "My parents are not magical and neither is my older brother. It was quite a shock to all of us when I got my letter." He chuckled to himself. "My brother's in the Air Force."

Dorcas understood a little more of the context of the conversation that Cal was having with his friends on the train when she'd met him. He was an advocate for an all-hands-on-deck approach to dealing with Nazi Germany because he was a part of the Muggle world, just as she was.

"You're Muggle-born too?" She understood why he would have thought this. Her views on the war ran parallel to his and she was a Quidditch novice.

"Not really," Dorcas explained. "I grew up in the Muggle world, but my mum is a witch. She works at St. Mungo's. But we live in the Muggle part of London."

"You are more interesting by the minute, Clerey!" Cal gave her a sidelong look as they continued down the corridor.

"So it's just you and your mum, then?"

Dorcas shook her head. "My uncle lives with us. But he's non-magical."

"Huh."

Cal was silent for a moment considering the information that Dorcas had just shared.

"What about your father?"

Dorcas shrugged. "He died before I was born. My mother doesn't talk about him much. There's a picture of him on my piano at home. And it moves, so I guess he was a wizard."

"A logical conclusion," Cal agreed. "You play the piano?"

"Only a little," Dorcas conceded. "I got the piano from my uncle for my birthday. That was just before school started. I can read music and pick out tunes. But I didn't have much time to learn before coming here." There was a note of regret in her voice.

"Is your uncle a musician?"

She thought of her Uncle Lysander playing an instrument in a band. Although, she knew very little of him. She knew that this would have been an absurd profession for him. She knew Cal was thinking that she referred to her Uncle Morty.

"No. I have two uncles," Dorcas explained. "My Uncle Morty lives with me and my mum. My Uncle Lysander gave me the piano."

Cal nodded absorbing all of the information.

"So Uncle Lysander is your favorite because he bought you a piano," Cal summarized.

Dorcas laughed. "No. I don't really know him. He and my mother don't get on. But the piano was my grandmother's and he wanted me to have it."

"My mum's family is an old Wizarding family. Big scary house-two of them, actually. Full of old Wizarding family skeletons, I think. I don't know exactly what went on between them."

"What's the name? There are a bunch of old families here. You probably go to class with long lost family members."

Dorcas agreed. She did, in fact, attend school with relatives. Not long lost, just extremely distant.

"Rackharrow."

Cal's eyes went wide. "Oh."

"Yeah," Dorcas agreed.

"Gemma and Jonas?" Cal asked.

"Are cousins," Dorcas confirmed.

Gemma Rackharrow was a dark haired, green-eyed third year Slytherin and her younger brother Jonas looked just like her. He was in the same year as Dorcas. She had Defense Against the Darks Arts with him. They had never exchanged so much as a glance between them.

"We all have complicated family stuff," Cal said affably, putting the subject to rest. "Here you are," he added.

They stopped in front of the Ravenclaw entrance.

"Thanks for the company, Clerey," Cal said, handing her back the stack of books and her bag.

"I hope I see you around."

"Me too," Dorcas agreed, following another Ravenclaw inside.

:::

26 October, 1939 First Floor, Muggle Studies Classroom, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

It was an overcast morning and rain and sleet pelted the classroom windows. Dorcas was sitting in the Muggle Studies Classroom on the first floor off of the entrance hall during their morning break.

Dorcas might have been tempted to seek out her quiet nook in the library and her new study companion had it not been for their unsettling disagreement nearly a week ago. She had also resisted going on nighttime jaunts around the castle. She was curious about the secrets of the ancient Wizarding school that Tom had alluded to. But she was afraid of meeting him in the halls. She did not want to resume the argument that had driven her out of the library five days ago.

And, although she would fully admit to herself that she was being overly cautious, she had also developed a habit of ducking into the toilets in order to avoid passing him in the hall.

Sitting with Cherry and Anneliese at a table, they were amusing themselves by charming a feather into levitating and watching Bing chase after it excitedly across the table top.

"Do you think you like him, Cherry?" Anneliese asked.

The three were discussing Cherry's favorite subject, Darren Barton.

"Does a bowtruckle like doxy eggs?" was Cherry's cryptic response.

Anneliese and Dorcas exchanged a quizzical look. Dorcas shrugged, unable to make heads or tales of the statement.

Cherry rolled her eyes. "Yes, I do. I like him a lot."

The thing that Dorcas loved most about Cherry was that she was unafraid of anything. She was not intimidated to say exactly what she was thinking. Dorcas imagined what it would be like to possess such nerve.

Anneliese tugged her wand to the left, pulling the feather slightly out of Bing's reach.

Other students were gathered at tables in the classroom as well. The cold and wet conditions had kept the entire school indoors.

"I think we'll still have practice, even if this doesn't let up."

Dorcas heard Cal approaching their table. Without even looking over her shoulder, she knew that Darren was with him. This was indicated by Cherry smoothing the curls around her face and beaming at the boys as they drew nearer.

"We can't practice in a downpour," Darren was arguing.

Cal shrugged, taking the seat next to Anneliese.

Darren seemed to be in conflict. He had started to take the seat across from Dorcas, next to Anneliese. But Cal had beaten him to it. This left Darren no choice but to sit across from Cherry.

Cal winked and smiled at Darren. He seemed to have left Darren only the one option intentionally.

Darren sat down, returning Cal's look darkly.

"We need to get used to playing in all conditions," Cal reasoned.

Dorcas had learned that Cal and Darren were both the youngest members of Gryffindor's Quidditch team. Darren was a Chaser and Cal played Keeper. Dorcas had read up on Quidditch, another foreign word that she had gone to the library to investigate weeks ago.

It seemed as if Keeper was a position that typically required a player with a stocky build. Cal was tall and broad in the shoulders. She thought that this probably made him good at keeping Quaffels out of the goals. Darren was thinner and shorter. Dorcas had learned that this made him fast. She had not seen a match and therefore had no idea if either was any good at their positions, but she knew that they loved to talk about the sport obsessively.

"You should come to the practice, Clerey," Cal said, smiling from across the table. "You've never seen Quidditch, this will be a good introduction. You too Anneliese," he added.

As Dorcas was tired of hiding up in the Ravenclaw common room between class and dinner, she seriously considered the offer. She was weighing her excitement at seeing the sport played on broomsticks that she had read about against the probability of the rain and cold persisting throughout the afternoon when she heard another voice break into the conversation.

"Birdie, let's talk. Please stop avoiding me." It was Tom.

Dorcas jumped a little and looked over her shoulder. It sounded as if he was standing right behind her. She was stunned to see that he was actually about twenty feet from her, standing next to the open classroom door. Their eyes met across the room.

She turned back to the friends that were gathered around the table. Cherry was staring at Darren and he was reacting with a deep blush, not meeting her eyes. She had missed what was said. Looking at Cal and Anneliese, engaged in teasing Bing with the feather, this confirmed what Dorcas had suspected. Only she could hear Tom because he was speaking to her, mind to mind.

She looked back at the spot where Tom had stood. He was now gone from the room.

Conflicted, Dorcas thought about the intense exchange that they'd had in the library. She had played it out often in her mind. Would he really keep her quirk a secret? On the other hand, she had liked the friendship that they struck up briefly over the past few weeks. Did she expect to avoid him forever?

She felt she needed to clear the air. She would try being direct with him. She would explain exactly why she did not want to use her ability to prod through his thoughts or anyone else's. She would take a page out of Cherry's book and say exactly what she was feeling.

"Excuse me," she said to the group, standing and hanging her bag over her shoulder. She picked up Bing and left the classroom.

She walked into the corridor and looked both directions. She had no idea where he'd gone. Turning right on a whim, she stroked Bing and walked, looking at the knots of students loitering in alcoves and stairwells during the break.

"Birdie," Tom's voice called to her from behind a statue of a warlock in long robes trimmed with fur.

As she neared the statue, she could see a secluded spot between the marble plinth and the wall. It was just big enough to fit two people. Tom sat with a book open on his knees, his back against the wall.

Dorcas handed Bing to Tom, deposited her bag at the statue's base and sat down beside him. She placed her back against the plinth so that she faced Tom.

Scratching the kitten's ears absently, Tom stared at Dorcas.

She shifted uncomfortably.

"You heard me." It was not said as a question. Tom simply stated a fact.

"You knew I would."

"What did you see in the library? When you looked into my mind?"

"I didn't look into your mind, you forced your thoughts into my mind. There's a difference."

Tom seemed to be considering something for a long moment.

Dorcas was trying to arrange her words so that she could communicate precisely why she was upset with him.

Tom spoke first. "I'm sorry, Birdie." He laid a hand over her ankle. His touch was warm and gentle. "I understand now that it was wrong of me to push into your mind. I will never do it again. Please don't stop being my friend."

She could feel how sincere he was in his apology. She had set out to tell him how she felt. To be direct like Cherry. But he had beaten her to it.

Dorcas was relieved to have Tom fully understand what a violation it was to break into another person's consciousness. She was pacified by his heartfelt apology. She was moved to hear him call her friend.

"You are the only one who knows what I can do, Tom." There was a plea in her voice.

He gave her ankle a reassuring squeeze. "I already told you, all of your secrets are safe with me."

A comfortable silence fell between them. Then Tom began to whistle.

'On the Sunny Side of the Street', by Louis Armstrong.

Dorcas recognized the melody and began to hum along. She smiled. Tom returned her smile, then closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall.

A/N: Review are welcome and appreciated.