Author's Note: This chapter was slated to be posted this week as Chapter 14. On the advice of some writer friends, I've decided to add a new Chapter 1 that provides a more bookended feel to the story. If you haven't had a chance to read the new (short) first chapter, please do so. And leave a note to tell me what you think. Thanks for sticking with it!

Chapter 15

15 March, 1940 Third Floor Corridor, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Dorcas wasn't trying to avoid her friends, but she found that any time she was surrounded by a group of people, the conversation returned again and again to her accident.

She wished everyone would forget about it. She almost went as far as wishing that someone else could get hurt just to take some of the attention off of her. Then Dorcas would feel incredibly selfish and wicked and berate herself for her thoughts.

Teachers were cautious with her in class, telling her to sit out practicing spells if concentrating pained her head. Professors Maynard and Binns both insisted that Dorcas excuse herself from essays in Charms and History of Magic.

Her head of house, Professor Lin, asked to speak with Dorcas in her office just this morning after breakfast. Even though Dorcas did not take Arithmancy and had never spoken to the teacher, she insisted that Dorcas confide in her the true nature of her accident.

Dorcas was ready to forget the whole matter and thought that everyone else should forget it as well. It became frustrating to be asked the same questions, give the same answers, and receive the same skeptical looks over and over again.

Her head was pounding.

Avoiding others was made especially difficult this afternoon because the weather was bleak. Most students were spending their free time gathered in classrooms playing games. Those that were not in classrooms milled about in the halls.

Dorcas thought that the only place she may be able to escape the others was under the covers of her own bed. As she kept walking, the crowds thinned around the Divination corridor. Dorcas was fortunate to spot a small niche beneath the spiral stairs leading to the Astronomy classroom.

She dropped her bag on the floor beside her, curled her legs into her chest and placed her forehead against the cool stone of the wall. Closing her eyes, Dorcas was grateful for the quiet.

She may have dozed for a moment. She was awakened abruptly by a chilly breeze that wafted over her. Startled, she sat up and looked around.

A tall, ephemeral form drifted over her before noticing her on the ground. Dorcas recognized her as the Grey Lady of Ravenclaw Tower.

"My apologies," she said to Dorcas. "Students everywhere. No peace to be had at all!"

"I'm sorry to have invaded your quiet place," Dorcas said, reaching for her bag and standing at once.

"Be seated, child," the Grey Lady said, not unkindly. "I see you are looking for solitude as well."

"Yes," Dorcas said, sitting in the little niche beneath the stairs once more.

"You're in Ravenclaw House, are you not?" the ghost asked, surveying Dorcas's uniform for confirmation.

"I am," Dorcas answered.

The Grey Lady looked off down the corridor and then back at Dorcas. Her air of indifference slipped somewhat with this admission, as if Dorcas had become a modicum more interesting for her membership in the Grey Lady's house.

"You're the one I always see sneaking around with the beautiful Slytherin boy out of bounds," she said, her eyes narrowing on Dorcas.

Dorcas couldn't think of what to say. It was pointless to deny what the Grey Lady already knew to be true. If Tom were here, Dorcas was certain he would have objected straight away to being referred to as the "beautiful Slytherin boy".

The Grey Lady must have seen how wrong-footed Dorcas became at this realization. In the next moment she said, "You have no need to worry, poppet. I won't go telling Professor Lin on you. I keep my own council."

"Thank you," Dorcas managed, making it sound like a question.

"What's got you hiding out under the stairs?" The Grey Lady continued, seeming to warm to Dorcas.

"I wanted a break from people just now," Dorcas said, realizing this sounded rude. She blushed with embarrassment.

The Grey Lady didn't take offense. Instead, she nodded. "I know what you mean. The living can be very tedious. Anyone in particular you're avoiding?" She scanned the corridor again and looked back at Dorcas.

Dorcas was about to say no. But, she conceded that she hadn't had a conversation with Cal yet about her part in getting him into trouble with the headmaster. She'd had opportunities to apologize to him, but had not done it.

The Grey Lady nodded and looked at her fingernails, feigning boredom. "I see. You keep your own council as well. My unsolicited advice?" She looked at Dorcas, the directness of her gaze made her extremely intimidating.

Dorcas nodded, attending to her words carefully.

"Don't leave things unsaid that you must say," the Grey Lady finally entoned. "No one else can know your mind unless you speak it."

She wondered if the Grey Lady had a gift for sight similar to hers. She seemed to be looking directly into Dorcas's thoughts. Her face must have shown her surprise.

"Clerey, there you are," Cal said, coming down the corridor toward her and the Grey Lady.

The ghost of Ravenclaw Tower turned to Cal as he spoke. Then she turned back to Dorcas. Under her breath, so that Dorcas alone could hear her, she said, "My, my. Two beautiful boys. But you do have your hands full, Dorcas Clerey!" Her eyebrows raised at Dorcas in appreciation.

Dorcas opened her mouth to deny that either of the two were in fact hers. Her cheeks reddened and she closed her mouth.

Cal spoke instead.

"Excuse me, ma'am." He addressed the Grey Lady politely. Turning to Dorcas, he said, "May I have a word?"

"She's all yours." The Grey Lady bowed and moved off through the wall.

Cal waited a beat to be sure he and Dorcas were alone in the corridor. He sat, leaning against the wall next to her.

"Are you avoiding me?" Cal asked, his expression was one of worry.

Dorcas wasn't avoiding Cal specifically. She was avoiding anyone who might renew their interrogations of her memories.

"No," Dorcas said, not entirely truthfully. "I just don't want to answer any more questions about that night." She fiddled with the hem of her skirt so that she didn't have to look at him.

"Then I won't ask you any questions. I promise," Cal said earnestly.

"Actually, I want to apologize," Dorcas said after a pause. She wanted to take the Grey Lady's advice and speak her mind, to clear the air.

"For what?" Cal looked at her.

Dorcas's eyes flicked from her hands to his face only briefly before returning to her lap.

"For getting you mixed up in my accident," Dorcas rushed on. "I should have gone to the hospital wing the night before. But I didn't and since you brought me there, Madam Higgins suspected you."

"Oh," Cal was surprised. "Is that why you haven't been talking to me?"

Dorcas did not answer and did not look at him. She knew his sincere and open face would make her feel guilty if she saw it.

"Yes, I guess it is," Dorcas admitted. "Cherry told me that Professor Dippet questioned you. That Madam Higgins thought you'd hurt me."

Cal sighed. "Cherry shouldn't have said anything. It's all cleared up now. You have nothing to be sorry about."

Dorcas didn't feel any better for having been absolved.

Finally, Cal stood and offered Dorcas a hand up. She took it and he pulled her close to him.

"You can say anything at all to me, Clerey," he said, squeezing her hand. "I'm your friend and that's not going to change."

Dorcas couldn't find the words for a proper reply. She settled for a small smile instead.

Cal stooped to retrieve Dorcas's school bag. "Come on, let's find the others."

:::

25 November, 1957 Smith Residence, Chiswick, London

Dorcas and Cal had already carefully discussed the terms of using the Ex-Nebulae Elixir on Hokey. Cal's compliance was important.

Dorcas would not have Dumbledore using Cal to persuade her if she judged it too risky.

Yes, a killer might walk free. But Dorcas would not be a killer too. A killer again, she amended in her own mind.

She held her bag tight as she Apparated onto the front stoop of Hepzibah Smith's House. She had carefully packed it and repacked it. This was the only outward sign of her apprehension. Inside, Dorcas felt frantic. She felt that she was being asked to do the impossible. How had she become involved in a plot with Professor Dumbledore? Her professional curiosity had gotten the better of her, that's how.

In the lab in her basement last night, she and Cal mixed a special concoction just for Hokey. It was an extremely diluted elixir. One that Dorcas hoped, the weakened house-elf could tolerate reasonably and still be effective enough to burn off the false memory to reveal the truth. There were three phials of the doctored potion in her bag. She also had extra phials to collect the memories and three syringes for the application of the elixir. Sleeping Draught, Reviving Tonic, and Pepperup Potion for good measure.

Cal joined her on the stoop of the townhouse and knocked.

Thaddeus answered immediately, making Dorcas think of a Golden Retriever that was anxiously awaiting an expected guest. He showed them to the guest room where Hokey had been resting since her release from the Ministry.

Dorcas had watched the elf's transformation over the last few weeks hopefully. Hokey's recovery had been nothing short of remarkable. When she'd first seen Hokey at the Ministry, Dorcas believed her to be on the precipice of death. Now, she had to be restrained from resuming her household duties.

Cal crossed to the elf's bedside and began checking various vitals. He called them out to Dorcas; blood pressure, lung scan, reflexes. All benchmarks for proceeding with the experimental process were ticked off mentally by Dorcas.

Part of her didn't want Hokey to pass the screening. The house-elf was still old. The elixir was still unproven on a non-human being. Dorcas was nervous to carry out the task. Her nerves were made worse when Professor Dumbledore and Gideon Prewett walked into the room, having just arrived.

"Okay, Clerey," Cal said. "The patient's all yours."

Dorcas took Cal's place beside the bed. She laid out the items from her handbag on a tray that was sitting on the bedside table. As she prepared, she spoke to Hokey.

"Hokey, I'm so glad to see you looking so well. It pleases us all to know you're recovering."

Hokey looked at each face staring back at her and beamed at the praise. "Hokey thanks Miss Dorcas."

Dorcas looked to Cal, who had moved to the left hand side of the bed. She gave him a slight nod. At the gesture, he sat beside Hokey and held her hand, still burdened by the heavy Admonitor cuffs.

Dorcas took her right hand.

"Professor Dumbledore," Dorcas nodded in the professor's direction for Hokey's benefit, "knows that Hokey did not kill her mistress. He would very much like to know who your mistress's real killer is."

In anticipation of the blows that Hokey was sure to inflict on herself, Dorcas held her right hand and Cal held her left hand. Hokey thrashed ineffectually with her legs, but gave up when Thaddeus told her to stop.

"Hokey is a wicked elf," she said, feebly resisting her restraints.

"Hokey, you are the very best house-elf," Dumbledore spoke for the first time since entering. Though he may have meant the words sincerely, Dorcas could only hear flattery as a means to an end. It made her want to grind her teeth. She resisted looking at him.

"Hokey," Dorcas continued, hoping to cut off any more of Dumbledore's interference. "Will you consent to using this potion," Dorcas held up a syringe of the diluted mixture, "to uncover the truth about how your mistress died?"

Dorcas wished she didn't have to inject the poor creature. The house-elf's eyes grew as wide as saucers when she saw the needle.

She looked again to her master. "If Master Thaddeus wishes Hokey to do this, then she will."

Thaddeus, prompted by Dumbledore, answered, "Yes, Hokey. That is what I wish."

Dorcas placed her wand in her hip pocket. She saw Cal feeling the small wrist of the house-elf once again for her pulse. He began counting silently while he followed his wristwatch.

"Professor," Dorcas said, finally acknowledging her old teacher's presence. "If we can only retrieve one memory, which would you choose? Do you want confirmation of the killer, or the memory he altered of his meeting with Ms. Smith."

Dumbledore looked to Gideon. They silently debated in this glance.

Dorcas cut in.

"Understand. This is incredibly risky, what we're about to do. There are two memories at least that are altered. Do you want one or the other? If Hokey has an adverse reaction to the elixir, I will not try it a second time."

Gideon and Dumbledore looked at Dorcas and then back to each other. Gideon nodded in answer to a question that Dumbledore didn't ask.

"I would most like to have the memory of the conversation between the killer and Ms. Smith," Dumbledore finally answered. "But, Dorcas, it is vital that we gain as much intelligence as we can. Both memories are essential."

"They may be essential," Dorcas argued. "But they will not come at the expense of my patient."

"Dorcas," Gideon interjected for the first time since arriving. "She's my client. She's Thaddeus's house-elf."

Cal spoke from Hokey's other side. He'd listened to the exchange carefully and had remained silent until now.

"Hokey became Dorcas's patient the moment you asked for her help." Cal's voice was diplomatic, even passive, but authoritative at the same moment.

"Caleb-" Dumbledore began.

Cal cut him off, surprising Dorcas. "Professor, you've voiced your objections to me. I listened. But Dorcas is the expert in this matter. We must let her judgement be the best guide."

Without further argument, Dorcas turned back to Hokey.

"Hokey, close your eyes and imagine the evening when the visitor came to call on your mistress with the pink roses."

Hokey did as instructed. "I showed him into the parlor. My mistress was already waiting to receive him," the elf squeaked and recited the scene that was before her eyes.

Dorcas carefully placed the needle against the thin flesh of Hokey's bicep and inserted it into the muscle.

Hokey gasped but didn't open her eyes.

"Hokey," Dorcas instructed softly, setting the spent syringe on the tray and picking up an empty glass phial. "Now you're going to move the scene aside as if you're drawing a curtain back."

Hokey made to lift her left hand from Cal's grip. Dorcas nodded to him to release her. She made the gesture that Dorcas had described.

The house-elf's demeanor changed instantly. "I see the man. He's been to visit my mistress many times. His eyes flash red. He frightens Hokey."

Dorcas fumbled the phial and dropped it among the bed clothes, she was so nervous that her fingers of her right hand failed to grip the bottle. She retrieved it hastily and held her wand to Hokey's temple. She drew out a single silvery silken thread.

Tipping the memory into the phial, she stoppered it and placed it in her pocket.

Had she imagined the eager, even fervent look that passed over Dumbledore's expression? She brushed it aside.

"You may open your eyes and leave the memory."

Hokey became alert once more. Dorcas lifted her chin and looked into the bulbous eyes, studying their dilated pupils.

She looked to Cal.

"Heart rate is elevated, no more than normal considering what she probably saw."

"I think that's enough for tonight," Dorcas said, turning and handing a Sleeping Draught to Cal.

Dumbledore swept around to the side of the bed that Cal was on and placed a hand on his arm. "Just a moment, Healer Meadowes, Dr. Meadowes."

Cal and Dorcas paused. Gideon shifted from one foot to the other. Thaddeus looked at Dumbledore.

"Hokey did rather well, did she not?" the professor encouraged, staying Cal's hand before he could administer the potion that would cause the house-elf to nod off to sleep before any more memories could be retrieved.

"Yes," Cal replied. "But, it's prudent to study this memory in order to gauge the effectiveness of the elixir. We had to dilute it quite a bit considering Hokey's small frame."

Dorcas placed her wand into the pocket that held the newly gained memory, her palm flattened protectively over it against her hip.

Gideon spoke next. "You've proven that she can withstand the elixir's effects. We must have the memory of Ms. Smith's death." He looked to Thaddeus as an ally.

Thaddeus made no move to agree or disagree, keeping his eyes on the white sheet at Hokey's feet.

"A killer," the professor reminded Dorcas. "A killer is on the loose. Ms. Smith is only one in a string of murders. There will be more."

Dorcas shook her head in protest. "It will have to wait. We can retrieve the other memory tomorrow."

"I must insist," Dumbledore said finally.

His blue eyes were leveled at Dorcas. That stare made her feel eleven years old once more. She forgot her own training, her own expertise, her own research. She forgot her own agency. So insistent was the gaze that Professor Dumbledore leveled at her, she wanted to obey unquestioningly.

Dorcas looked to Hokey who stared back at her. She would indeed have said that the procedure was a success. She did not know yet what the quality of the memory in her pocket was. It could be complete rubbish, rendered ineffective by the weakness of the potion. She couldn't be sure.

"Hokey," Dorcas said. "Are you willing to try again to retrieve another memory?"

Her eyes flicked to her husband again in silent instruction. He secured Hokey's left hand and she held the elf's right.

The house-elf looked to her master once more. Thaddeus nodded his consent.

"Hokey," Dorcas instructed. "I want you to picture yourself in the kitchen downstairs making your mistress's evening cocoa."

:::

9 July, 1940 Galbraith Street, Poplar, London

Dorcas's first year at Hogwarts came to an uneventful end. As she had hoped, she became less of an object of interest over time, as other events eclipsed her accident in the Owlery. But she did not venture into the school corridors or out onto the grounds with Tom for midnight explorations anymore. She could not shake the fear that some far worse accident would befall her for sneaking around, even if she had a friend there with her.

Exams had approached quickly and given her the excuse of extra studying and the desire for a full night's sleep in order to avoid meeting Tom out of bounds. Cal had been briefly cast in suspicion for taking her injured to the hospital wing. She did not want Tom to face a similar inquisition if she were to fall again.

Dorcas tugged on the string that held a cumbersome box with a gas mask inside. Life had changed in Poplar since she'd left in September. This newest accessory was a testament to that fact. She looked around at all of the shop windows, taped with Xs across the panes in anticipation of shattering glass from bombings. Looking up, Dorcas could see the ominous barrage balloons floating above the East End as a deterrent to enemy aircraft.

Her other hand held fast to the hand of her uncle. Morty fidgeted with his own gas mask strung across his shoulder and chest. Dorcas knew that her uncle could not easily tolerate a change of routine or the introduction of a new item of clothing. The gas mask represented both. Dorcas was bracing for the scene that her uncle would inevitably make. But it was important for him to get out and experience things. His life wouldn't consist of the second floor flat on Strattondale and the tiny garden in the back. Dorcas would not accept that small of a world for him.

Today, she was taking him to the record store. They paused in front of Bell's Music and peered into the taped windows. Mrs. Bell was nowhere to be seen: a good sign. Another good sign: Dorcas had pocket money today. This was birthday money from her mother and her Uncle Lysander that she had saved for nearly a year in anticipation of this moment.

Bobby was behind the register and waved to her as she and Morty entered the shop. She pulled her uncle behind her as she made her way to the jazz section of records and plucked Henry Busse at random from the rows of records. She and Morty seemed to be the only patrons in the shop at that moment, another good sign. She made her way to the listening booths in the back, pulling Morty into the one on the far right with her. She placed the wax disk on the turntable and cued up the music.

The tune had the desired effect on Morty, he sat next to her and settled languidly onto the bench. After a time, he began to tap his feet to the music.

All I do is dream of you the whole night through

With the dawn I still go on and dream of you

You're every thought, you're everything

You're every song I ever sing-

Dorcas didn't know how long the rapping on the glass pane of the booth had been going on. She was wrapped up in the music, as she was wont to do in the little booth in the back of the record store. She stopped singing, embarrassed that someone might have heard her besides Morty, who was used to it. She turned expecting to find a cross Mrs. Bell ready to shoo her and her uncle out of the store.

"Tom!" Dorcas threw open the listening booth's door and stared wide eyed at her schoolmate and friend.

"Hi, Birdie," Tom said, smiling.

Besides running into Cal at the hospital at Christmastime, Dorcas had never experienced her school and home life colliding in this way. It was a surreal sensation to see her school friend outside of the context of Hogwarts.

"What are you doing here?" Dorcas asked, bewildered.

Tom's hands were in his pockets and he leaned against the booth that she and her uncle occupied. He shrugged.

"The same as you, I guess," Tom answered, still smiling. The look on his face told Dorcas that he was amused at her surprise.

Dorcas nodded. Stupid question. What else did one do in a record store?

"We're listening to Busse," Dorcas added, aware that the sound of the record was being amplified into the store with the booth's door open. Bobby looked in her direction.

She waved Tom into the cramped little booth so that she could close the door again. There was just room on the bench for the three of them. Dorcas was seated between her uncle and Tom. She realized in that moment, that she'd never mentioned Morty to Tom before.

"Tom," she said by way of introduction, "this is my Uncle Morty. He lives with me and my mother." She looked to her right where her uncle sat, trying to take his gas mask out of the box and put it on.

If she'd been alone with her uncle, she may have given him words of encouragement. It was important for Morty to try to negotiate the complicated apparatus on his own if an air raid should happen. But, Dorcas felt a conspicuous embarrassment at the odd behavior of her uncle because Tom did not know the particulars of his handicap. She placed a hand over the mask and lowered it from Morty's face.

"Morty," Dorcas persisted, "this is my friend from school, Tom."

"Hello," Tom said, extending a hand across Dorcas to her uncle.

Morty did not acknowledge Tom, instead he snatched his mask out of Dorcas's hand and put it on. Tom looked to Dorcas with a bemused expression and placed the hand he'd extended across her in his lap.

"I'm sorry," Dorcas apologized. "He's not very comfortable around new people."

Tom nodded and changed the subject. "Quite a welcoming party that London's throwing for Fritz."

Dorcas was awed by how casually Tom discussed an impending attack on their home. During the previous spring, Belgium, Holland, and finally France had fallen to the German enemy. May, Dorcas remembered, was an especially tense time, even as far removed from the war as Hogwarts was. Many students knew someone personally who was fighting in the war. When Dunkirk was evacuated, many letters came from family members telling students of relatives that were dead or missing. More names were added to the plaque in honor of the war dead outside of the Trophy Room. She remembered that Cal had received such news from his father that his brother's squadron hadn't returned from a mission over France and was presumed missing or dead.

When Dorcas, Morty, and Tom had listened to both sides of the Busse record they exited the booth.

Dorcas decided to purchase the record. The beats were varied and lively, just the kind of record she would be able to listen to over and over again. Tom and Morty waited for her by the door. She took her purchase from Bobby with a goodbye and left with her friend and her uncle.

She almost began to ask Tom what he had planned for the rest of his day when an air raid siren somewhere close by blared. Dorcas had never heard the sound before, but knew what it signaled immediately. She grabbed her uncle by the hand. He was still wearing the gas mask and this gave him an odd look of a half-human half-insect.

"Down here," Tom pointed to the Tube Station entrance. Others on the street were already racing down the stairs and into the Underground for shelter.

The pedestrians around them seemed to have taken part in drills before. Many calmly descended and sat on benches as if they were commuters waiting for the Underground on any normal day. Dorcas couldn't help but to feel thrown into a panic by the terrifying noise of the siren. She felt Tom take the record she was clutching and grab her other hand to lead her and Morty down the tiled stairway and onto the platform.

They found an isolated corner beside the stairs they had just descended and crouched there. Morty was scrabbling with his mask and pacing, resisting Dorcas's efforts to help him to sit quietly and wait for the all clear.

She felt Tom's hand squeezing her other hand. This reassured her that he was just as disconcerted about the sirens and what they portend as she was. Dorcas pulled Morty in next to her and projected a sense of calm outward from her own mind. Morty relaxed, his head against her chest. Tom also became still and less tense beside her.

She tried to think of some way to take Morty's mind off of the commotion of pedestrians fleeing the streets above them and the wailing of the siren.

"All I do the whole night through is dream of you," she began to sing. "With the dawn I still go on and dream of you. You're every thought, you're everything, you're every song I ever sing."

Tom joined her, adding his voice to hers. "All I do the whole night through is dream of you."

:::

25 November, 1957 Smith Residence, Chiswick, London

Dorcas looked to her partner. Cal was monitoring Hokey's blood pressure. When he was certain that Hokey was calm enough, he nodded for Dorcas to continue.

Dorcas injected the house-elf once more with the diluted Ex-Nebulae Elixir.

"Now, Hokey. Picture yourself sweeping the false memory aside, drawing back a curtain."

Hokey reacted differently this time. Instead of imitating the gesture that Dorcas suggested, she began to shake as if frightened by what she saw.

"Hokey," Dorcas fought to keep the edge of nervousness from her voice. She struggled to maintain a professional tone. "Hokey, it's just a memory. Nothing that you see can hurt you."

"Mistress!" Hokey squeaked loudly and began to convulse on the pillow that propped her up.

"Dorcas, the memory must be recovered," Dumbledore urged.

Dorcas turned to the carefully arranged tray of potions and instruments. Instead of retrieving an empty phial and siphoning Hokey's memory, she grabbed the Reviving Tonic instead. Gideon watched her movements and reached for her hand to take the potion from her.

In the struggle between the two, the phial shattered at Dorcas's feet.

Dumbledore moved closer to Cal, stood over him and urged him to take the elf's memory instead.

"Please stand back, professor," Cal said, brushing the request aside.

He was kneeling next to Hokey as the elf seized violently under the thin sheet, his hands trying to restrain her arms as gently as possible. Dorcas knew he did not want to break any of the elf's fragile bones, but the Admonitor cuffs were becoming dangerous to the creature.

"Hokey," Dorcas called, bending low over Hokey's face. "You can come out of the memory now."

Cal's right hand moved to his wand and he touched it to Hokey's temple. The house-elf settled. A faint trail of blood dripped from her nose and onto the pillow.

"She's breathing, but it's faint," Cal announced to the silent room.

Dorcas stooped to the ground to clean up the spilled potion and the shattered glass with her wand. She did this more as a precaution to keep herself from acting on the urge to scream at Gideon.

Gideon seemed to understand this and Dorcas saw his shoes stepping away from her before she heard his voice.

"Let's leave the healers to their work."

Dorcas took her time cleaning up the mess so that she didn't have to see the faces of the men as they left. She didn't trust herself to be professional at this particular moment. She only stood once the door was shut and she and Cal were alone with Hokey.

Cal was still using spell after spell to revive Hokey. The house-elf didn't respond to anything that he tried.

After a moment or two, Hokey's breathing became shallow and then stopped altogether. Placing the reassembled potion bottle on the tray, Dorcas bent over the elf once again.

"Hokey?" Dorcas called the elf's name.

Hokey's large round eyes were glassy and unfocused. Their cloudy blue irises stared at the ceiling.

"She's gone, Dorcas," Cal said in a low voice to his wife.

Dorcas reflexively plunged her hand into her pocket and grasped the phial with the memory she'd retrieved from the little house-elf. It was folly to try to extract it from her mind in the first place. Why had she consented to the first attempt, let alone the second one?

Dorcas stepped away from Hokey's bedside and stumbled over a chair behind her. She couldn't think of the proper thing to do next. Cal probably needed her to do something. If he'd made a request of her, she didn't hear it. Her vision became blurred and there was a loud humming in her ears.

She could only settle on one action. Retreat.

She crossed the room and flung the bedroom door open. Cal's voice calling her back sounded as if it came from several rooms away. Dorcas had no voice to respond to him.

On the landing, Dorcas came upon the trio of men that had vacated the room.

Thaddeus rushed to her. "Is Hokey going to be okay?" he asked her anxiously, mistakenly believing she was there to deliver an update on the elf's condition.

She pushed past him without a word.

Gideon caught her by the shoulder and spun her around. "What's happened, Dorcas.?"

"Don't touch me," Dorcas returned, her voice flinty and cold. She shook off Gideon's hand and flew down the final steps to the front door.

Dumbledore didn't speak at all, but watched all of this from a corner of the landing.

Dorcas had to get out of that house. She couldn't breath. The walls were closing in, the solicitous questions and hands of people pawing for her to do impossible things was too much.

She Disapparated once her foot hit the front stoop.

:::

10 July, 1940 Number 19 Strattondale, Poplar, London

Dorcas learned only after the siren ceased its wailing that it was just a test of the Air Raid Precautions civilian defenses. She, along with Tom and her uncle, and countless other Poplar residents sat for an eternity in the Underground waiting for explosions and rubble to fall on their heads.

She was relieved that her worst imaginings hadn't come to pass, but also frustrated that this was what life would be for the foreseeable future. Her nerves felt raw. She couldn't fathom the kind of disruption this had caused to her uncle's fragile grasp on reality.

When they emerged onto the street once more and saw that the city they had just fled from was unscathed, Dorcas breathed a heavy sigh and a prayer of thanksgiving. She pushed down the fear that the next time she had to flee at the siren's call, this would not be the sight that greeted her.

"Would you like me to walk with you?" Tom asked, perhaps interpreting her exhaled prayer as fear.

"No," Dorcas said, turning to him with a reassuring smile. "We're only a block from home."

Tom released her hand. He had been clinging to it since they fled the street twenty minutes earlier. Dorcas flexed her fingers. The sensation that his hand belonged there and now was missing held her attention curiously. Whatever disaster rained down on them, Dorcas felt she could face it better holding onto him than on her own.

He was staring at her fingers as they clenched and flexed. Perhaps he had come to the same realization that she just had. His face was unreadable at that moment.

Dorcas pulled her uncle to her side, as if his presence could make up for the sensation that she felt of being severed from one of her limbs.

"Take care of yourself, Tom," Dorcas said finally. It wasn't what she wanted to say. But she felt that she did not possess enough words in her lexicon to tell him exactly what she did want to say.

"You too," Tom answered, turning and walking in the opposite direction down Galbraith Street. Before placing his hands casually in his pockets again, Dorcas could have sworn that she saw the fingers on his left hand tense and flex the same way hers had.

Dorcas placed an arm around her uncle's waist and steered him in the direction of home.

Upon entering Number 19 Strattondale, Dorcas knew that things were different.

Her piano was missing.

Mary-Ellen sat at the kitchen table across from her older brother.

Morty immediately released Dorcas and raced across the parlor to his room, gas mask still on his face. Dorcas knew that he would not emerge until her Uncle Lysander had gone.

Dorcas closed the door to the flat and approached the pair, who looked as if they had been talking over a very serious issue. Dorcas thought about school. Had she gotten her marks on her exams back? Were they discussing taking her out of Hogwarts? Dorcas's mind flitted from one possibility to the next.

"Where's my piano gone?" was all she could think to say in reply to the serious faces that looked back at her.

"Dorcas," her mother said. "Please sit down."

She did as her mother bid without argument. She looked between her mother, who seemed to want to tell her something, but couldn't decide how to start, to her uncle, who looked at the table's surface instead of at her.

"What is it, mum?" Dorcas said, a sense of foreboding rising inside of her.

"Dorcas, your piano has been packed up along with the rest of your things and Morty's." Her mother's voice was shaking and a tear escaped the corner of her eye.

"You and Morty are coming to live with me," Uncle Lysander finished when Mary-Ellen seemed incapable of speaking further.

Dorcas looked to her mother to confirm this absurd statement. Her look must have been accusatory, because her mother took her hand and began apologizing.

"I'm sorry, my darling. It's temporary. You're not safe in London. Morty's not safe. It's only temporary." Mary-Ellen squeezed Dorcas's hand and wiped a tear from her cheek.

"Where will you go?" Dorcas asked. If they had to leave London, surely they would leave together. Dorcas could never accept saving herself while leaving her mother behind.

Mary-Ellen looked to Lysander and then back to Dorcas. "I have to stay, darling. I can't abandon my post at the hospital. With the war, I'll have more to do than ever."

Dorcas shook her head. "No," she replied simply, pulling her hand from her mother's grasp.

"You do not get to make that choice, I'm afraid," her uncle spoke to her with finality. She couldn't remember many times that he'd ever spoken to her directly. He was practically a stranger. And she and Morty were to be packed off to live with him? She didn't even know where his home was.

Dorcas didn't reply. She simply pushed her chair back from the kitchen table and fled to her room, just as Morty had done. Upon closing her bedroom door, she noticed that it had been completely stripped of any sign that it had once belonged to her.

:::

25 November, 1957 The Leaky Cauldron, Charing Cross, London

Dorcas didn't know why she'd Apparated to the Leaky Cauldron. It was just the first thing that popped into her mind when she'd fled the Smith's townhouse. She supposed she could have gone home. But part of her suspected that Gideon or Dumbledore might come there demanding the memory that was now in Dorcas's pocket.

She plunged her hand into the pocket and closed her fingers tightly around the little phial. She had no idea what the memory contained or who it implicated. She did not want to know. Part of her wanted to dash the little glass bottle onto the pavement and be done with the whole sordid business. But, she could not bring herself to destroy the last little bit of the house-elf that she'd worked to free and to keep alive.

Guilt rose like bile in her throat as she thought about the large glassy eyes that stared unseeing at the ceiling. She couldn't get Hokey's voice out of her mind, calling for her mistress in warning of a killer that she couldn't stop. But, Dorcas reasoned, if she didn't deserve to be plagued by the memory of her patient's final moments, who did? It had been her call to use the potion. Not once, but twice. No one else plunged that needle into Hokey's vein. It was her decision and her action that killed the little creature.

She was a killer.

She said the words aloud to herself. Not for the first time. Probably not for the last, either.

Pushing open the pub's doors, she strode to the bar. Tom the barman was, as always, wiping grimy glasses behind the bar.

He spotted her at the door, his eyes never leaving her.

"Bourbon," Dorcas said.

Tom set a glass on the bar and turned to grab the bottle of dark liquor behind him. He poured, renewing his stare, but saying nothing.

Dorcas threw some bills on the counter, thankful that she happened to have money in her pocket. The rest of her belongings were still in the Smith home, on the table beside Hokey's dead body. It was Muggle money, but she knew it was all the same to the barman.

"Leave the bottle," Dorcas said, wondering if she sounded comical uttering these very unladylike words.

Tom seemed to be the sort of man who'd heard it all and was surprised by very little.

Dorcas took the glass and drained it. She grabbed the bottle with the other hand and retreated to an empty table in the corner.

Pouring herself another, draining it, and repeating the actions, Dorcas began to make an assessment of her successes and failures on the road of good intentions she'd been walking.

She'd gotten into healing, specifically work with Spell Damage and Compulsory Operational Curses, because of the treatment her Uncle Morty had received from misguided healers at Wingate Institution when he was a child. The damage that those spells wrought on his mind was devastating. She never got the opportunity to help him; to find out if it was even possible to help him. But she was asked to help Hokey and had ended up killing the tiny elf. So, in the end, was it better to be helped by her? Or to be left well enough alone?

Pondering her own existential puzzle, she poured herself another drink.

"What are we drinking to?"

Dorcas stopped mid-pour and looked at the person who was intruding on her pity party for one.

Tom Riddle stood close to her table, a half smile on his face, which quickly fell when Dorcas looked at him.

She finished pouring and downed the ounce of brown liquid, kicking a chair out toward him with her foot.

"To losing a patient," Dorcas said darkly.

Tom gestured to the barman, who brought another glass. Tom placed his hat on the table in front of him and sat.

"Well, damn," Tom said, pouring Dorcas another and then one for himself.

He drank and studied her. She looked anywhere but at him.

"I'm sure it happens every once in a while," Tom reasoned.

"Not in my particular field," Dorcas argued. She poured and they drank.

"I don't know much about your work," Tom said, tracing a finger along the lip of his glass. "But I do know you."

He looked directly at Dorcas and she stared back.

His hand moved from his glass to take hers as it rested on the table. With his other hand, he moved the bottle out of her reach.

"What do you know about me, Tom?" Dorcas challenged.

Twelve years was a long time. Neither of them were the same person they had been at Hogwarts. Maybe once, he had been the person she'd known the best. Maybe once they had loved each other. But twelve years was a long time.

"You're not a quitter. If someone needs your help, you'll give it." He said this in such a matter of fact tone, it left no room for argument.

"You're a fighter. You don't think you're brave enough. But you'll risk your own neck to save someone else. You risked your neck for me."

Dorcas recalled the time that Tom was referencing. Even now, thinking about how he had almost died, sent a chill down her spine.

"And you love more fiercely than anyone else I have known," Tom said, squeezing her fingers gently to emphasize his point.

"So you lost a patient today." He shrugged. "How many more have you saved? If my life were in the balance, and it has been, I would bet it all on you, Birdie."

He placed his hat back on his head as if to punctuate his statement, picked up the bottle of bourbon and returned it to the bar. Dorcas watched his movements dully, numbed by alcohol.

Tom removed his coat and placed it around Dorcas's shoulders.

"Now come on, Birdie. I've got to get you home. It's the gentlemanly thing to do," he added, pulling her to her feet and supporting her slightly as she swayed. They left the Leaky Cauldron for the bitter wind on Charing Cross.

A/N: Reviews are welcome and appreciated.