Chapter 16
25 November, 1957 Watermead, Aylesbury
Dorcas entered her home and quickly closed the door behind her. Her mind was clouded by drink and in complete disarray. She took a moment to lean against the door to steady herself.
"Dorcas! You're back," Theresa said, a note of relief in her voice.
"Yes," Dorcas answered. Without saying more, she crossed to her office and closed the door behind her. She needed to be alone.
Sinking to her patient couch, she placed her head in her hands and tried to process the events of the last few minutes.
She remembered leaving the grimy little pub with Tom after having...she couldn't remember how many drinks. He was taking her home. But they made it only as far as a nearby alley before his manner changed.
When they had been sharing a few drinks, Tom had been an understanding and encouraging friend once more. He was his old self. The boy that Dorcas had fallen in love with all of those years ago.
But then, something changed when they'd stepped only a few paces into Muggle London. She remembered Tom taking her by the hand and leading her to a small side street containing some rubbish bins and stacks of crates. He became a different person in an instant, more forceful and insistent. His hands had grabbed her waist and held her against a brick wall. He pressed against her, pinning her there. One hand traced the curve of her hip, as he bent close to her and brushed his lips against hers.
Dorcas turned her head to the side, denying him the opportunity to complete the kiss. She reached out and stopped the progression of his wandering hand. Shoving outward with all of the frustration she felt, she threw him off.
"Tom, no," she gasped.
"Birdie," Tom said, his voice low and enticing. He stepped toward her again.
Dorcas didn't give him a chance to explain, if explain was what he intended to do. She wouldn't stick around to find out. He may not wish to explain at all. She wouldn't be sticking around for that either.
She Apparated home without another word. Going home is what she should have done in the first place.
Dorcas retraced the conversation they'd had in the Leaky Cauldron in her mind. Had she given him the impression that she was looking to rekindle their schoolhood romance? She couldn't remember the exact words they'd exchanged, but she was pretty sure they were not reminiscing about the more amorous nighttime outings they'd had together. She certainly hadn't given him the impression that she was looking to continue that amour. She was fairly certain.
Why had she tried to drink an entire bottle of bourbon?
Hokey came back to her mind in answer. She stuck her hand under the overcoat that was still flung over her shoulders. Reaching into the pocket of her trousers, she pulled out the small phial with the swirling silver memory inside. She clutched the bottle to her chest like a precious relic and tipped sideways onto a cushion.
She pulled Tom's coat around her and sank into oblivion, hoping not to remember any part of this day when she awoke.
:::
A persistent pounding in Dorcas's head brought her back to the land of the living. When she opened her eyes, she noticed light streaming through the windows.
Once she'd had a moment to focus, she noticed Cal sitting across from her, in her chair. Is that how she stared at her patients when she analyzed them? She was distinctly uncomfortable.
"You know the cure for a hangover?" he asked.
"Death?" Dorcas asked. Her tongue was like cotton in her mouth.
She sat up and Cal poured her some coffee.
"Whose coat is that?" he asked, handing her a steaming cup.
Reaching for the coffee, she noticed for the first time since nodding off that she was still clutching the memory. She set it reverently on the table in front of her.
Sipping the warm beverage gratefully, she answered, "Tom's."
Cal's eyebrows raised. "You saw Tom?"
Dorcas swallowed. It was understandable, the way Cal reacted to the name.
"Not on purpose," Dorcas explained. "I was perfectly fine drinking on my own."
Cal sat up, more alert to her explanation than she thought he would be.
"Did he seek you out? Did it seem like he was looking for you?"
"What?" Dorcas felt her head pounding. She couldn't take an interrogation on a hangover. "I was at the Leaky Cauldron. He works down the street. I don't think he ran into me on purpose."
"What are you going to do with that?" Cal asked, introducing a new line of questioning.
Dorcas took another fortifying sip of coffee, grateful for the change of subject. She had the distinct impression that the previous topic was not finished, but that Cal was letting it rest for the moment.
"I don't know," Dorcas said, eyeing the glass bottle filled with the last of Hokey's consciousness. A wave of sadness came over her and her eyes brimmed with tears. "I don't know if I can look at it. And yet, what reason did we have for making that poor house-elf suffer if I don't look at it?"
"Dumbledore asked-" Cal stopped mid sentence and seemed to think about what he was about to say. "Dumbledore insisted that I find you last night and get that memory from you."
Dumbledore. The name made Dorcas's blood boil. If he hadn't demanded she recover both memories-
Dorcas shook her head. As much as she wanted to make Dumbledore the object of her anger, she knew the decision ultimately rested with her. She could have defied her old teacher and refused to retrieve the second memory until she had been sure that Hokey could tolerate the elixir.
"He's not getting the memory," Dorcas said flatly.
"I told him you'd say that," Cal said on a sigh, leaning back in the chair.
:::
10 July, 1940 Blackpool Abbey, Upper Flagley, Yorkshire
Dorcas felt completely abandoned as she stepped through the imposing doors of her uncle's estate in Yorkshire. Save for Bing, buttoned up protectively inside of her cardigan, Dorcas was the only member of Number 19 Strattondale that was packed up and shipped off. Morty flat refused to go, his tantrum turning into an outright fit of seizures only moments before their departure.
Dorcas believed it may have been the first time that her Uncle Lysander had witnessed the traumatic effects that a year at Wingate had wrought on his youngest sibling. Even now, he still seemed shaken by what he'd just seen. His capitulation was only extended to Morty.
"Give him a week to get used to the idea and then I'll come and retrieve him, or you can bring him here if you think it best," Lysander had said to Mary-Ellen, his usually stern and commanding voice held a wavering quality that Dorcas found irreconcilable with her notion of him.
And so, she was the lone refugee stepping through the doors now into an alien world of manor houses, servants, dressing gongs, and a million rituals that made an idle life appear meaningful. Dorcas tried to swallow past the knot she felt in her throat and reminded herself that she need only to bide her time for two months and then she would be back at Hogwarts.
A small creature was standing in the lofty entryway, ready to take Lysander's hat and coat. The creature had large round ears, protruding amber eyes, and a wrinkled forehead. It wore a crisp white tea towel tied over one shoulder. Dorcas had read about creatures like the one standing before her. It was a house-elf.
"Thank you, Gimlet," Lysander said to the creature, who bowed low and sent the coat and hat flying lightly onto a waiting coat rack.
The house-elf looked expectantly at Dorcas. She didn't have anything that needed removing and so stared at the elf, unsure of what to do. Bing poked his head out from the neck of Dorcas's cardigan and hissed, causing the elf to stumble backwards.
"Where is Mrs. Rackharrow?" Lysander asked the elf, rendering a response from Dorcas unnecessary.
"In the east drawing room, sir," Gimlet said in a direct and confident, albeit squeaky voice.
"Tell my children I would like to speak with them there, please."
The elf bowed low and disappeared with a small pop.
Lysander turned to walk away in what Dorcas assumed was the direction of the east drawing room. She watched his retreating back, wondering what she should do.
"Dorcas, come," Lysander called over his shoulder.
Feeling for all the world like a stray dog that was in need of training, Dorcas followed Lysander out of the entrance hall.
The east drawing room was twice as large as the entire London flat that Dorcas had grown up in. Though she hadn't been mistaken when she heard Gimlet refer to this space as a drawing room, it had none of the cozy features that Dorcas would have associated with a space with that designation. It had couches and chairs and tables, but that is where the term sitting room diverged from Dorcas's understanding.
It was a formal room with dark paneling along the bottom one-third of the wall. Above the chair rail was a navy blue damask wall papering that was covered at regular intervals with massive oil paintings of dour-looking witches and wizards. All of these, Dorcas assumed, were relations of hers. She thought she could make out two or three paintings that were reminiscent of Reynolds or Gainsborough.
Seated demurely in front of a tea service was a blond woman, dressed in a fine silk tea dress of lilac. The woman openly appraised Dorcas as she entered the room behind her uncle. Dorcas resisted the urge to fidget nervously under the hawkish gaze. She wanted to smooth her plaited hair, or straighten her simple cotton dress. Instead, she kept her hands over the squirming lump under her cardigan and looked at her shoes.
"Dorcas," Lysander said, turning to her. "This is my wife, your aunt, Eden."
Dorcas looked up and met the cool gaze of her aunt. "Hello," she managed to say without tremor.
"Hello, Dorcas," Eden returned. "Your things have been arranged in the blue room on the second landing. I have had Tooey lay out something appropriate for you to change into. Then you can join me here for tea."
Dorcas didn't say anything to these instructions. She was not at all confident that she would be able to find a blue room or a second landing. She was absolutely sure she didn't know what a Tooey was. It was as if she had landed on another planet where the language and customs were strange to her. It was not unlike the sensation she'd had when first arriving at Hogwarts. The comparison heartened her slightly. Hadn't Hogwarts become a place that she felt at home and completely herself? Why shouldn't this country estate turn out to be the same?
Her mental pep talk was interrupted when the door opened behind Dorcas and a tall girl with carefully arranged dark hair wearing a light blue organza dress entered. Dorcas had seen her at school. This was Gemma. On her heels came her younger brother, Jonas. Dorcas had spoken to him occasionally in the classes that they shared.
Though they looked very similar, dark hair and green eyes, Jonas seemed the opposite of his sister in temperament. She walked across the room with a haughty and self-possessed air, not looking at Dorcas once. When Jonas saw her, he immediately smiled at her in recognition before standing next to his sister's chair.
"Gemma, Jonas," Lysander addressed his children. "This is Dorcas, your cousin. She is staying with us for the summer."
"Hello, Cousin Dorcas," Gemma said with a smile that did not reach her eyes. "You are most welcome." She lifted her teacup to her lips with a stare that communicated the opposite to Dorcas.
Dorcas shifted from one foot to the other. Bing wriggled under her cardigan and poked his head out of the collar.
"I've seen him at school," Jonas said, crossing the room and standing inches from Dorcas to scratch Bing behind the ear. "I didn't know he was yours."
Dorcas held Bing with one hand and clumsily undid the buttons of her cardigan with the other, releasing him. She handed him to Jonas, whom Bing appeared to recognize as a friend.
"This is Bing," Dorcas introduced the two.
"I call him Ratter," Jonas said, taking Bing and stroking the cat under the chin affectionately. "He's always in the dungeons hunting."
"It's lovely to see that you two are already acquainted," Eden said, sipping her tea with the same communicative stare as her daughter's.
Lysander turned to Jonas and Dorcas, "Son, show Dorcas where her room is, please."
"Sure," Jonas replied, turning to leave the sitting room with Bing. Dorcas followed, relieved for the opportunity to retreat from her aunt and Gemma, who continued to stare.
"Give the cat to Tooey so that it can be bathed," Eden called as they left the room. "I abhor fleas."
:::
30 November, 1957 Watermead, Aylesbury
Dorcas was never without that little bottle of Hokey's swirling silver memory. She carried it with her everywhere she went. But she couldn't bring herself to do something with it. She couldn't look at it, she couldn't give it away, and she couldn't destroy it.
Like the memory, she carried the guilt of her decision to use the untested solution on the house-elf. She took it with her everywhere.
Dorcas hadn't slept in four days. The bourbon had helped her forget for a moment, but that had invited a different sort of trouble into Dorcas's life. She would not turn to alcohol again in order to reach a peaceful oblivion.
Surprisingly, Cal had not returned to the conversation about Tom. Dorcas was not going to remind him of it. It was better to forget things that might have happened. It wouldn't do to dwell.
Dorcas was still seeing patients at home and alternately at the hospital. It helped to keep her from sinking too much into self doubt.
"Come to the park with us?" Theresa asked, after showing Dorcas's last patient to the door.
Dorcas stood in the doorway of her office. Reflexively, she was about to answer no. But the bracing fall air would be a nice change of atmosphere. She helped Wren into a coat and threw her own over her shoulder. The park was a block away. They probably wouldn't be gone too long.
Theresa was fastening the buttons on Billy's coat as Dorcas pinned her hat to her hair.
They settled on a bench near the sandbox. This was a favorite spot for Theresa and the children. She had a clear view of the pair when they built castles and creatures in the sand. There were few people about this afternoon, as it was getting colder with the setting sun.
Dorcas breathed deeply, stinging her lungs, and closed her eyes. Instinctively, her hand rested on the little bottle in the pocket of her trousers.
"You're going to feel better soon," Theresa said.
Dorcas opened her eyes, but didn't look at the woman on her left. Her only reply was a great sigh. She knew Theresa was right.
"You helped me to find answers and get closure," Theresa said. "I know you were trying to do the same thing for the patient you lost."
Dorcas blinked. She wanted to point out to Theresa that the two cases were very different. But the more she thought about it, the more similar Hokey's situation seemed to Theresa's.
"You're going to help Gideon stop another killer. Like you helped him to stop Steven," Theresa continued.
"He's still out there," Dorcas pointed out. Immediately she regretted her callousness. Theresa felt the threat of his evasion of the authorities every day without Dorcas's help.
"Yes," Theresa countered. "But the authorities are looking for him. He can't hide forever. And once you look at that memory, another killer will be exposed."
Dorcas reached into her pocket and pulled the memory out. She and Theresa sat in silence and looked at it for a moment or two.
"You know what to do, Dorcas," Theresa encouraged.
"I suppose you're right," Dorcas agreed, returning the bottle to the safety of her pocket.
They watched in silence a little longer while Billy and Wren built a castle and then rampaged over it, smashing it into dust once more.
With twilight coming on, Dorcas supposed it was time to walk back to the house. She was just about to voice this when she saw a man approaching them. As he neared, she could make out the familiar figure of Gideon Prewett.
Dorcas narrowed her eyes. She was surprised it had taken him four days to reach out to her. She steeled herself for another argument about the memory. Theresa had just convinced her of the rightness of looking at the contents of the little phial in her pocket. She was not going to release it to Gideon or to Dumbledore until she had done just that.
"Hello, Gideon," Theresa called as he neared.
"I'm glad I found you," Gideon said in a rush. He was breathing heavily, the look on his face suggested he had been worried about something. Dorcas couldn't think what could have him so bothered.
"Counselor," Dorcas said, standing and looking at him with a cautious expression. "Has something happened?"
"Fabian was tipped off to a breaking and entering case that was just phoned in to the Muggle Police," Gideon explained as Theresa pulled the children from the sandbox, dusting off their hands and knees.
"A break in?" Dorcas asked. She was confused. Perhaps it had to do with Steven Muybridge.
"Yes, Dorcas," Gideon replied. "At your house."
:::
16 August, 1940 Blackpool Abbey, Upper Flagley, Yorkshire
Dorcas had been at Blackpool Abbey for over a month and found, much to her disappointment, the adjustment had been nothing like when she came to Hogwarts.
She'd acclimated herself to her new environment the only way she knew how, to research everything that she didn't know. To that end, she sought out the home's library on her second day there. This library, like Hogwarts, had all sorts of books on an array of topics. Unlike Hogwarts, there was no Restricted Section and even the most disturbing information was at Dorcas's fingertips. She was not picky about the books that filled her days, she learned about Divination, Arithmancy, and even a fair amount about the Dark Arts.
The library at Blackpool provided a sufficient source for distraction and Dorcas came here most days. The only drawback to seeking refuge in the library was that her uncle was often here as well. Dorcas's scheme to keep out of sight was to get to the library immediately after breakfast and hurriedly climb the wrought iron spiral stairs to the second floor of bookshelves. She could hurriedly select a book and retreat to a corner before her uncle ever entered the space.
Dorcas's days were spent mostly in this solitary manner in the library or out upon the grounds of the estate. Apart from Jonas, none of her other family members attempted to seek her out or to talk to her.
Shortly after finding the library, Dorcas had discovered where her piano was being kept. There was a room adjacent to the library that Tooey the house-elf referred to as the music room. Although, if the piano hadn't been installed here, Dorcas would have very much doubted that designation as there was not another instrument to be found there.
Dorcas had been pleased to find out that Tooey knew how to play the piano as well. When she'd taken Dorcas to the music room to be reunited with her instrument, Tooey lovingly patted the glossy black wood of one of the legs and talked to the piano about how much she missed him. Dorcas felt a kinship to Tooey, thinking about the piano as a friend as well.
When Tooey had assured Dorcas that all other members of the house were out of hearing, Dorcas sat down and played her grandmother's favorite tune, Fantasia in C Minor. Tooey climbed up onto the bench with her and accompanied her.
Tooey explained that she had been taught by the master's mother how to play. But she squeaked regretfully that her fingers did not reach many keys at once and her arms were short.
Not wanting to invite the ire of her aunt, Dorcas played only seldomly when she could be assured by Tooey that no one was occupying the rooms closest to her.
Dorcas wanted to play the instrument now. But she was ensconced on the second floor shelves of the library with a grim book spread in her lap. It was a leatherbound volume called Crux Anima Bodhi. It felt and smelled centuries old and contained some of the most sinister magic that Dorcas had ever encountered. She'd picked it up because the author's name on the spine caught her attention: Urquhart Rackharrow. He must have been an ancestor to Dorcas.
She was disturbed and fascinated at the same time about the Dark Magic that the book described. Rackharrow, it seems, was the very worst sort of person. His life's work seemed to have centered around spells and curses that inflicted ghastly damage upon his victims. Dorcas was reading at this very moment, Rackharrow's own account of developing an Entrail-Expelling Curse. Dorcas naively wondered why one would want to expel one's own entrails, until she realized that Rackharrow had meant to use it on others. And use it, he did. He detailed his own exploits with the curse. He became famous on the battlefields of Europe for gutting his enemies.
There were illustrations.
Dorcas flipped past these quickly. Another trio of curses caught Dorcas's attention. They were known collectively as Fabrilia Caligo, the Dark Tools. Rackharrow lived in a very uncertain time for wizards and witches in Europe. It wasn't uncommon for the magical folk of the seventeenth century to develop spells and curses in order to protect themselves and their communities from Muggles who sought to eradicate them. However, Dorcas could not account for the malice of the spells that this Rackharrow ancestor created. They were far more than defensive, they were pernicious in the extreme.
One spell controlled the mind, one spell tricked the mind into self-torment, and one spell shut the mind off completely as if snuffing out a candle. Dorcas was familiar with these spells from her Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook. Although Professor Merrythought had not covered them in class, Dorcas had read about them. They were known collectively in the twentieth century as the Unforgivable Curses. They were named so because to use them meant to eschew any legal defense and immediate imprisonment.
She sat for a moment with the information that her ancestor had created such injurious incantations. She had, of course, read about other dark wizards, but never dreamed that she was descended from one of the darkest by his own account.
Flipping the pages brought more and more disturbing discoveries. A spell that instantly flays one's victim, a curse that makes one's blood boil-literally, a combination spell-and-potion that requires the taking of another's life in order to guarantee that your own is never forfeit. She closed the book wishing that she'd never taken it from the shelf.
:::
Dinner in the Rackharrow household was always a formal affair. This was the sort of place where people "dressed for dinner". Which meant that every evening, Dorcas was forced to don some awful evening gown that had once belonged to her cousin Gemma. They were always much longer and more snug across the bust than Dorcas would have preferred. Tooey was a very capable seamstress and always made the garments seem tailor made for Dorcas in the end. She was also forced to forego her customary plaits for a more refined coiffure similar to her Aunt Eden's and Cousin Gemma's hair. In other words, Dorcas had to transform into a completely different person altogether in order to dine among her Yorkshire relations.
At the dinner table Dorcas tried mightily to tune out what her aunt and Gemma were thinking. The first night's dinner was filled with unspoken ridicule. Dorcas nearly forgot how to use utensils, so disconcerting were the remarks she'd heard in her aunt's mind. No doubt, her clumsy fumbling with knife and fork only added fuel to the fire. Never in her years growing up on London's East End had she ever felt as inferior to others as she had at this table.
Now she could look the part and act the part of high society, but inside she felt like a fraud. She didn't recognize the person she saw in the mirror when she surveyed her evening appearance before going downstairs. But that was the price of acceptance. And Dorcas wanted to belong somewhere.
If only Morty had decided to come with her. But that was a selfish thought. When she reflected on what a torment it was for her living here, she knew full well that her beloved friend and uncle would not have thrived here. She was fearful every day for her mother and Morty, wondering if bombings had made life in London precarious. And at the same time, she desperately wished she were in her own Poplar flat with them, even if it meant air raid sirens and bombings.
She had her cat, her cousin Jonas had been friendly to her, and her friends wrote to her now and again. Cherry gave her three pages full of details about her shopping trip to Muggle department stores in London for her birthday last month. Anneliese had corresponded about assigned work for the summer and about Hollywood gossip. Even Cal had written to Dorcas. The news he'd shared in his letter came as a relief to Dorcas, for his brother, who had been missing in action since the evacuations at Dunkirk, had been found in a field hospital not far from the Dover base where he'd trained. Tom had even written to her of a Muggle circus he'd visited in Notting Hill where he'd asked around with the name Marvolo. He hadn't gotten anywhere, but was hopeful as this confirmed for him that his parents (at least one of them) were magical.
Dinner conversation was muted and polite. This often allowed Dorcas's mind to wander without much impediment. But, she was sometimes caught out when she came back to reality and saw four pairs of eyes looking expectantly to her for an answer, as they were doing now.
"Dorcas?" Her uncle held his wine glass halfway to his lips, staring at her.
She snapped back to the present, wishing she'd heard the question that was voiced moments ago. "Yes?"
She reddened as Gemma's tinkling laugh of amusement confirmed that she'd missed something.
"I asked if you have finished the assignments that you were set for the summer by your teachers," her uncle asked her patiently. His eyes flicked to his daughter who sat across from Dorcas and gave her a reproachful look.
"Sorry," Dorcas answered. "Yes, sir. I have."
"Jonas," his father's eyes moved to his son, seated on his left next to Dorcas. "You would do well to follow Dorcas's example. I was not pleased in general with your marks this year."
"Yes, sir," Jonas said, his eyes on his plate where he made a study of cutting up his food into tiny pieces.
Dorcas wanted to come to the defense of her only ally at the table and was prompted to speak up, something she had avoided doing in the presence of her family until now.
"I can help you, Jonas. It's really simple once you get started."
Her uncle smiled, which in turn made her aunt narrow her eyes.
"A kind offer," Lysander said, sipping his wine again. "What do you say, son?"
"Thank you," Jonas said, not taking his eyes off of his plate.
"Did you receive a letter from Evlyn today?" Aunt Eden redirected the conversation to Gemma and her steady boyfriend and Seeker on the Slytherin Quidditch team, Evlyn Rosier. Her aunt's tone made it plain that she thought highly of Gemma's beau.
Dorcas knew very little of the Slytherin, except for what she saw on the Quidditch pitch. He was an underhanded player. When he was not busy looking for the snitch, he amused himself by earning penalties for injuring his opponents.
Gemma brightened at the mention of Evlyn and started to answer her mother animatedly but was cut off by her father.
"You should worry less about which boys write to you and more about your studies, Gemma," Lysander said, setting down his fork and knife and directing his stare in her direction.
Gemma rolled her eyes. Dorcas got the impression that this was a common refrain from her uncle when boys were mentioned.
She paid no mind to her father and answered her mother. "He's invited a group of pals to his place in Brighton. It will be the event of the summer, mama. I will be expected to go, of course."
"Of course," Eden agreed, looking very excited on behalf of her daughter.
Jonas made a noise under his breath that he quickly covered with his napkin. Sitting next to him, Dorcas could make out "moron" quite clearly. She laughed a little and covered it with a cough.
:::
30 November, 1957 Watermead, Aylesbury
Dorcas surveyed the smashed cabinet and the shattered phials containing dozens of memories from as many patients. Files and notes were scattered on the floor.
Gideon and Theresa were in the sitting room with the children.
Thankfully, the rest of the house seemed untouched by the intruder. The basement was protected with multiple enchantments. It was likely that whomever had broken in was unaware of the lab's existence. Dorcas was grateful for that. The loss of the collected life's works of Dorcas and Cal, the potions they'd invented, the recipes that they'd painstakingly perfected. That would be catastrophic.
The loss of the memories, soaking into the rug at her feet were devastating. But they could be replaced if it became necessary to her work. Most of the glass phials were from previous patients. Ones that Dorcas had helped through their trauma, completed their recovery.
"Are you sure it was Muybridge?" Dorcas aked.
Auror Prewett answered from somewhere behind her. "No, I'm not."
"How did you know it had happened?"
"I've got the local police department's phones charmed. I've been scanning calls for weeks now. Of course, if Muybridge had tried to break in while Theresa or her son were here, we'd have caught him. He can't come near them without the DMLE being on him immediately."
Fabian said this last with regret. Dorcas was thankful that none of them were home when Muybridge...or whomever, had busted through the front door.
"Your neighbor, Mrs. Peake, phoned it into the station." He continued his careful circuit of the office. "Anything missing so far as you can tell?"
"I don't know if taking was the object of the intrusion," Dorcas said, bending to pick through the shards of glass and the silvery pool on the rug.
"Muybridge has to know that copies of Theresa's memories exist," Fabian said, thinking out loud. "Why take such a risk? He must know your house is being monitored."
Dorcas waved her wand and the broken phials knitted themselves back together, although the memories they once contained were a lost cause.
"Scourgify," Dorcas thought and pointed at the mess on the rug, which vanished. She placed all of the mended bottles into wooden stands and placed them on her desk for cataloguing. She began arranging the scattered papers and files on her desk.
:::
1 December, 1957 Watermead, Aylesbury
Dorcas lay in bed staring at the ceiling. The sound of Cal's steady breathing next to her usually did the trick, but tonight was yet another night that she couldn't get to sleep. She tried to tell herself that she was just jumpy from the break in earlier. But, Dorcas's mind kept returning to the little phial of silver, misty liquid on the nightstand next to her. She turned her head and watched its faint glow.
What if she'd left that memory with the others instead of obsessively carrying it with her? What if the last ounce of Hokey's consciousness were mingled with the others in that pool of spent memory? She would never be able to recover another. She felt a sense of urgency about what was in that phial.
Throwing back the covers and finding her bathrobe, Dorcas padded quietly from the bedroom and to her office with the memory clutched tightly in her palm. Everything had been returned to normal. The only evidence as to the home invasion that had taken place were the empty phials standing in wooden racks on her desk.
Dorcas pulled the Pensieve and the jar of grayish white smoking liquid from the cabinet. Both of these items were mercifully spared destruction. She placed these items carefully on the coffee table beside the patient's couch. She poured the gray mist into the Pensieve and uncorked Hokey's memory. Bracing herself, Dorcas touched her face to the swirling liquid and felt the familiar falling sensation.
She fell gently into the sitting room of Hepzibah Smith.
:::
Dorcas shuddered. The last time she'd been in this home, the house-elf she'd sworn to help had died under her care.
She followed the small creature into the entryway of the Chiswick townhouse.
Shoving aside the image of Hokey lying motionless on the crisp white sheets of the enormous four poster bed upstairs, Dorcas focused on the still living elf of memory.
Hokey reached for the doorknob and Dorcas's heart was in her throat. On the other side of the door was Hepzibah Smith's killer. She was braced with the certainty that whomever had committed the murder and framed Hokey was about to be unmasked to face justice.
She was not prepared to see the face of her childhood love, the man she'd just fled the advances of only the night before. Tom Riddle stood on the stoop. His charming smile still made her knees weak. His face seemed a little more hollow around the cheeks, which only served to make him more handsome. He could be a Hollywood leading man with the natural good looks he'd been given.
Dorcas pulled herself out of the memory and sat back on the couch. She wrapped her bathrobe around her and shivered.
She reflexively started to concoct a defense for Tom. She'd spent six years at Hogwarts backing him, supporting him, defending him. She slipped naturally into the old habit. He was at Ms. Smith's house two days before her death. That didn't prove anything. Another person could have come in after Tom and killed her. Two days. Anything could have happened in those two days.
But logic said this was the person that Gideon and Dumbledore sought. Dumbledore had been suspicious of Dorcas. He'd wanted the use of her potion, but not her consultation.
Dorcas's blood went cold when she'd lined up the next coincidence. After Hokey's death, Tom had been the one to sit and drink with her. And afterward- she couldn't bring herself to acknowledge what had happened in the alleyway steps from the Leaky Cauldron. Did he know she'd just left Hokey? Did he know she'd had the memory on her?
She recalled the way he'd pressed up against her, his hands wandering.
She didn't want to see the full memory. She didn't want to witness more confirmation that Tom was not the person she'd thought he was. But she steeled herself and plunged into the memory once more.
Gasping as she came out of the Pensieve once again, Dorcas dropped her forehead into her hands. She felt no loyalty to Tom now. Not after the way they'd parted at the end of her sixth year at school. There was no expectation of protection of, or collusion in his plans. What were his plans? She thought about the objects that his possessive eyes had claimed, even as they were packed up and carted away from him.
Once, she would have done anything for Tom. She had crossed many lines in the name of dedication to him. His aims, his goals, his dreams were once hers. She banged the palm of her hand repeatedly against her forehead.
If she had a Time Turner…
But, of course, she did not have a Time Turner. But she had a memory that implicated him in...something...murder at the least, she reasoned.
Then Dorcas became terrified. What if the intruder from this afternoon was not Steven Muybridge looking to destroy incriminating evidence against him? What if it was Tom, looking for the memory she'd extracted from Hokey?
The room's temperature seemed to plummet. Dorcas felt completely unsafe in her home for the first time since she had moved her family into it this past summer. She felt invisible eyes on her everywhere.
A knock on the office door made her jump. She cursed and her heart leapt into her chest.
"Cal," she exhaled as her head shot up out of her hands.
"Couldn't sleep?" he asked her sympathetically. His hair was adorably tousled and his pajama shirt was misbuttoned. If Dorcas had been in a different frame of mind, the sight of him would have stirred something in her.
But the only sensation she registered in that moment was a realization that Tom was the killer that Dumbledore was seeking, and that Tom knew she had the evidence Dumbledore needed to put him in Azkaban.
"Cal," she said, her voice quivering. "I need to talk to you."
A/N: Reviews are welcome and appreciated.
