Chapter 22

30 November, 1940 Secret Room, Seventh Floor, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Dorcas spent every night since Birmingham in the little cast-off furniture cave in the secret room on the seventh floor with Tom.

They'd managed to make their way back to Hogwarts by Sunday afternoon. By dinner, they'd assumed their normal routines. To Dorcas's knowledge, no one had missed either of them. She knew it was only a matter of time until their luck ran out. She promised herself that she would not leave the grounds of the school again. She would not even go into Hogsmeade unless it was a school sanctioned trip. She was thinking of how she might manage to persuade Tom to be less cavalier as well when he interrupted her thoughts.

"Are we going to ignore the fact that you kissed me and declared that you love me?" he asked.

Dorcas was taken aback by the frankness with which he broached the desperate scene in the basement broom cupboard of Wingate Institution just before the air raid.

Immediately her heart raced. She had tried to avoid any reference to that night. The recollection of the events in the abandoned hospital sent her into a panic. Even the mention of the kiss and the admission of her feelings for him brought her back into that dreaded space.

She felt tears building in the corners of her eyes and she squeezed her eyes shut to keep them at bay.

Dorcas wasn't sure how she felt now. She wondered if in the moment of uncertainty as the air raid siren screamed and planes dove overhead, had she said and done those things because she thought she wouldn't see Tom again? She didn't know if the danger and unpredictability of the ordeal had given her clarity, or veiled reality with heightened emotion.

"Can we not talk about that night?" Dorcas gasped, humiliated that she couldn't disguise the fear in her voice.

"You're trembling, Birdie," Tom observed, pulling a blanket up over her shoulder as she lay against him in the small space. "Are you cold?"

Dorcas gulped and blinked frantically, trying to dispel the frayed feeling in her nerves that had never quite left her these past ten days.

"No."

Tom pulled back from Dorcas to observe her. She was tucked against his right side, her head resting on his shoulder. He shook her gently with the arm that was wrapped around her.

"Look at me," Tom said.

Dorcas wouldn't. She kept her head resolutely down.

Tom placed a finger under her chin and lifted her face toward him.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. But I want to say one thing and then I'll let it go."

Dorcas nodded and waited for him to continue.

"I think of you as mine, as belonging to me. I hope you think of me the same way. But if you don't, I am still grateful that you did not leave me there alone. You could have saved yourself. I wanted you to save yourself, but you stayed to save me. That means everything to me, Birdie."

Dorcas could not stop the tears from slipping down her cheeks. She did not want to remember how close she'd been to the utter devastation of losing her friend. She saw his lifeless body behind her eyes every time she closed them.

"How do I stop being afraid all of the time?" Dorcas asked.

Tom followed the trail of a tear down her cheek with his fingertips, wiping it away.

"I don't know."

"How come you're not afraid?" Dorcas replied. She wanted to know how it was possible to keep the memory of the Birmingham raid from consuming her.

Tom looked at her and cocked his head to the side. "Who says I'm not?"

Dorcas blinked. "But you don't let on that anything's bothering you."

Tom smiled a wry smile. "I've spent most of my almost fourteen years living in a place where emotions are easily exploited. Feelings make you vulnerable. That doesn't mean I'm not fearful on the inside. Do you think I'm okay with nearly dying?" He didn't wait for a response. "I'm not."

Tom laid back against the cushions of his little den and placed the arm that wasn't around Dorcas under his head. "I conquer my fears by eliminating them."

"Tom," Dorcas said incredulously. "You can't eliminate death. Dying is an inevitability."

"Uh huh," Tom sighed and kissed her forehead. He didn't seem to want to continue with the conversation.

Dorcas didn't blame him. She didn't want to talk about the things that now kept her awake with terror either. She let the subject drop. Two things occupied her thoughts as she lay silently next to Tom. One: Tom thought of her as belonging to him. This revelation spread like warm sunshine across her skin. Two: if what terrified her the most was Tom's death, how could she keep that from ever happening?

Concentrating on the way his body felt stretched out against hers, the way the reassuring warmth of him was the only balm that soothed her shattered sense of peace, she began to acknowledge that she loved Tom Riddle more than her own life.

:::

2 December, 1940 Defense Against the Dark Arts Classroom, Fourth Floor, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Dorcas took her seat next to Anneliese and unpacked her book, parchment, ink, and quill. They'd been studying the Full Body-Bind Curse for two days. Dorcas reviewed her notes from the two previous lectures and waited with the rest of the students for Professor Merrythought's arrival.

"Will you be at the match on Saturday?" Anneliese asked, readying her own supplies for the start of lessons.

"Maybe," Dorcas hedged. She'd been an inconsistent presence in support of her friends on the Quidditch pitch. When Ravenclaw played Hufflepuff, she'd begged off to get in a bit of homework ahead of her trip to London with Tom.

Cal had been extending her invitations to watch Gryffindor practices all term. Dorcas wondered how she even had friends when she continued to turn them down.

"Dory," Anneliese sighed. "You've got to get out and breathe fresh air every once in a while. You can't spend all of your time in the library."

Dorcas opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off.

"This is an important match," Anneliese continued. "Hufflepuff has a chance at the cup if they can beat Gryffindor on Saturday. That only leaves Slytherin to beat and they're rubbish this year."

Dorcas considered her options. Anneliese was absolutely right in assuming that if she begged off Quidditch it would only be to go to the library. She thought of her friends. Anneliese had become an avid Hufflepuff supporter since Beau Haywood had joined the team as a Beater. Cal and Darren were playing for Gryffindor. Why shouldn't she use the match as a distraction from the dark thoughts that had consumed her of late?

"Yeah, you're right. I'll go," Dorcas said, with a smile that felt genuine. She was surprised to discover that she was looking forward to it.

"To support Hufflepuff, right?" Anneliese looked pointedly at her.

Dorcas couldn't answer that. She thought of Cherry's loud protests that were sure to come if she found out that Dorcas had chosen a side that was not Gryffindor.

"No need to take out books," Professor Dumbledore said, striding between the rows of desks to the front of the room. "Today we will be taking a practical approach to defense. Everyone stand and form a cue."

Mohit Singh's hand was in the air immediately. "Sir?" he asked, not bothering to wait to be called upon. "Where is Professor Merrythought?"

"You always know how to cut right to the point, Mr. Singh," Dumbledore observed with a smile. "I am standing in for your teacher this fine day, if that is acceptable to you."

Mohit put his hand down and nodded, unable to decide if Dumbledore's non-answer should be further investigated.

Dorcas quickly stoppered her ink and placed her school things back in her bag. Next to her, Anneliese did likewise. They stood and joined the cue as Dumbledore had instructed.

"Today, we face our greatest foe," Dumbledore spoke, captivating all of the students who lined the perimeter of the classroom.

"Oh no!" Anneliese whispered next to Dorcas. "I hope it's nothing too scary."

Dorcas tried to reassure her friend that nothing they would face in a classroom could truly be dangerous. But she also felt a sense of dread come over her as she considered what "greatest foe" could mean.

Dumbledore caused the student desks and chairs to slide noisily to one side of the classroom to make space for their lesson. He silently moved to the blackboard and wrote a spell: Riddikulus.

Facing the class once more, Dumbledore instructed them to say the spell with him. "Riddikulus!" he pronounced loudly.

Dorcas and her classmates responded, "Riddikulus!"

"Very good, indeed!" Dumbledore congratulated the class. "That is the spell that will banish a boggart." The professor looked around at the students in line. "But the spell alone is not enough. The boggart is a shapeshifter. It will attempt to transform into the thing that each of you fears the most. That is its power, you see."

Dorcas's feet carried her backward a half a step.

"It will transform into the thing that frightens each one of us. But the trick to banishing the boggart is to take away its power to frighten and intimidate. I ask everyone," Dumbledore said, turning to the class and making eye contact with each student individually. "To take a moment to consider that which frightens you the most. And then I want you to invent a way to make that image as silly as possible in your mind. I will need a volunteer to demonstrate," he finished.

Hands shot up in the air and waved frantically.

"Mr. Singh, you will do nicely."

Then Dumbledore turned to the cabinet in the corner and moved the heavy iron bolt holding the door closed aside.

Dorcas stepped out of the cue and inched along the stone wall behind her classmates. She did not want to confront her deepest fear. And she certainly couldn't fathom how she might make the spectre appear silly. It wasn't silly and it wasn't something that she wished for her classmates to witness.

"Now, Mr. Singh, have you thought of what the boggart might turn into when I open this door?" Dumbledore pointed his wand at the cupboard door for dramatic effect.

Mohit nodded confidently, but looked a little pale to Dorcas.

"Remember the incantation. Picture the thing you fear and turn it into something ridiculous."

Dumbledore opened the cabinet with a spell and a great black scaly dragon emerged. Mohit took a step backward as the beast reared four meters in height.

"Remember the incantation, Mr. Singh," Dumbledore encouraged.

Mohit squared his shoulders and pointed his wand. "RIDDIKULUS!" he shouted.

Crack!

The boggart transformed from the terrifying into the tame. A tiny black kitten tied in a lavender ribbon looked balefully up at the class and mewed.

The students laughed and cooed at the little kitten.

Dumbledore smiled. "Five points to Ravenclaw."

Charys Fletcher took Mohit's place.

Crack! The boggart changed into a warty hag with a hooked nose and a glass eye. She stumbled toward Charys with a knobby hand outstretched.

"R-r-riddikulus!" Charys spoke the incantation with a wavering voice. The hag hesitated but soon began dragging herself toward Charys again.

"Concentrate, Miss Fletcher. Picture the most preposterous thing you can."

Charys looked to Dumbledore and nodded. Her brows were knitted together in worry.

"Riddikulus!"

Crack!

The hag became bandy legged and rubbery. She folded in on herself and collapsed to the ground.

"Oh very droll, Miss Fletcher!" Dumbledore was laughing along with the other students. "Five points again to Ravenclaw."

Everyone was having an amusing time. Everyone, that is, except Dorcas. She took the opportunity to slide further toward the back of the cue and hid herself behind a large Hufflepuff boy named Garrett Delaney. She could see Anneliese nearing the front of the cue looking around for her.

When Anneliese made eye contact with her, Dorcas shook her head and retreated behind Garrett. She knew Anneliese would not try to coerce her into participating.

Hope Danville, a Hufflepuff in front of Anneliese, stepped in front of the boggart that had been transformed into a chicken.

Crack! It reared into a hippogriff and brandished sharp talons in front of Hope. A number of students gasped.

"RIDDIKULUS!" Hope said forcefully.

Crack! The hippogriff lost all of its feathers and covered its bald flesh with its wings, comically wide eyed. Dorcas couldn't help but laugh at the hippogriff's expression.

Anneliese was before the naked hippogriff.

Crack!

Suddenly there were two Dumbledores. One looked on in mild amusement, but the other shook his head in disappointment at Anneliese. He handed her a paper marked generously with red ink. Anneliese looked between the two Dumbledores frantically.

"Make my head explode, Miss Epping!" the real Dumbledore prompted.

She nodded and blinked, clearly terrified of both professors.

"Riddikulus!" Anneliese said, her voice squeaking out the incantation.

Crack! The boggart Dumbledore's head soared away from his shoulders like a balloon. It popped loudly and the real Dumbledore applauded loudly, laughing.

"Oh! Brava, Miss Epping! Wonderful!" Dumbledore and the others continued to laugh as the headless Dumbledore tripped over his own robes and bumped sightless into furniture. "Five points for Hufflepuff."

The boggart continued to transform with Crack! after crack!

Dorcas was awed both with the wide array of examples of fear, but also in the creativity of how her classmates augmented the fear to render it impotent.

She did not notice when the large Hufflepuff in front of her left the line to take his turn in front of the boggart.

Crack! The boggart transformed from a hedgehog into a snarling Doberman.

"Riddikulus!" The Doberman whimpered and laid down.

Okay, not the most clever way to neutralize a boggart. But effective, Dorcas thought.

"Miss Clerey. Step forward," Dumbledore said.

Dorcas's head snapped toward the professor. She knew her eyes were wide with panic. She stepped backward.

"There's nothing to fear. The creature will not hurt you," Dumbledore coaxed, moving in her direction.

Dorcas licked her lips. Her mouth was suddenly very dry. "I think I need to see the others do it first, sir," Dorcas lied to buy her some time.

"Very well," Dumbledore conceded. "Miss Simpson, if you please."

Dorcas shuffled to the back of the cue as another Hufflepuff, Nora Simpson took her place.

The rest of the cue moved through the exercise quickly and Dorcas was casting about for an excuse not to have to take her turn.

"And we're back to Miss Clerey," Dumbledore said, not unsympathetically. "As you see before you, none of your classmates have been harmed." He gestured about the room where twenty pairs of eyes looked back at her.

Dorcas blushed fiercely. "I don't want to do it, sir."

"To refuse participation in a lesson is a serious infraction, Miss Clerey."

"I know, sir," Dorcas answered, looking downcast. She kept her distance from the boggart.

"It is unlike you to be belligerent, Dorcas," Dumbledore said, approaching her and studying her. "Is there anything troubling you?"

"No, sir," Dorcas said, keeping her eyes on the ground.

"The boggart is harmless. Try the spell out just once," he urged.

"I don't see you taking a turn with it, sir," Dorcas pointed out. She immediately regretted her tone and the accusation in her voice. In a moment of distress, she'd chosen to attack the character of her teacher. Her mother would be furious with her.

"Indeed," Dumbledore agreed. "I only abstain because the shape that the boggart will take in front of me is not something I wish to expose my young charges to." He looked around the room. "But you have not lived through quite as many frightening circumstances as a wizened old codger like me."

Dorcas resented the insinutation that to be young meant to be free of real fears.

"I can see we will get no further today," Dumbledore said, turning from Dorcas to replace the boggart in the cabinet. "Class is dismissed."

Dorcas turned to retrieve her belongings from her desk that had been pushed against one wall. The other students collected their things and filed out.

"Miss Clerey," Dumbledore said before she'd had a chance to retreat from the room. "You will serve detention on Saturday evening. Eight o'clock."

"Yes, sir," Dorcas replied dejectedly as she left the classroom.

:::

Instead of meeting Tom that evening in the secret room on the seventh floor, she went back to the Defense Against the Dark Arts Classroom. She knew that the boggart in the cabinet wasn't dangerous. But she was not satisfied with refusing to participate in a lesson and wanted to prove to herself that she could complete any task set out for her by her teachers.

She was not angry with Professor Dumbledore for assigning her a detention. She'd given enough back chat to warrant the punishment. But she didn't understand his insistence that she stand before the boggart and lay her fears bare in front of her classmates. Why couldn't he leave it alone?

She slid the bolt out of the locking mechanism and threw back the door with a flick of her wand. A small trickle of water poured from the cabinet. It became a surge. Dorcas backed away in a panic. As the water receded, the form of Tom's unmoving body emerged from the torrent.

He was wearing the same clothes he'd worn the night they went to Birmingham. He was sodden with the water that had spilled from the burst water main and into the tiny broom cupboard that they'd sheltered in during the air raid.

Dorcas waited for the inert form of Tom to do something, to cough and sputter from the water he was trying to dispel from his lungs. He did nothing. He stayed unmoving on the ground. The classroom was eerily quiet.

Dorcas sat beside the still, dead body of her friend.

Death was inevitable, she reminded herself.

"I conquer my fears by eliminating them," Tom had said. She sat thinking of the lengths she also might go to to eliminate this particular fear from her own mind.

She reached a trembling, tentative hand out to touch the wrist of the boggart Tom. The sensation of touching him was strange. He appeared solid, but the boggart felt like nothing but cold air.

"There you are," Tom's voice broke the silence and made her jump. She turned to see him enter the classroom. He stopped halfway between the door and Dorcas when he saw his own body lying on the ground in front of her. His gaze never left his other self and he seemed to force himself forward with a tremendous effort.

"What are you doing?" he asked, a quaver in his voice. He took his eyes off of the body momentarily to look at Dorcas.

"Trying to defeat a boggart," Dorcas responded darkly. "I'm not getting on at all."

As Tom approached, the boggart gave a loud crack! But it curiously remained the same.

Tom sat beside Dorcas, neither one taking their eyes from the dead Tom on the floor before them.

"What did you mean, Tom, when you said you conquer your fears by eliminating them? Do you know how to conquer death?"

"No," Tom said, staring at the boggart in the offensive shape of his own dead self. "But I'm going to find out if it's possible."

"I want to help you," Dorcas heard herself say.

"You want to become immortal?" Tom looked at her in a way that he never had before. Dorcas felt that he saw her as a kindred spirit, as a full partner that was invested in his quest.

"No, I don't want immortality for myself, Tom," Dorcas said, staring back at him, holding his gaze with her own. "My greatest fear is not dying. If it was, that boggart would look like me."

She swallowed and confessed to him what she wanted more than anything. "I want you to live. I want you to live because I love you, Tom."

Tom blinked passively. Then a smile spread across his face.

Dorcas worried if the feelings she'd confessed were real or exaggerated by shared trauma. She realized when Tom smiled at her revelation that it didn't matter either way.

"I promised that I would never take liberties with you. You can say no, if you're not comfortable with it," Tom said, moving closer to her. "May I kiss you, Birdie?"

Dorcas found that she was unable to pronounce a simple "yes" and so nodded stupidly instead.

Tom leaned on one hand beside her and closed the space between them as they sat next to each other. With his other hand he touched Dorcas's cheek lightly, sliding his palm along her chin, to the back of her neck, pulling her close. He brushed his lips against hers and looked to her for reassurance. "Are you really mine, Birdie?"

"I am," Dorcas answered.

He closed his eyes in satisfaction and pressed his lips to hers ardently. The hand at the back of her neck tightened around her hair.

Dorcas was breathless with the intensity of his kiss. It felt as if it contained a multitude of things that he was unwilling to communicate to her with words.

Her hand rested on his knee. She squeezed it and then pulled away from him.

"What do we do with this?" she asked, nodding in the direction of boggart Tom.

Tom's eyes narrowed when he beheld his own dead form once more. "I'll take care of it," he said.

Pointing his wand he said, "Riddikulus!" and after the crack! the boggart appeared to be Professor Dumbledore's lifeless body.

Dorcas recoiled at the sight as it zoomed back into the cabinet and the lock slid home.

:::

4 December, 1940 Secret Room, Seventh Floor, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Dorcas was alone in Tom's little den in the secret room that they so often shared these days. She didn't know where he was or why he hadn't left her a note saying that he'd had other plans.

She opened a book that she'd checked out of the library. There was a small item in the fourth chapter about an alchemist's stone that granted eternal life, so long as the owner of the stone could access it to make an elixir to be taken regularly. She had been eager to show Tom as she thought this might be the sort of thing that he'd been searching for.

Dorcas dozed off an hour later, staring at the flickering candle and wondering if she should take herself back to her own bed. She did not like being in this drafty and expansive space alone.

The sound of the air raid siren was ringing in her ears, punctuated by gunfire and airplane engines roaring. Every now and again the concussive BOOM of a detonated bomb shook the foundations underneath her.

The water was rising and she was no closer to finding a way to release it or to release Tom. She needed to act fast or he would drown.

Dorcas frantically searched for the wand among the debris floating in the water. It was not to be found.

Tom was struggling to keep his head above the surface. His eyes looked at her accusingly.

With his final breath he gasped, "We never would have been here if you hadn't insisted, Birdie."

"TOM!" Dorcas screamed.

She felt hands grasping her shoulders and shaking.

"Birdie, wake up," Tom was urging her.

Upon opening her eyes, she saw the broom cupboard and the rising water replaced with hanging curtains, blankets, and cushions. She was back in the secret room.

"You were in Birmingham again, weren't you?"

"Yes," Dorcas panted, pushing herself into a sitting position. The book she'd been reading fell from its resting place across her chest. "Only you were telling me that we were in this mess because I'd insisted on going there."

Tom smiled indulgently at her as if she were a small child with ridiculous dreams. "I would never say that, Birdie."

He turned his attention to the book he'd been reading before she'd had the nightmare.

"What is that?" Dorcas asked, pushing her hair out of her face.

'Secrets of the Darkest Art' Dorcas read as Tom held the cover up for her inspection. The book was faded black and was marked with a code on the spine that designated it to be from the Restricted Section.

"I'm going to guess that you didn't come by that honestly," Dorcas said darkly.

Tom's response was to smirk and continue reading.

"I've been doing some research as well. It seems this man," Dorcas spoke as she flipped through the pages of her discarded book. "Nicholas Flamel has found out how to prolong his life and that of his wife."

She pushed the book open to the short passage over to Tom to inspect.

"What have you found?" Dorcas asked curiously.

"A Horcrux," Tom said, looking up from the passage on Nicholas Flamel, and sliding the restricted book over to her to read.

Dorcas's face must have registered recognition of the word. Tom seized on it.

"You know about them," he stated, narrowing his eyes.

Dorcas nodded. "It was a Rackharrow ancestor that invented them. I read a book about them when I was in Yorkshire at my uncle's estate this summer."

"Do you think you could get your hands on that book again?" Tom leaned forward, pushing the book Dorcas handed him aside. "I need it. This one tells about the general principle behind fashioning a Horcrux, but not what the strongest objects are, or if the life of one person is superior to that of another."

"Tom, are you serious? To make a Horcrux you have to kill someone."

He brushed her objection aside.

"Are you going back to your uncle's for Christmas? London's still not safe."

Dorcas shook her head. "I've written my mother to ask if I can remain here over Christmas." She didn't know why she couldn't meet his eyes just then. Maybe she was hoping he would be pleased to hear that she was staying on at Hogwarts with him over the holidays. He wasn't.

"Birdie," Tom said her pet name with barely concealed impatience. "It doesn't matter what you want to do. It's what you need to do. You said yourself that you want to help me with this. Well, I'm asking for your help."

"Tom," Dorcas said, hazarding a glance in his direction. She was surprised at how stony he was as he looked back at her. "I can't steal from my family. That book is centuries old."

Tom took his wand out. The gesture confused and alarmed Dorcas. She recoiled from him.

"Imperio," Tom said.

Dorcas felt a curious sensation of her muscles detaching from the electrical impulses of her brain. She sent a command out to her arm, but the connection met a dead end. She could not complete the movement.

"Tomorrow you will write to your mother and tell her that you no longer wish to remain at school for the break. You will explain that you have had a change of heart and want to be with your family. Nod if you understand."

Dorcas felt herself nod as if someone had taken her head in their hands and completed the movement for her.

"Good. You will go to your uncle's house and find the book. When no one is around, you will place it in your school trunk at the bottom under your clothes. You will be happy to help me should I require any assistance whatsoever with Horcruxes."

Dorcas wanted to rebel against the control of her mind and limbs. At the same time, the feeling of having someone else control her and think for her was incredibly seductive. She was liberated from any choices or actions stemming from her own consciousness.

"Now, lay down here next to me and we'll say no more about it." Tom reclined on the cushions behind him and Dorcas stretched out next to him and wrapped an arm around his waist. She felt him kiss her forehead; a reward for her obedience.

"Obliviate!" he whispered.

Dorcas became blissfully unaware of just how much Tom considered her to be his.

:::

The next morning, Dorcas was in the library composing a letter to her mother when Tom came up behind her and kissed the top of her head.

"So we're that couple now? The one that repulses everyone else with public displays of affection?" Dorcas didn't look up as she spoke to Tom. She finished the letter with a curious determination.

Finally stuffing the letter into an envelope and addressing it, she looked up at Tom. He held out his hand for the letter and she gave it to him, not fully knowing why he'd wanted it or why she'd felt compelled to give it to him.

Behind him, Dorcas could see her cousin Gemma studying her and Tom with interest. She stared Gemma down until the other girl broke eye contact.

"It seems like we've attracted an audience," Dorcas said.

Tom looked from the letter to where Dorcas was staring behind him. He waved pleasantly to Gemma and then turned back to the letter.

"Let's mail this now," Tom said, pulling Dorcas up by the elbow.

She followed unquestioningly.

Most of the students were still in the Great Hall at breakfast. The Hufflepuff-Gryffindor Quidditch match was to take place that morning and there was a riot of gold and red and yellow and black in the entrance hall and on the main stairs.

As Dorcas and Tom neared the crowd, Dorcas could see Cal and Darren besieged by a throng of Gryffindor girls. Cherry was close to Darren's elbow, her fingers twitching toward the pocket where she kept her wand, shooting a menacing look at any of the feral fans that got too close to him.

Dorcas smiled to herself.

"Clerey," Cal called to her from across the hall.

Dorcas felt Tom's hand slip into hers and grasp it tightly.

Cal had also taken note of the gesture. His face fell for an instant.

"I heard you're finally coming to a match. Did we succeed in making a fan out of you?"

"Yes," Dorcas said, moving through the students, pulling Tom behind her. "I promised Anneliese that I would come."

"And you, Tom?" Cal included Tom in the conversation politely.

Tom looked affronted. "I don't find Quidditch amusing," was all he said in response.

"We're heading down to the pitch, do you want to walk with us?" Cherry asked, elbowing a first year in the gut and doubling her over.

Dorcas looked to Tom. "Will you post that for me?"

Tom looked at Dorcas's attire from her shoes to her skirt to her light jumper. Determining her wardrobe to be unsuitable to the outside elements, he took his own cloak that was draped over his arm and settled it around her shoulders.

"Sure," he said in a casual tone. "Come find me when it's over." He winked at her and disappeared into the crowd headed down to the pitch.

"What in the name of Merlin's curly beard is going on here?" Cherry said, looking at Dorcas as if she'd just sprouted two heads.

"Oh," Dorcas said, suddenly aware of curious eyes on her from all directions. "It's new. I don't know."

Cal saved her any further embarrassing explanation. "Dorcas and Tom are always together. We all knew they would become an item eventually."

Dorcas was surprised at Cal's pronouncement. Did they all know it? She certainly hadn't known it. Looking at Darren's and Cherry's expressions, there seemed to be some truth to Cal's words.

"Good luck, boys!" Cherry called as Cal and Darren split from their group and headed toward the locker room.

Dorcas waved when Cal turned to glance once more in their direction.

:::

"Dorcas, I know you want to remain neutral between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, but the Slytherin cloak is almost hostile," Anneliese said, eyeing her outerwear.

Cherry guffawed loudly. "Oh my stars, Anneliese," Cherry said. "Wait till you hear this!"

She launched into a play by play of the awkward scene in the entrance hall earlier. Every sentence had the effect of crimsoning Dorcas's cheeks a deeper shade of red.

"Well," Anneliese said, trying to reassure Dorcas. "I like Tom. He's a nice boy. I say good for you, Dory!"

"Yeah," Cherry added, unwilling to let the topic drop. "But poor Cal!"

"What do you mean?" Dorcas said, trying to keep her voice low so that other spectators in the stands couldn't hear.

"Well, he's carried a torch for you almost since the moment he met you," Cherry said in a tone that suggested Dorcas was a fool not to notice.

That explained the fallen expression he'd had earlier when he saw Tom take her hand. But Cal had never let on about his feelings to her in the slightest. Dorcas didn't know what to say to that.

She was spared a response as the match started. Dorcas found it very hard to concentrate on the zooming figures as they raced each other from one end of the pitch to the next.

"What are you and Tom doing tonight? We should all meet up for some games. You know, make him feel like part of the group," Anneliese talked while following Beau back and forth across the field.

"Oh," Dorcas said, surprised. "I don't know what Tom's doing, but I have detention."

"What did you get in trouble for?" Cherry asked, her fists were clenched in front of her as she watched the Gryffindor team.

"I talked back to Professor Dumbledore," Dorcas said simply. She didn't harbor any ill will toward the professor. He'd been right to punish her. She would never stand in front of a boggart where anyone could see. She would serve a hundred detentions to keep that from happening.

"It was completely unfair," Anneliese added.

Dorcas didn't want to rehash Defense Against the Dark Arts class, so she let it go.

Finding Cal at the nearer end of the field hovering in front of the center of the three Gryffindor goals, Dorcas considered if she'd missed the signs of his affection, or if Cherry was seeing things that weren't really there.

When she'd considered the evolution of her relationship with Tom, she realized her love for him had been natural. They'd shared so many experiences together. They had a shared history.

While Cal had been a friend to her, she never sensed anything beyond friendship. If he admired her, she would have known it, wouldn't she?

Beau Haywood dodged a Bludger and sent one back down the field toward a Gryffindor Chaser. Anneliese stiffened beside Dorcas and gripped her hand.

"I wish he played a different position," she said under her breath.

"They can't get seriously hurt with all of these teachers around. It's perfectly safe," Dorcas reassured her friend. She doubted her own words when in the next moment Gryffindor Chaser, Darla Barton, was knocked from her seat on her broom by Hufflepuff Chaser, Joan Allen.

Only a Hufflepuff player would circle back around and help their opponent to mount their broom once more with a "Sorry, I didn't see you there!" Dorcas smiled at the unusual display of sportsmanship.

Another attempt by Joan to send the Quaffle into the rightmost ring of the Gryffindor goals caught Cal unawares. He let the ball sail past him and into the goal.

"Dammit, Dorcas," Cherry said loudly. "You've crushed our Keeper's heart! He's playing like rubbish today!"

Anneliese patted Dorcas's hand and reassured her that Cherry was only teasing. Dorcas hoped that was the case.

Hufflepuff scored once more. The score was made even by Darla Barton and Nadean Templemore on the Gryffindor side. And Dorcas felt a little absolution when Cal blocked the next Hufflepuff goal. Then Darren scored twice.

Annelise became quiet beside Dorcas in direct proportion to Cherry's cheers which grew more boisterous.

When Cal saved the next goal, Cherry jumped to her feet and blocked Dorcas's view of the goals.

Next there was an ominous "Oooh!" from the spectators around her. Dorcas and Anneliese leapt to their feet as well.

Dorcas could see Cal's crumpled form on the sand beneath the goals and his broom about a meter away. The announcer explained that the Gryffindor Keeper had been hit by a Bludger.

"Jesus!," Dorcas swore. "I hate this game," she said, pushing past the others on the benches around her and racing down the stairs from the stands.

There was already a knot of students and teachers gathering around Cal on the pitch when Dorcas got there. Anneliese and Cherry were not far behind her.

Dorcas felt Anneliese's hand grip hers. "Professor Dumbledore will take care of him," she encouraged, indicating the teacher whose pointed hat bobbed among those closest to where Cal fell.

:::

20 April, 1958 Watermead, Aylesbury

"I think we ought to consider moving to London," Cal said.

He did not look up at Dorcas. Instead, he kept his eyes on her protruding abdomen. He was using a stethoscope to listen to Baby Meadowes's heartbeat.

Dorcas shook her head.

"Cal, I love this house! I'm not the sort of girl who could live in a Mayfair townhouse. I'm too working class."

Cal laughed. "Then we'll buy a new house in another neighborhood. This one is too small for our growing family."

Dorcas considered this. "Theresa and Billy are moving in with Gideon. There will be plenty of room."

Cal adjusted the stethoscope to a new location on Dorcas's belly. "We're still a bedroom short."

"Ryann's room will become the nursery. Ryann can share with Wren. It's all figured out."

"Ryann doesn't want to share a room with a sister that's seven years younger than her," Cal argued. "My family's home has no shortage of rooms. And it's just sitting empty since mother died."

"I'll think about it." Dorcas said this when she wanted Cal to stop badgering her about a topic. She would not think about it. Her mind was already made up.

She closed her eyes and picked up on the impressions of her child. They weren't thoughts, exactly. Her child's cognitive abilities wouldn't mature into true thoughts until many months after he or she was born. Instead, she saw a peachy, red, orange existence and the emotions of contentedness and adoration.

She smiled.

"I wish I could see what you see," Cal said a bit glumly.

He was never jealous of her ability to see and hear others' thoughts. He had always been of the opinion that it was a miserable gift to know the minds of others. But in being the first to know their child, she had a special bond with the little one that Cal would have to wait to develop. And the waiting was so operose.

Dorcas was still connected to her baby's mind. It became excited at the sound of Cal's voice. The adoration she'd sensed before multiplied. There was a jolt under Cal's hand.

"Did you feel that?" Dorcas asked, opening her eyes to look at Cal.

"He kicked me!"

"He loves your voice. He was excited by it. Did you hear his heartbeat getting faster?"

Cal nodded in amazement.

Wren was the same way. Dorcas could pick up on her impressions and emotions at around three and a half months. She had adored Cal's voice and touch as well. Ryann was a silent baby. Dorcas had the impression that her oldest was reserving judgment until she was out of the womb and had all of her senses in which to study her surroundings.

Dorcas always felt guilty about so many aspects of Ryann's birth and first few months of life. She had been so deep in her own depression throughout her pregnancy with Ryann, that she was unsure if she couldn't hear Ryann, or if she'd ignored her purposefully. When she was born, Dorcas didn't want to hold her or even look at her.

The clinical term for what she'd gone through was Postpartum Depression. She avoided her child. She knew that what she'd experienced in that first year or so of Ryann's life was the reason that Cal had more of a connection to her than Dorcas did. Dorcas didn't feel any differently about Ryann than she did about Wren. She loved them both fiercely. But it had taken longer to feel like Ryann's mother than it had with Wren. Maybe this was what it was always like with a first child. Maybe not.

Where Dorcas had been reticent in her role as mother, Cal had instantly settled into the role of father. It should have been immediately clear to Dorcas that Cal thought of Ryann as his. But she'd wondered how he would be around her in the beginning. He had reassured her throughout the pregnancy that he only considered the child to be Dorcas's and that he would love her unconditionally. But she'd doubted the sincerity of the statement. She wondered if her predicament was something that Cal had been willing to accept simply to be with her.

:::

30 January, 1946 Number 223, Little Bushley Lane, Watford

There were so many nights, too many to count, in which Dorcas couldn't muster the strength to get out of bed when she heard the piercing wails of the infant in the next room. On these numerous occasions, she would feel movement on the opposite side of the bed announcing that Cal was going to see to the child.

She wondered how long this charade would last. How long could he keep up the facade that he was content to lose sleep caring for another man's child?

She wasn't bracing for the moment that he would leave her. Not exactly. She saw it as more of an eventuality, the way you send out Christmas greeting cards because the season is approaching. You do it because it is what is expected.

Cal used to bring the child into the bed as if its presence might rouse Dorcas into sudden maternal feelings. Dorcas's silent solution had been to pump her milk into bottles so that he needn't bother her with the tedium of feeding. She'd abdicated all responsibility to him. And she'd done it fully expecting him to reach the end of his tether and leave.

She heard him in the next room. He was humming. Badly.

But the crying had stopped.

She should have felt relief that the noise had abated. But what she felt was annoyance. There was not a thing in the world that Caleb Meadowes set out to do that he could not perfect. Now, being mother and father to a wailing infant could be added to the list.

When she crept into the doorway of the little nursery, Cal's back was to her. He sat in the white rocking chair beside the child's cot. She could see that he was holding her and talking in a hushed whisper.

She couldn't hear the words with her ears, but she could hear them with her mind.

"Your mother loves you very much, little one," he was saying to the infant. "But she's having a difficult time just now. We have to be patient with her. She's been hurt and she's still healing. But we love her, don't we, little one? And love is patient."

She could just make out the child's face, wrapped up as she was in a thick blanket. She was laid across Cal's knees so that she could face him when he talked to her.

Dorcas looked at that little face and saw, not the features that were so similar to the man she once thought she loved, but the face of her daughter whom she did love.

Cal's words continued in her mind. "I love you too, my darling one. You are the center of my world. You and your mother."

Dorcas could not hear coherent thoughts from her daughter in the same way that she could hear them from Cal. But she was surprised by how similar they were in shape and color. Dorcas knew beyond a doubt that she was loved by both of them. And she knew that her own feelings mirrored theirs.

Suddenly she felt like an intruder. These were private words and thoughts meant to be shared between Cal and her child. She hurried from the room and back to her own bed. Dorcas became overwhelmed with shame. She'd spent the better part of a year since discovering that she was pregnant resenting the child that loved her so much. And she'd resented Cal for his unwavering love and support; never considering for a second what marrying a woman who was pregnant with another man's child had cost him. She had only thought of herself. Only had enough pity for herself.

She felt hot tears on her cheeks and was angry at herself for the way she'd behaved toward Cal. And for the cold manner in which she'd regarded her daughter. She could never hope to make amends.

She was unaware of how long she'd sat in self pity on the end of the bed.

Cal came in and began to close the door as carefully as possible, not wanting to disturb her sleep. He gave a start when he noticed her sitting there.

"Clerey," he said, a note of concern in his voice. "What is it? Are you unwell?"

Dorcas looked up from her hands clasped in her lap and he could see she'd been crying.

"I'm sorry," she choked.

Looking at her with an expression of bewilderment, Cal stood by the door, unsure of what to do or say.

Dorcas took his lack of response as confirmation that she'd done wrong. She'd left him alone in this. He'd been the one to hold it all together. The strain must have been immense.

"Dorcas, it's late and you're tired," Cal finally said, excusing away her guilt.

"I'm not tired," Dorcas said, suddenly feeling more alert, more herself than she'd felt in a year. "For once I'm wide awake and I see things clearly now." She stood up as if to demonstrate how aware she was.

Cal's hair was tousled from interrupted sleep, his eyes blinked with exhaustion. Dorcas found the sight incredibly endearing. Seeing him with adoration now quickly turned to longing. It would be incredibly selfish now to deprive him of his final hours of sleep before he was needed in the hospital laboratory. But she wanted to indulge in selfishness a while longer and hoped he wanted the same thing.

Dorcas dropped her robe from her shoulders and unbuttoned her nightgown.

"Dorcas," Cal asked apprehensively. "What are you doing?"

Slipping her nightgown from her shoulders, she felt the chill of the late January morning, but was warmed as his gaze fell on her.

She could hear his thoughts as clearly as if he were speaking to her. He was paralyzed with unbelief. He was unwilling to allow himself to think that this was actually happening. She felt the desire that he projected, but a stronger current of complete adoration for her fortified it. She had never experienced the force of such a love as that which he felt for her. But he was rooted to the spot, as if to move might cause the spectre of her wanting him to vanish completely.

Dorcas realized she would have to initiate contact in order for Cal to accept that this was real.

She stepped out of her nightgown that had pooled at her feet and covered the three or four paces between them. Her hands found the hem of his undershirt and pulled it upward. Cal lifted his arms and slipped the shirt off when her hands could no longer reach.

Cal, finally accepting that his wife was seducing him, touched her cheek lightly and then lifted her chin so that her lips could meet his.

"Are you sure, Dorcas?" Cal asked, his voice was low and rough with expectation.

Dorcas breached the centimeters between his mouth and hers and at the same time felt for the drawstring of his pajamas and untied them in in answer.

Needing no more reassurance or encouragement, Cal grabbed Dorcas around the waist and carried her to their bed.

"I love you, Cal," Dorcas breathed as he kissed her neck.

He gasped and abandoned his attentions at her throat. He looked at her with wide eyed astonishment.

"Truly?" he asked. Dorcas could just make out tears in Cal's eyes in the near darkness of the room.

She felt that the words were wholly insufficient for the way she was now realizing that she felt for him. Perhaps she hadn't recognized the love she had for him because the approximation of love that she'd experienced with Tom was so insufficient that it was a pale sham compared to this.

How long had Cal loved her? Had she loved him all that time as well? She thought back to his words to their daughter and was sure he was right. Love is patient.

A/N: Reviews are welcome and appreciated.