Author's Note: I don't usually interrupt the story or break the fourth wall like this, but I wanted to specifically thank a loyal reviewer. Nur, your encouragement is appreciated. I love to hear what readers pick up on and how they view the characters I write. Thanks for keeping me motivated. I hope you continue to enjoy the story.
Chapter 23
3 August, 1958 Watermead, Aylesbury
Dorcas bent to remove the casserole from the oven and felt her back protest.
"Ryann, sweetheart," she gasped. "Be a dear and help your enormous mother."
Ryann put down her piping bag full of pink frosting and took the oven mitts from Dorcas.
"I don't know why you don't just use magic," Ryann said in a tone that Dorcas's own mother would have called cheeky. "There's plenty of workaday spells that could save you a lot of trouble."
Dorcas leaned her weight against the counter on one elbow and slid the heels from her swollen feet, rolling her ankles. Cal had tried to warn her that she did not suffer pregnancy well. But she never remembered the back pain and the swollen feet and the vomiting (so much vomiting).
"I could decorate this cake with a spell in under a minute." Ryann looked to Dorcas hopefully.
"No magic for underage witches," Dorcas reminded. Ryann hadn't forgotten, she had been itching to do magic since she got off the train last month. Her disdain for mundane Muggle methods seems alarmingly genetic.
Ryann deflated and returned to the piping bag glumly.
Dorcas eyed her oldest with interest. "And besides, where did you pick up spells that can frost a cake?"
"One of the older girls showed me some at school," Ryann shrugged, eating more frosting than she put on the cake.
"Don't tell me they still have that miserable little Domestic Arts class?"
"Yep," Ryann said, licking her fingers. "And when I'm in third year, I'm going to take it."
"Take Arithmancy or Ancient Runes, something useful. That class is the most ridiculous waste of time."
"Er, learning how to enchant your Hoover to do the cleaning while you watch television is not a waste of time, Mama!"
She had a point. Dorcas had used a fair bit of magic herself today in order to give the illusion at least that she was a domestic goddess. But she'd learned none of it in some stupid Domestic Arts class.
"I'm going to have a word with Jonas when he gets here about using valuable class time to teach girls spells that can be looked up in a simple book. And why is it always only girls that have to take that class?"
Ryann rolled her eyes. "Mama, please don't. You're so embarrassing!"
"What's the point of having family on the board of governors if you can't bully them into removing sexist classes from the school's curriculum?"
"Good, Daddy, you're home!" Ryann interrupted, crossing the room and pulling Cal down to her level for a kiss. "Mama's crusading again."
"Oh, good!" Cal said, kissing his daughter's forehead. "And who is the hapless victim this time?"
"Poor Jonas," Ryann said, returning to the cake and completing her decoration with a flourish. "He doesn't even know he's walking into an ambush!"
Cal crossed the room to Dorcas and kissed her cheek.
"Where's the birthday princess?" he asked, rubbing her belly as if she were a jolly Buddha, a decidedly unflattering gesture.
"Napping," Dorcas replied. "I should have gotten her up by now, but I was enjoying not chasing a five year old for almost two solid hours."
Cal rubbed Dorcas's shoulders briefly and then departed. "I'll go and wake her. When is the gang arriving?"
"Just Jonas and Cherry. Anneliese phoned to say that Joy was not feeling well." Dorcas paused chopping the vegetables for a salad and turned to the clock. "They should be here any minute."
Cal emerged moments later with their youngest in pink lace and ruffles. Wren would turn five tonight. Dorcas felt a pain in her chest remembering what a sweet little baby she'd been. Five years passed so suddenly!
Dorcas rested a hand on her stomach. She couldn't wait to meet the little one in there. She could see the peachy serenity of their mind. But who would they become?
Ryann was sensitive and kind and so smart. She was ambitious when it came to magic and hungered to prove herself. Dorcas saw a little of herself in Ryann. Wren was a tiny Cal. She was good at sharing and loved to laugh and her expressive eyes communicated exactly what she felt.
Would this one be a perfect blend of the two? Would he or she reflect neither of them? Dorcas was impatient to find out.
The color of the little one's mind flickered bright yellow momentarily and he gave a kick.
"I'm excited too, little one."
Ryann met her mother's eyes and smiled. This small gesture left Dorcas wondering if she was the only one who could hear Baby Meadowes. She often speculated if her children would inherit her gift of hearing the minds of others. As far as she knew, she was the only one in her family who could do it. Ryann's biological father knew how, but had been taught by Dorcas. But Ryann had never let on about her capabilities, if indeed she had any. Dorcas also reminded herself that not a soul knew of her abilities until she'd gone to school. Then Tom had found out when she let her guard down in front of him.
Ryann's mind was silent to her always. Dorcas had tried to hear her daughter on a couple of occasions and met resistance. She knew that her own mind was safe from a breach by any other. Maybe this had been the one extraordinary gift her daughter had inherited from her.
Dorcas and Ryann set the table in silence while Cal and Wren answered the door.
Cherry entered the dining room and beelined for Dorcas. "My heavens, woman!" she said, grabbing Dorcas's large belly. "You look like you've swallowed a Quaffle!"
"More like a Bludger the way he kicks!" Dorcas returned, kissing her longtime friend.
Jonas came in behind Cherry holding Wren, who was clearly loving the birthday attention.
:::
"I have a bone to pick with you," Dorcas said, eyeing Jonas pointedly as she entered the dining room with another decanter of wine.
"What did I do?" Jonas blinked, bewildered.
"You didn't do anything," Ryann interrupted her mother, scraping the last of the pink frosting from her plate with her fork. "Mama's gone a little crazy, that's all."
"That ludicrous class is still being taught at Hogwarts?" Dorcas said, as she began to clear the dessert things away.
"Leave it, honey. I can get the dishes," Cherry said to Dorcas, grabbing her plate back. "There's probably no trick to that wisherwasher at all!"
"Which ludicrous class?" Jonas asked, confused.
"It's a dishwasher, Cherry dear. And you're not going anywhere near it!" Dorcas sat back down, leaving the pile of plates in front of Ryann.
"I can wash them for you, Mama!" Ryann said, grabbing the plates quickly and rushing to the kitchen.
"Without magic!" Dorcas called to Ryann's retreating back. "That class!" she responded pointedly to Jonas. "That inane Domestic Arts class. Ryann wants to take it instead of something useful."
Cherry laughed out loud. "I remember how you skipped that class for a month straight. You were such a rabble rouser, Dory!"
"Who's a rabble rouser?" Cal asked, returning from Wren's bedroom where he'd just put the birthday girl and her new kitten to bed.
"Your wife," Cherry answered, sipping her wine. "She skipped that Domestic Arts class for a month before Professor Lin finally capitulated and changed her schedule."
"She really was a little Robespierre! I found it incredibly attractive," Cal reminisced, winking at Dorcas.
She would not be put off. Turning to Jonas she continued her assault.
"Why are girls still being forced into that stupid class? It sends the wrong message, Jonas. Girls get the idea that they're only good for cooking and cleaning and having children."
"First of all," Jonas returned. "Female students aren't forced to do anything. That class is elective. And many parents appreciate their children learning practical home skills."
Dorcas narrowed her eyes at her cousin. "How many male students take the class?"
"I don't know," Jonas answered dryly.
"Would you take that class?" Dorcas leaned in and asked.
Jonas laughed. "No."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't need to know how to do any of that stuff."
"Because you're a man!" Dorcas said, throwing her napkin at her cousin in frustration. "Cal and I are donors to the school. We would like to know that our money is going to be used to give those students a proper education, not how-to courses on darning socks magically."
"And Hogwarts appreciates your generosity!" Jonas said, raising his glass to Dorcas.
Dorcas sat back and gave her cousin a scathing look. "She's not taking that class!" Dorcas said defiantly, crossing her arms.
"Yes, I am!" came the same defiant tone from the kitchen.
:::
5 December, 1940 Hospital Wing, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Dorcas sat in guilty silence next to Cal's bed as he slept. Visiting hours were about to end and the others had left to go down to dinner.
Her mind kept replaying the image of Cal laying at the sandy base of the middle goal post unmoving. She knew it was silly to suppose she had anything to do with his accident. She hadn't hit a Bludger at him. But she still felt responsible in some way.
She thought of Cherry's admonishment that Cal was playing badly because Dorcas broke his heart. She hoped that it was not true. It really was such a far fetched scenario.
But what if Cal had feelings for her? Would that change things? What if he'd told her how he felt about her before she'd told Tom she loved him?
Dorcas shook the thoughts from her head. Dorcas did not know that Cal had feelings for her. That was just conjecture. But he was a friend to her. A good friend. Better than she deserved.
"I'll come back tomorrow," she said quietly, getting up to leave.
She had detention in ten minutes with Dumbledore and didn't want to be late.
"Clerey?" came Cal's muffled voice from behind her.
She turned and saw that he was bleary eyed under the bandages that wrapped half of his head, but he was awake.
Having given herself a nasty concussion when she'd fallen last year, Dorcas knew better than most the kind of disorientation and discomfort he was feeling.
"Cal?" Dorcas came close, leaning over him to keep him from sitting up and causing himself more injury.
"Where am I?" Cal asked, looking around the ward.
"You were hurt during the Quidditch match. You're in the hospital wing."
Cal nodded and blinked, trying to remember the events of that afternoon.
"You should try to rest," Dorcas said, squeezing Cal's hand briefly before turning to leave.
He held her hand tight and wouldn't release it. "Don't go," he pleaded.
"I have to," Dorcas said gently. "I have detention. Cherry will be back soon to sit with you until curfew."
"You have detention?" Cal seized on that minute fact. "That's not like you. What did you do?"
Dorcas sighed a little and moved back to Cal's side. "I wouldn't participate when we were learning how to deal with boggarts. I talked back to Professor Dumbledore."
"Why didn't you want to face a boggart?" Cal asked.
Dorcas hated answering that question for the friends that had asked. Cherry, Beau, Darren, Jonas. They all said the same thing.
"You know a boggart can't hurt you, right?"
Dorcas suppressed an eye roll. "Yes, I know."
"But most people our age haven't been through what you have. I suppose you just didn't want to relive that moment in front of all of your classmates," Cal said.
Dorcas was surprised by Cal's insight, but could not imagine how he could possibly have guessed what her boggart would change into. How did he know about Birmingham?
"How could you know what I'm afraid of?"
Cal shrugged and then winced at the movement. Dorcas squeezed his hand sympathetically.
"Well, I didn't see what happened with your uncle, but I cleaned up all the blood afterward. I wouldn't want my classmates seeing that either."
Dorcas thought about this for a moment. She supposed if the air raid in Birmingham hadn't happened and Tom hadn't almost drowned, her uncle lying on the ground bleeding might very well be the shape of her boggart.
"Well, I gave Dumbledore cheek about it and now I've got to pay the price."
Cal released her hand and smiled at her. "Go. I don't want to make you late. Thanks for visiting me, Clerey."
"I'll be back tomorrow," Dorcas said and added quickly, "if you want me."
"Yes, I do want you."
Dorcas nodded, trying not to acknowledge that those last words warmed her like an internal light. Then she frowned as she turned and made her way to the hospital wing exit. She was with Tom now. Why did she also harbor a hope that Cal Meadowes had feelings for her?
:::
5 December, 1940 Defense Against the Dark Arts Classroom, Fourth Floor, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Dorcas raced from the hospital wing to the classroom where she would serve her detention.
Professor Dumbledore was already there checking a brass pocket watch theatrically when she arrived.
"You're late, Miss Clerey," he pointed out, tucking the watch back into the voluminous folds of his robes.
"Sorry professor, I was with my friend in hospital and lost track of the time."
"Understandable. I will not admonish the qualities of friendship and loyalty. How is Mr. Meadowes recovering?" Dumbledore asked politely.
"I don't know," Dorcas answered honestly. "He'd just woken up when I was getting ready to leave. Were his injuries very bad, sir?"
Dumbledore nodded. "He fell from a great height. But most of his injuries were healed right away."
"Why does the school allow that game to be played at all, sir?" Dorcas asked, giving voice to something she'd always wondered.
"Well, Miss Clerey, most of the students love the sport. I myself find that friendly competition and opportunities to practice sportsmanship are always welcome at a place of learning. Yes, players will get hurt, but no one has suffered permanent injury in quite some time. And we haven't had a death from the sport in over a century."
Dorcas blinked. She supposed that last fact was meant to be comforting.
"But, I could talk Quidditch with you into the wee hours, and you do not deserve a punishment quite that harsh." His eyes twinkled at his self-deprecating humor.
"I've written to your mother for a little guidance in the matter of the lesson with the boggart," Dumbledore continued.
Dorcas's heart sank and she looked at her shoes. Her mother knew that she'd talked back to her teacher. She would be extremely disappointed in Dorcas.
"She has enlightened me to some family history that I find helpful in understanding your reticence to participate with your classmates in the boggart exercise."
Dorcas looked up instantly. What had her mother disclosed to the professor?
"But before we address your reluctance to stand before a boggart, let us address your observation that I too would not stand before the boggart in front of the class."
Dumbledore turned to the cabinet in the corner of the classroom that contained the boggart. She held her breath as the professor opened the door and the body of a girl tumbled out. She looked to be about the same age as Dorcas, but fair haired and blue eyed in contrast to Dorcas's dark hair and eyes.
Dorcas could feel her mouth hanging open, but hadn't the will to speak the question she wanted to ask or to close it.
Professor Dumbledore made a slow arc around the body and studied it.
Dorcas finally found her voice, if for no other reason than to distract the professor from his terrifying prowling.
"Who is she, sir?"
"My sister," Dumbledore said simply, crouching next to the figure and looking into the vacant eyes that stared back.
"What happened to her?"
"She was killed," Dumbledore said, not taking his eyes off of the girl. "Accidentally, I believe."
"By whom?"
"I don't know. I am tortured by the thought that it might have been my own spell that killed her. But I don't know."
That was both cryptic and condemning. Dorcas was afraid to inquire further.
Dorcas decided instead to take a scholarly track in her questioning. "The spell requires you to turn your fear into something laughable. How could you make your sister's death into a joke, sir?"
This was a question that had been puzzling Dorcas. She had tried to fathom some way to turn Tom's dead form into something silly, but the very idea was revolting. She remembered that Tom's boggart had taken the same shape as hers. But swapping one dead form for another, Professor Dumbledore's, hadn't seemed amusing to her at all. But she couldn't deny that it had been effective for Tom.
Perhaps Dumbledore was the only one who could truly appreciate that the task of banishing the boggart was impossible.
"The fears of your classmates are surface fears. Fears that one might have if they have never had to face any real trauma in their lives. Turning fear into comedy is an easy way to fight that surface fear."
Dorcas nodded. She could see the sense in that. "But what if your fear is born from a real experience. One that haunts you?"
"Sometimes, the best way to deal with a deep fear is to make it into a more acceptable kind of fear. One that you can deal with, rather than one you cannot."
Dorcas looked at the unblinking face of Dumbledore's sister.
She did not notice that the professor had stopped staring at his boggart sister and was looking instead at Dorcas.
"Am I making sense, Dorcas?"
Dorcas's eyes snapped from the boggart dead girl to her professor. "I think so. Change the fear you cannot live with into one that you can."
"Precisely," Dumbledore said, standing and pointing his wand at his sister. "Riddikulus!"
Dorcas saw the fair haired sibling of her professor change with a crack! into Dumbledore's own crumpled, dead eyed corpse. She gasped. This was the second time in a week she'd seen the professor lying dead on the floor of this very classroom. The sight didn't become any less jarring with repetition.
"Now you try," Dumbledore stepped back from his own lifeless body and ceded the floor to her.
"No," Dorcas said immediately and with alarm, tacking a "sir" onto the end absently to appear respectful.
"Dorcas, I know what your boggart will be. No one else is here to witness it. And I will be as silent as the grave." He looked at his own unblinking eyes staring up at him from the floor, "Forgive the turn of phrase."
"You know?" Dorcas said in a near inaudible whisper.
"Why yes, I told you that I'd written to your mother. She explained to me the accident that your uncle had last Christmas. And with the anniversary of that shocking evening approaching, I think it only natural for you to face that fear."
Her uncle. She closed her eyes in relief. She assumed he'd somehow found out about Tom's brush with death in Birmingham. Sneaking away from the school was bad enough, nearly causing the death of her classmate… she couldn't imagine the repercussions if that had actually happened. She acknowledged with curiosity that before Tom had almost drowned, her uncle could very well have been the shape of her boggart. But Tom had a plan to evade death. Could she trust that he could put the one thing she feared the most out of the realm of possibility forever? Would she find enough resolve within herself to help him to do something so drastic?
She stepped up to the boggart, bracing for the sight of Tom that would almost certainly replace Dumbledore on the floor.
Crack!
To her surprise, the body of her professor changed into the form of her uncle, as she had found him last year, two days before Christmas. Lying in a pool of blood, he was convulsing in a fit of seizures. She felt the same panic and fear she had upon seeing him in that state the first time. She felt her mind casting about for some way to help him with magic. Frustrated at herself for coming up blank minded.
Then she realized that this was a boggart and not her uncle.
Dorcas looked to Dumbledore, who wore a look of shock and pity on his own features. He turned to Dorcas and nodded, reminding her of the remedy they'd discussed.
Dorcas took a deep breath, filling her lungs and her mind with the solution to the fear lying before her.
"Riddikulus!" Dorcas shouted. There was a loud CRACK! Dorcas saw herself lying in a pool of blood instead of her uncle. The sight gave her peace, the fear that had filled her up was receding like a wave from the beach.
Dumbledore came to stand beside her and enchanted the boggart back into the cabinet.
"I would have preferred that the boggart change into something other than my student, but well done, all the same, Miss Clerey."
Dorcas looked up at her professor. "What does it mean that I saw my own body lying there, professor?"
"I think it means that you're not afraid of death, Miss Clerey." He walked over to the cabinet and slid the lock home. "We're done for the evening."
"Yes, sir."
:::
6 December, 1940 Secret Room, Seventh Floor, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Dorcas leaned against a wobbly sofa with two broken legs that made up the south wall of the little furniture and blanket structure that she and Tom passed most nights in. She felt more at ease about the memory of Birmingham since her detention with Professor Dumbledore earlier. A detention that she understood now was not a punishment, but a one on one lesson.
She had come to the realization that she trusted Tom's plan to evade death. His death was no longer the thing she feared. She'd also come to realize that she did not fear her own death, which was a liberating revelation in itself.
Dorcas hummed contentedly and ran her fingers through Tom's hair as he lay with his head in her lap. He was studying Secrets of the Darkest Art again, as had become his ritual. She looked on and saw copious notes in his careful script filling the margins of the pages he was rereading. She smiled. So he did not plan on returning it to the Restricted Section.
"Do you think that will work?" she asked hopefully. It would work. The fact that she no longer saw him lying on the floor of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom was a testament to that.
"I think so, but I need more to go on. This book is all theory." He tossed it aside in frustration to make his point.
"My uncle's book has recipes, incantations, and all kinds of practical stuff about Horcruxes," Dorcas said. "I didn't read it carefully, because it was a bit creepy, but I think it's exactly what you're looking for."
Tom closed his eyes and settled in against Dorcas, pacified by the rhythmic stroking of his hair. She resumed her humming and, for a long time, there was silence.
"You're in a good mood tonight, Birdie," Tom observed after listening to her for a while. "Detention with Dumbledore went well? Sounds like torture to me."
Dorcas laughed.
"It wasn't really a detention. I mean, it should have been. I was disrespectful. But he wanted to coach me with the boggart one on one."
Tom's eyes opened and narrowed in the same moment.
"What did you do?"
"Well, at first I said I wouldn't do it," Dorcas explained. She felt Tom stiffen like a large cat that had spotted prey.
She could see in his mind that he was worried that Dorcas might give away the secret of what his and her boggart appeared as. She could see that he did not want Dumbledore knowing personal information about him. She wondered why Dumbledore in particular elicited such mistrust in Tom.
"But Cal had suggested earlier that my boggart might turn into my uncle. And I guess that was what was in my mind when I stood before the boggart."
Tom shot up from her lap and turned on her with intense anger.
"You've been talking to Meadowes about me? Who else have you been running your mouth to?"
Dorcas blinked at Tom. She didn't understand where his anger had just come from.
"Tom, I haven't said anything to anyone about you."
Tom pulled out his wand and crouched over her, pinning her down. With his left hand he grabbed a handful of her hair to hold her still as he threatened her with the wand in his right.
"Ouch, Tom!" Dorcas said in surprise.
"Imperio," he whispered menacingly. "You will not speak of my plans, you will not speak of Horcruxes to anyone but me."
He released her roughly, knocking her head against the wooden frame of the sofa behind her.
Tom took a breath to calm himself. Dorcas looked at him with wide fearful eyes. She dared not move a muscle or speak a word. She was afraid of provoking him further.
"Obliviate! You will not remember the Imperius Curse or the orders that I gave you. You bumped your head because we were fooling around and the space is small." As he said this, he removed his jumper and untucked his shirt. He unbuttoned the top three buttons on her blouse as well to set a realistic scene. "And you don't trust Dumbledore. He frightens you and you suspect him of trying to get information on me."
When Tom was satisfied that he'd altered Dorcas's memory sufficiently he released her by putting his wand away and kissing her deeply.
He was working on the fourth button of her blouse when Dorcas said, "Ouch, my head!"
"Sorry, little Birdie! Did I hurt you?" Tom said, clamoring off of her and examining the back of her head solicitously.
Dorcas laughed. "No, this space is just too confined."
Tom laughed too and resumed kissing her. Dorcas placed her hands on his chest and pushed him back in the next moment.
"We can't do this, Tom," she said, panting.
"Why not?" Tom asked, distracted by her bare collar bone. He began to trace it with a fingertip.
"Because," Dorcas said, swatting his hand away and quickly fastening her buttons again. "I don't want to."
Dorcas could see that Tom was disappointed. He rolled away from her and lay on his back staring at the blanket ceiling of their cave. For a long time he didn't speak. Dorcas began to see this as a particular brand of punishment he'd use when he was not pleased with her. She turned onto her side and placed a hand over his heart which was racing. He covered her hand with his own.
"I'm sorry, Tom. It's not that I don't want to. I mean, I don't want to. I do eventually. I just think it's too soon. This is all new. I've never been in a relationship before. But I want it to be more than just physical attraction."
Tom turned his head and looked at her. "It is more than physical. Birdie, there will never be anyone else for me but you."
"You can't know that, Tom," Dorcas said.
The realization that they might not be together in the future saddened Dorcas. But she was also a pragmatic sort of person. What were the odds that a relationship that began when they were thirteen would last? She felt strongly that the odds of a relationship built on just a physical attraction would burn brightly for only a moment before flickering out completely. She didn't want that for her and Tom.
He blinked and squeezed her hand as it was pressed against his heart. "But I do know it."
She snuggled against him and decided to drop the issue. A moment later she was asleep in his arms.
:::
6 December, 1940 Black Lake, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Dorcas woke up alone in the secret room on the seventh floor. This was not unusual, but Dorcas never liked the feeling of being left behind by Tom.
She wondered if he was still bothered by what happened last night; that Dorcas had put an end to the fooling around before they got carried away.
She'd quickly rushed to her dormitory to make her bed (she'd learned to mess up the covers before she snuck away to see Tom each night). Then she changed clothes and grabbed her cloak. She didn't want to be inside anymore.
Dorcas thought she might take a walk around the lake to collect her thoughts before going and seeking Tom out. He confused her so much. She reached up and touched the spot on the back of her head which smarted from where she bumped it against the sofa in the little den.
Tom was a very reserved and measured sort of person. It was unlike him to get carried away in the moment like he had last night. This thought caused Dorcas to check her own behavior last night and on other occasions when she and Tom had gotten physically close. In that little broom cupboard in the basement of Wingate Institution, she'd been the aggressor. Had she ever apologized to Tom for attacking him the way she had? Just because he'd said he enjoyed it didn't make it right. And, Dorcas reasoned as she made her way down the front steps of the school and out onto the grounds, Tom had probably been taking his cues from her. He wouldn't have kissed her last night, among other things, if she hadn't first breached the boundaries of physical contact with him.
But she knew that she must make it very clear to Tom that they could not keep pushing the limits like they had last night. Dorcas began to think that she ought to spend less time sleeping in the same close space as him.
The arrangement had been reasonable when they were just good friends. But since they had become more than that, the temptation to kiss him and to touch him was overwhelming. She didn't know how much longer she would be able to muster enough resolve to push him away when what she wanted was to pull him closer.
The air was biting today. Dorcas looked out toward the lake with stinging eyes. Someone was rigging up a boat at the edge of the water. As Dorcas got closer, she could see that someone was rather large.
"Rubeus," Dorcas called, picking her way carefully down the icy path of rocks that descended to the lake.
"Dory!" Rubeus called back, leaving the boat and hurrying back up the steep bank to help her down.
"Where are you going?" Dorcas asked, eager to find a distraction from her thoughts.
She walked along quickly beside her large friend, whose strides equaled three of hers.
He threw his cloak over one shoulder and bent to untie the boat from its mooring. "I'm off ter Bowtruckle Island," Rubeus said with a gleam in his eye.
Dorcas caught some of his excitement. "Where's that?"
She followed Rubeus's finger as he indicated the island in the middle of the Black Lake. Besides being ferried across these waters on her very first evening on the grounds of Hogwarts, Dorcas had never been on the lake. She hadn't ever really noticed the little island at the center of the still waters before.
"I've never been, but I'd like to see some bowtruckles," Dorcas said.
"Yer can come along," Rubeus said, pushing the boat into the water. There was ice around the edges of the water and the clouds threatened snow.
"Do you know how to steer that thing?" Dorcas asked, eyeing the boat.
"Sure I do!"
Dorcas smiled and allowed herself to be lifted into the rickety vessel. She immediately regretted her adventuresome spirit when she realized just how much water the boat would displace when Rubeus climbed in. The draft was well below normal level. It was fortunate, Dorcas conceded, that the wind was not strong.
Rubeus was as good as his word, he navigated the crossing admirably. He clearly had experience with boats.
Dorcas was carried to the shore of the little island and she looked back at the school from a vantage point she'd never experienced before.
"I like it here," Dorcas proclaimed.
"Aye," Rubeus said. "It's peaceful, innit?" He was smoothing down a very unusual tie that was light brown with yellow dots and pink stripes. It was tied very poorly.
"Rubeus," Dorcas said pointing to the new accessory. "You look smart today. What's the occasion?"
"Oh," Rubeus looked down at his tie, proud. "It's me birthday today. This was a gift from me da."
Dorcas's eyes widened and she smiled. "Happy Birthday!"
"I'm twelve today," the large boy boasted.
Dorcas could easily forget how young Rubeus was. He was far taller than any other student and much broader and had a head start on any other twelve year old she knew for the makings of a very bushy beard.
Dorcas was distracted when she felt the curious tug of a few strands of hair from her head. She turned and saw the twigs of the rowan she was standing under moving. On closer inspection, she could make out little moving twigs that were distinguishable from the tree itself.
They were chattering at her and pulling strands of her hair loose from her plaits.
"They like ye, Dory!" Rubeus encouraged, moving closer with slow and deliberate movements.
"I think I like them too," Dorcas laughed as two bowtruckles dangled from the branch above her head and dropped lightly onto her hair.
Rubeus was covered in the little creatures. "Watch yer eyes. Their major means o' defense is ter stick ye and blind ye."
"Heavens!" Dorcas said, shutting her eyes tightly as one little twiggy figure crawled onto her shoulder.
"What do they like to eat?" Dorcas prompted. She could tell Rubeus was in his element, talking about the creatures.
"Oh, they eat wood lice an' other bugs," Rubeus lectured as the twigs crawled over his cloak and infested his wiry black hair. "Their fav'rite food's doxy eggs, bu' they can't usually get those."
"Tha' rowan there," Rubeus continued, enjoying sharing his knowledge with Dorcas. "Open yer eyes, they're not goin' ter poke ya!"
Dorcas complied slowly at first, but became more comfortable around the bowtruckles as they moved away from her face and down her arms.
"Tha' rowan there," he pointed to the largest tree in the middle of the island. "Tha's a Wiggentree."
"Is it special?" Dorcas asked, eyeing the tall and knobby pine that curved like an umbrella over the island.
"Yep," Rubeus said, absently playing with a bowtruckle in the sleeve of his jumper. "They ken protect anyone who's touchin' their trunk from any dark creature."
Dorcas studied the tree and wondered where its magical properties came from. "Well, that's useful if you happen to be standing next to one when you're attacked by a dark creature."
"Yeah, I s'pose it's not that convenient when yer think 'bout it."
"Have you had a good birthday, Rubeus?" Dorcas asked.
Rubeus nodded, but Dorcas could tell that something was wrong.
"Are others still picking on you?" Dorcas asked, something defensive rising up in her.
"No, it's no' tha'," Rubeus said, busying himself with a bowtruckle that he was shaking from his sleeve. "It's jus' tha' I've always spent me birthday with me da. An' this is the firs' year I've been away from 'im." He sniffed a little at the confession.
Dorcas reminded herself to go down to the kitchens before dinner tonight to see if the house elves could do something special for him. She asked Cal if he could look after the large outcast, but since he was in hospital, Dorcas needed to make a special effort.
The direction of the wind changed and Dorcas saw dark clouds moving in.
"Let's get back before it snows." Dorcas said. "Your birthday's not over yet, Rubeus. I bet it'll be a good one in the end."
:::
3 August, 1958 Watermead, Aylesbury
Dorcas left Cal working in the basement laboratory. She wanted to talk to Ryann before she went to bed. To apologize for being pushy about school.
First, she quietly padded into Wren's room. It was dark except for the golden glow of the open book with the tree and goldfinches. The soft tune that wafted from the pages was 'Claire de Lune'.
She kissed her youngest, the birthday girl, and felt that familiar yearning to turn back time so that she could hold her in her arms as a baby once more. Next month she would be enrolled in nursery school for the first time. Dorcas still couldn't come to terms with it.
Her black and white kitten, a present for her birthday, was curled up on the pillow beside Wren. Dorcas smiled and fondly remembered her own little cat, Bing.
She closed the door carefully and moved to the next door. She knocked quietly.
"Come in, Mama," Ryann's voice called from the other side of the door.
"How did you know it was me?" Dorcas asked curiously.
Ryann's answer was a shrug. Dressed for bed and already under the covers, she returned her attention to her book.
"What are you reading?" Dorcas asked, sitting beside her daughter and feeling the blessed relief in her feet as her weight was distributed to the bed.
"Quidditch Through the Ages," Ryann recited, showing the cover to Dorcas.
"Are you thinking about joining the team?"
Ryann seemed to weigh how much she wanted to tell her mother. "You probably think it's a waste of time."
Dorcas felt shame at the realization that her thoughts and opinions about what worthwhile pursuits her daughter should and shouldn't take up had discouraged Ryann.
"I want to apologize for earlier," Dorcas began. "When I was in school, at the beginning of third year and for the rest of a girl's time at Hogwarts, they had to take that class. I found it to be insulting. It took up one of the two slots for new, more advanced subjects. The boys got to choose two specialized fields of studies and the girls got to choose one and were forced to take that Domestic Arts folly."
"That's not fair," Ryann agreed. "But you skipped it until they changed your schedule, I heard Cherry say it."
"Yes, and I added Arithmancy, but I was a month behind in my studies. And I don't need to take a class for four years to help me to enchant an iron to press my clothes. I can read the instructions in a simple magical homecare book and do it."
"If that class set you so far back, I can't imagine how far having me set you back," Ryann said, flipping the page of her book.
"Ryann," Dorcas gasped. "You didn't set me back at all! Is that what you think?"
"I can do math, Mama. I was born in November of 1945. You wouldn't have completed your schooling at Hogwarts until the summer of 1946. But you left school, didn't you?"
"I did," Dorcas replied. "But I didn't miss out on anything. I took my exams early, I went to university, I earned two degrees."
Dorcas felt anxious. She knew she would eventually have to have this conversation with her daughter, but she always pictured it happening much later.
"I don't want you to limit yourself. You're so smart. But, if you want to take Domestic Arts instead of Arithmancy, I will support you."
"You'll support me if I want to go out for the Quidditch team?"
Dorcas felt her heartbeat become rapid. She thought of the many injuries Cal had sustained on the Quidditch pitch and did not want her daughter to suffer the same.
"I support talking seriously with your father about the possibility," Dorcas hedged.
She sighed and placed an arm around her daughter's shoulders.
"I'm not a perfect mum, and I don't say the right thing or do the right thing all of the time. But I love you, Ryann. You can tell me anything or ask me anything. I hope you know that." Dorcas hugged Ryann close to her and felt her daughter wrap her arms around her and squeeze her back.
"I love you, Mama," Ryann said. It was the absolute best sound in the world to Dorcas. She closed her eyes and clutched her daughter.
"I thought I was so embarrassing!" Dorcas repeated her daughter's words from earlier in the evening.
"No, you're not," Ryann capitulated. "Mama, I want to know one thing."
"Hmm?"
"Why are you and my real dad not together anymore?"
Dorcas's eyes flew open in alarm. She tried to think back through conversations she'd had with Ryann in which she'd accidentally mentioned Tom. She was sure she'd never mentioned him. Had Ryann overheard her and Cal talk about him? If she had, Dorcas was absolutely sure that they'd never spoken of him being Ryann's biological father out loud.
Out loud.
"What do you know about your real dad?" Dorcas endeavored to keep her voice neutral and steady.
"I know you went to school with him. I know Daddy doesn't like him at all."
"Yes," Dorcas responded. "I went to school with him. We dated most of the time I was at Hogwarts. I was way too young for a relationship that serious. We got carried away. I got pregnant with you."
Dorcas tried to ignore the ringing in her ears and the out of body feeling she was experiencing. She was trying to choose her words with extreme care, all the while a loud voice in her head was shouting, "THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!"
"It turns out he didn't love me enough to stay with me. But Daddy did. And Daddy loves you so much," Dorcas was walking a fine line, striving to keep from saying the wrong thing. The last thing she wanted was for Ryann to feel unloved or unwanted.
"I know he does. I can hear him."
Dorcas wiped away a tear and looked at her daughter in surprise. She'd suspected.
"You mean you hear his thoughts?" Dorcas asked.
"Yes, I can hear Daddy, I can hear Wren, I can hear my classmates. I could hear Jonas and Cherry tonight at dinner. I can hear him," she laid a hand on Dorcas's stomach. "But I can't hear you."
"I can't hear you either, angel," Dorcas said. "I think that's part of the ability. You can hear others, but others are blocked from hearing you."
"Can my real dad do it?"
Ryann's interest in Tom unsettled Dorcas. Her plan was to never mention him to Ryann and to keep the secret of Ryann's paternity between her and Cal.
"Only because I taught him to," Dorcas answered. "It's important that you understand something, Ryann," Dorcas said, looking her daughter in the eye so that she knew what her mother was about to say carried weight. "Not many people can do what you and I can do. In fact, besides you, I know of no other living soul who has this ability naturally. Therefore, you cannot use it against anyone. Everyone has the right to the privacy of their own mind. You don't have your abilities so that you can sift through the thoughts of others whenever it pleases you."
"I won't do it anymore, Mama," Ryann said, chastened. "But sometimes I'm not looking into someone's mind on purpose. Sometimes thoughts just hit me."
"I know," Dorcas said, rubbing her daughter's shoulder. "That happens to me too. There's nothing you can do about those, except try to ignore them. But just because you can hear what others are thinking doesn't mean you should listen."
Ryann seemed to think about this for a long time.
"What if I want to meet him someday?" Ryann asked just as Dorcas began to hope the conversation was at an end.
Dorcas hesitated.
"I don't know if that's a good idea," Dorcas said.
She didn't know if this was the right response, or if it would only make her more curious about Tom.
"Does he know about me?"
"No, my love, he doesn't," Dorcas said.
Ryann nodded, but her face was a mask devoid of emotion. Dorcas desperately wanted to hear her daughter's thoughts at this very moment.
"Is there anything else you want to know?" Dorcas asked, though continuing the conversation would certainly fray her screaming nerves.
"No," Ryann said in a small voice.
"Sweet dreams, my love," Dorcas said, kissing her forehead and closing the door on her way out.
She walked numbly down the hallway, across the entryway and to the door leading to the basement stairs. Without even feeling the doorknob beneath her fingers, she turned it and descended the stairs.
The dam of tears she'd been bravely holding back broke when she said Cal's name. He looked up from the bubbling cauldron that he stood over worry immediately altering his expression, and crossed the room to her. Dorcas sank to the fourth step from the bottom and sat because she could feel her knees giving way.
"What's wrong? Is it the baby?" Cal asked, alarmed by her breakdown.
"No, it's Ryann. She can hear minds like I can," Dorcas gasped through tears. "She knows about Tom. She knows everything."
Cal stared at Dorcas stunned.
:::
4 August, 1958 Janus Thickey Ward for Long-Term Spell Damage, Saint Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries
Dorcas was only in the office a half day today. She was here to sign off on Gus Hawkins's release and to assign her patient files to some of her colleagues. Gwen would continue handling all of the referrals from her home practice, which had been shuttered for almost a month now.
But the letters and small containers of memories kept arriving by owl. Her desk was a testament to how inundated she'd become with requests since her name had been associated with Theresa Allen's case.
Dorcas attempted to shift the pile so that she could clear enough space in which to work. She looked at the clock in frustration. Gwen was supposed to be here already to help her with this mess.
She was also frustrated at herself because she couldn't focus her mind on anything else but the conversation she'd had with Ryann last night. She still had the sickening feeling that she'd said something wrong or explained some key facts poorly.
As she swept the piles of post to the side, one of the phials of memory dropped to the floor and smashed against the industrial tile. With a lot of effort and little grace, Dorcas hefted herself to her knees and reached for some papers on her desk to mop up the liquid and broken glass.
Dorcas realized that while the mixture she was mopping up was similar in color to the memory threads that one can remove from one's own mind and store, this liquid lacked the shimmery quality of those memories. What was this stuff?
She felt the stab of glass as a shard penetrated the skin of her index finger. The silvery mixture mingled with her blood.
"Moonseed Poison," Dorcas said in recognition as she lost feeling on her left side and collapsed behind her desk. The last thought that came to her mind was a recognition that she was going to die. That her baby would die with her.
Her baby's thoughts were colored deep red with agony. She knew that his nerve endings were on fire, the same as hers.
"I'm so sorry, baby!"
A/N: Reviews are welcome and appreciated.
