Chapter 27
10 September, 1958 Third Floor, St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries
Avoiding thoughts about her baby boy's death had become Dorcas's religion. The liturgy began with some dream of an existence where her family was complete, a healthy little boy in her arms. It was followed with a simple homily, the recitation of a name: Benjamin Mortimer Meadowes. The penance for the sin of letting her perfect baby perish was all of the waking hours of the day, watching her friends and family tiptoe around her fragile emotional state. Watching Cal hold it together on the outside, all the while witnessing his inner flagellation; the self recrimination, insisting that he could have done more to save Benjamin, was his flail. And when the mass finally ended and Dorcas found rest, it was the sacrament of vengeance that she drank deeply from. The communion cup was unimaginable suffering. The prayer on her lips was Stephen Muybridge.
Amen.
Tonight was a particularly long night of torment for both Dorcas and Cal.
Believing she'd gone to sleep, Cal sat sentry in the chair in the corner by the door. The lights were out and the curtains drawn against the lights on the ward. It was better to do this kind of bloodletting in the dark.
Dorcas sat vigil, eyes open and staring at the dark ceiling. Listening to her husband's thoughts, bearing witness to what he'd experienced, taking his pain on as well as her own. Could she have done any less?
Tonight, the flail of experiencing their infant son's death had been laid aside. Instead, Cal was tearing at the deep wounds and covering them with the hairshirt that was Dorcas's near death.
One image rested at the foremost of Cal's mind. It was a jarring scene. Dorcas watched on in a sickened stupor as her own body, cut cleanly across the middle and gaping open, lay empty. A vessel that earlier had carried two lives, now barely held one.
Cal was caught in a wrenching dilemma. He needed to go to his infant son, who was not breathing. Dorcas tried to look behind her husband where she knew baby Ben was laying in a medical cot, attended by two of Cal's team. But he was frozen, staring at the open cavity in his wife's abdomen that he'd just cut their baby from. He was paralyzed with inaction, undecided as to which case was more urgent.
In the next instant, he'd turned away from her and bent over their son. Barking orders at his team, the two healers traded places with him and set about closing Dorcas up.
It was this very act of turning away from his partner as she clung to life, when she'd depended on him most, abandoning her, that tormented him tonight.
Holding little Ben in his arms after the team had departed, the pitiful rattle of the tiny damaged lungs struggling for breath, Cal watched the accompanying rise and fall of Dorcas's chest as it fluttered erratically.
She was pallid and motionless. There was blood everywhere, spread over the bed linens, down the front of Cal's robes.
He tried to mentally prepare himself for the loss of Dorcas and the baby, caught between the two choices he'd been forced to make: desert Dorcas, who might be saved, to prolong the life of the baby who couldn't be saved. And it was likely that he would lose them both in the end.
Dorcas heard quiet sobbing. The dolorous sound tore at her insides.
She pushed herself up on one elbow and threw back her covers. Placing her feet on the cold tile of the floor shocked her senses and made her more alert. Shuffling carefully, following the sound of Cal's muffled cries, she reached out until she found his shoulder.
Dorcas placed herself in front of him, gliding her hands through his hair. It was much too long.
In the dark, she felt him reach for her and wrap his arms around her waist, burying his face against her hospital gown, soaking it.
"I'm sorry," was all Cal managed to say. He repeated it.
"I don't want you to blame yourself," Dorcas said softly against the top of his head. "You did exactly the right thing. I wanted you to try to save him. Even if it meant letting me go."
She could only recall Cal sobbing twice in her knowing him. Once when he'd received word of his brother's death and the second time at his mother's passing. But this was different, this was torture.
Dorcas was stoic. She would have liked to throw herself on the floor and tear at her skin with her own nails and keen wretchedly. But one of them had to be stable. One of them had to be the rock. If she gave in just now to the depths of despair, she would never reach the surface again. Ryann and Wren needed her. Cal needed her.
Cal had every right to fall apart. Cal had experienced all of the horrors that Dorcas watched replay themselves over and over in his mind. Dorcas had only witnessed them secondhand. Cal had not killed their baby. Dorcas had.
And Stephen Muybridge.
Amen.
:::
16 February, 1941 Circus Arcanus, Hogsmeade
When Dorcas opened her eyes, they first rested on Cal's face.
"Dorcas, are you alright?" he asked, his voice colored with concern.
She blinked and soon things came into focus behind him. The crowds that hovered behind Cal stared at her. The backdrop of the scene placed everything into context. Blowing in the chilly winter air was a banner for the Circus Arcanus.
"Did he get it?" Dorcas asked, trying to sit up.
Cal placed a hand between her shoulder blades to support her. "Who?" he asked distractedly. His eyes seemed to take inventory of every bruise and abrasion that Dorcas felt.
"Yeah, I got 'im!" Rubeus answered.
Dorcas turned her head painfully to the right and saw the giant first year with a meaty fist pushing down on the spine of one of the Oni's handlers, pinning him to the slushy street.
"Was an accident," the handler was gasping under the weight of Rubeus's fist. "She walked right out in front of me."
"Dory!" Anneliese exclaimed belatedly, pushing through the crowd with Beau, Cherry, and Darren in tow.
"Do you think you can stand?" Cal asked, placing his other hand under her left elbow to help her.
Dorcas winced as a curious popping sensation sent off a stabbing pain in her rib cage.
"What's happened here?" Professor Lin inquired, coming upon the scene as she exited the main circus tent, a candy apple clutched in one hand.
Dorcas had only talked to the Ravenclaw Head of House on a few occasions. She was the Arithmancy professor. By all accounts a notoriously stern and daunting teacher. Naturally, Dorcas was keen to be able to take on the challenging coursework of the subject when her schedule was open to advanced classes in the fall.
Professor Lin was dressed in a considerably stylish Muggle pair of wide-legged trousers and a thick coat. Dorcas tried not to gape, but found it hard not to ogle the teacher whom she'd never seen in anything other than a dour black robe.
"Dorcas was pushed into the cart when that man gave chase to something, Professor" Cal explained.
"Gave chase to what?" Professor Lin asked, leveling shrewd eyes on the Oni handler.
The man tried to answer her, but only wheezed.
"Oh for pity's sake, Mr. Hagrid!" Professor Lin admonished. "Let the man go. It was an accident."
The crowd leaving the tent seemed to ebb around them like a stream navigating a group of boulders. Dorcas saw Professor Slughorn fall in with the masses and disappear. She wondered if he was successful in obtaining his quarry.
And she hoped Tom was successful too. Wherever he was.
"I don't know, Ma'am," the circus worker explained. "It were invisible. It attacked our Oni, Hiro."
"Attacked your Oni? Balderdash," Professor Lin returned skeptically. "I daresay your Oni can defend itself. That's no reason to rampage through a crowd of people."
The man wanted to argue, but Professor Lin had turned from him to address Dorcas. The handler slinked back into the crowded tent without further argument like a scolded child.
"Are you hurt, Miss Clerey?"
Dorcas shook her head, eager to avoid the same scrutiny and sharp words that the handler received.
"Very well," the professor said, satisfied that the situation was handled. She turned from the small group assembled and gave her attention back to the candy apple she was enjoying.
"I think you should be looked over," Cal said in a low council to Dorcas.
Dorcas shook her head once more and argued. "I'm f-fine," she said, her voice hitching with pain over the word "fine", betraying her.
"You go and enjoy yourselves," Cal said to the rest of the gang. "I'm going to take Dorcas to Madam Higgins."
Cherry and Anneliese looked to Dorcas for their cue. Did she want them to insist on heading back to the school too? Dorcas knew they'd been looking forward to this outing as much as anyone.
Dorcas nodded to them, letting them off the hook. She wouldn't have wanted a group of people fretting over her injuries anyway. She was humiliated enough.
"Feel better, Dory!" Anneliese said, turning toward the high street with Beau.
Cherry and Darren began to follow. Cherry raised a knowing eyebrow to her, suggesting some intrigue between Dorcas and Cal. Dorcas rolled her eyes in response and allowed Cal to steer her away from the crowd.
"Oh no you don't, little shadow," Cherry called over her shoulder to Myrtle. "You're coming with us."
Dorcas saw Myrtle beginning to trail behind her and Cal, but was brought up short by Cherry's call.
"Let's go," Cal said to Dorcas as she watched the group join the throngs of other students and circus goers.
Rubeus Hagrid went in the opposite direction, straight into the tent that Slughorn had just vacated.
Dorcas wished that her ribs were not protesting quite so much. She also wished that the knee she'd recently busted on the Owlery steps hadn't just collided painfully with the sweets cart when she'd been thrown backward by the handlers. She was embarrassingly dependent on Cal's support to remain upright.
"I can tell that you're in pain. You don't have to pretend for my sake," Cal said, slowing his pace.
"I've busted this knee so many times now, I'm wondering how many times a bone can be healed," Dorcas mused.
"You do seem accident prone, Clerey," Cal pointed out. "But the answer is there is no limit."
"How fortunate for me!" Dorcas said darkly.
Cal beside her released a tense laugh.
"Are you interested in healing?" Dorcas asked, making conversation on the slow and awkward walk back to the school.
"I am," Cal answered. "I want to do something that combines Magical Healing Arts with Muggle medicine."
"Really?" Dorcas said enthusiastically, briefly forgetting all of her pain and embarrassment. "I want to do something like that too!"
"You'd make an excellent healer, Clerey," Cal encouraged.
Dorcas brightened at the praise. "I want to work with people who suffer from spell damage."
"Like your uncle," Cal offered.
"Yeah," Dorcas agreed.
Cal smiled and squeezed her elbow slightly.
"When I was in the hospital wing recovering from my fall on the pitch," Cal explained. "I plagued Madam Higgins with non-stop questions about what she was doing and how to heal this injury or that."
Dorcas laughed, imagining the harried matron indulging Cal's endless queries. But her laughter was suspended when someone's thoughts intruded on her conversation with Cal.
She caught sight of Gemma's boyfriend and some of the Slytherin students who'd been at the Christmas party at Blackpool. Callum Sayre, Tamsen Podmore, Roman Flint, and Morgana Josephs.
"Sneaking back to the school with another punter. I wonder how much she charges." The thought came from Roman.
"I don't know," Tamsen responded. "Evlyn, how much did you pay?"
This garnered a loud guffaw from the group as several pairs of eyes turned in her direction.
"I wonder where she sets up shop," Morgana mused airily.
"The toilets, with her knickers around her ankles," Tamsen laughed. "Poplar style," she added.
Horrified that she wasn't just hearing internal thoughts of such a crude and false nature, but that they were spoken out loud between the group's members, bid Dorcas to blush deeply and study her feet as she and Cal passed.
Gemma was crossing the street to join her friends. "What's so funny?" she asked.
"That," Morgana said, brazenly pointing. "Poor, Tom."
Dorcas dared not lift her gaze. She couldn't be sure if the conversation was as loud in reality as it was in her head, or if it was being amplified because of the strength of the atrocious thoughts being projected.
That Cal was not reacting, she hoped, was a sign that their voices were not carrying by normal auditory means. That was something to be grateful for.
"I warned him of the sort of slut he was involving himself with," Gemma said with a magnanimous shrug that Dorcas couldn't resist peeking at.
The Slytherins' heads were bent together conspiratorially, which unfortunately for Dorcas, did not diminish the decibel of the thoughts they sent her direction.
"Well, the lower strata have to earn a living somehow, right?" Roman laughed.
"Let's hope Tom at least gets to ride for free," Tamsen said, shrugging casually, while examining her nails.
Dorcas felt hot tears come into her eyes. She wished that the banter didn't wound her as much as it did, but that Tom and Cal were made ridiculous by association prickled at her emotions further.
She tried to resist glancing one last time at the group, but her eyes flicked up and over of their own volition. Gemma's sneer was expected. Evlyn's anger was nearly so. But Callum had the good grace to look uncomfortable with the whole exchange.
He caught Dorcas's eye but they both looked away as if opposite poles of two magnets compelled them.
"Dorcas?" Cal's voice immediately next to her made her start.
She swiped a hand across her eyes quickly, but not fast enough for Cal to miss the gesture. The hand that was on her back slipped around her shoulders sympathetically. He assumed her tears were from the pain and meant to comfort her. Dorcas cringed inwardly at the tableau his embrace would affect for the jeering onlookers.
:::
16 February, 1941 Hospital Wing, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
If Dorcas had let him, Cal probably would have held her hand through her examination by Madam Higgins. But the matron had insisted that Dorcas have her privacy. Dorcas had assured him that she was fine and thanked him for the service he'd rendered in helping her back to the school.
She could read the mood of his reluctant thoughts, but didn't press in on them. Dorcas had her own concerns pounding through her mind at the moment.
She understood that the mockery she'd listened to on the Hogsmeade high street had stemmed from her encounter with Evlyn Rosier in the hedgerow maze at her uncle's house at Christmas. Dorcas had debated whether she should find a moment to clear the air, apologize for leaving him stunned in the hedgerow for who knows how long. But the thought of being alone with him again scared her and she'd put it off.
He was definitely angry at her and maybe a bit embarrassed that she'd bested him with his own wand. At any rate, his version of events as represented to Gemma, seemed to run counter to the truth. And Gemma blamed her for the perceived straying of her paramour.
When Madam Higgins had finished her healing spells on Dorcas's knee and various other cuts, and bandaged her ribs tightly (they were healed but would be sore from deep bruising for a couple of days) she buttoned her shirt and donned her heavy coat once more.
Though she didn't need the thick outerwear in the confines of the school, the comments she'd been subjected to made her feel exposed. The coat gave her a sense of being somewhat hidden.
She had planned to go to the secret room and wait for Tom to return from Hogsmeade with the Oni tusk, but now she didn't think she could be around him. Gemma said she'd talked to him, warned him that Dorcas was free with her affections toward other males at the school. And she'd heard nothing about the encounter with Gemma from him. Not even a warning that her cousin was spreading salacious rumors about her. She wanted to believe at the very least that he'd defended her to Gemma, but her instincts told her otherwise.
Feeling incredibly wronged and powerless to do anything about it, Dorcas headed to her dorm room where she planned to hide under the counterpane of her bed until the end of time.
On the landing in front of her was Gemma. She was red cheeked from the cold, surrounded by the entourage that had insinuated that Dorcas was a prostitute that sold herself in the girl's lavatory. Dorcas had a powerful impulse to confront her and her friends. She wanted to tell everyone within hearing precisely what happened in the garden maze at her uncle's house.
But, she reminded herself that she wouldn't have heard their exceedingly damaging banter without her unusually cursed ability. And as much as she did not like the rumors that flew about her easy virtue, she knew she would love the truth about her abilities coming to light much less.
But.
She marched up to Gemma before her cousin had a chance to register the movement or the identity of the person who blocked her progress to the stairs. Dorcas reared back and with an open palm smacked her cousin hard enough to turn her forcibly toward the banister. The resounding crack was punctuated with a surprised cry from Gemma as she caught herself against the marble railing.
There were stunned whispers and some laughter.
Dorcas didn't see the faces of the onlookers, only her own blind rage.
Though it'd hurt her to twist her torso and her healing ribs, the contact her hand made with her cousin's stupid face was worth it.
When she turned toward Ravenclaw Tower she saw Tom staring in wide eyed disbelief at her. Professor Slughorn was frozen next to him with his mouth agape.
Dorcas hadn't thought about the consequences of slapping her cousin. But a teacher had just witnessed the bold assault. She braced herself for the coming detention, or maybe a trip to the headmaster's office.
Instead, Slughorn suddenly seemed very interested in his pocket watch and turned in the opposite direction, walking away as if he'd not just witnessed one student leave an angry red handprint across another student's face.
"Birdie, what the hell?" Tom thought rather than saying out loud.
Dorcas was in no mood to talk.
"A lighthouse," she said through gritted teeth at the bronze eagle door knocker that had given her a riddle that she'd barely heard.
"Close enough," the eagle replied, admitting her (probably poised to open upon any response, lest he receive a slap to match Gemma's).
:::
17 February, 1941 Third Floor Charms Corridor, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Dorcas was up early for a Sunday. She packed and repacked her school bag. She had no idea what she would need to take with her for her trip to Great Hangleton.
She had a change of clothes (something much more Muggle and drab than the wool skirt and jumper she wore at the moment). She tried to think about what a poor country girl like Daisy Smith would wear to an interview for a job at a big fancy estate party. She thought Daisy might have very modest clothing, on the shabby side, but definitely her best dress and cardigan would be selected to impress Mrs. Wharton.
She tucked copies of her references and even a forged identity card she'd made for Daisy into the folded cardigan. The invitation that Mrs. Wharton had extended to her directed her to an inn in the town of Great Hangleton, the Hangleton Arms. This came as a bit of a disappointment to Dorcas because she was excited to behold any member of the Riddle family, especially Tom, Sr. She was unlikely to see any of them in town. With a sigh, she tucked the interview request into her pocket, supposing that she would have to wait until next week's party to gaze upon any of Tom's prospective family.
Her Muggle money that her mother had given her for Christmas was in an inside pocket of the school bag. She had a few Wizarding coins in her pocket for the Knight Bus.
She'd stepped in front of the mirror and looked over her appearance. She had plaited her hair modestly into two braids. She would be changing into her blue and green plaid dress and navy cardigan once she'd reached Great Hangleton.
Dorcas paced the corridor, not too closely to the classroom that held the Vanishing Cabinet that it might tip any bystanders off. She cursed herself for her temper yesterday. Not that she regretted the hand-shaped welt she'd created on Gemma's face. But storming up to her dormitory left no time to talk with Tom about a plan for escaping Hogwarts in the morning. She even felt a little remorse for assuming the worst of him: that he'd probably not bothered to defend her to Gemma.
She brightened visibly when she saw him coming toward her, hands in the pockets of his average Muggle trousers and his overcoat tucked under one arm.
"Mr. Riddle!" Professor Slughorn's voice cut off her own words as she opened her mouth to apologize for treating Tom so dismissively yesterday.
"Just the man! I've been sent by Dippet. He'd like a word."
Tom appeared as surprised as Dorcas was.
"Now, sir?"
"Why yes, of course! Look sharp!" Slughorn said in his always affable humor.
Dorcas's thoughts toward him had warmed since he'd looked the other way yesterday after she'd slapped her cousin. She wondered if Gemma was universally despised by all but her own sycophants.
"But Dorcas and I were just about to-" Tom began to explain as Slughorn approached them.
"Your plans will keep, I'm sure, m'boy," he made a flapping gesture at Tom like an overly large goose. Tom backed away from Dorcas a couple of steps, looking at her with a combination of panic and apology.
She read the thoughts he was intentionally directing toward her. "You'll have to go without me, Birdie. You can do it. Just be cautious around Burke. He was suspicious last time."
Dorcas shook her head slightly but with a look on her face that she knew communicated her horror at the prospect of going alone. True, she'd planned the outing for herself alone, but had never thought she'd go through with it. She'd only ever left the school with Tom.
She did something in that moment that she had strictly forbidden herself from doing before now. She looked into the Potions Master's mind for the reason that Headmaster Dippet wanted to see Tom.
He was going to ask Tom about the Circus Arcanus. The ringmaster had insisted that a student was behind the attack on the Oni. Tom had been seen around the tents and cages.
Dorcas made an embarrassing show of pulling Tom into an embrace. She hoped it looked as if she was kissing him goodbye, but whispered close to his ear so that Slughorn couldn't hear.
"Slughorn was in the Acromantula tent. He stole some venom. I don't know if it's something you can use. Dippet was informed of the Oni attack. Your name came up."
Tom squeezed her upper arm to communicate that he'd heard and understood.
"Alright, Miss Clerey," Slughorn said, partly amused, partly exasperated. "You're not sending him off to war. Let him go."
She released him.
"Trust me," Tom reassured her in thought. "I can handle Dippet."
Slughorn and Tom continued down the corridor, Slughorn talking wistfully to Tom about young love.
Dorcas waited until Tom and Slughorn had turned the corner. She was alone in the corridor once again.
She heaved a worried sigh and stepped into the classroom that held the Vanishing Cabinet. Dorcas tried to ignore the million and one ways in which she could bungle this trip and the opportunity to put the mystery of Tom's paternity to rest once and for all.
Dorcas didn't have Tom's confidence or street smarts, but she wasn't a completely helpless person either. Squaring her shoulders, she reached out and opened the cabinet, stepping determinedly inside.
The sickening sensation of being pulled backward by a hook in her navel shook that confidence for a moment. Though she'd gone through the cabinet on her own once to return to Hogwarts, she much preferred the jarring trip when she made it holding onto Tom's hand.
She cracked the cabinet door an infinitesimal amount, peering out at the darkened shop. Dorcas thought hopefully for a moment that it might be closed on a Sunday. She could imagine Tom's incredulous laugh, shooting that hope down. Wizards didn't observe the Sabbath.
The sound of whistling wafted its way from the lighted back room. It was the only sound in the shop. Daring to push the cabinet door further ajar, Dorcas craned around to confirm that there was no one else in the shop.
Taking the opportunity, Dorcas slipped out of the cabinet and to the shop's front door. There was a very tall, very thin wizard with dark circles under his eyes, extending a hand out to push the same door open to enter. He held it for Dorcas with a bow.
She thanked him and exited onto Knockturn Alley.
:::
She stepped off the Knight Bus with the same feeling of vertigo she'd experienced the last time she'd ridden it. That was from London to Birmingham. The memory of that ill-fated trip sent a shiver down Dorcas's spine. She seemed to recall that she vowed she'd never leave the school grounds without permission ever again.
Yet here she was.
Buttoning her coat all the way up, she hefted her school bag onto her shoulder and picked her way down the snowy lane.
Great Hangleton wasn't great by any stretch of the imagination. It was one square block with a war memorial in the middle of a roundabout and a collection of about twelve buildings.
Somewhere in the distance a clocktower chimed the time. If the chimes could be relied upon, it was eight thirty in the morning. Her interview was in the Hangleton Arms in thirty minutes. If Slughorn had lingered any longer, or if Burke had been about his store's shelves that morning, she would have been late. She hurried on into town to look for the inn and an opportunity to change into her persona of Daisy Smith.
When she located the inn, she pulled its heavy wooden door open, brushing the flyaways from her face. She probably looked disheveled, but hoped not too much. Daisy seemed to Dorcas the kind of girl that would walk miles for honest wages, even in the snow and wind.
She found the privy and quickly ducked behind a stall to change from her decidedly schoolgirl ensemble and into her Daisy costume of simple cotton dress in green and blue plaid and her warmest navy blue cardigan. She shoved her skirt and jumper back into her bag and smoothed her hair.
Dorcas took one calming breath.
Mrs. Wharton was unmistakable among the other patrons of the inn's dining room. While the others gathered in groups and pairs seemed to be enjoying a pint or a meal together, she was the only one who sat alone, pouring over endless lists. Dorcas supposed that these were lists of staff and of provisions for the party.
She approached and cleared her throat.
"Pardon me," Dorcas said. "Are you Mrs. Wharton?"
The woman looked up from the paper she was scanning and removed the readers from the end of her nose.
"I am. Are you expected?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Dorcas would not have called the woman old or young. She was at that exact moment one would call midlife. But she possessed a young and agile quality that reminded Dorcas of Professor Dumbledore. She had hawkish eyes that Dorcas guessed missed very little.
Her hair was pinned in a severe knot on the crown of her head. She wore a black, smock-fronted dress that hit mid-calf. The only adornment that the woman seemed to allow herself was a small pendant timepiece that was pinned below her left shoulder.
She was consulting it now.
"Name?" the woman demanded without looking up at Dorcas.
"Daisy Smith," Dorcas answered. Her hands were folded in front of her for want of a better place to put them. She resisted the urge to reach up and tug on her braid.
"You're early, young lady," the woman said, making a note on the list in front of her.
"Yes, ma'am," Dorcas confirmed.
"How did you arrive?" Mrs. Wharton inquired.
"I walked," Dorcas said. She frantically cast about in her mind for a location to hale from in case asked.
"You're a local then?" Mrs. Wharton continued the inquest, gesturing to a seat across the table from where she sat. "Please, do sit."
"The next town over," Dorcas lied, taking a seat and praying that the woman did not inquire which town. Dorcas was not even certain which part of England she was in. Her identification card that she'd fabricated for Daisy said Stoke-on-Trent. She had not a clue if that was a nearby city to Great Hangleton.
"Have you any serving experience?"
"I worked in a London hotel. I have a reference."
Mrs. Wharton cut her off. "Yes, I've read your references. A great house is different from a hotel restaurant, you see."
"Yes, ma'am," Dorcas answered, hanging her head in anticipation of a rejection.
Beneath her cardigan her wand was tucked into the belt of her dress. She'd been reading up on the Confundus Charm in case she needed to convince the woman to hire her based on more than merit.
"And you're very young. How old did you say you were?" Mrs. Wharton shuffled through her papers, looking for the answer in Dorcas's application.
"Sixteen, ma'am," Dorcas answered, sitting up taller and regretting the juvenile arrangement of her hair.
"Well," Mrs. Wharton sighed, she set her papers down and studied Dorcas for the first time since she'd begun the interview. "The younger Mr. Riddle does like a pretty face."
Dorcas wanted to take the compliment, but didn't much like the way in which it was given.
"You'll start work at noon on Friday. Tardiness will not be tolerated. Thievery and fraternization will not be tolerated. You will wear your hair off of your face and shoulders. Here is your uniform."
The woman slid a stack of folded black and white laundry toward Dorcas. There was a frilly little white cap resting on top of the bundle.
"It is to be worn on Saturday from four in the afternoon until you have been dismissed for the evening. You must be clean and pressed."
Dorcas thought she was done with the litany of directives, but was mistaken.
Mrs. Wharton leaned over to peek at Dorcas's feet tucked under her chair.
"Do you have black heels?"
"Yes, ma'am," Dorcas said, her spirits high as her plan seemed to be falling perfectly into place.
"Good. That is all, Miss Smith," Mrs. Wharton said with a dismissive air.
Dorcas lifted the pile of clothing and thanked her. She stuffed the uniform into her school bag, under the housekeeper's disapproving glare.
Stepping back out into the chilly winter wind, Dorcas whooped excitedly.
She'd gotten the job. And she'd done it all on her own.
In just five days Dorcas would be able to confirm or rule out Tom Riddle as her Tom's long-lost father. She hoped that as they narrowed in on Tom, Sr. information on Tom's mother would be more forthcoming as well.
She was about to retrace her steps to the outskirts of the town when a signpost caught her eye. It read Little Hangleton 5 Miles.
Dorcas shifted her weight between her feet, warring within herself for a moment. She was itching to at least catch a glimpse of the Riddle family residence. But part of her cautioned, you've carried off your plan. You should get back to Hogwarts before your luck runs out.
The most curious sound pulled her attention away from the enticing sign. A dirty and hairy homeless man passed close to her. Close enough that she caught the strange noises he was making. He was hissing.
She noticed that his attention was fixed on a common green garden snake that was coiled around his right hand. It was strange to see a snake in the dead of winter. It was even stranger to see a man hissing at one as if conversing with it.
But not so strange that Dorcas hadn't seen something similar before.
She remembered a memory she'd once seen in Tom's mind. He was sitting with his back to a tree, the long grasses around him swaying in a summer breeze when a snake came up to him and hissed. The young Tom hissed in reply. The very same way that this man seemed to be conversing with the garden snake around his wrist.
He must have been a local. Dorcas watched as others quickly moved out of his path, but otherwise paid him no mind.
"Excuse me," Dorcas said, stopping a man in denim overalls and a peacoat. "Who is that?"
The man looked back over his shoulder to where Dorcas pointed. "You don't want nothin' to do wi' him, miss." The man cautioned.
"No," Dorcas agreed. "I just wanted his name."
"Barkin', he is," the man replied. "Gaunt. Lives in a rundown place just over that hill," the man indicated a low, white expanse of meadow covered in snow.
"Thank you," Dorcas said.
The man replied by touching his cap and moved on.
Dorcas followed the hissing man called Gaunt at a careful distance. She was concentrating on his thoughts with such singular determination that she didn't know how far she'd traveled and in which direction. She let her feet carry her as her mind reached for his.
The mind of Mr. Gaunt was a tangle of agitation, grudges, pride, and a base instinct for chaos. Dorcas couldn't make out a single coherent thought among the heap.
She continued to dog the man's steps. He wore several shades of brown (or maybe his clothes had once been a different color) underneath a heavily patched and soiled duster coat. His boots were scuffed thin in places and the toe of the left one had come away from the sole, exposing his bare feet to the snow and slush of the street.
When Gaunt turned down a narrow lane, Dorcas following behind, she passed a hedgerow and a spectacular view opened up before her. The lane sloped down into a bucolic valley. On a distant rise was a gray stone church with its graveyard spread out to one side of it. A few small buildings and cottages clustered about the church's steeple as if mustering to a banner. On the opposite hill was a handsome manor house built of similar gray stone, but much larger than the buildings on the opposite hill. Dorcas knew she was catching the site of the Riddles' house and the village of Little Hangleton at last and wished that Tom could see it too.
Dorcas felt as if she were staring at a Brueghel painting. The hills glistened with snow, the crystalline dusting catching the sunlight enchantingly. Dorcas had been so taken with the sight of the beautiful house and the charming village that she'd let Gaunt nearly disappear around a corner at the bottom of the hill.
She lengthened her stride and let gravity carry her faster down the hillside, her focus on the opening of the hedgerow that Gaunt had disappeared through. Beyond it was a copse of trees.
Dorcas slowed as she reached the bottom of the steep lane and rounded the corner.
"Why are you following Morfin, Muggle girl?"
Her breath caught in her chest and she nearly screamed when the ragged man, matted hair and beard obscuring all but his eyes, which darted terrifyingly in opposite directions giving him a deranged appearance, grabbed her and pressed her into the hedges that had concealed him.
Dorcas tore at his hand. But it clenched the lapel of her coat tightly.
"I'm not a Muggle," Dorcas said before she could stop herself and consider a better reply.
"Oh?" the man called Morfin said with interest, staring at her closely. "A witch then? Did the Ministry send you? They recruit them awful young now."
"The Ministry didn't send me." Dorcas managed to peel his fingers from the front of her coat. He was inches from her face. The stale, rancid smell of his breath made her eyes water.
"You have no business here. No business with Morfin. Be gone," the man said, baring his teeth at her menacingly. He was missing a few in the front.
Dorcas couldn't think of anything clever to say. She couldn't think of why she was interested in this man, other than that she'd noticed that he could speak to snakes the way that her Tom could. Then she recollected the name Gaunt from her deep dive into the Sayre family and the founding of the American school of magic.
"Does Marvolo Gaunt live here?" She schooled her voice to be firm, working the tremor out of it before she spoke.
The man took a step back from her as if her words had shocked him.
She was taking a quick inventory of all she remembered from the pages of the Slytherin lineage that she'd briefly studied in the library so many months ago. The Gaunts and the Sayres were the surviving lines of the Slytherin name. Both branches of that house were determinedly pure-blood lines. So much so that Dorcas remembered a lot of inbreeding in both lines. She'd thought this was an amusing historical anecdote at the time. When faced with the terrifying, real-life result of such narrow bloodlines, the humor had quite gone out of it.
"Does Marvolo Gaunt live here?" Morfin repeated her question. "Does Marvolo Gaunt live here?" His voice hitched oddly. "Does Marvolo Gaunt live?"
He backed away from Dorcas as if her words had wounded him gravely. She realized that he was staggering to a remote corner of the hedgerow, the opposite direction of the tiny, ramshackle house that was shaded and heavily obscured by the many trees surrounding it. He rested his hand on a small, crudely carved tombstone.
"Marvolo Gaunt does not live," Morfin said. He absently fiddled with a ring on his finger and became silently introspective.
"Was he your father?" Dorcas asked. She tried to sift through his thoughts to find the answers she sought. Her instincts said that he was connected to Tom. It was too much of a coincidence that a man who could speak to snakes lived in proximity to a man who looked the spitting image of her Tom.
The thoughts were so disjointed, so erratic and infrequent that the sensation of trying to land on one or another long enough to make sense of it left Dorcas feeling dizzy and lightheaded.
"My father? My father? You don't speak his name. Filthy Muggle," Morfin raged, advancing on her.
Dorcas opened her mouth to say something. She didn't know what. Perhaps to remind him that she was magical like him, or perhaps to say something soothing.
She'd landed on a memory that she hoped was confirmation of a connection. Dorcas saw a girl of about seventeen or eighteen who looked very similar to Morfin; heavy features and dark hair, cockeyed stare. On the young woman, the eyes that looked in different directions seemed pitiful and sad, not threatening as they had on Morfin.
Was this a sister?
The scene included the handsome Muggle man that Dorcas had seen in the paper. Morfin was mocking the girl as she stuck her head out of the window of the dilapidated cottage. Morfin was screaming about pure-blood pride and filthy veined Mudbloods. He cursed the man, Tom Riddle, right off of his chestnut mount. The man writhed on the dusty lane, angry hives breaking out all over his face. The girl disappeared from the window and out onto the nettle-filled lawn in bare feet. She went to Tom with her own wand raised, but hovered, undecided as to what course of action would alleviate his suffering.
Morfin spat on the ground beside the girl and walked away.
Dorcas was more certain than she'd ever been that she was staring at Tom's parents. And that Tom's uncle was now standing before her, threatening her with a wand in one hand, a knife in the other.
She reached for her own wand concealed beneath her cardigan in the belt of her dress.
"Stop!" came another voice.
A tall boy stepped through the opening of the hedgerow. Dorcas, with her wand suspended in air before her, did a double take.
"Tom?" she asked, blinking.
It was not Tom. The boy was older, taller, broader in the shoulders than her Tom.
Dorcas lowered her wand and concealed it in the folds of her dress. Morfin did not seem to be compelled by the same laws of the Wizarding World and held his wand and his knife between them.
"This doesn't concern you," Morfin said dismissively. "Be gone, filthy Muggle bastard!"
"I'll go," the boy said. "But she's coming with me."
"You don't give orders to me! I am a descendant of Salazar Slytherin and you're nothing but a fatherless Muggle whelp!"
Morfin Gaunt seemed to forget about Dorcas entirely and charged at the boy instead.
"Experlliarmus!" Dorcas cried, aiming her wand at Morfin's wand hand just as he was about to open his mouth to voice a hex at the boy.
Dorcas expertly caught the wand that came sailing out of Morfin's hand.
"You disgusting filth!" Morfin raged, turning on her with the knife.
"Miss!," the boy called. "Watch out!"
He wasn't close enough to get to her before she could stun him.
"Stupify!" she shouted.
Morfin was thrown off of his feet. The boy looked on in amazement, clearly impressed with Dorcas's ability to lay a much larger foe out upon the ground with one word.
"How did you do that, Miss?" the boy asked, standing over the prone Gaunt who lay motionless in the snow.
"I'm magical," Dorcas said, returning her wand to her belt and chucking Morfin's wand over the hedgerow with a creepy feeling of dejavu.
In the next moment, she felt that it was misguided to do magic in front of a Muggle, or underage magic outside of school, for that matter.
"Is he...dead?" the boy asked, nudging Morfin with the toe of his boot.
"No. He'll come out of it soon," Dorcas said, staring up at the boy who was disconcertingly similar in appearance to her boyfriend. "Look, I'm not supposed to have done that. There are rules. Can you keep all of this a secret?"
"No one would believe me if I told them, Miss," the boy said.
Dorcas sighed and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She tugged on her right braid as she decided if she should attempt to wipe his memory, or to trust him when he said he wouldn't tell.
"Come on," she said, taking hold of his elbow and pulling him out of the copse of trees and away from Morfin's shack. "Someone might come to investigate. We can't be found here."
Dorcas began to walk back up the lane the way she'd come. Recalling her earlier warning to herself about getting back to Hogwarts before her luck ran out. Now she'd stunned a wizard in front of a Muggle. She shook her head in self-recrimination.
"What's your name?" the boy asked.
Dorcas glanced at him. He hadn't stopped staring at her with that look of shocked amazement.
"Daisy," Dorcas lied. "Daisy Smith. What's yours?"
"Jack Hardin."
"Jack, thanks for your help back there," Dorcas said once her heartbeat returned to normal.
Jack walked next to her in a casual attitude. To any passersby, they could be out for a friendly stroll. He shrugged in response to her statement. "I didn't do anything."
"You distracted him," Dorcas argued. "It was exactly the help I needed."
"Happy to be of service," Jack replied.
Dorcas wondered if it was his tall and broad frame, or the fact that he was a little older and therefore closer to manhood than boyhood; Dorcas found herself comparing him to Tom in every aspect. And her initial impulse was to find Jack Hardin compellingly handsome.
Jack cleared his throat and looked at his feet.
Dorcas realized that she'd been staring.
"You're not from around here," Jack finally said, breaking into Dorcas's thoughts.
"No," Dorcas admitted. She'd barely been able to keep up the pretense of being a local with the Riddles' housekeeper. She doubted very much that Jack would buy the story.
"Thought not," Jack responded with a smile. "I would have noticed you."
Dorcas caught the smile and once again compared his free and easy confidence with Tom's coiled intensity. She felt guilty that her mind kept inventorying Jack and Tom and finding Tom wanting. It was a sort of betrayal, she supposed. She willed herself to keep her mind on the task of getting out of Great Hangleton and back to Hogwarts.
"Jack," Dorcas said, turning to the boy once they reached the end of the lane. "It was nice to meet you. But I must go."
Great Hangleton was about a quarter of a mile or so to Dorcas's left and she would be able to hail the Knight Bus on the outskirts of the town.
He nodded and removed his glove, exposing a hand calloused from work. He extended it to her. "It was nice to meet you, Daisy. I hope to run into you again if I ever need saving."
"Take care, Jack," Dorcas said, removing her glove and taking his hand.
He did not turn to leave as she walked off, but watched her until she disappeared past the war memorial and down the snowy lane that led out of town on the eastern end.
:::
17 February, 1941 The Leaky Cauldron, Charing Cross Road, London
Dorcas paused just inside the taproom and unbuttoned her coat. She was relieved to have made it this far, but she was not back at Hogwarts yet. She reminded herself to stay alert and not to make any foolish missteps. A lot could go wrong between here and the other end of the Vanishing Cabinet.
"Birdie," Tom's voice sounded in her head and she was immediately awash in gratitude for it.
She met his eye from across the crowded pub. A smile turned up the corners of her mouth and she felt tears in her eyes. She wondered at the curious wave of emotion that had come over her.
Crossing the room, Dorcas threw herself into Tom's arms and felt herself relax, not realizing how tense she had been, carrying out her plan alone.
Tom saw the tears and was surprised at how tightly she held on to him.
"Is everything okay?" he asked in a low and worried tone. "What happened?"
Dorcas pulled back to look at Tom and blinked away the silly tears. "Nothing happened. I just missed you."
Tom released a breath he'd been holding, realizing that he'd been tensely waiting for hours for Dorcas to walk through the pub's doors.
"I missed you, too," Tom said. "Sit."
He pulled out a chair for her and helped her out of her coat.
"We have a lot to talk about," he continued.
He folded her coat and laid it over his own on the chair beside him.
Dorcas agreed, nodding as she removed her gloves and smoothing her windswept hair.
Tom motioned to a witch nearby who arrived to take their order. When she left, Dorcas and Tom spoke at the same moment.
"You go ahead," Dorcas said, folding her hands in her lap. What she really wanted to do was reach across the table and kiss her boyfriend. She was happier to see him than she'd been in weeks. She didn't know where the emotions were coming from. Nervous energy, she supposed.
"Very well," Tom conceded. "I wanted to say that I'm sorry."
"For what?" Dorcas's brows creased with confusion.
"Well, it dawned on me while I've been sitting here that I had no idea where you were going. I mean, I knew you were headed to Great Hangleton, but beyond that, I had no clue. And I realized that I've been so wrapped up in my plans to obtain the Oni tusk, that I hadn't taken the time to properly plan this trip with you. You had to go it on your own. And I didn't even know if I would be able to find you, or when you'd be back."
Dorcas laughed.
"What's so funny?" Tom asked.
"Well, I was going to apologize as well."
"Oh?" Tom's eyebrows raised with curiosity.
"Yeah," Dorcas began, but stopped to thank the witch who brought her a cup of warm mulled wine and Tom a Butterbeer. She sipped the steaming beverage gratefully and continued. "I was angry yesterday and I should have talked to you instead of storming off to the dormitory."
"That's right!" Tom said, laughing with his Butterbeer suspended mid sip. "I forgot about that! Why did you slap Gemma?" He sipped his drink, but added hastily, "Not that you need a reason."
"She's been spreading the nastiest rumors about me," Dorcas explained.
Tom set his drink down and was suddenly sober. "I know."
"I heard her in Hogsmeade laughing with her friends. They were making jokes that I sell myself to the male students at the school. Evlyn's told everyone that he's had it on with me at my uncle's party at Christmas."
"I'm sorry, Birdie," Tom replied. "When Gemma said something similar to me, I just brushed it off. I thought she was just trying to come between us. I didn't think she was spreading it all over the school."
"I wish you had defended me, Tom," Dorcas said.
"I wish I had, too," he said quietly.
Dorcas sipped her wine and noted how Tom kept his eyes on his own drink, not looking at her.
"It's a different situation for boys, isn't it?" Dorcas mused.
"What is?" Tom asked.
"If a rumor like that were to spread about a boy, it's like it enhances his reputation somehow. Evlyn seems pretty chuffed about the narrative he's supplied about the events of that night."
"Evlyn's a tosser, Birdie," Tom said.
Dorcas didn't hear him.
"But any rumor about a girl…" she struggled for a euphemism. "Giving her favors to boys is ruinous." As she said it, Dorcas knew it to be the truth and it frustrated her. It was such a double standard, one she was powerless to fight. "She's won."
"Who?" Tom asked.
"Gemma," Dorcas answered dully. She felt her mood deflate at the realization. "It doesn't have to be true. The fact that the idea's out there is enough. When people look at me, they'll just think of the stories that she and her friends have spread. They'll only see a whore."
Tom took her hand away from her mulled wine that she was staring into and grasped it.
"Anyone who believes her is an idiot, Dorcas."
She shook her head. Dorcas knew that she was right and Tom was just trying to make her feel better.
"I mean it," he insisted, squeezing her hand for effect. "Anyone who knows you can see what a good person you are."
She smiled slightly at the statement, but couldn't shake the hopelessness of the situation.
"Besides, I know firsthand how virtuous you are. I haven't been able to get anywhere with you despite my best efforts," he laughed.
This last comment succeeded in pulling her out of her sullen thoughts. She kicked him under the table.
"Change of subject," Dorcas said as Tom reached down to rub his shin. "Did you get the Oni tusk? What did Dippet say."
"Yes, I got the tusk. And Dippet never once thought I'd do something so reckless as attack an Oni. He merely wanted to know if I'd seen anything suspicious." Tom put on his best impression of angelic innocence.
How wrong the headmaster was about Tom Riddle.
A/N: Reviews are welcome and appreciated.
