Chapter 29

12 September, 1958 Third Floor, St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries

"I want to go home, Cal."

Dorcas couldn't seem to modulate her tone in any way that didn't make her sound like a petulant child.

"I don't think it's a good idea, Dorcas," Cal said.

Apparently he could not help but sound like an overbearing father with a giant stick up his arse.

"I'm recovered enough. Signing myself out. You can't stop me."

Dorcas flung back the covers of her hospital bed to emphasize her point.

Cal's answer was to stand in her path like a brick wall. His point was made just as effectively.

"Yes, you've recovered from the trauma of the poisoning and the…" here he hesitated to mention the larger trauma following the poisoning. "Procedure. We still don't have any answers about the damage to your brain."

"I'm not likely to find the answers sitting here in this infernal bed, Cal," Dorcas countered.

"You could lose your sight, suffer a stroke, a brain bleed. It's too dangerous to risk."

Dorcas took a calming breath. "You've worked with me on the Ex-Nebulae Elixir, Cal. You know that the only way that I'm going to be able to lift any Compulsory Operational Curses that might be causing damage is to inventory thoughts and systematically study them for alterations. I'm not going to be doing any of that from this hospital bed."

"I want you to take a leave of absence from the hospital," Cal said, abruptly.

She was silent.

Cal stared back at her in challenge.

A beat longer.

"And the practice," Cal added.

What Cal didn't say was the real gut punch. But he couldn't school his thoughts to be supportive and principled all of the time. She knew that there were plenty of thoughts in her own mind that she would never voice out loud. Thoughts that were passing impressions that come unbidden and are just as quickly dismissed. This thought was nothing more than that.

But Dorcas seized on it. She took it up like a scourge.

The passing thought was this: Interfering with the minds of others is what endangered their family in the first place.

She opened her mouth to argue, but Cal's errant, accusatory thought stole the words from her. She closed it, empty now without the conviction she'd felt only moments earlier.

She'd heard the same accusation over and over again in her own mind. It was her Abaddon.

In Cal's mental voice it was a guilty verdict.

Dorcas nodded meekly, ducking her head and covering for the tears that sprang into her eyes and the quiver of her lower lip by pulling her feet back into the bed covers and arranging them around her once again.

She could feel the stunned surprise from Cal that she was not going to argue the point. When had he known her to back down from a challenge?

There was a brisk rap on the door to the hospital room and Sheldon Bonham, the Director of St. Mungo's peeked in.

"Am I interrupting?" he asked with a simpering smile.

Dorcas hated the way this man saw Galleons when he looked at her and her husband. Don't get the wrong impression, she loved the unfettered funding for developing experimental potions that the hospital afforded them. This was how St. Mungo's had wooed them from America, after all. The Blood Replenishing Potion was just beginning to hit the market. And it was all thanks to the hospital. But the director was always ready to exploit any angle, take advantage of any press-worthy opportunity to get the donors to reach into their pockets.

He stepped into the room before Dorcas or Cal could answer him. He was laden down with a grandiose vase of lilies.

"From your adoring public, Dr. Meadowes," Sheldon said, setting the flowers down on the side table.

Dorcas hated the smell of lilies.

"From Professor Dumbledore," Sheldon added, plucking the card from the bunch and handing it to Dorcas.

"I wish you peace and comfort, strength and healing in this difficult time.

-Albus"

Dorcas read the card to herself and then handed it to Cal.

She turned her attention to the hospital's director, knowing that he did not come to the third floor to deliver flowers.

"This has also just arrived. Hot off the presses." He laughed nervously.

He handed her a copy of Modern Potioner. Dorcas remembered suffering unhappily through a tedious photoshoot arranged by the hospital to accompany an article about the Blood Replenishing Potion. She and Cal looked like a happy, professional couple. She was jealous of those innocent, smiling faces on the cover.

"I wanted to stop by, now that you're, ah, doing better and extend my sympathies for your loss. I hope you will agree that St. Mungo's has provided exemplary care during your, ah, ordeal," Sheldon stammered.

Cal had the good grace to smile.

Dorcas didn't even look up from the magazine, flipping through the insipid glossy pages of braggadocio was a better alternative than staring into the face of a man who was trying to take the temperature of Dorcas and Cal to see if they intended to bring a lawsuit against the hospital for Dorcas's poisoning.

She did not hear Sheldon Bonham's parting words through the ringing in her own ears. A quote at the end of the Healer's Profile on her and Cal had caught her attention instead.

"It seems a tragic twist of fate that a duo who has contributed in such a significant way to the Healing Arts should suffer such a deep loss. I am sure I am not alone in wishing to extend my deepest condolences to the Meadowes Family on the heartbreaking loss of their son."

"The bastard's written about our son," Dorcas said, her voice so low that Cal hadn't heard her at first.

She did not repeat herself, but threw the magazine at the door that Sheldon Bonham had just exited.

"I am leaving this sodding hospital with or without your blessing tomorrow," she added with gritted teeth. She laid back against her pillows and pulled the covers over her head.

She heard Cal walk the few paces to the door and pick up Modern Potioner.

:::

25 February, 1941 Secret Room, Seventh Floor, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

As Dorcas made her way through the piles of junk and castaway items, contraband and forgotten treasures she heard whistling.

Beyond whistling, she heard Tom's thoughts. He was inventorying all that they had learned in Little Hangleton over the past thirty two hours. It was all such a jumble and so much had happened so quickly. His thoughts kept returning over and over to Dorcas being pinned down by his father, hands around her throat.

Dorcas knew then that the whistling was an attempt to keep his temper even.

He was standing over a pile of half-chopped herbs, a bubbling cauldron beside him. He was lost in his own thoughts while he diced something leafy green into fine pieces.

Dorcas let her arms glide silently around his torso and pressed herself to his back.

He jolted in surprise only for a moment and then laughed.

"Jesus, Birdie! I might have cut my finger off!" Tom said.

She didn't reply. She was entirely focused on the way he felt in her arms. Her hands moved from his ribs to his chest. She could make out the slim but muscled contours of his flesh under his shirt. He was warm and caused her to snuggle her cheek into the space between his shoulder blades and inhaled the scent she always associated with him, a piney scent, like an ancient forest.

"Is everything okay?" he asked, clearly thrown off by her open affection. He grasped her hand as it lay flat on his chest and tugged her forward until she stood in front of him.

Laying the knife aside, he brushed her hair from her face and kissed her forehead.

"Yes, everything's okay. Can't I just be happy to be with my boyfriend?" Dorcas replied.

"I suppose," Tom said, studying her warily. His eyes rested on the collar of her blouse, buttoned all the way up, yet doing a poor job of concealing the bruises that Tom, Sr. had left on her neck.

His fingers carefully unbuttoned the top two buttons to reveal her neck and collarbone.

"I looked up a spell that I think can heal those. Do you want me to try?"

She nodded as Tom reached for his wand.

"Afairo Cicatrix!" Tom said, pointing his wand at Dorcas's neck.

She had the passing thought that one would have to trust a person implicitly who held a wand to their throat, speaking an unknown spell.

Tom studied the skin, satisfied that there was no more discoloration and placed his wand back in his pocket. Bending, he brushed his lips lightly to the place where her pulse beat and kissed her.

"I'm sorry, Tom," Dorcas said, as she threaded her fingers through his hair.

He exhaled deeply against her, causing her skin to prickle like gooseflesh.

"For what?" he asked distractedly.

His hand found her waist and pulled her against him.

"For keeping things from you," Dorcas explained. "It was wrong of me. I wasn't sure what to do with the information I'd learned about your mother."

He pulled back from her and fixed her with a considering stare for a long moment.

When Dorcas looked into his eyes, she did not see resentment, accusation, or flashes of anger (all of the feelings that were so close to the surface in him last night). She saw only caring and concern.

"After you left me last night, I had the strangest feeling like I would lose you."

"Lose me?" Dorcas asked, not understanding his meaning.

Tom shook his head. "It's hard to explain. I was angry that you'd kept secrets about my family from me. But after you went back to your dormitory, I had this awful feeling like it was the last time I was seeing you."

Tom raked a hand through his hair distractedly and shook the thought from his head again.

"All I could think about was seeing you on the floor in that house, that man squeezing the life out of you. I was gripped with this conviction that you would go to sleep last night and never wake up."

"Strange," Dorcas said.

Tom laughed a little nervously. "Yeah, it was."

"Well, I'm alive and well. As you can see," Dorcas responded, holding her arms akimbo to demonstrate her fitness.

She kissed him as if to reassure him that she was hale and healthy. The kiss must have been a little too enthusiastic, because Tom's mind settled immediately on his memory of her in the maid's uniform and then to the memory of her out of it.

"You're mine," Tom insisted. He kissed her again. "I will kill anyone who tries to take you away from me."

"No one will take me," Dorcas mollified him, placing a hand on his cheek. "I won't let them."

She turned from his intense gaze to the cauldron that was still bubbling on the table beside them.

"What's this now?" Dorcas asked.

"Oh," Tom said, his thoughts returning to the ingredients he'd been preparing. "I'm making you a Sleeping Draught. You've been so troubled with nightmares, I thought this would help," he explained.

Dorcas was stunned by his thoughtfulness.

"Tom, that's so kind!"

She kissed him in thanks, a gesture that he immediately deepened. Dorcas's reaction in the past would have been to pull away or distract him. But she was learning that such intensity was just another facet of his personality.

Touched as she was by his desire to remedy her troubled sleep, she allowed him to wrap his arms around her and part her lips with his eager tongue.

:::

13 September, 1958 Third Floor, St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries

Dorcas was surprised when she slipped on the dress that Cherry brought her. It was one that Dorcas remembered wearing last summer. But she did not remember it hanging quite so loosely on her frame. She held out her arms and bunched the material at either side of her waist. She supposed that convalescing in a hospital for over a month would have that effect on anyone.

Cherry helped her to zip up the back and slipped a blue cardigan over her thin arms. She felt like hiding.

"Let me do your hair, honey," Cherry said, leading Dorcas gently to the chair beside the hospital bed.

"When's the engagement party?" Dorcas asked, looking anywhere but at the mirror.

She'd never been particularly enamored of her own reflection, but loathed inventorying the haggard appearance, the dark circles, the new lines on her brow.

"We're not planning one just now," Cherry said.

Was Dorcas hearing things, or was that a note of regret in Cherry's voice?

"How come?" Dorcas asked.

Cherry shook her head quickly, teasing Dorcas's hair a little to give it some volume. "We haven't made any sort of official announcement. With everything that's happened, we decided to wait."

Dorcas thought about her best friend and her cousin.

Jonas had wanted to marry Cherry since almost the moment that Dorcas had introduced them during their second year at school. Cherry had been hopelessly wrapped up in another romance at that time. Though it had taken her eleven years to come around to the idea of opening her heart up to another person, she did eventually open up to Jonas.

Their story was such a fitting tale. Cherry, being drawn to all sorts of Muggle technology, ended up working for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office. One day two and a half years ago when Cherry had gotten the most exciting assignment of her career, her path crossed Jonas's once again.

Jonas wore many hats within the Ministry of Magic. He had inherited two positions of great responsibility from his father: permanent member of the Wizengamot Criminal Judiciary Council and Governor on the Hogwarts Board of Governors. To this he added the title of Ministry Liaison to NATO. In this last capacity, he was able to carry out his most cherished dream of combat pilot. Marrying magical and Muggle talents in this way, Dorcas liked to think she and her cousin were both reinventing the Rackharrow name.

Cherry's assignment at the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office was to assist in an investigation of alleged Muggle-baiting in the Muggle Royal Air Force concerning jinxed aviation equipment. She reached out to Jonas for some expert advice on aeroplanes and the match was struck.

"Wait for what?" Dorcas asked, batting away her friend's hand as she got carried away with the teasing comb.

"Well, I was planning to throw a big party to announce it. But…"

Cherry didn't have to finish the statement. She was postponing the wonderful announcement and celebration because of Dorcas's poisoning and the loss of her child.

"Oh, Cherry!" Dorcas said, turning in her seat to look at her friend. She grabbed Cherry's left hand. The one with the enormous rock glinting from it. "Don't postpone things on my account. In fact, I could use a bit of good cheer just now!"

"Well, we're sort of out of time to plan something," Cherry said, her expression downcast.

"What do you mean?" Dorcas asked.

"Jonas has an assignment in the Baltic in early November. If we were going to throw something together, we probably should have done it already."

Dorcas could hear what Cherry didn't say as loudly as what she had. She was worried about Jonas. True, Britain was not at war now. The US and the Soviet Union were posturing, but no shots had been fired directly between the two powers. Cherry couldn't help but to think about the past and the losses from the last war.

"It's just a reconnaissance mission. Jonas is going to be fine," Dorcas said, squeezing her friend's hand.

Cherry didn't say anything, but smiled bravely. She wondered silently as she finished Dorcas's hair, could she go on living if she lost the second man she'd ever loved? There was a time when losing the first had nearly done her in.

"Let's plan a party for next month. I'll help you," Dorcas said, smiling buoyantly.

:::

1 March, 1941 Library, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Jack's letter was burning a hole in Dorcas's skirt pocket. She'd been eager to read it since it arrived by owl in the Great Hall that morning. But she'd restrained herself, keeping it as a reward for the end of lessons.

Tom was already seated in their study corner, pouring over a large, dusty volume.

Reaching a hand out to stroke his silky hair, Dorcas leaned over and kissed his temple.

He gave a distracted grunt in reply but didn't look up from his reading.

Dorcas pulled the letter from her pocket, finally allowing herself to read the news from Little Hangleton. Her index finger was poised under the envelope's flap ready to tear it open when someone's thoughts behind her distracted her.

She flushed deeply as a scene played itself in her mind involving her and Clay Atwood, a Gryffindor boy in her year. He was thinking the thought so loudly, he practically shouted it in her face. They were alone in some shadowy corridor that could have been anywhere in the school. She knelt before him, his hands holding fistfulls of her hair. She saw his eyes closing with pleasure as she-

Dorcas gasped as the letter fell from her hands and fluttered to the floor.

Tom looked up from the page he was reading and fixed her with a curious stare. He bent to pick up the letter that she'd dropped, flipping it over and scanning the address.

"You're writing to him now?" he asked dully, tossing the note onto the table's surface in front of Dorcas.

She didn't hear him. She was paralyzed by fear, disgust, and mortification at the thoughts of the Gryffindor behind her. She could feel his gaze on the back of her neck and it made her skin crawl.

"Birdie," Tom said, waving a hand in front of her face.

She gave a jolt and banged her knee painfully into the table leg beside her when Tom placed a hand on her forearm.

He pulled it back as if scalded.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you," he said gently. "Where did you just go?"

Dorcas let out a breath that had caught in her chest. She felt the rapid thumping of her heart and she suddenly felt like her skin was covered in grime. Bile was rising in her throat and she closed her eyes, willing the wave of nausea to subside.

Tom studied her for a moment, sitting up and leaning closer to her.

"Birdie, what's wrong?" he asked worriedly.

"Nothing," Dorcas managed to say, choking back the acrid taste in the back of her throat. "I've just remembered I have something…" she trailed off, not bothering to come up with any plausible excuse for leaving the library that she'd just entered.

"Birdie," Tom prompted.

Seeing that he would get no more out of her, he pulled her chair back for her and watched as she took her bag and the letter and left again.

Dorcas was still aware of Clay's eyes on her as she walked past him and through the stacks toward the library's exit. She averted her eyes, but could not avert the thought from his mind that pushed into hers. He was taking a careful inventory of her... attributes as she hurried past.

She felt just as exposed and alone in the corridor as she had sitting in the library and fought for calm and order in her mind. It was just some innocent fantasy that she was not meant to hear. Everyone daydreamed. Clay Atwood hadn't meant any harm. He would probably be mortified to know that his private thoughts were not private to her at all.

Who was the real creep in this scenario? Dorcas asked herself.

She would have liked to think that she had all of the power in the dynamic, but it was not true. She recalled the prone position she had seen herself in. His hands holding her there, the fists in her hair did not strike her as gentle at all. She did not seem a willing participant in Clay's fantasy.

And that was what scared her.

She walked in the direction of Ravenclaw Tower. It was the only place where she thought she'd be safe from the thoughts of the male students. More of them seemed to be looking at her in a different way now. Interested. Hungry.

This was Gemma's ultimate revenge genius. It was not the ruin of her reputation, or the humiliation of the rumors she'd have to endure. It was the snatching away of all safety and security she'd once felt in this place. It was a truly inspired plan from a twisted, hate-filled girl. Using the power of suggestion to make Dorcas an unwilling object of interest and attention.

As she hurried down the corridor, she heard the echoes of footfalls. They did not match up with her own. She didn't know if they were behind her or ahead of her. She was paranoid.

She tried to resist the urge to run. Dorcas looked over her shoulder. She was certain that there was someone in the shadows behind her. She put on a renewed burst of speed. When she turned to look ahead of her, she came face to face with a massive stone pier that had always been there, but that caught her completely by surprise.

"Birdie!" Tom's voice rang in the empty corridor as the footsteps hurried closer.

Dorcas had been knocked off of her feet, her nose gushing blood. She lay there dazed and absolutely certain that she was losing her mind.

"Tom?" she asked, trying to focus on the figure that stood over her.

He crouched next to her, taking out his wand to heal her nose and clean up the blood that splattered her robes.

"Yeah, it's me. Why were you running?"

She felt suddenly foolish. Her cheeks became hot and she shook her head.

Tom grabbed her under the arms and hauled her to her feet when he realized he would get no response from her.

"I didn't mean anything by it," he explained, referencing something that Dorcas was supposed to remember.

Dorcas rubbed her forehead. "Meant by what?" she asked foggily.

"Teasing you about writing Jack. Well, okay. I was a little jealous," Tom explained.

Dorcas blinked. Right. The letter.

"I wrote him just to apologize for the scene I'd caused and to ask about Verity," Dorcas responded.

Tom ran his fingertips over the spot that she kneaded on her forehead, brushing the hair off of her face.

"How is she?" he asked, studying the lump that was rising near her hairline.

Dorcas furrowed her brow. "Who?"

"Verity," Tom said, concern growing on his face. "Should I take you to the hospital wing, Birdie?"

Dorcas shook her head. "I don't know how she is. I didn't read the letter."

Tom nodded. He seemed relieved to finally get to the point. "What spooked you back there? I barely touched your arm and you bolted."

Dorcas exhaled and shook her head. "It wasn't you," she admitted.

"Come on," Tom said, taking her bag and placing it on his shoulder. "Let's go to our place and you can tell me what happened."

:::

"The nightmares have changed. I haven't told you that," Dorcas explained.

She was settled back against a pile of cushions, Tom's arm wrapped around her shoulders. He was a solid, comforting presence.

Now that he was satisfied for the time being with his plan for his Horcrux in motion, ingredients obtained, the mystery of his family solved he was able to devote a substantial amount of his own energy and attention into her.

"How have they changed?" he prompted.

Dorcas closed her eyes. "They're not about Birmingham, there's no Wingate, no fire, no bombing. I'm at my uncle's house, at the Christmas party. I'm in the hedgerow maze looking for you and I find Evlyn instead."

Tom's hand squeezed her shoulder encouragingly.

"I don't dream about cursing him. It doesn't happen the way it actually happened," Dorcas tried to elaborate. "He's...so angry. Gemma and all of her friends are watching and laughing."

Tom pulled her into a tight embrace.

"It's just a dream though, Birdie," he tried to reassure her.

"I thought so too," Dorcas agreed. "If they hadn't spread it all around the school that Evlyn and I...did that, then other boys wouldn't have the wrong impression about me now." Dorcas's voice hitched on a sob as she was struck with how hopeless the situation was to correct.

"Who cares what other boys think?" Tom said. She knew that he was trying to minimize what felt like an insurmountable problem. It might have worked, had she not seen Clay Atwood's filthy flight of fancy.

"I do, Tom," Dorcas said, breaking free of his embrace and sitting up, turning to glare at him. "I can't tune the thoughts out. What I heard in the library today...I couldn't concentrate on anything else."

Tears started to prick at the corners of her eyes and she was angry. Not angry at Tom, exactly. Angry at the situation. Angry at Gemma and her gang of bullies. Angry at herself for antagonizing her cousin in the first place. Angry at a society that was so dreadfully out of balance.

"What did you hear in the library?" The question was icy cold and sharpest steel. Tom sat up and fixed her with a penetrating gaze.

Dorcas could hear the annoyance in his own mind that he could not simply gain the information he wanted by flipping through her thoughts at will.

Dorcas remembered something he'd said last week. "I will kill anyone who tries to take you from me," he'd said. He was referencing her near death at the hands of his father, but Dorcas was worried about revealing Clay Atwood's daydream to Tom.

"I heard...someone fantasizing about doing awful things," Dorcas explained weakly.

Tom waited for her to say more.

"Tell me, Birdie," Tom commanded. His voice had a steely edge to it that told Dorcas she should not name the boy.

Dorcas shook her head, unable to give voice to the images she'd seen. They made her feel such a deep shame, as if she'd actually been caught doing those things. She did not want Tom to have the same mental image in his mind as well.

She opened her mouth to tell Tom that he wouldn't get any more details out of her. Instead, she felt a lightheadedness that made her vision swim. The burning bile returned to the back of her throat.

"I'm going to be sick," Dorcas announced instead, crawling for the cave's opening and collapsing next to a pile of rusted weapons a short distance away. Heaving violently, she brought up the remains of her meagre dinner.

She found that she didn't have much of an appetite since she'd become aware of Gemma's campaign to ruin her reputation and weaponize the male gaze against her.

Dorcas became aware of Tom kneeling beside her. His fingers gently brushed the hair from her face and rubbed her back in comforting circles.

"You don't have to worry about anyone hurting you, Birdie. I won't let them."

She wanted the words to be comforting. But they sounded ominous instead.

:::

13 September, 1958 Watermead, Aylesbury

Dorcas thought being at home would help her.

Instead, she was beginning to wonder if anyone or anything could be relied upon to make it okay.

She kept revisiting one thought over and over again in her mind. The only thing that could dull the ache in her was Stephen Muybridge's blood, coating her hands, running down her arms, dripping from her elbows as she held them up to inspect them.

She would never be okay again until she'd completed the sacrament. Baptism in his blood.

Amen.

Light had not yet begun to peek through the curtains in her bedroom. She could see the tousled blond outline of her husband propped on a pillow, peacefully asleep.

She crept to the end of the bed where her robe lay and wrapped it around her, quietly opening the door and leaving Cal to slumber.

Dorcas made a detour at Wren's door to assure herself that her youngest was safe and sound asleep as well. When she cracked the door, Pippa the kitten seized the opportunity to escape the room and make mischief elsewhere.

When she arrived home yesterday, she'd turned down the hall and came to stand in the doorway of Ryann's old room. The room that she'd been carefully remaking into a nursery for her expected child. Pushing the door open, she was slapped in the face with a different sight altogether.

"It was Ryann's idea, honey," Cherry had offered gently, anticipating Dorcas's reaction. "She was adamant that you should not have to come home and take the nursery down yourself. You or Cal. She really was a sweetheart to think of it."

The room was empty and the walls painted a neutral beige. She'd spent three weeks picking out the correct shade of blue. And now the walls were beige.

Dorcas smiled. She knew it was a weak and unconvincing smile.

Of course, she was not mad at Ryann. Her oldest daughter was as thoughtful and sensitive as Dorcas could have hoped for in a child. She'd wanted to spare Dorcas the heartache of having to dismantle the cot and pack away the baby clothes. She would have to remember to thank Ryann for the kind gesture.

Dorcas kept that door closed.

She padded to the kitchen quietly and brewed coffee. Impatiently, she tapped her nails against the countertop until the percolator finished the process. She poured herself a large cup, foregoing cream and sugar. She needed the bitter jolt of an unadulterated chemical substance this morning.

Her final destination was the home office that she'd carefully set up and decorated a little over a year ago now, when she'd created her home psychiatry practice.

She swiped a hand over the side table next to the chair that she'd sat in on numerous occasions, listening to patients' problems, dispensing advice. She thought she'd genuinely been helpful to the people who'd walked through that door.

There was a thick layer of dust coating every surface.

Dorcas sat in her chair and sipped her coffee.

She pictured Theresa Allen on the other side of the coffee table, perched on the patient's couch.

Was it hubris to think that Dorcas had provided any sort of healing? Was she motivated from a sense of service to her patients? Was she motivated by a selfish superiority? Was it folly to mess with the minds of others?

She thought about the jarring feeling she'd received when she saw her own brain scan and the prolonged injury it suggested. How could she help anyone when her own mind was clearly so addled?

Clearly.

What sort of a doctor couldn't even detect the signs of illness and injury in her own mind?

She was a fraud.

Her mind traveled back to the passing thought in Cal's mind that hung like a millstone around her neck now. She'd caused their current heartbreak. She'd been so ambitious about her ability to heal that she'd brought Muybridge into their lives. Ther son was dead because of her.

Cal wanted her to leave the hospital. He wanted her to close the practice.

How could she do anything less than that to make up for what he'd lost? He deserved a better wife. Ryann and Wren deserved a better mother. Their little boy deserved so much more.

Why should she divide her time between patients and rounds on the Long-Term Spell Damage Ward? Why should expert witness court testimony claim more of her efforts and attention than her family? Because she felt capable and competent and confident when she was thumbing her nose at convention.

The conceit of it all.

She set her coffee down and walked with purpose to the garage off of the basement stairs. A pile of cardboard boxes lay in a heap in the corner. They'd been there since she and Cal had moved from America last summer.

Dorcas stepped around Cal's bright red sports car, covered and hibernating now that the weather was turning colder. She grabbed as many of the boxes that she could fit in her arms and trudged back to her office.

She dropped them on the carpet between her chair and patient's couch and her desk.

The first items she packed away were her framed degrees and accolades and bonafides that she'd displayed with such pride behind her desk. It disgusted her to think back on that feeling of pride. When she thought about raising a child while pursuing her medical degrees and licensure in America, she'd worn her ability to juggle it all as a badge.

She remembered how determined she was to make more of herself than just wife and mother. She remembered how, answering questions on the witness stand about why she'd left Hogwarts after only six years, she'd defied the men who questioned her, determined to discredit her. She'd rattle off her litany of qualifications, watching the impressed expressions on the faces around her.

She packed away her patient files and carefully wrapped each memory phial in cotton batting before bundling them up as well. When her office was cleared of all vestiges of her former practice, she pulled the Pensieve out of the cabinet and placed it on the center of her desk.

Her only patient now was her.

For the sake of her family she would have to find a way to lift whatever spells were causing such damage to her brain. It was a daunting task. She had no idea where to start. She had no inkling as to what the spell could be or what its purpose had been. The most unsettling thought, the one she was most reluctant to contemplate, was the identity of the person who'd used a Compulsory Operational Curse on her to begin with. They were usually the type of spell meant to control. Physical control. Mental control.

:::

Dorcas was optimistic about her ability to maintain her new persona.

She'd started by erasing her psychiatry practice this morning, hoovering the dust away along with her misguided ambitions. She'd applied the same vigor to the rest of the house once Cal had left with Wren.

She kissed them and sent them on their way to school and to the hospital with all of the appropriate encouragement and love.

Once the house was spotless, she worked on the Frigidaire. Anneliese had kept the food fresh and stocked, though it was clear that no one had spent much time here in the last month.

She'd brought the shopping home and put everything away with a renewed spirit. This new life would be as fulfilling as the one she was walking away from.

Dorcas untied her apron and dusted off the flour that clung to her A-line skirt. The tray of biscuits that had just come out of the oven proclaimed her to be a domestic doyenne. The fresh baked smell that hung in the air of her home seemed right. Wren should always come home from school to that smell, announcing the treat to come.

She patted her hair unnecessarily. Dorcas was now a perfectly coiffured, manicured, and attired lady. Grabbing her gloves and her handbag, she decided that she would walk in the early fall weather to pick up Wren from school.

On the way home, Dorcas promised Wren that they could stop by the park.

Wren made friends with the children easily and struck up a game of tag.

Dorcas watched the other mums. She carefully studied the Greater European Mother in its natural habitat. She noticed that the cubs were permitted to wander within the confines of the park. Some of the females had young that they transported in prams.

A group of the species-what would a group of mums be called? A gaggle? No they were not geese. A consternation? A domesticity? A hearth?

A hearth of mothers with infants in prams were gathered two benches away. Dorcas could hear them swapping stories of night feedings, colic, dirty nappies. It was all said in that long-suffering tone that mothers employed to communicate that while the calling was a difficult one, they would not choose any other.

Dorcas looked down at her own hands clasped in her lap, empty. She pressed her knees and ankles together until the muscles in her thighs screamed. She imagined that she might have strolled slowly over to the group with her own pram, Ben sleeping soundly inside. After a trying day of fitful napping and barely successful feedings, she'd have some of her own stories to swap with the other mothers. They would commiserate and offer tips and tricks of the trade.

She slipped into a morose fog and felt the tears drip from her chin into her folded hands. She dug her nails into her palms, blinking away the tears. She shook out her curls and stuck her chin out.

She was fine. New Dorcas was fine.

:::

19 September, 1958 Entrance Hall, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Dorcas lowered her umbrella to the curious glances of students passing through the corridors. She heard some of the errant thoughts of the children: why was a Muggle at Hogwarts?

The same teacher came over to her that she'd met the last time she came here.

"A bonnie soft day it is," Professor McGonagal said.

The look on the woman's face told Dorcas not only that she remembered her, but that she was aware of Dorcas's recent tragedy.

Dorcas smiled at the woman's sympathetic expression.

"It is that!" Dorcas agreed, folding her umbrella as carefully as she could to minimize the amount of water that dripped on the flagstones. "It's nice to see you again, Professor."

"Likewise, Dr. Meadowes," McGonagall returned. "Are you here to see the headmaster?"

"Please, it's Dorcas," she said quickly. "I am. But I haven't made an appointment."

"You don't need one," McGonagall encouraged, leading Dorcas up the main staircase. "He's happy to see his former students for any reason."

"That's a relief." Dorcas smiled.

"My dear Miss Clerey!" Professor Dumbledore said, standing and stepping quickly from behind his desk, moving as gracefully as a man half his age.

Dorcas smiled as he fell into the teachers' habit of seeing her as a student once again.

"Professor," she said, taking his hand.

Professor McGonagall excused herself and closed the door behind her.

"I'm glad to see you looking well. I was sorry to hear about your sad news. You have many friends here who all wish you well. I hope you know that."

"Thank you for all of the beautiful bouquets and cards. You didn't have to go to the trouble," Dorcas responded.

"What trouble is there in wishing well such a selfless pair as you and Cal?"

Dorcas was struck by the intensity of the statement. Professor Dumbledore thought of her as selfless? He was probably just painting her with the same brush as her benevolent husband.

Professor Dumbledore, more perceptive than most, seemed to detect something in her expression.

"Forgive the impertinence of an old man. But, I hope there is no trouble between you and Cal. I've always considered the two of you to be indomitable. Your greatest source of comfort and healing is within each other. I trust you know that, Dorcas."

Dorcas nodded, but didn't say anything in answer. She changed the subject instead.

"He's the reason I've come. Well Cal and Ryann, actually."

The professor waved her to a seat beside the roaring fire. He took the one next to her and fixed her with a penetrating gaze.

She recounted the evening before her poisoning, careful to avoid details of Ryann's paternity or of other incriminating thoughts that her daughter was exposed to.

"I've often wondered what sort of unique intuition you possessed. I've never met someone with a natural Legilimens ability. And you say that you do not have to use Occlumency to keep out intruders?"

"No," Dorcas replied. "I never wanted my daughter to inherit it."

"Yes," Dumbledore agreed, steepling his fingers beneath his chin. "I see the complications this ability can present."

Dorcas nodded. She was eager to hear Dumbledore's solution. She wanted him to tell her of a spell or a potion that she could use to keep Cal's mind safe from their daughter's intrusions. She thought back to the time when she was no older than Ryann is now. How many damaging thoughts had she been privy to in the minds of others? If she could spare Ryann that awful experience, she thought, there was nothing she wouldn't do.

Dumbledore spoke after several moments' consideration.

"And Ryann's father? Does he possess this ability?"

Dorcas shook her head impatiently.

"Cal can't read thoughts. I'm just worried that Ryann could see some damaging things in his mind. Just think about what he experienced with the...accident," Dorcas finished lamely.

"I mean Ryann's biological father. Tom Riddle."

There were some gasps and throat clearing coming from the portraits on the wall behind Dorcas and Dumbledore.

"As always, the information discussed in this office goes no further."

Dorcas felt the color drain from her face. The last time she'd spoken to Dumbledore in this office, they'd argued over Dorcas's childhood love. Tom was responsible for the death of a woman about a year and a half ago. Dorcas had been the unwitting instrument of Dumbledore's investigation into Tom's guilt.

The memory of the encounter still stung.

Dorcas wouldn't insult the professor's brilliance by trying to argue to the contrary.

"Not naturally, no," she said finally.

"You taught him," Dumbledore prompted.

"Yes," Dorcas said, her chin raising in defiance.

"And Cal knows about Ryann?" Dumbledore's eyebrows raised.

Dorcas clenched her jaw. "Of course he does."

There was another long pause as Professor Dumbledore considered all of this information.

"Ryann has asked about him. She's seen the thoughts in Cal's mind that concern Tom. She's asked if she can meet him," Dorcas offered. She was willing to drop the pretense and beg for Dumbledore's help if that's what was required.

"And you don't want her to know her real father?" her former teacher asked.

"No, I don't," Dorcas answered, twisting her gloves in her hands.

"Do you remember the last time that you were in my office, Dorcas?" Dumbledore asked.

Dorcas's hope faltered. She wondered if the seeds of ill will she'd sown in the fall would be ready for the harvest now. It appeared that Dumbledore had not forgotten her accusations that he'd put his own memory-gathering mission above the well being of the house elf that held the memories.

He'd suspected her of helping Tom. He'd even hinted at the suspicion that she'd helped Tom by killing Hokey before the most incriminating memory had been extracted.

Of course she hadn't. But she'd been conflicted about turning the memory over to the professor. Some long-held loyalties die hard.

Dumbledore took her silence as a positive confirmation.

"Then you'll remember that I required your help to obtain a memory that confirmed Tom was involved in the murder of Hepzibah Smith?"

Dorcas nodded.

"Tom has grown into a highly skilled wizard. His skill, unfortunately, runs in a decidedly dark direction. I have reason to suspect that Miss Smith was not his first victim. He's gathered a group of loyal supporters about him. They used to meet at a house connected to your family, Dorcas."

She blinked and shook her head in confusion.

"Which house?"

"Rackharrow Hall. Of course, Tom hasn't been seen or heard from in some time."

"That's Gemma's home," Dorcas explained. "I haven't seen her since before I moved to America.

Look, I'm not here for a trip down memory lane. I don't care in the least what Gemma Rackharrow is up to. Or what Tom Riddle is up to for that matter. I want to protect my daughter from the kinds of thoughts that could be damaging to her. Maybe I'm already too late to do anything about that."

"I will help you, Dorcas. But I need your help in return."

:::

19 September, 1958 Watermead, Aylesbury

Dorcas had a good visit with Ryann.

She knew that it was important for Ryann to see her mother healed and well after the ordeal of a month ago.

Ryann seemed to be happy and healthy. It did Dorcas a deal of good to hug her girl to her and kiss the top of her head.

She'd thanked her for the remodel of the nursery and for the help that she'd provided to her father and to Anneliese while Dorcas was in the hospital.

Dorcas had also come away from her visit to Hogwarts armed with Occlumency techniques for Cal.

She opened the door, filled to bursting with information to share with Cal.

"I didn't know we were having company," she said, laying her handbag down on the table in the entryway.

Cal stood, strain and worry on his face. "Where the bloody hell have you been, Dorcas?"

She took a step back. Had Cal ever sworn at her before? She looked between him and Gideon and Fabian Prewett.

"I went to Hogwarts to talk to Dumbledore. We discussed seeking his help with something. Remember?"

Cal removed his glasses and swiped a hand across his face. He turned to Gideon and Fabian. "Thanks, fellas. I'm sorry to have bothered you both."

"It's no bother," Gideon said. "I'm glad you're home safe, Dr. Meadowes."

"It's Dorcas," she reminded him.

She held the door for him and his brother as they exited with tense smiles.

"Goodnight. Sorry to cause trouble," she said, smiling sheepishly. Not entirely sure why the alarm had been raised as if she were a missing person.

"Do you mind telling me what that was all about?" Dorcas asked, trying to keep her voice steady as she approached Cal.

"Anneliese was called by Wren's school when no one came to pick her up today, Dorcas. I can't be reached at the hospital. You know that! The school called here first and there was no answer. Jesus! I thought it was Muybridge. I had no idea what had happened to you."

Dorcas sat, stunned into silence as Cal raised his voice at her like a parent scolding a child. She'd forgotten to pick her youngest child up from school. What had Wren thought when she was left all alone?

She thought she was doing a spectacular job of holding it together. But she'd forgotten her child at school. Her husband had depended on her to care for their daughter and she'd let him down.

"I'm sorry," Dorcas whispered.

"Wren's going to stay with Anneliese and Beau for a little while. That will give you some time to work on getting better," Cal replied woodenly.

In her head, her own voice admonished her. She was rubbish as a mother.

Fraud.