Chapter Text
On the day Dorcas Meadowes receives her Hogwarts letter, there are three pigeons aligned on the windowsill, peering in through the glass, grey feathers gleaming purple and green like an oil slick on the Thames.
Dorcas presses her nose to the glass and watches the birds watch her. Across the blocks, by the river, the ironworks have opened with the dawn, and the streets are crammed with Muggle dockers thrusting their cards into the air. Dorcas’ father will be among them. She tries to catch sight of him in the crowd, but the men are jostling and shuffling faster than her eyes can flit across the crowd. Their clamouring rises, startles the leftmost pigeon. A flurry of feathers, and it’s gone. It leaves the peeling paintwork of the windowsill, shrinks into the distance.
Soon, the kitchen will fill with coughing, and Mum’s knitting needles will have to be locked in the cupboard alongside her magic pins, because Mrs Thompson still hasn’t been quite right in the head ever since she caught a glimpse of the laundry pressing itself.
The magic stays away from the muggles now, locked firmly away in the two rooms upstairs. Dorcas’ mother, Eunice Meadowes, sells potions to Muggles as medicine. Cough syrup with hellebore added, the Draught of Peace packaged as pills, bruise removal paste.
Of course, the muggles never know it’s magic they’re buying.
The mornings are filled with the chatter of women and their maids streaming in and out of the front room. Dorcas likes to watch their skirts bustle around the kitchen, loops and drapes of fabric over coloured underskirts - some threadbare, some bright and new. They pile their baskets with their preferred glass bottles and ointments.
Magic, her mother teaches her, is the rushing force of rivers and storms bottled up inside your chest. It is the wonder and peace of the wide blue open sky. Magic is a vulture, circling and circling inside until it dives, and it must be tamed, harnessed by your fingertips and pressed gently into the world as a single unbroken thread. Magic is not to make crowds applaud and fall starry-eyed at your feet. The best magic is the kind which barely seems like magic at all.
Dorcas knows how to keep it all hidden. The jumping screws don’t like the wardrobe - it smells too much of wood and sawdust - but they’ll let themselves be coaxed into the cupboard with the crockery in a pinch. The milk jug needs a sugar cube and a teaspoon to keep it from bursting into song. The slippers have got to be trussed up with one of Pa’s belts, or they’ll creep down the stairs and scare Mrs Fisher out of her socks.
It seems a shame to have to do it, Dorcas thinks, rising from the floor. She thinks magic, where possible, ought to pour out across the skies and burst like fireworks overhead. Magic ought to shine brighter than the sun, burn and blaze overhead, make it impossible for the world not to notice you. But she’s eleven and that’s old enough to know that Muggles and magic don’t mix awfully well around these parts, so she coaxes the knitting needles into the blanket nest she’s made just for them, shuts the door and tries not to think about how lonely it must be in the dark.
“Hidden.” Dorcas shouts down the stairs. Her mother’s harrowed face appears at the bottom of the stairwell. Eunice Meadowes is all angles - sharp cheekbones, sharp eyes, sharp shoulders, drowned in fashionable ruffles and high collars.
By Mrs Thompson’s reckoning, Dorcas will grow up to be a pretty little thing. Dorcas thinks the constant scrubbing of cauldrons and laundry and tile floors will probably render her stout and stooped. And besides, her blouses will always have less ruffles, her skirts will never reach the same volumes, and she’ll never have as many ribbons to weave through her hair.
“Did you lock the wardrobe?” Her mother’s eyebrows arch. She’s got an old milk crate crammed with medicines in dusty glass bottles ready by the door. They taste rancid, like sour cough syrup. Mostly to disguise the taste of the real potion underneath. Dorcas nods, but she knows her mother will double-check anyway, march up the stairs to rattle the door and peer through the glass to check on the quivering milk jug.
“Is Frances coming?” Dorcas asks, as her mother passes her on her way up the stairs. Frances Fisher’s going to be a great artist, she always tells Dorcas solemnly, with her hair falling out of her braids and her skirt wrinkled. She doodles on all the paper that comes her way, cats with birds in their mouths, the table laid out for tea time. Mrs Fisher says she’ll be lucky to end up a washerwoman.
“Yes, Mrs Fisher’s bringing her.” Her mother vanishes in a swirl of bustling skirts around the corner. There’s the sound of the wardrobe’s handle rattling.
“Told you it was locked.” Dorcas mutters, kicking the step. She can almost hear the knitting needles squirming about, but the house is too silent without the shrill noises of hopping cutlery and singing dishware, and all she can feel is the ghost of the breeze creeping against the walls and the clamour of the street seeping into the stairwell.
When Dorcas is grown, she’ll live somewhere far out in the countryside in a grand house filled with old books and never set foot on a London street again.
At the knocking of the door, Dorcas calls to her mother and scoots down the stairs, in the most undignified manner she can manage. She won’t be able to when she goes to Hogwarts, and by the time she comes home for summer, she’ll be twelve and twelve is rather too old to still be sliding down stairs like a toddler.
Dorcas opens the door with her best smile. Mrs Fisher is watery-eyed, wearing a bustle of respectable size and layers upon layers of ruffles. Sometimes, Mrs Fisher will slip Dorcas a sherbet lemon, but today, her hands are empty. Dorcas can’t help the slight disappointment as she pulls the door a little wider. Frances grins at Dorcas from behind, an act which prompts Mrs Fisher’s lips to purse.
Frances has her mother’s dirty-blonde hair, carefully pressed into ringlets. The summer heat will wilt the curls in no time. Dorcas’ smile widens.
Dorcas ushers Mrs Fisher through to the front room and offers her a seat by the window. Mrs Fisher sits quite stiffly. Dorcas’ mother clatters down the stairs.
A line of displeasure forms between Mrs Fisher’s eyebrows at the indiscretion. The eyebrows are plucked, darkened, combed carefully into shape. Dorcas wonders how long it took Mrs Fisher’s maid to get her ready this morning, and if Mrs Fisher simply sees this trip as another step to getting ready for the real duties of the day, or if she would even count this visit as calling on a friend.
Dorcas’ mother enters the room with the voice she only uses for customers, a greeting Mrs Fisher returns rather coldly. The milk crate is balanced on her hip. She sets it down on the table.
The potions are labelled in spidery handwriting - Pepper-Up Potion becomes Warming for the Common Cold, Elixir to Induce Euphoria becomes For Melancholia. Muggle-safe, Dorcas’ mother will tell her.
Dorcas catches Frances’ eye. They slip out of the room just as Mrs Fisher begins to thank Dorcas’ mother for her timely arrival with a curled lip and a rather sour expression, even as Dorcas’ mother picks out the potions Mrs Fisher is dependent on. Little packets of magic exchanged for a bartered price - much less than what the potions would receive if they were sold in Diagon Alley.
Eunice Meadowes is not well-known by the wizarding world, selling only to muggles and Squibs and the occasional Muggle-born. She hasn’t been part of a potions society since 1867, over two decades ago. Dorcas considers this quite the tragedy.
She doesn’t know how yet, beyond the barest outlines of a plan, but some day people are going to know who Dorcas Meadowes is, whether she’s going to have a portrait up at Hogwarts, or a paragraph in a history book, or a plaque on the wall at the Ministry.
“School is the first step.” She tells Frances a minute later, sitting with her legs crossed on the stairs. Well, Dorcas is cross-legged. Frances is sprawled at the base of the staircase with her hands drumming on the floor. “My mum’s sending me to Scotland.”
“Boarding school?” Frances rolls her shoulders back. “Me too. All the way to Cheltenham.” Sure enough, Frances’ curls have already begun to flatten. Dorcas eyes her dress. It’s delicately ruffled, tailored to Frances, with layers of embellishment to the skirt - certainly more fashionable than most of Dorcas’ clothing. But it’s creased, wrinkled, with the ruffles crushed into each other and the collar folded at an odd angle.
At Hogwarts, Dorcas’ robes will be new and dark and smooth, even if she has to iron them herself. And at Hogwarts, if Dorcas’ skirts are plain, she’ll cast spells so vibrant, brew such perfect potions, magic so blindingly bright that they won’t be able to take their eyes off her for a second.
“Mum thinks it’ll make me proper.” Frances grins, and wiggles her fingers at Dorcas. They’re covered in smudges of ink and graphite. Dorcas bats her hand away. Frances laughs.
“What, doing embroidery and dances?” Dorcas uncrosses her legs.
“And the piano.” Frances sets her hands down on the bottom stair, taps her fingers across imaginary keys, humming tunelessly. Dorcas has heard a piano once or twice before, in the reception rooms of the ladies her mother takes potions to on occasion.
Dorcas supposes she’s lucky - with her mother’s income, the Meadowes live alone in their terrace house, not sharing with another family or three. Most docker’s daughters end up working in the factories or the mills, climbing under a spinning jenny to clean the machine’s underside. Lizzy Cooper, who had lived a couple blocks away, died in a factory accident three years ago. It might just as well have been Dorcas.
She imagines Frances in a flowing evening gown, hair bundled on top of her head, entertaining a room of faceless guests clad with velvet. They applaud her, chatter politely among themselves, in a room with velvet drapes and chairs of deep walnut wood. And Dorcas wants it all, wants to claw her way into that room, into that gown, hear the applause ringing out for her.
Frances has stopped her performance.
“We’ll learn maths and science too.” Frances says, and her eyes begin to gleam. “Like boys.”
“Really?” Dorcas leans forward. “You’ve got to write to me.”
“All the way to Scotland?” Frances asks.
“Of course.” Dorcas would send Frances an owl directly from the castle. Mrs Fisher might ‘forget’ to send Dorcas’ letters on. She can barely stand to see them sitting like they do now. Dorcas’ mother says it’s half about race and half about money. “They’ve got mail owls.”
“Well, I’ll be switched!” Frances’ eyebrows have vanished behind her fringe. “Real owls?”
As if on cue, there’s a knocking at the front door.
There’s a large tawny owl tapping gently on the dusty glass window, rich brown feathers speckled with white. Frances gasps. Mrs Fisher’s voice is still droning on.
“Told you.” Dorcas smirks, but she’s practically trembling with excitement. She springs off the stairs to let the owl in.
The door creaks. Frances is right behind Dorcas.
The owl, thankfully, doesn’t squawk or throw up a fuss when it lands gently on Dorcas’ arm, or when Dorcas steps back inside the house and seats herself on the lowest stair. The owl clambers onto her knee and clicks its beak.
Dorcas’ hands are trembling. Miss D Meadowes is on the front of the envelope. A fierce pride stabs through her. Hogwarts is not a distant land out of Dorcas’ reach - it’s here, in the press of the parchment to her fingers and the red wax seal with the crest, and the green ink spelling out her name and address. Confirming it.
She’s really going. Mum’s going to be delighted.
Dorcas slides the letter into her pocket while Frances fusses over the owl, peering into its slowly blinking eyes, clicking her tongue to make its head pivot towards her. The owl bears this with considerably good grace, puffing its feathers out and settling into place on Dorcas’ knee.
It’s almost enough to make Dorcas reconsider her personal preference for toads.
“Cas, it’s sleeping.” Frances whispers. She’s grinning ear to ear. “Mum would hate this.” She giggles, reaching a finger out to the owl.
Dorcas imagines the expression on Mrs Fisher’s face, those poor, overplucked eyebrows arching upwards, her mouth dropping wide as she hobbles backwards like a turkey with its legs tied together. A shaking finger raised. Dorcas tries to suppress her laughter, but she catches Frances’ eye and it spills out of her.
The only warning they get is the sound of Mrs Fisher’s shoes tapping on the floor before she bursts into the entryway. She’s looking over her shoulder as she enters, which gives Dorcas just enough time to thrust the owl behind her back. It squawks as Frances jumps to her feet.
Mrs Fisher is looking directly at Dorcas. Dorcas coughs and wipes at her nose with the arm that isn’t attempting to keep the owl behind her back.
This seems to satisfy Mrs Fisher, who seems to assume that Dorcas simply sounds like a startled owl when she sneezes. Frances’ eyes are swivelling between Dorcas and Mrs Fisher, choking back a smile. She’s turned a faint shade of puce with the effort. The colour clashes horribly with her hair.
“I’ll see you next week, Eunice.” Mrs Fisher has her basket tucked under her arm. The owl clicks its beak.
“The pleasure’s mine.” Dorcas’ mother has not noticed the owl.
There is a decided lack of any sherbet lemons for Dorcas, which she supposes is a good thing - Mrs Fisher has no reason to come near the staircase, where the owl’s claws are skittering about. Dorcas leans to the side as Mrs Fisher looks in her direction.
Dorcas cannot meet Frances’ eye or she will break. She stares straight ahead as Frances opens the door. She waves.
As Dorcas returns the gesture, the owl makes a bid for freedom. It launches itself from the stairs and soars through the narrow gap between Mrs Fisher’s elaborate hat and the doorframe.
Mrs Fisher shrieks as the owl hoots indignantly, brushing the edge of her face with its wing. She whirls around.
For a moment, silence hangs in the air. Dorcas’ mother’s eyes flick from the doorway to Dorcas. She steps forward.
“Is anything the matter?” Dorcas’ mother asks. Mrs Fisher blinks.
“No, no… just one of these dratted pigeons…” Mrs Fisher trails off. Dorcas smiles the most innocent smile she can muster as Frances doubles over with silent laughter.
“Good.” Dorcas’ mother barely manages to get the door shut before she and Dorcas dissolve into an unseemly fit of laughter right there in the hallway, until Dorcas’ sides feel like they’re splitting open and she can barely draw breath.
“My letter came.” She heaves between laughs, and she swears she can feel her future settling into place ahead of her, bejewelled dress robes and gleaming cauldrons, rising like the morning sun on her dismal street. “I’m going to Hogwarts.”