chiraldream (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lesyeuxverts) wrote2007-03-28 10:31 pm
lesyeuxverts) wrote2007-03-28 10:31 pm
Entry tags:
Borrowed Light (2/2)
Title: Borrowed Light
Author: lesyeuxverts00
Word Count: ~15700
Rating: R
Pairing: Minerva McGonagall/Albus Dumbledore (unrequited)
Prompt: Written for![[insanejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/ij-community.gif)
hp_tarot: The High Priestess card, with the interpretation "She is the Queen of Borrowed Light."
Warnings: Character death (HBP-compliant)
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: "The light before dawn, the dark before twilight, the strange uneven transitions between teacup and hedgehog, needle and match – there's a moment before the new overwhelms the old. There's balance in the imbalance, and Minerva revels in the teeter-totter moments in life, the instant when being turns into becoming."
AN: A million thanks to![[insanejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/ij-userinfo.gif)
svartalfur for the wonderful beta! Huge thanks also to theentwife and jadzia7667 for help with the Tarot, and to brightfeather, faynia, bewarethesmirk, and schemingreader for inspiration and encouragement, and of course to ravenna_c_tan for all her hard work as a mod ... and for letting me post this late. *g*
(Part One)
-----
"It's happened at last, Minerva." Albus comes to stand behind her. He's manic with more than his affection for sweets, vibrating with energy. The candles flicker in his wake, their flames flaring higher, their light penetrating the deepest shadows, illuminating the high ceiling.
She turns to face him, wraps her fingers around his forearms and pulls him to the nearest chair. "Sit. Take deep, calming breaths while I get some tea. Then you can tell me everything, in logical and coherent order, none of this breathless wonder."
He stops her with a hand on her elbow. "Minerva, I –"
"You can't tell me this," she says, her fingers still and not trembling, her hands at her side and not clenched into fists.
"I'd –"
"Yes," she says, and forces her lips into a thin smile. "I know. Let me get that tea."
He's calmer when she returns, the years of lines dropping away from his face. "Minerva, this means hope." He clutches her hand, smoothing the winter-rough skin, tracing the blue veins. "For the first time, after all these years of darkness, there is hope for the light."
He clasps her hand close. Minerva settles on the arm of the chair, leaning against him, and passes him a cup of tea. The steam rises above the cup, dense in the cold air, and hovers there between them until Albus blows it away.
Balance in imbalance, steam hanging in the air until it cools and sinks lower, and it's just so – life is a flash of heat and steam, a passing dream, a curling, mobile pattern sketched in the air and then replaced. Life has never seemed so fragile before, never seemed so bittersweet, like tea brewed too long and over-sugared.
"I went to see Molly at the Burrow today," Minerva says. She finds a refuge in the sweet, lemony taste of Albus's tea and passes the cup back to him. "She's expecting again."
"The oldest son will be here at Hogwarts soon," he says.
"Another Gryffindor, I'm sure. He's a great help to Molly with her twins, and Arthur says that he's picked up quite the knack of knowing when to distract her from her old photos of Gideon and Fabian."
"It's for the Sorting Hat to decide, you know. He'd do well in any House."
He twirls his cup on its saucer, tea slopping over the rim and onto his age-weathered fingers. "She's all right?" he asks.
"She will be, I think."
The candles fade, sputtering out into molten pools of wax one by one, and Minerva catches his hand, pressing it to her lips. "You're sure of this, then? There is some hope?"
"Indeed, my dear. We have reason for hope at last."
-----
The picture of the Order of the Phoenix is etched in white and black and shades of gray, their last meeting preserved by silver salts and magic spells. Minerva traces the edges of the photograph, covers the tiny faces with her fingertip and watches the witches and wizards smile and wave. They cluster together like old friends, like the dear comrades that they are, and then like a wave breaking on the sand, the group splinters into smaller groups. There, in the center are the two twins, Gideon and Fabian – they wave at her with unforced smiles, no less cheerful than the others. They're gone from the Order, their smiles gone and their places unfilled.
The twins, like red gold, like phoenix fire – their smiles were bright, unfaltering. "I have a feeling –" Fabian says, and Gideon completes his sentence, "–that this will be the most important battle of our time." They nod and smile at her in the photograph, preserved forever in black and white.
She drops the photo into the top drawer of her desk when she hears a knock at the door, and pulls out the nearest book, opening it to the middle. "Yes?" she asks, her voice loud enough to carry through the wooden door.
With a twist of magic, she locks and wards the desk drawer. Minerva reaches for the pair of spectacles on a chain around her neck, settling them onto her nose and peering down at the book. The print is small, enough to make her eyes ache even with her new glasses.
The door opens with a loud bang, and she blinks when Severus Snape sweeps into the room with a flourish of his black cloak. "McGonagall," he says, and seats himself without waiting for an invitation.
"Mr. Snape, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"
"It's Professor Snape, if you please. I've come to consult with you about book lists and class schedules."
Minerva looks over the rim of her spectacles at her former student and waits for an explanation. To his credit, Snape does not fidget under her gaze. There is no response forthcoming – he is silent and severe, with his well-practiced glare and his arms folded across his chest.
He makes no sound, no reason for his return to the school that he had hated. He does not protest his innocence or proffer an explanation. Minerva remembers him too well as a student, and she casts a pointed look at his left forearm, certain that he bears the Mark of the Dark Lord there.
His darkness is no secret and he does not attempt to deny it. He does not flounce or engage in his usual dramatics – his black eyes gleam and, conjuring a cup of tea, he pours three careful drops of Veritaserum into it and passes her the vial.
Crystal-bright and faceted, the glass vial shines in the light. Minerva taps it twice with her wand to verify its authenticity, and when she's satisfied with the results of the spell, she passes it back to Snape.
She waits for him to finish his tea and watches him rub his forearm, his eyes closed and his lips pinched together in a scowl. "I would not have come to you if the Headmaster had not insisted," he tells her. "I have taken the Veritaserum willingly, albeit under his strong suggestion, but let me assure you that you will suffer my displeasure if you trespass upon my privacy."
Severus opens his eyes. Dark and darker still than she had remembered, deep with pain and dark with reservations and trust – Minerva reaches across the desk to stop him before he can take another sip of tea.
The cup is half-empty between them, the amber liquid shimmering in the muted light of her office. She drinks the remainder, and she is strong enough not to wince in front of him. She refuses to grimace at the bitterness of the drink. "What did Albus wish for you to tell me?" she asks.
The half-dose of Veritaserum is enough to bring truth to the lips but not enough to force it out into the air – Snape hesitates, and then unfolds his arms, leaning back in his chair. She's mad to trust him thus, but Albus has sent him and there's a touch of change clinging to him, a breath of phoenix fire, a gleam of redemption. Light shines through darkness, hope shines through his strict and severe façade, and Minerva leans forward, trusting him.
"He wished for me to tell you that I am a loyal member of the Order of the Phoenix, a secret spy in Voldemort's ranks. He wished for me to tell you that I am loyal to him and him alone, and that I will never betray him."
Severus's voice does not waver, nor does his hand tremble as he traces the rim of the empty teacup. "It is the truth, I swear to you that I am loyal to Albus."
Minerva nods, the taste of the tea washed away by the pain etched onto his face. Like a stained glass window, he is made of fragments soldered together – iron and glass, strong and breakable, dark and light. It's a painstaking work, it's a labor of pain and love to create such a window, to create such a man. "Ask me one question," she says.
Many-colored and changeable like the window, he shifts from pain to contemplation, from iron solder to sunlight, and he studies her for a moment. Unblinking, unhesitating, he finds the weakness and he strikes it. "Do you love him?"
"Yes," she says.
There's an understanding between them, this artificial closeness built by forced confessions, and Minerva hesitates to breathe, afraid to shatter it. Dark hair sways in front of Severus's face, hiding his pale features, and it is as effective a disguise as a Death Eater's mask.
"I love him too," Severus says. He looks down at his hands folded around the teacup and Minerva blinks. "In my own way ... I hardly know what love is, but I do love him."
She reaches across the desk to lay her hand over his, the only comfort that she can give him. Severus Snape has grown in pain and darkness, and yet he is still drawn to the light, to Albus. Minerva knows the hopeless, helpless longing, the yearning, the mute desire – she knows.
His skin is rough, marred with scars and calluses, and he draws back from her touch. His pale hands disappear into the sleeves of his robe and he stares at her, his gaze hard and bitter. "I do not want your pity," he says.
"I know," she says. There's enough Veritaserum in her veins yet that she can't tell him that she does not pity him. "I know how you feel."
There's nothing more to be said. She won't repeat Sinistra's words - "He doesn't love you, he'll never love you, he never could love you." - they echo through her mind already, as much a part of her blood as her pulse.
Cruel and unchanging, it's nothing more than the truth. Albus Dumbledore, who is light and love and haloed with it, could never love anyone who was tainted with even the least part of darkness or weakness. Gracious and gentle, too kind to point out their faults, he will never love Minerva or Severus. He will never sully himself with touching them – and it is for the best, Minerva reminds herself, using Sinistra's words for her anchor. Foreknowledge of certain disappointment is a steady thing in her spinning world. It is for the best.
The sun comes out from behind a cloud, and light splashes through the window and reflects rainbows onto Severus's pale face. Like a prism, the window filters the light, changing it before allowing it into the room. The somber shadows that etched Severus's face with lines and weariness are washed away. Minerva blinks away the tears brought on by the brightness, and Severus doesn't need to hear Sinistra's truths, doesn't need to carry the echo of her words with him. Minerva won't burden him with it.
In a blink, as quick as the sun coming out from behind the clouds, Severus is closed-off and distant again, as pale as though he'd never made his confession to her, as strong as though he'd never tasted Veritaserum. Minerva's heart warms to him, something that is not quite pity and not quite fondness stirring there – she knows better than to reach out to him now.
Severus leaves her office with his class schedule and his booklist, the key to his dungeon rooms in his hand and the Veritaserum washed out of his system with a shot of whiskey. Minerva watches him go and reaches for the picture in the drawer, bypassing the wards with ease. Gideon and Fabian are gone forever – Severus will never be pictured – it is a poor record, flat and empty. A photo, stark in black and white, does not capture the vibrant lives trapped within it, does not capture the poignant sacrifices of her comrades in arms. There's nothing to be gained from dwelling on it.
Minerva locks it away again, shutting the photograph away in the top drawer, and she locks the door of her office behind her. There's a melancholy that lingers in the wake of Severus's visit, a sadness clinging to the air, a hint of darkness. Minerva wanders through the empty corridors, determined to banish the dark specters from her imagination.
Albus is in his study when she makes her way up the circular staircase, her hand abraded by a rough caress from the gargoyle guardian. The fire pops and crackles, casting shadows on Albus's face, and Minerva moves past him to look out the window.
Severus is hurrying past the Forbidden Forest, crossing the lake without a pause to enjoy the calm glassy waters and setting sun, disappearing through the tall iron gates – Minerva watches him go, her palm on the windowpane and her heart thudding in her chest. She turns to Albus and watches him read before she comes to sit by his side.
"You might have warned me that he was coming," she says. "At the very least, you might have told me to cancel the other interviews for his position."
"There will always be things that I cannot tell you," Albus says without looking up from his book. "There are some things that I can tell you, my dear, and you have not asked me. The Divination position had been left vacant, and I can tell you that you need not look for other applicants. I've asked Sibyl Trelawney to teach here, and she's accepted."
There are always things that Albus does not tell her, there are always secrets that she does not know. Minerva takes a deep breath and releases her frustration, releases the dark jealousy of his secrets and the darkness of jealousy buried within her.
Severus's question lingers with Minerva, the echo of her answer fading away into her heart. The echo is pleasant, warm and comforting, and Minerva clings to it, cherishing it.
Albus makes notes in the margin of his book and Summons parchment and quill from his desk. He scrawls a quick message and sends it off with Fawkes before he turns back to Minerva. "Is there something that I can do for you, my dear?"
Now is not the time to burden Albus, now is not the time to weigh down his heart or thoughts. "No," she says. "No, there is nothing," and she takes her leave of him.
-----
Change is the order of the day – changes handed down from on high by Dolores Umbridge, the changes at the Head Table at breakfast with the loss of Albus. Minerva stifles the hurt she feels, buries it deep in her heart, and keeps her face unchanged, smiling at Umbridge and at Sinistra. There's a change in Severus's expression, a twisted smile directed at Minerva, and she shakes her head at him. This is not the time to give Umbridge any cause for suspicions.
Harry Potter is framed by his two friends, bolstered by their loyalty and still, he is as pale and stiff as the corpse he dragged back from the graveyard last year. Minerva watches him, and he is still hope, he is pure light. Unsullied by darkness after his upbringing in the dark and the neglect of those wretched people, unmarred by malice in spite of the scars that he bears, untainted by evil after all of his battles with it, he is pure and pale and there is no way that Minerva can protect him from the horrors of this war.
There are echoes of his parents in him, a reminder of Lily in his cheekbones and something of James in his shoulders and the stubborn set of his face. The reason for Severus's hatred of the boy is written across his face, the reason for Albus's hope in him is buried deeper. He's been scarred by life – he's been scarred by Umbridge, a message scrawled deep across his hand, and Minerva cannot protect him, cannot erase his scars.
"You must trust me, my dear. I know what I am doing," Albus told her, and when Minerva is not watching Harry Potter bear his scars and shoulder his burdens, when she does not see him pale and thin, she can keep her trust in Albus. Now – there will be no erasing the shadows under Harry's eyes, no change deep enough to remove his scars. Minerva watches his friends protect him as best they can, watches the three of them withstand the darkness, and she bites her lower lip until the pain changes her determination into patience.
Minerva raps her wand on the desk to call the class to attention, sending the wayward Gryffindors scurrying back to their seats. With a flick of Minerva's wand, matches fly from the basket to the students' desks, landing in precise rows.
"If you have completed the assigned reading," she says, "you will understand the processes involved in changing one object to an object with greater mass. This is not a subtle change, nothing that is simple or clear. The mass of the object must be stretched and shaped and changed, and this is the heart of all Transfiguration. Clear your desks and set the matches on the floor before you begin."
There's a rustle of books and scrolls, and the students bend down to lay their matches on the floor. Neville Longbottom squeaks and stutters when his match slips into a crack between the stones, Hermione Granger vibrates with enthusiasm, and Harry – Harry with James's face and Lily's eyes, Harry with the scars of sacrifice and the burdens of war – fumbles and fails. His match remains inert and tiny, nothing like a chair, and Minerva comes up behind him, setting her hand on his shoulder.
"Focus on the change, Mr. Potter. Remember the differences between chair and match, and reach out to feel the potential for change inherent there. Let the differences melt away and the similarities come to the forefront."
He nods and, trying again, fails. Minerva gives him a tight, encouraging smile and moves on – it will not do to make him nervous. Hope is born of sacrifice, and failure is born of fear, and Minerva cannot protect Harry Potter. She could not protect the father from the harshness of life and the mistakes that he made, and she cannot protect the son.
Granger produces a petite armchair on her first try, child's size and comfortable-looking. There's a loud pattern on the fabric, hideous swathes of Gryffindor red and gold fighting with a deep blue – large splotches mar the design, and Granger trembles, her shoulders shaking. "I can't –"
Minerva comes up to examine the chair, prodding the cushions with the tip of her wand and producing them adequate. "Well done for a first attempt, Miss Granger. Try to focus on the change in size, stretching the material larger and larger, forcing it to grow. Ignore the pattern for now – that change can come later, after the chair is Transfigured if you like."
Granger smiles at Minerva's praise and, nodding at her suggestions, changes the chair back into a match and begins again without delay.
All of the empty-headed, Quidditch-brained students that Minerva has taught disappear in the face of Hermione Granger and her bright determination. "This is the world that we are fighting for," and Albus had taken her hand in his when he said, "This is a world worth fighting for." With a brush of his thumb across her knuckles, with a soft smile, he had banished all of her insecurities – all of the jealousies and strife from dealing with Sinistra, all of the stress from her inattentive, empty-headed students, all of the worries of the war vanished at his touch and his smile.
Minerva moves on, giving Neville a new match when his bursts into flame, giving Hermione a smile when her match blossoms into a large leather armchair, giving unheeded advice and guidance. She watches failure after failure, hope after crumbling hope, and at the end of the hour, she raps her wand on her desk.
"Most of you have made a good start," she says, "but all of you need to continue practicing. I expect that you'll be able to make serviceable chairs by our next class, and extra points will be given for ornamentation or elegance of design."
Harry Potter files out of her classroom with the rest of her students, the match in his pocket and his wand in his hand. He is pale, yet, and still weighted down with scars and burdens – Minerva's done nothing to change that, nothing to protect him, and there is nothing that she can do. She rubs her temples with deft circles, pushing away the headache that looms, and tries to forget the look of his face, twisted with failure and frustration.
He is hope and light, he is only a child, and when Severus bursts into her classroom, intent on assigning a punishment for Harry's insolence and sloppy work, Minerva shakes her head.
"Severus, enough. I've heard this every day for the past five years and I will tolerate it no longer. You know very well the reasons why we cannot expel Harry Potter or single him out for excessive punishment, and the time for your foolishness regarding him is at an end now."
She glares over her spectacles at Severus – as pale and worn as Harry, as weighted down with sacrifice and pain. "You will teach him Occlumency and you will not continue with this quest for vengeance over the sins of a man long dead. Is that understood?"
Severus glared and whirled, his robes billowing out behind him as he strode from the classroom. "You will not tell me how to manage my students," he said as he left.
Change hovers in the air, over the school, and Minerva, for one, cannot grasp it or use it. Some things remain as they have always been, and some things will change without her guidance.
-----
The crystals gleam in the dim light, echoing the gleam in Trelawney's eyes. "Come in," she says. "You've come to me at last. I knew that you would be here."
Minerva bypasses the chintz cushions and heavy incense and comes to stand in front of Sibyll. "I have your new exam schedule, with all of the adjustments and –"
"Sit down, sit down. I've been waiting for this for a long time, I've known that you would need my help."
Minerva blinks, hazy-eyed in the fumes. "Your help?"
There's a change hanging in the air, a heaviness that Minerva can sense but cannot predict or guide. She drops into a seat, her knees too weak to hold her up against the weight of possibilities, and takes deep breaths, coughing away the incense.
Trelawney pours tea and offers it to her, giving the tea leaves a steady swirl in the amber liquid. "For your throat, my dear, nothing more. Your future can't be seen in the leaves, not at all – it'll have to be the cards, that much is certain."
Minerva offers the scroll to her again. "Professor Trelawney, I've brought you the schedule for your exams this year. I know that you –"
Sibyll brushes the scroll aside with a sniff. "I've no need for such mundane information, my dear. My Inner Eye will advise me."
"Your Inner Eye will do you no good, Sibyll. I advise you again to modify your behavior in classes if you don't wish to give the Ministry the opportunity for another Educational Decree. You know that Dolores Umbridge –"
Sibyll sets the cards out on the table – they're fire-bright and glossy, reflecting the light, askew in a bright fan. Minerva reaches over and straightens them, neatening the pile. The edges of the cards are sharp under her fingers, but there's the same precision here as in a book, perfect right angles and orderliness. The incense in her eyes burns like whiskey in her lungs, like poison curdling her stomach, and Minerva shakes her head clear.
Divination and prophecies are nothing more than nonsense, gauzy fripperies powerless to change the world. "The past holds nothing that can be changed, the future nothing that can be altered by vague prophecies, and the present ... the present, my dear, contains nothing that can't be enjoyed." There's the feeling of Albus's fingers against hers, the memory of the leather book he pressed into her hands, the light shining in his eyes when he spoke of hope and an end to this war. There are hopes that are nothing more than dreams, shapeless nothings that slip away from Minerva even now.
The tea is too hot – Minerva breathes on it, cooling the liquid, and she pauses with the cup halfway to her mouth. The moment of change is near, the moment that will tip the balance, past into present into future. She feels it in her bones, feels the coming shift and she waits for it.
"The High Priestess," Trelawney says, choosing the first card and laying it on the table. It gleams on the dark wood, blue and gold, white and black, and Minerva blinks as it as it shifts, changing before her eyes. Pomegranates and scrolls, white and dark pillars framing the woman with a crescent on her forehead – she is haloed in light and darkness, she is familiar and unfamiliar and Minerva, with the ease of long practice, balances the irreconcilable, walking the edge of change.
"Yes, this represents you. A good choice, a perfect fit. My Inner Eye never deceives me."
Color flashes and Minerva's head spins, heavy with the incense and the bright lights reflected from Trelawney's glass beads. The darkness in the room draws close, the change pressing upon her and thudding like a warning through her veins. The beads and scarves clink and sway as Sibyll lays the cards out.
There's a magician, laid over the first card – this card, too, shifts and changes and at last, Minerva sees Albus there, his smile bright and his eyes shining. Her breath catches in her throat at the sight of him and she takes a quick swallow of tea.
The cards are laid out in a blur, Trelawney's rings glinting on her fingers, her gauzy shawls fluttering. The cards flicker, the images solidifying – there's a regal king, dark-haired and somber, a cup grasped in his hand – there's a potion shimmering in it, a haze that obscures his face. To the left, Trelawney lays another card, showing two friends that hold crystal goblets, the light shining on the cups with rainbows reflected in the glass, the friends are grasping hands, and the affection that radiates from them makes Minerva's head spin. She takes a deep breath as the friends move closer, embracing and kissing one another on the cheek.
Set below the cards, there's a tower, dark and ominous, silhouetted in thunder and lightning, and set above the cards, there's a silver mask – a Death Eater's mask, the Dark Mark hovering green and ominous behind it. Minerva can taste the soot and bitter smell of death, can hear the laughter of the Death Eaters at one of their revels, she can hear the screams of their helpless victims.
She shudders, closing her eyes. "Yes, of course my dear," Trelawney says. "But you must be brave, you know. I have Seen it – I told you once, that Death was in your cards and here it is. You must be brave."
Sibyll's hands move fast, faster, faster – a jewel-toned blur, awash with light and change. She lays the cards out with soft clicks, bright color against the dark table. The next card is set to the right, three swords that pierce a bleeding heart – the blood is crimson-red and visceral. Minerva can feel its hot slickness on her hands, blood flowing from her arms, running down from her shoulders past her elbows to her wrists, coating her hands, hot and reeking of death. She shakes away the haze of the hot, perfumed room. It's only Sibyll with her cards and tricks, her fripperies and flounces – there's nothing here that can change anything of import. Minerva looks away from the card, looks away from the pierced heart red with blood and watches Trelawney hum and simper as she lays out the next cards.
There's a set of cards laid out in a line – seven cups full to the brim with sparkling potions and floating in the air, a solitary witch surrounded by upended cups, a bound woman half-caged with shining swords. At last Trelawney stops, laying a card at the top of the line, and this card shows two lovers embracing, with rapture on their faces and glowing through their skin. The lovers kiss as Minerva watches, fingers tracing lips and learning the path down from jaw to breastbone, a sensuous caress that steals her breath away. Love is hot and unchanging between them, a vivid quick-fire presence that wraps around them, cradles them and protects them.
"It's best for you to be prepared, Minerva," Trelawney says. "Yes, I know that you do not Believe. Your Inner Eye is clouded, you are not sensitive to the vibrations of the future as I am. It is a difficult fate to bear, that is certain, but I have resigned myself to it. I will do my best to act as the conduit for my fellow witches and wizards, telling them of their fate and giving them the opportunity to prepare themselves for it. If you saw the future as I do ... ah, well."
Trelawney takes a sip from her cup, her movements jerky and awkward like a stick-legged bird bending down for a drink. Her cup rattles in her saucer and her nails click against the wooden table as she leans over, staring down at the cards, looking up at Minerva with a piercing gaze.
"Great change and upheaval – yes, and yet there may be some hope for you still. There's love in your future, that's for sure. Unexpected changes, a mysterious man – you have an admirer, yes."
Minerva shakes her head. The air in the tower is warm against her face, stifling with incense and intoxicating with change, with paths to follow and reject. She's spinning, unable to track the path of the change, unable to follow the conversation. There's no sense to Trelawney, there's no meaning to the cards – the image of Albus, the two friends holding hands, the two lovers embracing, the bleeding heart. There's no meaning here, only a jumble of images and the ravings of a lunatic.
She closes her eyes, banishing the images, and puts the scroll on the table in front of Sibyll. "Here is the schedule for your exams," she says.
Trelawney protests, pushing away the scroll and declaiming the power of her Inner Eye, she's admonishing Minerva for her inattention to the cards and trying to draw her back to the table. The cards gleam in the wavering light, echoing the reflection of the torchlight from Trelawney's spectacles and swaying glass beads, but Minerva turns away from them.
As she descends the airy, unstable ladder from Sibyll's tower, the smell of the incense lingers with her, the image of the last card burned into her mind – two lovers embracing, the sweet affection between them so vivid that it overflows them, shining from every pore of their skin. She shakes her head and hurries down the corridor, her steps echoing against the stones.
-----
Albus's hand is blackened, withered – the loose skin and wrinkles have been charred and his hand has stiffened into a claw, grotesque and monstrous. It's a goblin hand, fit to frighten children at bedtime, the stuff of nightmares, enough to make anyone shudder with revulsion. Minerva takes his hand and holds it – his skin crumbles at her touch, black soot flaking off into her hand. She opens her mouth to apologize, but he covers her lips with his fingers.
The fingers of his remaining hand are warm and wrinkled, the touch that she has grown to know and cherish. His sharp fingernails press into her lips, crescents of roughness, and there's an odd reassurance in his touch. Minerva closes her eyes.
"My dear Minerva," he says, "there's something that you must know."
In her turn, she covers his lips with her fingers and shakes her head. "I know everything that I need to know."
Albus's hand is withered and black – it's the sign of dark magic, as sure as Veritaserum. Minerva doesn't know how it happened, she doesn't know Albus's plans or how the war will end, but she knows him and that is enough.
She falls back in a slump, her spine curving and her arms hanging loose at her sides. The glass window behind her is cool and damp with condensation, with the remnants of the morning frost melting at last. Reaching for Albus, Minerva finds that the silences and burdens that they have borne all these years can slip away with ease, can disappear into nothingness like the frost.
"I love you," she says.
Albus presses his good hand to her breastbone, traces her collarbones and ribs and at last lets his hand rest on her jaw. "There's no future in loving me, my dear. You must be strong, as I know you can be."
There have been days when Minerva dreamed of the moment between them, the moment when all restraints fell away and their love was revealed. There have been nights when she dreamed of gentle kisses and the sweet, pure union of true love.
This is not Minerva's dream. She's never dreamed of crushing silence and an emptiness that spreads like crystalline frost on glass. She's never dreamed of Albus with his blackened hand and his firm rejection, she's never dreamed of this. She closes her eyes and blinks her dreams away.
Albus traces the veins in her hand, the bones and tendons and shallow wrinkles. She is old – for the first time, she feels old, feels the weight of accumulated years pressing down on her, pressing down into every wrinkle and deepening it. Minerva pulls her hand away from him.
Standing, she moves away from the window seat. Sunlight scatters shadows over her desk, the indigo prism from her ink bottle, the wispy pattern from her quills. There's a half-marked essay unrolled, there's a stack of books that need to be returned to the library. Minerva traces the straight lines of their covers, the sharp angles and the smooth leather – organization, precision, comfort.
There are some things that should not be changed, there are some things that should not be said and there are some things that cannot be unsaid. "I'm sorry," she says. "I –"
Shadows gather under his eyes, deepening the wrinkles and darkening the blue twinkle. "My dear, you misunderstand me."
Minerva shakes her head and turns away from him, away from the desk with its orderly array of scrolls and quills. Fawkes flutters over to alight on her shoulder, a brush of feathers soft against her cheek and a touch of hard claws on her neck. "You should go," she says.
"I never – Minerva –"
The silence is raised between them again, a barrier that Minerva welcomes. There are duties that cannot be delegated, there are burdens that cannot be shared, there is a war to fight. "Let's not speak of it," she says, "please."
Albus has been her everything, her guide and guardian, her light and her dreams. Minerva does not look at him as he leaves the room, does not turn to see the door swing shut behind him with a thud.
This, then, is the end – those careless words, and a door closes between them with this final sound, this dark and ugly noise. Minerva sits down to the half-marked essay, worrying the stopper free from the ink bottle, and dipping her quill into the blue ink.
She closes her eyes, not ready to see the work before her. She cannot count the essays that she has marked or the number of evenings that she has spent at this desk as the shadows lengthen and the days grow longer – she cannot measure the weight of Albus on those days. He's been a constant pressure in her thoughts, a constant pleasure, a dream never-ending.
Minerva has been too sure of him – over all the years, she has taken his gentle touches and soft endearments for love. She's read meaning into the brush of hands together, in the visits from Fawkes, in the long conversations and shared laughter, but there have been no hidden meanings there. There has been nothing past the surface, nothing deeper or closer.
The sun has set while Minerva has been sitting here, dreaming and lost. She straightens in her chair, stretching the kinks out of her spine, and blinks away her reverie. The ink that's dripped from her quill is blue-black in the dusky twilight – the parchment in front of her is stained and darkened with splotches, something pure and pale ruined by her inattention. Minerva waves the torches alight with a flick of her wand, and she finds that her quill is clogged and useless, the ink congealed and dry.
The castle wards tremble and Minerva is jolted from her reverie by a light show, the flashes of curses across the Hogwarts grounds. She drops the quill, the dried ink leaving no splash on her parchment, and turns to the window, pressing her forehead against the glass and peering outside. Red and green and golden, the curses bloom bright against the night sky. There's a sense of wrongness heavy in the air, a sense of danger – Minerva fumbles for her wand, running to the disturbance.
The familiar comfort of Albus's presence is gone, stripped away from her – this is the first time in years that she hasn't known where he is, what actions he advises, or why he is gone. There's an ache in her side as she runs, her muscles tense and torn, her heartbeat throbbing with loss and uncertainty.
Dark shadows shrouded in shadows – Death Eaters on Hogwarts grounds – curses flashing, children screaming, and Albus is nowhere to be seen. There is nothing to be done now, nothing that she can do other than protect the children, and Minerva steps into the path of a curse, shield at the ready.
There's a flash of blue light and the curse dissipates, bleeding around the edges of the shield to rush at the student behind her. "Run," Minerva says, "Get out of here now, hurry."
She has no more attention to spare for the student's escape – the Death Eater is ready with another curse, she must be ready with another shield. Nothing breaks the duel. The curses spark and fizzle, browning the grass and scorching the air. She counters each one, blocks or absorbs or dodges – the Death Eater's mask shines bright and the curses take on an angry desperate speed. Block, block, and block again, she uses the spells that Albus has taught her, the subtle weaving of shields, deft defenses and quick sidesteps.
Minerva hears shouting and more curses, angry taunts and there – she hears Severus's voice, loud and rich and reassuring. Severus must know where Albus is, Severus will know the meaning of this, and he will be able to put things to rights. Driving her opponent back, pressing forward with offensive spells at last, Minerva strains to reach Severus.
He is too far away, he is moving farther and farther from her. Minerva presses forward but the Death Eater refuses to yield, returning her hexes with Unforgivables. Minerva falls to the ground and rolls away from the Killing Curse, her mouth full of burnt grass and spell-smoke. At the edge of the wards, she can see Severus screaming – and there is Harry, a curse on the tip of his wand and an insult on his lips. Minerva deflects another hex from her opponent. Sparks splatter against her robe, burning through the fabric and she's cut off from Harry, unable to protect him.
She's dodging another spell, another curse. She's so close to Harry and Severus – close enough to see the hate twisting Harry's face, close enough to see the gleam of the white mask in Severus's pocket. Another taunt, another curse – there is no love lost between that pair of wizards, no mercy spared. The poison between them has festered and now it explodes into this confrontation. Severus spares a last moment for Potter before he breaks away and runs, pulling Draco with him and Disapparating once they are past the edge of the wards.
Minerva dodges a jet of red light and begins another hex. She's caught on the elbow by a slicing spell and there's a moment of shock before the pain darkens her sight and skews her aim. Her opponent breaks and runs after Severus, Disapparating with a pop. Minerva lets him go, her wand falling to the ground as she tries to staunch the bleeding from her arm.
Potter is gone by the time she recovers her wand, dashing off across the curse-scarred grounds, and Minerva follows him, slow and aching. Hagrid's hut is ablaze, the school is in an uproar, and there's a curious emptiness in her chest. Her lungs are compressed, straining for breath, and there's something withered away inside her, something as dark as Albus's twisted hand.
Here, where the battle was at its fiercest, the grass is trampled, and the earth is scorched and fused into black glass, still hot with magic. Minerva kneels, presses her fingertips against the glass and then to her lips, breathing in the smell of ruined earth and tainted soot.
At the foot of the Astronomy Tower, she finds Hagrid – there's a limp bundle in his arms, and Minerva knows without asking or being told. A withered hand, a soft caress, "There's no future in loving me, my dear," and she has known all along.
This is the art she practices, recognizing the moment of balance, the becoming and the between states. There's an edge between life and death, between light and dark, between love and loss. "You must be strong, as I know you can be." A last caress, the light in his eyes, the feeling of his twisted hand shedding blackened, dead skin in her hands – there's life and death and the balance has been tipped.
"You must be strong, as I know you can be," Albus trusted her and Minerva will not betray his trust. There's no time for hysteria or tears – she sends the students off to the safety of their dormitories with their Professors set to guard them, she calls the Ministry, she deals with the Aurors, she conjures an extra-large handkerchief for Hagrid and begins arrangements for the funeral. Duty is her anchor.
There's Sinistra with her mouth in a hard line, questioning and countermanding her orders – there's Fawkes, blood-red on his perch, with a weary and wavering croon – there's the Order of the Phoenix, looking to her for guidance. Minerva does not sleep that night. She does not think of the pale and crumpled body, shrouded and fragile in death, she does not allow herself to think of the vigil that Hagrid keeps or of the cold stones and wards where Albus's body rests.
There are letters that Albus has left, instructions for her to follow – she does not know his plans, she does not know the shape or future of the war, but she clings to the scrolls that he has left behind, blurring the careful letters with sweat from her palms.
The weight of the scrolls in her hand is not the only comfort that Albus has left for her – the day after the funeral, the day after watching Fawkes burst into flame midair, the phoenix returns to her with the morning sun and perches on her desk with a quizzical tilt of his head. A gentle croon, a brush of soft feathers against her forearm, and Minerva lets the haze around her thoughts fall away.
This is the greatest of Transfigurations, life into death, love into sacrifice, and this is what Albus believed. There is no love that is less than faith, there is no way for her to doubt him. She presses her fingers against Fawkes' beak, lets the sharp nip bring her back to her senses, and with a deft spell, she opens the seal on the last scroll that Albus sent her.
Sinistra, with a scowl on her face and a limp from the battle, stops her before she can descend into the dungeons. "Professor McGonagall," she says. "Are you certain that you know what you're doing?"
Albus's scroll is warm and smooth in her hands, his plan the only reassurance that she needs, and Minerva traces the curlicue edge of the parchment. Like a snail's shell, it curls inwards and inwards, coiling around until it spirals into nothing. "I've never been more certain in my life."
"I know," Sinistra says with a pointed glance at the scroll, "that you think Albus trusted you. You think that he relies on you to complete his plans, and you think that you're adequate to take his place. But he never fully trusted you, did he? He never told you his true plans, he never told you that he cared for you, and he was right. You're not strong enough to take his place."
Years of poison have built up between them, hidden between smiles as false as sugar-spun glass. Minerva looks over her spectacles at Sinistra and grips the scroll more tightly. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"I do know," Sinistra says. "I know that he never loved you. I know that you should give that scroll to me – he loved me more than he could have ever loved a worthless creature like you. I was everything to him while you were nothing."
Minerva's heart is coated in glass, a shield that Sinistra cannot break. She shakes her head and motions the woman aside. Nothing can stop her from fulfilling Albus's last wishes – nothing can take the scroll with his last words away from her.
"Give it to me," Sinistra says. There's a touch of desperation to her voice, a hint of darkness etched in the lines around her eyes, and Minerva refuses to concede to her. For years, she's withstood Sinistra's pointed comments and veiled doubt, for years she's relied on Albus's support, but now she is free of doubt and free of the uncertainties that plagued her.
"This is not for you," Minerva says. She brushes past Sinistra and goes down into the dungeon, Fawkes fluttering behind her with a plaintive song echoing faintly in the corridor.
Change after change after change – Albus Dumbledore was the master of Transfigurations, he knew how to measure change and influence it and cause it, and Minerva is his poor imitator. She grips the scroll tight in her hand and presses her wand against the wards, forcing a change, forcing entrance.
The wards are full of Severus's aura, rich with his touch. His personality echoes here in the cold and damp, and Minerva rests her hand on the wall, touches the stones that he has touched. Severus has left the castle, has left them barren and cold without Albus's warm guidance, but there is still the force of his personality here, the scent of his potions and the echo of his voice. "He wished for me to tell you that I am loyal to him and him alone, and that I will never betray him."
Severus's face had been pale and bloodless as he Apparated away. Severus's voice had been full of pain and rage, and Minerva aches with the memory of it. In a world where everything is change, where everything switches from being to becoming to being, in a world where magic can change breath to bone and blood to love – Severus had been on the verge of breaking. Minerva shakes, her lungs tight with revelation.
Albus's body, crumpled and small in Hagrid's arms, the rage on Harry's face as he ran after Severus, Severus's mask glinting in his pocket, and there is no change more profound than this. Love to loss and life to death, Minerva traces the lines of dust in Severus's chambers, the crystal edges of his potion vials, the straight corners of his books left in neat piles. Nothing is disturbed and it's as though Severus has stepped out for an hour, as though Severus is in his classroom with his students and his usual scowl. "In my own way ... I hardly know what love is, but I do love him."
Minerva leaves the dungeons that still echo with Severus's pain, and she meets him at Albus' tomb, Fawkes on her shoulder and a vial of his Veritaserum in her hand. Dusk gathers close, shrouds them in a soft haze, and the last gleam of sunlight lingers on the tomb, on the crystal vial, and on Fawkes' bright feathers.
Severus is a shadow in the shadows, a wraith ghosting over the grass. He approaches, his face hidden by his cowl, and Minerva closes her eyes when Fawkes flutters from her shoulder and goes to Severus. This final betrayal, the loss of Albus's familiar, she also bears.
She is a Mistress of Transfiguration, expert in the ways of change, and she knows that there is no change that is not possible. There is no change that cannot be borne.
"McGonagall," Severus says. His voice is low and taut, hoarse with curses and tears. His hand, pale and gaunt, goes to touch his throat, and she blinks. The loss of his beautiful silken voice is no harder to bear than any other loss.
"Severus."
His skin is gray in the fading light, his hand thin and pale against his dark robe. He's come here, heedless of the risks, heedless of the pain, and with Albus gone, it is Minerva's duty to help him. She breaks the silence that has crystallized between them. "You'll be needing this, then."
Their hands brush, knuckle to knuckle, as she passes him the vial of Veritaserum. There is a last flash of light reflected by the crystal vial before he tucks it into his pocket. "Yes. Thank you."
Minerva rests her hand against Albus' tomb, traces the faint gray veins in the white marble. Even with daylight fading fast, the tomb is a beacon of light, glowing with the last of the sun and the first of the stars. Severus lays his hand close to hers, their fingers interlaced like pieces of a mismatched puzzle, never touching.
"I'll let you know when I have the information the Order needs," he says at last.
His darkness is changed into shrouded light, his grief into purpose, his love into duty. Minerva follows his changes and uses them to shape her own grief, her own loss. She is being, she is becoming, and the rough scratch of the marble against her fingertips is enough to remind her of that. With a soft flutter, Fawkes brushes his wing against her cheek and then he flies off, a dwindling red speck in the darkening sky.
There is this to be said about Severus – he does not flinch from his duty. He does not linger. He pulls his hand away from hers, their fingers never touching, and he does not spare a glance for the tomb. Severus fades to black in the shadows, leaving as he came.
-----
Minerva sits by the window in her office, fingers clasped in a semicircle around her teacup. It's filled with whiskey, a harsh dose of reality. The last of the sunlight fades, changing from exultant pink to somber purple, a slow Transfiguration that washes away the day. The balance is tipped and night extends its sway over the world.
She takes a gulp of whiskey, holding her breath until the fire in her lungs matched the fire in her throat. The darkness draws itself over the world, and with the moon cloud-hidden, Minerva cannot see Albus's tomb. The white marble, so bright and incandescent in the sunlight, is muted now, invisible. She presses her hand, palm flat, against the window, and feels the familiar pattern of wavy ripples in the old glass.
Across the castle, the Headmaster's office is waiting for her, she sees the dull wan light gleaming in the window. A last candle gives off light and shadows, a steady beacon. She gulps the last of the whiskey and stands, unsteady on her feet. If the lights in Albus's office have been extinguished, then it is her duty to rekindle them. Pausing on the threshold, Minerva looks back at the familiar window, its warped glass shining.
This is the moment of change, the Transfiguration hanging in the balance, the old ready to give the way to the new, the last of the old light faded – extinguished. Minerva has too long been the balanced and the balancer, caught in the change, aglow with borrowed light. The old gives way to the new, the light dies and is rekindled. Tomorrow the dark will give way to a new dawn, and she will guide the transition, and she will make her own light.
Author: lesyeuxverts00
Word Count: ~15700
Rating: R
Pairing: Minerva McGonagall/Albus Dumbledore (unrequited)
Prompt: Written for
hp_tarot: The High Priestess card, with the interpretation "She is the Queen of Borrowed Light."Warnings: Character death (HBP-compliant)
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: "The light before dawn, the dark before twilight, the strange uneven transitions between teacup and hedgehog, needle and match – there's a moment before the new overwhelms the old. There's balance in the imbalance, and Minerva revels in the teeter-totter moments in life, the instant when being turns into becoming."
AN: A million thanks to
svartalfur for the wonderful beta! Huge thanks also to theentwife and jadzia7667 for help with the Tarot, and to brightfeather, faynia, bewarethesmirk, and schemingreader for inspiration and encouragement, and of course to ravenna_c_tan for all her hard work as a mod ... and for letting me post this late. *g* (Part One)
-----
"It's happened at last, Minerva." Albus comes to stand behind her. He's manic with more than his affection for sweets, vibrating with energy. The candles flicker in his wake, their flames flaring higher, their light penetrating the deepest shadows, illuminating the high ceiling.
She turns to face him, wraps her fingers around his forearms and pulls him to the nearest chair. "Sit. Take deep, calming breaths while I get some tea. Then you can tell me everything, in logical and coherent order, none of this breathless wonder."
He stops her with a hand on her elbow. "Minerva, I –"
"You can't tell me this," she says, her fingers still and not trembling, her hands at her side and not clenched into fists.
"I'd –"
"Yes," she says, and forces her lips into a thin smile. "I know. Let me get that tea."
He's calmer when she returns, the years of lines dropping away from his face. "Minerva, this means hope." He clutches her hand, smoothing the winter-rough skin, tracing the blue veins. "For the first time, after all these years of darkness, there is hope for the light."
He clasps her hand close. Minerva settles on the arm of the chair, leaning against him, and passes him a cup of tea. The steam rises above the cup, dense in the cold air, and hovers there between them until Albus blows it away.
Balance in imbalance, steam hanging in the air until it cools and sinks lower, and it's just so – life is a flash of heat and steam, a passing dream, a curling, mobile pattern sketched in the air and then replaced. Life has never seemed so fragile before, never seemed so bittersweet, like tea brewed too long and over-sugared.
"I went to see Molly at the Burrow today," Minerva says. She finds a refuge in the sweet, lemony taste of Albus's tea and passes the cup back to him. "She's expecting again."
"The oldest son will be here at Hogwarts soon," he says.
"Another Gryffindor, I'm sure. He's a great help to Molly with her twins, and Arthur says that he's picked up quite the knack of knowing when to distract her from her old photos of Gideon and Fabian."
"It's for the Sorting Hat to decide, you know. He'd do well in any House."
He twirls his cup on its saucer, tea slopping over the rim and onto his age-weathered fingers. "She's all right?" he asks.
"She will be, I think."
The candles fade, sputtering out into molten pools of wax one by one, and Minerva catches his hand, pressing it to her lips. "You're sure of this, then? There is some hope?"
"Indeed, my dear. We have reason for hope at last."
-----
The picture of the Order of the Phoenix is etched in white and black and shades of gray, their last meeting preserved by silver salts and magic spells. Minerva traces the edges of the photograph, covers the tiny faces with her fingertip and watches the witches and wizards smile and wave. They cluster together like old friends, like the dear comrades that they are, and then like a wave breaking on the sand, the group splinters into smaller groups. There, in the center are the two twins, Gideon and Fabian – they wave at her with unforced smiles, no less cheerful than the others. They're gone from the Order, their smiles gone and their places unfilled.
The twins, like red gold, like phoenix fire – their smiles were bright, unfaltering. "I have a feeling –" Fabian says, and Gideon completes his sentence, "–that this will be the most important battle of our time." They nod and smile at her in the photograph, preserved forever in black and white.
She drops the photo into the top drawer of her desk when she hears a knock at the door, and pulls out the nearest book, opening it to the middle. "Yes?" she asks, her voice loud enough to carry through the wooden door.
With a twist of magic, she locks and wards the desk drawer. Minerva reaches for the pair of spectacles on a chain around her neck, settling them onto her nose and peering down at the book. The print is small, enough to make her eyes ache even with her new glasses.
The door opens with a loud bang, and she blinks when Severus Snape sweeps into the room with a flourish of his black cloak. "McGonagall," he says, and seats himself without waiting for an invitation.
"Mr. Snape, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"
"It's Professor Snape, if you please. I've come to consult with you about book lists and class schedules."
Minerva looks over the rim of her spectacles at her former student and waits for an explanation. To his credit, Snape does not fidget under her gaze. There is no response forthcoming – he is silent and severe, with his well-practiced glare and his arms folded across his chest.
He makes no sound, no reason for his return to the school that he had hated. He does not protest his innocence or proffer an explanation. Minerva remembers him too well as a student, and she casts a pointed look at his left forearm, certain that he bears the Mark of the Dark Lord there.
His darkness is no secret and he does not attempt to deny it. He does not flounce or engage in his usual dramatics – his black eyes gleam and, conjuring a cup of tea, he pours three careful drops of Veritaserum into it and passes her the vial.
Crystal-bright and faceted, the glass vial shines in the light. Minerva taps it twice with her wand to verify its authenticity, and when she's satisfied with the results of the spell, she passes it back to Snape.
She waits for him to finish his tea and watches him rub his forearm, his eyes closed and his lips pinched together in a scowl. "I would not have come to you if the Headmaster had not insisted," he tells her. "I have taken the Veritaserum willingly, albeit under his strong suggestion, but let me assure you that you will suffer my displeasure if you trespass upon my privacy."
Severus opens his eyes. Dark and darker still than she had remembered, deep with pain and dark with reservations and trust – Minerva reaches across the desk to stop him before he can take another sip of tea.
The cup is half-empty between them, the amber liquid shimmering in the muted light of her office. She drinks the remainder, and she is strong enough not to wince in front of him. She refuses to grimace at the bitterness of the drink. "What did Albus wish for you to tell me?" she asks.
The half-dose of Veritaserum is enough to bring truth to the lips but not enough to force it out into the air – Snape hesitates, and then unfolds his arms, leaning back in his chair. She's mad to trust him thus, but Albus has sent him and there's a touch of change clinging to him, a breath of phoenix fire, a gleam of redemption. Light shines through darkness, hope shines through his strict and severe façade, and Minerva leans forward, trusting him.
"He wished for me to tell you that I am a loyal member of the Order of the Phoenix, a secret spy in Voldemort's ranks. He wished for me to tell you that I am loyal to him and him alone, and that I will never betray him."
Severus's voice does not waver, nor does his hand tremble as he traces the rim of the empty teacup. "It is the truth, I swear to you that I am loyal to Albus."
Minerva nods, the taste of the tea washed away by the pain etched onto his face. Like a stained glass window, he is made of fragments soldered together – iron and glass, strong and breakable, dark and light. It's a painstaking work, it's a labor of pain and love to create such a window, to create such a man. "Ask me one question," she says.
Many-colored and changeable like the window, he shifts from pain to contemplation, from iron solder to sunlight, and he studies her for a moment. Unblinking, unhesitating, he finds the weakness and he strikes it. "Do you love him?"
"Yes," she says.
There's an understanding between them, this artificial closeness built by forced confessions, and Minerva hesitates to breathe, afraid to shatter it. Dark hair sways in front of Severus's face, hiding his pale features, and it is as effective a disguise as a Death Eater's mask.
"I love him too," Severus says. He looks down at his hands folded around the teacup and Minerva blinks. "In my own way ... I hardly know what love is, but I do love him."
She reaches across the desk to lay her hand over his, the only comfort that she can give him. Severus Snape has grown in pain and darkness, and yet he is still drawn to the light, to Albus. Minerva knows the hopeless, helpless longing, the yearning, the mute desire – she knows.
His skin is rough, marred with scars and calluses, and he draws back from her touch. His pale hands disappear into the sleeves of his robe and he stares at her, his gaze hard and bitter. "I do not want your pity," he says.
"I know," she says. There's enough Veritaserum in her veins yet that she can't tell him that she does not pity him. "I know how you feel."
There's nothing more to be said. She won't repeat Sinistra's words - "He doesn't love you, he'll never love you, he never could love you." - they echo through her mind already, as much a part of her blood as her pulse.
Cruel and unchanging, it's nothing more than the truth. Albus Dumbledore, who is light and love and haloed with it, could never love anyone who was tainted with even the least part of darkness or weakness. Gracious and gentle, too kind to point out their faults, he will never love Minerva or Severus. He will never sully himself with touching them – and it is for the best, Minerva reminds herself, using Sinistra's words for her anchor. Foreknowledge of certain disappointment is a steady thing in her spinning world. It is for the best.
The sun comes out from behind a cloud, and light splashes through the window and reflects rainbows onto Severus's pale face. Like a prism, the window filters the light, changing it before allowing it into the room. The somber shadows that etched Severus's face with lines and weariness are washed away. Minerva blinks away the tears brought on by the brightness, and Severus doesn't need to hear Sinistra's truths, doesn't need to carry the echo of her words with him. Minerva won't burden him with it.
In a blink, as quick as the sun coming out from behind the clouds, Severus is closed-off and distant again, as pale as though he'd never made his confession to her, as strong as though he'd never tasted Veritaserum. Minerva's heart warms to him, something that is not quite pity and not quite fondness stirring there – she knows better than to reach out to him now.
Severus leaves her office with his class schedule and his booklist, the key to his dungeon rooms in his hand and the Veritaserum washed out of his system with a shot of whiskey. Minerva watches him go and reaches for the picture in the drawer, bypassing the wards with ease. Gideon and Fabian are gone forever – Severus will never be pictured – it is a poor record, flat and empty. A photo, stark in black and white, does not capture the vibrant lives trapped within it, does not capture the poignant sacrifices of her comrades in arms. There's nothing to be gained from dwelling on it.
Minerva locks it away again, shutting the photograph away in the top drawer, and she locks the door of her office behind her. There's a melancholy that lingers in the wake of Severus's visit, a sadness clinging to the air, a hint of darkness. Minerva wanders through the empty corridors, determined to banish the dark specters from her imagination.
Albus is in his study when she makes her way up the circular staircase, her hand abraded by a rough caress from the gargoyle guardian. The fire pops and crackles, casting shadows on Albus's face, and Minerva moves past him to look out the window.
Severus is hurrying past the Forbidden Forest, crossing the lake without a pause to enjoy the calm glassy waters and setting sun, disappearing through the tall iron gates – Minerva watches him go, her palm on the windowpane and her heart thudding in her chest. She turns to Albus and watches him read before she comes to sit by his side.
"You might have warned me that he was coming," she says. "At the very least, you might have told me to cancel the other interviews for his position."
"There will always be things that I cannot tell you," Albus says without looking up from his book. "There are some things that I can tell you, my dear, and you have not asked me. The Divination position had been left vacant, and I can tell you that you need not look for other applicants. I've asked Sibyl Trelawney to teach here, and she's accepted."
There are always things that Albus does not tell her, there are always secrets that she does not know. Minerva takes a deep breath and releases her frustration, releases the dark jealousy of his secrets and the darkness of jealousy buried within her.
Severus's question lingers with Minerva, the echo of her answer fading away into her heart. The echo is pleasant, warm and comforting, and Minerva clings to it, cherishing it.
Albus makes notes in the margin of his book and Summons parchment and quill from his desk. He scrawls a quick message and sends it off with Fawkes before he turns back to Minerva. "Is there something that I can do for you, my dear?"
Now is not the time to burden Albus, now is not the time to weigh down his heart or thoughts. "No," she says. "No, there is nothing," and she takes her leave of him.
-----
Change is the order of the day – changes handed down from on high by Dolores Umbridge, the changes at the Head Table at breakfast with the loss of Albus. Minerva stifles the hurt she feels, buries it deep in her heart, and keeps her face unchanged, smiling at Umbridge and at Sinistra. There's a change in Severus's expression, a twisted smile directed at Minerva, and she shakes her head at him. This is not the time to give Umbridge any cause for suspicions.
Harry Potter is framed by his two friends, bolstered by their loyalty and still, he is as pale and stiff as the corpse he dragged back from the graveyard last year. Minerva watches him, and he is still hope, he is pure light. Unsullied by darkness after his upbringing in the dark and the neglect of those wretched people, unmarred by malice in spite of the scars that he bears, untainted by evil after all of his battles with it, he is pure and pale and there is no way that Minerva can protect him from the horrors of this war.
There are echoes of his parents in him, a reminder of Lily in his cheekbones and something of James in his shoulders and the stubborn set of his face. The reason for Severus's hatred of the boy is written across his face, the reason for Albus's hope in him is buried deeper. He's been scarred by life – he's been scarred by Umbridge, a message scrawled deep across his hand, and Minerva cannot protect him, cannot erase his scars.
"You must trust me, my dear. I know what I am doing," Albus told her, and when Minerva is not watching Harry Potter bear his scars and shoulder his burdens, when she does not see him pale and thin, she can keep her trust in Albus. Now – there will be no erasing the shadows under Harry's eyes, no change deep enough to remove his scars. Minerva watches his friends protect him as best they can, watches the three of them withstand the darkness, and she bites her lower lip until the pain changes her determination into patience.
Minerva raps her wand on the desk to call the class to attention, sending the wayward Gryffindors scurrying back to their seats. With a flick of Minerva's wand, matches fly from the basket to the students' desks, landing in precise rows.
"If you have completed the assigned reading," she says, "you will understand the processes involved in changing one object to an object with greater mass. This is not a subtle change, nothing that is simple or clear. The mass of the object must be stretched and shaped and changed, and this is the heart of all Transfiguration. Clear your desks and set the matches on the floor before you begin."
There's a rustle of books and scrolls, and the students bend down to lay their matches on the floor. Neville Longbottom squeaks and stutters when his match slips into a crack between the stones, Hermione Granger vibrates with enthusiasm, and Harry – Harry with James's face and Lily's eyes, Harry with the scars of sacrifice and the burdens of war – fumbles and fails. His match remains inert and tiny, nothing like a chair, and Minerva comes up behind him, setting her hand on his shoulder.
"Focus on the change, Mr. Potter. Remember the differences between chair and match, and reach out to feel the potential for change inherent there. Let the differences melt away and the similarities come to the forefront."
He nods and, trying again, fails. Minerva gives him a tight, encouraging smile and moves on – it will not do to make him nervous. Hope is born of sacrifice, and failure is born of fear, and Minerva cannot protect Harry Potter. She could not protect the father from the harshness of life and the mistakes that he made, and she cannot protect the son.
Granger produces a petite armchair on her first try, child's size and comfortable-looking. There's a loud pattern on the fabric, hideous swathes of Gryffindor red and gold fighting with a deep blue – large splotches mar the design, and Granger trembles, her shoulders shaking. "I can't –"
Minerva comes up to examine the chair, prodding the cushions with the tip of her wand and producing them adequate. "Well done for a first attempt, Miss Granger. Try to focus on the change in size, stretching the material larger and larger, forcing it to grow. Ignore the pattern for now – that change can come later, after the chair is Transfigured if you like."
Granger smiles at Minerva's praise and, nodding at her suggestions, changes the chair back into a match and begins again without delay.
All of the empty-headed, Quidditch-brained students that Minerva has taught disappear in the face of Hermione Granger and her bright determination. "This is the world that we are fighting for," and Albus had taken her hand in his when he said, "This is a world worth fighting for." With a brush of his thumb across her knuckles, with a soft smile, he had banished all of her insecurities – all of the jealousies and strife from dealing with Sinistra, all of the stress from her inattentive, empty-headed students, all of the worries of the war vanished at his touch and his smile.
Minerva moves on, giving Neville a new match when his bursts into flame, giving Hermione a smile when her match blossoms into a large leather armchair, giving unheeded advice and guidance. She watches failure after failure, hope after crumbling hope, and at the end of the hour, she raps her wand on her desk.
"Most of you have made a good start," she says, "but all of you need to continue practicing. I expect that you'll be able to make serviceable chairs by our next class, and extra points will be given for ornamentation or elegance of design."
Harry Potter files out of her classroom with the rest of her students, the match in his pocket and his wand in his hand. He is pale, yet, and still weighted down with scars and burdens – Minerva's done nothing to change that, nothing to protect him, and there is nothing that she can do. She rubs her temples with deft circles, pushing away the headache that looms, and tries to forget the look of his face, twisted with failure and frustration.
He is hope and light, he is only a child, and when Severus bursts into her classroom, intent on assigning a punishment for Harry's insolence and sloppy work, Minerva shakes her head.
"Severus, enough. I've heard this every day for the past five years and I will tolerate it no longer. You know very well the reasons why we cannot expel Harry Potter or single him out for excessive punishment, and the time for your foolishness regarding him is at an end now."
She glares over her spectacles at Severus – as pale and worn as Harry, as weighted down with sacrifice and pain. "You will teach him Occlumency and you will not continue with this quest for vengeance over the sins of a man long dead. Is that understood?"
Severus glared and whirled, his robes billowing out behind him as he strode from the classroom. "You will not tell me how to manage my students," he said as he left.
Change hovers in the air, over the school, and Minerva, for one, cannot grasp it or use it. Some things remain as they have always been, and some things will change without her guidance.
-----
The crystals gleam in the dim light, echoing the gleam in Trelawney's eyes. "Come in," she says. "You've come to me at last. I knew that you would be here."
Minerva bypasses the chintz cushions and heavy incense and comes to stand in front of Sibyll. "I have your new exam schedule, with all of the adjustments and –"
"Sit down, sit down. I've been waiting for this for a long time, I've known that you would need my help."
Minerva blinks, hazy-eyed in the fumes. "Your help?"
There's a change hanging in the air, a heaviness that Minerva can sense but cannot predict or guide. She drops into a seat, her knees too weak to hold her up against the weight of possibilities, and takes deep breaths, coughing away the incense.
Trelawney pours tea and offers it to her, giving the tea leaves a steady swirl in the amber liquid. "For your throat, my dear, nothing more. Your future can't be seen in the leaves, not at all – it'll have to be the cards, that much is certain."
Minerva offers the scroll to her again. "Professor Trelawney, I've brought you the schedule for your exams this year. I know that you –"
Sibyll brushes the scroll aside with a sniff. "I've no need for such mundane information, my dear. My Inner Eye will advise me."
"Your Inner Eye will do you no good, Sibyll. I advise you again to modify your behavior in classes if you don't wish to give the Ministry the opportunity for another Educational Decree. You know that Dolores Umbridge –"
Sibyll sets the cards out on the table – they're fire-bright and glossy, reflecting the light, askew in a bright fan. Minerva reaches over and straightens them, neatening the pile. The edges of the cards are sharp under her fingers, but there's the same precision here as in a book, perfect right angles and orderliness. The incense in her eyes burns like whiskey in her lungs, like poison curdling her stomach, and Minerva shakes her head clear.
Divination and prophecies are nothing more than nonsense, gauzy fripperies powerless to change the world. "The past holds nothing that can be changed, the future nothing that can be altered by vague prophecies, and the present ... the present, my dear, contains nothing that can't be enjoyed." There's the feeling of Albus's fingers against hers, the memory of the leather book he pressed into her hands, the light shining in his eyes when he spoke of hope and an end to this war. There are hopes that are nothing more than dreams, shapeless nothings that slip away from Minerva even now.
The tea is too hot – Minerva breathes on it, cooling the liquid, and she pauses with the cup halfway to her mouth. The moment of change is near, the moment that will tip the balance, past into present into future. She feels it in her bones, feels the coming shift and she waits for it.
"The High Priestess," Trelawney says, choosing the first card and laying it on the table. It gleams on the dark wood, blue and gold, white and black, and Minerva blinks as it as it shifts, changing before her eyes. Pomegranates and scrolls, white and dark pillars framing the woman with a crescent on her forehead – she is haloed in light and darkness, she is familiar and unfamiliar and Minerva, with the ease of long practice, balances the irreconcilable, walking the edge of change.
"Yes, this represents you. A good choice, a perfect fit. My Inner Eye never deceives me."
Color flashes and Minerva's head spins, heavy with the incense and the bright lights reflected from Trelawney's glass beads. The darkness in the room draws close, the change pressing upon her and thudding like a warning through her veins. The beads and scarves clink and sway as Sibyll lays the cards out.
There's a magician, laid over the first card – this card, too, shifts and changes and at last, Minerva sees Albus there, his smile bright and his eyes shining. Her breath catches in her throat at the sight of him and she takes a quick swallow of tea.
The cards are laid out in a blur, Trelawney's rings glinting on her fingers, her gauzy shawls fluttering. The cards flicker, the images solidifying – there's a regal king, dark-haired and somber, a cup grasped in his hand – there's a potion shimmering in it, a haze that obscures his face. To the left, Trelawney lays another card, showing two friends that hold crystal goblets, the light shining on the cups with rainbows reflected in the glass, the friends are grasping hands, and the affection that radiates from them makes Minerva's head spin. She takes a deep breath as the friends move closer, embracing and kissing one another on the cheek.
Set below the cards, there's a tower, dark and ominous, silhouetted in thunder and lightning, and set above the cards, there's a silver mask – a Death Eater's mask, the Dark Mark hovering green and ominous behind it. Minerva can taste the soot and bitter smell of death, can hear the laughter of the Death Eaters at one of their revels, she can hear the screams of their helpless victims.
She shudders, closing her eyes. "Yes, of course my dear," Trelawney says. "But you must be brave, you know. I have Seen it – I told you once, that Death was in your cards and here it is. You must be brave."
Sibyll's hands move fast, faster, faster – a jewel-toned blur, awash with light and change. She lays the cards out with soft clicks, bright color against the dark table. The next card is set to the right, three swords that pierce a bleeding heart – the blood is crimson-red and visceral. Minerva can feel its hot slickness on her hands, blood flowing from her arms, running down from her shoulders past her elbows to her wrists, coating her hands, hot and reeking of death. She shakes away the haze of the hot, perfumed room. It's only Sibyll with her cards and tricks, her fripperies and flounces – there's nothing here that can change anything of import. Minerva looks away from the card, looks away from the pierced heart red with blood and watches Trelawney hum and simper as she lays out the next cards.
There's a set of cards laid out in a line – seven cups full to the brim with sparkling potions and floating in the air, a solitary witch surrounded by upended cups, a bound woman half-caged with shining swords. At last Trelawney stops, laying a card at the top of the line, and this card shows two lovers embracing, with rapture on their faces and glowing through their skin. The lovers kiss as Minerva watches, fingers tracing lips and learning the path down from jaw to breastbone, a sensuous caress that steals her breath away. Love is hot and unchanging between them, a vivid quick-fire presence that wraps around them, cradles them and protects them.
"It's best for you to be prepared, Minerva," Trelawney says. "Yes, I know that you do not Believe. Your Inner Eye is clouded, you are not sensitive to the vibrations of the future as I am. It is a difficult fate to bear, that is certain, but I have resigned myself to it. I will do my best to act as the conduit for my fellow witches and wizards, telling them of their fate and giving them the opportunity to prepare themselves for it. If you saw the future as I do ... ah, well."
Trelawney takes a sip from her cup, her movements jerky and awkward like a stick-legged bird bending down for a drink. Her cup rattles in her saucer and her nails click against the wooden table as she leans over, staring down at the cards, looking up at Minerva with a piercing gaze.
"Great change and upheaval – yes, and yet there may be some hope for you still. There's love in your future, that's for sure. Unexpected changes, a mysterious man – you have an admirer, yes."
Minerva shakes her head. The air in the tower is warm against her face, stifling with incense and intoxicating with change, with paths to follow and reject. She's spinning, unable to track the path of the change, unable to follow the conversation. There's no sense to Trelawney, there's no meaning to the cards – the image of Albus, the two friends holding hands, the two lovers embracing, the bleeding heart. There's no meaning here, only a jumble of images and the ravings of a lunatic.
She closes her eyes, banishing the images, and puts the scroll on the table in front of Sibyll. "Here is the schedule for your exams," she says.
Trelawney protests, pushing away the scroll and declaiming the power of her Inner Eye, she's admonishing Minerva for her inattention to the cards and trying to draw her back to the table. The cards gleam in the wavering light, echoing the reflection of the torchlight from Trelawney's spectacles and swaying glass beads, but Minerva turns away from them.
As she descends the airy, unstable ladder from Sibyll's tower, the smell of the incense lingers with her, the image of the last card burned into her mind – two lovers embracing, the sweet affection between them so vivid that it overflows them, shining from every pore of their skin. She shakes her head and hurries down the corridor, her steps echoing against the stones.
-----
Albus's hand is blackened, withered – the loose skin and wrinkles have been charred and his hand has stiffened into a claw, grotesque and monstrous. It's a goblin hand, fit to frighten children at bedtime, the stuff of nightmares, enough to make anyone shudder with revulsion. Minerva takes his hand and holds it – his skin crumbles at her touch, black soot flaking off into her hand. She opens her mouth to apologize, but he covers her lips with his fingers.
The fingers of his remaining hand are warm and wrinkled, the touch that she has grown to know and cherish. His sharp fingernails press into her lips, crescents of roughness, and there's an odd reassurance in his touch. Minerva closes her eyes.
"My dear Minerva," he says, "there's something that you must know."
In her turn, she covers his lips with her fingers and shakes her head. "I know everything that I need to know."
Albus's hand is withered and black – it's the sign of dark magic, as sure as Veritaserum. Minerva doesn't know how it happened, she doesn't know Albus's plans or how the war will end, but she knows him and that is enough.
She falls back in a slump, her spine curving and her arms hanging loose at her sides. The glass window behind her is cool and damp with condensation, with the remnants of the morning frost melting at last. Reaching for Albus, Minerva finds that the silences and burdens that they have borne all these years can slip away with ease, can disappear into nothingness like the frost.
"I love you," she says.
Albus presses his good hand to her breastbone, traces her collarbones and ribs and at last lets his hand rest on her jaw. "There's no future in loving me, my dear. You must be strong, as I know you can be."
There have been days when Minerva dreamed of the moment between them, the moment when all restraints fell away and their love was revealed. There have been nights when she dreamed of gentle kisses and the sweet, pure union of true love.
This is not Minerva's dream. She's never dreamed of crushing silence and an emptiness that spreads like crystalline frost on glass. She's never dreamed of Albus with his blackened hand and his firm rejection, she's never dreamed of this. She closes her eyes and blinks her dreams away.
Albus traces the veins in her hand, the bones and tendons and shallow wrinkles. She is old – for the first time, she feels old, feels the weight of accumulated years pressing down on her, pressing down into every wrinkle and deepening it. Minerva pulls her hand away from him.
Standing, she moves away from the window seat. Sunlight scatters shadows over her desk, the indigo prism from her ink bottle, the wispy pattern from her quills. There's a half-marked essay unrolled, there's a stack of books that need to be returned to the library. Minerva traces the straight lines of their covers, the sharp angles and the smooth leather – organization, precision, comfort.
There are some things that should not be changed, there are some things that should not be said and there are some things that cannot be unsaid. "I'm sorry," she says. "I –"
Shadows gather under his eyes, deepening the wrinkles and darkening the blue twinkle. "My dear, you misunderstand me."
Minerva shakes her head and turns away from him, away from the desk with its orderly array of scrolls and quills. Fawkes flutters over to alight on her shoulder, a brush of feathers soft against her cheek and a touch of hard claws on her neck. "You should go," she says.
"I never – Minerva –"
The silence is raised between them again, a barrier that Minerva welcomes. There are duties that cannot be delegated, there are burdens that cannot be shared, there is a war to fight. "Let's not speak of it," she says, "please."
Albus has been her everything, her guide and guardian, her light and her dreams. Minerva does not look at him as he leaves the room, does not turn to see the door swing shut behind him with a thud.
This, then, is the end – those careless words, and a door closes between them with this final sound, this dark and ugly noise. Minerva sits down to the half-marked essay, worrying the stopper free from the ink bottle, and dipping her quill into the blue ink.
She closes her eyes, not ready to see the work before her. She cannot count the essays that she has marked or the number of evenings that she has spent at this desk as the shadows lengthen and the days grow longer – she cannot measure the weight of Albus on those days. He's been a constant pressure in her thoughts, a constant pleasure, a dream never-ending.
Minerva has been too sure of him – over all the years, she has taken his gentle touches and soft endearments for love. She's read meaning into the brush of hands together, in the visits from Fawkes, in the long conversations and shared laughter, but there have been no hidden meanings there. There has been nothing past the surface, nothing deeper or closer.
The sun has set while Minerva has been sitting here, dreaming and lost. She straightens in her chair, stretching the kinks out of her spine, and blinks away her reverie. The ink that's dripped from her quill is blue-black in the dusky twilight – the parchment in front of her is stained and darkened with splotches, something pure and pale ruined by her inattention. Minerva waves the torches alight with a flick of her wand, and she finds that her quill is clogged and useless, the ink congealed and dry.
The castle wards tremble and Minerva is jolted from her reverie by a light show, the flashes of curses across the Hogwarts grounds. She drops the quill, the dried ink leaving no splash on her parchment, and turns to the window, pressing her forehead against the glass and peering outside. Red and green and golden, the curses bloom bright against the night sky. There's a sense of wrongness heavy in the air, a sense of danger – Minerva fumbles for her wand, running to the disturbance.
The familiar comfort of Albus's presence is gone, stripped away from her – this is the first time in years that she hasn't known where he is, what actions he advises, or why he is gone. There's an ache in her side as she runs, her muscles tense and torn, her heartbeat throbbing with loss and uncertainty.
Dark shadows shrouded in shadows – Death Eaters on Hogwarts grounds – curses flashing, children screaming, and Albus is nowhere to be seen. There is nothing to be done now, nothing that she can do other than protect the children, and Minerva steps into the path of a curse, shield at the ready.
There's a flash of blue light and the curse dissipates, bleeding around the edges of the shield to rush at the student behind her. "Run," Minerva says, "Get out of here now, hurry."
She has no more attention to spare for the student's escape – the Death Eater is ready with another curse, she must be ready with another shield. Nothing breaks the duel. The curses spark and fizzle, browning the grass and scorching the air. She counters each one, blocks or absorbs or dodges – the Death Eater's mask shines bright and the curses take on an angry desperate speed. Block, block, and block again, she uses the spells that Albus has taught her, the subtle weaving of shields, deft defenses and quick sidesteps.
Minerva hears shouting and more curses, angry taunts and there – she hears Severus's voice, loud and rich and reassuring. Severus must know where Albus is, Severus will know the meaning of this, and he will be able to put things to rights. Driving her opponent back, pressing forward with offensive spells at last, Minerva strains to reach Severus.
He is too far away, he is moving farther and farther from her. Minerva presses forward but the Death Eater refuses to yield, returning her hexes with Unforgivables. Minerva falls to the ground and rolls away from the Killing Curse, her mouth full of burnt grass and spell-smoke. At the edge of the wards, she can see Severus screaming – and there is Harry, a curse on the tip of his wand and an insult on his lips. Minerva deflects another hex from her opponent. Sparks splatter against her robe, burning through the fabric and she's cut off from Harry, unable to protect him.
She's dodging another spell, another curse. She's so close to Harry and Severus – close enough to see the hate twisting Harry's face, close enough to see the gleam of the white mask in Severus's pocket. Another taunt, another curse – there is no love lost between that pair of wizards, no mercy spared. The poison between them has festered and now it explodes into this confrontation. Severus spares a last moment for Potter before he breaks away and runs, pulling Draco with him and Disapparating once they are past the edge of the wards.
Minerva dodges a jet of red light and begins another hex. She's caught on the elbow by a slicing spell and there's a moment of shock before the pain darkens her sight and skews her aim. Her opponent breaks and runs after Severus, Disapparating with a pop. Minerva lets him go, her wand falling to the ground as she tries to staunch the bleeding from her arm.
Potter is gone by the time she recovers her wand, dashing off across the curse-scarred grounds, and Minerva follows him, slow and aching. Hagrid's hut is ablaze, the school is in an uproar, and there's a curious emptiness in her chest. Her lungs are compressed, straining for breath, and there's something withered away inside her, something as dark as Albus's twisted hand.
Here, where the battle was at its fiercest, the grass is trampled, and the earth is scorched and fused into black glass, still hot with magic. Minerva kneels, presses her fingertips against the glass and then to her lips, breathing in the smell of ruined earth and tainted soot.
At the foot of the Astronomy Tower, she finds Hagrid – there's a limp bundle in his arms, and Minerva knows without asking or being told. A withered hand, a soft caress, "There's no future in loving me, my dear," and she has known all along.
This is the art she practices, recognizing the moment of balance, the becoming and the between states. There's an edge between life and death, between light and dark, between love and loss. "You must be strong, as I know you can be." A last caress, the light in his eyes, the feeling of his twisted hand shedding blackened, dead skin in her hands – there's life and death and the balance has been tipped.
"You must be strong, as I know you can be," Albus trusted her and Minerva will not betray his trust. There's no time for hysteria or tears – she sends the students off to the safety of their dormitories with their Professors set to guard them, she calls the Ministry, she deals with the Aurors, she conjures an extra-large handkerchief for Hagrid and begins arrangements for the funeral. Duty is her anchor.
There's Sinistra with her mouth in a hard line, questioning and countermanding her orders – there's Fawkes, blood-red on his perch, with a weary and wavering croon – there's the Order of the Phoenix, looking to her for guidance. Minerva does not sleep that night. She does not think of the pale and crumpled body, shrouded and fragile in death, she does not allow herself to think of the vigil that Hagrid keeps or of the cold stones and wards where Albus's body rests.
There are letters that Albus has left, instructions for her to follow – she does not know his plans, she does not know the shape or future of the war, but she clings to the scrolls that he has left behind, blurring the careful letters with sweat from her palms.
The weight of the scrolls in her hand is not the only comfort that Albus has left for her – the day after the funeral, the day after watching Fawkes burst into flame midair, the phoenix returns to her with the morning sun and perches on her desk with a quizzical tilt of his head. A gentle croon, a brush of soft feathers against her forearm, and Minerva lets the haze around her thoughts fall away.
This is the greatest of Transfigurations, life into death, love into sacrifice, and this is what Albus believed. There is no love that is less than faith, there is no way for her to doubt him. She presses her fingers against Fawkes' beak, lets the sharp nip bring her back to her senses, and with a deft spell, she opens the seal on the last scroll that Albus sent her.
Sinistra, with a scowl on her face and a limp from the battle, stops her before she can descend into the dungeons. "Professor McGonagall," she says. "Are you certain that you know what you're doing?"
Albus's scroll is warm and smooth in her hands, his plan the only reassurance that she needs, and Minerva traces the curlicue edge of the parchment. Like a snail's shell, it curls inwards and inwards, coiling around until it spirals into nothing. "I've never been more certain in my life."
"I know," Sinistra says with a pointed glance at the scroll, "that you think Albus trusted you. You think that he relies on you to complete his plans, and you think that you're adequate to take his place. But he never fully trusted you, did he? He never told you his true plans, he never told you that he cared for you, and he was right. You're not strong enough to take his place."
Years of poison have built up between them, hidden between smiles as false as sugar-spun glass. Minerva looks over her spectacles at Sinistra and grips the scroll more tightly. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"I do know," Sinistra says. "I know that he never loved you. I know that you should give that scroll to me – he loved me more than he could have ever loved a worthless creature like you. I was everything to him while you were nothing."
Minerva's heart is coated in glass, a shield that Sinistra cannot break. She shakes her head and motions the woman aside. Nothing can stop her from fulfilling Albus's last wishes – nothing can take the scroll with his last words away from her.
"Give it to me," Sinistra says. There's a touch of desperation to her voice, a hint of darkness etched in the lines around her eyes, and Minerva refuses to concede to her. For years, she's withstood Sinistra's pointed comments and veiled doubt, for years she's relied on Albus's support, but now she is free of doubt and free of the uncertainties that plagued her.
"This is not for you," Minerva says. She brushes past Sinistra and goes down into the dungeon, Fawkes fluttering behind her with a plaintive song echoing faintly in the corridor.
Change after change after change – Albus Dumbledore was the master of Transfigurations, he knew how to measure change and influence it and cause it, and Minerva is his poor imitator. She grips the scroll tight in her hand and presses her wand against the wards, forcing a change, forcing entrance.
The wards are full of Severus's aura, rich with his touch. His personality echoes here in the cold and damp, and Minerva rests her hand on the wall, touches the stones that he has touched. Severus has left the castle, has left them barren and cold without Albus's warm guidance, but there is still the force of his personality here, the scent of his potions and the echo of his voice. "He wished for me to tell you that I am loyal to him and him alone, and that I will never betray him."
Severus's face had been pale and bloodless as he Apparated away. Severus's voice had been full of pain and rage, and Minerva aches with the memory of it. In a world where everything is change, where everything switches from being to becoming to being, in a world where magic can change breath to bone and blood to love – Severus had been on the verge of breaking. Minerva shakes, her lungs tight with revelation.
Albus's body, crumpled and small in Hagrid's arms, the rage on Harry's face as he ran after Severus, Severus's mask glinting in his pocket, and there is no change more profound than this. Love to loss and life to death, Minerva traces the lines of dust in Severus's chambers, the crystal edges of his potion vials, the straight corners of his books left in neat piles. Nothing is disturbed and it's as though Severus has stepped out for an hour, as though Severus is in his classroom with his students and his usual scowl. "In my own way ... I hardly know what love is, but I do love him."
Minerva leaves the dungeons that still echo with Severus's pain, and she meets him at Albus' tomb, Fawkes on her shoulder and a vial of his Veritaserum in her hand. Dusk gathers close, shrouds them in a soft haze, and the last gleam of sunlight lingers on the tomb, on the crystal vial, and on Fawkes' bright feathers.
Severus is a shadow in the shadows, a wraith ghosting over the grass. He approaches, his face hidden by his cowl, and Minerva closes her eyes when Fawkes flutters from her shoulder and goes to Severus. This final betrayal, the loss of Albus's familiar, she also bears.
She is a Mistress of Transfiguration, expert in the ways of change, and she knows that there is no change that is not possible. There is no change that cannot be borne.
"McGonagall," Severus says. His voice is low and taut, hoarse with curses and tears. His hand, pale and gaunt, goes to touch his throat, and she blinks. The loss of his beautiful silken voice is no harder to bear than any other loss.
"Severus."
His skin is gray in the fading light, his hand thin and pale against his dark robe. He's come here, heedless of the risks, heedless of the pain, and with Albus gone, it is Minerva's duty to help him. She breaks the silence that has crystallized between them. "You'll be needing this, then."
Their hands brush, knuckle to knuckle, as she passes him the vial of Veritaserum. There is a last flash of light reflected by the crystal vial before he tucks it into his pocket. "Yes. Thank you."
Minerva rests her hand against Albus' tomb, traces the faint gray veins in the white marble. Even with daylight fading fast, the tomb is a beacon of light, glowing with the last of the sun and the first of the stars. Severus lays his hand close to hers, their fingers interlaced like pieces of a mismatched puzzle, never touching.
"I'll let you know when I have the information the Order needs," he says at last.
His darkness is changed into shrouded light, his grief into purpose, his love into duty. Minerva follows his changes and uses them to shape her own grief, her own loss. She is being, she is becoming, and the rough scratch of the marble against her fingertips is enough to remind her of that. With a soft flutter, Fawkes brushes his wing against her cheek and then he flies off, a dwindling red speck in the darkening sky.
There is this to be said about Severus – he does not flinch from his duty. He does not linger. He pulls his hand away from hers, their fingers never touching, and he does not spare a glance for the tomb. Severus fades to black in the shadows, leaving as he came.
-----
Minerva sits by the window in her office, fingers clasped in a semicircle around her teacup. It's filled with whiskey, a harsh dose of reality. The last of the sunlight fades, changing from exultant pink to somber purple, a slow Transfiguration that washes away the day. The balance is tipped and night extends its sway over the world.
She takes a gulp of whiskey, holding her breath until the fire in her lungs matched the fire in her throat. The darkness draws itself over the world, and with the moon cloud-hidden, Minerva cannot see Albus's tomb. The white marble, so bright and incandescent in the sunlight, is muted now, invisible. She presses her hand, palm flat, against the window, and feels the familiar pattern of wavy ripples in the old glass.
Across the castle, the Headmaster's office is waiting for her, she sees the dull wan light gleaming in the window. A last candle gives off light and shadows, a steady beacon. She gulps the last of the whiskey and stands, unsteady on her feet. If the lights in Albus's office have been extinguished, then it is her duty to rekindle them. Pausing on the threshold, Minerva looks back at the familiar window, its warped glass shining.
This is the moment of change, the Transfiguration hanging in the balance, the old ready to give the way to the new, the last of the old light faded – extinguished. Minerva has too long been the balanced and the balancer, caught in the change, aglow with borrowed light. The old gives way to the new, the light dies and is rekindled. Tomorrow the dark will give way to a new dawn, and she will guide the transition, and she will make her own light.