Minerva McGonagall sighed and stared around the large office which had become her prison. Most of the portraits were empty, with the exception of Armando Dippet’s, the subject of which was snoring softly in his chair, and the sunlight shining through the windows had a crystalline, cold quality which made her shiver. The day had never been destined to be a good one; she’d found a fossilised sherbet lemon behind a chest of drawers and had been unable to put it from her mind ever since. Neither had she been able to throw it away - she could feel the weight of it in her pocket, resting there like the heaviness in her soul.
To what depths, Minerva mused, did a woman have to sink in order to cherish a mouldy old sweet?
She turned weary eyes on the papers in front of her, but then let them drift away again - out of the windows and over the lush grounds, tracing the route dashed earlier that morning. Hopefully, at that ungodly hour, no student or staff member had been awake or observant enough to see the Headmistress staggering around in nothing but her night-wear and a dressing gown, limping down to stand shivering at a tomb.
She’d woken up suddenly, horribly, at just past midnight. His absence had been all around her - and it was his birthday; those were the only excuses she had for the ensuing outbreak of sentimentality. Minerva didn’t approve of being overly sentimental - especially when it led to someone her age clutching at a pillow and gulping, thinking: You were here. You slept here for so long, for so many years. And I never-
Movement was vital in order to cut the thought off. She slithered out from under the blankets and flung back the bed-hangings - and paced the room fretfully, cold to the bone but too agitated to go back to bed. Cold radiated upwards from the floor, filling her soul. She was still gulping and sniffing - like a five-year-old, she thought disgustedly - but no inner reprimands would halt the activity. A dam was breaking down; her eyes were filling with a deluge of suppressed water. You’d have turned a hundred and sixty-one today.
Her hands were moving without any conscious intervention from her brain, reaching for a wardrobe, clawing their way through masses of irrelevant robes to reach the one treasure she’d allowed herself. Albus was both everywhere and nowhere at once as her fingertips brushed something purple and embroidered - sitting and smiling at her from his desk, speaking to her seriously and intensely, verbally beating Fudge by her side, sitting next to her at the High Table, offering her a custard tart. The sapphire eyes twinkled, the beard was at first magnificent auburn, then snow-white, the face both boyish and wise - the cheerful enthusiasm of a child in union with the experience and power of the very greatest - and yet he seemed to shake his head sadly at her as he saw what she was doing.
You silly woman, she thought at herself savagely. What would He think of you?
She dared not imagine, and could not stop - and soon His dressing gown was in her hands, extravagant yet soft, seeming to retain some of its owner’s warmth as she wrapped it around herself. The material shook with the beating of the new wearer’s heart - it had not calmed her down at all; the gulps were becoming the beginnings of sobs.
Albus, I can’t-
A shadow danced in the corner of her eye. Minerva glanced upwards - and was struck by the image of herself in the full-length mirror on the other side of the room. The impression was ghostly, unnatural and most unlike Professor McGonagall. Even Hermione Granger would have had a hard time recognising her old Transfiguration teacher - her eyes wild and bloodshot, the flamboyant dressing gown obscuring her thin form, her greying hair tumbling uncontrollably down her shoulders.
His face swam before her, dismayed and appalled.
“Albus!”
Then the Headmistress was tearing from the room, through the dormant office and down the corridors. She’d forgotten her stick; she was soon gasping and stumbling, having to throw herself against the door to open it. The grounds were dark and freezing, beset with a howling wind that dulled the sound of her own ragged breathing. The dark and the tomb held no fear for her - how could they, when His spirit bestrode them all? The pain and the chill hadn’t prevented her from staying there for at least two hours, her hands knuckled in her eyes and the dressing gown flapping its guilty message around her.
Now that day and some semblance of sanity had been restored, exhaustion dragged at her. The papers blurred and refocused. Minerva hadn’t bothered going down to breakfast; one look in the mirror told her that Poppy would have made a fuss and insisted on putting her to bed, and some of the more sensitive lower years would have been alarmed.
You stupid woman, she thought again, massaging her temples.
A knock sounded at the office door.
Attempting to rouse herself, the Headmistress pulled herself up straight and folded her hands over each other. “Enter,” she said crisply.
The door creaked open to reveal Rolanda Hooch and Poppy Pomfrey. Rolanda’s mouth was in a thin, tense line and Poppy looked grim and worried - an expression that increased in intensity at the sight of Minerva; the jaw tightening and the brow descending. Rolanda gaped at the Headmistress in apparent horror. Minerva felt her hands curl into fists; evidently the day had not yet improved her appearance.
“Good afternoon, Madam Pomfrey, Madam Hooch,” she said, deciding to pretend that nothing was amiss. Her voice emerged cold and formal; she had no right to friends, not even former friends. “What can I do for you?”
Poppy took a deep breath, as if about to plunge into deep and troubled waters. “Minerva-”
Minerva started slightly and blinked. Her first name sounded unfamiliar, like the name of a stranger.
“-We - we need to talk. Things have gone - gone far enough.”
She opened her mouth to protest but Poppy was already drawing up a chair for herself, nodding for Rolanda to sit down in the other. Her eyes met Minerva’s in an unexpected, passionate plea. “Please, for sake of our friendship - whether or not you still want it to exist.”
Rolanda glanced at the other Professor with marked apprehension and seated herself uneasily, seemingly intent on looking at Minerva’s hands rather than her eyes. Poppy leaned forward, concern clouding her kind face.
“What do you wish to talk about?” Minerva asked innocently, before Poppy could open her mouth. Minerva was gone; they had a choice of meeting either the Headmistress or Professor McGonagall.
“Minerva, you look awful.”
There was no arguing with that. “I see.”
Poppy looked extremely awkward. “Listen, we know what this is about. We’re sorry - and please believe us; we are - for not seeing it before.” She paused and Minerva sensed her donning her professional persona before continuing. “Long-term grief is taking its toll on you both mentally and physically and so it’s my suggestion that-”
The Headmistress’s fingers twitched. “Grief?”
Poppy and Rolanda shot terrified looks at each other.
“Grief,” repeated the witch nervously. “Minerva, I think you should see a counsellor. I happen to know a very reliable one; a woman called Eleanor Reeves, whom I think would be-”
Minerva felt her lips stretching themselves into a desperate kind of grin. Poppy’s awkwardness, Rolanda’s conspicuous silence, the mentions of grief and counselling… Was it possible that they had seen? Had they happened to glance outside in the middle of the night and somehow pierced the darkness to spy her shame? Her fingers twisted convulsively; anything but that! What would they think of her?
An imaginary conversation flitted through her brain. Her former friends were gazing of the window with expressions of shock and pity. By Merlin, Rolanda, surely that can’t be..? A hand to a mouth in horror. What’s that she’s wearing? Isn’t that Dumbledore’s-? A head being shaken, its owner appalled. She’s lost it, Poppy. Look at her; she’s a living wreck.
“I don’t know what you mean, Poppy,” she said. The sunlight grew colder; her tiredness more severe.
Poppy stared at her, despair shaping her face into harsh lines. Minerva had never been a Leglimens, but her old friend’s dilemma was transparent: what on earth do I say now? She felt her cheek twitch and struggled to maintain control of her expression. Are you afraid to confront me about it? Are you afraid to ask me what I was doing last night?
How times had changed! They had once told each other everything - confiding all their desires, nightmares and emotions, weighting their hands with each other’s hearts. Now the desk between them was a veritable Berlin wall - but one that could never be breached.
“We’ve been blind, haven’t we?”
Rolanda was speaking, her head bowed and her broom-calloused hands working the fabric of her robes.
“I wish - I wish you’d trusted us enough to confide in us. I’m n-not saying we could’ve helped, not really, but still...” The hazel eyes met hers. “Seven years, Minerva. Seven years and we noticed nothing!”
Minerva rose from the desk shakily and walked over to the window, using her stick as a strut, unable to look at either of the witches still seated in their chairs. The grounds looked desolate, soulless; looking out she could see herself reeling madly down to the tomb again, a ridiculous scarecrow figure in a dead man‘s dressing gown. The wood of the stick cut into her hands. Poppy and Rolanda’s stares were burning holes into her back; the pretence was over now, and could never be repaired. Professor McGonagall, the stern Headmistress, had too passed into the abyss.
“I’ve not been like that every night,” she said harshly. Give me some credit; last night was a - a particularly bad time.”
“Last night?” Poppy’s voice was high and querulous.
“I - I know what you saw.” The pause that followed was unendurable so she kept on speaking, thickly now. “I apologise. You should not have had to see that. It was foolish of me - I don’t know why I kept it.”
“Minerva..?”
“Kept what?” asked Rolanda.
Her hands tightened on the walking stick till the knuckles cracked. Her face was distorting now, bending itself out of her control; she was glad she had her back to them. “Please don’t try to deceive me. I’ve been deceiving myself for long enough; I know when people are trying. I know what you came here to say - and I quite agree. I will send my resignation to the Board of Governors today.”
Rolanda made a small choking noise. “Resignation!”
A chair was drawn back and Poppy’s shoes squeaked as she got up. “By Merlin no! Minerva, please, a counsellor is all that’s needed - and we cannot hope for a better Headmistress-”
Minerva laughed. “You cannot hope for a Headmistress who can communicate normally? The profession must be in dire straits indeed!”
“Minerva, stop it! Please, we never came to ask for your resignation. We came here to offer our help and understanding, such as it is - as late as it is. I swear if I had had any notion before that you were that close to him-”
“We were never close, never. We had a purely professional relationship. Sometimes I believed it was platonic-”
“The pair of you were friends!” Poppy was right next to her now but the Headmistress stared resolutely away. “Oh, you never said a word to anyone, did you? Not even to him?”
She shook her head, unable to speak.
“You should’ve given it a go,” said Rolanda quietly.
Her frame trembled. “Should have, should have - did not! This is purely fantastical speculation. He never wanted anything more than a Deputy and all this is perfectly ridiculous; he’s dead and that’s final. It is my inability to accept reality-”
“You’re grieving! You loved him and now he’s gone! These feelings are normal, Minerva, natural. Merlin, if I’d have seen it before-”
“Poppy…” There were no words, none at all. Her eyeballs were heating up from behind; soon her last reserves of self-control would be gone.
Arms encircled her. Poppy’s head was on her shoulder, her short stature for once aiding her. Rolanda was moving over to join in too - and two warm bodies crushed her between them. Minerva stood stock-still, head filled with images of three girls in Hogwarts school uniform embracing under a small oak tree by the lake. Her hands came up; the walking stick fell with a clatter. Rolanda was crying, whimpering apologies in her ear over and over. Minerva felt her own eyes overflowing, dripping their contents down weathered cheeks. What friends she had! The loneliness was fading, the prison had been broken open.
“Ah,” said Dippet worriedly, loudly, from the opposite wall. “Should I go and get someone?"
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