Pensieve: Middles

PENSIEVE: 002: Middles

She was still crying by the time Headmaster Dippet returned from Professor Dumbledore’s office. His frail fingers skittered across the desk, moving aside papers and forms, and there was a wooden creak as he sat down. Without looking up, she knew that his face would be ashen, and that he was trembling. Her hands balled in her lap.

“Minerva.”

The name sounded awkward, as if his mouth was trying to shape itself around a foreign word. Her ears resounded with the memory of someone else whispering her name, with much greater familiarity, and this was what she was about to lose-

“Dear child, look at me.”

The wobble in his voice at the word ‘child’ forced her chin up. His white cheeks were quivering, and the skeletal hands gripped the sides of the desk; she could sense the panic at being out of control. Her tears heated, and burnt her face.

“I - I must ask a few questions.”

She heard herself speak. “You’re going to fire him, aren’t you?”

Her stomach clenched. A spasm shook the Headmaster, bending him as though with the weight of years. He gazed feebly at her, the light shining through his wispy hair.

You need him as well.

“That depends on how you answer my questions… child,” he said, with another wobble.

The fate of Professor Dumbledore, the most popular teacher in the school, and the lone torch against the darkness, was thrust into her lap. Her mouth went dry. Dippet let go of the desk and clasped his hands together, as if trying to compose himself. Once again, his voice betrayed him.

“To your knowledge, did you… encourage… what happened?”

His desperation was like a physical thing, seizing her by the shoulders. Words failed her.

“When did this begin?”

The office spun away from her - she was back in Professor Dumbledore’s rooms, watching pupils contracting from blue irises, mere inches away, and her lips were still burning, and she was staring at her teacher - and his face had her shock written all over it, shock at what line had just been crossed - and that was when Professor Merrythought had dropped her books and started shrieking, still standing in the fireplace-

Dippet’s face came back into focus. The question was impossible to answer, she thought dully. She did not know what he was asking. This. This was Professor Dumbledore handing back an essay with a smile twitching the corners of his mouth, this was blue eyes twinkling, this was the smell of sherbet lemons… Loopy handwriting stood out at her, on a school report: even when Minerva is unsure of the answer, she attempts the question with boundless enthusiasm. Her mind fogged, but she spoke:

“That was the beginning, sir.”

In truth, it was more like the middle.