A/N:
This was originally started as a sequel to my Sudden Storm one-shot. But I don't want folks to consider it the sequel. It's not that great and certainly in a different mood and vein than Sudden Storm. I may write a proper sequel to Sudden Storm some day, but this is not it.
Basically I started musing on the idea that at the end of Sudden Storm Minerva seems anxious to not let Albus block her exit from the room, and I began to wonder why that might be. Was there more to it than she wasn't yet ready to admit her feelings, or acknowledge his, which is all I had in mind when I started writing? She seemed to really want to get out of that space in a hurry. So I began to muse on what sort of backstory might give her that reaction. This is what emerged in essentially an extended (very extended!) free-write.
It was not plotted out in advance and is not what I'd consider Exceeds Expectations-level work. I've done minimal editing/revising on it, mainly to break it into sections and correct glaring typos. It's also certainly not the backstory that I feel Minerva actually had. Essentially I view it as a bunch of warm-up scrawl in a composition book. But it was an interesting exercise that led places I hadn't fully anticipated, and consumed a full weekend day, so I'm posting it.
The one interesting thing it did yield which I think might be worth further thought is Albus's looking back over his own sins of omission circa 1943-1944: when the Chamber was opened the first time and Myrtle was killed. It's ADMM fanon that he was constantly darting off to the Continent help fight Grindelwald while still teaching. He clearly was distracted enough by something that he didn't keep enough of an eye on the young Tom Riddle, and wasn't able to prevent Myrtle's death or Hagrid's framing—that much is clear in canon. It stands to reason he might have missed other things too. In this story he did, and they cost someone close to him a great deal. Fortunately she's more able to forgive than he has any right to expect.
Warning: deals with strongly implied child sexual and physical abuse, murder, and PTSD.
Chapter 1: Things Known
Albus Dumbledore had been scrupulously careful over the past week since the thunderstorm to treat his Deputy with the utmost professional decorum. He strove to act as if nothing untoward had happened in his office, and he hoped that in her view, nothing really had. After all, it had just been a moment or two in which his eyes had perhaps betrayed him.
She had been most determined to leave his office quickly, and had almost seemed as if she felt trapped and a little frightened. But she had also been embarrassed by what she considered her foolishness in not noticing the storm, and the storm itself had been frightening. Hopefully that was the reason for her unease and her desire to escape his office so quickly. In their handful of conversations since, she had behaved towards him as she usually did—perhaps not at her most relaxed, but there was no sign of her being angry with him, either. And as the days had passed, she did seem to regain more ease with him
However, even though their daily interactions did not seem to have suffered, something had changed in Albus. He could no longer deny that he was attracted to his Deputy. There were scores of other witches whom he could have encountered in a similarly sodden, indiscreet state and he would not have reacted as he had to Minerva. He needed to decide how to proceed. Was there any hope that she might eventually welcome such feelings on his part, if they were revealed in a more appropriate manner? Or should he simply increase his occlumency exercises and remind himself of his age, his station, and what sorts of relationships were and were not appropriate to pursue?
As he pondered his newly-admitted feelings for his newest faculty member and Deputy, he realized, with a bit of a start, that he knew little about her life outside Hogwarts, either now or when she was a student.
Albus pulled the old student file from the charmed archives cabinet and thumbed through it. "McGonagall, Minerva." It was relatively thin, and in good condition. She had been Gryffindor Prefect and then Head Girl, captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and had the best academic record of anyone in her class (anyone in her decade, actually, save Tom Riddle), and had won several awards in Transfiguration and Charms. Her first position after finishing Hogwarts had been with the Department of Magical Research at the Ministry. The slender file held no disciplinary reports and few reports from the school nurse, and had rarely needed to be consulted during her student years.
None of this information was what Albus sought, anyway. He had been Deputy Headmaster, her Transfiguration Professor and her Head of House. He was familiar enough with her formal record. Almost all the documents in her file, save the ones from the nurse, bore his signature or name on them somewhere, in fact.
He chided himself. She had been his house Prefect for two years, his best student, a bit of a protégé, and yet as her Head of House he had made virtually no inquiries into her personal life. In the years since his defeat of Grindelwald, he had come to appreciate that his duties outside Hogwarts during the war years had distracted him from his teaching and House duties much more than he had realized at the time. He had done what was required of him in the classroom, and done it well, thanks to years of experience. He had been fortunate to have had, by Gryffindor standards, a relatively placid and serious group of cubs to oversee in the Tower, and he had also had strong Prefects, including Minerva. He could trust them to handle all minor matters and to use good judgment in what more serious things they referred to him or, in his all-too-frequent absences, other faculty members.
The most glaring example of his neglect in those years was Tom Riddle. If he had been more focused on his day to day responsibilities at the school, and less so on his clandestine work for and alongside the Ministry, perhaps he could have done something to change the boy's path. Perhaps the whole Chamber incident, including Myrtle's death and Hagrid's punishment, could have been avoided if only he had been a more diligent Deputy Headmaster. He had, after all, realized the boy was extremely troubled from their very first encounter. His neglect of Tom Riddle was one of his greatest regrets from that period, and he feared he and others might yet pay a price for it.
At least his neglect of Minerva was more understandable. She was the sort of student who was a joy to teach, and no trouble as a House resident. During her sixth year she had come to him monthly for an extra tutorial in Transfiguration, at least until the Chamber had been opened and all extracurricular activities ceased. They had resumed the tutorials her seventh year, after she had revealed her animagus transformation to him, but they had been sporadic, as his war work had kept Dumbledore away from the castle more than he was present.
In retrospect, he should have realized his neglect of her when she had come to him to show him her achievement of the animagus transformation. She was his best student, took extra lessons from him, and yet he had had absolutely no idea she was attempting to become an animagus. She had simply demonstrated her achievement to him one October afternoon. At the time he had excused himself from any blame, rationalizing that Minerva was fiercely independent and extremely gifted, and that it was understandable she had not told him of her project. Foolish, but understandable. In fact, given the possibility of extreme physical injury or magical damage when attempting the transformation without careful guidance, it was actually by far the most foolhardy, Gryffindorish, thing he'd known her to do in all her seven years, but understandable given her independence. So he had told himself at the time, anyway.
But now, thinking back on it, he realized it was more accurately an indictment of his own state of distraction and exhaustion, both emotional and physical, during those final years of the war. If he had truly been the available, approachable, conscientious professor and Head of House he had imagined himself to be, Miss McGonagall would have come to him for advice and assistance as soon as she had formed the notion of becoming an animagus. But instead, knowing how busy he was, and how much he relied on her even then as a Prefect to lessen his workload, she had chosen to endanger herself rather than imposing on him. He popped a sour apple candy into his mouth and sucked on it fiercely.
He at least could console himself that after the war, after he had regained his strength and the press of media attention had died down, he genuinely had rededicated himself to his work at Hogwarts. For the past decade he had genuinely been the concerned, involved Professor and Head of House that he had always intended to be, and in fact had been until the outbreak of the war. He could not undo his past mistakes, but he could be careful not to repeat them. And in Minerva's case, he had taken special interest in her career at the Ministry, and they had worked together on several research projects over the past decade. She was the youngest Head of House and Deputy Headmistress in two centuries, but he knew that there was no one more qualified. Even though he had never admitted his early neglect of her to himself in so many words until now, on some level he had clearly been trying to make amends.
But he was still somewhat surprised to realize that even with their close working relationship, he knew virtually nothing of her personal life. She never spoke of it, and he had never inquired or probed. It had never seemed germane to their academic work, and he was not one to speculate on others' private lives without cause.
But now, he thought, he did have cause. If he was going to know how to proceed with his newly-admitted, but, if he were honest, not newly felt, attraction to his Deputy, he needed to know considerably more of her than he did. For all he knew she had a steady beau in London, or even Hogsmeade. In which case, of course, he would shove his feelings back down where they had come from and not act on them at all. Which was probably what he should do in any event, given their age difference and that she was his subordinate, but ….he still should know a bit more about his Deputy and closest colleague than he did, no matter.
He thought back to her days as a student. She had stayed at the Castle over many, though not all, holidays. His recollection was that her family was with the Diplomatic Corps, and it was not unusual for such students to remain over breaks. Especially during the war years, travel to wherever their families were stationed was often too risky, or at least too complicated, to be warranted for short breaks.
She had been a quiet, studious child, with a small group of close friends, a mix of Quidditch teammates and fellow "swots." Most of her friends were Gryffindors, but he had occasionally seen her studying with some Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. Besides her studies, her one passion was Quidditch, and she excelled as a Chaser, being not only one of the few witches to continue playing beyond her third year, but also being elected Team Captain her sixth and seventh years. Her determination to defeat Slytherin in Quidditch at any cost was already marked as a student. At the occasional school dances, he seemed to recall she was usually on the arm of a fellow Quidditch player, though not always the same one.
All of this was consistent with what he had observed with other children of diplomatic officers. The parents generally changed stations every three years, which meant the children were constantly uprooted and having to re-establish themselves with a new peer group. These children generally turned out one of two ways—either gregarious extroverts, able to immediately take control of a new situation and establish new friends easily, or quiet shy students who relied on one or two special hobbies or talents to enable them to fit in to their new setting, and found the stability of seven years' residence at Hogwarts to be a welcome relief. Minerva had obviously been the second sort.
He didn't recall her having any siblings, and nor did he remember either of her parents ever visiting the school. The latter, while it would have been quite remarkable in other eras, was not at all unusual during the war, especially not if one's parents were overseas.
And that, he had to admit, was essentially all he knew of Minerva McGonagall, besides her academic and professional achievements, with which he was very familiar. Once again he chided himself for his evident neglect.