Stay with Me
Stumbling to a halt, Professor McGonagall stopped in front of the stone gargoyle guarding the headmaster's office in an attempt to catch her breath and remember the password. She had no need of it, however, the gargoyle sprang aside as the haughty shadow of Severus Snape slid down the wall.
He half raised an eyebrow at her rumpled robes and laboured breathing. She'd obviously run down the four flights of stairs from Gryffindor Tower as soon as she'd been summoned. The way she was clutching her chest told him that she should not be running anywhere, especially considering she'd only given up her walking stick little more than a fortnight ago. A dishevelled Minerva McGonagall was a disturbingly out of place sight.
"Severus," she started, it was almost a gasp. His eyes were bloodshot and the buttons on his shirt were only half done up; those that were, in the wrong holes. His hair had flopped forward over his face; hollow and drained. It was so late in the night it may as well have been morning and he momentarily wondered why she was still dressed.
"He is alive, Minerva."
She did not stop long enough to be hurt that she had not been called upon first and Snape stepped aside and let the flustered witch pass. She was very nimble, he observed, watching her take the steps two at a time.
"Of all wretched things…." He swore softly to no one in particular, stalking away in a great billowing black cloud.
She did not bother to knock and burst into his study like a great ruffled bird.
He was half hunched over his desk, half collapsed in his chair. His right arm stretched out gingerly beside an empty goblet.
"Albus, your hand!"
The words almost leapt from her lips unbidden but she drew her mouth tight and straight. Albus Dumbledore was not one to divulge anything before he was good and ready to do so. She suspected he had heard her internal exclamation nonetheless, judging by the way he was looking at her so feelingly over his half-moon spectacles. He had, after all, known her a very long time and she was not a very good liar.
"Don't look so grim Minerva, no one has died." He observed, in what was obviously an attempt of warmth. But his face was so pale under his mane of white hair. He looked frail. A word she had never even considered in the long list of terms she had thought to use in his description at one point or another. She dropped her proud head, sank into the chair across from him and whispered in a low voice.
"They are starting to."
Colour tried to rise up Dumbledore's face, faltered and clung feebly to his cheeks.
"Florean?"
"We can't find him, Albus. What would he know that they…" but Dumbledore swayed precariously in his chair.
"This may have to wait for another time." He murmured, eyes closed. Trying to deepen his breathing.
Alarmed, she stood up abruptly, upsetting her chair. She had half a mind to run and fetch Poppy but her rationality soon overtook her panic, as it always did, and she realised if there was anything Poppy could do she would already be here. Severus Snape was many things but he was not a stupid man and she had done more than enough running for one night. Dumbledore had no moved in all her commotion. She righted her chair self-consciously and made as if to leave.
"Stay with me?"
It was almost not a sound at all. Barely a whisper but there was something that she recognised in his voice that froze her in place and jolted her heart like an electric shock. It was something she had heard many times and many years ago from the mouths of strangers and friends alike. It was something she was unlikely to ever forget. It was the sound of a man who knew he was going to die.
Suddenly very cold she sat down heavily, lest her legs give out from underneath her.
It was not love between them. At least, not anymore. It was something that had grown much older, a little wiser and far more comfortable than love. It came from the mutual respect and experiences they'd shared. The whispered secrets they had told each other in an abandoned classroom long ago. But then, perhaps it was love after all.
"Of course." She acquiesced softly, reaching across the broad desk for his whole and healthy hand.
Dumbledore squeezed her fingers gently, never so grateful for Minerva McGonagall as he was now.
Healthy it may have been but Dumbledore's grip was as weak as the trembling fingers around her own. Alarm made her quake as subtly as the older man's twitching beard. She had known fear. As certainly as she had known grief, but they had never combined into such a heady concoction as she felt now. Save for eleven years of her life. She had never known a world without Albus Dumbledore and the frightful prospect that that world would soon be drawing to a close was suddenly a tremendous amount to bear.
He squeezed her hand again, a little more firmly this time, and she realised her eyes were swimming.