Sing-A-Song Along #3 Prompt: (setting) Abandoned Classroom
A/N: another entry to TGS Sing-A-Song Along challenge for the wonderful Jenny! Happy birthday.
Luck
It had only been a few weeks since the final battle. Hogwarts stood, but it was greatly altered.
All around, witches and wizards, professors and aurors, ministers and journalist; all walks of magical life came to help in the rebuilding. It was sanctuary and catharsis. They had bled, shoulder to shoulder; now they would sweat the same way. All in the name of bringing back a small piece of normalcy to their lives in the refurbishing of this place.
As Acting Head, Minerva organized everything. She had no family other than Albus, and this castle. She needed it as much as any of her students. It was home; not just for her, but for all those children who were yet to come. The ones who would be too young to remember this terrible time, and the ones who would be born out of it. Hogwarts was as much needed by its future students as it was by its current, and Minerva was determined to make sure it was still standing here, waiting to welcome them.
She organized the clean-up and rebuilding efforts to the smallest detail. No one would be assigned a task they could not handle. And magical wards? Well only those of the faculty left could take on those. She gave more minor tasks to the volunteers so she and her fellow professors would have enough stamina left to take on the advanced magical bindings the stonework would need to have imbued back into it. Rest, if not rejuvenation, was key if they were all going to be up to the great efforts to come.
It was during this time that she first found herself there. Along one of her many walks around the castle to assess damages, she found herself lingering in the Potions Laboratory. Most of the dungeons and below-ground residences weathered the strife unscathed. The foundation of the castle was solid. At first, it was a strange respite from the destruction around her. Like a sunken ship on the bottom of the ocean, where all evidence of life was there—without the lives themselves. Whenever Minerva felt a bit too overwhelmed with the enormity of it all, she dragged her weary bones down to Potions and reminded herself that, at least, she didn't have to worry about this part of the castle.
Over time, and as the first summer since the battle waned, Minerva came to realize that her occasional treks had become more akin to daily devotions. She began to take the same seat, and to not walk further into the room than she must, lest she disturb the growing layer of dust that was collecting over the tables and chairs, the cabinets and cauldrons. Without much prescience, she was preserving it. She would bring down stacks of parchment, resumes and applications for much needed faculty additions; yet, once she arrived, she could do little more than sit with them clutched to her chest, staring into the void. Waiting.
Maybe you had more family than you thought, you sentimental fool? Minerva felt the hot tears as they welled up in eyes. She heard the distinctive tapping sound they made as they collided with the stiff vellum in her grasp.
This room cannot remain abandoned or it will be his tomb, and no one will be able to move on. Minerva rose from her seat and yelled aloud into the darkness. "I know it is not what you would want. To be trapped. Here. For all time."
She waited, listening, as if for an answer.
Stupid, old fool. She shook her head and turned to depart.
And then, she heard it. Minerva whipped around only to see a small phial dance in and out of the weak stream of light coming in from the hall, flickering just briefly as it dropped from its perch only to splatter on the floor. She moved swiftly towards the cupboard, hoping beyond hope that someone was there. But they weren't. It was just a draft.
She looked down at the fluid collecting beneath her shoe. Liquid gold coalesced around her pointed toe, glass shards fragmenting light into twinkling stars at her feet.
"Felix Felicis," she said with a knowing smile. "Good luck to you, too, Severus. Wherever you are."