Written for the Battlefield Wars, for Colonel for Team "After All This Time?" "Always."

Prompts used: Headlining Character: Minerva McGonagall. Supporting Character: Albus Dumbledore

(word) Heal (word) Exotic (word) Teacher (emotion) Guilty (quote) "It hurts the most when the person who made you so special yesterday can make you feel so unwanted today." - Unknown (colour) Ivory (colour) Emerald (word) Narcissistic (object) Diamond (word) Cut (dialogue) "I've never hated someone as much as I hate you right now." (emotion) Happiness (word) Freak (poem) Medusa by Carol Ann Duffy (word) Exposed

Words: 1,373

This is AU.

It hurts the most when the person who made you feel so special yesterday can make you feel so unwanted today. It's as though you gave that person a blade, with your name on it, safe in the knowledge that they were the one person who wouldn't use it. They smiled in pity as they took it from you and promised they would never hurt you, and they would keep it safe. They waited in the shadows for your guard to be down, for your back to be turned, and slipped it in between your ribs with a caring kiss to the back of your neck. Instead of catching you, they smiled gently as they watched you fall.

Albus was happiness to me. He'd given me hope when I had none; he'd opened doors for me I didn't even know I'd closed. I'd always preferred my own company until I met him.

But that's all gone now, isn't it? I wonder if he ever really loved me. He never said it in as many words, but he felt it. I saw it in his sparkling blue eyes as he smiled at me, the day I accepted the position at Hogwarts. He respected me, both as a teacher and a person. He respected me as a teacher, but he was the best teacher I had ever had. He taught me how easy it could be to open your heart to someone. Instead of asking questions and demanding answers, he would sit and wait for me to speak. He would listen. He saw the walls around my heart, the brick and mortar I had laboured over for many a year, and he left them be. Instead, he persuaded me to do the work to bring them down. To let him in. Did he know, then, what he was doing to me?

"Minerva, I must say, you're looking wonderful today." That's what he'd said when I'd worn a new emerald gown, long and proper, but beautiful against the tones of my skin. He'd smiled as though all the lights of the world had been concentrated to shine out of those eyes. He was beautiful, that day, and for a moment I knew he thought I was, too.

But he never spoke of romance. That wasn't his way. Long evenings with butterbeer and the stillness of the night for company were how we lived - what we lived for.

Until they stopped. He said he was distracted with the war, too busy. Lord Voldemort, better known to both of us as Tom Riddle, was beginning to cause us concern. I understood it, of course. How could I not? The idea of a war in the Wizarding World was terrifying, of course.

But that wasn't an excuse.

Not when he still had time for his students. His students suddenly seemed to become everything to him, when I'd thought that I was his everything. The long evenings gave way for quality time with his students. I think he thought I didn't notice, but I saw. I saw each and everyone of them as they made their way up those stone stairs, full of apprehension, and left with a spring in their steps and a smile on their faces.

The girl with ivory skin and dark, long hair. The boy with exotic eyes and a casual smirk. I saw. I saw them all.

One evening, I couldn't bear it. I pulled myself up those familiar stairs, feeling my way up the smooth cold metal of the banister. Standing on the landing at the top, I brought my fist up with a shaking breath and knocked.

"Come in," I heard him shout, and so I pushed the door open, steeling myself for the conversation that I knew would come.

"Ah, Minerva. How very fortunate I am," he said with a smile, and a brief glance up from his notebook.

"You wanted to see me?" I asked, surprised at his announcement.

"I did, I wanted to ask you about a student. Polly Pincer. I fear she's going through difficulties," he said. My heart turned to stone.

"I wouldn't know," I replied, and my voice was hard and stiff. As I watched him, darkness rose up within my heart, spreading along every nerve in my body with it's pervasive cold. I had loved him, once, but as I watched, the fire of that love petered out. I saw it die, and crumble, until all I had left of my feelings for him was granite, as grey and unyielding as the very stones of the castle walls.

I turned and walked away, and he did not stop me.

Back in my own chambers, I looked in the mirror to see myself, as I was. The hair on my head, once beautiful with its chocolate tones, was lank and wiry. Grey hairs had begun to sprout in unruly, wiry curls, serpentine and bold. It was as though my bitter thoughts had spread like a disease inside of me, ugly and weathered, that forced their way out through my skin. Part of me wanted to cut it all off, to start again afresh, but I quelled all notions of it. It was proof that I would never heal, not fully. My twisted heart had taken a hold of me, my very appearance, and there would always be marks and scars. I would always be cold.

A few days later, and he was away for a few nights. I didn't ask where, and he didn't say. It didn't matter; not to me. Knowing I shouldn't, but needing to all the same, on the third night I made my way up those stairs once more. He wouldn't be at the top of them, but that was okay. I didn't need him. I needed his journals, his diaries; I needed the parts of his soul that he had committed to parchment forever.

Looking through his desk drawers, I instead found a diamond. It was an unassuming thing, set in a silver cast upon a chain, in a small box. I resisted an urge to laugh at the proof of my beliefs. I wondered which of his pretty students this was for. Overcome with rage at my own stupidity, I threw it at the wall. It didn't break, of course. It didn't do anything but help release some of my hate. I felt an overwhelming urge to cry take a hold of me, but I forced it back, kept it at bay. It did not satisfy; it sufficed.

So wrapped up in my own thoughts as I was, I did not hear him arrive. I did not see him until he stood in front of me, rank pity in his eyes as he said my name.

"You," I hissed, unable to calm myself.

"Whatever is wrong, Minerva?" he asked, taunting in his calmness.

"There's nothing wrong with me, Albus. It's you," I began, venom dripping from my lips like a viper, preparing to attack. "I've exposed you for what you really are. Tell me, which of them was that for? Polly? Auden? You narcissistic old freak. You take them under your wing, but that isn't what you really want, is it? I always knew you would betray me, you know. I knew it in my bones from the start." I laughed, bitterly, before continuing my tirade. "I've never hated someone as much as I hate you right now. I was young, back then, beautiful and happy. You knew. You saw. Look what you've made of me. Look what you've done. Look at me."

I looked at him, and was sickened to my stomach at the expression on his face. His eyebrows were low, his lips turned down, his eyes sad as he refused to look at me. Guilty. He looked guilty.

"I'm sorry, Minerva," he said, and I held back the bile in my throat. "I'm sorry I didn't see. But I am not the man you have made me into. You know that. I think you should take a break for a while," he said, eyeing me with pity.

"Fine," I retorted. "The further I am from you, the better. In fact, better for me if you were stone."