When he proposed to her in her eighteenth year, in the summer after her last at Hogwarts, in a freshly ploughed field behind her parent's house, she had of course said yes. Undeniably, unequivocally, yes.
It wasn't until later, when the silver and cold moon of August shone through her open window, and the hot sheets stuck to her salt sweated skin, that the doubts began to creep in.
Her mother had married a Muggle. Her father was the best man she had ever known, but that didn't change the fact that her mother's wand sat gathering dust on the mantelpiece, her magic hidden away, guarded from the everyday life in the small Scottish town where they had made their quiet home.
It scared her to think that that could be her life too, if she followed through with her passionate promises to a summer lover. The thought that her life could be anything other than the one she had come to dream of - her mind swirling with possibilities and goals as she lay in bed, the sturdy old walls of Gryffindor tower cocooning her from harm - it overwhelmed her.
And so she had gone to him when the first light gleaming through her childhood window broke across her face, and she had broken his heart, and her own for good measure.
She wasn't to know that the damage had already been done.
Hot, wet, slick. Bodies pressed flush with enthusiasm. Warm breath on her shoulder as he told her he loved her without words. The crushing need and the longing want. Heart pounding so hard it might tear from her chest, kept in place only by his weight leaning down on her, driving her into the mattress with each aching, shuddering push. Hands clutching her sides, fingers digging in so deep they brushed against her soul.
If this was a sin, she would gladly pay the price.
Tears now. Apologies. It would never work. He knew not of her magic, and she would not give it up, not for him, not for the world. She would pay the price of being alone, if she could only keep her wand.
Hot, wet, slick. Blood.
She had been so busy with her new job at the Ministry, she hadn't even noticed the months slipping by. Hadn't noticed until the blood came so thick and fast that she knew in her gut it wasn't the usual type.
They told her at the hospital that she could never carry again. "It happens like that sometimes," they said, standing over her in their starched white healer's robes. "Sometimes the muggle and magic genes just don't mix well. Sometimes the magical outburst from miscarrying can damage the womb."
Calm, soft voices. Medical terms and magical interventions. Potions. Spells. Head shakes.
Very sorry. Very sorry. She had paid the price once more.
As the years passed by, slowly ticking season by season, she found joy in the teaching of magical youth. Found her home at Hogwarts.
Anyone who knew her now might laugh at the thought of Minerva McGonagall being a risk taker. To her students she was stern, but fair. She doubted they even questioned her life outside the castle walls. To her friends and colleagues she was responsible, reliable, an ear to listen, a hand to help.
How could they guess that inside her beat a heart that had once set her aflame? Burnt and wounded. Barren and empty like the August moon of her youth. Her heart heavy with just a sliver of silver, a fragment of cold.