Only Bad Decisions Here

Team: Wasps

Position: Keeper

Theme: Write about a character who shows grace to someone who doesn't deserve it

Word count: 2536

Beta: savedprincess85

"Surely you can't be serious," said Minerva, not for the first time that day.

"But I am," said Albus with his usual benign smile. She hadn't seen that smile in a long time. "In fact, I am confident that this is the soundest course of action."

It was pure folly, was what it was. Perhaps the stress of war had finally gotten to him. He'd had to bear more than most over this past decade, and though he'd carried that weight admirably, a moment of madness was to be expected. Minerva would merely have to put a stop to it before it escalated any further. "Albus -"

"My decision is final."

She ceased her pacing instantly, eyes snapping to his and muscles going rigid at the firmness of his tone. There was a hard edge to it that she had rarely heard from him, certainly never directed at her, and it left no room for argument.

Albus's kindly manner and soft voice often made it easy to forget how powerful he was and how dangerous he could be. Minerva had never been fool enough to make that mistake until now.

She swallowed past the lump in her throat and tried not to shy away from the power that was rolling off of him in waves. This matter was too important to drop. Minerva stood taller and held her chin higher. She would not be cowed into submission. "He's killed people, Albus."

"As have we. We were at war."

"On opposite sides," she reminded him because surely he must have forgotten. He wouldn't be suggesting this otherwise. "He was in You-Know-Who's inner circle. He bears the Dark Mark."

"He made a mistake," said Albus, stroking one long finger through Fawkes's fiery plumage. "We all deserve a second chance, Minerva."

She felt the anger building again, reaching heights that she had seldom come close to before. "Lily and James Potter are dead because of his mistake."

Albus remained indifferent to her fury. He did not flinch away from her, nor did he show any sign of his earlier irritation at her insubordination. "He did not kill them."

"He may as well have," she spat, disgusted at Albus for defending that man – that murderer. "He passed on information to You-Know-Who knowing that his master would act on it. He saw no problem with conspiring to murder a child and only baulked when he realised that You-Know-Who's plan put the woman he loved in danger. Tell me, when he asked you to save Lily, did he inquire at all as to the fate of her husband and son?"

Severus Snape was a monster. He did not fight for the greater good. There was nothing noble about his reasons for switching sides; his motives were purely selfish. Someone like that deserved to spend the remainder of their life in Azkaban. They certainly shouldn't be given a prestigious and influential position within the greatest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world.

"Severus and James did not get along," said Albus. "You cannot fault him for not caring about what happened to the man he blames for ruining his relationship with Lily."

"I do not get along with Sybill Trelawney; regardless, I do not wish to see her dead."

"It is not the same," he said, his gaze turning thoughtful at the mention of Hogwarts' latest Divination professor. That was someone else that Minerva had advised him against hiring. He hadn't listened to her then either. "James was, on occasion, quite cruel to Severus, I believe."

Minerva scoffed. "Yes, when they were boys, and Severus always gave as good as he got. James grew out of his worst personality traits. He matured. He joined the Order of the Phoenix and risked his life every day fighting for a better world. As for Severus… he joined a terrorist cell."

James Potter had been a Pure-blood from a wealthy family. It would have been all too easy for him to choose the side that had spent most of the war winning. Or he could have stayed out of the fight entirely, but he'd chosen to stand on the side of light and to protect those who could not protect themselves. He'd died in the pursuit of a better world for his child; had sacrificed himself to give his wife and son more time to escape. Minerva would not have Albus, or anyone else, deny or belittle that bravery. James Potter was a hero, and he deserved better.

On the other hand, Severus Snape was directly responsible for the deaths of two of the brightest people Minerva had ever had the honour of knowing. He did not deserve to be forgiven.

Albus sighed heavily, suddenly looking every one of his many years. "I trust him, Minerva."

"Do you?" She would not let his sudden frailty detract her from her goal. "Why did he change sides?"

He waved a dismissive hand as though the answer ought to be obvious. "Lily was in danger. He wanted to protect her."

"Lily was a Muggle-born fervently fighting against You-Know-Who's forces. She'd been in danger ever since the war started. He only switched sides when he became a direct cause of the danger she was in."

Fawkes ruffled his feathers at her tone and made an angry clucking noise like a distressed chicken. He wasn't looking his best at the moment; his time of rebirth was nearing, and he appeared to be even more worn than Albus was.

"He did love her," the old Headmaster said quietly. "Do you know that his Patronus matches hers? A silver doe…"

"Surely you know better than to believe that such silliness actually means anything," she said, her tone even more disparaging than it had been before. "It's utter nonsense, and even if it weren't, James's Patronus was a stag, that's far more conclusive evidence of love: completion, rather than mimicry."

"Severus loved her in the only way he knew how," Albus amended as he pushed himself to his feet. "I trust his loyalty completely, and I will hear no more talk on the matter."

Minerva wanted to argue the matter further. Albus had had some bad ideas over the years, but this one was his worst yet. He'd closed the discussion, and although that didn't mean that she would drop the matter, she would have to put it to rest for the time being. Albus could be a stubborn old goat sometimes; if she wanted to change his mind, her arguments would need to be foolproof.

He ushered her out through the door and closed it with a firm click behind her. The dismissal could not have been any more apparent.

She straightened her pointed hat and started down the spiralling stone staircase.

Hogwarts was a ghost town at the moment – quite literally. They'd sent all of the students home for a week so that they could be with their families to celebrate the victory and mourn for the lost. She and Albus were the only living that remained. They were the only ones with nowhere else to go.

She'd had somewhere to go, once upon a time, with a boy who loved her and whom she loved back with all her soul. That had been a long time ago, though, back before she'd chosen her ambition over her heart.

She often wondered if she'd made the right choice; if she wouldn't be happier today if she'd married Dougal McGregor, the handsome and clever Muggle she'd met when she was eighteen. There was no way to say for sure, although Minerva did like to think that she'd made the right call, even if it had nearly destroyed her. She needed only to remember her mother, a witch married to a Muggle who knew nothing of the existence of magic, and how unhappy they'd been, to justify her choice. This did not stop her from daydreaming about the life she could have had, though, a life of love and laughter, as opposed to the one of death and devastation that she was currently living in.

Hogwarts had been her sanctuary ever since she was a child, a stronghold beyond the reach of all that was bad in the world, and a safe haven of learning and betterment. It was her home, her only home, and Albus had invited evil into it.

Albus Dumbledore was the man with the plan, always and forever. His every choice had a specific motivation behind it, meaning that he had his reasons for hiring Severus Snape to fill the vacant position of Potions' professor. Minerva feared, however, that with his focus solely on the bigger picture, he would fail to notice the consequences of his actions on the smaller scale, the one on which stood the wellbeing of every Hogwarts student in his care. She did not doubt that this decision, more so than any others he'd made thus far, would be more harmful than he cared to realise.

Hogwarts' last tenured Potions professor, Horace Slughorn, had handed in his letter of resignation two years ago at a time when many believed that You-Know-Who had already won. He hadn't been the only teacher to leave, but he was the only one not to come back when the war was won. Hogwarts had made do with a minimally competent stand-in since Horace's departure as no one better suited for the job had wanted it. The school was in desperate need of a potions master, but Minerva did not believe that the situation was so dire that all standards ought to be ignored.

Severus Snape had been a bright student; there was no denying that. A quiet and sullen boy, at first, he'd soon turned his attention to the Dark Arts, becoming friends with a group of Slytherins who frequently terrorised Muggle-borns. It had not surprised Minerva in the slightest when he'd joined You-Know-Who's army after graduation. Yet this was the man that Albus wanted teaching his students, of whom many were Muggle-born. Severus Snape did not stop being a Death Eater simply because he finally saw sense and realised that You-Know-Who's ideology was violent and unjust. Nor did he do it out of love, no matter what Albus would have her believe. If Snape's feelings for Lily Potter had been pure and true, he would never have joined a movement intent on wiping out people like her. He changed sides out of guilt for putting the woman he claimed to love in danger. There was nothing heroic or noble about that, nothing that made him worthy of redemption.

Minerva was stepping out from behind the gargoyle that guarded the Headmaster's office when she ran into someone standing on the other side. Her heel caught on the cracked step behind her, and her arms windmilled as she tried to regain her balance. A hand grabbed onto her shoulder and helped steady her before she could fall backwards.

She'd been convinced that there was no one else in the castle, and finding out otherwise was surprising enough, but when she saw who had just saved her from the pain of a bruised buttocks, her thanks died in her throat.

She had not seen Severus Snape since his graduation over three years ago. He had not changed much since then. His nose was still large and hooked; his teeth were still yellow and uneven. His hair was longer than it had been when she'd last seen him but was still just as greasy and stringy, and his skin was sallower, his unhealthy pallor all the more pronounced by the contrast with his black robes.

"Professor McGonagall," he said curtly with a stiff nod.

Minerva straightened her spine and lifted her chin. She was just as tall as he was, but she'd mastered the art of looking down on the people she disliked. "Mister Snape."

She may have imagined the way his dark eyes flinched at her icy tone, but she couldn't miss the small step he took away from her.

"I have an appointment with Professor Dumbledore," he said, his gaze fixed on the stone staircase behind her.

That explained why Albus had been so keen to get her out of his office.

Minerva stepped aside without a word and started in the direction of her study, thinking she could do with a hot cup of tea and some biscuits, or maybe a nice bath to help her relax.

She'd only gotten a few feet away when Snape called out to her, "Professor McGonagall?"

She considered not stopping. His voice had been so soft that she could plausibly claim not to have heard him, but her curiosity got the better of her. Even as her mind told her to ignore him, her legs stilled, and she turned on the spot to face him.

"If we're to become colleagues," he said, still refusing to look directly at her, "we'll have to spend a lot of time in each others' company. Some civility might be necessary."

Under normal circumstances, she would agree. She certainly did her best to be cordial with Sybill, regardless of her views on Divination and the woman's supposed gift, but this was different. She could not look at Snape without seeing Lily and James and the countless other faceless figures that he had hurt or killed.

"If You-Know-Who had targeted the Longbottoms instead of the Potters," she challenged, "would you have become a spy for the Order?"

Albus had ordered that Alice and Frank Longbottom go into hiding at the same time as Lily and James after receiving information from Snape that You-Know-Who would choose to go after one family or the other. Why You-Know-Who had chosen to target those two families, Minerva didn't know, but she did know enough about the kind of man that Snape was to guess the answer to her question.

He didn't say the words directly, but he clenched his jaw, and his eyes, which looked like two blocks of coal set into his face, stayed fixed on the ground at his feet.

It was then, as he scowled at the floor, that she noticed how young he looked – how young he was – only twenty-one years old — still a child, playing at being a grown-up.

He was lost, she realised. His master was gone; his fellow Death Eaters were either imprisoned or on the run, and the only person who'd ever shown him any kindness was dead. He had no one left and nowhere to go. He was alone.

"You shouldn't keep the Headmaster waiting," she said, the softness of her voice surprising even herself.

His gaze snapped up to hers, and although his face remained expressionless, there was a light in his dark eyes which had not been there before.

He did not look like he was about to say anything more, and she had nothing left to say to him either. She turned on her heel and left him standing there, and as she did, she made a choice: she would choose to forgive him. He didn't deserve it, not yet at least, and perhaps he never would, but maybe Albus was right. Perhaps they all deserved a second chance.