This one-shot was written in response to a prompt on . It was quite interesting to write from the perspective of Minerva McGonagall. She is one of my favorite characters, and after the information on Pottermore about her was released, I only respected her more. Enjoy, and review if you feel like it!
It has always been strange, thinking that one day, I might find myself the lone occupant of this room. Well, I've been alone in here before, but not quite as permanently as today. And certainly not in such a position of authority as I suddenly find myself.
It was never enough. Never enough that he had to fight. Never enough that he had to be one step ahead of the most dangerous wizard of all time. Never enough that he had to practically do Fudge's job for him, near the end. But he bore it, like his crooked nose bore those half-moon spectacles; like the burden of his talent, and of all his secrets. Bore all of them blazing to the ground with him, in the end. Now they are scorched and scattered, and nobody but he knows where they all lie.
I never fooled myself that I knew all of them, or even half. My mother used to tell me that true courage was to accept the truth of things and face them down, and so I always aimed to do just that. Dumbledore would never have put all his secrets in one place. No, he was a strategist of the highest order. There was a conversation, early in my career, where I wondered aloud that we hadn't been made Ravenclaws, what with our wit for transfiguration. After all, I had stalled the Hat myself, a whole five minutes, after having it placed on my head. "Minerva," he had said, looking over our chessboard and smiling that penetrating smile, "I do believe we lack the necessary eccentricities." He had then proceeded to trounce me thoroughly, all the while enjoying a sugar quill with undignified glee.
I chuckle at the memory, even though it stabs me like a knife. Looking around the room, there are so many of his personal effects here. I cannot bring myself to move them. They belong here. This office has been his home, the inner sanctum of his whirlwind life. When he was alive, it resonated with safety, security. Now, it resonates with my own crushing doubt.
The small, fragile machines spin and whir and steam. I gather my courage and move away from the door where I've been standing. I look at the handsome desk, and am plunged into another memory. A far more painful memory.
Dougal had married a muggle girl in the village. I knew that he would move on, but still, it hurt. Hurt worse than anything I had experienced. I loved him more than almost anything, but I loved my magic, and myself, more. I'd told myself for years that keeping those letters hidden was better than having to hide my wand, and with it, part of my soul. The news had cracked through me like shattering slate, and all the broken bits and pieces pulled painfully into sharp relief.
I had been crying at my desk when Albus had came in. I hadn't even heard him. He didn't ask what was wrong. He hadn't immediately voiced concern. He moved over and sat, quietly, in one of the chairs in front of my desk. I can still hear his soft voice. "Have a biscuit, Minerva."
Since that evening, I had always seen him in a new light. Everyone knew Albus Dumbledore, Order of Merlin, First Class, Head of the Wizengamot, etcetera. Not many knew the Albus with a brother who despised him. The Albus who lost a mother. Who lost a sister. Who tried his best to take up his siblings and failed. Who never stopped regretting it. I wondered how many people he had ever told what he told me about himself in my classroom that evening. I would hazard a guess at not many. He was, and is still, a very private person.
Even in death.
I take a deep breath, and step firmly into the room proper. Across the desk, the Daily Prophet still sits, laid out with it's moving pictures. A bowl of sherbert lemons sits nearby, close to the right arm of the magnificent carved chair that looms large over the heavy surface. The shadow it casts in the sunlight is deep and dark, but somehow inviting, stretched across the floor like a long, slim blanket, creeping down the wall as the minutes pass. Fawkes is nowhere to be seen. I'm not remotely surprised. The bird had to know. Once the subject of its loyalty is gone, phoenixes do not long remain. The empty perch sits close to the desk, abandoned, like the chair. Somehow, it is depressingly fitting.
I clear away the Prophet, folding it. It shakes very slightly. I look down at my hands. I can see the bones now. I'm not the young woman I was when I started teaching here. The veins stand out, the wrinkles around my wrists are etched deeper with every passing year. I smile. With age comes undoubted wisdom.
There's a knock at the door. It reverberates so loudly that I jump. "Come in!"
Filius Flitwick totters in, holding a small parcel. He always looks as though he's either a step away from falling, or a step away from fluttering into the air. I always teased him about it when we were in was a year behind me. He was laughed at, at first, as we all watched him clamber onto the sorting stool. And then, like me, he sat under that Hat for over five minutes before it placed him in Ravenclaw. Later on, he told me during a transfiguration class that it was trying to decide whether to put him in Gryffindor or Ravenclaw. I had laughed at that. We gave the hat the same dilemma, with opposite results. Even today, we occasionally chuckle over it. Secretly, I could never imagine Filius being as apt at controlling the unruly Gryffindors in their tower floors above.
The tiny man smiles at me. "I remember when I had my job interview in here," he pipes warmly, looking at the chairs closest to him in front of the desk. "He asked me whether I preferred Cockroach Clusters or Acid Pops."
"What was your reply?" I ask, returning the smile with a good deal of effort.
"I told him I always preferred alliteration with my sweets. He hired me on the spot."
We laugh. It seems like an out-of-place sound, a duet of high and middle parts. He moves over to the opposite side of the desk from the carved, grand chair behind it, sitting the parcel down. "Just transfigured it up. I figured you might be a bit busy," he says. I hear a crinkle of paper and turn around. A small, brass desk plaque reads, "Minerva McGonagall, Headmistress." It hammers a spike home that I didn't realize was half driven in already. I turn away from him, shuffling with a few small devices on a table. My eyes sting. I hate crying, especially in front of colleagues. The guilt is suffocating. How could I ever take his place?
I can tell Filius is trying to give me the benefit of my dignity. He moves about the desk, straightening things up, charming away any dust or debris. Not that there is much. Albus always did keep a tidy office.
"What do you think they will do with all of these?" Filius asks, as I turn around, having dabbed my eyes against my tartan sleeve in what I hope is an inconspicuous manner. "Many of them are his own make, after all. I only recognise two-thirds of these things." He gestures to the spindly metal contraptions, whirring and puffing and busily humming, as though awaiting the return of their former owner. So much activity seems odd for such an otherwise still place.
"I will recommend that they leave them here at the school. Albus once mentioned that he would leave almost everything to Hogwarts." I feel that blasted lump in my throat again. Of course these instruments would stay here. Tucked into their cabinets, safe on their shelves and tables. They look like a collection of oddly-shaped, glittering birds. "I remember walking in on him working on that one." I point at a fat little silver pot, with a long, spiraling spout that tapered to something more akin to the width of a needle. The bowl was vibrating, causing the spout to wiggle in the air. "It splattered him in the face with some sort of colored ink. It took days to take the stain out of his lenses." I chuckle. "He said, 'Minerva, you look rather blue.' Ridiculous man," I say. My voice cracks over the last two words even as I laugh.
Filius smiles. "I remember when attempting to teach the concept of Cheering Charms to the third years in my very first year of teaching. He asked me whether I had introduced the actual sensation, the feeling of being cheered, before I attempted to teach the lesson. Suggested I give the students all peppermint toads as they came in, as a surprise." The tiny man laughs, a high-pitched, enthusiastic sound. "I was skeptical, but tried it. It turns out they had Binns the period before they got to me, so they were all in desperate need of some cheering before charming!"
I join him in laughter, and we laugh because it feels right. It feels good. It felt, to me, like I might never laugh again, before this moment. Like all the laughter had been frozen inside of me, unable to thaw, until the gentle warmth of memory blew through me. But laughter quickly morphs into tears. I can't help myself. I sit down in the chair across the desk, head in my hands, unable to bear sitting in the seat that was, by technicality alone, mine. It looms across the desk like a great beast now, daring me to sit the place where a mighty king, a noble warrior, and a dear friend had sat before me. I will never own this chair. I have no right to it, compared with my predecessor.
Filius toddles over, and I feel his small hand press gently over my shoulder. "How will I ever be as worthy?" I ask, my shoulders giving way, the last dam against the flood buckling against the downpour. I feel his hand shake slightly. His voice escapes like a frail, quavering whisper.
"All we can do is try, Minerva."