Standard disclaimer applies.

Now it's a stand-alone piece in several chapters, but I kind of need it for 'Integrity', as part of world-building. Also compatible with 'A Man for Another Night'. WB + established characters = OOC :), so be warned!

1. And then in the morning, you see all the ways that you should have acted.

Her new card said, Professor McGonagall, Head of Gryffindor, Head of Transfiguration at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Some people asked what 'Head of Transfiguration' even meant, since she was the only Transfigurator in the school. They were the people who thought the Ministry appointed every cog in the machine, and the turtles went all the way down. The people who never seemed to look up, they had reptilian tastes themselves.

That's why she had left the Ministry. The turtles shied from under the castle of Hogwarts.

Sometimes, she wondered if that wasn't the smart thing to do.

Early in her first year, a girl fell out the window and broke her arm. It was healed before dinner, nobody said anything to the young teacher, it was fine.

It didn't even happen during her lesson.

She'd had worse in Quidditch practice, let alone in a game. (And Slytherin was going to lose.)

But Minerva charmed all windows that night, that she knew of and could reach.

She trusted the Headmaster to take care of his own office, and everybody knew no man alive could fall from the Astronomy Tower, and of course, there were fake windows.

She didn't really have to charm those. And it was harder, too. Just not too hard.

Next morning, she came to the Teachers' Lounge wearing more make-up than ever, and Sophie 'Sissy' O'Hara tutted and fixed it for her. Sophie was Muggle-born, and liked to do things without magic if she could help it, and it was a scar of Hogwarts that couldn't be healed. Sophie wasn't cut out for the Muggle Studies job. (Much later Minerva would think that very few people actually were.)

But being fussed over was better than thinking about overseeing an actual Quidditch game. As an adult.

She got through that Next Day, put her comb on the nightstand (beside her shiny new card) and incinerated the one white hair it snugged out of her black mane with a precise flame.

Her second year, there was an a Slytherin versus Hufflepuff Very Big War, with Slytherin being Very Cunning and Hufflepuff being Very United. One day she was called to another pile-up in the halls and was about to Very Swoop down on them when she saw the Ravenclaw Head Boy hiding behind a suit of armor.

'What are you doing there, Mr. Kersby?'

'Waiting, Professor.'

Life should be so simple, she thought. She gave detentions to all of them and went to Flitwick to negotiate, which she didn't have to, as it were.

Flitwick just said, looking through her, that it was entirely reasonable and completely within her authority.

What he didn't say was, how did you expect my Head Boy to sort it out by himself? True, he could have run to a teacher, but people already had, and somebody should have stayed in place to keep an eye on things, to tell the Madame the grisly details.

And Flitwick didn't say, you gave him a detention, with Filch, do you think it will improve his character?

And Flitwick didn't say that he was going to find Mr. Kersby and teach him the thickest shields the kid could will into being. She had to find out the hard way, when the Weasleys took off Kersby's Death Eater's Mask from his dead face.

But this was her second year, and she knew it was her responsibility to prevent fights in the halls, so she went to Dumbledore and they talked and there was Increased Discipline and no more pile-ups. So ended the Very Big War. And when she saw a sharp dash of cat's hair on her pillow she Vanished it without a thought, because it was the Next Day and who cares about cat's hair anyway.

And then the rumours came, about a Dark Lord.

She Transfigured and Switched, he burned and raped.

She reproached and awarded House points, he possessed people.

She became to think there was a certain disbalance of power. And disbalance of safety. She was capable. She was going to approach the Headmaster with a formal request.

But as she was already in bed, looking above her book into the flame of her candle, she heard a knock. Professor Slughorn called upon her. He was very apologetic about the inconvenience, but a curious matter of morality had presented itself and could Professor McGonagall perhaps be interested in listening...

Well, the tale turned out to be not curious at all, but superficial and naive, to put it charitably. The hypothetical Innocent Person who got tricked into divulging Intelligence of Importance could just go say something to people whose lives were in danger because of it. Slam-dunk, Gryffindor scores again. But it convinced her - she didn't even notice arguing and losing - that going out there to do battle was not her best option. That she was right to stay a teacher and help Innocent People learn fighting and rebuilding.

And it was a relief.

And because of it she nearly quit right after Horace left. But she didn't. She never even noticed the white hair that House Elves would reverently pick from her nightgown and burn at once, like an offering.

Fear of responsibility didn't move her, fear of lack of responsibility couldn't either, but each year, there were, how did he say it, curious moral matters - that made her think, maybe it was time at last. To go. But she always decided to stay.

And then Professor Damocles announced that he was going to resign and concentrate his efforts on refining a potion he had just invented, with the help of a dedicated volunteer, a potion for Werewolves, and there was silence in the half-empty Teachers' Lounge.

Truly the Potions' Master position is cursed, she thought dazedly. Head of Potions, Head of a Department of one, as were they all, because it was a sign of Hogwarts' power over them and not their power over anybody else. Merlin knew the students never mistook it for one. And he decided to leave, to make the world a better place.

Sophie O'Hara would have found words, but Sophie had been killed last spring. Flitwick was hugging the man, muttering happy unintelligibles. Pomona cried. Deputy Headmistress McGonagall waved her wand and created them a nicer room, and left to patrol so the others could allow themselves to celebrate and not worry about fire and flood.

Damocles, leaving.

Her, staying.

It hurt.

But it had to be. The school had priority.

...

Minerva smiled at Remus Lupin and didn't tell him to change his mind.

Her card - she still had it somewhere - said that stuff about professorship. She would joke that she didn't need it, it was all written out there in the stars.