Dear Minnie

Chapter 1: Distractions of the past

~Office of Minerva McGonagall 1991~

Minerva McGonagall is an older lady with her fair share of adventures in her day. Formerly a fiery youth with an attitude tempered by age and experience. She had been ten years old when Grindelwald was defeated in nineteen forty five. A nation of peoples with pride for their country heading off to do battle beside their muggle countrymen.

A year later she would be attending Hogwarts for the first time and it was on the train she would make her first friend. A young girl her age named Susan Fairchild. A friend who would later suffer a tragedy and seem to bounce back almost right away.

Still as good friends do Minerva kept in contact. They would meet and have tea while they talked or perhaps something stronger. Well, she would have tea. Susan, or Velvet as she had taken a preference to being called shortly after her affliction befell her, would simply smile with silver eyes older than her face and body would imply as they chatted late into the night.

Unfortunately their last chat had been a few short years ago and Minerva missed her friend dearly in her aging years. There was a distance between them now built of both miles and past decisions.

So it was with much surprise that while sending off acceptance letters to students an owl came rapping at her office window. with a frown she bound up the letters she had been going through on her desk and set them aside for later sending with a wave of her wand before opening the window with another allowing the non-descript eagle owl inside before relieving it of its burden.

It's a package, or more precisely a box with velvet lining both inside and out. Closed by a silk ribbon pinning a letter to the top addressing the box to her.

Minerva "Minnie" McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts

Transfiguration Office

A return name wasn't necessary. Minerva knew that handwriting. She would recognize it anywhere. The same one the used to write the notes she would borrow all too often in her school days or be found in notes passed in the classroom. With a fond smile the teacher undoes the ribbon and opens the letter first leaving the box on the center of her desk as she pulls out the muggle lined paper held within. Letter written with muggle pen rather than quill and ink pot.

My Dearest Minnie,

By god has it truly been so many years since I said that last goodbye? For me it feels but a moment ago I stood before you for the final time begging you to accept the gift I offered. I think I always knew you would say no. It simply was not in your nature to seek immortality. That and the mutterings of that old man you so admire though I cannot fathom why. You had always been so singularly independent in our youth that the thought of you believing anyone without second thought stinks of foul play.

Here Minerva is forced to put the letter down for a moment and sighs. It was an old argument they had been having since the war. Susan used to think the world of the headmaster just as the Tranfiguration teacher herself does. But after she changed she began questioning him more especially when it came to the topic of her new kin and the 'gift' she had continuously offered to Minerva. She pours herself a cup of something a bit stronger than tea. If she's going to read her old friends views on Albus she would need it to keep an even keel.

Ah but you've heard all of that before. I do not wish to rehash an old argument now and distract from my purpose in sending you this correspondence. That said, unless you have changed your mind please don't reply to this. Seeing a response from you would only flair a light of hope in me and I would not be able to bare the snuffing of that tiny flickering flame should it be allowed to relight.

The older woman frowns at the letter here. Still feeling the pang of guilt for having turned her old friend away so many times but for all the right reasons. The Scottish witch simply didn't share the feelings Susan had and to pretend would ruin them both. While accepting her offer would have seen their friendship never fade it was not something the old witch could bring herself to do. At first it had been her clinging to her affections of another and later her expectations for what might await her once her time on this plane was at it's end.

I've allowed myself to get off topic once more. Please forgive me my dear sweet Minnie, I am afflicted with a deep flair for the dramatic as you well know my clan members and I are prone to. If you're reading this letter now then certainly you have gotten the box with it.

As the years have gone by and I have aged in spirit if no longer in body I find myself wishing to write down my memoirs. I considered making a book but the only place where I could sell it would be amongst the wizarding kind and even then it would be frowned upon as a risk to the masquerade should a muggle get their hands upon it.

The old teacher shakes her head at that with a wry smile. That love they seem to have for the Victorian era bleeding over into their terminology. Refraining from calling it the Statute of Secrecy and instead referring to it as the "Masquerade" comparing hiding their nature to the way people used to hide their faces behind elaborate paper masks.

Still the urge remained. A driving force to write about years long come and gone. To share with anyone my perspectives. And who better to share them with than you who stood by me through a good deal of them. Even as our other friends turned me away in disgust be it for my proclivities or my gift and curse. So when you open the box you'll find envelopes. Letters written, but never sent detailing my life to you the only person thus far I have met and cared to share it with in a romantic fashion.

I know you are aware of the times we spent together in Hogwarts. I only ask that you are patient while reading them these are my memoirs after all. And they would not be complete without mention of my formative years and the girl who took so much of my focus back then.

This letter will remain unfortunately short however, despite there being so much I wish to tell you about right away it is all contained within the box and there should be a proper order to these things. I will only mention that I am a business owner of an establishment that would come as a surprise to you if you recall how I was when we were young.

In truth I have not a single clue as to whether you will even read this letter. Still, read them or burn them. They are your letters to do with as you please. They are, after all, addressed to you.

With my unending affections,

Velvet Velour

formerly, Susan Fairchild

P.S.

There is a saying that a person dies three deaths. The first death is the death of the body when the heart beats it's last. The second is when the body is consigned to the earth. And the last, is when your name is spoken for the final time. If you can believe this saying Minnie then know that in this I have the last laugh because your name is far too sweet a taste for me to ever stop murmuring it, even if only to myself in the dark private moments where no other can hear the echo of my old life. So you see, so long as I walk the night. You will remain immortalis.

Minerva gently folds the letter closed again setting it back within its envelope before taking the lid of the box in hand and slowly drawing it upwards to look upon the collection of letters neatly stacked therein for her to go through one by one. Some thick with the pages bulging the envelopes while others are thin written upon perhaps a single page of the muggle line paper. each envelope with a number upon it to mark its place in case they are ever jumbled.

Slowly she places the first letter at the forefront before closing the box again. There will be time for her to go through them later. for the moment she needs to prepare for the students she needs to visit the next day. Her wand bundling up the letters she had been looking at prior where she takes it in hand and gives it over to a house elf. The muggle born letters already separated out for her to deliver herself. Never realizing she had missed the words. 'The cupboard under the stairs' in her distracted state.

Her affairs for the next day set in place she takes the box and places the lid back on top delicately re wrapping the ribbon to secure it closed before carrying it into her chambers. she looks around the space before setting her package on her dresser before picking up a framed picture next to it of herself at a far younger age wearing Hogwarts robes with a wide grin on her youthful face. Broom slung over one shoulder with the other wrapped around the shoulders of a far more demure girl.

A smile crosses the lips of the elderly witch as she watches her picture counterpart wink back at her before squeezing the other girl a bit tighter making the shy girl blush heavily and smile.

"Sweet Maeve I was so very blind back then. How obvious your feelings were now in hindsight Susan and yet I never even guessed. How funny a thing friendship can be that it blinds us to clearly to inconvenient truths. A better person you are than me Susan. I'm not sure I could have avoided coming to hate you had our situations been reversed." The professor admits to herself getting a sad smile in return from the teen in the picture until she sets it back down her own eyes misting.

She moves around changing into her night clothes and slowly putting out the lights in her chambers before settling herself into bed. Her eyes casting one last look at the velvet box before she closes them and turns away. Thoughts simmering with knowledge of what could have been.

Hello everyone, I'm branching out! I hope you like this. as I'll be writing a few more or several depending on how much people enjoy this little series. Updates will come sporadically as I'm keeping my focus right now on "Huntress of a Different Caliber" This was just something that hit me one night and wouldn't go away so I started writing.

That's all for now, I love you and I'll see you next time!