Minerva is an extremely interesting character, one that I have always been incredibly fond of. With the horrible events of HBP, I could only imagine how lost and hopeless she felt. And, as per usual, my imagination flowed directly into my computer. So, welcome to the tragic world of Minerva McGonagall, the woman behind the tight bun and strict rules. Here is the Minerva McGonagall deeply saddened and troubled by the death of one of her closest friends and mentors, as well as the traitorous actions of another close friend.
Credit for making me post this goes to my lovely friend and open critic, MiriTheSpazz. But if you don't review, my dear, I might have to hex you. Same goes for the rest of you… read and review!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There had never been a silent staff meeting. No matter how bad things got, no one at Hogwarts had ever lost hope. Between the students and Albus's smiling eyes, no one had ever even thought about losing hope. And yet here we were, sitting at our first staff meeting since the tragic death of the greatest Headmaster in the history of Hogwarts, and absolute silence engulfed the room. No one spoke, no one even moved. We all sat, looking at our hands intently, studying them as we never had before. We looked around the familiar meeting room as though it were the first time we had laid eyes on it. I desperately tried to ignore that they were all watching me at the head of the table, hoping I would find something helpful to say. Something filled with hope, something that would make them want to get out there and plan those lessons.
But I had lost hope.
Long ago, I had lost hope. He was my best friend. I had always loved him, I always would. I had promised him the year before that after his death I would honor his memory, and yet here I sat at the head of a table—his table—looking at my colleagues, the ones I knew, the ones that knew me, wanting so desperately to be able to say something meaningful, something hopeful, and all I could think about was how horribly I was going to fail.
I had never failed in my life, and I was going to fail at this. Minerva McGonagall was going to fail.
And that's when I did something no one—absolutely no one—expected. I looked at my friends, my colleagues, and I took off my hat. I threw it across the room, and I buried my face in my hands. I let myself be weak for the first time in a long time. I let myself cry.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The room was still with silence that was becoming familiar. The only sound that ever echoed through this room was my hollow, desperate sobs, begging him over and over again to send some of his strength. I wanted his kind eyes, his twinkling, laughing eyes. I wanted his intelligence, I wanted his hope, I wanted his strength. I wanted anything that would help me be strong, that would help me fill his grand shoes.
But the more I wished, the worse I became at running the dreaded school. The more I wished; the more things crumbled beneath my feet; my tired, worn feet. The more I wished, the more my colleagues frowned. The more they frowned, the more restless the students grew. Restlessness lead to bad grades, bad grades led to trouble. I was getting angry letters from parents everyday, and I could say nothing but 'I'm sorry.' Over and over again I said sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I had never apologized in my life. Minerva McGonagall was always right!
My broken, wretched sobs rung through the room, ringing with the same amount of horrible, heartbroken sadness as they had once rung with wondrous joy. I listened to my sobs grow more and more like choking. I decided that I was choking. I was choking on his memory, I was choking on his mind, I was choking on my sorrow, and I only wished I would stop choking, stop breathing, stop everything. I only wished the choking would end—I only wished I could stop fighting.
But Minerva McGonagall always had to be a bloody fighter.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I remember when Severus started Hogwarts. I was not his biggest fan. He looked bad. I could practically smell the revulsion pouring out of his pale, greasy skin. He was sorted into Slytherin. I was hardly surprised. He was teased. Again, I was hardly surprised. The number of times I had to punish Gryffindor's for being horribly cruel to him did surprise me, only slightly, and only at first. As soon as I got to know James and Sirius, I was no longer surprised that they despised Severus. I despised him, too. For my life I tried not to show it, but I suspect he knew. I suspect he hated me, too.
By his seventh year, he had reluctantly realized that I was a decent professor. Likewise, I had reluctantly realized he was decent at Transfiguration. But no matter how hard I tried, I could not see what Slughorn and Albus saw in him. I saw a young, greasy, dark young boy who was destined to be something awful, something horrible, something that I wanted nothing to do with.
I was pleased at his O.W.L scores in Transfiguration. What professor wouldn't be? He had gotten nearly everything correct. I told him as much, and he rather sneered at me. I remember being furious, dismissing him abruptly, and muttering rather loudly that he would amount to be nothing. He said he would visit me in the loony bin.
I thought, fleetingly, that he should have been in Gryffindor. I had never seen anyone braver than that. Still, I have seen very few braver things in my lifetime.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been Severus, I tried to tell myself. Over and over again I assured myself that if someone I didn't trust so much had killed Albus, I wouldn't be in such a bad state.
Perhaps it was the truth. Albus was my strength. The only man that I ever really respected, the only man I had ever even considered loving. But Severus was my friend as well. My best friend on staff, as odd as it seemed. Always, we were aware that the students thought we were sworn enemies. After all, how could the Slytherin Head of House and the Gryffindor Head of House be friends? But it was true. Somehow, in some slightly twisted way, we understood each other.
Every day we had tea. At first it had been because Dumbledore ordered us to stop bickering so, but then we found we genuinely enjoyed it. We discussed all sorts of things, not just school, which surprised both of us. I distinctly remember the day we began to talk about family. I remember how awe-struck Severus was that I had not had a happy childhood. I recall being surprised that he, in return, had a very happy childhood.
I also recall being even more surprised that he still visited his father's grave.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Filius was looking at me very oddly, his long, white beard touching the floor, his crooked nose offsetting his glasses in a way that was almost comical. I looked down at him, motioning for him to sit in one of my maroon chairs. He did so looking rather uncomfortable. I nodded to him curtly, setting my glasses on the perch of my nose, looking like the stern teacher that I was, not the replacement for the wonderful, kind Headmaster that I was supposed to be.
He must have seen my resolve shake, for he did not do what I know he came to do. He simply patted my hand and told me he'd come back later.
I watched him waddle out of the room, looking only at his beard. It was so much like Albus's.
It rather irritated me how everything made me think of him. I only wanted to live up to him, only wanted to be half as good at what he did as he was. I only wanted to live up to the expectations of McGonagall, the Headmistress, and I was failing miserably.
I let my head rest on my mahogany desk. I knew what Filius had come here to say. He had come to tell me that I could no longer occupy this room. It was for Peter Hacklesack now, the new Transfiguration professor. I could hardly believe I had to give the job to him. He was the most annoying of Ravenclaw students.
I sat there; head on my desk, wondering how excited Albus had been to give up this room for me. I wondered what I had done not to deserve that excitement.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I sat in Albus's office. No, not his office, my office. I had left the interior the way it was, blue with the blue chairs and mahogany desk. But his pensieves I had gotten rid of. I was not sure where to put them, so I created a room specifically for them, and for my own. The old Headmasters looked down at me, their portraits looming above my head. I looked at the one of Albus often, and he would always smile at me. Often we would converse, though he never really grasped how close we had been after I became a teacher. I asked him what year it had been when the portrait was painted and was disappointed to find I would never be able to tell him what I had always wanted to tell him, as it had been painted in my second year of teaching, the year he became Headmaster, and I highly doubted he had thought about me in any way besides professional then.
I noted how old he looked even then, with his silver beard falling over his elongated face and pronounced cheekbones. For the millionth time, I imagined how handsome he must have been in his youth. I could picture him in school, his long, auburn hair tied up in a ponytail, his long face free of hair, letting his wondrous cheekbones show to their full potential. We had hardly ever talked of his school days, but he had told me he was popular with the ladies. I could imagine them watching him.
I wondered if he had looked dignified back then. Certainly, he had looked dignified for as long as I had known him. But had he always? I could not imagine him not looking strangely regal. Not stuck-up, never stuck-up, but regal. High, untouchable.
And then the pain hit. He was not untouchable. In fact, he had died in one of the most demeaning ways possible at the hands of one of his most trusted friends.
I looked up at the portrait again, and for the first time, I allowed myself to cry in front of the Headmasters of the past. I allowed myself to be weaker than I ever had been before. And then I waited—I waited for his hand on my shoulder, telling me that I would do fine, that he believed in me, that he believed in this school. I waited and waited, my sobs growing more and more hoarse by the moment. And I continued to wait even after I had no more tears left to cry.
But his hand never came.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I woke up in my quarters, my long, grey hair strewn wildly about. My eyes were wide open, my breaths short and close together, my hand finding its way to my heart to reassure myself that I was still here. The quick thumping of my tired heart allowed me to close my eyes and sink back into my bed, reeling with emotions that I had tried to reign for the past few days.
Needless to say, it was not going well.
I was trying—really trying—to be a good Headmistress. But it just wasn't working. Nothing that I did worked anymore. I just wanted to be a Transfiguration professor again. I just wanted to sit in Severus's office and vent to him about his bloody Slytherin brats and listen to him vent to me about how similar Harry and James were. I wanted everything to be normal again. I wanted my job, I wanted Albus, and, perhaps most of all, I wanted Severus. It drove me crazy how much I missed him.
It had been six months, and I still could not believe that Severus has killed Albus. I refused to believe it. My two closest friends in the world… Both gone. So far gone.
My hand made its way back up to my heart, and I desperately wished I couldn't feel my rapid heart beat. But there it was…
Fighting.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I sat down at my desk. I was going to write a letter. It wouldn't get to him, and even if it did, it wouldn't solve anything, but I was still going to write the bloody letter. I didn't have anyone to talk to anymore, and I needed to sort things out for fear I'd hurt myself. I picked up my quill and put it to a piece of parchment I'd found stuffed in Albus's—my—desk and began to write.
'Severus,
What happened to the good old days? I don't mean the days when Albus was alive, or the days when I used to come into your office just to chat, I mean the good old days. The ones where you hated me and you were just about my least favorite Slytherin in history, with the exception of Tom Riddle, because I never could stand that brat. What happened to them? I've tried to sort this out for a while, but I can't seem to figure it out.
It was Albus, wasn't it? Damn him and his ability to read people's emotions. Who else would have thought that we were in any way compatible?
Not us, that's for bloody sure.
Severus, why did you do it? Why did you kill him? You couldn't do that to Albus, could you? Not to our Albus, not to one of your dearest friends. Severus, he was the only person in the world who believed in you for years. Years. I didn't believe in you. You know that. Your family didn't believe in you, your friends didn't believe in you, your master didn't believe in you, the entire bloody society didn't believe in you.
How could you turn and murder the only person who has always—always—believed in you? How could it have been as easy as point and shoot? It couldn't have been that easy.
It could not have felt good. It could not have felt good to kill him when he was weak, helpless. I just want to know, Severus, just so I can get on with my bloody life.
Why—no, how—did you do that?
I don't know that you would recognize me anymore. I think I've lost 10 pounds. My hair won't stay in it's bloody bun, my robes are always all over the place, my glasses are broken in so many places I don't think I'll be able to fix them, and on top of it all, my face is so gaunt and my eyes are so deep within my head that I look as though I've been dead for about three years. I can't be strict anymore, I can't yell. I don't have any emotions except for confusion, sadness, and pain. So much pain, Severus. So much pain that I can't even identify.
Severus. Severus, Severus, Severus. Without you, without Albus, I do not know what to do. I feel like I'm letting everybody down. I feel like I'm letting him down.
I'm failing, Severus. Me, failing. I never fail at anything. I never have, and yet here I am, not able to do anything, watching my mistakes over and over, letting things pile up all around me.
I'm tired of being brave, Sev. I'm tired of fighting. I wish, for this once, that I were not a Gryffindor. I wish I were cowardly. I wish I could pick up the bloody sword in this bloody office that reminds me far too bloody much of Albus and just…
I'm a fighter, Severus. I wish I wasn't. I wish more than anything that I wasn't. I'm tired… I'm so tired.
Why, why, why did you do it? Why is he gone so soon? Why aren't you here with me, mourning the death of our dearest friend, instead of running away from the authorities because you… you…you killed him, Severus. You killed Albus Dumbledore, the best wizard in the world.
You're a coward. You're a coward! I cannot believe I ever thought that you should have been a Gryffindor. You are nothing but a common, bloodthirsty coward!
Rot, Severus. Rot. You killed him and you made me weak. Rot, damn it, just bloody ROT!
Stop Plaguing Me. Please, Just Stop,
Minerva'
I looked over the letter. He was not the coward. I was.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This was originally supposed to be an oneshot, but I wrote until page eight and said, 'you know what, I hate reading oneshots that take like a day to read, so this gets to have two parts.' So, I'm not calling this completed. Look out for part two in the next few days. Thanks for reading, remember to review. Cause, you know, I'm a review whore.
-Raven
