A/N: Rewrite/remix of one of my very old stories. Non-canon AU MMADness includes OC. Non-edited, non-beta'd. Written to distract myself from the horror that is writer's block.
The castle was empty. The last of her friends had waved goodbye and Rhiannon was sitting on her trunk in her dormitory. After this summer she will leave for University. She was looking forward to be focusing on her specialist field - Corporate Charms and Potions - and to making new friends. First though she would have seven weeks of uninterrupted peace and quiet.
Except it would probably not be very peaceful and definitely not quiet.
Rhiannon checked her watch. It was nearly time to leave. While the others filed into the Hogwarts Express, she would be Apparating home, just outside the gates, with her mother. Her father would take care of her trunk later when he too would be ready to leave. She had taken out her Charms textbook, parchment and quills and had shrunken them to fit in her purse. She was going to spend some time with her mother. Time where she could say Máthair instead of Professor.
She got up when her mother's Patronus told her it's time to leave and Rhiannon looked around the dorm one more time. Next year a different girl would occupy her bed, another Ravenclaw would use her nightstand. She sighed, straightened her back and left.
Her mother stood by the gates, waiting, looking exhausted and happy. Often Rhiannon thought her classmates forgot how tiring it is to be spending every day amongst so many young people with their raging hormones and their loud voices. Her mother taught a mandatory class, her days were filled with First Years who were flabbergasted by what they could apparently do with their wands and Seventh Years who were looking haggard and confused by the heavy workload and complexity of spells and wandwork.
Rhiannon enjoyed the subject as much as she liked the others, but didn't find much challenge in it. She preferred Charms and Potions. Charms needed memory and determination, Potions focus and precision. She liked the outcome of Potions, being able to brew something that could relieve pain for instance (or a really fantastic shampoo, but she would never share that with old Sluggy). She liked how she had had to train her mind for the best Charm work (and the duels she and her friends had fought in deserted corridors (until her mother had put a stop to it).
"Are you ready?" Máthair asked. Rhiannon nodded.
"Lets go then." Rhiannon took a deep breath and determinedly Apparated to her ancestral home in Godric's Hollow.
They were sitting in the garden with steaming cups of ginger tea. Out of her teaching robes, her mother looked less severe, with her bun out of it's restraints and her hair flowing down her back she looked much younger than the stern professor she had to be at Hogwarts. They sat comfortable together, quiet. Her mother had accio'd a plate of different biscuits, including Rhiannon's favourites. She picked one up and nibbled on it. Her mind was full, she found it hard to concentrate.
She knew that while she was safe at Hogwarts, being looked after by her parents and a myriad of teachers and House Elfs, the real world was being shaken, Dark forces were at work and her father was worried, she could see it in the wrinkles on his brow. Her mother was still young, only twenty-three years Rhiannon's senior and so beautiful with her raven hair and green eyes that are capable of locking you in their grip - her father had always looked young too, but his hair was losing colour with alarming speed.
Rhiannon had inherited her father's auburn locks and bright blue eyes and looked the proverbial Scottish lass thanks to her mother's tall stature and the soft lilt of her accent. As a child she had often been alone. Hogwarts was a place filled with children, but none of them were playmates for a four-year-old who was being homeschooled by her father.
Rhiannon had asked for a sibling once for Christmas and her mother had told her even Father Christmas would not be able to grant that wish. Instead she had received a pair of Muggle rollerskates and she had been chuffed to bits, learning how to use them whilst House Elfs hovered about, catching her whenever she fell.
Now she was feeling this loneliness again. She was going to go away to University and her parents would be at Hogwarts. She would be alone, without anyone to confide in. Had her mother ever felt this way? Had her father? She suddenly realised she did not really know much about her parents at all - except from what everyone else had read in the History of Magic books.
"Máthair?" Rhiannon asked softly.
"Yes?" Her mother turned to her.
"Will you tell me about how you and Daddy found each other?"
Minerva sighed. She knew the day her daughter would ask about the lovestory between Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall would come eventually. Thankfully it was away from the castle and away from prying eyes and inquisitive ears.
"Lets go inside." Minerva offered and picked up her tea before leading the way into their living room and settled on the sofa. She waited for her daughter - her beautiful, brilliant, curious daughter (so much her father's child) - who curled up next to her, her eyes fixed on Minerva's own.
"You will not be interested in your father's many accomplishments, only that I met him when I started Hogwarts and that he was my Transfiguration professor in my first four years. As such I knew him well, having a natural… what would you call it…"
"Flair?" Rhiannon offered.
"Yes. A natural flair for Transfiguration. After Hogwarts I went off to study Transfiguration - specialising in inanimate to animate Transfiguration and to devote my time to becoming an Animagus. Albus was my tutor." Minerva pressed her lips together and took a deep breath.
"I fell in love with him. He was kind and caring and challenging and very funny. I knew it was wrong. Your father behaved admirably, I must say. He never encouraged me and kept up this professional wall between us and it never crumbled, until…"
"Until when?"
"During my final year, I had successfully become an Animagus, but war was raging around us and I refused to get Registered. I had heard of others who had been abducted and tortured and being put under Imperius curses to do unspeakable things. I joined the war effort, taking the basic training course at the Auror's office and keeping close to Albus."
Minerva took a sip of her tea, wrapping her hands around the mug, warming them as they turned cold from reliving a time that had been harrowing and traumatising. Rhiannon sat quietly and attentively, like she would in class (always at the back, trying to deflect any kind of attention - which had hurt Minerva, but she had been unable to do anything about it, she hoped her daughter knew how proud she was of her little girl).
"Long story short: while your father fought Grindelwald, I was fighting some of his henchmen. It didn't go well. I was a good dueller, had always been and I usually had my wits about me, but I was exhausted, worried about the man I loved and I was hit by a curse. One that we would not know the impact of until much later.
"When we finally came out of the battle, so many of our friends were lost, but also filled with joy that the war was finally over, Albus and I gave into temptation. I ought to be ashamed, but I am not. He felt safe and I had loved him for so long and he needed comforting and healing and I knew that we could make a go of it together. We respected each other, got along very well. Of course he was quite some years older than me, but I felt he would be able to teach me about life. I could teach him about love and about being dedicated to each other."
"Did you marry straight after the war?" Rhiannon asked, absorbed in her mother's story.
"No, I went back to University and graduated with full honours. I don't know if I deserved them or that it was due to my part in the war."
"I'm sure your accolades were all very well deserved, Ma. You are a very powerful witch." The words fell from her lips without thinking. It was common knowledge that Minerva McGonagall had a magical core that was matched by few others.
Her mother softly touched her hand. Rhiannon felt the tingling of their magic mixing.
"Then I went in search of a job and found one as a researcher. It was a very quiet job, one that was well suited to me for a while - I longed for the silence of a library after the battles and the Transfiguration rooms that were always filled with small farm animals and students. But I was lonely and I missed Albus, who went back to Hogwarts to help Headmaster Dippet restoring order amongst the staff and pupils."
Rhiannon watched her mother's face intently. She had hoped the story would be a happy and romantic one, but it turned out to be one of war and restraint.
"But he was not longer your teacher and you were long of age." Rhiannon said.
"Yes. And our courtship was uneventful. After nearly a year of dinners and dancing and late night games of chess, he asked me to marry him and I accepted."
Rhiannon bit her lip in amusement. "Obviously." She remarked and her mother chuckled.
A/N2: It's a start. Of sorts.