Minerva McGonagall was rarely wrong. It was for this reason she could be a bit stubborn, but it also meant that she trusted her choices and was unfailingly loyal. Therefore at times like these when the rest of the professors were expressing concerns about a certain former Death Eater on staff, she paid them no mind. She trusted Dumbledore, and that was more than enough.
Now she shivered involuntarily as she walked briskly down the stairs into the cold, damp dungeon. She avoided this part of the castle when she could, but the Headmaster had asked her to check on the very man in question, a certain Severus Snape, and so she found herself roaming the corridors of the castle's bottommost floor.
McGonagall's mind was far from at ease. The death of the Diggory boy and Potter's account of He Who Must Not Be Named's return had rocked her and the rest of the staff considerably, and she had a feeling that her impending encounter with Snape would make her feel even worse. After finding Snape's office empty she made her way to his classroom, and was relieved to find Snape sitting at his desk grading end of term exams, looking paler than usual, if possible, but essentially fine. Minerva's brow furrowed in concern as she cleared her throat to make her presence known.
"Severus."
Snape glanced up from his paper with a look of particular disinterest.
"Minerva. I presume the Headmaster has sent you."
"Yes," McGonagall replied curtly, making her way to the front of the classroom where Snape sat. "He thought you might need..." her voice trailed off as she got closer to Snape. She took a deep breath and continued, "He thought you might need someone to talk to. In light of the events of the past week."
"If you are referring to the death of the Hufflepuff boy, I assure you that I am coping just fine" Snape said with a smirk. He looked up at McGonagall, and noticed her staring intently at his left arm. When she finally broke away and looked back at Snape's face her eyes were quiet and sad.
"I'm not just talking about Cedric Diggory, Serverus. I know you went back to him that very night, and I cannot imagine he was very welcoming."
"Ah, yes," Snape said quietly, his eyes glinting, "catching up with my old friends. Yes, Minerva, if you are suggesting the Dark Lord did not throw a dinner party upon my return you are correct. But it is of no consequence to you how I found my way back into his good graces. All that matters is that I have, and I am perfectly fine, and if Dumbledore sent you here so that I could talk about my feelings, the pair of you are sorely mistaken."
McGonagall pressed on. "Yes, well all of this, on top of the Potter boy being in such grave danger. I know its quite trying, seeing the boy in his current state, so afraid and upset. He's just so young..."
Snape scoffed. "Potter? Potter. Surely you are joking, Minerva, the boy is insufferable. I assure you my concerns about Potter are limited to making sure he does not get himself killed as Dumbledore, for whatever reason, has deemed him quite valuable. The fact that Potter had a bad day most certainly not keeping me up at night."
Minerva felt her blood pressure rise. She could usually tolerate Snape, and she was practically the only person on staff not currently questioning his loyalties, but his unrelenting hatred of poor Harry Potter made her want to slap the smug look off of his face. Truthfully this was an emotion felt quite often when dealing with the Potions master. But Snape was not finished.
"Personally I doubt the boy living or dying is of any real consequence. Our efforts to stop the Dark Lord would not be hindered by his disappearance. He has no measurable amount of skill and yet you all treat his as though he is the answer to our prayers, which has done nothing but boost the boy's self esteem, an area in which he has never been lacking. Now Minerva if you are done looking at me with false concern so that you can tell Dumbledore you have done what he has asked, I would greatly appreciate it if I could get back to my exams."
Ready to burst, Professor McGonagall sighed and turned to go, but suddenly she felt that it was all too much. Here she was, shivering and shaking down in the dungeon, when she herself had exams to grade and much to worry about, all to see how Severus Snape was feeling, and he was acting as if she were the one inconveniencing him. What was Dumbledore thinking? As if Snape would talk to her about such things. Oh how she would love to get the better of him, just once. And in a split second she whirled around, deciding to act on a hunch that she had always hoped was true.
"Do you think me a fool Severus?" She asked, her eyes flashing beneath her spectacles. She took a deep breath. "I know exactly why you of all people are protecting Harry Potter."
Snape leaned back in his chair, preparing himself for the variety of things that his colleague might say. He had heard almost all of them spouted off together by one Sirus Black the night before in Dumbledore's office. Self serving and opportunistic. Only trying to avoid Azkaban. Once a dark wizard, always a dark wizard. He fixed his face in a look of contempt as he gazed up at Minerva, prepared for any of these, but to his surprise she turned around to face the rows of empty desks.
After a moment she spoke again, gazing out at the empty Potions classroom. "As you well know, Severus, being a professor often means knowing far more that you would care to know about your students. It is so easy, you see, to watch them."
She glanced back at him, and then began to walk, as though she were teaching the vacant desks. "In class, in the Great Hall. We are at all times above them, both figuratively and literally. A position that makes it quite easy to study their behavior. To see which students are exchanging glances across the classroom, who is partnering with whom. You can see allegiances quite clearly simply by noting who laughs when a student makes a joke. Of course it is all the more telling by who does not laugh when someone is the target of a joke."
Minerva turned once more to face Snape, his expression still impossible to read. Snape felt terribly bored. He was sure she was about to make some sort of comparison of professors watching their students to professors watching each other. Or Dumbledore watching his professors. Really neither made sense. He suddenly became annoyed, usually McGonagall did not waste his time.
"I always watch them very carefully you see. Especially the students in my house. I know you do the same. Every so often there are those special students that you know could be great."
Minerva's voice became quiet, "So you can imagine the interest with which I watched many years ago one of my students, one of my extraordinary students, become such close friends with a Slytherin. It was most unusual, and yet really rather sincere. To see them, smiling at each other secretly in class, taking walks on the grounds when it seemed least likely their classmates would see. And then suddenly then in a flash it was over and done, and I watched these students go their separate ways. Very different ways."
Snape had become very still and even paler than before, and Minerva clasped her hands together so that he could not see how much they were trembling. She had become suddenly frightened, but continued anyway. "Sometimes," she said, her voice distant, "Miss Granger reminds me of her so very much."
Snape's face flushed red and he stood up with a start.
"Granger? Of her? No! Never." He spat the words in a tone of mingled anger and desperation that Minerva had never heard from him, or from anyone for that matter. It took only the lightening fast gleam of triumph in her eyes for Snape to realise his mistake.
His jaw dropped and a look of bewilderment took over his countenance. He had stepped squarely into her trap. His mind began to race, yet everything felt impossibly slow. It had never occurred to him that someone else could know. That someone could have noticed back them, could have pieced it together. What about the others? His colleagues that had once been his professors, could they have noticed too? Even in his panic he felt sure that only Minerva McGonagall was both perceptive and secretly romantic enough to put the pieces together. He stumbled backwards and sank back into his chair.
"The day we learned the Potters were in danger was the day Dumbledore told me you had joined our ranks. As soon as he said it, I just knew." Minerva glanced down and saw that she was not the only one shaking.
"Lily" she said quietly, and Snape closed his eyes at the sound of her name. "So beautiful, so clever. So kind." She reach forward and put her hand on Snape's shoulder. She expected him to flinch, to push her away, but he did not. He remained with his eyes closed, slowly moving his jaw. Whether it was to keep from screaming at her or to keep from crying she did not know, but it occurred to her later that it was probably a little of both.
"Oh Severus," she said, feeling a sudden tightness in her throat, "she would be so very proud."
Snape shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut tightly, but despite his best efforts a single tear escaped from the corner of his eye, and began to run slowly down his pale cheek. Before she could stop herself, Minerva found her hand brushing the tear away. She tightened her grasp on his shoulder, and with that Snape opened his eyes, and Minerva's hands fell back at her sides.
When Snape spoke, it was in a rough whisper. "Potter. He cannot know. Dumbledore has begun to suspect..." His voice trailed off. "It is imperative that the boy does not know."
"Yes, of course."
Snape blinked, and then began to look around as though he had awoken from a dream. Hastily he began to gather his papers, and in that moment Professor McGonagall knew that they would never speak of this again.
"Even after you two split. Even after you all left Hogwarts, I could tell how much she cared for you Severus."
But now Snape did not react. When he looked at her his eyes were dry and his expression was vacant yet severe.
"Minerva, I have no earthly idea what you are talking about. If you'll excuse me, if must attend to my grading." And with that Snape swept out of the room, his robes billowing behind him.
Minerva exhaled, unaware that she had even been holding her breath, and look at the chair where Snape had been sitting with disbelief. She wiped away her own tears and adjusted her glasses, gathered her composure and walked again amoung the desks as she exited the room. When she reached the corridor, she looked back at the classroom, stunned. Then with a flick of her wand she extinguished the lights and shut the doors with a pop, the way she had done at the end of lessons each day for as long as she could remember.
As she began the long climb up the stairs she thought to herself that surely this was not what Dumbledore had expected when he sent her on this errand. Yet as soon as the thought entered her head it occurred to her that perhaps this was exactly what Dumbledore had wanted all along.
