AN: WHOOOO HOOOO! Italy in the EURO CUP FINAL!
Disclaimer: I am an italian soccer fan. Italy plays spain in the euro cup tomorrow. I am not rich enough that I could convince Spain to lose for 1000000 dollars. Huh, guess I'm not JK Rowling.
I do not own Harry Potter
Not Yet
Minerva McGonagall stood in the shadows of a Hogwarts broom cupboard, cowering. Hidden away from prying eyes, she watched the scene below unfold through a hole in the wood, green eyes swimming with tears.
He had returned.
He had returned to the one place Minerva hoped his footsteps would never echo again.
She wanted to scream.
What right did he have to come back? Why had he come back?To spit on an old man's grave? To break her? To crush her heart more than he already had? She couldn't let him see how much it hurt.
A single tear slipped through a crack in Minerva's emotional wall. A crack named Severus Snape. Now her entire dam of emotion threatened to burst. The reservoir she worked so hard to maintain.
He was not alone in the hallway. A sickly pale Severus was flanked by two hooded figures, both cackling madly at some twisted inside joke. She knew them. She had heard that laugh before. It had been so long. She had thought they were dead. Minerva blinked hard, confused, angry. Another crack appeared in her concrete barricade. This one by the name of Airyn. The laughing ones had not changed. They had not changed a bit in the seventeen years since they had arrived on her doorstep that night. Their doorstep at the time.
It had taken them forever to agree on a name. Severus had wanted something old, with meaning. Minerva knew the repercussions of such a name. She had wanted something carefree, unique. Minerva had wanted their child to be free from the hurt that they had endured.
They weren't able to agree on anything until Minerva had gone into labor. The forces of nature suddenly forcing them to cooperate. It had all been worth it, the tears, the blood, that promises that they knew would not be kept. Airyn had looked exactly like her. Severus had said she was beautiful, that she was the only person other than Minerva who could make him laugh. It hurts to remember the laughter. Especially now. The last time she had heard the identical laughter of Alecto and Amycus Carrow her precious daughter had lain on the floor unmoving, emerald eyes glazing blindly at the stars, long ebony hair tainted red with blood, her father kneeling beside her, pleading. She hadn't known what was going on. She had rushed home as soon as Severus had sent the distress signal, but all that was left when she arrived was their laughter. The laughter of Alecto and Amycus echoed through the halls of Hogwarts as it had inside Minerva's head for years, she had been too late. Too late to save the one thing she cared for most in the world. That was just another fallen beam in the collapsed roof that made up Minerva McGonagall's world.
The odd trio of spies, maniacs, and murderers made their way down the corridor, while Minerva stood frozen in the broom closet. As Minerva stood listening to their retreating footsteps, a new emotion filled her emerald orbs, a new realization.
She had been too late to save Airyn.
She had been too late to save Albus.
She had been too late to save Severus.
But it wasn't too late for Hogwarts, not yet.