Title: Choices
Rating: Everyone
Author's Note: ADMM Romance?
So I cannot remember the last time I wrote anything, but I have just finished Downton Abbey and spent far too much time reading Carson/Hughes fic to not write something! This was inspired by my new fanficfriend Lovisa Cansino. If you love Carson/Hughes, you must read hers! Be nice, I'm rusty!
Minerva watched from her place near the head table as the last of the students made their way out of the Great Hall. She knew there were only a few minutes to spare before she would be needed in Gryffindor Tower to calm the natives, such as they were, but there was enough time. Surely.
It was her tenth year as a professor at Hogwarts, her third as Head of Gryffindor House and Albus' "right-hand man" as the idiotic, new Defense of Dark Arts professor had put it when they were introduced. For too long, even before she had joined the staff in the castle she had considered home as long as she could remember, she had watched Albus carefully craft an aura of imperviousness around himself. Ever since that bloody war when they had all lost so much, she knew she was among a select group to even have an inkling of the loss and pain he had suffered at the moment of his so-called greatest triumph. To become the most powerful wizard in the world all he had to give up was everything he had held dear.
Or, so he had told her one dreary day as they sat in a small clearing, making their way through a damp forest in slow pursuit of yet another of Grindelwald's henchmen. After weeks of sharing one hovel after another, not even daring the slightest freshening spell for fear of being detected, she finally gathered the courage to ask him the question that had been on her mind since receiving the assignment.
"Why?"
He was the most famous wizard alive; the greatest certainly since Merlin himself. The covers of the Daily Prophet, Witches Weekly, and even Muggle London's Telegraph had all displayed him in his finest glory. He could be the toast of any town he entered, own the key to any city he wished. So why by Godric's Sword was he there with her of all people?
Even then she had loved him, she realized that now, though she would never have admitted it at the time. She had flatly denied all the insinuations made by her girlfriends, laughed off her brothers comments, and assured her parents that her virtue – such as it was at twenty-five years of age – would remain intact, king of the world or not.
But that was exactly the problem. She had been ready – her heart steeled, her will iron-firm – for all the wrong things! Albus had never once boasted about his accomplishments. From the start, he had treated her as an equal, his partner in every way, not at all the pushy, all-knowing ass of a wizard she had expected. On more than one occasion she was sure she had seen him blush while being praised. She had thought he would take the lead, but she found that more often than not he deferred to her, really listening to her suggestions and given thoughtful responses to her questions.
And so she found herself mostly, though not completely comfortable asking the question that had bothered her for weeks.
"Why, Albus? Why are you here?"
And so the story of Gelert Grindelwald, scourge of the Western (and she was sure parts of the Eastern as well) World and Albus Dumbledore, its savior, came tumbling out of the lips she had spent so long attempting not to let her gaze linger on.
At first she had not connected Albus' story of the fair-haired boy with such charm and promise with the madman he had become. It was not until her brave hero's voice cracked describing his sister's fallen body and the horror of his sudden understanding of who – no, what – he had almost become, that Minerva had reached for him, finally understanding at least in part the tortured soul that called out to her through an ocean of blue eyes.
She supposed if she were ever pressed to say the exact moment she fell for him that would be it. As she held him to her, her own tears mixing with his, she felt her soul link with his.
"Another ball come to an end," Albus half-bowed to her.
"As you choose, Albus." She tried to keep her expression stern though it felt a lifetime since she had ever really fooled him.
"A choice, my dear?" He seemed perplexed as he indicated the empty room before them.
"Yes, though I believe my dance card is still empty, should you change your mind."
There was silence between them and she wondered if it would always be her that spoke first, drawing out the confessions.
She felt him move toward her; his hand reaching out to take hers, when the voice came. "Professor McGonagall?" Her charges needed her and for the first time ever, she considered a dereliction of duty.
Later as she sat in her drawing room, sipping tea and going over that single moment in time, she wondered how long it had lasted. It could have been a mere second or perhaps minutes. She thought to go to him, but decided against it. She had said all she felt comfortable with. It was up to him to decide.
Just as she was about to turn in for what would assuredly be a sleepless night, there was a knock at the door. She opened it, not caring that her hair hung in a long, messy braid over her shoulder or her dressing gown was undone. She knew it was Albus and he had seen her at her worst. An experience they shared, she thought.
She stood at the door, looking in his direction without quite making eye contact. She could see from his equally disheveled appearance that he too had been thinking, questioning, deciding she hoped.
After what seemed an eternity of moments, his gentle fingertips, the index slightly stained with purple ink she noticed, lifted her chin until her gaze was forced to meet his.
She could see the question in his eyes; the simple why that had begun the last twenty years of their friendship. For nearly half her life she had waited for him to look at her as he was now. With a half smile, he leaned forward and gently kissed her lips, keeping eye contact to the last moment.
"Shall we dance, my dear?"