The woman is a menace on my mind. Why is she on my mind? I find myself ceaselessly requesting answers to these questions, yet none come. I frown. Such seems the nature of questions at these times.
A foul pink amphibian is running this school and scouring the hands of my precious students—betimes resembling pests—and gifting me with a headache of grand scales. To top it all off, the blonde-topped fuzz ball of a Professor is drowning her tears in cooking sherry. My dreams are beginning to resemble a combination of ruined pond ecosystems and hoards of house-elves waving kitchen knives uniting, screaming about 'lessened supplies.'
I have to put an end to this before the two combine.
I smirk some at the thought. A hoard of weapons-wielding house elves set on that presumptuously and deceitfully saccharine toad would not be half bad.
No, I scold lightly. The thoughts of a cynic will not help me now. As often as my colleague dons the roll of fraud, she will—I grudgingly admit—successfully sense my mood when I enter. I keep her true identity well hidden. It does not keep my identity hidden from her.
"Enter," she slurs before I touch the doorframe. I allow myself the illusion that she only heard my old knees on the stairs. I drink a breath of heavily scented air and step forth.
This is a kingdom entirely different from my own. Where I adopt frugal practicality, she destroys all thoughts of realism with perfumed sticks, tinkling glass, and an assortment of fantastical decorations. The only thing she is careful not to decimate is stereotype—it keeps her here.
"You are concerned," she tells me in the sort of dreamy voice I would expect from a Thestral-loving, blonde-haired Ravenclaw I have come to know. Trelawny is peeking out the long curtains covering her high windows.
I am beyond the days of taking amusement from petty habits of hers, such as how she just told me my own mood. I find it best to acquiesce to whatever her thoughts on my emotions are. They lead to a general good.
"Yes." Our conversation is truly shooting its way to the stars. I groan inwardly. It will be in Sinistra's hands soon, no doubt.
"Umbridge?" she asks.
I'm flattered that she would bother asking anything of me at all. Most days I receive simply statements of my own life.
"Yes," I repeat. I will re-adopt my vocabulary at a later date.
She turns to watch me. Her insect eyes are unnerving, shining through her shawl-shrouded face. I see only the oval of hear features. Beyond that soft countenance, I witness a lump of flowing fabrics.
I hone in on her blank visage once more. Her façade is over when I note that, though her face remains clear as a clean canvas, tearstains catch the colored lights of the room.
"Me?" she inquires. I detect a slight note of hope in her otherwise vacant voice. Years ago I would have taken pleasure in such simple facts.
Now, I offer her a sad smile in response. She understands. I take three steps into the room and hold myself tall, my eyes level. I can feel her searching me.
"Potter?"
Try as I might, I feel my face fall. I feel a blow to the back of my knees and my spine lurch from strictly stiff to a limp stalk. It is all but a second before I gain composure, but she knows. Of course she knows. One does not need an Inner Eye to gather such things, and she has one of those to further her evidence.
"Always Potter," I say. My voice sounds meek to my ears. I would be mistaken to think that anyone besides the two women in this room would notice.
She stands and I face, across the room, a woman of equal stature watching me through patient blue eyes. She speaks not.
I step forward.
"He joins your dreams?"
I step forward.
"You wonder?"
I step forward.
"You wish…?"
I step forward.
"You nurture."
I reach her and gaze through a glass wall into her surprisingly clear sky-blue eyes. It is only with this woman that I think of such seemingly petty things as 'glass wall' metaphors. When moments come that she drops her pretexts, I feel a reciprocal in myself without any measure of choice. I know what will come next but do not prepare my inner shields.
"You hope."
The glass wall between us shatters. Yes, I hope.
I hope he lives to fall in love with a red-haired, fast-tempered girl the way his father did. I hope he lives to love and protect his children the way his mother did. I hope he lives to hold his position at his friends' backs the way his Godfather did.
I hope, in short, he lives.
When there is hope, I regret to inform myself, there is the realization that what I hope could still yet fail me. At this point I don't bother to hope that I live to see the life I wish for him. I believe it too late for myself. I will sacrifice for him, as so many others will. My life is inconsequential to me, to my hopes.
She follows every movement my body makes. The twitch of my tight lips, the long blink of my eyelids, the clench of my fists, and the jump of my leg muscles as I strive to stand.
"You nurture him and hope for him. You nurture me and hope for me," she says. Her blonde curls sway as her jaw tilts. Her eyes never leave mine. "Who nurtures you? Who hopes for you?"
She pauses. I can feel—though I never know how—that her next response will be a spot of humor. She is good that way.
"Certainly not Umbridge?"
Somehow, it is the straw that breaks the donkeys back, and I do not even wince to call myself a donkey and all other connotations involved with the stubborn mammal. Even as I break, I am unyielding.
She knows I have broken as I turn and take a seat on the end of her bed. The outer signs are there. They are flashing billboards to her where they would be miniscule, easily unnoticed details to others.
She walks to face me and looks down. Her eyes are everything. They are concepts, words, pictures, memories, the past, and the future. They are what I accuse her of never becoming part of: the present.
Presently, I join her in the plane of emotions and fears. It is a place I do not enjoy offering my company. This place is a part of the present that I avoid at all cost, through books and stern looks and denial. This place is a home to her, which is something I do not presume to understand.
"Who will nurture and hope for you?" she repeats. I watch her and swallow. Someone with less experience than I would give her the answer she is expecting.
"I," is my response. It is to my own astonishment that she shows no initial response of surprise. No, of course not. I have been proven wrong once more. She expected the correct answer from me, not the common answer. I am only wrong in guessing she would expect less.
She walks forward and sits on her heels, looking up at me. I remotely register the meaning of the change in position. It is Sybil's language, the body and soul. I use my mind, my language, to understand that by lowering herself she has put me in command of conversation.
"Do you need to cry?" she asks me. Her spoken word has always been subtle. She does not ask me, do I wish to cry? Is it my desire to cry?
No, do I need to cry?
I feel a part of myself give. I admit defeat, though she would never consider tears a weakness. I nod my head.
"Breathe," she coaches. I would resent the comment coming from any other person.
"What if he dies?"
I explode. Pieces of me fly inside my mind. The promises that I made with Fate, the idea that I can present him immortality through suppressing my own needs. This pain is searing me open.
Physically, I feel arms wrap around my waist and my neck. Lips have been pressed against my hair.
Inside I am a mess. My mask, my perfunctory self, my Perfect Professor veneer is intact and brushed off to the side. It is my constant friend and forever enemy.
Behind that, I am a tangled snare of repressed emotion. I observe it as I grow nearer. Trelawny has opened my Pandora's box. She blew of the latch and called the emotions I had hidden out into the open.
It is not my job to put them back. It is my job, regretfully, to feel them. Even now my thoughts are my ruling suit. I push thoughts away.
I gasp, groan, moan. I twitch, flail, stiffen. I scream, cry, sob.
This is my payment for ignoring such a key part of myself. When I leave the expanse of my head and heart and reenter my physical body, I open my eyes to find myself staring at the cloth-covered ceiling.
My hair has escaped its confinement and snarled its way in every direction below and around me. My limbs are wide apart, creating a star with my head. Some of my nails are broken. Some of the blankets are ripped. There is blood in my mouth.
Her lips are on mine, tenderly healing the pain they had experienced. I focus on her.
Her serenity anchors me once more. She is blurry in my salt-soaked eyes, but she is present and centered. I reach out and cup her cheeks.
"You cried," she tells me. Another Lovegood assessment. I pull her close and hold on tight.
She worms out and straddles my hips. She smiles—the first smile I have seen in months. I know now that I nurture her, I hope for her. It is a circle.
"You are raw," I am told. She plucks off her shawls and scarves one by one, tosses them and watches them as they flutter in their own slow pace to the floor. I am entranced. Soon she has scattered the room with all of her clothing and she sits astride me gloriously nude.
"You are raw like this, on the inside."
She begins to work on my clothing. So like her, to bring something present inside to the exterior. I am soon basking in my own natural outfit.
"I can help nurture you now. You are ready to accept."
I nod. I am not fazed by her all-knowing statements.
Her kisses leave healed and whole feelings in their wake. I allow myself to experience every sensation and emotion.
I am open to every move of her fingers, skin, lips, and tongue. I clench my eyes and watch fireworks play in my vision. This is my reward for embracing such a key part of myself.
I gasp, groan, moan. I twitch, flail, stiffen. I scream, cry, sob.
This is the essence of beauty. It is something I never expect in times of darkness. Somehow, that makes it more so. It is my lantern in the darkness.
She cradles me in her arms and kisses me gingerly, slowly. She is nurturing and hoping. I am nurturing and hoping. Together, we remember the past, live in the present, and wait for the future.
We are molded together in slumber. This is my definition of deep sleep. I hold her closer.
The morning announces itself by a ray of pure delight peeking through the colorful curtains of gauzy, sparkling cloth. I stir, yawn, and stretch. She smiles a sleepy smile in my direction. She doesn't need to speak for me to know that there is a cat remark on the tip of her tongue.
"Cat got your tongue," I remark and beat her to the punch. I mark her lips with mine before she can respond. Instead, she watches me as I pull back the covers and stand.
My body is old. My story is etched deeply into my skin, which does not embrace me as tightly as it once did. I am old and growing wiser—I need no such embrace. I am comfortable in my skin. It need not keep such close watch on me.
She is still smiling at me as she reaches up and brushes a small lock of grey back into the falling waves of shining ebony hair behind my shoulder.
My body is old indeed. The weight of my knowledge pulls me closer to the ground, where I will some day find my final home. This does not scare me. I have much to offer before that time.
We don't need to speak as we gather our clothing. As I don mine, I feel the presence of my worn façade. My face grows slightly sterner, my back straighter, my demeanor demanding proper attention. I can tell by the dazed features that flutter over Trelawny's face that she has stepped into her own misleading role.
For the next few moments we remain our liberated selves, free to joke and smile.
"I trust I will see you at this afternoon's staff meeting?" I question in imitation of my sternest Deputy Headmistress tone.
"Afraid not, Minerva," she replies. "I foresee a dreadful cold in your direct future, and a fall down steep steps in my own."
"Only if I push you, you old fraud," I tease in a pleased whisper.
"I'll take you down with me."
We go in for a quick peck simultaneously. I leave her quarters and head for my own.
The next time I see her, I will have equal eyes for every entity in the room and a disdainful reply to any response that displeases me. She will have dazed insect eyes forever watching the 'future'—not the desk directly in front of her—and doomsday declarations for every ear within Sight.
We all have our secrets.