She had no memory, no memory at all of their time together. What she must have thought when he'd asked her to come to his rooms… he buried his face deeper in his long-fingered hands. Despite their relationship over the last few weeks he couldn't help but feel he'd acted like a lecherous old man. He found himself back at square one, lusting after something that was strictly taboo – even if he'd already tasted the forbidden fruit.
How had he gotten it so wrong? What should have been a relatively simple spell had run amok, charging down not only the last night they'd spent together but every night they'd spent together. 'Professor?' he felt the seat beside him depress and lifted his head with a small, rueful smile. He was surprised how much it pained him to hear her call him professor, had not realised how much he loved to hear his name on her lips. She'd helped herself to his drinks cabinet, pouring out two generous doses of Ogdens, one of which she was holding out to him.
She seemed to have regained some of her composure, though it was clear from her drawn face that she was still struggling to overcome the shock. He caught himself before reaching out to comfort her; he didn't want to startle her by being so familiar. 'I'm sorry, Minerva. You're waiting for the explanation you deserve,' he sighed, noticing the way she perched on the edge of her seat, almost as if she was afraid; not of him but, like so many, of the unknown. He could not imagine what this must be like for her.
He stood, pacing around the back of the sofa, giving her space - as if that was what she needed. What Minerva desperately wanted was reassurance, the explanation he had promised her, if she only knew what she was dealing with she felt she'd have a better time handling it. She mastered the urge to hurry him along, twisting in her seat as she followed his progress around the room.
'I suppose I should start at the beginning…' and here he fell at the first hurdle. How to explain those first tumultuous weeks?
He was roused from his thoughts by Minerva's quiet question. 'How long have we been… seeing each other?'
'Seven weeks.' He smiled in spite of himself. 'Seven wonderful weeks,' he added softly, earning himself a faint smile. Drawing courage from this he continued, 'You were quite persistent in your advances, quite determined to have your own way.' She glanced down at the carpet, blushing profusely and yet feeling a glimmer of pride at her own daring. She scarcely knew she had it in her. 'I tried to dissuade you of course, it wasn't proper, the consequences if we were caught … but you convinced me we could find a way, and we did for a while, until Friday night that is.' He explained the events that had led them to their present predicament. 'I thought it would be best to wipe your memories of that night. I was afraid you'd use that excellent brain of yours and completely contradict what I'd already told Madam Hopkins. I had intended to return them just as soon as I had you to myself.' He slumped back down at the end of the sofa. 'I don't understand what went wrong! It wasn't supposed to wipe everything like this.'
Minerva reached up, running her fingers over her forehead, hopelessly trying to force her mind to remember. 'I hit my head,' she said suddenly. 'Could that have affected the spell? Caused an … I don't know … a domino effect?'
'It's possible,' he conceded, 'considering the evidence, it's most likely.'
'Well, at least that gives us a place to start.' She got up, pacing, a feverish intensity in her eyes. 'We'll go to the library, find out if there have been any previous cases of memory spells being affected like this. This can't be an isolated incident.'
'Minerva,' he started to protest but she wasn't listening.
'It's just a matter of finding the right counter-spell.'
'Minerva,' he said more firmly but still she continued, sure she could find an answer if she just read enough books. 'And nobody will ever know how close we came.'
He stood, taking her by the shoulders to still her. 'Minerva, I will not risk your health further by attempting to cure this myself,' he told her in no uncertain terms. He had the gift of grasping a lesson the first time round.
She smiled indulgently, as if he was missing a point she was only too happy to explain. 'But if we find a counter-spell there's no reason-'
'No,' he shook his head resolutely, 'I've already made one mistake.'
'Well what other option do we have?' she asked. There were only two choices as far as she could see. 'You don't expect me to live with this gaping hole in my memory? Who's to say it won't get worse without treatment?'
'You're right,' he nodded. 'I would never forgive myself if the damage spread.' He finally released her shoulders, seeming to come to a decision. 'You need treatment.'
The original glow of triumph was fast fading from Minerva's expression as she interpreted the grave look in Albus's. She shook her head, a small incredulous smile on her face, 'Tell me you're not thinking what I think you're thinking.'
Minerva hadn't been able to concentrate all day. Never in her seven years at Hogwarts had time acted so peculiarly. Every lesson seemed to drag on forever and yet the day was over before she was fully prepared for it. Transfiguration had been especially hard as she had to constantly stop herself from sending pleading looks in Dumbledore's direction. It had suddenly dawned on her that the man was quite as crazy as people thought he was. What he was proposing, no, not proposing – what he was actually going to do was confess all about their relationship to the last person in the world who'd understand; the one person Minerva was sure had never been in love in her life and would not think twice about having them both ejected from the school.
She and Albus had argued until Minerva was blue in the face - and still no closer to convincing him that he was obviously having a hysterical reaction to the situation. Nothing she said could persuade him to change his mind. That hadn't stopped her from using every spare moment throughout the school day dashing back to his classroom to have another stab at it though. She'd begged, she'd pleaded, she'd threatened and finally she'd resorted to bribery, offering every enticement she could think of, all to no avail: he was proving to be just as stubborn as she was.
And now, here she was, sitting pretty while he did exactly what he'd promised to do last night… while he confessed to Madam Hopkins. As she shifted on the hard wooden chair outside the nurse's office Minerva wondered if it wouldn't be best to just conjure a spade and start digging now…
'If this is another example of your twisted sense of humour, Albus, I am not amused.' Madam Hopkins leant back in her seat, arms folded over her ample chest, giving Albus the no-nonsense glare she usually reserved for the students.
He shook his head, forcing himself to meet her eye though he felt like the twelve year old boy of yester-year who'd sat in this very room, eyes fastened to his shoe-laces as he'd scuffed his shoes on the worn linoleum tiles. 'This is no jest, Sara, I – we – need your help.'
The nurse's glare faltered for a moment in astonishment. Never in all her years did she think that Albus Dumbledore would be sat here narrating the tale of his affair with a student – granted a very intelligent, mature student but a student none-the-less! Albus Dumbledore, the epitome of gentlemanly decorum, who hadn't so much as been on a date in three years, involved with the Head Girl of Hogwarts? Impossible! 'Do be serious,' was all she managed to splutter.
She waited impatiently for him to break into a smile, to admit that it was some crazy joke – she even glanced at the calendar in the hopes that it was the first of April. Albus kept a stubborn silence, waiting patiently for her to wrap her mind around the truth of the matter. He was not entirely sure that she wouldn't simply turn them over to Dippet. His only ray of hope was that he had known Sara Hopkins most of his life and they were good, if unlikely, friends. If anyone would help them it would be her.
After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence she finally squawked, 'How could you be so stupid? For Morgana's sake, Albus, she's a student! A student! You've got witches practically lining up outside your door! How could you – why would you – of all the idiotic things to do!'
Albus was suddenly very glad he'd cast a silencing charm on the room; with the way she was carrying on half the school would have heard her. He was also grateful that Minerva wasn't privy to the sound bollocking he was getting, he did have some pride. 'Are you finished?' he asked when she paused for breath.
She shot him a murderous look, 'Oh I haven't even started!' she promised. 'You're four times her senior. I never thought that you, of all people would abuse your position in such a way! She's only eighteen – barely more than a child! To take advantage of –' she stopped abruptly when Albus shot angrily to his feet.
'I did not – I would never – how could you think…?' the words seemed to fall over each other, fighting for priority. He stopped himself before he said something he would regret, turning to face the door, trembling with fury at the raw nerve she had touched. It was what everyone would think, wasn't it? That he had taken advantage of a student for his own nefarious purposes. Had he not questioned the morality of his actions a thousand times himself? And yet it hurt to hear the words from the mouth of a friend.
Sara looked as though she'd received a heavy blow to the head, robbed momentarily of speech as Dumbledore's anger dissipated, shoulders slumped in defeat, and he returned to his seat. 'Oh, Albus…' she murmured sadly. 'You stupid, foolish old man…' she closed her eyes as if in pain.
'Yes, I think we already covered that salient point,' he murmured. He felt awful. When it had simply been him and Minerva it had been so effortless, so easy to disregard the age-gap. That she was a student and he a professor hadn't mattered because they were too busy enjoying being together but in the cold light of other people's opinions his confidence was nose-diving faster than a Wronski Feint.
As loathe as he was to admit it, he'd never placed himself in such a morally questionable position with a pupil before and while he was usually the cool-headed one in a crowd he found that he was handling the situation poorly. He was forced to conclude that he wouldn't feel this way if somewhere deep down he wasn't ashamed of their relationship.
He didn't like it. He wasn't sure how much more guilt he could bear to carry.
'How long?' Sara's question broke into his ever-more depressing thoughts.
'How long what?' he asked resignedly.
Her usually strict demeanor had evaporated in the face of his obvious pain, after all, people didn't become Healers because they liked seeing others suffer. Unfortunately there wasn't a lot she could do for love-sickness. 'How long have you been in love with her?'
He stiffened at her words, caught off-guard. He turned them over in his mind. How much more emotional raking he could take he wasn't sure. What remained of his composure seeped out of him leaving him feeling utterly desolate at the pity in her words, as if he could never hope to have his love returned. Maybe he was a foolish old man. 'Will you help Minerva?'
She studied him for a moment, taking in the slump of his shoulders, the worry evident in his cloudy blue eyes. She gave in with a short nod of consent. 'I'll try.'
It was the least she could do.
Minerva's heart leapt up into her throat when the door to the office swung open, revealing a grim Madam Hopkins. She jumped to her feet, wide green eyes following the nurse's progress onto the main ward uncertainly until Albus appeared. He nodded, squeezing her shoulder with a reassuring smile and gesturing for her to follow Sara. 'I'll wait here.'
Swallowing her apprehension as best she could, Minerva did as she was bade, perching on the edge of one of the pristine white beds. The curtains had been pulled around, obscuring them from prying eyes. She flinched when Hopkins rapped her over the head, a little harder than was necessary, with her wand. It felt like her brain was melting, about to pour out of her ear: while it wasn't painful it was highly unpleasant. She tried to clamp her hand over her ear but it was promptly slapped back down.
She bit back an indignant comment, sitting up a little straighter, wishing the examination could just be over. She couldn't fail to notice the less than genial looks the nurse was giving her and yet she couldn't place exactly what those looks were trying to convey. One moment she thought it was anger, the next curiosity, accusation, disbelief. She couldn't figure it out. She disapproved, that much was obvious, but there was something else and she got the feeling that it was less to do with her and more to do with Albus.
She stifled a gasp as a thin stream of silver vapour poured out of her ear – at least she assumed it was coming from her ear – and coalesced into a shining sheath of parchment that Madam Hopkins plucked out of the air. She 'hmmed' and 'ahhed' until Minerva's nerves could stand it no longer. 'Well?'
She'd been trying to decipher the strange swirling multi-coloured mist wafting across the page and was no closer to understanding that than being able to speak Mermish. Sara gave her a stern look that clearly stated she should hold her tongue or risk having it jinxed off: it was not her natural inclination to be helping them at all let alone brook the impatience of a foolish school-girl who'd gotten it into her head to seduce the deputy headmaster of the most prestigious school in Europe. She checked the parchment one more time before crushing it into smoke. She pulled back the curtains, gesturing for Albus to come in.
Minerva slid off the bed, standing a respectable distance from Dumbledore. Madam Hopkins pursed her lips. 'Well the good news is that you didn't erase the memories completely.' She threw a reproachful look in Albus' direction who was too busy being relieved to notice. 'There is a treatment. Unfortunately Hogwarts is not equipped to administer it.'
'What do you mean?' asked Minerva, clearly horrified. It had not occurred to her that Madam Hopkins, as acerbic and unsociable as she was, would not be able to help her. 'Why can't you do it?'
Albus could feel Sara bristling, as if Minerva had questioned her very competence as a Healer, and stepped between them, placing a quieting hand on Minerva's shoulder. This seemed to irk his old friend even more as she ground out, 'The memory is a very tricky area to treat. It requires a specialist – unless you would rather risk losing another chunk of your life?'
Dumbledore cut in before Minerva could respond. 'Saint Mungo's, I presume?'
Madam Hopkins was looking surlier than ever as she wrenched the curtains back, tying them with a flick of her wand. 'The sooner, the better.'
Minerva felt like a drowned rat. It had been tipping it down ever since she reached London, soaking through the feeble Muggle skirt and blouse she'd been forced to wear as quickly as it had soaked the so-called 'raincoat' Albus had transfigured for her. She felt a sudden jolt of anger at the thought of Albus; he'd promised to meet her in the Leaky Cauldron at eleven but after half an hour of waiting Minerva had been forced to leave without him or risk missing her appointment with the Memory specialist.
He knew what time she had to be there though and she held fast to the hope that he would be waiting for her with a bloody good excuse. She sneezed, almost up-ending herself as the ridiculous high-heeled shoes slipped on the waterlogged pavement. Heeled shoes were all well and good for parties and formal occasions but she always had difficulty when faced with uneven ground. Luckily a passing gentleman caught her arm before she surrendered to the highly embarrassing predicament of being knocked on her ass in the middle of a busy street. She sent him a grateful smile, pulling a lace handkerchief out of her pocket. 'Thankyou.'
He gave her a toothy smile, doffing his hat. 'You're welcome, miss,' he nodded, surprising her with a soft American accent, before carrying on his way. Probably one of the G.I.'s sent over to join the Muggle war effort.
It was another ten minutes before a thoroughly disgruntled Miss McGonagall reached St. Mungo's shivering with cold. She'd managed to break her heel, wedging it in the crack between two paving slabs, and had to duck into a public toilet to repair the damage before half-running the rest of the way for fear she'd be late, only to find that the healer she was supposed to be seeing was held up on an emergency. On top of all that, Albus was still nowhere to be seen. This was shaping up to be a bad day, not that she'd been expecting it to be a laugh riot in the first place.
She climbed the stairs, cutting a wide birth around a man on the third floor who'd sprouted three extra arms and was using them to full advantage on any female who came within arms' reach. Not that she couldn't handle herself but she thought it foul-play to jinx a hospital patient – no matter how uncouth. She pushed through the double doors on the fourth floor labelled 'Spell Damage', her feeling of dread growing with every step she took down the long corridor. She hated hospitals. She began reading the signs she passed in an effort to distract herself: The Regis Bubkis Ward, Horatio Haughton Ward, Janus Thickey Ward… She had just passed the Edgar Winkleby Ward when she heard someone call her name.
She turned around to glare soundly at Albus as he rushed towards her. 'Am I late?'
'Don't tell me that the great Albus Dumbledore can't tell the time?' she said, planting her hands on her hips.
'I'm sorry, my meeting with the Minister took longer than I thought.' How could she argue with that? If the Minister for Magic himself wanted Albus' time, how could she be angry that he wasn't here with her? She told herself that she was being too clingy, shrugging off the feeling of neglect. He was here now and that was what mattered. 'Have you spoken with the Healer yet?'
'No, apparently there's been an emergency,' she rolled her eyes, continuing on down the corridor. 'So what did our esteemed head of state want?'
'It seems there is a situation brewing in Eastern Europe.'
'And they're in need of your diplomatic skills?' His eyes flickered from sign to sign, landing on 'incorrectly applied charms' and he steered her into a small waiting room.
'Not exactly,' he admitted but didn't elaborate further and she let the subject drop. She shivered again, pulling out her wand to cast a drying charm on her clothes. Seeing that Albus was quite as bedraggled as she, she decided to wring him out too. He smiled, giving her an appraising look as they sat down on the thinly padded wooden seats. 'How are you feeling?'
She cast him a side-long look. 'I'm not ill, per se,' she reminded him.
'That's not what I meant. You seem tense,' he observed.
'The last time I was in hospital I had third degree burns,' she grimaced. 'Not a good memory.'
'What happened?' he shifted in his seat, curiosity piqued.
'It was stupid. I was six years old and wanted to go seen nanny Mac but dad said he didn't have time today, we'd have to go another day. Well I didn't think much of that and decided I'd just Floo over by myself – I'd done it with dad often enough.' She looked at Albus, wondering if he'd figured out her near fatal mistake. 'I forgot the Floo Powder.'
He closed his eyes, horror-struck. 'Oh no.'
'Oh yes,' she nodded. 'I was here for a month, smothered in ointment every two hours. It was four years before I used the Floo network again.'
'I'm surprised you use it at all.'
'I'm not overly fond of it but travelling can be quite difficult otherwise. I was glad to get my Apparation Test.'
He plucked her hand out of her lap, pressing it between his own. 'Try not to worry too much. I'll be right here, I'm not going anywhere,' he promised.
'Minerva McGonagall?'
She looked up to see a blonde witch in her fifties looking at her over the top of her clipboard. It was a stupid question really considering she had an appointment and was the only person, save for Albus, in the waiting room and he certainly didn't look like a Minerva. She diplomatically decided not to voice this opinion and nodded instead. The healer's gaze flickered to their entwined hands and she shot a look of deepest disgust at Albus before saying, 'I'm Healer Mederi. If you'd like to follow me.'
Albus could feel the indignation radiating off Minerva as they stood. Her cheeks were flaming as she opened her mouth to retaliate but Albus shook his head, relinquishing her hand to give her a gentle nudge after the Healer. They found themselves in a small examination room, seating themselves before a cluttered desk. 'I received a letter from your Healer at Hogwarts…' she riffled through the papers on the desk, pulling out Minerva's file. 'I see she's diagnosed Cataracta Memoria – cascade memory failure,' she added at Minerva's blank expression. 'I'm afraid that the treatment can be quite unpleasant for some people. Of course it differs from patient to patient.'
'What is the treatment?' Dumbledore asked but it was Minerva she addressed.
'You'll need to take a memory draught – that's the easy part. Unfortunately it won't just return lost memories. You'll be reliving your entire life, starting with the earliest, working your way back up to the present day. As I said, this can be unpleasant but it's the only way to retrieve the lost memories. Of course,' she added almost conspiratorially, steadfastly ignoring Dumbledore's presence, 'no one's saying you have to go through with the treatment. You won't lose any more memories and I dare say the ones you have lost,' she glanced down at Madam Hopkins letter, 'are no great loss.'
'I want the treatment,' Minerva said immediately through gritted teeth, more out of anger than anything else.
'Minerva, think about this,' Albus said quietly. 'You should take your time, take as much time as you need.'
Minerva turned to look at him defiantly, repeating, 'I want the treatment.' Albus sighed. The Healer wasn't making things easy. Minerva was likely to do anything if she was riled enough and he wanted her to make an informed decision.
'Well, you've certainly done a good job on her, haven't you?' muttered Mederi. Albus could have slapped his forehead.
'Perhaps you should stick to Healing and keep your opinions to yourself,' suggested Minerva icily.
Mederi pursed her lips, declining further comment but sending another disdainful look at the Deputy Headmaster. Minerva seemed to struggle with herself. Her hand was clenched on the wand in her pocket and she would have dearly loved to turn the Healer into an amoeba.
Unfortunately if she did that there was every chance she wouldn't be getting her treatment any time soon. She took several deep, calming breaths and counted to ten. When she was sure of her control she said, 'Shall we get started then?'