For alicenotinwonderland - happy birthday! Wishing you a lovely day, and I hope you like this. :)
April 1998
When Minerva looked back on her life, she could clearly see how she had changed, and how the innermost desires of her heart had changed with her. At the height of the Second Wizarding War, she was sixty-eight years old and, so she believed, far wiser than she had been as a girl of eighteen, or even a widow of fifty.
Had she been able to look into the Mirror of Erised as a love-struck, recent Hogwarts graduate, she would have seen a different life for herself, a life where the Statute of Secrecy didn't matter, where revealing her magic wouldn't mean losing her job, and keeping her job wouldn't mean losing the first and greatest love she would ever know.
He may have been a Muggle, but Dougal Macgregor swept her off her feet over the course of a single summer. He was handsome, clever and funny, and Minerva found herself daydreaming about the future they would share together, and counting down the seconds until she could see him again.
Accepting his proposal was the most spontaneous decision she'd ever made, and for the entire hour until she returned to her parents' house that night, she felt giddy with happiness, so light and carefree that she felt as if the tiniest breeze might lift her up and carry her away.
Back in her own bed, she was shaken from her flights of fancy, back into reality. She knew what marriage to a Muggle would mean, she'd seen it happen to her mother, and she wasn't prepared to live a life of secrecy, to give up the world she held so dear, no matter how much she loved Dougal, and he her. So even though the pain was almost more than she could bear, she found him the next morning to break off their engagement, and fled to London.
At eighteen, and for many years after, it was Dougal she'd see standing next to her in the Mirror.
She couldn't forget him, despite the fact that she never saw him again following that painful day. He held a spot inside her heart – and there is such a spot in every heart – that given to the first pangs of love, and scarcely a day went by when she didn't imagine what he might be doing, whether he'd moved on and married someone else, if he thought of her as often as she thought of him.
Her feelings for Elphinstone were quite unlike those she'd had for Dougal, not in the least because he'd initially been her boss. Caught off guard by his first proposal in Madam Puddifoot's teashop, she felt no hesitation in declining him. Elphinstone and Minerva, married? The very idea of it was laughable, ridiculous.
And still he had not given up, and while there were times when Minerva found his continuing proposals to be nothing short of exasperating, she was also admittedly quite flattered by his persistence. As time passed, he somehow managed to worm himself into her heart alongside Dougal – never replacing him – and at the time of Dougal's death, Minerva was both saddened and relieved. She no longer felt tied to the farmer who'd stolen her heart, and she felt no small degree of happiness upon accepting Elpinstone's next proposal by the Black Lake.
They were granted three wonderful years together, three years in which Voldemort was dead (gone, and incapable of harming anyone at least) and Minerva was quite content living with Elphinstone in Hogsmeade. But happiness, she had come to accept, was simply not meant for her. Elphinstone's death devastated her all over again.
At fifty, it was Elphinstone's face which would confront her in the Mirror of Erised.
Over the years, her grief had lessened, but never completely disappeared. The pain of lost love never really did
At sixty-eight, all she wanted was a peaceful end to the War, and on May 2nd, she would be granted her desire.
She'd had her heart broken, and broken her own heart more times than she cared to count. She'd felt the touch of deep sorrow, yet she'd also known the strength of love, and when all was said and done, there was nothing left for her to regret. For without her experiences, both painful and pleasant, she wouldn't be the woman she was today, bravely prepared to face the rest of the war, and whatever came with it.
Written for:
The Hugs and Happiness Challenge - Alice
The Legendary Creatures Competition: Bakeneko – write about Minerva
The Hogwarts Classes Category Competition: Study of Ancient Runes – write about a powerful witch/wizard
The Popular Song Competition: One Last Kiss – write about someone who has no regrets
The HP Potions Competition: Aging potion – write about someone in their older years
The Legendary Gods and Goddesses Competition: Athena – write about Minerva
The Wand Wood Competition: Yew – write about a character who is bold/outgoing