A/N: I planned to have this up on Friday, but work got in the way. And this is a pretty important chapter, so I wanted to get it right. Excited to hear if you like it. :)

30. Souls of Sorrow

Every morning when the owls arrived in the middle of breakfast, the students weren't the only ones who got mail. At the High Table, Albus payed for his newspaper while Horace eagerly accepted a fairly large package and Minerva opened a handwritten letter.

"Finally! I was beginning to think that I had paid for the express overweight delivery for nothing," Horace said as he ripped into his package.

Albus glimpsed several bottles filled with some kind of amber liquid. "Planning another party?"

"Oh no, these are for me. You see, I've recently discovered that the Scandinavians know a thing or two about making excellent mead," Horace explained. "Wait till you try it. Actually, why don't you come by my study tonight? Have a little nightcap?"

"Well, I suppose I…"

His answer was interrupted by the shattering of a teacup on the floor, after it had clearly just slipped from Minerva's hand.

When both Albus and Horace looked at her, she muttered a barely audible apology and waved her wand to repair the cup and mop up the spill. Her hand was shaking.

"Are you…?" Again, Albus didn't get to finish his sentence.

"I need to prepare for class," Minerva cut him off, stood abruptly and fled the table.

"Must have been one hell of a letter," Horace commented with a shrug and reached for Minerva's untouched plate to add her eggs to his own.

"Must have been," Albus replied thoughtfully.

Perhaps there was something in the air because it turned into one of those accident-prone days. In every class, at least one student managed to melt their fingers together, make their vocal cords disappear or set their classmates' robes on fire. It was enough for Albus to gladly accept that nightcap Horace had offered him. He couldn't say if the mead was better or worse than other mead he had tasted, but he paid more attention to the company and the conversation anyway.

It was very late when he left to go to bed. First, he made a beeline for the Transfiguration classroom. He couldn't remember if he had removed the scorch marks after that fire incident from earlier. It had been that kind of a day.

To his surprise, Albus discovered that the classroom door stood slightly ajar. Perhaps somebody else had already thought to clean up in there. When he opened the door further, Albus froze on the threshold, not prepared for what he had just found.

Minerva was sitting on the floor in the dimly lit classroom with her back against the teacher's desk, her knees drawn up to her chest, and she was crying.

For a moment, Albus hesitated. Minerva hadn't noticed him yet and so he could have simply retreated and left her be without intruding on her privacy. So far, she had established very clear boundaries around herself and Albus was sure that she wouldn't want anyone to see her like this. It seemed cruel to add to her anguish by also hurting her pride.

But then she let out a strangled sob that sounded as though it had been torn right from the pit of her soul, and there was truly only one right choice to make.

Albus entered the classroom, closing the door behind him, and then he briskly walked over to where Minerva was sitting and lowered himself to the ground right next to her. When she noticed him, her red-rimmed, tired eyes widened with the shock and embarrassment Albus had anticipated. He ignored it and gently wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

He didn't mean to overstep or push her. Except, maybe he did. He respected her need for privacy. Everyone who had ever known him knew that he shared that need. But her tears formed a language that he understood only too well. It was a language of pain and heartbreak that he, too, had learned. And he refused to let her suffer alone.

Finally, Minerva released the tight hold she had on herself and curled into him. For the longest time, she cried and Albus listened.

Eventually, her tears dried up and she managed to sit up a little straighter and to find command over her voice again. Unsurprisingly, her first words were, "I'm sorry, Professor." But what she said next, he hadn't expected. "I'm a fraud."

"My dear Minerva, I've known you to be many things and even when you've acted rashly or chosen wrong, you couldn't have been further from being false," Albus replied calmly.

She only shook her head. "I didn't come back to this school because I thought I would make a good teacher. I was just trying to hide from my misery, to find some resemblance of happiness."

It took Albus a moment to respond because it was as if she had plucked the words right from his own tongue. "I believe that is what we are all looking for. Certainly, there is nothing wrong with it. But I'm sorry to hear that you have fared so badly outside of these castle walls."

She took a deep breath, looking for the strength to face whatever demons she had carried on her back. Demons that had finally forced her to her knees tonight. "It's funny, actually," she said in a voice that was utterly broken and completely devoid of any humour. "I know my magic comes from my mother, but for the longest time I felt so much closer to my father. But the week I graduated from Hogwarts, I finally acted like my mother's daughter by falling in love with a Muggle."

Whatever Albus had expected her to say, that wasn't it. "I don't see anything wrong with that either," he said gently. "And I'm sure neither do you."

"No, there's nothing wrong with it," Minerva agreed weakly. "And yet, there is everything wrong with it."

"I'm afraid I don't follow."

Minerva lifted her head to look at him, the green of her eyes brimming with tears like fresh morning dew on an empty meadow. "Do you ever feel like we're doomed to repeat our parents' mistakes or to go out of our way, torturing ourselves, in order not to?"

Once again, it was like looking into a mirror, but Albus forced the thought aside because it wasn't his pain that mattered right now. "Are you saying that it was a mistake for your mother to fall in love with your father?"

"To say that would mean to erase my brothers and me from existence," she said hoarsely. "But my parents' marriage was definitely not a normal one."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, for one thing, she didn't tell him that she was a witch."

"Ah," made Albus. Finally he thought he was beginning to understand. A great many things, actually.

"My father is a Presbyterian minister in a small Scottish village. Would he have married a witch?" Minerva asked bitterly. "I don't know. I'm not sure I want to know. But he was never even given the choice. My mother married him, letting him believe the lies about boarding schools and estranged parents, and she had a baby with him. And then I made my toys fly across the room…"

Albus stayed quiet because she didn't need him to say anything right now, but he felt for Isobel and the situation she had found herself in. Unable to hide her true self from the man she loved any longer because of their unusually talented daughter.

"So she finally told him. Of course, there was no more choice for my father to make at that point. Being the honourable man that he is, he abhorred lies and secrecy, but he also believed in forgiveness and love. And yet, I think a part of him never forgot that he went to bed with his god-fearing, perfectly lovely and normal wife one night and woke up with a witch and a witch's daughter the next morning."

"A daughter he loved no less that day, quite possibly more," Albus said pointedly.

Minerva sniffed. "I know that. Still, it's like something straight out of a fairy tale where your real child gets swapped with a magical creature. And my mother, well, she had made her choice knowingly when she had married a Muggle reverend. But I don't think she knew then how hard it would be for her not to do magic. And because of her guilt for lying to her husband like that, I think she felt that she couldn't ask anything else of him – like to move someplace where she could have been a witch again."

In her very first week here at Hogwarts, Minerva had once told Albus a tiny part of all of this, a part that had caused him to suspect that her family's situation was complicated in some way. But he had never fully grasped how complicated until now.

"I knew I would make different choices than my mother," Minerva continued. "I knew I could never suppress my magic for long and I knew I would leave Caithness after one last summer at home. And then I forgot it all when I met him. Dougal," she breathed his name. It was barely more than a whisper. What it lacked in volume, it made up for with feeling. She could have just told Albus this whole story by simply saying the name.

He wouldn't have believed that a heart could be filled with so much conflicting emotions, if he hadn't known from personal experience that it could. It made him wish he could do more for her than just sit here and listen. Not for the first time, it made him feel woefully inadequate.

"And just like your mother, you didn't tell him who you really were," he surmised.

"Of course not. Can't work for the Ministry when you break the International Statute of Secrecy," she confirmed grimly.

"But you don't work there anymore," Albus reminded her. "I assure you Hogwarts won't fire you for telling him the truth. And as for the Ministry… I told you once that they would have to go through me to take you away. Well, that promise still stands." He gave her a wry little smile, but he was quite serious.

There was perhaps a soft answering glimmer in her eyes, but she said, "I don't think he would even talk to me now. He wanted to marry me and I stomped on his heart. It's like you said… some things cannot be forgiven."

"That doesn't mean you shouldn't try."

"This does." She reached into her pocket and held up the crumpled letter from this morning. "It's from my mother. She's always telling me about everything that's going on in the village, and my father… he officiated at a wedding this weekend. Dougal's wedding. To a farmer's daughter who didn't change her mind about marrying him," she managed to explain before her voice broke again.

"I'm sorry, Minerva," Albus said, even though he knew those words to be terribly empty. "But I do not believe you could have made your mother's choice and found happiness in it. We can only hide who we are for so long. In the end, truth will out. And yours, as much as it pains you right now, is a beautiful one."

"What exactly is it, though? My truth?" Minerva asked. "I thought I knew, but now it feels like I have two and they are impossible to reconcile with each other, but not enough to stand on their own either."

"Perhaps you just haven't found the right pieces yet," Albus suggested. "The ones that truly fit."

"You make it sound as though life were a jigsaw puzzle."

"I do happen to think that those are rather ingenious," Albus said, trying for a little lightness. "And maybe the Muggle who invented them also thought that although we all have a picture in our mind of how things should look like in the end, sometimes it takes time and patience to figure out the best way to get there."

Minerva was silent for a long moment, but then she managed a tiny nod. Of course, knowing the truth and accepting it in a way that allowed her to move on were two very different things.

"I don't know how these things always seem to make sense when you say them," she said wryly, "but… thank you for saying them," she added quietly. "And I'm the one who's sorry. I…"

"You have nothing to apologise for," Albus cut her off kindly. "What are shoulders for if not to cry on every now and then?"

"I didn't mean for you to see me in such a state. I'm not usually so weak."

Albus looked at her gravely, wishing she could see herself clearly for once. "Sharing your pain makes you the very opposite of weak." He almost laughed humourlessly when his own words caught up with him. "Which means that if anyone in this room is a fraud, it would be me."

Confused, Minerva met his gaze, her brow furrowed with questions she had asked him a million times over the years. Not once had he answered her truthfully.

"I believe I told you once that my father went to Azkaban. But I never told you why."

"He was convicted for an attack on Muggles."

Albus heaved a sigh. "Yes, but not because he harboured anti-Muggle sentiments. He was exacting his own revenge on them for what they had done to my sister."

Minerva's eyes widened imperceptibly. "I didn't know you have a sister."

"Had," Albus corrected her. After all these years, it shouldn't nearly rip him apart to say that one word, and yet it did.

"They killed her?" Minerva gasped, her hands covering her mouth in shock.

"No," Albus said slowly. "I did."

Minerva lowered her hands. Her eyes were alight with thoughts, but she didn't utter any of them. With her shoulder pressed firmly against his, she merely asked, "What happened?"

Sitting side by side like this was like the crutch he needed to lean on so he could say, "After those Muggle boys had attacked Ariana, she was never the same. Her magic was uncontrollable, violent. No one could know about her condition, or she would have been taken away from us and locked up. I'm sure you can guess why."

"Because she would have been an unacceptable risk to the International Statute of Secrecy." Minerva shuddered. Perhaps she was realising that in her previous position at the Ministry it would have been her duty to take away Ariana.

"Yes, so you see, despite all the good it has done, you and I have both paid a steep price for it," Albus replied. "Though in my case, it was really Ariana and my mother who were the most affected. After my father's sentence, we moved and my mother dedicated her life to caring for Ariana, keeping her inside the house most of the time and telling those who knew of her existence that she was of ill health. So I suppose, in a way, Ariana was locked up one way or another, but my mother gave her everything she could, and in the end, she also gave her life."

Minerva's eyes glittered with fresh tears, though they hadn't fallen yet, which funnily enough gave Albus the strength to continue with his terrible tale.

"It was the year I graduated from Hogwarts. As you know, I'd been meaning to go travelling, but when my mother died in one of Ariana's outbursts, that was out of the question, of course. Someone needed to continue what my mother had done so admirably for so long. My brother wanted to do it. He and Ariana had always been closer than I had to either one of them. After all, I had my books and my brilliant school career and the brightest of futures. But I was also the adult and Aberforth was not. So it had to be me, as much as I resented the idea of being a glorified babysitter. In my supreme arrogance, I was convinced that I was meant for greater things."

"That would have been a lot to ask of anyone. And you were only seventeen." Minerva tried to protect him in her wisdom that belied her age and unfortunately also negated her words.

"And yet I have since then known seventeen-year-olds who I am sure would have sacrificed everything without uttering a single complaint." Albus gave her a pointed look, but he didn't wait for her to respond. He needed to get the rest out, and then Minerva might no longer wish to protect him in any way.

"Well, I went home and I tried, but I did a dreadful job of it. My true attention wasn't with my poor sister, but with a boy my age who had moved in with his great-aunt practically next door. He matched my talents and my intellect and he was every bit as ambitious and passionate as I was. And, perhaps most importantly, he offered me a way out of my new prison by painting visions of grandeur and insanity that relit a fire inside of me. A fire that had gone out after my mother's death and my not very triumphant homecoming."

Minerva's brow creased as she listened to his description of a wizard who had been his equal in many ways. "Who was he? Why don't I know him?"

"You do know him, or know of him at least. That boy's name was Gellert Grindelwald."

Albus felt Minerva's entire body go slack and he waited for her to pull away, but she didn't. "That's why you didn't want to face him," she muttered, seemingly more to herself than him.

He arched an eyebrow. "I see you have suspected this."

"No, not this." Minerva shook her head, dazed. "But I figured there had to be a different reason why you delayed your duel as long as you did. Something that wasn't in the papers. Because I knew it couldn't have been fear."

"Oh, it was fear," Albus told her. "Just not fear of losing. Not even of facing him again after all those years, though that was part of it. But my true fear had to do with how Gellert and I had parted ways."

"You found out who Grindelwald really was?" Minerva guessed.

Her words elated and shamed him at the same time. "As always you're showing me a kindness that I do not deserve. Yes, when I met him, Gellert was not yet the man he was about to become and I didn't see it coming, but not because the signs weren't already there. I simply turned a blind eye to some of his darkest thoughts and the rest I embraced wholeheartedly. And please don't insult me by using my age as an excuse. I was very much old enough to be able to tell right from wrong."

"Well, you did eventually."

"No, I did not." Albus sighed. "It was Aberforth who came home and rightfully berated me for my delusions and for having neglected Ariana. Gellert was there, too, and our fight turned into a duel between the three of us, at the end of which it was Ariana who lay dead at our feet. Gellert fled at once, and Aberforth and I were left to bury another member of our family in confusion and grief."

It was now that Minerva shifted next to him, but only to lightly brush a thumb across his wet cheek. His tears were so silent and familiar that Albus hadn't even noticed them in his agony.

"That… is horrible and heartbreaking, and I am so, so sorry, but it does not make it solely your fault," she said shakily. "It was Grindelwald who truly killed your sister."

"Except, there was no way of knowing whose curse had done it," Albus said, shaking his head. "At least, not for me."

"That's what you were afraid of," Minerva realised. "What Grindelwald would tell you when you faced him again."

"Yes, and he knew it, too. He didn't waste any time using Ariana against me when we finally met." Albus paused. "He told me that it was I who had cast the curse."

Minerva's breath hitched in her throat, which was the only sound in the room.

"However… being a shade more skilful in Legilimency than he was in Occlumency, I knew that he was lying," Albus told her the truth. The truth that allowed him to draw breath, even if each one still pained him. "Of course, it matters little in the end." Ariana was still dead by his hands, as surely as if he had been the one to cast the curse.

All the air seemed to rush from Minerva's lungs. "My God, Albus," she breathed, and her hand reached out for his, lacing their fingers together and giving them a tight squeeze. "It matters. It matters a great deal."

With a start, Albus realised that he had completely forgotten how it felt – the warmth of a human touch. He had come in here to offer comfort to her. Somehow, she had turned the tables on him. But Albus figured they could comfort each other and share in that burden – a sensation he had very nearly forgotten as well. There was no doubt on his mind that none of this would leave this room. But perhaps they would walk away a little lighter because they had found that while their sorrow was still theirs to live with, they were no longer alone in doing so.

Also, the fact that he had finally got her to say his name brought the tiniest of smiles back to Albus' lips. Surely, today was a day to revel even in small victories.

Finally, Minerva loosened her hold on his hand. "Have you never told anyone this?" she asked.

"No," he said simply. "And I realise now that perhaps I shouldn't have told you either because I clearly failed to make you feel any better."

"What about making you feel better?" Minerva countered. "This is a terrible secret to carry around on your own."

"I do have Aberforth," Albus argued.

"Who broke your nose." Apparently, she did not only remember him telling her about that, she had also shrewdly figured out when it must have happened.

"Yes, but I'm sure now you understand why."

"No, I don't," she said firmly. "Because it didn't do anyone any good. And it couldn't have hurt you more than you must have already been hurting."

Albus cocked his head. "Well, I suppose it made him feel better for a little while."

"Still, you deserve to talk to someone who's not going to judge you."

"Said the pot to the kettle," Albus retorted with a small smirk. After all, she had been the one to cry alone on the floor of this empty classroom.

She understood what he was saying, but in a return to her true form, she wouldn't simply accept that. "Falling out of love with someone is hardly the same as losing your family."

"But you haven't actually fallen out of love with him, have you?" Albus noted softly.

Minerva's face fell and when she couldn't deny it, she remained still.

"All I'm trying to say is that we all battle our demons the best way we know how," Albus continued gently. "And if Hogwarts helps you to do that, which as you can tell I fully understand, it will gladly do so. Though as your department head and, I hope, your friend it worries me that you clearly haven't found the happiness you came here to find."

"Not yet. Not today," she replied slowly, stuffing the letter from her mother back into her pocket. "But I think I still can. If you don't fire me, that is."

Albus stared at her, bemused. "Minerva, why in the name of all four Hogwarts founders would I fire you?"

"I lied," she said bluntly. "I lied about why I wanted this job, and the only thing you ever asked of me was not to lie to you."

"You may not have applied here because you thought that you'd make a good teacher," Albus corrected her. "But I told Armando to hire you because I knew that you would make a great one."

The look on Minerva's face was almost challenging. Accepting compliments with grace was really not her strong suit. "And do you still think so now?"

"More than ever," he assured her.

This she seemed to accept, but knowing that she could stay at Hogwarts didn't bring any joy to her tired demeanour. At least not tonight – as she had said so accurately. "Do you see her face sometimes?" she asked quietly after some time. "At night?"

"Constantly," Albus was forced to nod. "It's why I don't sleep much."

"Then maybe… we could just sit here for a little longer?" Minerva suggested.

There was nothing he would have liked to do more, but he said, "If you still want my company, then I will sit here with you for as long as you like."

"What do you mean if I still want your company?"

"I wouldn't hold it against you in the slightest if you were to see me differently now."

Minerva gave him a withering look, the likes of which he had never received from anyone but her, and perhaps her father. "You're holding yourself to a ridiculous standard, Albus. Befriending Grindelwald… perhaps you lost yourself there for a while. But you've made up for it in so many ways since then."

"I've tried," Albus conceded.

"You've done all that's humanly possible. No one could ask anything else of you. And I'm sure she wouldn't."

It was certainly a nice thought. Albus was sure she would have liked to agree with Minerva. "Some might say that I'm hiding here at Hogwarts rather than to take on greater things."

Minerva snorted. "Well, if this is hiding, then I guess we're hiding together now."

Albus' lips curled up into a smile that was truer than the tears. "Sounds delightful." He straightened up a little. "Except, I'm still older than you, which means I will be hurting all over tomorrow if I stay on the floor like this. Please, if you don't mind terribly, let's at least take some of these many chairs," he said and stood.

Then he reached down to offer her his hand to help her to her feet as well.

And with a little but vital spark back in her eyes, Minerva took it.