37. Fatal Flaw

"I'm so glad we finally get to do this." Elphinstone smiled broadly at her over the colourful cup of tea in his hand.

"I'm just not sure why you wanted to go to Madam Puddifoot's of all places," Minerva said, eyeing the lacy napkins and frilly decorations of the small tea shop.

Elphinstone shrugged. "I just remembered that it was cosy."

That was one word for it. Minerva would have gone with tacky.

"But we can go to the Three Broomsticks if you'd feel more comfortable there," Elphinstone offered with an almost anxious look on his face.

"No, it's fine." They had already been served their tea after all. "I'm just here to see you. I can come down to Hogsmeade every day."

"Right you are. Isn't that a dream come true?"

"I wouldn't go quite that far," Minerva said. "But it's nice."

"Well, I love it here," Elphinstone exclaimed.

His enthusiasm made Minerva laugh. "Then why did it take you six years to actually come and visit me other than to tell me that a murderer was looking for me?"

"I don't know. I guess I'm a workaholic. And you would know a thing or two about that, if I recall correctly." Elphinstone winked at her. "But from now on, things are going to change."

"How so?" Minerva asked curiously.

"With Ignatius forced from office and Nobby Leach taking over, I hope that things at the Ministry will settle down somewhat."

"Is that likely? After Malfoy already led one public protest against Leach's appointment?"

Nobby Leach was the first Muggle-born Minister for Magic they had ever had in Britain, which Minerva wholeheartedly approved of. But small-minded and mean-spirited people like Abraxas Malfoy strongly disagreed. Thankfully, Malfoy's opinion wasn't as important as he liked to think. It certainly didn't carry more weight than Albus' voice, and he had chosen to speak out in support of Leach to put an end to the debate surrounding his appointment. None of that sounded to Minerva as though their new Minister could expect smooth sailing.

"There will always be haters, I suppose. But if Leach does a good job, then reasonable people will tire of dragging up his ancestry. And I have a good feeling about Leach," Elphinstone explained. "Either way, I've been thinking that it might be time to cut back a little. Or a lot."

Minerva's brow furrowed. "Are you talking about retirement?"

"Possibly, yes," Elphinstone affirmed. "If I can find a suitable replacement."

"Elphinstone, I'm not coming back to the Ministry," Minerva said quickly, thinking that might be why he had wanted to meet like this.

But he only laughed. "Oh no, I wouldn't dream of trying to steal you away from Hogwarts. I can tell that you're happy here."

He had phrased it like a statement, not a question, but he still seemed to wait for confirmation. So Minerva nodded. "Yes, I am."

That much she could say without a shred of doubt.

"Wonderful," Elphinstone beamed. "Then perhaps I can come visit you more often from now on."

"Sure, I know you always wanted to come to Scotland to travel and to improve your fake accent," Minerva replied with a wry grin at the memory.

"Oh yes, I will definitely do that. Maybe you'd like to come with me? In the summer holidays?"

"Oh, well, I…"

"Actually, no, don't answer that," Elphinstone cut her off. "Because that's not what I truly wanted to ask you."

Confused, Minerva set down her tea. "What did you want to ask me then?"

Elphinstone smiled at her, but there was that nervous twitch again. "Truth be told, I do have an ulterior motive in coming here today, and it's not asking you to take my job or to go travelling with me, though you can certainly do all those things because you can do whatever it is you want to do. But I very much hope you would consider doing them as my wife."

Minerva's mouth literally fell open, too stunned to utter a single syllable, much less form a coherent response.

It seemed that Elphinstone hadn't expected her to. He looked relieved to be able to explain. "I know this will sound crazy because we haven't spent nearly as much time together as I would have hoped. And I'm not saying we should do it tomorrow. We could be engaged for as long as you like. But I want to be honest with you from the beginning and let you know that I do want to marry you. I think I've always wanted to marry you," he admitted with a self-deprecating grin.

"I'm at a point in my life where I don't have any more time to lose, no time to wait. So I need to tell you that I think you're the most gifted, courageous and bloody brilliant woman I have ever met or will ever meet. Maybe I'm making a fool of myself right now, but I would definitely be a fool if I didn't at least try to ask for your hand in marriage."

Minerva couldn't help herself. She glanced at the other tables in the shop and was oh so glad that this wasn't an official Hogsmeade weekend for Hogwarts students. This was the last thing she needed any of them to hear or witness. She was afraid that her face alone would be sufficient to betray her embarrassment.

"Elphinstone…" she began, not really sure how to continue. "I'm flattered, but…"

"No, don't just brush me off," he said quickly, reaching across the table to take her hand. "Just think about it. I promise you, I haven't lost my mind. I have thought about this. Like I said, I think I'm ready to retire soon, and I could purchase a cottage right here in Hogsmeade, so you could still go to work every day and you would never be far from your students. I wouldn't even expect you to take my name if you don't want to. You could still be Professor McGonagall to your students. Urquart really isn't a very nice name, pure-blood or not."

He lifted his other hand, too, so he could now hold hers in both of his. "So really, all I'm asking you is to let me love you. Officially, I mean, because I can promise you that I already do."

Minerva's mind was racing, but in truth, all her thoughts were just going in circles, like her brain had short-circuited. Never in a million years had she seen this coming. Or so she thought.

Suddenly she wasn't quite so sure anymore.

She wasn't sure about anything.

Except, she definitely needed something stronger than tea.

Busy scanning the newspaper for more signs of trouble Abraxas Malfoy or his like-minded, pure-blooded associates might have stirred up, Albus was caught by surprise when Minerva came bursting into his office without bothering to knock first.

"Albus, did I leave the schedule for the sixth-year's Apparition lessons on your desk?" she asked.

"No, I don't think you did," Albus replied, lowering his newspaper. "How was your Hogsmeade visit?"

"Fine, fine," Minerva said distractedly.

Curiously, Albus watched her as she started turning things over on his desk. "Are you sure that it was… fine?"

"I just said that, didn't I?" she snapped.

"I know you did, but the fact that you're waging war on my desk seems to suggest otherwise."

Minerva paused with a scroll of parchment in one hand and a bottle of ink in the other. "Oh." She put everything back down. "Well, somebody needed to clean up this mess anyway."

"I don't doubt that," Albus agreed because it seemed the safest thing to do. "What happened?" he then prodded her gently. "Didn't you meet with Elphinstone?"

She made an odd noise, something between a snort and a laugh. "Oh, I did."

"And did you not have a good time?" Albus was fishing for anything more to go on.

"That depends," Minerva answered rather unhelpfully.

"On what?"

She perched on the edge of his desk. "Well, somewhere between buying crystallised pineapple at Honeydukes and drinking tea at Madam Puddifoot's, he proposed marriage."

Albus leaned forward in his chair, throwing his newspaper back onto the desk. "I'm sorry. He did what?" he asked, his voice sharper than he had intended it to be.

"See," Minerva said, pushing off his desk, "that is an appropriate reaction." And without another word, she just left his office again.

Blinking, Albus stared at the door she had closed behind her. What exactly had just happened here?

He tried to go back to reading his newspaper for all of five minutes. Then he stood, rummaged for some Floo Powder and threw it into the fire. The fireplaces in Hogwarts weren't connected to the outside Floo Network, but they were connected with each other. Albus had never found much use for that – until now.

"I know people accuse me of being enigmatic sometimes, but even I know that's no way to end a conversation," he said as he stepped out of the fireplace in Minerva's office.

She glared at him. He supposed it would have been more polite to walk to her office and knock, but she was forcing his hand right now.

"Why?" she asked. "You didn't look as though you had anything useful to say."

"Because it matters very little what I have to say. I think the important question here is what you said?" Albus pointed out. "As far as I'm aware, proposals require answers."

Minerva turned away from him, her arms crossed. "I didn't say anything. He told me to take time to think about it."

"And are you?" Albus pressed.

"There's nothing to think about. And even if I wanted to, I wouldn't know how with you hovering like this," she shot back, still determinedly looking out the window.

Even with her back turned to him, Albus could see the tension in the stiff way she held herself. He wanted to go to her, but it was clear that she didn't want him to. "Nothing would be further from my mind than to force my companionship on you, Minerva, but you did choose to tell me about this."

"Then tell me, Albus," she said, turning back around to face him. "Share your infinite wisdom with me and tell me what I should do."

"I couldn't possibly do that," he replied, forcing his voice to remain calm. He recognised that tone from Minerva. She was about to become unreasonable.

Her eyes hardened. "Then you're of absolutely no use to me, are you?"

"No, I suppose I'm not," Albus said coolly.

Despite the prickly state Minerva was in, he didn't want to leave her. But her dismissal couldn't have been clearer.

"I won't bother you again," he said and headed for the door.

"Albus," Minerva called him back when he had just reached for the doorknob. "I didn't mean that."

He turned around but stayed by the door. "You have every right to think about this in peace," he told her.

She gave up her defensive stance by the window and dropped into one of the armchairs by the fireplace. "Actually, I would prefer not to think about it at all."

Albus cocked his head. "I don't see how that will help you to make a decision."

Minerva forced a humourless laugh. "There is no decision here, Albus. The whole thing is preposterous. Surely you see that, too."

"No, I don't. Why would it be preposterous that someone wants to marry you?" Albus asked honestly. In all of this, Elphinstone's reasons were the easiest for him to understand. "Whether you want to marry them is a different story."

Minerva's head snapped back up and she looked at him searchingly as though the answer might be written on his face.

"What I want," she said slowly, "is not to talk about this anymore. So you can either stay and help distract me or you can leave." She pointed towards the chessboard on the table in front of her.

Albus hesitated, not sure if to continue under what could only be called false pretences was the right thing to do. But he did not want to leave, and now she was asking him to stay. So he sat in his usual chair and let her make the opening move.

It didn't take long until one of her knights took one of his bishops. When Albus reached out to remove the destroyed piece from the board, Minerva also leaned forward to grab his hand.

"Will you stop it?" she asked.

"You said you wanted to play," he replied, confused.

"No, I mean, will you let this proposal go?" she clarified.

"I didn't say anything."

"But I can practically hear you think about it," she accused him.

He couldn't deny that as it would have been more than just a pretence. It would have been a lie. "I just wasn't prepared for this," he confessed.

Minerva snorted. "You weren't prepared? Why would you need to? He proposed to me. You had nothing to do with it."

Albus looked from their joined hands on top of the broken chess piece into her emerald eyes. Suddenly he was so tired of not telling her the truth.

"I do not claim and have no intention of ever claiming any part of you to be mine. But it seems that I cannot bear the thought of you being someone else's."

Minerva stared at him, unmoving, unblinking, as though she had been frozen in place. "So, what you're telling me," she said eventually, struggling to keep her voice even, "is that you don't want me, but you don't want me to be with someone else either?"

"Alas, yes, that is what I'm saying," Albus nodded, fully aware that it wasn't fair of him to do so. To singlehandedly disturb, if not destroy the equilibrium between them. He had never meant to do that. But even if Minerva stubbornly refused to see it, he was a selfish, selfish man.

She let go of his hand and sat back as if he had slapped her. "Bloody hell, Albus! What am I supposed to do with that?"

"That I do not know," he admitted. "I believe I told you that I'm not as good a man as everyone likes to pretend."

"Do you think I care what everyone else thinks?" Minerva burst out. She stood and hit the table with the chessboard, making the pieces run for cover. "What about what I think? What I want? Does that matter to you at all?"

"You know it does," Albus said, rising more slowly. "There is very little that matters more to me than that."

"Clearly that's not true because you just told me that I get no say in the matter!" Minerva raged.

He held up a hand, though he knew that would do nothing to appease her. "That is not what I said. It is still very much your decision whether you wish to marry Elphinstone Urquart."

"But you don't want me to," she challenged him.

"No, I can't honestly say that I do."

As expected, that didn't placate her, rather the opposite. "So you want me to play chess with you for the rest of my life?"

"Honestly, Minerva, you were the one who wanted to play chess," Albus tried to defend himself.

"Well, I don't want to play chess anymore."

"That is entirely up to you."

"Will you stop saying that I have a right to choose when you've already taken away the only choice I could possibly want to make?" she demanded, her eyes flashing.

Albus paused, not because of her anger, but because of what she was saying. Apparently, he had missed the moment when she had moved on from Dougal. It might have been after her brother's wedding, but he hadn't been certain with everything that had happened that day. Or he hadn't wanted to be certain.

Because he wasn't just selfish. He was also a coward. Her broken heart had allowed him to rest easy for the longest time. To tell himself that what she needed him to be was a good friend to her. And now that she had mended her heart as best as she could, he refused to be the one to break it all over again.

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "Sometimes what seems like the easiest choice, perhaps even the only choice, is in fact far from the right one."

"Or maybe," Minerva replied, taking a step towards him, "you're just too bloody determined to always choose the hard way."

He gave her a wan smile. "That might very well be one of my many faults, but it's certainly not my worst one."

"No, your fatal flaw is that you think too much," she said, fixing him with a piercing glare.

If she was daring him to look away, he wouldn't. There was no more point in denying that he had come to rely far too much on seeing that fierce light in the rich green depth of her eyes.

"Then I guess the question is if you can accept me this way." He said it plainly, matter-of-factly, as if it wouldn't destroy him if she said no.

"You know, for someone who thinks that he doesn't deserve anything, you can have an air of entitlement that is baffling to me," Minerva replied, but she didn't say it in anger. It had subsided as quickly as it had flared up, leaving behind a desolation that was not to Albus' liking either.

But he consoled himself with knowing that while he was asking for a lot, he could have been asking her for so much more. "Perhaps you really should take that time to think then."

"Perhaps," she nodded.

He wanted to say more, but there was simply nothing left for him to say. Just a few minutes ago, he had been in such a hurry to get to her office. Now, Albus took the opposite approach in leaving it.

A/N: Okay, please don't hate me. I know this isn't a very cheerful way to leave things. But there's some stuff my family and I need to deal with, so I'll be gone for a week and may not be able to post another chapter until the week after. But I will be back. Promise. Until then, thank you for your reviews, they are really helping me so much. And don't worry. I won't be offended if you give me your honest opinion on my writing. Though I will say that positive reviews make me write just a little faster, of course. :)