23rd June 1960

The window was open, which allowed a warm breeze to enter the room. The soft wind made the lace curtains flutter, and a few papers lying in an organised way on the desk lift their corners before settling back down again. Apart from the few exceptions of shrieks of laughter and giggling coming from various students lying on the grass outside, Minerva's office was quiet save for the irregular intervals of her quill scratching on the numerous parchments she was currently correcting.

Straightening her back, Minerva heard the bones in her spine relocate themselves in the correct order. With another sigh, she hunched back down again over the essay she was working on, too aware of the large stack which still awaited her marking located on the far side of her desk. Minerva pursed her lips and frowned, her quill pausing on top of a word that seemed to be causing her discomfort. Crinkling her nose as if a bad smell were issuing from the offensive word, Minerva scratched it out and wrote the correct term over it. Remarkable how some students couldn't even spell Transfiguration after having been in her class for nearly a year or more, she thought exasperatedly.

It wasn't long, however, before her mind began to wander, which was not surprising due to her having been marking for over two hours. Leaning back in her chair she rubbed her eyes with the back of her knuckles before yawning quite widely. Tears started to form in the back of her eyes due to the pure exhaustion resulting from the little time she was spending asleep. Even though exam season was nearly over Minerva still dreaded the fact that she would be spending a few weeks in Caithness that coming summer. It was not as if she hated the thought of spending time with her family, quite the contrary; she was thrilled that she would now be able to see her sister-in-law, Helen, who was pregnant with her first child. However, both her brothers were now married, and one was awaiting his first child. Recently, it had made Minerva think a lot about the choice she had made all those years ago. If she had made a different decision that day, perhaps she would be a mother, she would have a family, a husband, a mother and a father-in-law. Perhaps, even distant cousins or even grandparents… The list could go on…

"Don't be ridiculous, Minerva! You made the choice and now it is over, no point dwelling on past events that cannot be changed," she muttered to herself, straightening her glasses and looking back at the stack of papers on her desk. Despite the height of it having been reduced quite significantly over the past hour, Minerva could not help herself from thinking longingly of Pomona's invitation of having tea down at Hogsmeade. "Concentrate!" she reprimanded herself sharply, shaking herself again as she did so, and focusing her attention back to her essays.

The light of the afternoon sun had steadily crept up so that Minerva's office was now ablaze with golden light. The nib of her quill reflected light onto her surrounding walls, already speckled with red from the torch brackets. Sighing again and rubbing her eyes, she tentatively peeked at the stack of papers and was relieved to see that there were only a few left to mark. Finishing them quickly she then shuffled the papers and straightened them before placing them at the far end of her desk leaving Elphinstone's most recent letter alone in the centre of the desk. Massaging her temples she gently toyed with the opened letter before abruptly getting up and walking towards her office window, which overlooked the grounds Rolanda liked to use to practise Quidditch with her First Years.

A knocking at the door awoke her from her reverie and she called out to allow the person on the other side of the door to enter.

"Hello my dear," greeted Dumbledore, smiling cheerfully as he closed the door of Minerva's office.

"Hello, Albus," answered Minerva, gesturing at him to sit down an offer which he accepted.

She noticed his eyes paused on the letter on her desk. Instantly, she snatched it up and put it into her desk drawer.

"It's the same question," she told him, though making it clear that she did not want to discuss these matter further. "Tea?"

"Please."

Minerva waved her wand in the air to produce two mugs of tea one of which he offered to Albus.

"Thank you," he said, accepting the steaming mug. "Will you answer him?"

Minerva pursed her lips. "I suppose I must," she admitted. "Although it will be exactly the same response as the one I wrote to him the last time and the time before that."

"I'm not sure but so far I have already received five letters from him in these last few months," to prove her point she opened her desk drawer and picked up a wad of letters addressed to her by Elphinstone before putting them back in her desk drawer.

There were a few moments pause where Dumbledore continued to watch her. Minerva took a sip of her tea, trying to avoid catching eyes with the Headmaster who was still looking at her, smiling. Finally, Minerva could take it no longer, she spoke rather rudely however, Dumbledore was not disturbed by her snappish behaviour. "What is it?"

Dumbledore smiled and shook his head, raising his eyebrows as though whatever he was thinking was unimportant, something which Minerva found highly suspicious: Dumbledore prided himself on his mind and his ideas which were nearly never wrong. "Nothing at all my dear, nothing at all," he answered, lowering his eyes to his tea, which he blew on gently, before taking a sip.

"Hm, you're up to something," said Minerva, suspiciously eyeing Dumbledore with the corner of her eye.

"Maybe I am, maybe I am not," came his ambiguous reply, "Chess?" he asked cheerfully.

Minerva smiled and nodded whilst looking under her desk to retrieve her old and tattered chess board which had once belonged to her mother. It was a custom of theirs to, every Thursday evening as Minerva's lessons finished early, play a game of chess in the evening. They were well matched however, one could say, although Dumbledore would never admit it, that Minerva was only slightly better than he was. Of course, Dumbledore would most likely blame it on his age or feign deafness whenever the topic was brought up either in the staff room or with Minerva herself.

The game lasted an hour during which there wasn't much talking. Even though they were very close friends both of them, every week on Thursday evening, wanted to beat the other and so, deeply concentrated, they thought of their tactics before Dumbledore concluded the game with a very tight win.

"Well done," said Minerva, clearing up the chessboard with a delicate flick of her wand.

"Thank you," replied Dumbledore, setting down his mug and standing up, "Well, I had best be off I don't want to keep you for too long," he continued, walking to the door and putting his hat on again, "I hope you will be able to sort things out with Elphinstone, Minerva," he added, hand on the door handle.

"I hope so too. Goodnight, Albus."

"Goodnight my dear," and with that, the Headmaster left the room leaving Minerva alone in her office once again.

Ah, 34th chapter already! Sorry, it's a little short. Ok, so this is my last chapter this week and next week because I am going on holiday tomorrow. Hope you liked it! I'm sorry it wasn't very eventful but the next chapter will hopefully be a little more interesting! Leave me a review if you can! Have a nice day or evening! :)