Minerva McGonagall sat in her chambers, nursing a scotch on the rocks. As the new headmistress, she had other rooms to move into attached to the headmaster's study. But she didn't feel like moving there just yet. She glanced around her living quarters, she noted the dark woods, the crimson and gold rugs and hangings, her personal effects that had sat more or less where they now sat since she had moved into these rooms upon the death of her husband.
It had been a very long day at the end of a very long week at the end of the longest school year she, or anyone, would ever have. Voldemort was gone. Potter had done well. Many of her students had done well. She was proud of them. Of their hard work, their bravery, and their sense of duty to something beyond themselves.
Still, the funerals, the memorials, the plans for the next term- it was a lot. And it was wearing on her.
She knew each student who had died. Colin Creevey hadn't been the only underage wizard to sneak back. He hadn't been the only underage student to have a body lying on the cold, stone floor of the Great Hall. The faces flashed before her. She knew, taught, and loved every one.
Sitting back in her chair and staring into the fire, drink swirling slowly around the bottom of the glass, she let herself realize that not only were the students who had died hers- the older fighters, most had been hers too.
And they weren't all on her side. She'd squared off against some of the most vile humans to walk the planet. Men and women who considered blood status to be more important than simply being born human. But they had been hers and she had loved them at age 11. At age 12, 13, 14… As some of them made their way through Hogwarts, she'd had to admit that no amount of detentions, redirection, or care in her form of authoritative persuasion was going to have any effect on how the chose to live their lives. Voldemort had taken hold in their hearts. Their parents, for many, had pushed them to their fate and so it would continue down the line.
She'd seen Draco, Narcissa, and Lucius in the Great Hall. She knew that the law of the DMLE would come down on at least the head of the family, but it warmed her heart that, at the end, they parents had decided their son was more important than allegiance to a mad man.
Still, others were not so fortunate, or, perhaps, had not made the right choices and had paid the price. As much as she knew, in her head, that they had gotten what was coming, she could picture so many of them at 11, anxious and nervous to be sorted, looking up at her in awe. Her heart ached.
Her heart ached for Remus and Nymphadora. Remus had finally found someone with whom he had felt love and acceptance. Something she knew he struggled with for his first few years at Hogwarts until Sirius Black had asked her questions that were just a little too probing to be mere curiosity about animagi. Then he'd had to bury his best friend, believed another dead, and betrayed by the last. Only to find that all a lie but lose Sirius anyway. Nymphadora had found someone who adored her quirks. Who had found her clumsy ways endearing and they left the world fighting side by side. It wasn't fair. Little Teddy would grow up much as Harry had, not knowing his parents. But he would know love. And, as Dumbledore would have said, that made all the difference in the world.
Taking a large sip and feeling the burn down her throat, Minerva willed it to her heart. It was so cold. Looking at the picture of her beloved Elphinstone on the mantle. "It's not fair, Elph."
It's not fair, it's not right. She let that those phrases drift around her mind and drained the glass.
Jumping to her feet, she threw the glass into the fireplace, "it's not FAIR. It's not RIGHT. I should have," She gripped the mantle to keep herself upright, "they should be," her grief overtook her and she sank to the floor, failing to hold back the tears. "So young. So much life."
"They're children and they needed to be protected. And the ones who survived, how will they carry on? What do I do? I don't understand it and I don't have answers and it's not RIGHT." Hauling herself into a kneeling position, with every intention to stand, she found that her strength had deserted her. "How do I open the school next year and just carry on? But how do I not carry on? They need us to guide them. The staff needs me to guide them and I…" her voice trailed off. She didn't want to voice, even to herself, that she had no idea how to lead after this. How to be who her teachers needed or who her students needed. The faces flashed before her eyes again. This time they were accompanied by snippets of conversations with each one in class. Memories of assignments turned in, or not turned in, in some cases. Some brought a weak smile to her face, others merely made the tears fall harder.
Her hand had gripped the fibers of the rug, leaving gouges in the design. "I'm their teacher. They trusted me. I should have been able to do something, to do more. If I had been more, maybe, maybe…" She found herself without the ability to speak as she hiccupped around her heavy breathing.
Unsure how long she'd been on the ground in that position allowing the tears to fall, Minerva suddenly became aware of a sniffling in a portrait behind her.
"Minerva." It was supposed to be a portrait or an old knight from her hometown, one who never spoke to her, but at that moment, it was inhabited by Albus Dumbledore's likeness.
"Albus." She turned back away from the painting, not wishing for this conversation to occur.
"Minerva, you can't blame yourself. You know as well as I do that we can't stop living because other people are dead."
Picking herself up off the floor and waving her wand to reform the broken glass from the hearth, she set it down on a side table with an audible thunk. "With all due respect, Albus, you aren't here. Tomorrow, I will pick myself up, I will return to the planning and the helping of others and the looking to all the world as though I know what to do. So please, for tonight, let me admit to just the two of us, that I don't know what to do. I don't know how to help all of our students, I don't know that proper next steps to take that will be best for all of them. Just," She skirted among the furniture to the edge of the room, headed toward her bedchamber, "let me be."
The miniature version of Albus Dumbledore turned and walked from the frame, allowing the knight to take up his silent vigil once again as Minerva McGonagall's sobs echoed down the short hallways.
They were all hers and they all mattered.
And now, so many were gone from the world.
It wasn't right.
It wasn't fair.