Some informations: I know that Minerva McGonagall´s birth year is said to be 1935, but I made her younger than that. In this story, her birth year will be around 1915, because I wanted her to be in this story as Dumbledore´s friend and not student or child or something. Also, I am not a native speaker, so please excuse grammar mistakes 3
It was the end of september 1945, and Minerva McGonagall had no appetite when she was sitting at the staff table in the Great Hall. Pensively, she stirred in her porridge – which was undeniably delicious, but she wasn´t hungry at all. She glanced over the staff table to her left side and it made a slight sting in her stomach, as she was seeing the empty and abandoned chair of her dear friend – if not, her dearest. Albus Dumbledore had gone abroad at 31st August, she remembered the day exactly because that day she wanted to surprise him with a little birthday cake and a few letters and greetings to his 63rd birthday. Even though he was in his sixties now, Albus looked quite younger, still having (mostly) auburn hair and being very tall and thin. When she had ascended the stairs which led to his private chambers, she had been looking forward to make Albus a little bit happier. He´d been very exhausted lately, since the ministry and the press urged him to finally confront Gellert Grindelwald, a dark wizard whose power had increased recently. Dumbledore was said to be the only one able to defeat him, but Albus had hesitated. Only a few people, including Minerva, knew why. He and Grindelwald shared more than just equal powers, they shared a past – and a friendship. Albus had known that confronting Gellert would mean that their friendship was infinitely broken, their could only be one winner… And so, he had disappeared in the early hours of his birthday, and when she had entered his chambers after getting no response, she found empty rooms which had been left in a hurry, apparently. Even Fawkes, his phoenix, was gone. Now it was 29 September 1945 and there was nothing. No response, no letters of Albus – not even the press knew what was going on, if Grindelwald had already been confronted, how Albus was, how Grindelwald was – some journalists even speculated if Albus had confronted Grindelwald at all, and didn´t just flee out of fear. Minerva knew that his was wrong, she had known Albus for a long time, long enough to know that this was more than ridiculous.
As she sat there, staring at her plate, she decided to stand up and leave the breakfast early. Minerva was already about to leave, when she heard to gates of the Great Hall swung open and shocked murmuring escaped from the student tables. She turned around – and what she saw made her blood frozen: two men were carrying a tall, thin man, one of them on the man´s right, the other on his left. Minerva couldn´t see his face, because the man let his head hung and his – auburn- hair fell in his face. But there was no doubt, it was Albus Dumbledore. A little shriek escaped her.
„Quickly! A healer, anyone!", the left man screamed while they were running as fast as they could, dragging Albus towards the staff table. Minerva motioned Poppy Pomfrey to go down. „Please, bring him out of here, there are students everywhere…", Minerva said when she reached the trio. „Here, there´s this door, bring him out of here." , she showed them the door behind the staff table and the duo carried her friend away. When Minerva, Poppy, Pomona and the men with Albus´ arms on their shoulders left, a loud and angsty talking broke out in the hall.
Meanwhile, the group of five hurried through the corridors of Hogwarts. „What had happened?", Minerva asked worried while she struggled to keep up with them. „Grindelwald – he´s dead. But it took Dumbledore a great effort to kill him – Grindelwald did quite the damage to him as well…", one of the men wheezed. „I can see that much", Minerva retorted. Finally, they reached the hospital wing. „Here, go along!", Poppy led the way by the main room, where only a few students lay, „here it is, bit more private I reckoned." They were standing in a small room next door to the hospital wing. Nevertheless, there was a single bed where Albus was quickly put down. Immediately, Poppy started to examine him.
„Oh dear…", she gasped as she cut open his shirt. And also Minerva felt like someone had thrown a a bucket of icy water over her. There were scratches – no, not scratches – there were huge cuts which had apparently bled very much. „We needed to stop the bleeding with uh…some sort of fixing charm", the man explained. Poppy only nodded concentrated. Poppy stroked the wizards chest with a very, very yellow paste which started to make some sounds of hissing as it touched the skin. After some time, they could watch the skin grow back together fast – after less than two minutes the chest was completely healed and there were no bleedings left.
If Minerva had hoped that Albus would wake up now, she was disappointed. Her friend remained unconscious.
