4. A Head Boy Week-End


Albus felt light touching his left ear, coming from the window which was directly next to his bed, through the gap between the curtains he hadn't entirely close, as he often did, because as he said, nor the wall, neither the sky would spy him during the night! ... Anyway light meant the sun was rising... He smiled and kept his eyes shut... But suddenly... The sun? Rising? He was going to be late for his first lesson. In half-a-second, he had turned toward the ceiling, opened his eyes, was ready to jump out of the bed, had evaluated quickly from the sun's position that it should be 8, wondered why he hadn't been woken before, noticed that his fellow David's snores proved also his presence within the dormitory, and tried to remember what lesson he had first, in order to find in front of which of the teacher he would have to feel ridiculous... And then he remembered exactly... exactly that he wouldn't have to face any angry teacher this morning. That he wouldn't be late for any lesson. That there would have been no reason for him to wake up early. It was Saturday. First Saturday of the school year... "Stupid old git!", he told himself, feeling his heart's beating coming back to a normal speed...

Well, now he was truly awoken. Anyway, if he got up without waiting, he would be able to catch up the potion's work about Dragon blood before his appointment as Head Boy with Pr Siwell. He hadn't followed this lesson, because he had been that Thursday afternoon very deeply involved in a very interesting dream... In fact it wasn't a dream, rather some thoughts he had given to wonder what Minerva's childhood had been like until this year... They had had a long conversation on Wednesday evening, after he had found her in the library and tried to convince her not to spend all her evenings there, and she had let out some elements about her life, which he had intended to combine, rather unsuccessfully, by the way! It was no good to think of her or everything else instead of listening to Pr Burret... But then, this old cold unpleasant witch was not nearly as capturing as Minerva! ... And anyway she had said during the whole lesson that Dragon Blood had so much magical properties, but unluckily undiscovered uses yet... It had certainly been really boring!

   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So as he reached the Great Hall, he was thinking he would be one of the first ones there, and he was right. There was only two Ravenclaw and a Gryffindor at breakfast yet. But then... Yea, no doubt about it, the Gryffindor seemed to be Minerva, who had a book in front of her and was distractedly putting a more or less assuredly led spoon in her mouth, without taking her eyes from the book. He stared at her smiling for a minute, before deciding to go and sit in front of her. She had stopped eating and was just absorbed in her book. From where he was he could see it was a copy from the library of "Modern history of the magical world"... Quite boring, he thought, why was she so avidly reading?

"Hello" he said...
"Hello Albus", she didn't raise her eyes. She had become quite paler than she usually was, and turned quickly three or four pages, feverishly, read some sentences again, gasped, stopped reading, and finally seemed to realise she was at breakfast, staring at her milk as if she suspected it to be poisonous.
He glanced at her in surprise, slowly beginning to eat, as his breakfast had appeared on the table.

Finally, he took the book from between them, closed it, and gently put it at his side.
"Minerva, are you all right?
-Yea, she said lightly, yea, I am...
-Why are you reading that way at breakfast?
-Oh... Well... I wanted to know what happened in the wizarding world at the time of... you now... when my mother... well... I was wondering what her time looked like, since my father had never been able to tell me about this world... So I borrowed the book from the library yesterday, so that I could read it during the week-end...
-Well... And you were so impatient that...
-In fact... uumm... yep, I think that's it. I couldn't wait!"
She still seemed a bit strange and pale.
"Don't you eat a bit more?
-No, really, I'm not hungry...
-You took all that in your plate, though, so perhaps you were hungry...
-Not any more...
-You should eat, you know. I don't think I'll give you that book again until you've had a real meal!"
She made a forced grin, and started swallowing rather reluctantly some bit of bread... She looked quite unconvinced about the point of feeding herself, though...
"I just can't any more, Albus" she sighed. "I'm not starving myself, really, but I think I'll go now", she added, seeing his glance. And she left, her usual braid swinging as she walked slowly, as if a bit unsure. Albus couldn't help feeling something was wrong. Well, her strange walk could be explained by loads of things, really, but still... she had forgotten her book! And that wasn't like her usual conscientious self.

He finished his breakfast very worried about her, and then went to the Common Room. But she wasn't there. Charles was sitting by the fire, though, and told him he hadn't listened the lesson about Dragon Blood, 'cos' it was so boring and he had been working on his exploding fire-jerking leaves again. So with his bag, Albus left to the library, groaning about friends not paying attention in potion, although slightly expecting she would be there, but nor did he find her reading some oddly heavy old book... That was becoming really worrying. Was she ill? Still, he made a thorough research, and found out about Dragon Blood what seemed to him much more than Pr Burret had told them, and much more interesting, really... Though he wasn't sure he was able to draw any parallel, since he really had been elsewhere that day! And from a comparison of some modern research, he thought... Well, if he wasn't wrong... But then he should be, yea... That wouldn't be that simple, if people had been looking for it unsuccessfully since millenniums! But then, if you just...

   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

10 o'clock finally approached, Albus had finished his work, and he wanted to let his school things in the dormitory before going to Pr Siwell. Though he didn't know what he should do with Minerva's book. He would have preferred to give it back to her himself, but she would probably want to read it this morning. So he gave it to her friends Milane, Joyce and Lilian, which he had spotted chatting in the Common Room, and who didn't know where she had gone.
So it was a quite worried Albus that walk through the corridors, toward his Head of house's office. He was far away in his thoughts, walking mechanically, as he knocked something down and suddenly startled.
"Sorry", they said together, and then he realised what, or rather who was lying on the floor...
"Minerva, what're you doing here?!"
He raised his hand to help her.
-Well, just walking, and sorry I was apparently thinking a bit too much...
-Didn't pay attention either, no problem... are you all right?"
She had stood up again.
"Yea, of course"
He looked sceptically in her eyes, but she didn't quite meet his ones...
"I let your book to Milane, in the Common Room, by the way,
-My book? .... Oh, yea, that book... Anyway I must go, we are to learn history of magic together this morning with the others..." She blushed "We've established turns to take notes, in fact, so...
-I think I can understand that, he laugh, but perhaps you shouldn't tell me before a Head-Boy-Appointment, you don't know what I'm going to repeat!"
They grinned, and hurried, each toward his goal.

   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Albus was regretfully abandoning the appealing idea of a nap, though he felt his bed in front of him, addressing him puppy dog eyes, clearly meaning he didn't want to be left alone... No! He wasn't going to take a nap. Definitely not. He had promised to Minerva they would do some homework together this afternoon, because she was sure she would never be able to transfigure her dice in a marble without training before the lesson, and that was the Monday morning's program Pr Diggory had announced the First Years... Albus highly doubted about the necessity of all that, but then she had looked so horrified at the idea she could fail in transfiguration in her very second week... Not unlike the way she had seemed to feel on Tuesday, when she had lost three poor little points for being late in potion. She had been getting lost in the dungeon in fact, and came 15 minutes later, what didn't pleased Pr Burret at all! He smiled at the memory of her horror-struck face, that evening... As if three points, after all those she had earned in lessons... But well... He had had to pretend not seeing a non-ameliorated-leaf from Charles, too make it explode, what had distracted her very slightly... Though Charles said he had made a really good job in potion about it, and it would be much less visible  by now... Yes, it seemed Albus wouldn't be obliged to pretend, next time a joke would be needed!
Though, some sleep would have been very tempting... His appointment with Pr Siwell had been long and complicated... His Head of House seemed very worried about the security measures around the castle. Flying lessons for first years were not authorized yet, because of the risk one of them would lost control and fly out of the security limits... What if a plane saw them? And Quidditch balls were subsequently also forbidden, what really made the players mad... How were they supposed to train without real balls? But Pr Dippet, deputy Headmaster and Professor for Defence against the Dark Arts, had certainly not unfounded fears about it... Balls could escape, and then... who knows what would happen? ... Anyway after dealing with that, and the students that had surrounded him at lunch, wanting to know when they would be allowed to apply for the vacant posts in Quidditch teams, Albus was tired...
But promised was promised, and at least Minerva's company was definitely not the worst he could have had to face, even at naptime. So he went down the stairs, in the Common Room.

She was waiting for him at a table next to the little window, in a quite uncrowded part of the room, carefully reading her Transfiguration chapter again. He leant his Muggle Subject next to her transfiguration, and put smiling some dices out of his left pocket.
She looked at it very doubtfully, as if not thinking that would become marbles or anything else with a simple wave of wand. Nevertheless, she still didn't seemed in a good state and as far as Albus was concerned, he didn't like it at all. But he didn't say anything, thinking it was perhaps not important, perhaps a bit personal, perhaps girl stuff... Well, above all thinking he didn't want to embarrass her.

"Don't you need those dices, by the way?" she asked tentatively.
He laughed
"I think I'll be able to transfigure it back, you know!
-Oh, yea, sorry..." She nodded.
He was giving her a half-reproachful half-bemused and definitely weird look...
"What?"
His laugh burst out.
"Oh ok, I've apologized once more for nothing, haven't I? ... Stop laughing Albus!"
That was a joke between them that she always apologized too much when she didn't know what she was to say.

She finally had really no problems with the transfiguration, just as Albus has suspected, and was even able to make it dices again, what made her quite proud.
She transfigurated it a few time for practise and fun, as she said, while Albus began to get closely through his notes for the Muggle Essay about comparison between wizarding and muggle pets, and what could happen when they got mixed, and for example a non-magical owl was used for post.
"Minerva, what colour are those cats muggles don't like?
-Cats they don't like? Why wouldn't they like cats?
-Oh, I'm sure I heard something about it...
-Oh yea, wait, are you speaking about black cats?
-Exactly, so what do they do with it if they don't want to own them? They can't just give them to the wizards living in their towns, can they?
-Well, that's not that simple Albus... Not ALL muggles don't like them. By the way, some are just afraid because of some old superstition. But there is still a lot of muggle who are not superstitious!
-Oh. Ok then. Just a superstition, and some actually own them and feed them and live with them and all?
-'f course they does!"
He returned to his homework and was about to begin his final redaction, when...

"Albus?
-Yea...
-They're speaking of stuff you learn to transfigure to make it alive in that book
-Yea, he answered absentmindedly
-And in your book I saw you've learn also to transfigure an animal in another
-Yea...
-What if you transfigured a human being in... well... an animal for example...
-Yea....... WHAT????
-No, no...
-That's strictly forbidden! D'you imagine if I made you a worm forever? What would you feel like?
-But you could, couldn't you?
-Not sure...
-Well you can make a bird a fish, so why not me an animal?
-Minerva what are you thinking of?
-Nothing, really... nothing...
-Not sure I could do that, by the way, quite difficult in fact to keep the mind in the body when you transfigure in a non-human figure...
-Ok then...
-Why all that? he frowned.
-Nothing I told you... Just thought I'd love being a cat, and it remained me when you asked about them, cos' one of my neighbours has actually got a black one and I've always wondered what it would feel like being a cat, with him, and if I could speak with him, and... well, all that, you know...
-Forget it then, I don't think I want to make you anything else than what you are!
-Understood Albus... Was just dreaming..."
She seemed unusually dreamy and a bit sad, indeed.
"Imagine if you stayed forever with whiskers, after that? He said smiling, in order to distract her.
-Yea, 'f course..."
And with that she kept quiet. So he went back to his quill and ink.

He was halfway in the parchment he had to fill, when he looked up and saw her. She wasn't working any more, and stared absentmindedly somewhere in thin air... It was more and more obvious that something was wrong.
"Minerva?"
He patted her gently on her forearm.
She startled. "Yes?
-What are you thinking of?
-Nothing..."
He gave her a searching look...
"Minerva if it's none of my business just tell me, but I know there's something wrong and I just... well... I wonder..."
She sighed and stood up to look out. He didn't know how to interpret that silence, nor if he was supposed to make further enquiry... Then he saw she was looking at the Quidditch Pitch, where the Hufflepuff Team was flying and practicing movements without balls, what was funny and quite pointless-looking. Soon they came back to the ground and Minerva turned back. Albus was still staring at her.

Eventually he seemed to take a resolution, though, and spoke again:
"D'you want to go and fly a little to change your mind a bit?
-Can't fly, Albus...
-Oh yes... right... Pr Siwell told me flying lessons would begin in October, though... Not much Muggle planes in fact, and... Well... You have to learn it somehow a day, don't you?
-Yea... I expect you're right...
-And since there's all that security stuff, groups will be smaller, so you'll certainly not be obliged to learn it with Slytherin, as we have had to most of the years..."
At those words she definitely became grouchy.
"I hate those Slytherin.
-Do you ? he said feinting surprise.
-Oh that's not funny, they're horrible with me!
-I know they are.
-You couldn't imagine how much!
-Yes I can...
-I just ignore them, well, I try, but they're so...
-Slytherin?
-What?
-They're so... Slytherin, I said."
She smiled.
"Ok you're right, of course."

Abandoning the idea of finishing his essay quickly, he stood up and put an arm on her shoulders. He knew she had been crying more than once this week because of them.
"Still, wouldn't a fly on my broomstick distract you a bit?
-Are you serious?
-Oh yes I am... That is... If you want...
-Is that allowed? she became suspicious
-Well it's not expressly forbidden and won't be if we don't ask...
-Albus, I'm serious, and you're Head Boy, should give example!
-I didn't ask for that... And a fly could certainly do no bad, really...
She growled
-Go on, d'you want to go or not?"
She seemed very tempted.
"That's Ok then..."

   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When they reached the grounds of the castle, he felt he had been right to take his cloak. It was a sunny day, but judging by the temperature just before the castle, at ground level, air wouldn't be warm higher. As there was some students lying there and chatting, he walked toward the lake, a bit further. Minerva eyed him suspiciously, as if hesitating to ask why he didn't want to fly in front of those students if it was really allowed, but thought better of it.

Once they had cornered the great stain wall, Albus stopped, took his broomstick from over his shoulder, laid it on the floor, and said "Up!" ; it rose a few feet. (Dunno how many feet you're suppose to count in a meter!) He smiled, quite proud of his broom, a CleanSweep 1. The Cleansweeps were quite recent but a very promising line... Anyway better than the old school brooms!
"So Minerva, after you...
-Um... Where am I supposed to sit?"
He laughed gently.
"Well, depends if you want to be behind me or in front...
-I suppose I prefer in front, if you hold me.
-Ok miss, climb then"
The broomstick flew a bit down as she approached it, just at her level. So she sat, both legs at the left side. Albus took her hand as the broomstick got higher, to help her keeping her balance. And then, he climbed behind her. His arms gently wrapped her as he took the front of his broom, and he catches her apprehensive look while he led his Cleansweep higher.

She seemed positively bewildered, and as much as unable to speak. He flew toward the castle and made some loops around the towers. She was more and more huddling up between his arms, and only her head actually dared move, looking around madly with wide opened eyes... Albus finally stopped his broomstick in mid-air, to let her breath again, because it seemed to him she had stopped doing that for a little bit now, and that surely wasn't too good for her!
"Albus....."
He smiled, "Minerva?"
"I... Oh God..."
"Are you all right?
-Yes I think so... though..."
She breathed heavily that time, and he would bet her heart wasn't poking quite as usual !...
"D'you want me to go down to the ground?
-Oh no... I mean... If you don't mind, that is...
-I do mind, though...
-Oh..., she said in a shyly disappointed voice.
-I mind being with you here, and I'd say I love it !
-Albus!"
He was laughing frankly
"Don't laugh at me like that!
-I don't, you little Firstie, I did love your eyes seven minutes ago, your ecstasies, and your way of huddling up against me as if I'd let you fall off that broom, and I really enjoy flying with a so gratifying passenger!"
She blushed at the mention of the way she was climbing at him and intended to stop it, but she really felt as if she was going to fall! She gave a glance to what was under them, something she had carefully avoided by now, and suddenly shut her eyes, gasping and firmly gripping Albus. The 18-years-old boy seemed very bemused of her behaviour, and began flying gently through the sky. As he noticed she was trembling, he put his cloak around both of them and finally she just blinked slightly, and then opened her eyes a bit, and a bit more, and... She finished admiring the view.

"What is that tower over there, Albus?
-Astronomy Tower.
-Oh. And this one there, not that big and with the pointed roof?
-There? That's our Gryffindor Tower!
-Really? Could we actually go and see through the Common-Room windows?
-I think we can!"
And he turned toward the middle of the round tower. Just then, she saw something glistening in the sky.
"Albus, she said in a nearly panicky voice, what is that, in the sky?
-Where? he asked, apparently quietly.
-over there, I saw the sunlight reflected...
-Oh that..." He sighed in relief. "It's the anti-muggle-plane-protection. It stops their radars and their bombs, in case they'd have ideas and come by here... So they can't see us more than the castle!
-Yea, I read there were muggle-repelling charms all around it. I didn't read about that one, though.
-No, it was just put on three years ago, when German planes began to pop around above the country...
-Oh, yea, of course..."
They were just next to their common room by now, and Charles saw them through the window and waved at them. Albus bowed and they moved away from this part of the castle.
"I hate that war, added Minerva.
-Well, we all...
-You're right... I've a cousin soldier..."
It seemed to him her voice was slightly shaking.
"Oh, do you? ..."
He felt some sort of urge to tell anything but to speak, not to let between them that stupid awkward silence which was dreading to set up.
"They also called some muggle-born from Hogwarts to war in 1939, some 7-years... The Ministry had to help them getting ride of the army's administration. Cos' of course, if they want to be soldiers, they're much more useful fighting Grindewald, than the German Muggle Army...
-That's horrible"
Her voice was definitely broken this time.
"What?
-All that they did. This Muggle Furor, or whatever you call him, and Grindewald protecting him from espionage...
-He's called Führer, in German, well 'f-u-h-r-e-r', I think.
-Yea, that's it... You know that rumours about what he's doing in those 'camps'... And thinking one of our kind helps him with it... Such a shame...
-Well I'm not sure we have to count Grindewald as one of our kind, you know!
-yea, she sighed...
-I'll do something against him, after the N.E.W.T.S.... I heard muggles were beginning to do a good job, but I don't think they will manage alone.
-You'll fight as an Auror then?
-No, I don't think so...
-So what?
-Don't know... But I'll see... Gather some friends I suppose... And just fight to kill him. Cos' without him his supporters wouldn't be worth anything... Well, that's my idea..."
She stared at him. "That would be very dangerous, Albus
-Yes, that will."
She gave him an admiring expression.
"And who will you ask?
-Well, first there's Alastor, your friend Milane's brother... He wants to become an Auror, and that'd be a good mean to make him noticed... A start in his career, if your want..."
He stopped, wondering if Minerva was being scared again, or if she just hugged him. But she didn't seemed in a suitable state to tell him. He decided their little fly must be at his end, and leaned toward the grounds just before the Great Entrance. He let her and himself on the stairs of the Entrance Hall and put his broomstick again on his shoulder.

Minerva was still staring at the floor.
"Minerva are you all right?
-Yes", she said in a little shy voice, and then he realised she was sobbing.
"Don't cry!
-No-I... I-am... n-not cry-ing... she lied.
-Just tell me what's wrong, will you?"
He sat on the stairs, and made her do so, next to him. Then he put an arm around her, and she went on sobbing, her face hidden in his robe. It was obviously not his idea of a constructive chat, and he tried to comfort her. She should have been very touched by the war, he though, if only the mention of it made such an effect on her... Again he wondered what had been her previous years... There was something in this girl that wasn't to be there...
"Just listen, I've seen since breakfast that something is wrong, you could just tell me. I wouldn't repeat to anyone... maybe I could help you?
-I... I know you wouldn't repeat, she managed to say in one breath... But then... then... That's just... Oh Albus that's so absurd... I-I found something about my mother in that book...
-What? The Modern History?
-Yea, that one... At breakfast... Well I don't know if my father never knew, or if he didn't want to tell me... Always told me it was an accident...
-What?
-In a way in fact, it was an accident... About her death...
-Yea?
-She was in that list of wizards... You know, the Fifteen..."
He tightens her very sharply. He had become very serious. The common-known as 'The Fifteen' were those 15 wizards Grindewald had killed nearly 10 years before, because they had accidentally menaced his rising power... That was those murders that had made him known, just as he began to work with that muggle-Hitler in Germany... Those 15 wizards had been killed nearly aimlessly, because they were somewhere they shouldn't have been... Wrong time and wrong circumstances... As it sometimes still happened in those days... Then he sighed.
"So Minerva, I've one more reason to stop him. I'm sorry for your mother..." he added, "And sorry you had to learn it that way... If I'd paid attention to history I should have recognise your name...
-You couldn't. Even if you knew the 15's names, she was called by her birth name, so you couldn't know... nobody could..."
A quite heavy silence persisted in filling the gaps between their sentences.
"Yea... I'm still really sorry for you..."

She had stopped sobbing, and she wanted to write a letter about all that to her father and go to the owlery to post it before dinner. She was convinced he had never known, and surely was right. And he still had his Muggle-Essay he wanted to end. So they came back to the castle, wordless, as they walked side by side in the corridors toward Gryffindor.