Minerva McGonagall sighed and, despite herself, continued muttering the words of a song she hardly knew. Thanks to Parvati Patil and Belinda Brown, she had been humming it for days.

Miss Brown had been listening to what Muggles called "a walkman", something one had to put on one's ears, and she guessed it was something to hear music with. And that song… They had sung it and sung it in the corridors, and it had engraved itself in her mind, every single word of it.

"Turn around, every now and then I get a little bit lonely- and you're never coming round…"

Minerva bit her lips… She was lonely. She was so lonely. If only he…

"Turn around, every now and then… I get a little bit tired of listening to the sound of my tears."

It was the truth. How tired she was of crying, of these tears that even now stood in her eyes…

"Turn around, every now and then I get a little bit nervous, that… that the best of all the years have gone by…"

This maybe was the sentence that described her feelings the best. The best of all the years had gone by, forever lost, those times of her youth… It was too late, now…

"Turn around, every now and then I get a little bit terrified and then I see the look in your eyes…"

Yes, indeed, and maybe that look was the worst part of it. She was dear to him, oh, she knew that, and she was most probably his best friend. Maybe she had to be happy with that?"

But she wasn't.

"Turn around bright eyes, Every now and then I fall apart.

Turn around bright eyes, Every now and then I fall…apart…"

She was crying now, and she was ashamed for it.

"But I need… him… now… tonight. I need him more than… ever. And if he only held me…"

She sobbed. "… tight. We would be HOLDING ON FOREVER!!!"

She was yelling now, and all her anger, all the pain that had been there for more than twenty years came out. Yet, she thought herself ridiculous. Here she was, Minerva McGonagall, probably the most powerful witch of her time, crying like a schoolgirl who was deadly in love with her teacher. But wasn't that exactly what she- kind of- was?

"We would be holding on forever- Albus…"