Twelve ~ Summer Alone

By morning half the student body was gone; by afternoon, it was three-quarters. I spent the better part of the day listless and in bed, not really talking to anyone, drifting in and out of an uneasy sleep. Cora left at around supper; Cliona left later in the evening. Both of them said very little as a goodbye for the summer, but there were really no words necessary. We could each see our separate feelings of grief mirrored in one another's eyes.

By midnight, I was the only person left in Gryffindor Tower, exempt from the outflow of frightened students. I was running a fever at that point. I still hadn't gotten out of bed. I hadn't eaten since Myrtle had been alive. I slipped in and out of dreaming; I dreamed that Myrtle was perched on the edge of my bed, and she was happy, over some trifle like a new barrette or a good grade, and she smiled like white holy diamonds and I was blinded and overjoyed, and then I knew it was fake and had to weep in my pillow all over again. I dreamed other things, cycling away from wakefulness, of Kitty and Christmas, of being in Hogsmeade and laughing; I dreamed that I wasn't a tabby as an Animagus but instead a great murderous Chimaera, terrorizing the corridors of Hogwarts, and I didn't know how to force the beastly side to defer to the human side, and there was nothing but destruction as the human part of me wailed helplessly. I dreamed those things and hundred others.

To this day, I do not know how I ended up in the infirmary. Perhaps some well-meaning house-elf found me when entering the dormitory to make the beds; perhaps one of the paintings witnessed everything and went dashing off to find someone. When I awoke I was alone in a different bed, blankets and quilts all tucked around me. There was a pitcher of water on the bedside table, but no other sign that someone had been there to tend to me, and I felt oddly chilled and out-of-place. "Hello?" I called.

There was no answer, but at that time it was probably four in the morning. I lay back. For a moment I considered the water, but I suspected that I wouldn't be able to keep it down. Instead, I remained motionless, staring up at a ceiling I couldn't see. I was marginally more lucid, and I found that more than anything – more than grief, even – I felt this horrible, intolerable loneliness there in the dark, the sort that pits into your stomach and won't quite dislodge itself.

I suppose, looking back, that I had then come to realize that the magical world with which I was so enamoured was not always a place of wonder and light. Certainly I had heard of wizarding atrocities before – and my knowledge of Grindelwald definitely erased any idea I might have had that all witches and wizards were good – but nothing had yet become so personal. Before then, the wizarding world had been like journeying through a dream itself, and it had seemed a place where it was impossible to get hurt. I suppose I was disillusioned.

In the late morning, Professor Dumbledore came to visit me, silently bearing gifts. I glanced at the offerings – flowers and a book called Memoirs of an Animagus – and forced out a smile. "Please, sit down," I said, indicating the edge of the bed as I slid up in a sitting position.

"You're staying here for the summer, I assume."

"I'm not old enough to Apparate to my family, am I?" I snapped, feeling a new burst of loneliness, and then I was instantly sorry, but he seemed not to care, letting my harshness wash over him. He was always good at that – taking in the anger of students. "I'm stuck here."

"You once thought of this place as the best in the world."

I buried my face in my hands. "I still do, Professor – it's only – only—"

"I know," he said quietly.

"When I was a child, my mum and dad would take my sister and I to church. And I believed then that whenever anyone died, they'd go to heaven, and the only reason that the people behind had to grieve was for themselves, for what they'd miss in that person – because the person who actually died would be just unbelievably happy. It's funny, what people think to make themselves feel better. And I reckon I don't believe that much anymore – not the way I did, anyhow – but what do born-and-bred wizards think?"

"We don't know. There's no one thing we agree on, just like Muggles."

"What do you think, then?"

"I think that when I die, Miss McGonagall, I will be able to choose what I want to do. I hope." He looked down at his hands. "And I think you ought not to quit believing in heaven."

"Do you? Believe in it, I mean."

"Yes."

For a long while, we simply sat there, neither wanting to break the stilted silence. After I realised that he was waiting for me, I looked up and swallowed a lump in my throat. "So Hagrid's gone for good?"

Dumbledore nodded. "Dippet demanded it. I lobbied to have him stay here, but no one else would allow it." He sighed and stroked his beard. "Perhaps I'm a sentimental old man to think it."

"His negligence directly resulted in someone's death," I said hotly, pushing down the small voice in my mind that reminded me of how I'd allowed Hagrid's creatures to go unchecked.

"Indeed, Miss McGonagall, but you must understand that not everything in this world is black-and-white." His eyes were very troubled. "Not everything can be rationalized in the same manner—" He cut himself off. "I apologize – I should not speak like this to you, not when you are grieving."

"But you think Headmaster Dippet is wrong about something. I can tell."

"Miss McGonagall—"

"D'you think it might not have been Hagrid?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "No, Miss McGonagall. Dippet has done his job well. I am simply too much of a skeptic."

I watched him at length, probing his eyes, and I could tell that simultaneously he was not telling me something and that he felt it would be insensitive to push the issue further. I let it drop for the moment. "Have you heard anything from the Ministry, then?"

He looked up in surprise. "No. I'll tell you as soon as they contact me." He leaned forward and patted me on the shoulder; it reminded me strongly of my mother. "Get well, Miss McGonagall," he said, by way of goodbye.

When he was out of sight, I looked at the flowers. They were bluebells – a careful touch, the home flower of Scotland – and quite beautiful, but they reminded me so strongly of when I had spent the day in the Hospital Wing after fainting from my first transformation, when my friends and Hagrid had visited. I would have given anything, I think, to be back then. I rolled over so I wouldn't have to look at the bouquet and twisted my pillow around my head.

I was dismissed from the Hospital Wing a day and half later. I was not invited to Myrtle's funeral. Her parents had made it a Muggle funeral; they'd wanted to sever any connections their dead daughter might have had with our world, and I cannot say I faulted them for it. I was glad, too. I had never been to anyone's funeral except that of my dead aunt Mary, and though her old wrinkled plastic face had frightened me a child, it hadn't hurt my heart as I knew Myrtle's would. It was better to stay away.

I spent the next few weeks alone, reading, practicing my transformations over and over again – burying myself in study. Most of the time I ate in Gryffindor Tower; the house-elves were more than obliging, and I didn't like the professors looking at me. Professor Vega with her sad, sympathetic eyes, Caldecott with his stern mouth and soft questions – I didn't particularly want to see people. The weather grew warm and summery but I couldn't bring myself to go outside and enjoy it. It seemed that everything I did reminded of something Myrtle would never again get to do, whether it was eating breakfast or reading a book or even taking school-notes.

It was the middle of July before I could face walking past the bathroom where Myrtle had died – it was on the shortest route to the library, and for a month I had been taking the long way around, past that wretched knight painting who shouted at me each time I strode past. When I first dared to, I was met with a surprising sight.

Riddle was standing at the door of the girls' lavatory, looking as though he'd swallowed something poisonous. I tried to hurry past without him seeing me, but there was very little that escaped him. "Still angry with me, McGonagall?" he asked my retreating form, his voice rich with dislike.

I stopped then, and whirled around. "Do you want me to tell you that you were right, and beg your forgiveness?" I hissed. "Well, too bad. I loathe you. You obviously can't ever stop being a prat."

"You obviously cannot see past the end of your nose."

"I bet you're feeling extra superior, right, Riddle? I hear they gave you an award. Special Service to the School. I bet you're thinking how great that'll look on your record once you get out of here. You're probably happy. Everything looks good on you." Viciousness was bubbling up inside me. "You're forgetting that someone actually died, you bastard! Right in that bathroom! I wish it had been you!"

"McGonagall—"

"Go to hell. I know you were blackmailing Hagrid somehow. Why did you do it, Riddle?" I answered myself. "I bet it was just because you like to feel powerful. You like to feel as though you can control people. It's sickening."

To my credit, he looked taken aback for a moment. I knew – or thought I knew, at fifteen – that he had done the right thing, but I despised him for it, despised him because I thought he had been correct and because he was still a hateful Slytherin. "Why do you say that?"

I ignored the question. "I wonder how the Headmaster will feel about a prefect of this school blackmailing another student."

"The other student was a murderer," he said coolly.

"You're party to murder if you knew he was keeping a dangerous creature and did nothing about it," I said in a small voice. The words echoed in my ears; I was accusing myself as well as Riddle, but I pressed on anyway. "Heroic Riddle! Discovering the monsters' lair right afterwards! What a convenient find! What a clever little snake!"

"You won't say anything."

"Don't threaten me."

"I'm not, McGonagall," he said earnestly. His voice was still unbelievably collected. "But you are understandably upset over the loss of your friend – and that great giant was one of yours, too. Yes, I knew that Rubeus Hagrid was keeping those creatures there, but you know how difficult is it to keep him apart from his precious beasts.

I closed my eyes, hating him for being right, hating him for knowing exactly why I myself had failed to turn Hagrid in earlier. In order to keep from lunging forward and wringing his neck, I gave him a curt nod and continued walking away.

"McGonagall – wait."

"What?"

"Listen – I don't want to spend the summer in Hogwarts with you hating me. I don't care for having angry glares shot in my direction, nor do I care for childish name-calling or foolish accusations." There was something inestimably cold in the timbre of his voice, even though his words were a cruel version of a peace treaty. I couldn't look at his eyes; irrationally, I felt that it would be dangerous to do so. "I suppose we should work on avoiding one another."

"I couldn't agree more. We'll begin right now." With that, I stalked off. We were successful in keeping out of one another's way. I suppose he kept to the Slytherin dormitories. I didn't see him again until nearly the end of August, when we had both cooled off a little – but, again, I get ahead of myself.

I imagine, then, that my heart began to heal. I read once that the most painful thing for anyone to experience is great and sudden change, and that I had already been through. It wasn't as though I ceased to be alone, but I did grow used to it, and soon enough the hollowed-out part of my insides that ached whenever I thought of Myrtle or my family became as much a piece of me as my eyes or hands. I remember thinking that growing up meant feeling alone all the time.

I began an uneasy correspondence with Cliona and Cora. Our letters held a false cheerfulness, with our grieving conspicuously absent. I'm having a lovely time visiting Italy! or I've got to buy my sixth-year books! Do you think we ought to meet up in Diagon Alley? Kitty's letters were more sombre, but I didn't tell her anything that had happened with Myrtle, and her writing was equally vague: The schools are odd here. Our house is in the city. I hope the farm is okay without us.

Things continued in this manner until the middle of August. I was sitting at my usual table in the library, reading but not really paying attention, and Professor Dumbledore swept in, his eyes falling on me. The rest of the library was deserted – it was a gorgeous day, with the sun streaming in through the high windows, and even the librarian had gone outside to finish some of her clerical work.

"Professor?" I asked, closing my book. "What is it?"

He was looking very worried. "Miss McGonagall, I need you to go to your dormitory and get dressed to go into London."

"What? Why?"

"Julius Applethorne has requested a meeting with you."