Three months later, nothing had changed.
As Minerva, at breakfast, took her now usual seat at the High Table, she really did realize that it was true- nothing had changed. Nothing- nothing at all.
She had not changed. Her love had not changed.
And that was all that mattered to her.
But the others- her friends, her colleagues, they had changed. Slowly but surely, they were recovering, Minerva knew, and she envied them because of it. She had always been the flexible one, the one to never bend and if she did, to recuperate before anyone could notice it. She had never been the weak one- the one to ponder on and on about grief or loss. She'd thought such things ridiculous, and below the standards of a real Gryffindor- and how badly had she been punished for those thoughts!
Only now did the ever-formidable Minerva McGonagall realize what defeat was- how grief felt. And she could not but be very, very ashamed of her former self. Of that calculated, proud and practical Minerva, of that creature who didn't know what crying was, who didn't know how tears felt.
The new, barely five-months-old Minerva, knew these things- and more.
She knew how it felt to sit there, between people with futures ahead of them, knowing that her future was over, that all she had left were empty years, empty decades, perhaps, with a grief to big for one woman alone- with a pain that would consume her more and more until slowly, slowly she would lose her sanity because of it. Not that she cared.
She'd already lost everything anyway.
She knew how it felt to open her eyes in the morning, to feel the stained nightly tears on her flustered cheeks and to know, to know for a fact, that this was how her so-called "years to come" would be like. Crying herself to sleep at night, waking up to remember the tears and dreams of the night before- and crying again, because of them.
It was the endless melody of the past days- it was a melody that ruled her life, and she sighed.
So many happy people around her.
They were forgetting about Albus, she bitterly realized, even though she knew it was not fair to say or even think so. They weren't so much forgetting him as just getting on with their lives. Which they should, she kept reminding herself as she automatically buttered her piece of toast.
Which they of course should. It was only natural, Minerva realized whilst observing them, that they, young as they were, could not keep on dwelling in a past that was not even theirs.
It was only natural, the way Hermione Granger and Severus Snape's eyes kept on locking and unlocking at an incredible speed, the way her cheeks coloured faintly pink and the way his black eyes started glowing as they met her hazel ones.
It was only natural, the way Harry Potter- appointed last-minute Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher- kept eyeing the red-haired Gryffindor Head girl at the end of her House Table- and the way her fiery brown eyes kept "accidentally" flashing towards the Head Table.
It was only natural.
Everything was only natural, and somehow, she would have to live with it.
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It was that thought, accompanied- but that she herself did not see- by her natural and unaffected Gryffindor bravery, that made Minerva take a decision. A decision which she had procrastinated many, many months, but which she'd always known she would have to take someday. And if "someday" was now, well, then it was.
Time to wash away her life, time to wash away the blood, time to allow the wounds to heal.
But they would never heal, a voice in the back of her head screamed- yet was immediately cut off by a second, much sterner one.
They had to.
As she entered her office- his office, because that it was and that it would always stay- she closed her eyes for a moment and immediately shook her head. No. No weakness this time.
Her marriage was over- it was hard to face, but five months had passed and she had to understand it. Albus was dead, gone, forever, and she could not follow. Not yet.
So she could at least make the rest of her stay on earth as comfortable as possible.
As she threw open the door of the large wardrobe, she felt a tear slide off her cheek and scolded herself for it. Now was she a child, unable to suppress her feelings?
Damn- oh damn- oh yes she was.
As she stepped into the wardrobe- it was magically made larger, so as to be able to hold all his robes- Minerva bit her lower lip with all her might. She couldn't do this, she realized as tears sprung in her eyes. She could not remove these robes from this wardrobe, as well as she could not remove her memories from her heart.
How had she ever been able to think that it was this simple- that she would ever be able to live on and forget, like all others? She was not like all others- what had been between her and Albus had not been "like all others"! He had been her heart, and removing him from her life was like ripping out her own heart- she simply couldn't.
So insteadof cleaning out the closet, instead of "wiping away the blood", she embraced the blood and finallyrealized that she could not "allow the wounds to heal".
Because they would never heal.
Never.
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It was Severus Snape who found her, more than an hour later. It was his fiancée, now Professor Granger, who had in the first place expressed her worries about the whereabouts of the Headmistress, who had apparently disappeared after breakfast.
And, since she had a class to teach and he at the moment hadn't, he had decided to go check on Minerva in her office. He was one of her closest colleagues, after all- he had seen her suffer, despite the so well-built up façade she kept maintaining.
As he opened the large, ebony wooden door, though, she was not there- and if it hadn't been for the still slightly opened wardrobe, he would never have noticed it and probably have walked off again.
Yet, because of some strange twist of fate, he did, and as he slowly opened it and took a look inside, even the great Potions Master felt tears in his eyes at what he saw.
There, in the middle of… almost a nest of robes- robes which, he had no doubt, had belonged to the late Headmaster- she lay. Minerva McGonagall.
Curled up like the feline she was, a cheek resting against one particularly fluffy, purple robe- Albus's favourite. Her eyes were red and puffy, yet closed and Severus knew she was fast asleep.
Knowing she always desperately longed for the forgetfulness of sleep, he did not wake her. Severus walked off again, but not before gently, carefully, covering her still, sleeping form with a robe.
But one thing he knew for sure now, and he could not suppress a barely audible whisper.
"Minerva, if I will ever love the way you still love Albus…"
His voice was hoarse, and he noticeably swallowed before speaking the rest of his sentence.
"Then I will not have lived in vain."