Chapter Ten: Going Home

Winter came and went, and spring did exactly the same thing, but for Minerva McGonagall, Headmistress of Hogwarts, snow equalled sun and sun equalled snow. She was nothing but a ghost of her former self, and ever though she did everything to prevent the students from noticing it, the teachers saw it and suffered with her. They could do nothing, just nothing, to ease their friend and employer's pain, since the very reason, the core, even, of that pain had been gone for many months.

Minerva McGonagall was still beautiful, but it wasn't the practical, lively beauty she had once possessed that made people take a second glance at her. It was a sad beauty, a beauty hidden in the paleness of her skin, in the firm line of her clenched shut mouth, in the big, dark green eyes in which only one- only one!- word lay hidden, a simple word, and yet it was all she, always the selfless one, wanted.

Albus.

Just that. She had not spoken his name for many months, and every time she heard it spoken aloud, she felt her back stiffen and she knew that, even though they didn't let it show, people noticed it and, inwardly, shook their heads for her. Poor Minerva, they thought.

Poor Minerva.
But Minerva didn't want to be pitied. Towards the student body, and as much as possible towards her employees alike, she still kept up the façade of the woman she had once been. Strict, energetic, overall good-natured- one tough lady. In a way, she still was that woman, and yet Albus's... death... had turned the world upside down. She led a double life- brave as long as the sun shone, but as soon as all lights went out, all so typical courage, all strength, slid off her skin with her day robes, and when she cried in her pillow at night, all left of that woman was one, desperate lover, crying for all she'd had- and lost again.

Hermione Granger was the only one who sometimes, on rare occasions, managed to break through that strong shell of bravery her superior and friend had built around her wounded heart. She, too, had suffered a grave loss- not the one of a lover, but the one of a best friend, and even though she very well knew that even she could barely imagine what Minerva went through, it was something, and the two women grew, despite the large age gap, towards something very close to best friends.

Hermione was the daughter Minerva had never had, and Minerva was the mother Hermione had lost two years before.

And yet.

Even mothers have to leave their children once, Minerva knew, but never voluntary. When they had no choice- when nothing else was possible.

So, as spring drew to its end, exactly one year after the Final Battle had come to an end, a black-haired witch with radiant, green eyes sat down at her desk and took her, his, favourite, purple quill. A faint blush graced her cheeks as she, slowly, started writing- hesitantly at first, but almost frantically in the end. She was crying without making any sound. Her slender, arched shoulders shook with every breath she took, yet her quill never ceased scribbling, not even when a big, glassy teardrop stained her parchment.

When she finally left her desk, two pale, slender hands, which had apparently regained something of their former activity, sealed a big, yellowish envelope with a small piece of red wax.

As Minerva stepped aside from the table, she looked in the mirror and, narrowing her eyes, removed the trademark pins from her black hair, after a short hesitation. Immediately, the unfamiliar feel of dark waves next to her skin made her shiver, but she shook her head and stepped out of her teaching robes, a strange, unearthly smile dancing around her lips as she opened her- their- large wardrobe. One by one pushing the clothes aside, she in the end stood there, obviously hesitating between two of them. The first was a man's purple robe, way too large for her, but very beautifully decorated.

The second was a long gown, a sort of celebration dress- emerald green like almost all her robes, and yet so entirely different. It left part of the shoulders bare; the black sleeves were long and wide.

It was a wedding dress, so the unnaturally long, accompanying cloak explained.

After changing into this last, rather unusual attire, the once so proud Headmistress turned around and, with that same, faint smile, closed the door of her, their, quarters behind her.

When she, moments later, quietly opened another door, the rooms she arrived in were empty. No surprise was readable on her face, though. She just stroked the old parchment of the envelope once more, in an almost... tender gesture, before laying it, slowly, down on a low table in the centre of the room.

"For you, Hermione..." she faintly muttered before, again, turning around.

Moments later, she spoke another five words, but in another way this time. She was happy, more than happy, almost... triumphant, as she whispered

"Going home... finally- going home..."