Chapter Three

And yet somehow, it all wasn't as easy as it had seemed in the first, angry bliss of finally having taken a decision. Minerva very well knew her own spirit, having lived with it for quite a few decades, and she had immediately recognized the sudden rush of blood to her head, the slight change in her voice, the numb sensation inside of her head, as the very familiar feeling of losing her temper. And indeed she had lost it and she had lost it gloriously.

But why did she feel now, hours later, as she was preparing to go to bed, as if she was waking from a dream, then? Why? Combing her long, raven hair, pulling at it rather more brusquely than strictly needed, she really found herself wondering why. For despite the family she'd sprung from, she was still more than just a member of that family- she was Minerva Astoreth McGonagall and she was intelligent. First female Transfiguration teacher in multiple centuries, and certainly not the one to lose her head over the faintest matter.

And still there was the thin, pestering voice inside her head, repeating and repeating, over and over again the mere word that had led her life for her.

"Destiny."

She'd been born for this- no, she'd been created for this in the first place. She'd been foretold even, a thousand years before the faintest notion of Minerva McGonagall existed in this world, she'd already been there. Indirectly. Hidden. And yet so obviously present.

It gave her a strange feeling of importance, really, and the more she tried to suppress it, the more she realized that it was true. She was important. She was the last straw. She was the only one capable of doing what she had been destined to do.

And so she would.

It was a task like all other tasks she'd performed during her long life- and maybe the hardest and most important one as well. And perhaps she'd been right to fight it- and perhaps she'd been wrong. But after all what was fighting worth if even Albus- even Albus!- could never love her anymore, and that simply because of what she was born to be? Nothing. Just nothing, and she nodded.

If they all wanted her to follow her destiny, then she would. Duty was no empty word to her, nor anything she'd ever tried to escape.

A strange feeling of meekness befell her as she sat down in front of her vanity table, hands falling worklessly on her lap. Looking in the mirror, she gazed at her own image in awe.

Lonely.

Lonely she'd always been, lonely she would always be.

What was the difference anyway?

So many causes to fight for- and none was right, none was good.

Her last thought before falling asleep was a simple one.

Those who do not complain are never pitied.

She'd never complained.

And she would never be pitied.

It was that same thought that entered her mind days later, as she was standing, hands shaking, above the lifeless body of what had once been her number one student.

Killing Hermione had been harder than she'd ever thought it would be.

It was like killing her younger self, actually.

But wasn't that exactly what she'd just done?

-by Nerweniel