A/N:Just a quick couple of points. For those of you that noticed and for those of you that didn't I have increased the rating of this story. This is just a precaution, as I don't think there is anything in this story that is not PG. But with the recent spate of banning you can't be too careful.
Liz O'Brien:I hope this chapter tells you a little more of what you want to know.
Palanfanaiel:Thank-you for the ego boost.
Catwoman99:Thanks for the review. I hope this chapter meets with your approval.
Angeldust-aka-Evilwoman:I know I'm mean. But heres the update.
Karuri (Child of the Dawn):Not sure it matters now. But the next chapter should answer your question.
Quill of Minerva:You review got deleted. But i had printed it already. This chapter explains about Minerva and children. It is a subject I can relate to. Glad your still with us.
Lady Angharad:Would you like to beta? But seriously thank-you for the tip. i am hopless at spelling and the like, it is a miracle that there aren't a lot more errors.
Bookwmnjan:I can't say what I want to without spoiling the chapter read on andyou get your wish.
Many, many thanks to those who took the time to read and review. You and your encouragment are the reasons this chapter exsits.
Yes I know it has taken me an age to load this chapter. I cannot apologise enough for that. But I can only say that life got in the way. I hope you enjoy this chapter and review at the end.Please review as my ego could take a boost.
Happy reading. Morgana-Alex
Risking My Sister Wrath or What Have I done
Chapter 6
We had been discovered. The greatest Witch and Wizard of the age and we could not make sure a door stayed closed.
My sister now stood before us wand drawn. Albus moved to stand in front of me. If I'd had the time my heart would have swelled with joy. As I did not I moved to stand beside him, we stood a better chance if we faced this together.
"Such noble gestures. It's a pity they won't save you today." Katarina said.
It's hard to believe I am standing here and instead of feeling frightened of or angry with her, I feel only pity for her. It is inconceivable to me how someone could live their life thinking that the only way someone could love them is to control them. I cannot think of anything that would make me feel lonelier. The insecurity that comes with such control does not appeal to me, if someone cannot love me without my coercing them into it, then I would not want their love.
Unfortunately it is the only kind of love Katarina understands.
"Katarina please do not do anything that you may regret." Albus warned. Katarina cackled at his words. She actually cackled, as muggles believe all witches should.
"Albus, did our dear Minerva not tell you? I don't do regret. It's a nasty little emotion that gets in the way of me getting what I want." I felt Albus shrink at her statement; no matter what I had told him about my sister, hearing it from her own lips must have stabbed at his heart.
"Did I shock you Albus?" She did not expect an answer but her gave her one anyway.
"Katarina when I married you I truly believed I was doing the right thing. My actions of late have been reprehensible and the fault is mine alone. I pursued Minerva until she gave into me. The blame should rest on my shoulders not hers." There was pain in her eyes his words had chipped at her armour.
But being the McGonagall she was it took mere seconds for her well-preserved mask to fall back into place. One of the few ways we were alike. We had grown up in the same house with the same parents, only six years difference in our ages, yet aside from the obvious physical similarities we could not have been more different.
Please don't think I consider myself a saint, because I do not. I am merely the sum of the choices I have made in this life. Just like everyone else, just like Katarina.
"I knew I should have gotten rid of you little sister instead of just taking him from you. I should have let your 17th birthday present kill you as he had wanted to when he was finished with you." The shame, the heartache and all the other conflicting emotions of that time hit me like a tidal wave. Albus looked at me searching my eyes. This was one of the many things I had not told him.
What could he have done? He would have brooded on it for months and still would not have been able to change things. The idea of him going to Azkaban for the murder of his wife did not thrill me either.
Then as I turned to look at Katarina it was clear she had seen the silent exchange between her husband and myself.
"She didn't tell you about that either did she. Well this is going to be fun." She turned to me and for the first time since she had re-entered the room I feared for my life.
"Minerva dear why don't you take a seat and recount that wonderful day to Albus." Anger rose in me now if I weren't careful it would get the better of me and I'd lose more that I could ever imagine.
"I'll take the seat Katarina. But I will not describe the sordid details of that day for your amusement." I sat in the chair furthest away from her.
"Oh little sister did you not enjoy what he gave you?" She was trying to get a rise out of me now and I would not bite. Albus placed a hand on my shoulder, he knew me far too well.
"Your screams were certainly amusement to him, they seemed to excite him." I had tears on my eyes now and Albus was struggling to keep me seated as well as stopping himself from casting the most unforgivable spell in the wizarding world at his wife.
I snapped I had always held out hope that there was one ounce of human decency in the woman I had the displeasure of calling sister. She had just shown me there was not. I stood to say what I had to say.
"Katarina that pathetic excuse of a human being raped me, while you watched. But he took more than pleasure from me that day. When I found out I was pregnant I wanted to give up on life so much that I was almost happy when I miscarried, I didn't know then that that was my one and only chance of ever carrying a child. He took the chance of being a mother from me; my womb withered and died that day." My face was streaked with tears and I let them fall.
"Is that what you wanted to hear Katarina? That the pain you caused haunts me to this day. That the fact you are carrying Albus's child claws at my very soul. Well Katarina get on with that you're sick, deranged mind is planning. You will get nothing more from me." I wanted nothing more in that moment to change in to my other self and run away. How very un-Griffindor of me.
Albus was behind me the second I sat down. Hands on my shoulders letting me know he was there. But keeping his guard up to protect me if needed.
I did not want to think about what was going through his mind. Without much thought I had just told him that if he chose me he would never have children and that Grindelwald and Voldemort put together had nothing on his wife.
"Katarina!" I whirled around in my seat as Albus shouted; no bellowed would be a better word, the name of his wife. To say he looked sad and angry would be an understatement; he looked devastated and furious. I wondered how much of those two emotions were directed at me.
When Katarina finally dragged her eyes from mine up to Albus's she looked triumphant
"Katarina you are the most despicable person I have ever had the misfortune to know. Minerva would never knowingly hurt a Doxy and yet you have hurt her in ways that should be unimaginable, they should never enter someone's thoughts, they should certainly never become deeds. What's more you are still reveling in said deeds." She was distracted now and Albus in his triad had moved to the opposite side of his office, taking her focus away from me.
He was giving me a chance to act, even to get away if I could. But I could never leave Albus to face this monster alone.
"The images I can see in your mind only serve to confirm my worst fears. I am appalled that I was taken in by you, that I was naïve enough to let you into my life and into my heart." Albus continued until Katarina's back was to me. Seeing my opportunity I reached for my wand and was just about to cast when I heard.
"Petrificus Totalus." I fell to the ground without grace. Albus raced to my side, for a moment his love for me a weakness that could have gotten us both killed.
Then a knock came at the office door; I realised that my lesson with the 7th years had started almost ten minutes ago. I had been missed.
"Headmaster are you in there?" Severus called when he received no bid to come in. He called again.
"Headmaster I am searching for Professor McGonagall, she is uncharacteristically late for her lesson." Katarina's ears rose at that, this was something she obviously had not considered. In a voice I would have said was filled with fear she choked on her next words.
"Albus you are going to answer the Professor and ask him to observe the Transfiguration lesson." She allowed her husband to walk in front of her to the door, her wand at his back.
"Oh and Albus no tricks or I will see that Minerva suffers." Albus nodded to her just as he opened the door.
"Severus I'm afraid…" He did not get to finish whatever he was going to say as the potions master moved to enter the headmaster's office.
"Albus where is Minerva? In almost 25 years Minerva has never been late for a lesson." He said the words in a tone I could not identify. However I did catch his eyes surveying the room a sign of the spy he was.
As his gaze came to rest on Katarina he took a moment to look over her shoulder. From that angle he could only see my feet but it was enough for him to become ever suspicious.
"Mrs. Dumbledore." He said as he moved past her muttering the two words I have never been so glad to hear.
"Finite incantatem." I could move again and I stood to see Albus draw his wand and do what he should have done over an hour earlier, lock the door to this room.
As Severus made sure I was not in any physical distress, Katarina panicked she had nowhere to hide now.
It took just three seconds for her to become her arachnid self. She scampered towards Snape and myself trying for the open window behind us.
"Katarina." Albus shouted but it was too late. I could not move nor could I shout. But I could see the conclusion of the chain of events that had started with Severus entrance into the room.
Severus had turned at Albus's call and was bringing his right foot back to the floor, when it collided with the floor there was a crunch and my heart sank.
The potions master who had killed an unknown number of people in his former life as a death eater, raised his foot to reveal Katarina changing back in to her human form. Her body crushed and lifeless…
A/N:If you made it this far I would like to say that this is not the end of the story. I have one more chapter and an epilogue to go. As usual PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE READ AND REVIEW.