Chapter Sixteen

All of a sudden, it was all so very clear to me- as if a curtain had been ripped, and the scene of the play of my life finally became visible in front of my eyes. And it was all so logical, after all. I couldn't believe I'd never thought of the possibility- but then again I knew that its seeming impossibility, its incredibility, would have stopped any ideas of mine anyway. Now, though, very suddenly, I saw that it was not incredible, not even improbable and most of all- that it was probably true, too.

Only as I woke up from my small reverie, mere seconds later, I realized that my husband was staring at me in a, to say the least, uncharacteristically strange fashion. Worried too, I realized, as he rested a hand against my cheek and frowned.

"Minerva, you're warm and you look pale- are you sure you are feeling okay?"

He was so absolutely adorable in his worry, that I could not but cast him a reassuring smile. Resting my own smaller hand atop of his, I shook my head.

"No, Albus, I assure you I am perfectly okay."

The doubtful expression on his face very nearly caused me to roll my eyes- but I practiced the infamous self-control that led me through my whole teaching career once more, and casting him another, somewhat stern smile, I shook my head again.

"I really am. It is just- I know what Anne asks of us now."

I daresay that was one of the rare lines that could, at that moment in time, literally make the great Albus Dumbledore nearly fall from the couch on the floor. It was, too, the moment when I realized that, though I had always seen the situation with Anne as a thing most closely related to myself, Albus was just as involved as I was, and perhaps even more for, logically, his visions had existed way longer a time than mine, after all.

"What does she ask- for Merlin's sake, Minerva, say something- what does she ask?"

All traces of humour, of that light-heartedness which was so definitely his very own, were chased from his voice now, and for the first time I fully saw my husband as what he really was and as what the world knew him- as a damn powerful wizard, and though I loved him just as much or even maybe more for that, this sudden change was still a surprise. Unconsciously fiddling with the end of my thick braid, I found myself wondering as for how I could tell him this news, and when I spoke up, I still was not sure of my words.

"Albus, have you- I mean, have you never wondered what it might have been that bonded Anne and Mark so strongly, that even after centuries and centuries their spirits united in order to reach us?"

I was surprised at my own sudden eloquence- who knows, perhaps it was Anne's voice speaking for me?- and I could read in my husband's now pale blue eyes that I had, indeed, asked a very relevant question. In fact it was the question which summarized our whole quest for an answer in just three lines- in fact it was the question to which the answer would be our answer- the answer I had craved and found through what I did not exactly want to name my own cleverness- through a coincidence- and the answer which Albus still was looking for.

"Love?"

I had expected this answer, and it was not without a now again relaxed smile that I shook my head. It was true, of course- I was convinced there had been and still was a great love between Anne and Mark, but it was too easy as an answer to as complex a question as ours.

"Right, in a way, but there is more, Albus. They died together, after all- there is no need for us to do anything for their mere love, because I think the fact that we can see both of them proves beyond doubt that that part of them did survive. No- their love was the cause, not the result."

The puzzled expression on his face now started getting near comical and with a trace of pity and a smile of reassurance, I dropped him a hint. The reader may have to comment that it seemed I regarded this all like a game, and the reader may blame me for that- but I beg for understanding. I was just eighteen, newly wed, despite all visions at the start of what felt like it would become the happiest time of my life- and, well, frankly, my much older and probably much wiser, too, husband was staring at me with eyes that would have made a newborn Flobberworm want to positively cuddle him out of pity.

"Albus, think. Think of- yes, think of that blonde woman in that painting- Ms… Aegnor, wasn't it? Not of her, I mean- but of her name. Her first name-"

With this, I handed him the clue that had told me, too, the truth- and yet as Albus spoke up again, he had still not understood.

"My dear, I am sorry, but I still do not seem to understand you. The painting- I mean, what's about Elizabeth that-"

Here, though, a silence fell, and I knew that with him, too, realization had dawned.

And we just stared at each other.