CHAPTER FOURTH

THE TABBY IN THE OWLERY

It was a bright sunny day when Albus climbed the staircase that led to the owlery, the high place in the castle where all the school owls rested and were called down to deliver messages. However, Dumbledore had Fawkes when it referred to send messages, so his business there obeyed a much higher cause.

There, in the wide window was a tabby cat, sitting there, just staring at the horizon. He sighed, walked to the place and sat down next to it. He looked it for a few seconds and then he spoke:

"If this tabby cat could just transform back into that nice and astonishing witch so I can talk to her, it would be quite pleasant."

The cat moved its tail and continued to stare ahead. Dumbledore could read the words in that action. "I have nothing to say to you."

"So you won't talk to me, is that it?" he said. "Do you plan to sit here all day without so much as a single word?"

The cat simply started to lick its paw.

"Well if you will start behaving as a cat, I guess it will be alright for me to start singing. Let's see… which one would you like? I have quite a good selection of muggle music… Have you ever heard Fred Astaire? Heaven, I'm in heaven, and my heart beats so that I can hardly speak… no, no, that was dreadful… I will try it with my gifted tenor voice: And I seem to find the happiness I seek… when we are together dancing cheek to cheek…"

Even the owls ruffled at his dreadful voice, but the cat was very calmed, so he cleared his throat again and spoke:

"No, let me try another… you see, a few years ago I saw a movie…´The sound of music´. Very popular movie among the muggles… I particularly liked that last song… how was it? Climb every mountain, search high and low. Follow every byway… No, no… I like best that one when the Von Trapp children sing… So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu…"

There was a loud pop, and where the cat was sited now was a woman, distinctly ruffled.

"Alright, I will listen, but just cut it out, would you?"

"Why, so soon? Just when I was starting to enjoy myself."

"It was dreadful, Albus."

Dumbledore smiled. She must be less angry by now, or she would not have called him by his name again.

"How did you now it was me?" she asked.

Dumbledore shrugged.

"My dear Professor, I have never seen a cat…"

"Yes, yes I know" she snarled. "You have never seen a cat sit so stiff".

"I was actually going to say that I had never seen a cat sit so sad. Really, Minerva, do we have to endure all of this drama when we can simply talk like friends? The way it has always been."

Professor McGonagall did not answer. An abrupt wind blew next to them, disheveling them. Dumbledore had to hold his hat tightly to his head.

"I am not so sure I can talk to you as a friend anymore."

"There is that drama again. You know, I don't think that a conversation among owl's droppings is helping us much, either".

She stood up. "Well, perhaps we should go to your office so I can have another nice fight with Dippet while I enjoy being called a strumpet. Do you agree?"

Dumbledore did not even turn his gaze.

"You have always told me everything. Yet, there is still one part of your life that is still a mystery to me, and because of my respect to you I have preferred not to ask," he muttered, thoughtfully, "but now I need to know. What happened after you and Tom Riddle graduated from Hogwarts?"

Professor McGonagall sighed deeply. For a moment, Dumbledore believed she was going to reproach him for bringing back to her mind those memories, but she simply sat down beside him, fixing her gaze intently to the horizon.

"He told me he wanted to see the world, to learn more. He desired to become a very powerful wizard and asked me to go with him," she said sadly. "I refused naturally. I loved him very much, but I wanted to become an Auror so dearly that I believed his proposal was not fair for me, so we parted; I entered the Ministry and he went to travel around the world."

She paused a moment, expecting a question or a comment from Dumbledore, but he did not even open his lips, so she continued:

"I suppose his first deed before he departed was to kill his family. He hated them so much… Anyway, when he returned fourteens years later, he was hardly that young and bright man I used to cherish; he had seen too much, had gathered with the wrong folk and had become hard, pitiless and arrogant. He sought me and confessed that in all his trips, he had been unable to find someone like me."

"So you became his couple."

Professor McGonagall nodded silently. Her eyes were damp, but her voice was quite steady.

"I continued to work for the Ministry. Back then, I had no idea what he was planning, but now I guess he was already assembling the people who would soon become his Death Eaters. They started to move in secret and began killing important people. Naturally, Moody and I were put to the case, and when we captured one of them we made him confess. He told us who he was working for. I was so worried that I… I modified Moody's memory, trying to buy some time for Tom, because I was sure there must be a mistake. That night I returned home and told him everything; he confessed to me what he was planning, but assured he would keep me apart from his plans. I loved him so much, so I accepted to turn a blind eye to his deeds and continued to work as an Auror… but then came a time when I could not longer live like that, so I told him I was not willing to have that double life, being loyal to the Ministry at day, and being his couple and a traitor at night, so I left him."

Dumbledore sighed. There was absolute silence, apart from the fact that the owls eventually screeched. "Surely he was furious."

"He was. That same night he killed my mother, my father and my little sister."

Dumbledore remained silent, wondering how he could comfort her after he had forced her to talk about that issue. But she continued, in a harsh voice, a voice that was not her own, filled with hatred and revulsion.

"From that day on, I lived just to see him dead, to hunt him down. I even led the squad to capture him and his minions."

Dumbledore nodded. He was also remembering the evolution of the conflict.

"That is when he ran away," he said, "and you started as a member of the Hogwarts´ staff. He appeared twelve years later as Lord Voldemort. The Order fought him for eleven years, until Harry defeated him."

"Do you know something?" she asked, looking absently-minded to the horizon. "There is something I have not told anybody, not even you. Before my family's tomb I swore to never rest until Tom Marvolo Riddle was dead, until he had paid with his despicable blood for the murder of my parents and my sister. Now, you want to take that revenge away from me, Albus Dumbledore?"

She stood up, and either did Dumbledore.

"Minerva, just please listen to me. I have always known how much you hated him, but you also loved him. I am not taking the revenge away from you, I am just protecting the possibility that some day we will both gloat over his defeat. If we die, then everything will have been pointless."

"Well, now listen to me, Albus; in or out of your Order, I will do everything within my power to destroy him. If he ever tries to seek me, I will kill him before he can say a word."

Dumbledore took a long breath and stared at her.

"You cannot kill him. Even I cannot" he said. "The only one who can defeat him is Harry. It has been already written."

She stomped her right foot.

"Don't talk to me about prophecies! And especially not about those made by Sybill Trelawney! Divination is the most inaccurate branch of magic, not to mention the most ludicrous!"

Dumbledore carefully took her hands.

"I know what your thoughts about Divination are, my dear Professor. I have known for about forty years, but I have reason to believe that Sybill has made two true prophecies; one, as you already know, predicted accurately the return of Voldemort and the escape of Peter Pettigrew."

Professor McGonagall shrugged.

"Nothing more than luck, I am sure. Two lucky moments in sixteen years is not what you would call reliable, is it?"

"Well, perhaps not… but you are reliable, my dear. Do you still consider this old man a dear friend to you?"

She did not answer straight away. Instead of that, she diverted her eyes to a white owl that was on a wooden beam, seemingly Harry Potter´s one. Hedwig was grooming her feathers with her beak. Dumbledore believed she was going to remain silent, but when he was about to speak, she did it first:

"You are indeed foolish, Albus Dumbledore. How can you ask a question like that? You are well aware that you are my dearest friend".

Dumbledore risked a gamble. He knew that perhaps he was pushing his luck a little too much to the edge.

"Even a dearer friend than Riddle?"

To his surprise, she smiled feebly and hugged him.

"The dearest of them all."

"Then, as your friend Minerva, I ask you to trust me in this movement. Just step aside from the Order. I cannot possibly continue if I know you are in danger."

Professor McGonagall smiled and sighed.

"Alright, Albus, I will step aside, if that pleases you."

"Do I have your word?"

She nodded.

"You do have my word. However, there is one thing I cannot promise: If I ever, ever, come face to face with him… if I ever have that chance to destroy him, I will not doubt it, Albus, I will kill him, even if I die on the attempt. I expect you have nothing against that."

Dumbledore decided to grant her that concession; he had already forced her to renounce to the Order, and he did not pretend to take away one of her reasons to live, which was seeing Voldemort dead.

"You know something, Minerva? I really think we should go to the Great Hall and have our meal, because your students may think you are still asleep."

She clapped her hands to her mouth.

"Oh, dear! I have completely… I did not even remember…"

"It is alright," he said, while walking down the stairs, "as long as I can deduct this day from your payment."

Professor McGonagall laughed, but suddenly stopped, as she remembered something.

"I think there is something you should deduct from your office. A very despicable item: Armando Dippet´s portrait."

"I would break it if that pleased you, my dear… but Armando pays a service. Even though you may not find him so useful, he is, Minerva. He may serve to a higher purpose."