Chapter 6: Bors and Bedivere
Minerva McGonagall was Professor of Transfiguration at Hogwarts, Deputy Headmistress at same, Head of Gryffindor House at same, vice president of Ashborne & Ashborne Corp., Secret-Keeper of four hidden families, and second in the line of leadership of the Order of the Phoenix. She was a tall woman, with black hair that had turned almost entirely grey, green, beady eyes covered by square sunglasses, elegant green robes that should have been far out of the price range of a teacher, and a severe expression that disappeared only in the rarest instances, or when she had too much to drink.
Minerva McGonagall was always second.
The trouble was that it was she could not be jealous, because for the last fifty years she had always been second and Albus Dumbledore had always been first. And it was impossible to be jealous of Albus Dumbledore. So she put up with it, wanting to be first but unwilling to do anything about it.
And so she waited for her turn.
And it was only now that she realized that all her waiting was only moving her backward. She had waited and waited, and been loyal to Albus and done everything he had asked. She had done everything but say "I have given up all of my ambitions for you" - and if he had noticed(which he must have - he was Albus Dumbledore, after all) he had given no indication of it.
And now this. This!
She supposed she should be sad, rather than angry. Severus had his cover blown and had barely escaped with his life. Now he was recuperating from serious injury in the Hospital wing, which had been closed off. And Albus had made it clear that with Severus out of the immediate danger of his position as a spy, he would be replacing her as second in the line of succession in the Order of the Phoenix.
She was friends with the greasy-haired Potions Master, though it was a friendship that was created and maintained far more by the necessity of working that close together than by any actual like.
Severus had done nothing to deserve the Headmaster's trust - in fact, his actions should have kept Albus from trusting him at all - and instead the Headmaster had placed all of his faith in him - not bothering to try to get another spy in He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's inner circle, nor ever bothering, in all the time that she had been a part of the Order, to get so much as corroboration for his information - and when it had been false information, doubtlessly fed to him by a suspicious Death Eater, Albus had only shaken his head and said 'It can't be helped' and gone right along with his day.
Of course, she would have tolerated - she would most certainly not have liked, but she would have tolerated - if he had just meant putting Severus in as second at the Order. But of course it meant so much more. She knew - after decades spent next to Albus, she could tell the implications - it meant that the Potions Master would succeed Albus in Hogwarts, too, and (though it meant nothing) as president of Ashborne and Ashborne.
Which meant that all of her efforts - everything that had happened after she had gotten the job as Transfiguration Professor - had been nothing. Maybe it was selfish, but she wanted to be written about in the future. She wanted a radio piece about her life on the day she died. She wanted to be remembered by someone who had never known her.
But her hopes had been dashed. She would never have that now. Now she would, at best, be a Sir Bedivere or Sir Bors to Albus's Arthur and Harry's Launcelot. She remembered suddenly that Bedivere and Bors had been on opposite sides in the war between the two - that Bors, who alone had seen the holy grail and lived to speak of it, had supported Launcelot and Bedivere had been Arthur's most faithful companion.
Of course this was unlikely. Minerva was not a knight, and neither harry nor Albus seemed to be willing to hate each other - though she really had no idea what Harry thought now. Maybe he would...would she be Bedivere or Bors?
Two days ago there would have been no contest. She would have been Sir Gawain for Albus, well-known but not famous, but he had taken that from her, with no justification. So now she was forced to confront, at least in her head, the man who had entranced all of Britain with his charm and mad brilliance, and be forced to confront the possibility that the Headmaster's madness had finally started outweighing his brilliance - the other possibility, that he had chosen Severus over herself out of an illogical bias, was too unlike the Albus she knew, and too contrary to what she could understand, for her even to make an attempt at considering... but he was no longer rewarding the people who deserved it nor punishing - or even seeing the need for punishing - those who deserved that.
She looked up as the door to the staff lounge opened. She nodded wearily to Butler, who had caused the room's shadows to lengthen noticeably when he'd walked in. He only looked at her sadly in response. His eyes looked unusually sunken, his face pale, his lips drawn into a small circle. His posture looked like it had abandoned him. She wondered briefly what had happened that made him look like that, wondered if she looked similar.
Severus would know, she knew. She would have to consult with him as soon as Poppy stopped barring the hospital wing. The Potions Master would be able to separate her problem from his, somehow, and give her real advice. Severus would know. She hurried out of the lounge. She had to convince Poppy to let her see him.
The change had happened quickly. Ron had had no idea what to do about it, which had been evident when he had responded the way he always responded to situations like that - with a sudden explosion of temper and then an undisguised, just-under-the-surface rage that he would inevitably hold until he got tired of being angry forever.
But that would probably involve her making some sort of apology, and if there was one thing she was better than Ron at(and she was better than Ron at quite a few things, mind you) it was being stubborn - especially when, as in this particular instance, she was right.
It was over, she knew. Though Ron and Hermione refused to admit it, this was the end of what the teachers had called the Golden Trio(her mind drew a non sequitur to a reference Snape had made to something called pyrite in reference to the three, but she squashed it quickly) for good. Hermione - Ron hadn't said anything, of course, because he refused to talk to her - had told her that it would be all right, that Harry would come around in a few days and everything would be just like it had been.
When a few days had passed, she had started saying "just another week, you'll see". Two weeks had passed since that. Ginny Weasley had not even bothered to go back and ask her when a week had passed. She had not bothered to talk to Hermione in two weeks. She had not bothered to speak in two days. Yesterday, Professor Binns had called on her during class. And she knew her classmates thought that what had happened next was even weirder than Binns calling on a student for an answer. She had not replied. She had stared at him, challengingly. He had looked back at her, at first questioningly, and then he seemed to actually look at her, and maybe even recognize her, and he had nodded and moved on as if she had given an answer.
She had already had pale skin, but now it looked even paler - that seven magic again, she suspected idly. Her hair, on the other hand, had been blackened with dye rather than magic, and though McGonagall had shown an interest in why several days ago, a few cursory words and two or three icy stares had left McGonagall sighing and dropping it very quickly.
Everything had lost its brilliance since Harry had changed.
That was the only way she knew to explain it. Everything was darker now, as if the figurative rose-tinted glasses had finally been taken off her face, as if, she thought on some days, Helios had replaced the sun with a slab of sandstone. Now there was a metaphor that needed work, Ginny thought grimly. She even botched up being depressed.
"Ms. Weasley?"
Ginny looked up. It was that new teacher...Butler. He had replaced Flitwick at the beginning of the year, and he had been teaching Potions the past week. He looked oddly defeated, even...purposeless? That seemed appropriate. But she felt no sympathy for him. She was sure that his pain would disappear soon - he felt nothing, she was sure, that she had not felt as well. She raised her eyebrows.
"Ms. Weasley, I have something that could be very important to all of us to tell you."
She kept her eyebrows raised. She would not be fooled that easily.
"Listen to me, Weasley. I mean what I say." He paused, thought. "He didn't mean what he said. He does care, Ms. Weasley. He said what he said because he cares."
She said nothing. She knew who he was talking about, obviously - he was talking about Harry - but he was lying. Or just wrong. The latter was more likely. But then, he was a first-year teacher at Hogwarts. If precedent held true, he would be either incompetent or evil. Which meant that it was just more likely he was..either a liar or an idiot. Great.
"Listen! Your family has dedicated itself to a cause for centuries. If you have any care for that history, for that cause, at all...listen. Please. You must understand what it's like to feel horribly guilty for something that isn't your fault. He feels the same way. Remember that." Suddenly, the old teacher straightened up and smiled. "If my memory of your schedule is correct, you're going to be late for Charms."
He was wrong, she thought as she left.
She was late for Transfiguration.
A/N: For this work, I have only a basic idea of what events will occur at what point, and those thoughts are much thicker for the end of the year than the beginning of the year. The whole depressed/goth Ginny idea came to me the day before I started writing that scene, and what's happening between Minerva and Severus and Albus the day before that. At the same time, I have events that need to happen at specified points in time, and require a certain amount of development before that, which means I kind of have to be progressing slowly through the year - which means I can't get to those end of the year events. Which means that, yes, I have to work to get out each chapter. In any case, I think that many of my ideas recently have been pretty good ones, so...whatever.
Review, please. Tell me what's wrong with my writing so I can make it better!