A/N: Sorry this took a while! But I hope and think it's worth it.
Answers to reviewers:
Xela: 1) Wait and see. I am a fan of R/H, but there's no room for that in this story. Only one pairing here. 2) This one.
Jedi Amoira: Yes, I agree. Thanks!
VoyICJ: Yes, you will find out about the spell. I don't just throw these things in there. Don't be so shocked to find believable literary devices. They do exist :)
HPluvva: What are you confused about? I suggest you reread the part where Minerva explains it; she's the teacher, not me, and she's good at explaining things! Although I actually did include a bit more in this chapter about that. And how is "vein" a typo? It refers to either a transportation unit for blood or the course that a conversation is taking.
Huffy: LOL! Yes, I've assumed that Dumbledore can go wherever he wants at Hogwarts. It's his castle, after all. Good point: I should probably wean him away from McGonagall at some point in the story and show the rest of his life, but I'd rather focus on the yummy parts :) And Harry is in school, and everything is proceeding along the lines of a normal schoolyear, but I've chosen not to describe those boring parts :) He's going to class and everything; the parts I'm showing are in the evening, usually, and between classes, I guess. And I was not planning to include Ron and Hermione, but they are really too cute to leave out. Read on to figure out what that means.
Geetha: Thank you so much! I'm amazed to find my fanfic has branched out so far.
Tea: What a wonderful string of compliments. Thank you so much.
Isobel D. McGonagall: Thank you. We'll see whether or not Harry is up to the challenge. The answer to your love/friendship question is in this chapter. :D
Alois: No, I hadn't meant the interpretation to penetrate that deeply. I just liked that verse :) And I don't know about Minerva's Animagus form. I might just call it inconvenient and ignore it. If you want to read some really cool fanfiction with Minerva/cat and a whole bunch of Dumbledore, you should check out Alchemine's story arc that includes Ties That Bind, June Week, The Shadowchasers (in progress) and Post Hoc Ergo Prompter Hoc, in that order. Wonderful stuff.
Carmilla: Thanks so much! Terrific review :) Trust me, I don't plan on doing anything easily in this story. And you make a valid point about Harry. But if you read carefully, you can see that the spell only gave Harry a nudge, it didn't force any artificial feelings. But it is true that I love spells so much I get carried away with them sometimes :)
All right, on with the show.....
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the people, places or things in this story. That privilege belongs exclusively to the lovely J. K. Rowling, as I'm sure you're all aware.
Minerva waited until she knew Harry was out of earshot before she curled up in one of the armchairs by the fire. She was frightened, and looked it, and it was doubly unpleasant because she was not accustomed to this unlucky combination. When the silence had grown for a while, testing the limits of her nerves, she shifted and cleared her throat. "What is it you want, Albus?"
A spasm of something that could have been anger- if he'd let it- flew swiftly over Dumbledore's features and disappeared just as quickly. "To begin with," he answered in his stately manner, "I think we should cease to employ Harry as our own personal messenger. The poor boy has enough on his plate as it is, if I understood him correctly." At this, he paused in his soft paces over the hearth to fix his glance on her face, hoping for the smallest answer. Nothing but an additional faint flicker of terror appeared, however, and he sighed heavily, looking his age for the first time in a long while. "Can you tell me whether or not I understand, Minerva?"
It took her a few moments to take in these words, but when she did, her face paled, and she stood up quickly, moving to stand in front of him on the hearthrug. "I can only tell you that you have what you need in order to understand, Albus," she said quietly, reaching out a trembling hand for his, and he grasped it firmly. "Harry..... he wants so much to help. Can you just allow him this? You've given me so much already; can you give a dear, loving boy the happiness of giving the gift of life to someone he cares for deeply? This is what *he* understands, Albus. Selflessness, honor and taking up the cause of justice. He does what is right because it is his nature. If you can accept this, and let him give me this gift, then you do understand."
He looked as if she had taken him off his guard, but he was not surprised. He smiled sympathetically, and with a sudden, unpredictable movement pulled her into his arms. They simply held on for a few minutes, as much to steady themselves and each other as anything, until he finally broke the new silence. "Whatever happens, we always meet in the middle sometime, don't we, my dear?" She nodded against his shoulder, and he continued in the sort of voice that was determined to find answers. "You never answered my last question." She lifted her head so that their eyes met, and stared at him, confused. "In my office, I asked you three questions, the last of which you never answered. How did you realize what was happening to you?" When she made a hesitating movement and pulled away slightly, his eyebrows drew together. "I am sorry, Minerva, but I can no longer give you the option of refusing me an answer. I need one," he warned gently. When she still seemed to refuse, he added: "I need a bit of proof, no matter how small, that you still trust me."
Her eyes filled with reluctant tears, and she whispered rebelliously: "You've never needed proof before."
His arms tightened around her. "You've never before been unwilling to offer it."
"Oh, Albus," she scolded with a touch of her old exasperated tone, "it's not at all that simple. Of course I trust you. But this bit..... well, it's not pleasant."
"That should hardly prevent you from sharing it," he rejoined swiftly. "This whole situation has been a series of nightmares from the very beginning. What is one more?"
"You're perfectly right," she conceded. "Very well, then. A few..... weeks ago, I began waking up in the morning feeling like I'd been run over by the Knight Bus. Strange, since Eloise's accident happened only very recently. Perhaps the curse knew what was in store, and was intent on my suffering. In any case..... everything ached, but there were no marks, only invisible pain. Healing spells had no effect whatsoever. I began to remember things I had forgotten a long time ago, things that I had seen or heard or..... felt." She stopped short and would have halted entirely but for the warm encouragement in Albus' eyes. "Childhood illnesses, injuries, jealousies, sorrows, they all came pouring in on me day after day. And it didn't stop there. All of the horrors of my entire past surfaced one after the other, as if I had had a Dementor standing at my side 24 hours a day." He suddenly looked as though he wanted to say something, but she only squeezed his shoulders more tightly and continued. "One day the memory of my father's murder surfaced, and I heard Grindelwald's voice in my ears for hours on end. It clicked in my brain, and I was convinced I'd found the reason for the inexplicable. I searched in hundreds of books, but I never found any mention of such a thing, never mind how to cure it."
"And I never saw....." His voice was heavy with guilt, but Minerva shook her head.
"Yes, you did," she contradicted him hotly. "You saw, but I wouldn't let you do anything about it. Don't pin this on yourself. I was an idiot, and it's time I got down off my high horse and admitted it."
"What?" he asked, feigning a look of complete shock. "The indomitable Professor McGonagall, surrender?"
"Only when I'm very sure I'm beaten, Albus," she laughed. "Absolutely sure."
His smile faded, and she saw that pain again, that agony in his eyes that made her feel gutted, ripped apart in an instant. "Yes, that's it, isn't it? You must be sure." She was confused, but wished he would hurry through whatever he had to say so that she could make that horrible look disappear from his face. "You will not take any chances, will you? Not even when they lie at your feet, waiting to be explored." Tears of unbearable, ungovernable terror sprang to her eyes, and she jumped out of his arms, restraining a cry just in time, remembering the children dozing at the top of the staircase. One, in particular, slept there whom she needed to be absent from this very scene, otherwise she would lose, and she could not lose.
"Oh, why now?" she struggled out. "Why must you do this now, and kill me at the jaws of death?"
"Because you will not live," he answered solemnly, but with a rising passion of hurt fighting anger in his voice. "You will not take what life has seen fit to give. You deny yourself, but you deny me as well." Her eyes widened in shock, and he nodded grimly. "Did you ever think of that? No, I expect not." He was silent for a few moments, regaining control, and then he continued in what seemed at first a different direction. "Do you know why I stay here, Minerva?"
She was thrown, and could only respond with the obvious answer: "For the children."
He nodded sadly. "Yes and no. The children speak of the protection that I give them. 'As long as Dumbledore is here, we are safe,' they say, and I need them to hold to that belief. But that is not all. They give me something as well. They give me what some might call the illusion of youth, but that is not quite it. It is not precisely their youth that I covet. It is the luxury of waiting that is awarded to that youth. The young take it for granted; they play with it, desiring everything now, unable to restrain their enthusiasm. It is one of the cruelest ironies of this life, Minerva, that one of the most precious gifts we are given is only bestowed on those who do not make use of it. I want the time that is fled, Minerva. I want the time to wait for you."
Minerva could only sink to the floor, vainly trying to erase each tear as it flowed victoriously, to suppress each sob as it burst from the marrow of her ribs. "I don't deserve it," she wept bitterly. "You shouldn't love me."
"If it were a matter of choice, Minerva, many other paths, both fortunate and otherwise, might be open to us, but we cannot guess now what they might be. Whether or not Harry's spell succeeds in prolonging your life, we have very little time. I am very old, Minerva, and at my age an unfulfilled life is not something to be lightly cast aside. Whatever you think we may have to lose, would you rather lose along with it, when I leave this life, everything we have not gained? I sit now as the Muggle ruler, Damocles, is rumored to have done, with a sharp steel weapon, a sword, suspended above his head by a single hair. Will you drop the blade, Minerva?"
"Stop, please!" she cried, unmindful now of the noise she was making. "You know the answers to those questions. Don't ask them! You call your life unfulfilled, when you have achieved so much! You have my heart, Albus. Must you wring it from my chest as well?"
Remorse filled his eyes, as clear as the summer sky, but he spoke on, as if some other force were spilling out the contents of his mind on the altar of flame and brick at her feet. "I must, if that will force you to look at it and see that it beats and bleeds. I will talk no more of this now, Minerva, at least I will wait until Harry has performed the counter-curse. When you see that you have a heart of human flesh, and not of some immortal metal, we will speak some more." She let out a moan of grief, and, taking both of her hands, he knelt beside her on the hearth. "Don't cry," he begged quietly. "I will stop now because I do not wish to bully you into something you see as a defeat. I only need you to think as I have done, to place your life on a scale and wonder whether you would deem it worth buying."
"It seems worth the most now, when I am faced with its loss," she sobbed. She saw the undemanding sympathy in his eyes and reached out for him. He pulled back reluctantly and brought her arms back down to her sides.
"Wait," he said simply. "Think what it is you want, for once you have opened the doors, you will no longer be able to keep me out." He looked at the depths of her eyes, swimming in turbulence, clearly remembering with confusion the earlier embrace. "I know you, Minerva. You value your barriers and gates very highly, but now they have reached the ground and shut tightly as they had not before. I passed underneath, back and forth, but not without a price. They have brought forth a need for choice. On which side do I stand? Think."
"But what did I do? How did I close the doors?"
He looked at her very seriously, choosing his words and studying with affection every line and emotion in her face. "You showed me, if you stopped short of the words, that you prefer to stand alone. But the first sign that this choice was upon us reached me long before tonight. You ask what you did? You left. I saw everything you felt for me, and I saw the fear, and you let the fear win. For a short while only," he added as she opened her mouth to protest, "but the decision was made, and not slowly or deliberately, either. You showed me how tenuous my hold on you really is, and I can truly say I have never been so frightened, not in all my travels, as you put it, to the jaws of death."
"I need to rest, Albus," she whispered faintly, her grip on his hand suddenly numbing in its fierce strength. "I cannot think any longer. And I have nothing more to say now. I need to rest," she repeated.
He squeezed her hand tightly, and smiling wearily, pulled them both to their feet. "Goodnight. Pleasant dreams."
Minerva laughed bitterly. "I sincerely doubt it," she answered painfully. "But thank you."
"No, I *say*!" shouted a sudden, annoyed voice from the stairwell. A hand instantly clamped over the mouth that had spoken, which belonged to a rather freckled face, now as red in anger as the curls framing it. As the two professors whirled around with identical looks of dismay, the mouth wrestled free of the restraining hand and yelled: "You can't leave it like that!" to a double echo of "Shut UP, Ron!" The slim, angry hand that had covered Ron's mouth ripped itself away and a young girl with a very pink face and downcast eyes stood up in its place from a dark corner of the stair. She was joined in a moment by a second boy, with an equally flushed and glowing face, but with an added look of pain and shock that did not escape the swift gazes of either adult. Minerva instantly assumed her best professorial manner, unwilling to give in to embarrassment, to anger or to hysterical laughter, although all three threatened to claim her. The children were the ones who should suffer in this situation.
"Exactly what do you mean," she whispered dangerously, "by leaving your beds in the middle of the night, sneaking around Gryffindor Tower and....."- she swallowed painfully-"eavesdropping on private conversations?"
Ron's courage rose with every syllable. He was as angry and desperate as a child deprived of the end of a bedtime story, and he wanted answers. "We- oof," he exclaimed as Hermione's elbow connected sharply with his ribs. Dancing around out of her reach, he continued: "We mean to find out what you're playing at."
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Weasley?" she growled icily, but there was painful reproach in her eyes, and she was not looking at Ron. Hermione saw it, and quickly spoke up.
"He means that *he* wanted to poke his nose into other people's business," she explained, with a forceful glare in Ron's direction, which he promptly ignored. "We had to come along to keep him quiet. And it didn't work," she finished lamely, and Minerva only just caught the bubble of laughter rising in her throat in the nick of time.
"It's true, Professor," Harry blurted out. "I heard Ron moving about, and I couldn't stop him, so I followed him." Remembering Hermione, he added quickly: "And Hermione was only doing her Prefect duties."
"Nightly Patrols, Harry," she corrected sharply.
Minerva was relieved beyond words, and the relief gave way to utter exhaustion. "Back to bed, all three of you," she demanded fiercely, waving dismissively in the direction of the dormitories. "Now."
"But....." sputtered Ron.
"NOW!" Everyone jumped, including Minerva. Dumbledore rarely raised his voice. When he did, it was a sure sign that he was extremely angry, and that it was a very good idea to do as he said. The three children raced up the stairs, Harry shooting an apologetic look downwards as he and Ron shot off to the left, Hermione to the right. When they were gone, Minerva staggered on her feet, nearly collapsing with weakness. Avoiding the piercing blue source of her pain and of her life, Minerva kept her eyes down and whispered a hurried "goodnight" before vanishing out of the portrait hole. The fire dimmed, and suddenly the room was empty.
Xela: 1) Wait and see. I am a fan of R/H, but there's no room for that in this story. Only one pairing here. 2) This one.
Jedi Amoira: Yes, I agree. Thanks!
VoyICJ: Yes, you will find out about the spell. I don't just throw these things in there. Don't be so shocked to find believable literary devices. They do exist :)
HPluvva: What are you confused about? I suggest you reread the part where Minerva explains it; she's the teacher, not me, and she's good at explaining things! Although I actually did include a bit more in this chapter about that. And how is "vein" a typo? It refers to either a transportation unit for blood or the course that a conversation is taking.
Huffy: LOL! Yes, I've assumed that Dumbledore can go wherever he wants at Hogwarts. It's his castle, after all. Good point: I should probably wean him away from McGonagall at some point in the story and show the rest of his life, but I'd rather focus on the yummy parts :) And Harry is in school, and everything is proceeding along the lines of a normal schoolyear, but I've chosen not to describe those boring parts :) He's going to class and everything; the parts I'm showing are in the evening, usually, and between classes, I guess. And I was not planning to include Ron and Hermione, but they are really too cute to leave out. Read on to figure out what that means.
Geetha: Thank you so much! I'm amazed to find my fanfic has branched out so far.
Tea: What a wonderful string of compliments. Thank you so much.
Isobel D. McGonagall: Thank you. We'll see whether or not Harry is up to the challenge. The answer to your love/friendship question is in this chapter. :D
Alois: No, I hadn't meant the interpretation to penetrate that deeply. I just liked that verse :) And I don't know about Minerva's Animagus form. I might just call it inconvenient and ignore it. If you want to read some really cool fanfiction with Minerva/cat and a whole bunch of Dumbledore, you should check out Alchemine's story arc that includes Ties That Bind, June Week, The Shadowchasers (in progress) and Post Hoc Ergo Prompter Hoc, in that order. Wonderful stuff.
Carmilla: Thanks so much! Terrific review :) Trust me, I don't plan on doing anything easily in this story. And you make a valid point about Harry. But if you read carefully, you can see that the spell only gave Harry a nudge, it didn't force any artificial feelings. But it is true that I love spells so much I get carried away with them sometimes :)
All right, on with the show.....
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the people, places or things in this story. That privilege belongs exclusively to the lovely J. K. Rowling, as I'm sure you're all aware.
Minerva waited until she knew Harry was out of earshot before she curled up in one of the armchairs by the fire. She was frightened, and looked it, and it was doubly unpleasant because she was not accustomed to this unlucky combination. When the silence had grown for a while, testing the limits of her nerves, she shifted and cleared her throat. "What is it you want, Albus?"
A spasm of something that could have been anger- if he'd let it- flew swiftly over Dumbledore's features and disappeared just as quickly. "To begin with," he answered in his stately manner, "I think we should cease to employ Harry as our own personal messenger. The poor boy has enough on his plate as it is, if I understood him correctly." At this, he paused in his soft paces over the hearth to fix his glance on her face, hoping for the smallest answer. Nothing but an additional faint flicker of terror appeared, however, and he sighed heavily, looking his age for the first time in a long while. "Can you tell me whether or not I understand, Minerva?"
It took her a few moments to take in these words, but when she did, her face paled, and she stood up quickly, moving to stand in front of him on the hearthrug. "I can only tell you that you have what you need in order to understand, Albus," she said quietly, reaching out a trembling hand for his, and he grasped it firmly. "Harry..... he wants so much to help. Can you just allow him this? You've given me so much already; can you give a dear, loving boy the happiness of giving the gift of life to someone he cares for deeply? This is what *he* understands, Albus. Selflessness, honor and taking up the cause of justice. He does what is right because it is his nature. If you can accept this, and let him give me this gift, then you do understand."
He looked as if she had taken him off his guard, but he was not surprised. He smiled sympathetically, and with a sudden, unpredictable movement pulled her into his arms. They simply held on for a few minutes, as much to steady themselves and each other as anything, until he finally broke the new silence. "Whatever happens, we always meet in the middle sometime, don't we, my dear?" She nodded against his shoulder, and he continued in the sort of voice that was determined to find answers. "You never answered my last question." She lifted her head so that their eyes met, and stared at him, confused. "In my office, I asked you three questions, the last of which you never answered. How did you realize what was happening to you?" When she made a hesitating movement and pulled away slightly, his eyebrows drew together. "I am sorry, Minerva, but I can no longer give you the option of refusing me an answer. I need one," he warned gently. When she still seemed to refuse, he added: "I need a bit of proof, no matter how small, that you still trust me."
Her eyes filled with reluctant tears, and she whispered rebelliously: "You've never needed proof before."
His arms tightened around her. "You've never before been unwilling to offer it."
"Oh, Albus," she scolded with a touch of her old exasperated tone, "it's not at all that simple. Of course I trust you. But this bit..... well, it's not pleasant."
"That should hardly prevent you from sharing it," he rejoined swiftly. "This whole situation has been a series of nightmares from the very beginning. What is one more?"
"You're perfectly right," she conceded. "Very well, then. A few..... weeks ago, I began waking up in the morning feeling like I'd been run over by the Knight Bus. Strange, since Eloise's accident happened only very recently. Perhaps the curse knew what was in store, and was intent on my suffering. In any case..... everything ached, but there were no marks, only invisible pain. Healing spells had no effect whatsoever. I began to remember things I had forgotten a long time ago, things that I had seen or heard or..... felt." She stopped short and would have halted entirely but for the warm encouragement in Albus' eyes. "Childhood illnesses, injuries, jealousies, sorrows, they all came pouring in on me day after day. And it didn't stop there. All of the horrors of my entire past surfaced one after the other, as if I had had a Dementor standing at my side 24 hours a day." He suddenly looked as though he wanted to say something, but she only squeezed his shoulders more tightly and continued. "One day the memory of my father's murder surfaced, and I heard Grindelwald's voice in my ears for hours on end. It clicked in my brain, and I was convinced I'd found the reason for the inexplicable. I searched in hundreds of books, but I never found any mention of such a thing, never mind how to cure it."
"And I never saw....." His voice was heavy with guilt, but Minerva shook her head.
"Yes, you did," she contradicted him hotly. "You saw, but I wouldn't let you do anything about it. Don't pin this on yourself. I was an idiot, and it's time I got down off my high horse and admitted it."
"What?" he asked, feigning a look of complete shock. "The indomitable Professor McGonagall, surrender?"
"Only when I'm very sure I'm beaten, Albus," she laughed. "Absolutely sure."
His smile faded, and she saw that pain again, that agony in his eyes that made her feel gutted, ripped apart in an instant. "Yes, that's it, isn't it? You must be sure." She was confused, but wished he would hurry through whatever he had to say so that she could make that horrible look disappear from his face. "You will not take any chances, will you? Not even when they lie at your feet, waiting to be explored." Tears of unbearable, ungovernable terror sprang to her eyes, and she jumped out of his arms, restraining a cry just in time, remembering the children dozing at the top of the staircase. One, in particular, slept there whom she needed to be absent from this very scene, otherwise she would lose, and she could not lose.
"Oh, why now?" she struggled out. "Why must you do this now, and kill me at the jaws of death?"
"Because you will not live," he answered solemnly, but with a rising passion of hurt fighting anger in his voice. "You will not take what life has seen fit to give. You deny yourself, but you deny me as well." Her eyes widened in shock, and he nodded grimly. "Did you ever think of that? No, I expect not." He was silent for a few moments, regaining control, and then he continued in what seemed at first a different direction. "Do you know why I stay here, Minerva?"
She was thrown, and could only respond with the obvious answer: "For the children."
He nodded sadly. "Yes and no. The children speak of the protection that I give them. 'As long as Dumbledore is here, we are safe,' they say, and I need them to hold to that belief. But that is not all. They give me something as well. They give me what some might call the illusion of youth, but that is not quite it. It is not precisely their youth that I covet. It is the luxury of waiting that is awarded to that youth. The young take it for granted; they play with it, desiring everything now, unable to restrain their enthusiasm. It is one of the cruelest ironies of this life, Minerva, that one of the most precious gifts we are given is only bestowed on those who do not make use of it. I want the time that is fled, Minerva. I want the time to wait for you."
Minerva could only sink to the floor, vainly trying to erase each tear as it flowed victoriously, to suppress each sob as it burst from the marrow of her ribs. "I don't deserve it," she wept bitterly. "You shouldn't love me."
"If it were a matter of choice, Minerva, many other paths, both fortunate and otherwise, might be open to us, but we cannot guess now what they might be. Whether or not Harry's spell succeeds in prolonging your life, we have very little time. I am very old, Minerva, and at my age an unfulfilled life is not something to be lightly cast aside. Whatever you think we may have to lose, would you rather lose along with it, when I leave this life, everything we have not gained? I sit now as the Muggle ruler, Damocles, is rumored to have done, with a sharp steel weapon, a sword, suspended above his head by a single hair. Will you drop the blade, Minerva?"
"Stop, please!" she cried, unmindful now of the noise she was making. "You know the answers to those questions. Don't ask them! You call your life unfulfilled, when you have achieved so much! You have my heart, Albus. Must you wring it from my chest as well?"
Remorse filled his eyes, as clear as the summer sky, but he spoke on, as if some other force were spilling out the contents of his mind on the altar of flame and brick at her feet. "I must, if that will force you to look at it and see that it beats and bleeds. I will talk no more of this now, Minerva, at least I will wait until Harry has performed the counter-curse. When you see that you have a heart of human flesh, and not of some immortal metal, we will speak some more." She let out a moan of grief, and, taking both of her hands, he knelt beside her on the hearth. "Don't cry," he begged quietly. "I will stop now because I do not wish to bully you into something you see as a defeat. I only need you to think as I have done, to place your life on a scale and wonder whether you would deem it worth buying."
"It seems worth the most now, when I am faced with its loss," she sobbed. She saw the undemanding sympathy in his eyes and reached out for him. He pulled back reluctantly and brought her arms back down to her sides.
"Wait," he said simply. "Think what it is you want, for once you have opened the doors, you will no longer be able to keep me out." He looked at the depths of her eyes, swimming in turbulence, clearly remembering with confusion the earlier embrace. "I know you, Minerva. You value your barriers and gates very highly, but now they have reached the ground and shut tightly as they had not before. I passed underneath, back and forth, but not without a price. They have brought forth a need for choice. On which side do I stand? Think."
"But what did I do? How did I close the doors?"
He looked at her very seriously, choosing his words and studying with affection every line and emotion in her face. "You showed me, if you stopped short of the words, that you prefer to stand alone. But the first sign that this choice was upon us reached me long before tonight. You ask what you did? You left. I saw everything you felt for me, and I saw the fear, and you let the fear win. For a short while only," he added as she opened her mouth to protest, "but the decision was made, and not slowly or deliberately, either. You showed me how tenuous my hold on you really is, and I can truly say I have never been so frightened, not in all my travels, as you put it, to the jaws of death."
"I need to rest, Albus," she whispered faintly, her grip on his hand suddenly numbing in its fierce strength. "I cannot think any longer. And I have nothing more to say now. I need to rest," she repeated.
He squeezed her hand tightly, and smiling wearily, pulled them both to their feet. "Goodnight. Pleasant dreams."
Minerva laughed bitterly. "I sincerely doubt it," she answered painfully. "But thank you."
"No, I *say*!" shouted a sudden, annoyed voice from the stairwell. A hand instantly clamped over the mouth that had spoken, which belonged to a rather freckled face, now as red in anger as the curls framing it. As the two professors whirled around with identical looks of dismay, the mouth wrestled free of the restraining hand and yelled: "You can't leave it like that!" to a double echo of "Shut UP, Ron!" The slim, angry hand that had covered Ron's mouth ripped itself away and a young girl with a very pink face and downcast eyes stood up in its place from a dark corner of the stair. She was joined in a moment by a second boy, with an equally flushed and glowing face, but with an added look of pain and shock that did not escape the swift gazes of either adult. Minerva instantly assumed her best professorial manner, unwilling to give in to embarrassment, to anger or to hysterical laughter, although all three threatened to claim her. The children were the ones who should suffer in this situation.
"Exactly what do you mean," she whispered dangerously, "by leaving your beds in the middle of the night, sneaking around Gryffindor Tower and....."- she swallowed painfully-"eavesdropping on private conversations?"
Ron's courage rose with every syllable. He was as angry and desperate as a child deprived of the end of a bedtime story, and he wanted answers. "We- oof," he exclaimed as Hermione's elbow connected sharply with his ribs. Dancing around out of her reach, he continued: "We mean to find out what you're playing at."
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Weasley?" she growled icily, but there was painful reproach in her eyes, and she was not looking at Ron. Hermione saw it, and quickly spoke up.
"He means that *he* wanted to poke his nose into other people's business," she explained, with a forceful glare in Ron's direction, which he promptly ignored. "We had to come along to keep him quiet. And it didn't work," she finished lamely, and Minerva only just caught the bubble of laughter rising in her throat in the nick of time.
"It's true, Professor," Harry blurted out. "I heard Ron moving about, and I couldn't stop him, so I followed him." Remembering Hermione, he added quickly: "And Hermione was only doing her Prefect duties."
"Nightly Patrols, Harry," she corrected sharply.
Minerva was relieved beyond words, and the relief gave way to utter exhaustion. "Back to bed, all three of you," she demanded fiercely, waving dismissively in the direction of the dormitories. "Now."
"But....." sputtered Ron.
"NOW!" Everyone jumped, including Minerva. Dumbledore rarely raised his voice. When he did, it was a sure sign that he was extremely angry, and that it was a very good idea to do as he said. The three children raced up the stairs, Harry shooting an apologetic look downwards as he and Ron shot off to the left, Hermione to the right. When they were gone, Minerva staggered on her feet, nearly collapsing with weakness. Avoiding the piercing blue source of her pain and of her life, Minerva kept her eyes down and whispered a hurried "goodnight" before vanishing out of the portrait hole. The fire dimmed, and suddenly the room was empty.