ugh. sorry guys. can't say much more than that. school and softball are officially kicking my butt. update range at this point is between 3 weeks and 5. sorry!
Happy President's Day my fellow Americans! well...belated President's Day. I tried to update last Monday, but for some reason, the site wouldn't accept my update.--insert sad face--sorry again!
thank you everyone who has read my story thus far! You're wonderful!
Chapter Six: Candles
The truth was that she hadn't loved in three years. Perhaps it was inconceivable to the everyday person, maybe it was outrageous, but it was not a lie. There had been no one. Minerva allowed herself to get only so close to someone before breaking away from them. In all honesty, that's why she cried when he—whoever he may be—left her. It was her own fault; she drew someone close and then thrust them away.
But none of the men ever quite grabbed her in the way that Albus had. He just stole her, in that one moment, away from herself. Minerva was suddenly staring at a man who she was drawn towards by some unknown, awesome force. From his eyes to his lips to his chest, she was reminded, only reminded, of what sort of feelings lust could give to a person.
Minerva took a long gulp of nothing other than air. "Apology accepted," she whispered. Then she started walking herself back towards her house with not another word. Behind her, she could hear the man's footsteps, uncomprehending and slow.
"Minerva?" he asked from several feet behind her.
The woman silently spun herself around to face the man. He had a sincere face. It was almost as if he…wanted to say something but couldn't. Compelling as it was to see him with such an expression, Minerva didn't feel at all as if she had never seen it. She smiled gently at the man and nodded.
"I know I've been raving on what a horrible chef I am," he started, "but I was wondering if you might want to come over this evening for dinner. It will make up today and my behavior." The man shrugged sympathetically.
She shook her head slowly; she didn't care that she was wet anymore. There had suddenly been something more important to draw her mind towards, and he was standing before her, looking into her eyes with orbs of the sky. Nonetheless, the woman said quite carefully, "You've already been forgiven, Albus." She wanted to stop it there, not finish her treacherous sentence, but she continued with an odd sense of pleasure, "But if you're offering anyhow, I don't suppose it would be wrong of me to agree. You need someone to make sure that you don't burn your house down." Minerva smiled at him.
Albus chuckled gently. "I'll need the help too. What of six?"
A grin was her first reaction and a nod second. "I'll be there."
The man nodded his head gently. "Then I shall see you this evening, Miss McGonagall."
"Good bye," she whispered softly as he began walking away with his back towards her, red hair beginning to shine by the sun.
His final words rang in her ears, echoing in every empty space which she possessed, Miss McGonagall.
"Idiot," he looked at himself in the mirror. His blue eyes were unwavering, red hair unforgiving, and posture impudent. He could have beaten himself—Merlin knows he wanted to. There were so many things wrong about asking her for dinner, the fact that he couldn't cook at the bottom of the list.
He'd just looked at her, Minerva, and it came out of his mouth. There was hardly even a second of thought and it flooded out of his wide open trap. He spoke it because of her. She was so very angry and Albus was feeling dreadful for putting her into that mood. So yes, he did it because he wanted to make her feel better, but on the other hand…well, he saw in her that same old resemblance. It was hard for the man to get those eyes out of his mind; he had not seen them so full of life in so very long. It was only natural for him to react so tactlessly.
No, it was not thoughtless for him to have invited the woman to dinner, it was tactless of him to have seen her in the way that he had in those few moments. She looked so very beautiful and he was seized with a longing. Well, perhaps more a memory than a longing. Oh, how he wondered what love would look like in Minerva's eyes! He'd seen it before—on someone else.
Albus looked down to the dresser drawer, slowly pulled the knob, and was immediately met with a face, covered in dust. He drew his hand over the glass, wiping away the years. His finger fell and stood on the woman's eyes. He remembered…he remembered the last time he looked at those eyes; they were as plain as the ocean itself.
There had been numbness to them, that morning that they found her. But it was only to be expected; after all, the waters had preserved her figure for the hours which she had been missing. The salt attacked and purged and killed every fiber of her being, but God granting, her eyes were left perfectly well enough alone. They were glassy and sad, looking dead ahead, but seeing nothing at all. Such was the stare of Eleanor.
Alas, her eyes were not nearly the most heart wrenching—though they were what had often woken Albus in the middle of the evening—for there had indeed been a head, neck, limbs, and torso to stare. Her skin had been a pale blue, a mix of the sky and the grayest of gray. A pretty picture it did not make, not when it complemented her tightly knit limbs, skewed monstrously in every direction. It was as if the ocean had eaten the bones beneath her sickly skin and left the rest for the sand, for it was in the sand that they found her.
The waves had brought her up over the course of the evening—she'd been missing the night before—and left her for all to see as they continued to thrust their mighty power upon her, scraping her flesh along the pebbles of the beach. The sand had begun engulfing her by the time dawn came; half of her body was hardly even visible. The heavy brown of the beach paid no heed to the fact that there were people looking for her and ate to its own delight. Why, even the beach crabs had started snapping along her feet. The beach waited for no one and took what it could.
Oh, how Albus wished that he could have been the one to have been put through such an ordeal. For years he'd tormented himself over the images that Ellie must have seen before she died.
It looked perfectly harmless from the outside, but underneath, it was a world of avarice, the water. Its currents were hungry for life, tossing and turning every which way in the hopes of grabbing another for its appetite.
He could see it ever so clearly in his mind, what must have happened. She liked to go to the side of the cliff where there were little pools filled with clams and crabs—it had been fun to the girl. Then a wave came, much bigger than her and with its own force. It took her, dragged her, away from safe land and into the massive ocean. The sea would have pushed her down with its giant thumb, onto the bottom where the current was most strong, reeds were most wild, and rocks were most abundant.
Then it would have pulled her like a string pulls a kite. She must have fought with all of her might to get back up, but the giant thread of current drew her away. Down into the blue, flailing, she would have been taken. And Eleanor would not have had a chance.
Albus wondered quite often how she must have felt, staring through the water onto the sky, where the sun shone so very brightly, but was very much out of reach. He wondered what she had thought of in those last fleeting moments. Had she relived her entire life in those last instants? Did she remember that she enjoyed the sea? Or had the woman recalled that she would never see the man she loved again?
Those dead eyes didn't look upon him when he found her upon the rugged sand. Their somberness simply held present, glistening in the morning's inept sunlight.
Minerva stared at herself in the mirror. Her pale skin greatly contrasted the black dress which she wore and her tightly woven hair. Even her lips seemed to be the exact opposite of her skin, showing a natural pink. The woman's eyes glowed, more so than she could hardly even remember seeing.
She felt beautiful.
No, Minerva did not completely understand herself. It was only dinner, a simple meal, but somehow, she felt compelled to dress for splendor.
She would be lying if she said that Albus had nothing to do with it because he most certainly did. The woman knew that in the back of her mind, she had become attracted to him. And—she'd argued with herself about this subject many times over the course of the day—it was not simply a physical attraction. She'd been lusting for his type of mind for years. He offered to her an insight, a response to things that she did and did not wonder about. The man gave her sanity in a world that had seemed insane before him. Minerva had begun to smile again.
The memory of how very sad and desperate she had been before she came to Hermit Lake had somehow been obliterated in the two days which she had spent with Albus. There would be no sadness while she had a friendship in him.
The woman blinked as a foolish smile crossed her face. Had it not been her first thought after he left only a few days before that he was what she needed? Certainly it had been. And it was for sure that he would continue to hold her eye and make her happy. When he was simply there, everything felt…right.
"Right," she whispered to herself. After looking over her appearance once more, she quickly apparated to the back door of the man's home. The woman knocked slowly, feeling a surprising flood of the jitters. Minerva was nervous—and without reason. It was only dinner. Dinner! She swallowed down the air which she breathed and waited for the man to open the large door.
When it moved open slowly, she was caught rather off guard with what she saw. He had made a clothing change as well. Blue robes—the kind that matched his eyes—dragged lightly on the floor, complementing everything that was good about him.
He seemed rather surprised as well to see her in such an outfit for his brow raised ever so slightly. A surprised, perhaps interested, smile overcame his face. "Minerva," he nodded gently without another word.
She let herself walk through the threshold and took a long glance at the sight of his house. Her breath, already on a standstill, completely stopped at the door when she realized the greatness of his home. It was so spacious that there seemed to no furniture in the place at all—the massive piano in the corner seemed invisible in comparison to the rest. The view which she was given went from the door, to a neatly set table, and about three times that length to a door. It was an outsized and intimidating place.
The woman blinked gently and then looked up at the man, "It's nice of you to ask me here," she whispered with undeniably surprised eyes.
The man's smile warmed Minerva's daunted figure, "It's my pleasure," Albus whispered with a gentle air. He looked at Minerva with kindness, eyes twinkling gently. He was doing it again, much like the first night that she spent at Hermit Lake, peering. His gaze, intense and curious, met hers and seemed to see right into her deepest secrets.
For a moment, only a moment, she forgot to breathe and was left alone with his diamond-like eyes. Lost, that was the word.
She tore her gaze away from his after realizing what was happening to her and looked to the kitchen where there wasn't so much as a fire ablaze on the stove. The woman blinked slowly, adding it all up together. Wasn't she there for dinner? "Albus?" she blinked.
"Yes?"
"You don't have on the flames," she whispered, gaze slightly transfixed on the candles that were floating above them. How she hadn't seen them in the first place, she didn't know. There was no artificial light anywhere; candles flooded the place.
Albus let out a little chuckle. "Rather ironic statement, Miss McGonagall," he said, referring of course to the candles. "But you are correct. I had just finished lighting the place when you came. I haven't had time yet to turn on the stove."
Minerva raised an eyebrow. Despite the floating candles, the room was relatively dim. Normally, this would have worried her, but worry was certainly not her first reaction, for in that second, she realized something: she was on a date. Of course she had known before that she would be eating dinner with a man that she found attractive, but the impact of what lay before her suddenly hit with a penetrating strike. He was dressed nicer than she could ever remember him looking during the school year and there was a grin on his face.
Twiddling the age old charm on her necklace between her fingers. "I'm in no hurry," she responded with a soothing voice that she didn't even realize she had.
"That's good," he whispered, mesmerized, "because if you'll remember, I only move quickly when I have to…like when the Headmaster is rating my class."
A smile fell on her face, her sweet, pale complexion.
He liked that grin and the way that she shook her head gently. She remembered that day, he supposed. He had been teaching rather slowly that week; the actual subject of transfiguration was held off for one or two days—to be replaced by quidditch. Unfortunately for his miserable class, Headmaster Dippit came in to grade his teaching abilities for a day. It was a horrifically amusing day in the end.
Albus covered about a week's worth of material in forty-five minutes and talked as if he had been put under a fast forward charm—as one was referred to in slang. The only student who had retained anything of course was Minerva. In all truth, she saved his sorry self from getting into trouble, maybe even probation.
"Thank you, by the way," he nodded.
The woman blinked. "What for?"
"That day that Armando—" he blinked and corrected himself, "Professor Dippit rated me. Your intelligence saved me my job."
She shook her head slowly. "All I did was my job," she whispered, "It wasn't anything you should thank me for. Though, I must say, you were rather a remarkable sight. Do you always talk quick when you're nervous?"
The man nodded. He sounded like a tipsy elf when he was anxious. "What are you like when you're nervous?" Albus was profoundly curious on this particular subject. Minerva seemed to be rather good at hiding her emotions. The only reason that he knew anything about her was her eyes; they were the only indicator of any sort of emotion when she didn't freely express it.
Minerva looked up at him, carefully surveying her two options: answer or don't. In the meantime, her hand had started tracing her sapphire charm along the chain of her necklace and lips had come together almost as if she were a pouting child. Albus was utterly seduced by her movements, as insignificant as they may be; he swallowed down the impulse to say something stupid.
"I stutter," she said gently, "and my cheeks get red."
He smiled reassuringly. She wasn't very different from the rest of the world, save for the fact that she was one who could rarely be nervous. "I'll bet you look just lovely when you stutter," he nodded his head slowly.
She let a toothless grin fall upon her lips, along with a slightly pink tint on her usually pale face. Minerva looked best that way, he was sure of it. There was just enough color to make her seem real, but not enough to let him realize that he was living in a memory; a bittersweet dream. The flames' light blew across her smooth skin, dancing as the seconds passed.
Albus cleared his throat and looked towards the kitchen. "Well then," he sighed, "I'll go and light the fire. Dinner shouldn't take more than fifteen minutes to cook. I'm making you something special, direct from France."
An eyebrow was raised on her face, "I thought you couldn't cook."
"I can't," he shrugged, "But this is something even an idiot can make. It's called a croque monsieur. You butter two slices of bread, put a piece of cheese between them, and then stick it in the oven. It's a fool-proof meal."
"Minerva, help me!"
She watched the man from the kitchen table as he beat down the fire with a blanket. There was an amused smile on her face. Fool-proof, he'd said? The kitchen was a disaster! Flames were still flailing out of the oven, ashes still smoldering in the corner, and smoke flying here and there. Minerva had just entered a war field and he'd said his plan was fool-proof? The irony!
And to make matters even more entertaining, he was not extinguishing the fire with water, no—the git—he was beating it with a blanket! Thrashing it about was his method, not only inappropriate, but idiotic.
So it was thus that Minerva had a smile upon her face. That man was not meant for cooking.
"Minerva!" he called again as the flames caught hold of the blanket.
The woman rolled her eyes and then pulled out her wand. "Aquario," she whispered gently. Immediately, water flew out of her wand and hit the blanket, then the rest of the smoky kitchen.
The man turned to look at her with stunned eyes. He said not a word and neither did Minerva. When he blinked, she blinked. When he shook his head, she shook hers. Carefully, Albus made his way across the littered kitchen and over to the table where she was sitting. The man sat next to her silently, then offered the only thing he could, "Why in Merlin's name did you let me try to cook?"
Sigh as she did, there was only one logical answer. "Because you were bent on it."
"I'm bent on many things, my dear. Still, others have the good sense to stop me from doing something idiotic."
"Well," she smiled softly, "I happen to believe in the motto 'learn from your mistakes'," she whispered. Why her voice had gone down, she didn't know. "And besides that, I have to admit that I did not believe you when you said you were in a bad way with the kitchen."
"Do you believe me now?" he glanced at the black kitchen.
She nodded her head. Of course she believed him. If she hadn't been there, he could have really done some damage to something. For Merlin's sake, if he had kept on with that blanket, he could have killed himself. Why it only took the wrong movement and the flame could have caught hold of him. Fire was not something with which people should mess. Fire burned.
There was a long silence that held no explanation. Whether it was confusion, memory, embarrassment, or simply the inability to find words, there seemed to be no attempt whatsoever to bring about conversation. The quiet was long—felt as if it took forever—it perhaps stole five minutes away from their mortal lives, Albus and Minerva.
Though, one could not help but wonder if it was best that way. Many things, including thoughts, were better off left untouched, forever displaying the qualities of being quiet and enigmatic. And as far as expressing those reserved thoughts? Expression, she had found, was too reprehensible an act for any human to commit. Edwin had taught her that.
In the months they spent together, she dared not hide her total and complete love for the man. She'd often told him that she loved him in that time; Merlin knows, she had. He was everything that she could have ever hoped for at such a young and naïve age: handsome, talented, intelligent, rich. Perfect Edwin had always seemed wonderful to her and thus she often let him know that she was very much head over heels for the man.
Now, three years since he beat her to a gloomy state, Minerva saw the irony of the situation, but was unable to find the amusement. Yes, she had loved him. He had never loved her. What ended up hurting the most in the end was the fact that he'd said it. I love you, he used to whisper in the dark, and not for one minute had she ever suspected that he was lying.
Minerva looked at Albus, the physical embodiment of everything that she could ever want in a man. She knew, simply knew, that she would love him forever. His memory, she thought, would plague at her the way that Edwin's did, but she would never stop feeling for him. Indeed, she would have to say a good bye to him, perhaps some time not so far away, but he was the sort of person who would always be inside of her. Why, even the smell of charcoal kitchen would hit her brain when she thought of him.
And how, just how, is it that she knew so very much? His eyes.
He lifted her chin and she looked up into him. She didn't want to, merely for her sake of keeping control of herself, but she did. His stare of blue seemed to melt everything inside of her; all of the ice that had been built up over the years and occasionally chipped by meaningless lovers was suddenly nonexistent. And for the first time, it seemed, she wanted so desperately to be a part of him.
She hoped to kiss the man and she could certainly see that he wanted to kiss her, but neither of them made a move for it. Albus was perhaps being too gentlemanlike, and Minerva, quite surely, was restraining herself for self-preservation. Thus, they stared and she knew.
The man held her chin there for quite some time, as if he was not sure how to end the awkward moment. In the end, he merely let his finger drop numbly onto his lap, though his eyes did not move away from hers. Minerva waited for him to say something before dropping her head, but nothing came. So she, too, seemed to go numb all over her body and spoke not a word.
The kitchen, she noticed, needed some very serious cleaning. Not only was there no hope for eating that night, but there stood no hope for even the next day. Black covered everything: the counter, floor, stove, and even some of the ceiling. The immaculate kitchen had become a mess, worthy of a Greek tragedy.
She felt deeply for Albus who had tried very hard to make the evening an enjoyable one for her. Minerva had come for dinner and thus far, she had received nothing but a plate of charcoal. He failed in his attempt, but as everything in life is, the thought was all that mattered. Up she went from her chair and looked towards Albus, "I daresay you haven't given me a tour yet."
He blinked for a few seconds, coming off as really quite dense, and then realization waved over his face. The man sat up from where he was sitting and walked towards the middle of the vast house.
"This is the great room," he nodded. Indeed, it was great. As she had already seen, the area stretched from the back door by the lake to the front door, large enough to hold about three hundred people comfortably. Though, she thought, he probably had done a large amount of entertaining over the years. It was only natural that he should take up a house with such a wide amount of space.
The man took her around a corner to where the stairs were. They walked up together and immediately she was faced with a view. No, not at all a view outside, but a view of the lower level of the house; half of the upper floor was missing! There was a giant square cut into the middle, outlined by a tasteful looking railing, which allowed for visitors to look down into the other floor. She stopped only briefly to look down, seeing the table in which she had just been sitting.
They went left first, towards the room which he informed her he called the 'guest' bedroom. "My brother, Aberforth, usually spends a day or two with me while I'm here. This year, he's a bit more iffy than normal. I don't know if you or I will be seeing the likes of him while you're here. Anyhow, he's the only one, so I'm sure it's filled with his strange odds and ends."
Minerva didn't say anything, but by strange she wondered if Albus had perhaps meant unearthly. There were all sorts of pictures everywhere, covering the most atrocious looking concepts—"Nigel Wietzel's Guide to Crossbreeding Unicorns", for example. She walked past quickly, ignoring the items floating around in bottles and everything else in the room.
Next, he took her to a much more homely room. Shelves were on two sides, nearly completely full. Minerva knew that room to be the library before he ever said it, though he did. She walked over towards one of the shelves, reading several of the titles. The Magic Beyond the Pyramids, Help, I've Transfigured My Mother: A Comedy, and Utopia were among the names she read, all of which greatly enhanced the like for her old professor. Perhaps she stood by a few of the books too long, however, for the man put a warm hand on her shoulder as she flipped open a random novel. "You always did like reading," he smiled.
The woman nodded. "You've got quite a collection. Have you read them all?"
Albus nodded his head, "Some of them three or four times. Remember, I've had this house for twenty-eight years. There's a lot of loneliness that comes with that time."
She smiled for he meant it to be a joke, but there was a sort of glumness to the way he said the words. Minerva could not help but wonder if he had always meant to be alone. Was that much life worth living without a companion? "Albus?" she inquired daringly.
"Yes?"
Her eyes met his and stared deep, deep down, "Why is it that you come up here alone every year?"
He blinked for a few seconds, perhaps slightly off guard, perhaps not wanting to answer truthfully. Whatever the case, he stood dumbly for several moments and then finally spoke in a sad, reflective tone, "Because it is my break and I have no one who is not worth breaking from."
A trail of saliva swished through her throat as she swallowed. It was not aimed towards her, the statement, but he was vaguely giving away what was on his mind and she knew it. His thoughts were on nothing but—at bare minimum—finding someone to love. For, as she had often heard it expressed, he had obviously not been loved enough.
"That's horrible," she found herself whispering to him, though she had no room to comment.
The man nodded, "I suppose it is, but it's the truth. It's just as well, anyhow." He did not look at her as he said the hollow words, but opened the door and led her across the corridor, next to the giant square in the floor. He wanted to believe what he said, but he didn't; Minerva wanted to believe him, but didn't. She felt for him. For the first time, it seemed, he had just told her how incredibly lonely he really was by, if nothing else, his downcast tone. He wanted someone—maybe her—as much as she needed someone to love and understand her. It was only right, she knew, for them to be together.
She was led next to his bedroom, the last stop of the top floor. He opened the door slowly and allowed her to look around the room. It shouldn't have surprised her at all the décor of his room—white curtain, red comforter, and walls splattered with the two colors—but it did a little. Part of her expected something completely impersonal, a further attempt in showing off what an immaculate life he was assumed to lead. Fortunately, there was no such thing to be seen. It was a salute to individualism.
"I like it," she stated quite plainly as she looked up to him. It was the perfect room for the man—bright, rebellious, and friendly.
"I'm glad," he spoke quietly.
He was sure to keep his distance, Minerva noticed. As she ventured underneath the threshold, the man seemed to take a step back towards the corridor—the woman could almost even believe that he did. She understood the discomfort, or rather, what he had to be uncomfortable about. After all, she was there—a woman near sixty years younger—with him in the dark inside his room. It was only the gentlemanlike thing to do.
The odd thing was that she…well, she liked him. Though she was not one to believe in destiny, she did believe in feeling what was to come. And Minerva, for whatever reason, felt that she would be made happy by the hands—and kiss—of Albus. He had done well thus far in making her emotionally satisfied; there was no reason to keep a restraint upon their developing relationship.
And so, with these thoughts, she turned to look at him. The woman didn't know what she wanted to say, but somehow it just came out of her mouth, completely lacking any forethought. "You're so far away," she breathed.
Albus nodded his head. "I didn't want this to seem too odd, being in the dark and all."
The woman shrugged, "The whole bottom floor is overrun with candles. I don't see how the dark implies any more than candles do."
He blinked stupidly. Obviously, he didn't see the difference either. Or, perhaps, he was simply quiet to make way for his own thoughts. And it seemed that the man contemplated well what was on his mind. After twenty long seconds, he approached her—not a quick walk, mind you, but rather a set of strides that seemed to take an eternity.
No words were exchanged—the phrase 'I love you' would have been a lie. So instead, he put one arm around her waist, the other lifted her chin, and then he leaned down to her. Unlike all of his previous movements, his head seemed to move quite fast, as if she were metal and he a magnet. But his lips were soft, grazing hers gently as his fingers halted at the base of her neck. They only touched once; not more than that. Then he lessened his grip, allowing for the self-control he had to take hold.
She looked up at him, Albus, and brought her hand to his face, tracing the age on his face. In all truth, Minerva wanted to beg him to do it again, pull her close, but even she could not let it happen; she'd be asking in vain.
Minerva swallowed gently while looking into his glowing blue eyes and then spoke in a voice no louder than a whisper, "You're wonderful."
He smiled. "You're just how I thought you'd be," he moved his thumbs around the side of her waist gently, "soft, quiet, beautiful."
Her head was buried into his chest on her own accord and arms wrapped around the man's body. She didn't do it so much as to get close to him as she did to ignore the words. He always said it, no matter who he was. Beautiful. Minerva was always beautiful to men.
She stayed in his embrace nonetheless, knowing that he had not meant it in the way that everyone else had and that his intentions were solely based on compatibility. He smelled of candy, though she couldn't determine which one. And he was soft, like the very kiss he had just given her. In a manner of moments, she completely disposed of her momentary disgust for herself as well as the men who ogled her; she was in a wonderful man's arms.
"Minerva?" he asked quietly.
She could hear his heart beating repetitively, soothingly. "Yes?"
"I believe I love you."
It was not an easy thing to hear for her. He loved her; two days and he had fallen in love. She didn't blame him for it. It was easy to mistake love for lust or attraction; any idiot could be confused. She, herself, was confused. Certainly, he was worth falling in love with, and even more certainly, he held that wonderful attraction. Maybe she was not in love with him quite then, but she knew she would be. And thus, she spoke calmly and clearly to the man, "I love you too."
hm…eight pages later. What do you think? You'd seriously make my week better if I get some feedback. I may even be inclined to work my butt extra hard and get you an update early:)
