Chapter Ten: Change

It happened so fast: sheet; discarded clothes; skin; fire—quiet pleas still could be heard by the whole of the house, or rather, the house chose to remember the sounds that were hardly above a whisper. The old home had not seen such a display of raw passion since perhaps it had first been built, and even then it was reserved; seen only in select rooms of the house—never in a place where all could see. But Minerva and Albus, they chose to not care, to make love without a care in the world; they continued to make love without a fault.

The woman, a beautiful and sexual predator, lay on the wooden floor of her front room asleep with a sheet strewn over her body after the matter and a man—intelligent and carnivorous on his own accord—lay on the floor, also with the sheet, but in addition, a feminine hand covered his chest. The both of them were thinking so many things (one in sleep and the other in wake) but neither thought as vigorously as the man.

He knew she loved him, if only for the reason that she let him into her wonderful and yet heartbreaking world but that was perhaps the origin of his anxiety. Minerva told him nothing, save for the bright and brilliant of her life, unless he pushed in the other direction—a concept he could not help but associate with sex; she preferred to follow her own whims, save for when she was forced to go another route. Indeed, Albus was the stronger of the two, thus moving the woman in whatever direction he pleased; he believed she benefited from the loss of control, though she still would have it the other way.

Minerva did not freely give out her life's story which was wholly unsettling to the man; he didn't know her hardly at all mentally, at least deep down. He could easily predict how she would react to certain situations, if for no other reason than she was a woman, but he didn't know why she responded to certain things in such extreme manners. Albus didn't have the faintest idea as to the reasoning for her struggle to leave his home earlier in the day or her doleful outlook on love—or why she never seemed quite sure about how she felt. He saw the insecurity in her eyes that clouded her world quite often, though he did not act it—his observations from the first morning where he saw her on the dock still haunted his curious mind. Troubled as he was for not knowing the woman as well as he ought to, he still saw Minerva as the wounded.

Fully aware of the fact that Minerva would never tell him her woes unless prodded, he was seized with an awful, villainous, desperate idea: her mind could most certainly be entered while she was in slumber and she'd never give it a thought in the morning. He could…

The man shook his head violently. He'd be breaking every moral he'd attempted to give himself (and then some) if he breached her memories. They weren't things to be stolen or used as leverage; they were meant to be sweet portholes to the past. Though he could argue by what he knew about her memories being nowhere near sweet, he also knew that a scheme as heinous as reading one's thoughts was evidently unforgivable—and Minerva, being the woman that she was, would never forgive him; even if she never knew, he'd know, and there would be a strain between them.

Right on cue, almost, to interrupt his deceitful thoughts, the woman's sleepy voice whispered, "No." Not a word more was heard in those few moments, though her disposition was quite suddenly changed: her head moved from side to side and her eyes threatened to be opened due in part to her twitching eyelids; the woman's hand clenched and unclenched on his naked chest. Not knowing what to do, he grasped her fingers gently; she clutched back with cold, sweaty hands and let out a heavy sigh, soon followed by one cracked word, "Why?"

Saliva drained down the man's throat as he swallowed. "Why what, dear?" No, she wasn't awake, nor even talking to him, but Albus was being hurt by simply watching the woman; he didn't believe for one second that he could possibly be in more pain if he were to discover what it was that she attempted to keep from him. Minerva obviously was visited by the same dream, same past, same thought every evening—there was no other excuse for the fact that she woke up regularly in the middle of the night.

A somnolent voice gave him a reply, "Didn't you love me?" She paused for many seconds while Albus quite literally scratched his head, and then went on, "I," she took a long, almost cold breath, "loved…you."

Albus blinked while staring upon the woman. It wasn't his place to be speaking to her while she was in such a state; he had no right at all to prod as he was—but he was intrigued. Of all the things that he had in abundance, it was decency, but he couldn't avoid being indecent just that one time—or perhaps at all that evening. Very true it was that the man respected the woman, but he also loved her; he delved deeper into her mind only in the name of love.

"But I do love you," he tightened his grip on Minerva's fingers.

"Stop it," she started shaking her head again. "Let go," she flung her hand away from him, falling dangerously close to the fire.

Sitting up quickly, he reached across and brought the woman's hand back to her chest where it rested gently. "Minerva," he whispered softly, hoping that whatever it was he had to say would cause her to be less violent with herself. His voice had no such power, however, for her head rocked from side to side like a boat, rocking as the waves hit.

Again, the man swallowed as he watched her. She was struggling; struggling for control, for life, for happiness in her dreams. That's what got him; he couldn't see such a tender creature having so much war inside herself. No, he didn't invade the woman's memories to stop her, but rather placed his arms around her firmly and whispered in the most gentle way he knew, "I love you." He had half expected the woman's sleeping body to retort, but instead it quieted, ceased to move and he thought there was the faintest whisper from the woman that sounded an awful lot like the word "whim".


"Edwin," she whispered softly as she stared at a picture in the Daily Prophet while her mother sat on the settee, reading something or other on politics. He looked much older than he was, suddenly in that photograph: his hair was shaggy, face showing some lines while being far too gaunt—who wouldn't look that way after spending months in Azkaban?

She read the headline slowly and carefully with a wavering breath, "Murder Attempt to Be Judged by Courts". Beside the bold words stood the picture of the man she once loved and then next to that was a picture of herself—lying on her bedroom floor, completely destroyed. The pictures in The Prophet had been enchanted, she knew, to move, but hers was the only one that had no motion; her body just lay there limply on the floor where the only action at all was the leaking blood from her head. After staring at the picture for nearly a minute, there was a large pool of colored liquid upon the floor, growing thicker as the seconds went on, staining her snapped body, but she couldn't look at it anymore; it was enough to simply see herself injured, let alone dying.

Minerva reached up slowly to touch the side of her head that had hit the bedside bureau somewhere over the course of that evening. It stopped bleeding months beforehand, but it still hurt; it was a mental reminder of what happened. If there was one thing that she could not stand, it was to recall what occurred that evening in late January, when it was still so very fresh on her newly recovered mind.

"I thought we agreed that it was a bad idea for you to be reading that article?" A soft voice from the settee called with that universal motherly tone.

The younger of the two girls looked over with a gentle smile upon her face. "I know, but I can't help myself. It's just so strange to be seeing all of this…" she looked around to find the right word, "rubbish so long after the matter."

Willing her daughter to come over with flexing fingers, the older of the two welcomed the child into her space as Minerva placed a head on the woman's thigh. A hand was run through the younger's shoulder length hair (it had been cut in order to carry out some procedures at St. Mungo's) and then the mother sighed a gentle sigh. "I wish that I knew how to go about this with you, Dear. Moreover, I wish you'd see a therapist; no one would have to know. It would help you if you had aid from someone outside me and your world."

"No," Minerva shook her head. "I'm better off sorting out my own thoughts on my own. Besides, it's no one's business but my own. After all, who else ought to be burdened by the future I'll never have?" She didn't say it coldly, her sad, sad destiny, but rather, with a note of conclusiveness; she couldn't change the past, no matter how much she wished it, and thus the future was inevitably changed.

Perhaps it was the finality in her voice which struck a chord upon the two of them; Minerva had never referred to the after effects quite so literally. She did not believe to any point that there was a bright future in her midst—nor her mother; the usually optimistic Aggie McGonagall was just as let down as her pessimistic daughter. Life would never be the same, that was certain, but it didn't seem that it would ever get better, either. Thus, Minerva let out a sad sigh and asked with a heartbroken voice, "What shall I do, Mum? I feel so…lost"

"The same thing you've done all of your life." The woman smoothed her fingers over her daughter's hair, carefully avoiding the scar which the potion had never seemed to quite heal. "You'll get up in the morning, breathe, and try to smile. One day, you'll wake up, and you'll realize that you've got everything to offer to someone…and then everything will be all right."

She nodded slowly. Minerva heard the words, but she never quite made sense of them. Love was something to be given and taken; she'd lost her will to give in a single evening and she didn't understand how it could ever return.

"Minerva?" her mother's voice grew perhaps even warmer, though more concerned.

A soft reply echoed through her ears, "Hm?"

"Min?"

"Yes?" she asked again.

"Minerva?"

The woman blinked her eyes, realizing the voice to not be her Mum's, but a man with whom she was quite familiar: Albus. Immediately, she was faced with a view of the dimming fire and an arm upon her waist, covered only by a thin white sheet as she opened her eyes wide. She continued to blink, but soon realized that her world was a blurry one, due to watery pupils. The girl chose not to turn to face the man (who she recognized undoubtedly knew she'd been crying in her sleep), but rather grasp his warm hand tightly while still looking in the direction of the dancing flames.

"Please tell me what you were dreaming about," he whispered ever so gently into her ear. "You've been mumbling and crying for the last ten minutes…I couldn't take it anymore."

A deep sigh escaped the woman; she'd never had anyone care enough to ask—it was no secret to her by any means that she did not sleep well (nor to her lovers) but many of them simply tended to write her off as either a one night's affair or disturbed; more often than not she left a relationship gladly because of the man's reaction. Ah, but Albus could never react as the others had; he was the most caring and intelligent man she had ever met.

"I was dreaming," she started very, very slowly, "about something that happened long ago. I…I was talking with my mother."

The man pulled the woman just a little bit closer to him. "About what?"

Quite plainly, Minerva replied, "Life."

"What about it?"

In all truth, she didn't know how to approach the subject; it was so hard for her to think about it on her own, let alone explain it to someone who cared so very much. Thus, she did not explain it as well as she ought to have; if the truth were ever to come out, it would be at a much later time. "Growing up; having children and a family—what you spoke about earlier."

"And this made you cry?"

Blink. Blink. Blink. "Yes; and no. I…I'm very afraid that I'll be alone someday; completely alone. I can't…I can't always live only for myself; it isn't worth it." She spoke slowly, waiting for the right words to come to her, talking as if she were in a daze; Minerva never professed to be proud about fears. "Are you ever afraid of being alone?" The woman's voice shook slightly at her last word—not because she was asking a question, but rather, for the very idea of the word; Minerva spoke to the man who was in love with her about having no one when she was quite clearly in his arms.

He squeezed her thin hand gently. "Often, yes, I am very afraid of being alone…it should be no secret to you that I have not happily been in a relationship for a great number of years; but I've always had hope. I'd like to think that you could be the reason I've been holding on so tightly to the idea of love." Albus stopped and then there was a short, thoughtful silence. The man kissed her softly on the neck with a bristly chin. "Neither of us is alone right now."

It was true; he was holding her by the fire in the middle of the evening, whispering the most comforting words that she'd heard since her mother died. Albus was totally and completely correct; they weren't alone; they had each other.

Slowly turning, the woman stared at him; the fire danced in his deep blue eyes like she had never seen: waves of red waved back and forth as if it wanted to mesmerize the woman to have no thought at all, save for keeping her eyes on the man. She didn't remove her eyes from his, but allowed a soft, full smile cross her lips as her fingers glided curiously slow through his auburn hair and then to his matured face. Minerva had the oddest urge to say something meaningful, something that neither of them could ever forget, but no words came to her and making love would have solved absolutely nothing; so she did nothing but stare at him as a deep adoration overcame her being.

Her lover's hand covered her hand as the digits slid between her fingers and then he pulled it away from his face. He sighed softly and began playing with the woman's hand, rolling his fingers and wrist all across the bony ridges.

This was something new to Minerva; she had never had her hand represent some play toy, but Albus was perfectly amused by doing such a thing. The man made it seem as if she were a jigsaw puzzle and he was searching for the correct fit; or perhaps she was one of those awful muggle toys that moved when wound (or provoked)—whatever the case, Albus was utterly amused which by some odd stroke of luck, brought an even wider smile across her face.

"What are you doing?" she asked in an almost motherly tone herself.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" he teased. When there was no answer to his rather rhetorical question, he continued, "I'm playing with you."

Subconsciously, the woman rolled her eyes; what a dolt he could be sometimes. "I see that," she sighed, "but what is the point? I don't believe I make pretty music or anything of the like when you do that."

"No?" Albus raised a taunting eyebrow. "I'll bet I could make you respond with something of the like, as you call it."

She was taken aback by his statement; Minerva recognized his teasing manner and even more so, she saw that new light in his eyes—he was in a right unpredictable state. "And how are you going to do this?" The woman took a quick glance down at the two of them; neither was very well covered by sheets anymore; she had the distinct feeling that something delightful had an opportunity to commence.

"That depends," he drew her hand up to his mouth and kissed it. "I am a world class tickler; I won the cup for my team back at Hogwarts. And if by some awful chance you can withstand my power, I can and will burn down your kitchen, in which the result shall be you screaming at me—I don't prefer to go through with choice two, reasons are obvious," he rolled his eyes. "So?"

The woman shook her head violently and pulled her hand gently away from him. "Neither."

If it were possible at all, his eyes grew more impish. "Ah, so the fair lady is ticklish. Well then," he sat up from where he was—Minerva didn't dare wait to see what he was about to do. She tore off (along with the sheet) in the direction of the stairs and turned to face the man, who sat reasonably dumbstruck by the fire still, severely naked.

It was Albus' turn to blink; he looked from where she had been and then to the stairs and after nearly a minute, he shook his head in a threatening manner. "You, my dear, have just reached a stage of mortal danger. Run." Then he sprang from his position by the fire and walked towards Minerva, who began running up the stairs, being completely tangled in the large mess of sheets.

Minerva ran into her room and slammed the door behind her, throwing her body at it in order to keep it from moving and rested there. She didn't hear Albus moving on the other side of the door, though she knew he couldn't have been far at all. Her heart was racing in her chest—Merlin, she didn't remember the last time she played tag. The woman watched as the doorknob by her right arm was being turned, holding her breath. She expected him to heave at the door, but nothing came—the man didn't even turn the handle all of the way. Suddenly, everything in the world was so incredibly silent that it nearly frightened her. Minerva removed her body from the door and waited for Albus…there was nothing.

Knowing full well that she was most definitely walking into a trap, she placed her hand on the doorknob and began to turn ever so slightly. Then, in one swift movement, she threw the door open and was quite shocked to see nil of Albus; as a matter of fact, she saw nothing, save for the wall of the corridor. With a sense of caution, the woman walked through the threshold and then to the center of the hall, where there was still no sign of the man.

She turned slowly back towards her room, only to be faced with her lover, who immediately grabbed her hands gently. "I have you," he whispered playfully.

"Albus!" she gasped.

The man smiled as a twinkle overcame his eyes. "So? You may want to save me some trouble and tell me where exactly it is that you're ticklish…that is, unless you have something more appealing to do?" He raised an eyebrow as he took notice of the sheet that was falling from her chest, due to lack of limbs to hold it at its place.

Lips curled ever so slightly at his subtle suggestion, Minerva backed slowly towards the wall as she pulled her hands behind her waist, even though Albus was still holding tightly. Once she was clearly in contact with the corridor's barrier, the girl looked up at the man. "What takes your fancy?"

He let out a chuckle. "Frankly, my dear, I think it'd be rather entertaining to see the infamous Minerva McGonagall have a tickle fit, but that doesn't necessarily have to take place this evening. And in any case, I asked you first."

She rolled her eyes. "Really now," she spoke back in a blatantly cynical tone, "what does that have to do with anything? I seem to be caught in a corner."

An amused laugh fell from the man's mouth and he reached quite gently for her waist where he pulled down the remainder of the sheet to reveal her ample chest. His lips seemed to inflate immediately together in a charmed grin, though his eyes didn't appear to have left her eyes for more than a quick second or two. He brought one of his hands up to her face and then lifted her chin up. "Promise me there won't be any more nightmares and then I'll tell you."

A deep swallow and then a nod was her response.

Smiling, he leaned down to kiss the woman; that was that for a fair few more hours.


Albus woke up to a bright, sunlit room with a large bed that had somehow lost its comforter over the evening and had only a thin white blanket, yet no girl; no beautiful, perplexing, thoughtful Minerva in sight. He lifted up the sheets to be sure, scratching his head in befuddlement and then looked around the area from one corner to the next, sighting nothing out of the ordinary, save for perhaps a green satin robe, most assuredly Minerva's.

The man blinked slowly. "Well, this is something new," he whispered to himself. If he had ever been so unlucky as to wake up to no one after a night of passion, there was at least usually a note, more often than not the Dear John sort; nothing of that nature or any other held residence inside Minerva's bedroom. Yes, quite perplexing indeed.

With a thud, Albus stepped foot off of the curiously low bed (Minerva was really quite petite in comparison to him) and put on the satin robe which barely came to mid-thigh, showing off his rather gangly knees. He blinked as he looked at himself in the mirror; "I look like I've just escaped from the carnival…and forgot to take off my freak outfit."

"I daresay, your audience might miss you," a sweet voice, full of unusual levity called from the threshold.

He turned towards the sound, suddenly quite red in the face; he figured just as much that the woman would probably be downstairs, but it had never occurred to him that she'd be anywhere near to see him in the robe before he had accepted its awkwardness on his body. Of course, his dismay was put aside for a quick second as he digested the woman's appearance: long white nightgown, quite nicely cut along the bust. Albus blinked, suddenly re-aware of his attraction to the woman. "That isn't very nice of you to sneak up on me like that…or to even leave for that matter."

Minerva walked into the room, carrying herself with more confidence than he had remembered and draped her arms around the man's neck with a smile upon her deep lips. If the man was not mistaken, her gray eyes looked brighter than they had the day before…or the day before that; the woman looked absolutely buoyant, almost as if she decided to bare the fact that she was in love. "I was making you pancakes," she whispered with a smile, "I haven't been gone very long. I only came up when I heard you creep out of bed; you're not very graceful in the morning, are you?"

"What are you talking about?"

She blinked innocently. "The floor tends to make noise when it's exposed to too much weight; while I don't doubt that it was practically screaming last night," a voluminous smile played at her lips, "it groaned rather loudly when you pulled yourself out of bed. I was merely inquiring as to why that was. Did you fall? Or are these boards just old?"

The man wrapped his arms tightly around the woman for no other reason than she was right there in front of him, but then lifted up her head to peck her quite gently on her teasing lips. When he departed from her, he smiled softly. "The floor was screaming last night?"

A soft blush drifted across the girl's usually pale face. "What on earth could you be referring to?" she shook her head in a rather thought provoking way, knowing full well what he was alluding to as well as what was coming next in the conversation.

"Oh nothing," he brought his head close to her ear, and ran his lips slowly over the soft skin of her neck, hearing that slow exhalation of breath which sounded remarkably close to a low moan. "Merely," he breathed gently, "your enthusiasm last night." His grip on her hips grew tighter as his thumbs moved gently towards her middle.

"Albus," she sighed.

He didn't stop anything, just rolled his thumbs along her hips and kissed her neck gently.

She fell back limply, whispering his name over and over again, pleading to stop, though never mentioning the word; reminding him not so subtly of the evening before where he made love to her again and again. Eventually the woman moved her head to the selected side as an attempt to keep him away from her succulent skin in which case he caught her lips and sucked them close to him. The man smiled at her. "I do hope you know how hard I'm fighting the urge to just…" he stopped to find the right word—

"Shh," she put her finger to his lips with a delighted sparkle in her eyes, "I understand." The woman took a quick glance down at their hips with a smile curling on her lips, "And I certainly do know. But you must remember Albus," she raised an eyebrow, "we have all day…and the day after that and the day after that. While I don't doubt that you've caused me to burn your breakfast already, I will not make a habit of burning down kitchens. Now come downstairs…" The woman walked backwards with raised eyebrows as if to seduce him yet again. It was only natural that the potentially drooling Albus followed Minerva.


Albus watched from behind as Minerva placed the baking pan as well as their plates (after many words, the man forced her to eat a fluffy circle of goodness) into the sink, though she used a charm to have them cleaned. The woman was remarkably at ease, he noticed, laughing and making those intelligent and perhaps sarcastic remarks that he had been missing since the first evening. While he could not deny that from day one he had somehow fallen in love with the girl, he also realized that she sort of…slipped away after the initial two days and drowned in something he could not quite distinguish, other than maybe memories. Ah, but she was suddenly back after their evening together and he could not help but believe that it had something to do with what he had to say to the woman in regards to her dreaming; there was no trouble at all for the man in pinpointing the moment where her disposition was changed: the minute that he mentioned that they were together (and could quite possibly stay together) there was a switch in the woman; Minerva was all of a sudden quite calm and intelligent—unafraid, perhaps.

She approached him with a smile, sitting herself on the kitchen table while he still held a place in a chair. "So," she sighed, "what now?"

When he shrugged, the woman screwed up her face, unable perhaps to find a worthy suggestion. "It's a lovely day outside; the rain has stopped. I imagine it will be back some time in the near future, but for the moment, the sky is cloudless. I don't suppose you'd want to go for a walk? Or," she rolled her eyes, not as subtly as he would have thought, "there is always the lake to swim in, since you're farfetchedness has rubbed off on me, I daresay I may not make too large of a quibble."

He blinked as the dream he'd had a few days before flashed through his mind: water, rock, skin, Minerva; what a beautiful thought it was. It would be beneficial for him, he decided, to take the water route, but he knew as well as the woman that she didn't wish to go; she only suggested it for his sake. Thus, he spoke rather gently to her, "A walk would be lovely. You seem to be in a talkative mood."

Her eyes sparkled brightly as an encore and she leaned down to peck him on the lips. "I'll go and get something decent on. I folded your clothes from yesterday on the settee. If you feel so inclined," a smile played at her lips, "there's a second bedroom underneath the stairs where you can dress yourself. I'll be down soon."

Then she was off. Minerva dashed up the stairs and Albus watched with a sense of curiosity; he had always been quite aware that the woman was, in comparison to him, more of a girl as far as age went, but he had never quite noticed the fact that she was quite capable of appearing more as a child than as a woman; in those few moments that he spoke with her, she was light and happy, much like any primary student. A deep smile crossed his lips for it quite suddenly hit him: he was in love with a…well, a girl of many personalities and talents.

With a slow chuckle and then a shrug, he found his way to where they first made love, by the fireplace. Not waiting at all, the man put on his clothes, completely avoiding the other chamber and stood in the room, completely alone as he heard footsteps running back and forth from upstairs. He rotated directions to face: door, stairs, fireplace—there was something interesting that grabbed him at the mantelpiece, however; she'd placed pictures there, sometime over her duration at Hermit Lake.

His finger traced over a smiling child's face that could only be considered Minerva's: she had deep dark hair, beautiful gray eyes, and very rosy cheeks. She appeared to be about eight, having the front tooth missing and a black and white dotted dress, and was being twirled around by a woman who Albus could only assume to be her mother; and had he not been completely in love with the older Minerva, he was nearly certain that he would have been able to fall in love with the girl's mother: pretty smile, bright eyes, golden hair, nice face—and a mother to top it all.

Never mind that though; he knew from the two of them that Minerva would one day have absolutely beautiful children—and Albus could not help but believe that perhaps he would be the father. It was not that he was dying to have children of his own, but rather that the man wanted someone to love and then perhaps others…Albus had a girl he wanted for life already; he merely wanted the cherry to go on top of the sundae.

Vision darting, there came yet another picture; the only other one and stared very deeply into her eyes—Minerva's to be exact. The photograph was a muggle one, considering it did not move, and quite possibly professionally done. She looked somewhere into the distance in the picture, clutching her necklace tightly between her fingers. Not long ago, he could tell, the snapshot had been taken—maybe a year or two—and she looked absolutely ravishing besides the fact that there hung no smile on her lips; in fact, there was hardly an expression at all, except for perhaps perplexity. Albus had seen that expression upon her face before, when she was on the dock in the early morning hours and he was watching her, as confused as the woman had been.

He wondered what she had been thinking…or if indeed she had been thinking at all.

"Ready," she placed a hand on his shoulder; Albus turned around slowly, though his impulse was to jump as quickly as possible to face her.

"These are interesting pictures," he nodded slowly. "Your mother was quite beautiful…and you are beautiful, if you don't mind my saying."

A soft smile crossed her lips. "Thank you. Are you ready then?"

Up and down his head moved as a sign of readiness and thus, the two of them exited the door and went out to the edge of the lake. They began walking silently, hand in hand, until they approached the willow tree which is where they spent their first day together. There, under the branches and tangles of leaves, Minerva began speaking quite softly: "We haven't talked very much about your work. Of course I know that you teach at Hogwarts, but I've always wondered what exactly that entails." When he gave her a befuddled expression, she continued to explain herself. "I mean, you receive your own rooms and lavatories? What about cleaning facilities? I know that there was a wash room made for prefects and head boy and girl, is there just one for the professors?"

The man let out a small chuckle. What a way to start off the day! "Funny you should ask," he smiled, "about lavatories, I mean. It's a rather sore subject, actually. The heads of houses and headmaster receive their own complete lavatory system where as there are three others for the other teachers. We've conducted a schedule for the use of the washing facilities, but there have been problems with that. You see, for some odd reason, there always seems to be a mix up…and, well, it's rather uncomfortable for both sexes. It's always at the first week…I wouldn't put it past any of the ghosts to change the schedule, particularly Peeves."

Minerva smiled softly. "I remember Peeves," she sighed. "He was such a tawdry piece of work, spreading all the filth he could. I remember once he dropped rotten eggs right in front of the Gryffindor common room. It smelled for weeks."

"I remember that," he thought back fondly. "They had to invent a new cleaning supply to defeat that scent. What wonderful years those were…" he chased off. Yes, those years were absolutely wonderful.

The girl grinned and then blinked, an idea suddenly occurring to her. "Professor Dippit is still there, is he not? He must be nearing the end of his headmastership? You would be the next headmaster, am I correct?"

Albus shrugged. "Armando is still at the school, doing well. I daresay he still has several years in him; he still refuses to miss pub night," when he saw the woman's eyes raise slightly, he added, "don't let me forget to tell you about it. Anyhow, despite our objections, he still goes and he swears up and down that he's not heading for retirement. The man loves it at Hogwarts, not that I blame him…who'd want to retire to nothing?"

Her eyebrows rose yet again. "He doesn't have a family?" The woman's voice was disbelieving and sad; perhaps she was feeling quite suddenly how Albus felt about a lonely future—certainly she was; had the woman not just told him of how very afraid she was of being alone last evening?

"No," he shook his head, "Armando always says that the students are his children. I can't blame him, either. Being a headmaster is hard work and besides that," his voice grew softer, perhaps out of pity for the man who he had always esteemed, "he once tried marriage and it ended most horribly."

The girl beside him had a distinctly lowered jaw by this point, revealing her pale complexion that was riddled with wonder. Her hand squeezed the man's gently and of course she inquired further; Albus saw that interest upon her face, even if she appeared to be (and most certainly was) empathetic: "May I ask what happened?"

Certainly it was not the story of Albus to tell, but he was thus inclined, if only for the sake of keeping that concerned look upon Minerva's face. He knew Armando well and found no harm in telling what occurred for it was simply one of those stories that proved the workings of the real world and knowing about people was the only way to learn…

Albus spoke plainly to the woman, drawing back any sort of opinions he most certainly had. "She didn't come home one day—or any other, for that matter."

"And," she paused slowly, "she went with someone else?"

A nod was the response she received. "Apparently she went with many other someone elses; many of which were work colleagues and friends of Armando's…you see, she worked in the ministry and he worked at the school; they rarely saw each other. It's quite possible that she was flaunting herself about long before Armando's attention was drawn to it." Albus stopped as they fell underneath the shade of yet another tall standing tree, grasped a rock, and chucked it at the water, perhaps out of boredom or anger. He pressed on slowly as a quiet and thoughtful Minerva looked at him. "The divorce was rather trying on Armando; he loved Tulley a little bit too much for words, I think." He said his last bit while staring at the woman with her calm, mysterious eyes, and saw her cognition of such a matter; only a girl who had been put through such an ordeal could have such full, sad, knowing eyes—Albus had never previously received such a knowing stare. And he was suddenly reminded of the day before when she was asking about Eleanor; Minerva had inquired if the girl had left him and his response had simply been that it was accidental…that she hadn't meant to leave him.

So that was it, he deduced, Minerva had been left by someone for whom she cared very deeply (other than her mother) and thus she cried out for that person in her sleep. What was it that she had been saying the evening before? Why didn't you love me? I loved you. Ah, how simple and yet daunting it was; the girl had been very, very heartbroken.

He smiled at the woman, mentally congratulating himself on his conclusion and physically showing his adoration for the creature who was able to work past pain as he had, though he was sure that her pain was not inflicted decades before, considering the girl was only twenty-four. No, Minerva's hurt was a new one, at least in the sense of a life. Of course, that did not take away his curiosity as to the story, but he now knew where most of her quirks came and that was a release on his own soul.

"Minerva?" he asked gently, daring to touch the subject he'd been wondering about for what seemed like an eternity.

She was sweet in her response, though perhaps slightly mystical. "Yes, Albus?"

"Do you remember last night when you told me that you were afraid of being alone?"

Bobbing her head, the woman's eyes dilated slowly; she was blatantly afraid of what he was about to say, but he shook his head gently and wrapped his arms around her so that they were stationary beneath the fiery morning sun, next to the shimmering, picturesque lake. "Well I want you to know that you don't have to be afraid. I'll be by your side forever if you'll let me…these stories about life won't apply to you if you won't let them."

Her arms held tight to him, wrapped from the back, trailing her hands to his shoulders which were clutching for no apparent reason, yet she buried her face in his chest and said not a word. Both of them knew that she was meaning to cry, but she held it in to a deep, thoughtful inhalation as he ran one hand through her hair and another along her perfect spine.