Of Broken Wands.
It was a good thing that Minerva had mastered non-verbal spells so early in the school year. Once again she found herself battling not to choke or chew on the single mandrake leaf she had pressed into the space between her cheek and her teeth. The effort it took to eat without losing the blasted thing meant that she often found herself desperately hungry between meals and only able to eat very little and very slowly. Unfortunately, being rendered almost completely dumb had an unfortunate side effect of becoming privy to a great deal of information she'd rather not know. Unable to plead for a cease and desist from either Augusta or Ivy she was becoming increasingly well versed in each of their personal lives. The more that she was forced to sit and listen, the more difficult it became to look either Walter or Sterling in the eye.
Fortunately, this also prevented her from mentioning the existence of an uncomfortable and ever growing sensation that she was wholly unfamiliar with. She found herself oddly distracted of late. It was difficult to concentrate when inappropriate, though undeniably pleasant, memories and vague musings interrupted her train of thought and filled her chest with a bizarre, fuzzy tightness. More than once she had found herself staring blankly at the pages of a book, waking from a reverie she did not recall slipping into, with no idea what she was meant to be reading.
She had caught herself, rather by surprise, on the verge of confiding this in Augusta. Mandrake leaf aside, she stopped herself before the thought was even fully formed and resolutely convincing herself it was just a bizarre imagining or, much more likely, a side effect of being constantly immersed in her friends' unrelenting, adolescent obsession for romance and whimsical sighing. Still, no matter how she tried, she could not shake these random intrusions that sprang up at the most unwelcome of times. It was not until she was absolutely unable to sit comfortably in Transfiguration one Tuesday morning, crossing and uncrossing her legs in an attempt to dissuade the tense weight lurking in her pelvis, that she conceded that perhaps it was not solely her desire to become an animagus that had had her so eager to re-continue her lessons with Albus.
Likewise, Dumbledore seemed to be pouring an enormous amount of effort into pretending that Minerva simply did not exist. Something that was proving more difficult than he had initially suspected. Minerva's induced reluctance to speak during classes, forcing her classmates to contribute instead, certainly aided in this but he could not stop himself from glancing in her direction with what felt like improper frequency. He found himself searching for her dark head in the crowds on the staircase and caught himself scanning the Gryffindors from the staff table at meal times. Though he convinced himself that no one would be able to distinguish this behaviour from his normal student policing without an invitation to sift through his tumultuous thoughts.
As the full moon drew closer Minerva felt her focus sharpen again. Ivy and Augusta had stopped using Minerva as an emotional sounding board as their professors began reminding them of their upcoming exams. Ivy began spending her spare time in the Ravenclaw common room again and Augusta limited her conversation to conferring with Minerva and her excellent study notes which left Minerva free to stress about the persistent cloud cover that had refused to budge over the past week. It had taken the better part of a fortnight to persuade Professor Slughorn to part with a very expensive Atropos crystalis without signing her soul over to the Slug club and Dumbledore had assured her that there would be place enough to collect a spoonful's worth of dew from the Forbidden Forest. The only thing that would hamper her progress would be these blasted, lingering wisps of cloud. So when she awoke on the morning of the 10th of April to find clear, undiluted sunlight streaming through the dormitory windows she almost swallowed her mandrake leaf in relief.
Minerva barely touched her breakfast and wafted absently through her potions lesson. She was so distracted during their double Defence against the Dark Arts period that Augusta managed to pin her to the floor with a Stickfast Hex while Minerva had been checking the time. It took several minutes for Augusta to find the counter-hex in their book. Professor Faulk had them revising OWL level spells during Charms. Walter spent an entire quarter of an hour deciding whether his Silencing charm had worked on Minerva, whose good mood had inspired a rather Malcolm-esque streak of tomfoolery, only discovering that it had not when she could no longer keep her laughter quiet. As the day drew on she found it harder and harder to sit still and fidgeted with anything within arm's length and Augusta was forced to drag Ivy over from the Ravenclaw table at dinner to force Minerva to eat something who seemed intent on staring at the ceiling to watch the sun set.
"I'm not hungry!" she mumbled insistently, pushing the mandrake leaf under her tongue so she could speak.
"You will be later. I'm sick of waking up in the middle of the night to your grumbling stomach!"
"Minerva if you don't eat something I'll summon the blasted thing out of your mouth and it will all have been for naught." Ivy threatened, drawing her wand.
Minerva shot her a filthy look of pure betrayal before reluctantly pulling a dish of buttered peas over to her plate.
"Thank you." And she stowed her wand away and went back to her house table.
She ate slowly and carefully until Augusta stopped watching her over a jug of dandelion juice and jammed the pockets of her robes with several dinner rolls and a Chorley cake knowing full well that later she would be starving.
It was almost 7 when they wandered back up to the Gryffindor common room. Minerva emptied her pockets onto her bed and refilled them with a single crystal phial, the box containing the moth crystalis, and a silver teaspoon. She checked the contents of her robes against the instructions that Perenelle Flamel had sent Dumbledore and then checked again before making her way back down to the entrance hall to wait for him.
She did not have to wait for very long. She was halfway through attempting to count the rubies in Gryffindor's hourglass when she heard the familiar gait of Dumbledore's heeled boots against the flagstones of the landing. He had fastened a midnight blue cloak around his shoulders against the evening chill and Minerva realised that she had left her own upstairs on her trunk.
"Ready to go?" he asked and she noticed a shadow of both anxiety and enthusiasm clash across his face.
The grounds seemed to thrum in the indigo half-light. The earth was soft underfoot and there was a constant murmur of life that was carried on the cool breeze, rustling against her robes and tugging gently at his hair. All the way down the sloping lawns Albus had the distinct impression that Minerva wanted to ask something and when she fixed him with a questioning glance as they were passing the greenhouses he hazarded a guess as to what it was.
"The gamekeeper has informed me that if I were to wander deeply enough into the forest I would come across a clearing that exists in a state of perpetual night. He says that it is frequented by the centaur herd who have undoubtedly recognised it to be considerably advantageous to their practice of divining from the heavens." He explained but Minerva's eyes widened significantly.
"The centaurs very rarely pose any threat to the inhabitants of the castle." He assured but appreciated her concern all the same. The centaurs were not the most hospitable creatures he had ever met in those trees. "In any case, I do not believe that you should have any cause for alarm whilst we are in the forest tonight. You are with me."
He turned his head slightly to look at her but she did not look frightened. On the contrary, she stood straight and tall with her wand raised against the encroaching darkness and fiery determination glittering in her eyes as she peered past the trees into the forest.
Hagrid had not lied when he said the centaurs' clearing was well away from the fringes. The moon had risen fully by the time they had staggered, slightly worse for wear, into an eerie field of knotgrass. Shivering, Minerva looked up through the circular gap in the canopy and was almost dazzled by the brilliant full moon. The stars winked down on them; clean and clear as gemstones. The night sky seemed strangely magnified, so close that she did not think it would not take much more than a stretch to reach out and trace the craters of the moon or pluck Mars away from its black canvas. The faint shiver of Albus' cloak over the grass brought her back to herself and why she was here. She found a space where she thought the moon shone brightest and knelt down on the damp ground, straining her ears for any indication that they were not alone.
Her heart was pounding in her chest as she fumbled in her pocket for the crystal phial but dug the pointed base in the earth with a steady hand. Very carefully she jostled the mandrake leaf to the tip of her tongue and peeled it away gently before placing it in the phial. As her fingers came away a faint jolt of electricity shot through her arm but not even a rampaging centaur could have broken her concentration. Minerva reached up to let her hair down and plucked away a single hair. She examined it critically and wound it around her finger. Perenelle's instructions had not been particularly explicit but Minerva felt certain that for this to work the hair follicle would need to remain attached and so, without flinching, she pulled out another and watched as it coiled down to the bottom of the container. She used her wand to siphon off enough dew to fill the silver teaspoon and poured it into the phial, careful not to spill a drop, before easing in the delicate crystalis of the Death's-head Hawk moth. She set the stopper back in the phial and sealed it with the tip of her wand. She let out a breath she did not know she had been holding and noticed that her fingers were tingling with cold.
"Can we go?" she shivered, tucking the phial and her hands into her robes.
The light of Dumbledore's lighted wandtip wavered as he unfastened his cloak and bundled it around Minerva instead. The chill of the forest vanished as she felt herself enveloped in the smell of parchment and spun sugar, lemon balm and Albus' warmth.
"I'm not sure about you Minerva," he held his wand out in front of him to light the way, "but I'm rather in the mood for some cake and a very large mug of hot chocolate."
Chilled and slightly scuffed, they had locked away Minerva's potion in an old cupboard in his office. Dumbledore knew he should have let her go back to Gryffindor Tower. There was no real reason save for an overwhelming desire for sweets that he could think of to keep her company. Even so he was more than able to bother the house elves for an evening treat without Minerva. Unable to bring himself to bid her goodnight, he beckoned for her to follow him back down stairs.
"Albus where are we going?" she whispered as he led her down a brightly lit corridor off of the marble staircase that she had never noticed before. He did not answer straight away but stopped in front of a painting of an enormous silver fruit bowl. Now very hungry Minerva just wanted to go back to her dormitory where a stash of bread waiting for her but before she could object again Dumbledore had reached out and tickled the pear in the portrait. She watched in amazement as the pear giggled and squirmed under his fingers before transforming into a great, green doorknob.
"Oh my goodness." Minerva gasped as they entered what looked to be the great hall, save for the huge fireplace and the stacks of gleaming pots and pans against the walls. No less than 30 house elves swarming around the 5 tables that were laid out in replica of the ones upstairs.
"Professor Dumbledore, sir." Several squeaked as they noticed their visitors and hurried over happily.
"Is Professor Dumbledore wanting cocoa?" a little elf asked with a curtsey while her fellow tottered over with a tray laden with biscuits and two mugs of steaming hot chocolate.
"We is having no more sweets, sir." One explained, looking crestfallen, "but we still has treacle tart and scones!"
"We can bake a pie if you is wanting it." Another offered eagerly.
"I could never turn away your scones Philly," Dumbledore beamed warmly and elf who had offered them almost fell over herself in delight in her rush to oblige, "I don't suppose there is anything for a student who has missed their dinner is there?" A small team of elves had started setting a place for the both of them before Albus had even gotten his question out. The elf called Philly had returned bearing a plate of warm scones, jam and clotted cream and a dozen hands had made short work of laying out a chicken pie, green beans and loaf of bread for Minerva. She thanked them in a daze as they all ushered her to sit before they hurried away to take up their chores again.
"You must come here often." She teased lightly as Dumbledore set about spreading raspberry jam on his scones.
"Only every so often." He said with a roguish twinkle in his blue eyes.
"They must like you an awful lot to do all this for you." Minerva dug into her pie eagerly having quite forgotten what it was like to actually taste her food.
Dumbledore shrugged dismissively.
"They are kind to those who are kind to them and I could not, in good conscience, let you perform complex magic in the morning with nothing but stale bread for supper."
Minerva paused with her fork halfway to her mouth and narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
"Have you been reading my mind?"
Dumbledore's beard twitched behind his napkin.
"You are not a very good thief." He explained, "I saw you take them from the dinner table… and your stomach is a great deal less subtle than the rest of you."
It was still dark when Minerva woke, not entirely sure why she was awake at all.
"Miss?" a small voice squeaked near her ear followed by a gentle prod in the back, "Miss is needing to wake up now. Professor Dumbledore is waiting for her."
"Philly?" she whispered into the dark, squinting through bleary eyes to see the little elf from the night before.
"Yes miss. You is needing to get up now. Professor Dumbledore is waiting." The elf repeated.
Grumbling sleepily, Minerva kicked away her covers and rolled out of bed. There was a faint pop as the elf vanished and Minerva dressed as stealthily as she could manage in the dark so as to not wake the others.
The torches were burning low as she stole through the sleeping castle to the transfiguration corridor. It was the start of the Easter holidays. No one would be up for hours.
"Good m-m-morning." She yawned.
Professor Dumbledore was as fresh and awake as if he had been up for hours. Still rubbing sleep from her eyes, Minerva would not have been surprised if she could still find stray twigs in her knotty hair.
"Good morning. There are still a few minutes before day break." He mentioned, consulting the spinning celestial bodies of his pocket watch.
Minerva shook herself, stretched, then drew out her wand. Theoretically there was no immediate danger in performing the incantation. It had been Dumbledore's persistent, lingering anxiety that had insisted that she do so supervised for at least the first time. It also had the added benefit of ensuring that she did not sleep through the sunrise.
They watched as the sky began to lighten behind the mountains and as the first sliver of the dawn broke across the horizon Minerva touched the tip of her wand over her thumping heartbeat.
"Amato. Animo. Animato. Animagus."
There was an enormous bang!
A resounding crack and a hair raising scream from somewhere from behind a screen of purple smoke and silver sparks.
Albus cleared away the smoke with a wave of his wand, his blood cold in his veins as he dropped to the floor beside Minerva before he realised the pitiful, but completely innocuous, sight in front of him. Minerva was sitting rather awkwardly on the floor, her legs splayed at odd angles like a small child. The fingers of her right hand were pressed gingerly to her mouth and in her left were the tattered remains of her wand.
The tip of the wand had splintered in a kind of balloon shape as if someone had tried to force explosives through the length of it and clinging to the charred and smoking hilt with nothing more than a few scraps of wood and a shimmering silver thread. Her eyes were glassy and strangely empty. He thought she might cry.
Wands were easily replaced. He himself had gone through more wands in his youth than he cared to admit but they carried an enormous sentimentality to most witches and wizards. He had discovered, rather by accident, that Nicholas would sooner part with his legs than with his wand. But they had no room for sentimentality if Minerva was serious about her desire to become an animagus. He pulled her unceremoniously to her feet and jammed his own elder wand into her shaking hand.
"There is no time." He urged, glancing at the mounting sun. Still dazed, she touched Dumbledore's wand to her chest and repeated the incantation.
Minerva handed back Dumbledore his wand, shook her singed fingers grimacing, and tipped her ruined wand onto Dumbledore's desk. She felt uncomfortably exposed.
"My wand." She moaned and pulled at her hair in despair. "What am I going to do for exams… my mother is going to kill me."
"What kind of wand was that?" Albus asked before she could work herself into a panic.
"Umm… unicorn hair and ahh... ash. It was my grandmother's. It… It never really liked me." She confessed with a wry laugh.
Dumbledore was taken aback. Whilst his experience with wand lore was limited at best he knew that, while not especially powerful, unicorn core wands were unusually devoted to its original owner paired with ash wood… He was surprised it ever worked for her at all. Tucking his own wand away he rounded his desk and felt his fingers fall upon the smooth handle of a rather handsome wand that had been locked away safely in the bottom drawer. It was as warm as if it had been sitting in the sun for hours and he twirled it through his fingers reminiscently before proffering it.
"It's a walnut wand. Phoenix core. It had served me very faithfully for many years. I'm sure it will suffice until you can arrange for a new wand."
Minerva's had widened so significantly they seemed to take up most of her face. She did not take it, instead she took several steps back, shaking her head furiously.
"You defeated Grindelwald with that wand, didn't you?" She demanded in a tone of hushed reverence. "Albus, I couldn't possibly."
"Please. I insist. I would hate to have to fail you because you were too stubborn to accept a temporary wand."
The threat of failure in her impending exams seemed to do the trick. She reached out tentatively and grasped the walnut wand. A faint warmth glowed under her fingers the moment her skin touched the wood but vanished so suddenly she was sure she had imagined it.
"Every sunrise. Every sunset. Without fail."