1982

.

Chapter 5

.

A friend's shoulder

.

by Saeshmea

.

Severus was checking some third year essays on love potions when a knocking on the door disturbed the silence of his office. He walked around his desk and to the door, and opened it slowly, willing to check his visitor before letting him in.

"Minerva," her name was all he could say, seeing her standing in front of his door, waiting to come in wearing a long tartan skirt and a long sleeve white blouse with a bow covering her neckline.

"I know we were supposed to meet later in my office," she said, "but I went to the teacher's lounge and saw in the timetable that you had no classes at this hour either," she explained, passing by him to enter in his office uninvited, "I hope you don't mind."

Severus stayed at the door, still trying to cope with the fact that Minerva McGonagall was in his rooms. He had owled her after lunch, asking if they could meet later to discuss an urgent matter about one of his students, and she had replied immediately, inviting him to her rooms after dinner.

"I don't," he said after finally finding his voice back and closing the door, "would you like some tea?" he asked, holding the door to his studio open for Minerva.

"I'd love some," she said, looking around the room, surely finding it cold and dark, as he went to the kitchen to prepare the tea.

Living in the dungeons meant having only a little window for daylight to come into the room; Severus didn't mind it, but he was sure Minerva would have preferred some more light. He also knew that he had no taste whatsoever in decoration; and apart from the furniture, the other thing you would find in his studio were books, piles of books in the corners, filling the shelves and burying some of the chairs.

"I'm sorry about the mess," he said, returning to the only sofa of the room with two cups of tea; black for him, white with two spoons of sugar for her.

"You should have seen my rooms before Ethan moved in with me," she said, "I casted a shrinking spell on most of my books so I could keep them in boxes in the guests' room, and even with that, I needed three trunks to fit all of them."

"How come you didn't move to Hogsmeade to have more place?" Severus asked.

"We did," Minerva said, "we got married in May and moved into a little cottage that we rented in the town a few weeks later," she explained, "but when the next school year started I said I wanted to come back to the school because it was easier for me being Head of House," she stopped to sip some tea and then looked at Severus, "speaking of which," she said, "what was that urgent matter you wanted to discuss?"

"I received an owl this morning from the mother of one of my students," he said, using his wand to make the parchment fly to him from the dinner table, "her grandfather passed away last week and Dumbledore arranged everything so the girl could be at his funeral, but now that she's back to the school the mother wants me to make sure she's alright," he handed the letter to Minerva so she could read Mrs. Abbot's own words.

"I see," Minerva folded the parchment again and left it next to her cup on the tea table and then rested her back on the pillows, slightly turning around to face Severus, "you don't know how to approach this little girl..." she said, and Severus only nodded, "grieving the death of someone we loved is a hard process, especially when we're so young," he couldn't take his eyes off her, "I'm sure you can relate to her, Severus, all of us have seen Death at some point."

Severus had indeed seen Death in his life. He'd lost his mother soon after leaving Hogwarts on the hands of his own father; who had taken his own life in prison some time later. Severus had been fighting for the Dark Lord when that happened, and he hadn't heard the news after several months later. He didn't think those first encounters with Death could be of any help though; he had transformed the grieving for his mother into pure anger, and learning about his father's suicide had only taken him a little relieve.

But then, there was Lily…Her death had devastated him. Lily passing away meant no more chances to getting her forgiveness and he had fallen into a deep and dark spiral of rage and self-pity that had only diminished after meeting Minerva in that train.

"I haven't dealt well with Death in the past," he said.

"And why do you think that is?" Minerva questioned.

"I don't know," he mumbled, "I guess I never had anyone to tell me how I should feel or behave in those situations."

"You mean that you never had anyone to talk about how you felt," she said, and she suddenly placed her hand on top of his, "that's what you should offer this little girl, Severus; a chance to tell her feelings, to cry openly, because her friends are probably too young to understand her sorrow."

"You speak with knowledge," he pointed out.

"I lost someone I loved deeply very recently," she said.

"I'm sorry I asked you for help then," he apologized, her hand still covering his, "if I'd know I…"

"A few weeks after the wedding," Minerva began to tell with her look fixed at some point between her legs and his, "we learnt I was pregnant," she said, "Ethan was very happy; and me too. That's why we decided to move out of the Castle, start a life of our own, get things ready for when the baby would come…" her voice broke and Severus could see her fighting against the tears filling her eyes.

He let go of her touch to cup her face with both his hands. He made her look at him and caressed her soft cheek with the back of his fingers.

"You don't need to hold your tears for me, Minerva," he said.

Minerva closed her eyes and began to cry, she brought her hands to his and let him hold her.

"It was going to be a little girl," she continued, "we were going to call her Felicia, because from the moment we'd learnt about her she had only brought happiness to us," a smile appeared on her lips for an instant long enough for Severus to see, "but then there were complications with the pregnancy," she looked at Severus, "she was born premature and only lived for thirty-seven hours… I never got to hold her," she sobbed, "I never got to see her eyes open or tell her how much I loved her," she broke down into tears and Severus pulled her into his embrace in an instinctive move.

She cried on his shoulder for several minutes until she calmed down, then she sat up on the sofa and dried her tears with Severus' handkerchief.

"I'm sorry," she apologized.

"Don't be," he said, "you needed to let it out."

"Ethan doesn't like it when I remember Felicia," she said, "it makes him sad."

"Well, I'm here for you too, now," Severus said.

"I know," Minerva smiled and this time it didn't go away so soon, "thank you, Severus."

.

TO BE CONTINUED…