Author's Notes:

Forgive me my laxness. Hopefully the fact that this chapter has some length to it will make up for the fact that it has taken me a while to write it and get it posted.

Oh, and as a side note here, let me say that reviews are much welcomed and appreciated. I've been most gratified to see the number of reviews this piece has received. Thank you all.

And so, without further ado, let us step into the adult life of Minerva McGonagall and see where it leads us. I hope you enjoy.

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Minerva had not spoken face to face with Albus in nearly twelve years. They'd exchanged a number of owls, but had not actually exchanged spoken words since she had graduated from Hogwarts. It was not surprising really. He was both brilliant and famous, so he was nearly always occupied with something, and Minerva, as an auror, always had things to do as well.

At first they'd managed to exchange owls nearly every week, but over the years it had dwindled to once every two or three months. It was too bad, really, they'd been quite close when Minerva was a student, but really she felt it was a good thing.

The separation from her beloved mentor had finally allowed her to leave her love for him behind. She'd moved on. She even had a steady boyfriend—her fellow auror, Alastor Moody. She was even thinking she might marry Alastor at some point. This was highly up in the air, of course. She did not love the man as of yet, but she did admire him greatly. He was the greatest auror she'd ever met. It made him a bit paranoid and annoying at times but they were otherwise well met despite the forty years of difference in their age.

Minerva sighed. There was a letter from her mother sitting on her desk. It was no doubt berating her about Alastor. Minerva's mother did not approve of such age differences. Minerva had no idea why. Her father had been far older than her mother, and by all accounts the woman had initially been a very pretty trophy wife for him. It had only grown into something more later—perhaps even as late as after Jove had been born.

Minerva placed the letter aside. She was not looking forward to reading it, but she would eventually. These letters about Alastor were never nearly as bad as the reaction her mother had had when she'd found out about Minerva flying to Hogwarts. She'd immediately figured out what had driven her daughter to do such a thing. Unfortunately for Minerva, June McGonagall was very perceptive person. She'd quickly figured out that her daughter was in love with her professor. Minerva still distinctly remembered her mother yelling at her about it. She'd not cried as hard as she had that night in the fourteen years since.

Favoring something that would hopefully be more pleasant to her eyes than the reprimands of her mother, Minerva picked up the Daily Prophet and turned to the sports section. Immediately after scanning the results of yesterday's quidditch matches, she set the paper down with an air of satisfaction. The Montrose Magpies, her quidditch team, looked to be on their way to winning the league championship. They'd flattened Puddlemore United in their match the day before.

Having finished reading up on the quidditch standings and the most important section of the paper, she ignored it in favor of going through the rest of her mail. She'd received the books she'd ordered from Flourish and Blotts, The Most Popular Curses and Hexes of Our Century—What to Guard Against. Excellent. Alastor had recommended it to her as being astonishingly accurate and possessing many practical applications for their work.

The book was placed carefully on top of the letter from her mother, so that she could flip through it before tackling that most harrowing of challenges.

There was a letter here from Dan, hopefully it would be containing news of how his wife Rose was fairing in her pregnancy. The two were expecting their first child in a matter of months. She pulled the parchment out of its envelope and read it quickly. Dan and Rose were fine. Rose was being rather moody because of the pregnancy, but Dan seemed to be handling it with his usual long-suffering good humor.

There were other letters from various friends, some of which Minerva resolved to go through later and other which she read immediately upon sight. The one that she'd received from Albus was amongst those in the latter category.

She grinned evilly upon seeing the letter. In her reply she had every intention of mentioning how the Magpies had crushed Albus' quidditch team yesterday. He was sure to be writhing with agony over the simple idea that this year once again Puddlemore United would not be the winner of the league championship. It was Minerva's privilege and self-appointed duty to remind him of this fact whenever she wrote him. They were not really a bad quidditch team, but the fact was that the Magpies were without a doubt the best in her league. This gave her immense satisfaction.

She tore open the letter, eager to read it and respond. Corresponding with Albus was an activity she enjoyed immensely, despite or perhaps because of its rarity.

Dear Minerva,

Forgive me for having not written you for so long. Unfortunately between my duties here at Hogwarts and the constant vying for my attention made by people under the mistaken impression that I am possessed of some magnificent wisdom, I have little time for even the most beloved of former students—as you have certainly noticed.

I am sorry to say that I am not writing you for social reasons. Indeed, I am writing you because I think that you would be of great help to myself in an upcoming endeavor.

Early last week I received a letter from the Ministry of Magic requesting my help with the capture of a rogue witch by the name of Miranda Levings. Apparently she's been engaging in Muggle torturing and murders all over London and the Ministry is becoming hard-pressed to explain these away. Given my history with Grindelwald they have asked me to being working with your young man Alastor on the case. I sill remember quite well your help with Grindelwald, so I have put in a request for you to join us as well. The Ministry has granted my request. Now it is up to you to accept or decline.

Keeping in mind that you love challenges, I have made the (hopefully correct) assumption that you will be joining Mr. Moody and myself. We will be meeting at the Leaky Cauldron to begin making plans at nine o'clock sharp tomorrow morning. I shall see you there.

Sincerely,

Albus Dumbledore

Minerva reread the letter twice, then began to pack. A familiar excitement was budding inside her. She quickly squashed it. She had long outgrown that crush.

/E/E/E/E/E/

She was at the Leaky Cauldron five minutes early, as was her habit when she was meeting people. Alastor was leaning calmly against the wall near the bar's entrance carefully watching all the passers by. The man trusted no one. She walked calmly towards him, the hem of her black Muggle dress swishing about her ankles.

"Hello, Alastor."

"Are you aware of how many people are staring at you?"

"Yes."

"How many?"

"You're paranoid, Alastor," she told him, as she dropped a kiss on his cheek.

Alastor smoothed back his rich brown hair. "It's not paranoia. I don't think that everyone is out to get me, I simple know that everyone is capable and that dark witches and wizards could be anywhere. Besides, paranoia is only when you're wrong. I'm never wrong."

"Yes, you are, Alastor."

He stiffened against the wall and stared fixedly at her with large chocolate brown eyes. She'd never seen him take his eyes away from their constant scan of the crowds before. "When have I ever been wrong?"

"That man at the Muggle Opera was not a dark wizard."

He snorted and relaxed again, taking her arm and leading her into the Leaky Cauldron. He was again watching everything and everyone carefully. "I wasn't wrong about that."

"He was an ordinary Muggle!"

"He may not have been a dark wizard but he was dangerous. He was carrying one of those exploding Muggle wands."

"You mean a gun?"

"Yeah, one of those."

She watched his eyes moving about the Leaky Cauldron, scanning its over its few patrons. "Fine, Alastor, you were right then."

"Exactly," he said with a lopsided smile that made the thin scar running along his left cheek more pronounced. "Constant vigilance, my dear woman, constant vigilance. Always pays off."

She sighed as they sat themselves at a table. Alastor was seated with his back to the wall, able to see all entrances to the bar. "Alastor, constant vigilance is just your way of saying that you trust no one."

Alastor could feel an old argument coming on, and was very happy to see Albus enter the bar. "Good morning, Albus."

The words that had been about to leave Minerva's lips fell away as Albus took a seat. She'd forgotten how handsome Albus really was. The image of him in her mind had faded over the years as she'd forced herself to tuck it away into the deepest corners of her mind. Even if she would have been one to do something as unbecoming as start an argument with Alastor as they met someone, she would never have remembered to after encountering her very first love for the first time in twelve years.

It took her a few seconds to find her voice. It wasn't everyday that an encounter such as this one occurred and she found herself a bit flustered by the flow of emotions it evoked. From the point where she found her voice, however, she was perfectly calm and pleasant in behavior. Indeed but for that first slight falter her behavior remained completely unmarked by the sudden flutter she felt in her stomach. She was far past the point in her life where a quiet love for him had overwhelmed her senses.

"Hello, Albus," she said with the slightest smile tugging at her lips. "You look well."

"And you, Minerva," Albus replied with the gentle smile that was so very characteristic of him. Indeed, he meant what he said. The years had been kind to his star pupil as one would expect them to be. At thirty years of age, she was still a very young witch. She seemed far older to him, however, than he remembered her being. Perhaps it was the tight bun she was now wearing, or the subtle signs of increased maturity he saw in her bearing, but she no longer seemed like a child to him. Throughout the entirety of her schooling, with the exception a few brief occasions, he had never quite been able to think of her as an adult—despite the fact that she had been an adult since almost the very beginning of her sixth year. Now, however, he definitely saw a woman, not a child.

For the slightest moment the smile that had been tugging at Minerva's lips emerged, but no more than a second later, it was gone. Albus returned Alastor's greeting as well and the three of them sat down at the table to get down to business. There was a Muggle killer on the loose and the Ministry's usual tactics were not working. That was why Albus was here now. He did not normally get involved in this sort of thing, but the Ministry had been begging him for his help for the past month. Hogwarts' summer vacation had started a week before and now that his true occupation had freed him for the next two months, he had caved to the Ministry's requests.

It was Minerva who spoke first, drawing the group quickly and efficiently to task, as she was apt to do.

"I must admit I don't know much about this case. The only information I have is what Albus wrote in his letter."

"You read the Muggle newspapers, don't you, Minerva?" Albus asked.

"She does," Alastor confirmed before Minerva had a chance to answer. "Every day."

Albus nodded and Minerva shot Alastor a dirty look. She was perfectly capable of answering questions herself. Alastor, catching her look, simply sighed inwardly and continued his surveillance of the bar's entrances.

"Well, since you read the Muggle papers, you are undoubtably familiar with Ms. Levings' misdeeds. She has been capturing, torturing and, as of late, murdering Muggles she captures off the street for the past ten weeks. She's had seven victims in total."

Minerva nodded. "The papers have reported that there are no leads and that the three victims left alive remember nothing. Our side's work, I assume?"

"Right," Alastor confirmed. "We questioned the three live ones then erased their memories of everything and sent them back home."

"Did we get anything."

"Two of them managed to identify Miss Levings. The other, the last one that got away before she could kill him, was blind-folded. He didn't see anything and he wandered for at least two or three blocks before we found him. One of the other identified where she'd been taken as some sort of seedy Muggle inn, though, so we've got a couple ideas of where she held him."

Again, Minerva nodded. "It makes sense that she would take him to a place like that. She seems to prefer her victims be, shall we say low-class."

"Quite correct," Albus said. "Though I'm uncertain why. We believe, however, that she has been engaging in Muggle tortures for years. It is even thought that she may have done so to uncooperative Muggle for Grindelwald, though this is unconfirmed."

Minerva snorted. She could believe that. Grindelwald had not been the type of man who had the gumption to do that sort of awful work himself.

Albus eyed Minerva carefully, having heard her quiet snort upon his announcement that Levings might have worked for Grindelwald. As was to be expected, she held no love for Grindelwald or his followers. He knew that she would be quite happy when Grindelwald finally died, locked up in his cell in Azkaban. He also knew that she was suddenly, though quietly, very keen on the idea of making Levings join him.

"Plan for getting her is simple," Alastor stated. "One of us is going to employ standard auror tactics of covert tracking. Hopefully, that person, I volunteer myself, will find her before any more Muggles depart from this earth. The other two, will be posing as the type of Muggles she generally goes after, trying to lure her into capturing one of them."

"I don't think it's a good idea that I be one of the two posing as a Muggle," Albus voiced. "As immodest as this sounds, I'm fairly recognizable." He was sorry that was true. He would have liked to have been able to work closely with Minerva on this. She had proved herself many years before to be an excellent complement to his own work style and he would have liked to have spent some time with her catching up. A few sparse letters over twelve years did not foster continuing close relations.

"You're ideal for it," Alastor shot back. "Greatest sorcerer in the world would be hard pressed to be taken out by somebody like Levings. She's sneaky but hardly very powerful. That's probably why she's stuck strictly to Muggles."

"Besides, otherwise you'd be doing the auror work. Alastor is most certainly the best man for that job. The Ministry's never had a better auror."

"Damn right," agreed Alastor.

"You can use a Glamour Charm," Minerva told Albus. "She'll have no idea who you are."

Quite pleased with the turn of events, and wondering why he had not thought of something so simple himself, Albus nodded at Minerva.

"We'll coordinate together as much as possible," Alastor continued. "I'll try and maintain a constant correspondence with the two of you, keep you updating. May not always be possible though. You two stay together. She's got enough sneak to her that she might be able to incapacitate one of you, but the two of you should be fine."

Minerva turned her hazel gaze on her lover. "What about you, Alastor?"

"Constant vigilance. Now let's get started. She's bound to be contemplating her next victim by now."