"Minerva!"

Minerva cringed at the sound of her mother's voice and her son squirmed fretfully in her arms. She held a finger to her lips, begging her mother to be quiet. Her son was sleeping for the first time in well . . . ever. She didn't want her mother to wake him.

Minerva saw her mother's face soften from its excitement to a more tender look. "Oh, he's asleep isn't he?" she whispered and she quietly made her way over to her daughter and grandson. "Have you finally named him?" she asked in whisper, sitting down on the edge of Minerva's bed and taking a long look at the sleeping baby.

"Yes, I have."

June McGonagall knew her daughter well enough to know that she would have to be prompted if she expected her to give an answer. Minerva was absolutely infuriating that way—as well as in many other ways. "Well?"

"Alan."

June was more than a little surprised that Minerva had not stuck with family tradition and based the child's name at least loosely around the name of a Roman God. It was a tradition that went back a fair number of generations. It might have something to do with the wishes of the child's father, of course—not that she had any idea who that might be. She did not know why her daughter was being so infuriatingly tight-lipped about the subject. She felt that if Minerva wanted to keep the man's identity from the world that was fine, but keeping it from her family too? June simply did not understand it. She and Minerva had been arguing over that very subject ever since Minerva had informed her she was pregnant.

It took a fair amount of self-control for June to not bring that up now, to not try yet again to convince her daughter that she should tell her mother these sorts of things, but she knew very well that today was not the day for that. They could argue over it later. June did not want her grandson's first day of life on earth to be sullied like that. It wasn't Alan's fault that his mother had some silly need to be so private, that she did not yet understand that these sorts of things were what mothers were for.

She decided she needed to find something else to talk about, something that would hopefully not start an argument between she and Minerva. Subjects like that had been far easier to come by since Minerva's father had died, the fact of the matter being that Tempus' death had brought mother and daughter closer together than they had ever been previously, but it was still not a terribly easy task.

June sighed inwardly. She would have to be more careful now about alienating Minerva. If she wasn't she might accidentally place herself in a situation where she saw her youngest grandchild far less frequently than she would like.

And somewhere within her, subconsciously at least, she realized that she really could no longer tell Minerva what to do. While her youngest child, her baby, had still been unattached and free with no responsibilities but to herself, it had been easy to hide that fact from herself. Now that Minerva had a child of her own, however, June could not hide it from herself any longer. Married or not, Minerva was a mother now. She was responsible for another human being. She did not need someone to be responsible for her.

Not that June would ever be able to completely give up that role. It was too much a part of her nature.

"I saw the Headmaster on my way in," June stated, successfully changing the subject. "He was just leaving and said hello."

"That's very nice," said Minerva quietly, glancing down at Alan and adjusting him slightly in her arms.

"Was he here to see you?" her mother asked pleasantly, her voice still low in awareness of the sleeping baby. "I seem to remember hearing others speak of him as being kind in that general manner."

"Albus is kind in nearly every conceivable manner," Minerva responded, not looking up from Alan. There was something odd about Minerva's mannerisms here—or was it her voice?—June detected. Something was off in a small, subtle sort of way, even if she couldn't quite place her finger directly on it. How very confusing.

"He's a great man," June agreed, still trying to figure out what wrong with Minerva.

Minerva nodded, then decided a change in subject was in order. Albus was not someone she wanted to talk about with her mother. The woman was already too nosy and knowing.

"Are Maia and Jove coming too?"

Ironically enough it was Minerva's changing of the subject that really tipped her mother off as to what was wrong. Maybe if Minerva had been better with people and better at reading them the way her mother and Albus were she would have realized, but she wasn't and she didn't. So it suddenly dawned on her mother that Minerva still had feelings for the old headmaster just as she had when she was a teenager.

Her first thought was to wonder if Alan's father knew. Would he approve of the mother of his child harboring feeling for another man? Then, an instant later, the idea that Albus Dumbledore himself might be the father occurred to June. She stared at Minerva with wide, examining eyes as she answered her question.

"They'll be here in about an hour."

Could Albus Dumbledore really have fathered her grandchild? It did seem to make sense, based on Minerva's reaction—and he had just been here to see Minerva, she'd confirmed that. Was it really possible? It did not seem like the sort of thing Albus Dumbledore would do. Suddenly the idea that Dumbledore was Alan's father seemed silly. Just because Minerva still had remnants of an old crush and felt uncomfortable about it—well, that didn't mean anything. It could even mean that Minerva felt as though she was betraying Alan's father.

That was probably it, June decided, but she also decided that she would keep her eyes open. If Minerva would not tell her who Alan's father was then she could still try to figure it out. There was nothing stopping her from doing that.

"Oh, good," Minerva answered. She was looking forward to seeing her siblings, both of them. It had been a long while since she'd spoken to either of them in anything but letters.

Mother and daughter sat in silence for while, watching each other as well as the baby. It was not, for once, an uncomfortable silence born of a disagreement btu rather a pleasant one. Both knew that time had changed the dynamic of their relationship yet again and both hoped quietly that perhaps this new kind of silence of theirs would become the norm.

It was June who finally spoke, breaking the silence and asking something that she would never have asked before because Minerva would never have answered. "Are you scared, Min, of what's ahead of you with all of this?"

Fear shone clearly in Minerva's eyes as she answered. "More than you can possibly know."

"I think I may have an inkling. I've had three children. I know how terrifying it is."

"No mother," Minerva answered, and her voice took on annoyed edge. "You don't. This is different. This is very, very different."

"Why don't you tell me then?"

"I've already told you I can't, Mother. Let's not argue about it again."

And again the subject of that boy's father returns, June thought and wondered again if Dumbledore really could be the child's father. She would not ask.

"I agree. I just don't like this."

"No one does, Mother—I can promise you that—but that doesn't change how things are."

Always so ambiguous, June thought, annoyed, but she held her tongue.

She'd already decided they could argue later. This was a happy day.