Dark Secrets

Later that night they woke up again. Sitting together in silence both women thought about what would happen next or what the Order was doing in the moment. Minerva couldn't stand the silence any longer and decided to break it.

"Were you friends in Hogwarts? Or even more?"

Molly laughed wryly.

"No ... I mean she had sort of a crush on me. I don't know if you could really call it a crush. She was after my body as she is now."

"Oh. And did you ever led her on?"

Molly seemed to consider that for a moment. Then she looked at Minerva and sighed deeply.

"If I have it was unintentionally. What I'm trying to say is that I dated Arthur. Then I married him right after school. Bellatrix Black was never in the picture."

After a while Molly added.

"I'm not into the whole gay thing ... I have no prejudices against them but it's nothing for me."

Minerva smiled. Molly was behaving like the young girl she had been in Hogwarts.

"I see."

Again there was a long moment of silence. This time it was Molly who broke the silence.

"What about you? You-Know-Who seems to have a personal crutch against you."

"We too were schoolmates. He wanted me to be his girl-friend. I pushed him away and married Albus. So basically it's the same story as with you and Mrs. Lestrange."

"I see."

"How come you married Professor Dumbledore? You were a young teacher when I went to school and none of my kids mentioned a wedding or any intimacy between you two."

Minerva smiled gently and fiddled with her wedding ring. There were tears in her eyes. But this time they were tears of joy from joyful memories, not pain.

"When I was a student in Hogwarts I wanted to become an Animagus and Professor Dumbledore helped me on research and the actual transformation. We didn't notice at first but with time it became apparent that we had fallen in love. Later, after I left school and studied to become a teacher, Albus asked me out on dates. It didn't take long and we got engaged. The only people who know of it are the other teachers. In the first Wizarding War the death-eaters managed to catch some of us and found out through torture that Albus and I are married. Tom didn't take kindly to it. He was furious, still is, I would say."

"Oh, I don't know what to say."

"Then say nothing at all. There is really nothing to say. I love him and I don't regret a single second of it."

"Do you have children?"

"We had."

"Minerva? I'm sorry if I upset you."

Minerva's eyes closed and she breathed deeply in and out.

"It still hurts. I don't want to talk about it."

"That's ok."

Molly's arms went around her former professor's form and held her tight. She couldn't imagine what it would be like to lose a child. It would kill her if something happened to one of her little ones.