Her sin – 12 – Disappeared
"Are you sure of what you're saying, Albus?"
"I am, Alastor… Minerva wouldn't have left without saying me anything…"
The two men were talking in the Headmaster's office, where also were Aberforth Dumbledore, Poppy Pomfrey and Rolanda Hooch.
"Witches can react on odd ways sometimes…" Alastor Moody told "If she's as much afraid of this Riddle as you say maybe she tried to run away…"
"No… if she'd done that she'd have come to me immediately… it's what she always does…" told Poppy with a cry of desperation on her voice.
"Maybe she got lost…" Moody suggested.
"Alastor… this is serious…" Albus begged.
"I know… I understand you're worried… but she's not the only person who's disappeared lately, you know… I need to be sure you're right on your suspicious before send an aurors' legion to search this… Tom Riddle…" Alastor told "So… have you looked around the castle…? Maybe she got lost in the forbidden forest…"
"That's what we've been doing the full night…" Aberforth commented "She's not in Hogwarts… neither in Hosmeade…"
"And it's impossible she could got lost in the forest… she knows every inch of this schools and the surroundings… Minerva loves being outside…" Hooch told embracing Poppy, that had broke down in tears "Have you ended the quizzing, now, or do you need to do some more investigation before understand our friend has been kidnapped by a mad wizards that is obsessed with her?!" she shouted.
"No… I guess it's enough, Mrs. Hooch…" Moody said stepping away from Rolanda "I'm gonna need some more information so… What do you know about Mr. Riddle? What was his relation with Mrs. McGonagall?"
"He was engaged with our Minerva…" Poppy said.
"…but he found out he wasn't… you know… a good guy…" Rolanda continued "… so she left him, and he got anger"
"He tried to convince her to come back and stay… in a very bad way…" Poppy explained trying to avoid the part Minerva didn't want anyone to know.
"…but she's a strong and stubborn witch… so he couldn't get what he wanted…" Rolanda commented.
"When did this happen?" Moody asked.
"…some years ago…"
"Years?!" exclaimed the auror "If this happened so many time ago how can you be so sure it's him who…?"
"'cause he came back…" Albus told "About a couple months ago… Riddle came to the school and met Minerva by chance… He raped her and now she's pregnant…"
"From him?!"
"… yes"
"You're kidding!" Rolanda exclaimed.
"No… he's not… it's true…" Poppy told.
"So… He finds her after so much time, remember those forgotten feelings, rapes her, finds out she's pregnant and kidnaps her to have that family he couldn't have when they were engage…" Moody synthesized "Anything else I should know?"
"Yes…" said Albus "He likes to be cold Lord Voldemort"
"What?!" Moody exclaimed suddenly "Are you sure?"
"Yeah… he already played with that nickname being in the school…"
"Oh Merlin!"
"What's on, Alastor?"
"There're been some incidents lately… attacks, robberies… and, as I've told, disappearances of wizards and muggles… everybody talks about this Voldemort… people says about him that he hasn't qualms to make pain everywhere he goes… They say he's a kind of an army following him and taking terror to the more peaceful towns of the wizards' world…"
"Aren't you hungry, my queen?" Tom Riddle asked while he and his guest were in the dining room of Minerva's grandmother's old house having a Christmas lunch.
"Let me go home…" Minerva begged "…please"
"... you should eat something, my love… You're pregnant, you have to take more care of yourself, now…" he said ignoring her.
"Tom, please… you know this can't work… We have very different ways to see the world…"
"We can change this… you only have to accept I am right, and that wizards shouldn't be hiding from muggles… we should be governing them"
"No… you're wrong… we have any right to take advantage of our powers for these kind of things… muggles are as wonderful people as we can be… I'll never follow you on your crazy war"
"I don't care…" he said "You're not going anywhere… so you can say whatever you please that I'll not get upset…"
"What do you want? What do you expect from this, Tom?" she wondered "Do you want to bed me again, uh? Do you miss those days when we made love in each room of this house?" she stood up and walked towards him, caressing his shoulders and his chest sensually "Do you want great fuck? Let's go to your room, I could show you a lot of things I've learnt with Dumbledore… and then you let me leave…"
He grabbed her arm and pulled her down, making her kneel on the floor and grapping her hair painfully.
"I'm not going to use you as a cheap slut, Minerva… You're carrying my son, my heir, the prince of my empire… I'm can't kill you, but I do can make you feel a lot of pain… you know it… There's no way that you leave this house before giving birth to the baby… Then, you'll be able to chose between leave or stay and form that family I once promised to you… with me… But the baby's mine, do you understand, Minnie?"
Minerva was crying, trying to get free from his grab, feeling the pain of her hair pulled back and her heart braking inside her chest…
"I do…" she said sobbing, not finding more strength to reply, to say him she wasn't going to let him grow up her baby, to tell him she already had a family… or at least, a one she was going to start soon…
"Great… then, come back to your chair and eat something…"
She stood up, slowly, and came back to her place feeling defeated…
"Are you sure you want to do this, Albus?" Poppy asked giving him an empty box.
"There's no Christmas without her… so I don't want to have this tree remembering she's not here each time I cross the living room…"
They put into the box the tree decoration, then Albus made it disappear and just the presents stood in the room.
"What are you going to do with that?"
"Keep it until she comes back…" and he took his box, the one she wanted to give to Minerva, and kept it into the wardrobe.
"This is for you… it has your name with Min's handwriting…" Poppy said "Wouldn't you like to open it?" it was a little box, covered with silver paper. Poppy handed it to Albus and he spent a long while thinking on what to do. Finally, he opened.
"What is it?!" she wondered. And she stood on her tiptoes to look from over his shoulders "Is it a ring?"
"It's my ring…" he said "The engagement ring I gave her…"
"…and she's giving back to you… What does it mean?"
"I don't know… maybe Alastor was right and she run away… maybe she doesn't want to…"
"There's a note!" Poppy interrupted, and gave it to Albus. It was written on her most cared handwritting:
You'll need it to repeat me the question.
"So? What does it mean?"
"It means I'm going to take her back instead if that costs my life…" he said turning round to hide his tears.
TO BE CONTINUED…