Disclaimer: I own none of this, these are just toys for my imagination to enjoy.

A/N: This first chapter is one I dreamed up years ago - I once thought it would be part of a larger story, but I couldn't find the rest to fit and finally decided that perhaps a one-shot was precisely all that was needed. Enjoy!

Forgotten Dreamers

The attack had gone horribly wrong. No one knew why, either, but it had. The Ministry was upside-down and inside-out, the dying draped over splintered desks and fountains, water bubbling everywhere from the cracked marble, making the wet, dark floor treacherous.

'Expelliarmus!' she heard Potter cry, and then the boy skidded to a halt in front of her. 'Neville-' he choked, pointing to a door on the right that led to the Auror's wing. She started in that direction, only to collapse as Remus Lupin hurtled into her, sliding on the floor, carrying something…

'Remus?' she whispered.

'Minerva! Get the hell out of here! Take Harry and run!'

'What's going on? Potter said something about Longbottom,' and she stopped, for the moonlight shafting through the window revealed what Lupin was carrying: blank eyes stared from the round face of Neville Longbottom.

'He got Bellatrix Lestrange- killed her with a heavy vase, but Dolohov killed him right after,' Lupin struggled to control his voice, but Minerva could see the wetness streaking his cheeks that had nothing to do with the fountain's overflow.

'Potter!" she cried. "Get out of here!'

'Professor- Ron and Hermione-!'

'We're here, mate!' Weasley and Granger were hurrying across the floor. Both had bloody gashes on their faces, and Granger's robes had been ripped clean away at mid-thigh, exposing torn flesh on her legs.

'Get out!' Minerva ordered a final time. 'You too, Remus.'

'You won't hear me argue,' Lupin rose, still clutching the body. 'His grandmother has the right to bury him,' he told her questioning glance. 'Come on, you three,' they hurried towards the exit, where windows had been blown open, leaving sinister, jagged shards that gaped like uneven teeth in the mouths of the windows.

There were others here, how many, she didn't know. She had seen Luna Lovegood hurtle over the edge of the roof with Draco Malfoy, screaming curses and clinging to him. There was no chance that either had survived that fall. But other than Malfoy and Bellatrix, Minerva could not say how many they had killed. The bodies sprawled in the entryway of the Ministry were almost entirely those of the Order and the Auror Core.

She saw a bang, and a streak of scarlet and gold fluttered into the night, heading for Hogwarts. Albus was out, then, and, glancing over her shoulder she saw Remus Lupin vanish out the window, the three students with him. Potter was gone as well. Ginny Weasley, her father Arthur, Mad-Eye, Kingsley, Dawlish, Diggle, Fletcher and a host of others were either still inside or else had fled. There was nothing to be done now. She prepared herself to leave…

She was not prepared to turn to see him, gliding up the hall like a dense, unnatural ghost, chilling the air with his very presence. In all her years of fighting him, she had never faced him alone, and never like this.

'One final defender,' he said smoothly, his voice ringing with quiet laughter, 'one last fighter, still standing, so brave.'

Minerva brought her wand up steadily. She was surprised to see that her hand did not shake. There was nowhere to hide, and she could not hope to run.

'Defending that which you could neither comprehend nor wish to protect,' she replied in a strangely steady voice. 'Come on, then.' It remained strong and full. And it had an effect she did not expect.

'Minerva McGonagall?' She caught her breath as he stopped, eyes widening. The voice had changed. High, cold and hard had abruptly become far more human, deeper and pleasant. A voice she had known so many years ago, a voice she knew as intimately as her own, a voice she had spent days weeping over when it's owner was presumed dead…

She really looked into his face, a face she hadn't ever seen before, as he always covered it with a cloak. The pale skin and curving, contemptuous mouth were all that remained of the boy she had known, but it was undeniably he. 'Tom?' her mouth was dry.

'I'm shocked,' the red eyes flickered over her, and Minerva was suddenly aware of her age as she had not been in decades. Sixty-four was old, no matter that she wore her age well and her hair was still mostly black and her skin almost firm.

'Not the girl you remember?' she asked, her wand dropping, her arm suddenly to heavy to carry it.

'That's not what I was thinking. Only surprised that you remember me, or rather, remember the boy I was,' he stepped closer, one of his pale, spider-like hands reaching up to touch her forehead and trail on her cheek. His touch was cold, but it always had been, even when they were young. 'I've not seen you in years, Minerva.'

Minerva raised her head to stare in the livid eyes with their catlike slits for pupils. 'I did not know it was you, I did not know you were there…I have never seen you uncloaked when I've fought you.'

'Fought me?' he stiffened, his hand retracting. The eyes narrowed. 'You?'

'For twenty-five years. Lord Voldemort. I have been working for Albus Dumbledore for forty-one years now.'

'Dumbledore,' he hissed.

'Yes, Albus Dumbledore.' It pleased her to see the pain this caused in him. After all, he had been the one to simply disappear one day, causing her months of agony, Galleons in the search…

'That is a true shame,' he said thoughtfully, tilting his head so the moonlight glinted off his eyes, giving them a spirit-like quality. 'And to think, I had plans to invite to join me…but you were so serious then about being an Auror…'

He laughed, and his voice was back to the coldness she had heard from Lord Voldemort in their massive battles before. 'You know, of course, that I can't allow you to walk away from this? That I can't afford for you to live to report it.'

'Report this? The meeting of two old lovers in the middle of a battlefield, where your Death Eaters have slaughtered our side?' She shook her head, gave him a serious look, and felt the weight of her lifetime collapse on her shoulders. That Tom Riddle was Lord Voldemort was too much. She seemed very tired all at once, and quite beyond caring. Some part of her stirred, thinking she should have been angry at Albus, furious that he had not told her…but she couldn't quite summon the emotion. She watched Voldemorts wand, still dangling limply at his side, with a sort of curiosity, as if wondering what he would use to kill her.

'I didn't know that you were Tom,' she said quietly. 'Had I known that twenty-five years ago, this might have been very different.'

'Perhaps.' He stepped closer to her, close enough that she had to tilt her head back to look at his face. She idly wondered if he'd stood so close to a living human being in many years. His followers feared him, and his enemies were always dead by the time he was this close to them.

His right arm jerked around her back, and she could feel the coldness of his skin seeping through her robes as he held her. The red eyes considered her carefully before he leaned down and kissed her. It was chilling, as if her lips were touching ice, she gasped at the contact, and at the force of all the memories it brought flooding her mind.

So stunned she did not fight him, she breathed sharply when he released her, stepping back, nearly sliding in the water. His eyes were black again, no red remained for an instant as he seemed to consider, watching her with an expression she could not read. He shut his eyes, heaved a sigh, and opened them, raising his wand. His eyes opened brilliant red, and she saw something flash- was it regret?- in his face as he took a breath.

'Avada Kedavra.'

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A.N: Please review and send me some ideas! Thank you!