A/N: Sorry for leaving you with a cliffhanger, but I'm glad that you all enjoyed the chapter so much. Things are getting serious here, I hope you "enjoy" this chapter... and my enjoy I mostly mean, don't kill me.
Thanks for reading, and reviewing, and tweeting, and FB'ing! You're all loved.
Four drab walls.
Tan paint.
A portrait of a sailboat drifting endlessly in the ocean.
A firm bed, with too many pillows.
She sat on the bed, her feet in front of her, and stared at the wall—willing it to become a door, but so far she hadn't had any luck. After their brief conversation the evening before Mel had sent Minerva here, wherever that was. It was too homey to be a prison cell. So homey, in fact, that she could only guess they were trying to convince people that it wasn't a prison cell.
Minerva wasn't so gullible.
She had been left here in the evening, and by the rumbling in her stomach she had assumed it was well past dinner. A nondescript man had brought her a meal, not quite the delicacy of Hogwarts, but certainly nothing worth complaining about. And then he had left her.
There were no windows in the small room, just that damnable sailboat, and despite the moving portrait, the time of day didn't change within the painting. Just the endless waves.
There was no way of knowing how long she had been here.
She had slept for a little while, despite her predicament. It hadn't been easy, she had wanted to tear through the walls and scream, and demand answers. Every muscle in her body urged her to fight, but if Minerva was being held by the Unspeakables, she would need her energy. It would take all of her wit to avoid revealing anything about Fred & George to her captors. Or anyone else, for that matter.
During the wars, she had learned to trick herself into falling asleep. She would push her worries over the future, and her friends, and her students, out of her mind. She would picture something calming, she would concentrate, and she would sleep. She couldn't allow the luxury of a night of worrying.
So she pushed away her thoughts of Albus, and her curiosities as to where he was, why he hadn't saved her yet. She pushed away her fear for the twins, and her nervousness that she would be the one to doom them. She pushed away her worries for Hermione, who she had assured that she would be back before it was time to sleep. She boxed them all up in the furthest corner of her mind, and instead allowed herself to remember.
She carefully constructed the walls of the memory. Recalling each breath of air and the feeling of a smooth palm reaching into her own. She recalled the feel of frigid water on the tips of her toes as the skimmed over the lake, and the quivering form of her newest friend clutching desperately behind her. She had rarely felt as content as she did that night when she had unwittingly helped Hermione to willingly fly for the first time.
With that the thought in her mind, and the memory of a cool night's breeze, she fell into a light slumber.
But now it was morning, or closer to morning than it had been, and she wasn't flying slowly over the lake, nor had she magically awakened in the bed across from Hermione's, laughing as she combed out her hair. Instead she was in the small room with four walls, and a silly sailboat painting.
Hermione would have slept last night as well. Minerva knew she had trained herself in the same way while on the run with the boys. She once told Minerva that during those nights she has transported herself back to years of camping trips with her parents. Had focused all of her energy on Ron's snoring and pretending it was her father asleep across from her.
What would she have thought of last night? Minerva could only hope that it was of something peaceful and that she had been able to rest, maybe even sleep in for a change and avoid her nerves for a while longer.
Minerva knew that by the time Hermione woke up, she was bound to be in tatters, worrying for her friend. Even without their newfound romantic entanglements, Minerva could clearly remember hearing Poppy reprimand Hermione in her fifth year, after she had been attacked by Dolores Umbridge. Hermione had continually tried to visit Minerva in the hospital wing, worried for her favorite professor.
Now that they were friends—now that they had become something more than friends—Hermione was going to be insufferable to everyone around her. Minerva could only hope that Albus was letting the Gryffindor help in some way. She knew the he could be rather singular when it came to his planning. He had rarely ever even let her help, and she considered herself one of his closest friends.
Sighing to herself, she tried to maintain hope that he would come for her soon. As a key slipped into the doorknob, Minerva's head shot towards the door. Hopefully very soon.
A tall Unspeakable stepped through, "Come with me, please."
Minerva considered starting trouble—refusing to go with the man, but she decided her energy was better spent elsewhere. She stood carefully, straightened her robes, and then followed him out the door.
He walked her quickly down a dimly lit corridor before finally opening a door on the right and beckoning her inside. Stepping through, she found Mellasandre waiting for her, sitting patiently behind a desk.
"Thank you, Derek," she said firmly, an obvious dismissal, and the younger man stepped back into the hallway without hesitation. It was then that she glanced at Minerva over the rims of her glasses, her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. She wasn't unattractive, but it was obvious that she was trying to look like a serious ministry woman. She had undoubtedly fought hard against the Ministry patriarchy to earn such a high place among the Unspeakables, and Minerva almost felt bad for having ridiculed her the day before. That regret vanished quickly though, as she smiled patronizingly and greeted, "Good Morning, Miss. McGonagall."
"Good Morning Miss. Winthrop," she responded in the same sugary tone.
"As you are aware, we at the ministry are very curious about your current circumstances. Your transformation could lead to fascinating magical discoveries, but we are also concerned for your health and well-being."
"My well-being. I'm sure."
Mellasandre frowned as she continued, "Therefore, I have been tasked with obtaining as much information regarding your situation as possible, in order to facilitate further research."
"You have already told me all of this, Mel. We spoke for quite a few hours, in fact. I assure you, my memory was in perfect working order when I was sixty-five. It's certainly functioning just as well, if not better, now that I am eighteen."
"I felt I should clarify, just in case overnight you had been compelled to be more helpful."
Minerva smiled slightly, "Unfortunately, I'm already being helpful as I can."
Mellasandre glared icily, "So you will not tell us what the potion was which caused your accident," she snipped.
"I don't know what the potion was which caused my accident."
"And you refuse to tell us whom the student was who was carrying such a dangerous potion?"
Minerva shook her head, "Unfortunately, that student retains no memory of the accident and is therefore unavailable for interrogation."
"And the inventors of such a potion?"
"I'm sorry," Minerva shrugged, "I haven't been informed of these things."
"Miss. McGonagall," Mellasandre snapped, removing her glasses and setting them lightly on the table, "Do you honestly expect me to believe that you have no knowledge of how you suddenly lost nearly fifty years of your life?"
"I expect you to believe that most of my former colleagues don't think they can trust sensitive information with an eighteen year old girl," Minerva snapped back, "They treat me with a certain level of respect still, but that doesn't change the fact that my emotional upheaval has caused me to reveal several personal secrets, jump out of Gryffindor tower during a thunderstorm, and feel hormonal urges towards a former student. Albus Dumbledore is far too intelligent to trust any dangerous information with me."
Mellasandre's expression grew tight, "Oddly enough, you don't seem to be having those difficulties currently?"
"Even as a child I was never prone to being overly emotional when put to the test—I'm far more likely to respond with pig-headed stubbornness or give a show of my famous temper."
"Indeed," she bit out. "Well unfortunately, I find myself unconvinced. It is obvious that you will not be cooperating with the Ministry at this time, so we must enter our secondary interrogation technique."
Minerva nodded lightly, willing her nerves to stay under control. She was well away of what the secondary interrogation technique consisted of, and she would need all of her wits about her to succeed.
Hermione stood outside of Albus Dumbledore's office knocking. She knew that he was inside, because she was currently in possession of the Marauders Map, and she didn't plan on leaving until the stubborn old man opened his door.
After five minutes of knocking, the door opened to reveal an unamused Albus Dumbledore. "Miss. Granger. It is customary in most cultures to respect a person's right to not answer the door, whether or not you are in possession of a magical map."
Hermione just frowned, "Do you have any information regarding Minerva?"
Professor Dumbledore sighed, "Nothing which is of concern to you, Miss. Granger. I assure you, if I get any information on her current condition, or when to expect her return, I will inform you. Until that time, I will ask you to respect Minerva's privacy and be patient with us. We are working as hard as we can, but things within the ministry take time."
"And during that time Minerva is being held captive, Professor. The Department of Mysteries have no laws. You know what they could do to her," Hermione argued, "I'm not Harry, sir. I'm not capable of just blindly trusting that you and the Ministry will work things out and she'll be fine, because you say so! Please, I need to be kept informed."
Dumbledore's eyes grew hard suddenly, and Hermione found herself stepping back unconsciously. "Miss. Granger, I know you care for Minerva deeply, but I would ask you to remember that you are not the only one. I am doing all I can to find her and bring her back here as quickly as possible. You do not have to trust that, but you must respect that. Now, I have a meeting with the Minister in forty-five minutes, and I must finish preparing if I'm to have any hope of negotiating Minerva's release."
Hermione knew perfectly well when she was being dismissed, and mumbled a quick and deflated, "Thank you for your time," before hurrying back down the stairs.
She was embarrassed. Admittedly, she was right about everything she had said—but that didn't change the fact that Dumbledore obviously knew all of that. She should have been patient; she was trying to be patient. But it had been 24 hours, and Hermione was just about at her wit's end.
She had spent the night staring at the ceiling, trying to ignore the complete silence which surrounded her, and sleep hadn't come. Hermione supposed that was a bad sign—she had been able to sleep while she was on the run with Harry and Ron, yet not now?
At around 2 she had crept down the stairs and into the common room, forcing herself to make her sleep deprivation useful. She had finished two essays and read a chapter before finally falling asleep on the couch. Harry and Ron found her there early that morning and had worriedly woken her and made her eat breakfast.
After that she had paced. She had paced the common room, paced around the lake, paced around the castle, just waiting to hear something—anything. That was why she had gone to see Dumbledore, to find out what was going on and when Minerva would be back. She just wanted to know that she was safe.
Harry was confident that she was fine; he was convinced that if Dumbledore was on the case everything would be alright. If only Hermione could be so trusting. She thought Dumbledore was a brilliant man, but she had seen how many times he had failed this school and its students.
In her second year, while everyone else was hailing him as their great protector, she was wondering how he could let four of his students be petrified, and one abducted, before taking any real action.
In her fourth year a death eater had been sitting at his staff table all year, and he hadn't realized it. And an obvious plot was afoot, yet he hadn't allowed his underage celebrity student to withdraw from the competition.
In fifth year an evil toad masquerading as a professor was literally torturing his students, and illegally using Veritaserum, and he hadn't been able to do anything!
It wasn't that Hermione disliked Professor Dumbledore, or thought he was somehow incapable. He was brilliant, powerful, and undeniably good. But that didn't mean he was all powerful, or that he didn't make mistakes. For seven years Harry, Ron, and Hermione had been forced to pick up the pieces when he wasn't able to.
Why should she trust the Minerva's abduction would be any different?
Poor Hermione, she's going a bit nuts already! More coming soon!