A/N: Hi! How are you all? I'm sweating it out here in Australia, we have 37 forecast here for today…usually the hottest day falls on Christmas Day, but it's a bit late this year. Oh!
Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays or whatever December happens to be for you. Hope you all had a lovely time of good cheer, good food and awesomeness. I myself had a great one, got a 50inch TV so I'm like WOO!
Anyway. So here's the next instalment of Age of Healing, I hope you all like it, and don't hate me too much. The credit for the main thread of idea in this chapter, and probably beyond, needs to go to Thrae Elddim. Thanks :D
This week we all owe Spin an almighty hug. Christmas/Boxing day week in retail? And she still manages to get this done? One word: Amazeballs. You heard it here first – best beta ever!
-0-
"Mama?"
Minerva groaned as small hands pried open her eyelids.
"Mama, it's time to get up."
Minerva groaned again, rolling away from those little hands and sighing as she lay on her back, looking up at the ceiling as Álainn stood patiently by the side of her bed.
"Álainn, it's still early."
"No it's not Mama," Álainn said, sounding more like Hermione every day. "It's on the eight. See?"
Minerva frowned, following Álainn's hand which was pointing to her bedside table, and gaped when she saw the time.
"Oh Merlin's beard! I'm late!"
"I told you," Álainn sang as Minerva ran into the bathroom.
As she stood under the shower, washing her hair as quickly as possible Minerva thought back to the last week she'd had with Álainn at the age of five. She was a precocious little thing, so sure of herself, and so eager to learn. Albus hadn't been wrong when he told her she would have a different sort of experience with an older Álainn. It was certainly a wild ride.
"Mama?"
"Just a minute sweetheart," she called as she rinsed out her hair and dried off with a wave of her hand. She dressed quickly and barrelled out of the bathroom, meeting Álainn in the living room.
"Do you have your books?" she asked absently as she searched her desk for the papers she needed for the meeting at the Ministry she was due at in ten minutes.
"Yes Mama. I've been waiting for you f'ever."
"Forever, my darling, and you could have come and woken me up."
"Uncle Sev said to let you sleep," she pouted adorably. "He said you was 'shausted." Minerva glanced back at Álainn where she was sitting on the sofa as Minerva gathered the last of her papers. "Mama, what does 'shausted mean?"
"Exhausted means that you are very, very tired."
"Are you tired Mama?" Álainn asked sweetly.
"I am sweetheart, but I have to get to this meeting. You be good for Aunty Poppy, okay?"
"Yes Mama," she said as the staircase started moving outside the office.
"Min? It's me, I'm sorry I'm late," Poppy called, coming into the room.
"It's quite alright," Minerva said, cupping Álainn's cheek expectantly. "I was also late."
"Mama kiss?"
Minerva smiled as Álainn tipped back her head and poked out her lips, waiting for the kiss that she'd come to expect since becoming this age.
"Goodbye love, see you after your lessons."
"Can we read when you get home?" Álainn asked as Minerva stepped into the fire.
"I promise you we can," she said, disappearing before Álainn could even call goodbye.
"Come on munchkin," Poppy said, picking up the little cloak and hat that matched Minerva's. "Let's go to the Hospital Wing, and we'll do some writing."
"Can you teach me how to write Mama's name today?" Álainn asked as she skipped to Poppy's side and slipped her hand into the healer's.
"Of course darling," she said, guiding her through the door and down the staircase that no longer frightened her. "We can do lots of things today."
-0-
Minerva growled as she walked briskly through the hundreds of workers arriving at the Ministry. She had never been late to one of Kingsley's meetings since she had taken up the office of Headmistress, and she wasn't about to start now. Pushing past a few people perhaps a touch more forcefully than she needed to, Minerva finally arrived at the meeting at nine on the dot.
"Ah, Headmistress, he's waiting for you," Kingsley's young secretary greeted, waving her through to the office behind her.
Minerva marched in, placing her papers on the desk and expecting to see at the very least Kingsley and the most senior member of the Board of Governors for Hogwarts, but instead she saw Kingsley and a young woman, whose face she didn't know.
"Kingsley, I was under the impression we were meeting to discuss the changes I have implemented at Hogwarts."
"Ah, yes, that would be my fault," he boomed haltingly.
He was a gentleman, unless you met him on the other side of a battlefield, but there was something in his eyes that made Minerva want to hiss.
"Then for what was I summoned?" she asked tersely.
"Have you met Annabelle Proctor?"
"I am afraid I have not had the pleasure," Minerva said with no emotion as the woman stood and leant over the table to shake Minerva's hand. "What is your purpose at this meeting Miss Proctor?"
"I am here to take custody of the child you've been illegally harbouring at Hogwarts."
Minerva felt all the blood drain from her face as she saw the happily smiling woman shuffle a few papers. She glanced up at Kingsley, who shrugged, just barely, before looking back at the young woman who would dare to take her baby away from her.
"I beg your pardon; I don't believe I heard you correctly."
"You are harbouring a child of questionable birth at Hogwarts, under the guise of it being your own." Minerva blinked, schooling her features as the Proctor woman went on. "As I have had no medical records lodged from St. Mungo's I have concluded that the child is not in fact yours, and you are harbouring an illegally adopted child."
"This is preposterous," Minerva spat, glaring at Kingsley, who just looked sick.
"Are you, or are you not living with a child at the moment?"
"I," Minerva frowned, "I am."
"And is that child yours?"
"No, but there are extenuating circumstances; she is -"
"Be that as it may, it does not excuse you from potential kidnapping charges."
"KIDNAPPING?" Minerva roared, looking over at Kingsley. "You dare summon me here under the guise of a board meeting and then level charges of kidnapping against me?" She turned back to the young woman. "You are young and eager, just what the Ministry needs and you and I are not acquainted, but that does not excuse you for saying these terrible things. How dare you? How dare you even consider I am letting this child out of my sight for one moment?"
"You mistake me Headmistress," Miss Proctor said evenly, apparently not at all worried about what Minerva was saying. "We already have custody of the child; we just needed you to be somewhere else."
Minerva clenched her fists, feeling her nails dig into her palms while trying to control her total and utter rage. She could only remember being this angry once before and it was not a nice memory, but right now this young woman before her looked nonplussed about the whole situation, which only deepened Minerva's ire.
"You have taken my child?" she asked coldly, suddenly getting the woman's attention.
"Headmistress, you must understand, while I have heard of your deeds in battle, it does not excuse you from the rules of the Ministry. For all I know you could be training this poor child up to be the next Dark despot."
"HOW DARE YOU!"
Before Minerva knew what she was doing, the table had disappeared in an explosion of epic proportions and she was on the young woman, her arm across her chest and her face only centimetres away.
Now she had her attention.
"If my child is not returned to my custody this instant, you will have made yourself an enemy Miss Annabelle Proctor. And I am not waxing lyrical. If you continue down this road, no matter how logical, or right you think you are, then you will be answering to me."
She felt her magic tingling in her fingers, desperately trying to make its release, but she held on, waiting for the woman to say something. All she got was the startled, but resolute look of a woman who couldn't see past the end of her nose. For all her threatening, Minerva wouldn't, couldn't do anything to her, so she smiled coldly, apparating out of the Minister of Magic's office with a bang, flicking her arm towards Kingsley as she went. She didn't stick around for the squealing he would do after he found himself covered in pustules.
She arrived in the Hospital Wing, racing forward immediately to help Poppy from the floor.
"Minerva, Merlin, I'm so sorry, I tried, but I couldn't... They were Ministry officials, I couldn't -"
"It's alright," Minerva said, rubbing Poppy's back, despite her screaming in her own head that it wasn't. "I'll get her back, even if it costs me everything."
"Minerva, no. The school needs you."
"Álainn needs me. Hermione needs me," Minerva snapped, shaking her head as she apologised. "Just, stay here, I'll be back in an hour."
"Where are you going?" Poppy asked as she walked towards the fireplace. "Minerva, you can't go to the Ministry."
"I'm not. I just need to do something."
-0-
She Floo-ed to her ancestral home, stepping out of the fire amidst a rainstorm, coming in through the bare rafters above her, cursing her bad luck and the heavens and whatever else she could think of. She walked through the long broken halls of McGonagall manor, finally feeling a semblance of normality rushing through her. She looked for a long moment, taking in the decay and destruction wrought upon it so many years ago during the Grindelwald era, and then again during Voldemort's first reign of terror. She drew up all her anger and malice towards the young woman who seemed so sure of herself and released a torrent of magic towards the place she had once called home.
It exploded before her eyes; she ignored the storm around her and the falling debris, sidestepping as a piece of balustrade fell at her feet. She looked out through the rain, brushing her hair from her face as she remembered playing with Álainn in the snow, and learning just how powerful the little one was. How gifted Hermione truly was, and she felt something give in her chest. She fell to her knees, screaming at the sky, pleading with the gods, or anyone to bring back her baby.
"Minerva?"
The air crackled around her as she spun on her knees, conjuring a string of lightning and whipping it forth, changing its trajectory at the last moment as Harry Potter dived to his right.
"Harry?"
"I heard what happened," he said, getting to his feet and brushing the mud from his Auror robes. "Albus said I might find you here."
"Why are you here?" she croaked, suddenly feeling all the anger drain out of her.
"I'm just here to support you, and to help you get her back. They can't know who she is, or else they'd never let her go, but more than that, she needs you." He cleared his throat, waving his wand so that the rain stopped falling on them. "And I think you might need her."
"What do you have in mind, Auror Potter?" she asked formally.
"We take back what's yours," he said simply. "And I know about fifty people willing to help you."
Minerva smiled weakly, feeling a little more in control of herself as he stood staring at her.
"I believe we should get to work then," she said quietly, drying herself without a thought. "I promised my Álainn that I would read to her tonight."
-0-
As it turned out, by the time Minerva and Harry returned to her quarters it was gone dinnertime, and the likelihood of rescuing Álainn from anywhere at this time was negated. She growled menacingly as Harry and Filius gently persuaded her to wait until the morning and start afresh, but did as they said.
"I was supposed to protect her," Minerva whispered after everyone had left. "I was supposed to care for her, and protect her, and love her so that no more harm would befall her. She has already been through so much more than someone her age should have."
"And you have," Albus whispered gently. "She knows that you care, that you love her; that you will protect her, and comfort her." She sniffed, desperately trying not to shed a tear as Albus continued. "Wherever they are keeping her, she knows that her Mama is coming to find her, to bring her home again."
"You will win this," Severus said quietly, "as you always win," he smirked. "But they are expecting you to be a Gryffindor. What you need is a Slytherin. Draco and I will help."
She sniffed once more, cradling the scotch in her hands as she looked at the two men she missed so much.
"You are both so dear to me. I hope you know that, and I hope you knew that when you were alive."
"We did Minerva," Albus smiled, "and we will miss standing beside you when you confront that woman."
"As will I," she whispered, trailing her fingers along the frames of the two portraits before retiring to her bedroom and lying on top of the covers. She did not get ready for bed, and she did not get in. She would not get up to check in the other room, she would not open her eyes to see the detritus left through her chambers by her little girl. She would lay there, face down in her pillow and pretend it wasn't happening, while horrid thoughts and nightmares about what her baby was going through ran through her head, disturbing her sleep more than any war-borne memories had ever done.
-0-
Álainn was annoyed.
Mama had gone to her meeting, and she'd taken all her school things to Poppy's office and then two nasty men had taken her away. Away from everyone she knew.
So now she was stuck in a grey room with six other little girls, all of whom were mean and kept pulling her curls.
"What have you got?" the girl called Melinda asked, towering over her with her hands on her hips.
"A book," Álainn said quietly, holding it to her chest. It was Mama's copy of The Wind in the Willows and there was no way she was letting Melinda have it.
"Let's see then."
"No," Álainn said, gripping it harder. She'd already lost her ribbon and her red pencil. She needed to keep trying to read it so she could make Mama proud.
"You're new here, you have to show me," Melinda demanded, reaching forward to try and take it away.
"No," Álainn growled, getting to her feet. "It's mine, you can't have it."
"It's ours now," Melinda said. "I'm going to take it."
"NO!"
"What is going on here?"
Melinda stepped back as the matron came in, frowning at Álainn as she tried to back away from the imposing woman.
"What is going on in here? You girls should be on your bunks, it's lights out in ten minutes."
"Miss, New Girl has a book."
Álainn swallowed hard as the woman turned to face her.
"Is this true New Girl?"
"My name is Álainn," she ground out, getting angry at how rude everyone was. Mama always said that you should watch your manners no matter what, and Álainn knew that Mama would be very disappointed if she found Álainn had been rude.
"Little girl, I don't know where you were living before coming here, but now that you're here you have new rules to follow. Firstly, you aren't allowed any personal items in the dormitories; secondly you all need to be in your beds right now."
"This is my Mama's book, you can't have it," Álainn said with a frown. "I have to keep it safe until Mama comes to get me."
"Young lady hand over that book, right now."
"No," Álainn growled dangerously.
The matron took a step forward and Álainn dropped to her bottom and curled around the book, squeezing her eyes closed while wishing she was home with Mama.
-0-
Minerva was wrestling with her covers as she struggled to fight off her demons. She was chasing after Álainn through the corridors of the castle in which she had fought against Grindelwald. She kept reaching for her baby but she missed her every time, prolonging her desperation as she raced through the castle.
"Mama?"
"Álainn!" Minerva called, reaching out again, trying to grab Álainn's jumper before she tumbled off the suddenly apparent cliff.
"Mama, Mama wake up! Mama wake up, you's dreaming!"
"Álainn?"
Minerva sat up; looking around at the dark bedroom only to find the most beautiful sight she'd ever seen. Álainn was kneeling on her thighs, tears pouring down her face and clutching The Wind in the Willows to her like it was a shield.
"Leanabh?"
"Mama!"
Minerva's heart thumped painfully as Álainn threw herself into her arms, sobbing hysterically into her neck.
"Oh my darling girl, how did you get here?"
"I wished to be home!" she cried. "I wanted you and I didn't want to give away your Wind in the Willows and Melinda wanted to take it off me and the matron -"
"Shh, shh my darling, just breathe." Minerva rocked Álainn over and over, thanking everyone she could think of, but mainly Hermione's amazing magical ability. "Mama's got you."
"Don't leave me again Mama, don't make me go!"
"No, no my darling, I'm so sorry. I won't ever let them take you again," she said, promising herself just as much as she was promising her baby. "I swear to you, I will never let anyone hurt you, or take you away from me either."
"Mama?" Álainn whispered after nearly half an hour of tight cuddles. "Will you read?"
Minerva smiled, pulling Álainn against her chest, taking a deep breath and a moment to enjoy Álainn's scent and the way she leant back so trustingly against her.
"I love you Álainn," Minerva whispered as she opened their favourite book. "I love you so much."
"I love you too Mama," Álainn sighed, playing with Minerva's fingers over her belly.
"The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home."
Álainn sighed again, and Minerva sighed with her, feeling all the tension falling from her frame. Tomorrow Harry would be joining them, and everyone would go back to normal, only this time Minerva was not letting Álainn out of her sight. There was no way that Annabelle Proctor would ever be allowed in these halls; she would make sure of it.
She was never going to let anything happen to Álainn again.