88. The Final Stand

Technically, Minerva was patrolling the corridors. In reality, she was the one sneaking around. It wasn't her turn to be on patrol and, as far as the Carrows were concerned, what she was doing didn't count as patrolling anyway. She had a feeling they wouldn't be happy or even less happy than usual to see her out of bed tonight.

But she couldn't help herself. The craziest of rumours was going around. Allegedly, Harry Potter had broken into Gringotts, stolen something out of one of the old, high-security vaults and then escaped on the back of a dragon. It sounded completely impossible, not to mention foolish and too dangerous to even contemplate, and so, in short, it sounded exactly like something Potter would do.

Usually Minerva would have rejoiced at the news of Potter's continued survival and then moved on from this incredible story. But something was off. The Death Eaters in the castle were all on edge. Snape was mostly hiding in the headmaster's office, as per usual, but Alecto and Amycus Carrow acted as though they expected something to happen – which meant that their dark master expected something to happen. Something to do with Hogwarts. And Harry Potter.

This evening the Carrows had almost come to blows with Filius because the Head of Ravenclaw House had refused to let Alecto into Ravenclaw Tower. Minerva understood her colleague perfectly. Protecting the students from the Carrows was hard enough during the day. Letting the Carrows into their common rooms at night was the last thing any of them wanted to do. Especially since Ravenclaw Tower was so wonderfully protected against idiots such as these two.

In the end, Snape had intervened and Filius had been forced to comply. Alecto Carrow was now in the Ravenclaw common room to do or wait for something unknown. Or someone? That behaviour was so strange even for a Death Eater that Minerva had decided to stay nearby, just in case. As a cat that would have been a lot easier, but she didn't go anywhere without her wand anymore. The Carrows had managed to do what even Dolores Umbridge had never truly achieved – to turn Hogwarts into enemy territory.

Just as Minerva was beginning to think that she was wasting her time, she heard Amycus, not Alecto. He was shouting at the top of his voice and hammering on a door with his fists, most likely the door to the Ravenclaw common room because the commotion was coming from up there. Minerva realised that she had to stop hiding and so she went to see what was going on.

Nothing, not even in her wildest dreams, could have prepared her for what happened next. She hadn't understood why the Carrows seemed so determined to believe that Potter would show up in Ravenclaw Tower, where he wouldn't have belonged even if he were still going to school. She hadn't expected them to be right and she definitely hadn't expected Potter to actually appear right in front of her out of thin air! It was touching that he tried to defend her against Amycus, who had spat at her, but it only terrified her even more. Minerva acted before she could think too much about the consequences. She Imperiused Amycus and then tied him up together with his sister. With the Carrows out of the way, she pleaded with Potter to run and hide. But he refused to listen to her. He kept talking about searching for the Lost Diadem and Voldemort coming to Hogwarts to stop him.

Then he said a couple of words that changed everything.

"You're acting on Dumbledore's orders?" Minerva repeated.

There was the familiar pain of saying his name, of thinking about him, but it was immediately followed by wonder. Albus had made this happen, all his plotting, planning and keeping secrets had led to this, or so she was now convinced. So many people had tried to tell her what Albus would have wanted. Well, this was it. This was what he had really wanted and there could have been no greater relief for Minerva. A relief that was quickly replaced by determination. Finally. What she had been waiting for all this time.

She drew herself up to her fullest height and promised Potter that Hogwarts would fight with him and for him.

Together they left Ravenclaw Tower and began to plan how to defend the castle. Minerva sent three Patronuses to wake Filius, Pomona and Horace. But they ran into Snape first. Potter was invisible again, still Snape seemed to know that he was close and he wanted Minerva to hand him over…

Here was another thing she had anxiously been waiting for.

She slashed her wand through the air and tried to kill Severus Snape. He defended himself, but he didn't fight back, at least he did not use the deadly skills she knew he possessed. Instead the bloody coward simply jumped out of the window. Minerva looked at the Snape-shaped hole for a moment, angry that there was no time to pursue him. They had to ready the castle for battle. Not something Minerva had expected to say or do when she had started to work here all those years ago. But she knew which spell they needed from her. She had used it only once or twice before and never in such dire circumstances or to its fullest extent. She had never given it her all, every last ounce of Transfiguration magic in her blood.

"Piertotum locomotor!" Minerva cried. "Hogwarts is threatened! Man the boundaries, protect us, do your duty to our school!"

Even before the stone statues and suits of armour came to life all around her, she could feel the castle respond to her command. She could feel the magic and might of Hogwarts Castle beat in time with her own heart. They were rightfully and irrevocably connected and intertwined. Minerva had once told Albus that she would give her life for this school. Sometimes she had imagined that she would simply drop dead in the middle of class one day. To go down fighting like this felt a lot better.

First, they had to get all of the underage students to safety and the Slytherins out of the way. When Neville Longbottom had disappeared before the Carrows could get to him, Minerva had begun to suspect that there was a secret way out. Now she was immensely grateful to hear about this hidden passageway into Hogsmeade. It not only allowed for the students to get out of the castle but for reinforcements from the Order to get inside. They would need all the help they could get. Voldemort's ultimatum to give them Harry Potter by midnight, which interrupted Minerva's speech in front of the assembled student body, made that much perfectly clear.

They did not hand Potter over. But Minerva did have to remind him to go do whatever the bloody hell he had come here to do. He seemed to be just… standing around. "Potter! Aren't you supposed to be looking for something?"

As she snapped at him and he jumped to attention as he had done so many times in her classes, Minerva wondered if this was the last time she would tell him to focus. Or simply the last time she would talk to him at all.

She led a group of fighters up to Gryffindor Tower where they had a good overview of the castle grounds and were in a good position to work spells. That positional advantage didn't last long. The battle dissolved into pure chaos faster than Minerva could have ever imagined. The walls and the ceiling of the castle itself were shaking, windows were shattering and debris was raining down on them as they came under attack. Giants were throwing boulders at them, ripping holes in the walls while Dementors were gliding across the grounds. On their side gargoyles and suits of armour jumped into the fray, Peeves was throwing Snargaluff pods and even Sybill Trelawney was chucking crystal balls at attackers. That was by far the most useful those things had ever been. In between all of that, spells and curses were flying everywhere as Death Eaters, teachers, Order members, students, Hogsmeade residents and some witches and wizards Minerva had never even seen before duelled one another to the death.

A window to her right burst as a jet of green light broke through and hit Kelsey Livermore, a Gryffindor sixth-year who had only just turned seventeen and had thus been allowed to stay and fight.

"No!" Minerva yelled and threw herself on top of her student, but it was too late. Kelsey's eyes were open but unseeing. A young life, full of promise and possibility, snuffed out in a matter of seconds.

Tears clouded Minerva's vision as she desperately wished their places could be reversed.

"Minerva!"

She lifted her head in surprise and saw Armando Dippet running from one empty painting in this corridor to the next. The usual occupants of those paintings had fled and Dippet must have run all the way here from his portrait in the headmaster's office. He stopped and held his side. "Minerva, have you… seen Snape?"

"What?" she hissed. Her grief and confusion immediately made room for fury. "Why?"

"Albus was looking for him."

Minerva froze. "Albus?"

"Yes, so have you seen him?" Dippet pressed.

She blinked. "He jumped out of the window like the treacherous coward that he is."

"Oh," said Dippet. "That's unfortunate. Have you seen Harry Potter then?"

"Does it look like I have time to keep tabs on anyone?" Minerva shot back icily as the roof shook above her head.

"My apologies. We're just all trying to help, though there's not much we can do, of course, other than to deliver messages," the former headmaster explained.

"And? Do you have a message for me then? From… Albus?" Minerva could barely form the question without choking on emotion.

Dippet's brow furrowed. "He was really just looking for Snape and Potter, but, er, he said to… be careful!"

"Well, that's helpful," Minerva muttered.

"No, really, Minerva! Behind you!" Dippet screamed.

She whirled around just in time to see the Acromantula that had climbed through the destroyed window. Minerva had one moment to get a spell off cleanly. She used it to protect Kelsey Livermore's body from harm and sent her safely out of the way. The following second the Acromantula was already on top of Minerva. The back of her head collided with the floor and her hair came loose from its bun. One of the spider's pincers gashed her cheek and spilled her blood on the floor. Minerva thrust her wand upwards in the direction of the Acromantula's belly and blasted it with a column of fire. Whatever a spider's equivalent to a scream was came out of the creature's mouth before it hurtled back out of the window.

It was only a fleeting victory. The Death Eaters had broken through their lines of defence and the fighting spread through the entire castle. Minerva got back to her feet and abandoned her post on Gryffindor Tower. Shepherding an army of desks she now fought her way through the corridors.

She saw beheaded statues and suits of armour as well as fallen bodies she could only hope belonged to the other side. When she glimpsed the giants out in the courtyard, she thought for the first time that this might be the end of Hogwarts. In a way she would rather see this castle reduced to ashes by those giants than to let Voldemort have it. Minerva was willing to stand in the middle of these hallowed halls and watch them crumble around her if necessary. But she couldn't bear to close the eyes of another former student of hers or of anyone else fighting bravely for Hogwarts. They were not the ones supposed to die here. They were not supposed to die at all.

Strangely enough, Voldemort's voice suddenly reverberated from the walls and he said the same thing. He halted the fighting and gave them an hour to treat their wounded. At the end of that hour they should all go free, as long as Potter gave himself up voluntarily. Minerva ignored that ultimatum the same way she had ignored the first one. But they desperately needed to use the time Voldemort had given them so they could regroup.

Only once they began to gather in the Great Hall and to carry the wounded and the dead inside, Minerva realised that there might not be enough fighters left to regroup anything. Poppy and Pomona were up on the raised platform where the High Table used to be, treating the wounded. Currently, Poppy was tending to Firenze who had blood pouring from his flank onto the floor.

Minerva hurried over to her. "Do you need help?"

"An army of St Mungo's healers would be bloody brilliant right about now, but we'll have to make do," her friend replied grimly and briefly glanced up at Minerva, specifically at her bleeding face. "Need me to look at that?"

"I'm fine," Minerva waved her off, not wanting to be a distraction.

"If you're fine, then you can help me by making some room," said a familiar gruff voice.

Her relief to see Aberforth alive was short-lived when she recognised the dead body he was carrying. "No," she breathed. "No, no, no." Even as she said those words in anguish, she raised her wand to clear more space in the middle of the hall so they could lay their dead in a tragically long row. "Oh, Remus," she whispered and bent over the body Aberforth had just laid down. He had been the last one. The last one from that brilliant group of students Minerva had once taught. James Potter, Lily Evans, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. Now all gone. All murdered when they should have had many more years to live and to actually enjoy the peace they had fought for so fiercely. "Do you know what happened?" she asked quietly.

"Dolohov, I think."

As Minerva curled her hands into fists, someone behind her said, "He won't hurt anyone else. I made sure of that." She had never seen Filius look so wild. He and Kingsley carried in another body. They could have used magic, but they had decided to do it like this out of respect.

"I couldn't get to Bellatrix in time to prevent this," Kingsley explained darkly.

They placed the body right next to Remus. It was Tonks.

Minerva gasped. There were simply no words for the magnitude of this tragedy.

"She came through my pub earlier," Aberforth said slowly, as though struggling to remember. "She told me that she had left her baby with her mother because she simply had to come here, had to know what was going on. Well, now her son has to live with the consequences of her curiosity."

"It was for him she wanted to fight," Minerva replied, though not in anger because she was too exhausted and her anger was all spent. "They both did."

"For a better world, you mean?" Aberforth asked sceptically. "All they managed to do was to make their son's world a whole lot worse."

Minerva heaved a teary sigh. "Then we have to finish the job for them."

If Aberforth wanted to respond, he didn't get the chance.

Molly Weasley's piercing scream split the air. Minerva didn't want to get up and see who it was for. She didn't want to see which member of the Weasley family she would find lying dead. She just wanted to sit here and bury her face in her hands for a moment.

Praying for her courage not to fail her now.

Praying for the strength to lead.

Without the one man who had always blazed the path for her.

Eventually they heard Voldemort's voice again. He told them that Harry Potter was dead and that they should come out and see the truth of it. Everyone in the Great Hall froze and seemingly looked to Minerva. This was it. They had reached the end of the line. She took another breath, squared her shoulders and led them all outside onto the front steps. They faced Voldemort and his army of Death Eaters and giants. Hagrid was among them as a prisoner and lying limp and dead in Hagrid's arms was…

"NO!"

Minerva had screamed that word a lot tonight, but this time something deep in her soul had ruptured, that final piece of hope and love Albus had left her with. As long as Harry was alive, in a way so was Albus, because he had died for this, for Harry to survive.

The others, Ronald Weasley, Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasley, echoed Minerva's pain. Meanwhile Neville Longbottom expressed his grief by charging at Voldemort all on his own. He didn't get far. Voldemort stopped him, forced the Sorting Hat onto his head and set him on fire.

And then pandemonium reigned.

Neville pulled the Sword of Gryffindor out of the burning hat and killed Voldemort's snake with it, Potter disappeared right out of Hagrid's arms and they were overrun by reinforcements – reinforcements fighting for Hogwarts! Centaurs, Thestrals and house-elves suddenly charged the Death Eaters from all sides and Horace Slughorn returned with more Hogsmeade homeowners and family members from students who all joined their fight.

Because of the very real danger to get trampled to death, this new battle quickly moved into the Great Hall. Minerva tried to keep track of things, but really there was only one person to keep track of. Unlike before, Voldemort was now right in their midst and Minerva remembered the promise she had given her mother. She stepped up to that bastard to remind him that the McGonagall family did not forget. And they certainly did not forgive. He looked at her as though he pitied her for her bravery and stupidity to duel him. He was fast, strong and vicious. Minerva was slower and weaker after fighting for hours already, but she was entirely unafraid and she wasn't fighting for her own life but for all the lives lost today. She trusted her instinct, her wand and her heart, so that sometimes she sidestepped a curse just in time without knowing where that intuition had come from.

Nevertheless she was glad when Kingsley and Horace joined her. The three of them together stood a realistic chance. But then Bellatrix Lestrange was killed and Voldemort's fury exploded out of him with such force that it blasted Minerva, Kingsley and Horace backwards at the same time. Minerva hurried to get back to her feet, only to stop dead in shock.

Potter had reappeared in the middle of the hall.

Alive.

He and Voldemort immediately began to circle each other, separated from the rest of them. Harry told them that he wanted it like this, that no one should try to help. Minerva didn't even think to disrespect his wish.

As impossible as that seemed, in that moment Harry reminded her of Albus. While Voldemort appeared angry and agitated, Harry was poised and in control of the conversation. He should have been afraid, a young wizard duelling the most powerful one still alive, but he seemed perfectly sure of what was about to happen. And more than that. He seemed superior to Voldemort without even having raised his wand. The only other wizard Minerva had ever known to exude that kind of calm confidence was Albus Dumbledore.

Minerva's battered heart glowed with pride.

Even as Harry revealed to Voldemort and to all of them in the hall the secret that Albus had refused to tell her. That Albus had asked Severus Snape to kill him. That Snape had always – until his death a few hours ago, apparently – been loyal to Albus because Snape had been in love with Harry's mother whom Voldemort had killed despite Snape's pleas for mercy. At first it sounded outlandish to Minerva, but then it all rang true. The reason Albus had trusted Severus all these years was love. Of course it was love. It was the only thing in the world that could have convinced Albus of Severus' good intentions. Minerva should know that better than anyone.

Love. Always love.

The enchanted sky above their heads burst with sunlight as both Voldemort and Harry yelled their curses at the same time.

And it was Voldemort who fell dead to the floor.

After a second of shocked silence the roars and cheers in the hall were deafening. Everyone rushed forward to hug Harry.

Minerva took a moment to stand by herself and look up at the sky. "You did it," she whispered. "My God, Albus, you did it." She did not mean to take anything away from Harry and the incredible things he had endured and achieved in his young life. He was a remarkable young man. But he had been given every opportunity, no matter how unorthodox or questionable, by another remarkable man who was no longer here to witness it. And that's why Minerva felt that she should tell him.

Then she joined the celebration.

It remained a bittersweet one. Fifty people had died in the Battle of Hogwarts and the castle lay in ruins. As the morning drew on there was also good news of innocent people being released from Azkaban and those under the Imperius Curse waking up. More Death Eaters were captured and Kingsley Shacklebolt was quickly named temporary Minister for Magic.

"Congratulations, Minister," Minerva said to him just before he would leave Hogwarts for London.

"Thank you, Headmistress," Kingsley replied as lightly as he could with his naturally dark voice.

Duelling Voldemort together had established a new bond and understanding between them. Still Minerva felt she had to point out, "Nobody has appointed me Head of Hogwarts Castle just yet."

"I think I just did."

"Thanks, but that's not actually your decision to make."

Kingsley shrugged. "I'm not rebuilding all of this on my own." He indicated the rubble at their feet but he meant everything Voldemort had done to their community as a whole. "I need help from people who know what they're doing, and I'm saying that's you." He eyed her curiously. "Don't tell me you're thinking about retiring."

Now it was Minerva's turn to let her eyes wander. It would take a lot of work to rebuild the castle and some scars would remain. But only to show that Hogwarts had fought and Hogwarts had won. It would once again be a bright light and a home for generations of young students who had their whole lives ahead of them.

With a small smile on her lips, Minerva met Kingsley's questioning gaze. "Where else would I go?"

Kingsley grinned at her, clasped her shoulder and strode purposefully away.

It took quite some time for things to settle down again in Hogwarts. Everything had to be thoroughly searched to assess the damage and to make sure that nothing and no one was overlooked. The dead had to be taken away so they could be prepared for burial while the injured were brought to St Mungo's. The students' hastily left behind belongings were collected and sent home to them. To close out the school year was impossible under these circumstances. The castle required extensive repairs and several gaping holes in the Hogwarts staff needed to be filled. Minerva had a lot of decisions to make and she wanted to sit down with her colleagues and friends and discuss them. But not just yet. They deserved to be with their families and enjoy a moment of peace. She had contacted her own family and spoken with them briefly. They would return to Britain as soon as possible.

Tonight, the second night after the battle, the castle was quiet and deserted. Even most of the house-elves were gone. They had started sweeping the floors and picking up debris right away and had (politely) declined Minerva's offer to take a break first. She had compromised by asking them to help the grieving families who had lost someone during the battle. Assisting them was not exactly a vacation for the Hogwarts house-elves, but it was better than the hard physical work of repairing the castle.

Alone in the grey dead of night, surrounded by caved-in roofs and collapsed stone columns, Minerva wanted to go outside to visit Albus' grave and make sure that it hadn't been damaged. But her feet chose to lead her upstairs instead. To the headmaster's office or rather the headmistress's office, as she had to call it now. It was open and unprotected because the gargoyle had been knocked aside.

"We'll get you right again in no time," she promised the lopsided statue.

"Thanks," it muttered. "I'll just hang around here until then."

Minerva climbed the stairs and opened the door to the office very carefully as though she still wasn't convinced that she wasn't an intruder. As a nice side effect to this, the former headmasters and headmistresses, who had returned to their frames, didn't immediately assault her with questions because they were asleep. All except one.

A sliver of moonlight hit the portrait behind the desk and his piercing blue eyes looked right at her, as though he had been waiting for her to cross that threshold all this time. Knowing Albus, that might have just been the case. At least knowing her Albus. This portrait… she hadn't seen it in almost a year and it hit her again how lifelike it was, especially now that it was moving. The Albus in the painting didn't speak, though. He just looked at her.

She fully entered the circular room and ran a hand along the edge of the desk, looking around for anything Severus had changed or ruined. But the office looked virtually unchanged except for the Pensieve that had been removed from the cabinet and placed on the desk. Minerva kept having to remind herself that Severus hadn't betrayed them after all. Every now and then she had wondered how Severus could have sat in that chair with the portrait of the man he had murdered hanging right behind him. Now she saw everything in an entirely different light. Now she understood that Severus had sat there and he had done exactly as Albus had told him to.

She glanced up at the portrait. "Are you ever going to say something?"

"Do you want me to say something?" Albus asked curiously.

"If I say no, will you just be quiet for the next few years?"

Albus' lips twitched and he hinted at a bow. "I am at your service for the next however few or many years, though for the record, I'm hoping it will be a great many years indeed."

That sounded so much like something the real Albus, her Albus would say that Minerva had to turn away from him for a moment. That had always been her first instinct. To shy away from that portrait. But now a different instinct, a stronger one, pulled her back towards it. "I survived," she said quietly.

"Yes, you did," Albus confirmed and she could hear the broad smile in his voice.

Minerva felt a little less like smiling. "So many died. So many young men and women who should have been given the chance to raise their children and to grow old like me. This castle is half in ruins, but I survived."

"Because you were meant to. You were meant to hold this office, not just to replace me but to do better than me."

At this, Minerva turned around again and, painting or no painting, the expression on Albus' face was pure pride.

"That's a tall order," she cautioned.

"You're a tall woman."

They'd had that exact exchange before, only in reverse, and she knew that was no coincidence. "You really do know everything he did, don't you?"

"Most of it," he hedged.

"Then is it true? He... you... asked Severus Snape to kill you?"

"Yes."

"And did you ever plan on telling me that?" she demanded.

She didn't know that portraits could squirm, but this one did. "In my defence, I was desperate to keep both you and Severus as safe as I possibly could and it occurred to me that it would actually be safest if you kept hating him. I failed poor Severus, but thank goodness I didn't fail you in that regard. As you just rightly pointed out you're still here and you never gave up."

"You made me promise not to," Minerva reminded him.

"I did," Albus nodded unabashedly. "And you couldn't have impressed me more or proven more admirably that my love and faith in you were not misplaced. Not that there was ever any doubt about that. But you're not just doing this for me."

Turning once in a circle, she admitted, "I don't know what it is that I'm doing exactly." At the very least she had to find new Muggle Studies and Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers without knowing for sure if the curse was finally broken. Then she had to say goodbye to teaching Transfiguration and find a member of staff she could entrust Gryffindor House to. So far she couldn't imagine any of that.

"Well, I often find that a good first step when one needs to figure things out is to take a seat." Albus nodded at the chair in front of his painting.

Minerva rolled her eyes. She had sat in that chair before. It was a nice chair, but it didn't offer magical solutions. Then again, it really couldn't hurt to sit down.

"How does it feel?" Albus asked from behind her.

It felt like she was sitting in a perfectly normal chair, but it did allow everything to sink in a little more. She was headmistress of a broken castle in a broken community with a broken heart. But they had emerged victorious from the darkness and what had been broken could be fixed. Some of it, anyway, and the rest would stay with them a little broken but no less beloved.

"Will you be with me?" Minerva asked in return, twisting around to look at Albus again.

His answer was immediate. "Every step of the way," he vowed.

Minerva knew she shouldn't mistake the painting for the person. She didn't think she ever would, having loved the man, not just the memory, more than anything. Still, hearing his familiar voice, she closed her eyes and she saw the way forward.

A/N: I think we're down to just one more chapter, as incredible as that sounds. Thank you all for motivating me to get this far. Writing the Battle of Hogwarts wasn't easy. Most of it is already in the book, but I hope you enjoyed Minerva's perspective on it.