To Rend and Sew

Minerva flew down the passageway, unmindful of the few students who watched her pass in shocked amazement; Professor McGonagall almost never ran anywhere.

The oaken doors to the castle flew open ahead of her, and she burst out into the chilly spring air. She ran down the path toward the lake, her robes billowing behind her like a long, green wake. By the time she reached the promontory, she was breathing hard and had to bend over, her palms on her thighs, to catch her breath.

When she straightened up, her eyes adjusting to the late evening gloom, what she saw filled her with white-hot rage. The white marble sarcophagus had been split...not just split, rent...and the body within was laid askew as if it had been tossed haphazardly back into the tomb, which was, of course, exactly what had happened.

She was sullenly grateful that the shroud had not been damaged...at least around the head...and that she did not have to look at the face of the dead man within. She was an observant woman and noticed the missing wand, but assigned little importance to that detail. The why did not, at this moment, concern her; the what was enough to consume her for the time being.

She allowed herself only one minute of swirling fury before she raised her wand to correct the outrage. The air around her crackled as she used her wand to move the body back into position in the sarcophagus and re-seal the white marble of the tomb. It was not a perfect repair; a large crack still marred the otherwise smooth surface, but it would do until a new monument could be made.

She turned and strode back toward the castle. When she reached the Headmaster's office, she stood glaring at the stone gargoyle guarding the doors.

"Password?" the gargoyle inquired as expected.

"Omnes relinquite spes."

The doors began to move, and she didn't wait for them to open fully before slipping in and racing up the spiral staircase. She pounded on the inner door with the brass knocker, knowing that, if he were inside, Snape couldn't fail to hear it.

The door swung open, and she strode into the office. He wasn't there, but the bookcase-door to his private quarters stood open, and she went through it.

She didn't take time to notice the changes wrought in the room since she had last been in it. Her eye homed in on Snape, who was sitting on a sofa near the fireplace, a glass of Firewhisky in his hand. She approached and stood towering in front of him, her hands on her hips. Any other acquaintance of Minerva McGonagall's...except Dumbledore...might have run for his life or thrown himself at her feet begging for mercy when he saw the look on her face. Snape merely looked up at her, saying pleasantly, "My dear Minerva, what a pleasant surprise. Oh, dear... I haven't forgotten an important meeting, have I?" He sounded a little drunk.

She ignored his jibe. "Did you know?" she demanded, her eyes narrowed to slits.

"Of course. I know everything, after all. It is my role to know things for people," he answered, his words thick with resentment.

"What did he want that he didn't already have?" she asked him.

"What makes you think he wanted something?" Snape countered, apparently unconcerned.

"Stop it," she spat. "You know as well as I do that the Dark Lord didn't come here simply for the pleasure of desecrating Albus Dumbledore's tomb."

"No. Not when he has already had the pleasure of desecrating the man's wife."

Silence.

"After a fashion, of course..." he added, opening his arms slightly to indicate himself.

The glass in his hand exploded, spraying his face and shirt with sticky Firewhisky and cutting his index finger and thumb badly. A sliver of glass embedded itself in the skin just below his lower lip. For the first time, his eyes seemed to focus on his visitor. Her wand was nowhere in sight.

"If you're ready to leave off this pathetic display of self-pity, perhaps we can begin this conversation again," she said, her voice low and deadly. Snape wondered who had learned the tone from whom, she from Dumbledore, or he from her.

She gave him a minute to recover his equilibrium, then asked again: "What did he want?"

He regarded her warily. "The wand."

"Albus' wand?" She frowned.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"He believes it to be one of the Deathly Hallows."

She was stunned for a moment. "The Deathstick?"

"Yes."

"Is it true?" she whispered.

"That, Minerva, is one thing I do not know." A small smile crept to his lips.

She thought for a few moments. "When Albus came back from Germany, he had a new wand. His original one had been destroyed in the duel with Grindelwald, he said."

"Did he tell you where he had gotten it?"

"You know, I don't recall. By the time we were on speaking terms again, I suppose it didn't seem important," she answered.

"You and Dumbledore had a falling out? When?" Snape asked, his curiosity about the woman in front of him temporarily eclipsing the subject of the Elder Wand.

"Before he went to Germany," she replied.

He frowned. "I didn't realize you were friendly that far back," he said, watching her closely.

"Mmm," she said, wondering how much she was going to tell him about her history with Albus Dumbledore. Secrecy had become such second nature that she sometimes forgot who knew what about the subject.

"You must have been a student," he said.

"Just graduated, actually," she said.

"But you knew him at Hogwarts?" There was no special inflection on "knew," but she understood what he was asking.

She chose her words carefully. "Of course. He was my teacher." She had insisted on honesty between them, but she discovered she was not willing to travel too far down this particular path with Severus.

"Of course, your teacher..." he repeated coldly.

"Severus..." she warned.

"Yes, Minerva? What did you want to say to me?" He was angry without quite understanding why.

She paused.

"We'd better take care of your lip." She pointed her wand at it, saying, "Excisio," and he felt a slight sting as the sliver of glass was removed. "Fingers," she said crisply, indicating he should present them for inspection. He held his injured hand out to her, wincing as she probed the cuts.

"Muscles and tendons seem to be intact. Collocutis." The cuts sealed themselves, leaving only thin, red seams where they had been. She didn't apologize for having injured him, nor did he thank her for repairing the damage. Neither of them tried to clean the blood and Firewhisky from his face, sleeves, or collar.

"The wand, Severus...he has it now?" she asked.

"Yes."

She sighed, worry furrowing her brow.

"I'm not sure it matters much," said Severus.

"Do you not believe it to be the Wand of Destiny?" she asked.

"It is possible," he said. "But remember the legend, Minerva. The wand's full power can only be realized in the hands of one who has won it from its previous owner."

Understanding rocked her suddenly. "You! You are the rightful master of the wand!"

"If it is, indeed, the wand," he agreed.

"Why didn't you claim it after Albus died?"

"I didn't know about it," he said simply.

"He didn't tell you? When he made your... arrangement? Why?" She was incredulous.

"When did Albus Dumbledore ever deign to let any of us in on his grand schemes?" Snape exploded. "Oh, he had his reasons, and reckoned that should be enough for any of us to follow blithely along in his great footsteps, sniffing along in the mud for the clues he dribbled behind him like the dogs he thought we were."

He half expected her to hex him, but she didn't. She realized the man in front of her had been shattered against the rocks of Albus Dumbledore's monstrous pride much as she herself had been against her husband's love and need. The only difference between them, she thought, was that she had chosen to let it happen, whereas Severus had struggled and fought. He was still fighting.

"I'm sorry, Minerva," he said after a minute.

"Don't be." She put her hand on his recently healed one in an offering of peace.

After another minute, she said, "Would you like some more Firewhisky? I could do with a drop myself."

"Certainly. The bottle's on the table over there," he said, pointing to a corner of the room.

She went to the bottle, noticing it was almost two-thirds empty, and Summoned two glasses. She poured two fingers into each, then brought them back to where he sat and joined him on the sofa.

"I probably shouldn't encourage you; it looks as if you've had enough already this evening," she said, sipping her own liquor.

"I felt the need for fortification after the Dark Lord left," he said.

The glass stopped halfway to her lips. "You saw him?"

"Yes, of course," he said. "You would have, as well, if you had been a few minutes earlier. Actually, it was quite foolish of you to come without..."

He realized his mistake immediately.

"He was here? In the castle?" she asked, standing, her face reddening.

"Yes." He looked at his glass rather than her face.

"How could you permit it?" she cried.

"How exactly do you suggest I could have stopped it?" he countered angrily, standing to face her.

He saw that she was trembling. His voice softened. "Minerva, I swear, I would not allow him to harm you."

"Me?" she screeched. "You think I'm concerned about my own skin? What about the children? If any of them had seen him, there would have been chaos. After what happened the last time he made a personal appearance here..."

"I'm sorry, Minerva," he cut her off curtly. "In any event, he wasn't seen. He didn't intend to be."

"Thank Merlin," she breathed, her anger abating somewhat.

After a few moments, she said quietly, "Well, it seems the Dark Lord can do anything he likes, and we can't stop him."

"Despair, Minerva? That isn't like you."

"And what is 'like me?' Everyone else seems to know...Albus, Poppy, you...I wish someone would tell me, because I'm hanged if I do," she said, suddenly fierce.

"You are..." he began.

"What?" Her eyes were desperate.

"Astonishing."

"Ha!" she barked. "So I've heard. Forgive me if I can't quite agree with that trite assessment. The astonishing Minerva McGonagall, most powerful witch of the age..."

"You are, Minerva. You cannot run from who you are."

"I have never run from anything in my life, Severus Snape," she retorted throatily. "Minerva McGonagall Dumbledore, Sigrid Thorfinsdóttir, Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, leader-by-default of the Order of the Phoenix, Elder Emerita of the Wizengamot...is not permitted to run from anything."

"Minerva, stop," Snape said, taking her by the shoulders.

"I would love to. Oh, how dearly I would love to!" she spat.

He pulled her against him, and they stood breathing against one another. He could feel the steady thrumming of her heart, smell the scent of honeysuckle and linden in her hair, and all at once he was fourteen again...before the Dark Lord, before Lily hated him and died for it, before all the choices that had led, inexorably, to this place...catching her scent as she knelt by him in the classroom. He had caught something else too: for the first time, on that day twenty-four years past, he had sensed the power she inhabited, almost as if it were an electrical charge coming off her skin, but from a far deeper source. He had felt it course through him for an infinitesimal moment while she held his wand hand in hers as together they Transfigured an object whose name was lost to him now, and he knew he wanted it. He had always been a little afraid of his own magic...his brutal father had seen to that...but at that moment in the Transfiguration classroom, he had recognized that his own power was, like hers, immense, and it had frightened and thrilled him at the same time. He wanted to ask her how she didn't burn with it, but of course, he had been a boy, and Professor McGonagall could hardly have been expected to tolerate such an impertinent question, could she?

Snape the man dropped his head to bury his nose in her hair...still so black, but shot through now with strands of silver...and she allowed it. After a few moments, she pulled back and looked at his face. He returned the gaze, unsure of what he was seeing. Without deliberation, he pressed his mouth against hers, and she allowed this, too.

"Severus..." she breathed against his lips.

He removed his mouth, thinking she was going to push him away.

Instead she said, "Let's make a memory he can't see. A memory just for us."