Chapter Twenty

Two days later, something happened that forced Albus's hand.

When Minerva went to breakfast Thursday morning, Albus wasn't at the High Table. It was unusual, but not troublingly so; one or another of the staff would often miss a meal or two, and Albus more frequently than most, given his involvement in matters beyond Hogwarts' walls.

The fact that he was not at lunch was worrisome, but Minerva did not become concerned in earnest until she opened the door to the Transfiguration classroom to find not Albus, but Professor Dippet standing in front of the large, black chalkboard that graced the front of the room.

"Good afternoon, Miss McGonagall," said Dippet when she stepped into the classroom, the first to arrive, as usual.

"Good afternoon, Professor Dippet." After depositing her books on her desk, she said, hoping her voice showed no more than appropriate concern, "I hope Professor Dumbledore is not unwell."

"Not at all, Miss McGonagall. He was called away on urgent business, so I will take his classes for the day."

"I see." She couldn't resist asking, "Will he be back tomorrow, then, sir?"

"I do not know when Professor Dumbledore will return," Dippet answered crisply and turned to the chalkboard, indicating that he did not intend to discuss the matter further with her.

Minerva spent the remainder of the class in speculation...pointless, she chastised herself...about where Albus could have gone and why he didn't inform her first.

Not that he has to tell me where he's going, she thought. I'm not his keeper. Or his wife.

For the first time anyone could remember, Minerva McGonagall had trouble with a Transfiguration.

Minerva blushed bright scarlet when her mouse turned not into the graceful bird that was required by the exercise and that everyone expected to be soaring triumphantly around the classroom moments after she lifted her wand, but into a strange, feathered hybrid with whiskers, a moist, pink beak, and a long tail that kept it from taking flight despite the mottled-brown wings that had appeared on its flanks.

The Headmaster and the other students stood with mouths agape as the poor creature flapped helplessly, its tiny paws scrabbling in the air every time the useless wings pushed its misshapen, brown body up off the surface of the desk. Minerva felt tears prick at her eyes when the half-mouse-half-bird launched itself off the desk only to plummet to the floor, defeated by the laws of physics, much as its enchantress had been by the laws of Transfiguration.

Minerva scooped the tiny, quivering thing from the floor and held it out to Professor Dippet, who quickly turned the creature back into the mouse it had been. When the creature continued to shake and tremble, Minerva asked the Headmaster's permission to take it to Professor Kettleburn to see if it could be mended.

"Ah, Miss McGonagall," Kettleburn said, shaking his head. "I'm afraid the wee thing has fractured its spine. There isn't much I can do to help; it's not a magical creature, and besides, my healing spells wouldn't be much use. The kindest thing would be to put the poor creature out of its misery."

When the young Care of Magical Creatures teacher saw the tears escape from Minerva's eyes, he added kindly, "I'll see that he doesn't suffer any. Don't fret, now."

"May I watch?" she asked.

Professor Kettleburn nodded. He knew that, unlike a few other students he could name, she wasn't asking out of morbid curiosity about the process of killing. She felt miserably responsible for the creature's plight; the professor could sense it coming off of her, and although he wouldn't wish her any suffering, he was pleased to see it. It signalled a healthy respect for non-human creatures of which Silvanus Kettleburn heartily approved. It was a sentiment he tried to instil in all his students, but he was often prickled by the unpleasant thought that if they didn't have it by the time they got to his outdoor classroom, they never would, no matter what he did.

"Would you like to hold him?" he asked Minerva.

"Yes, please, sir."

She felt nothing, surprisingly, when the life passed from the mouse the moment the professor's wand touched its fur. "Is it . . . gone?" she whispered.

"Yes, Miss McGonagall. And you see? It was as I said. He didn't suffer any. He went gentle as you please," Kettleburn answered.

"Thank you, sir," she whispered, and gingerly placed the lifeless creature into the professor's meaty hand.

As she turned to go, he said, "Try not to be too hard on yourself. Sometimes death is unavoidable. It isn't your fault."

But she couldn't help feeling responsible. Later, she would reflect that the little mouse was the first casualty of her war.

/***/

A sense of foreboding enveloped Minerva as she walked down the short corridor toward Professor Dumbledore's office. She didn't expect him to be there for their Thursday evening tryst, but as she had heard nothing from him, she decided to go at the appointed hour anyway.

She was not surprised when there was no answer to her knock.

When she returned to her dormitory, she opened her trunk and retrieved the book of poetry he had given her when they first started their affair. She opened it, and her heart sank a little when she was confronted with the blank page that should have contained the night's entry.

Where was he?

Professor Dippet had said he didn't know when Albus would return, but neither did the Headmaster appear overly perturbed at his Transfiguration professor's absence. Surely, if Albus were in trouble or worse, Dippet would have been more agitated when Minerva asked him about it. Wouldn't he?

She opened her Charms textbook, intending to re-read the chapter on advanced anti-Muggle charms, but when she found herself reading the same sentence for the third time ("Muggles are notoriously unobservant of signs of magic surrounding them and will attempt to invent 'rational' explanations for phenomena they cannot otherwise explain"), she gave it up as a bad job. She re-packed the large, heavy textbook in her trunk and rummaged around before she found the miniature volume she was looking for.

With a tap of her wand and a whispered, "Sicut Erat," the tiny book grew until the title was clearly visible on the spine: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. She needed something more engaging than Charms theory to take her mind off her worries.

She briefly considered going down into the common room to read but decided she preferred solitude. She didn't want to run the risk of having to make small talk with her fellow Gryffindors. She settled down on her bed to read.

The next morning, she woke to find she was still in her clothes, but someone had thoughtfully covered her with a blanket and drawn the bed curtains. She joined her dorm-mates in the morning rituals of washing and dressing, and went down to breakfast.

Minerva's heart sank when she saw the empty chair at the High Table.

She had pushed her eggs and toast listlessly around her plate for a few minutes when the morning post arrived. A tawny owl swooped down over the Gryffindor table and dropped an envelope into Minerva's lap, perching on the edge of the table to wait for its reward.

"Miranda, can I cop a tiny bit of your banger for the owl? I didn't take any, and I'd hate to waste an entire sausage I'm not going to eat," she asked the third-year sitting to her right.

"Of course, Minerva," said the girl, cutting a slice off her sausage and dropping it onto Minerva's plate.

"Thanks," said Minerva and held the morsel out to the owl, who hooted its appreciation, took the offering in his beak, and flew away, presumably to enjoy it in the privacy of a nearby tree.

Minerva wiped her fingers on her napkin and plucked the envelope from her lap. The seal was blank, but when she broke it open, she couldn't resist emitting a sigh of relief when she saw the loopy handwriting gracing the parchment. It looked as if it had been hastily scrawled.

I am sorry to have left without a word to you. I was called away suddenly to attend my brother, who was injured early yesterday morning.

Please do not worry. I am well, and my brother appears to be on the mend.

There was no return address and no signature.

As relieved as Minerva was to hear from him and to know that he was well, she was worried. Not only about Aberforth's mysterious injury, but also at the terseness of the note. It gave no indication of the gravity of Aberforth's condition nor of when Albus might be returning to Hogwarts. She knew intellectually that Albus had to be circumspect, in the event the letter was intercepted or fell into hands other than Minerva's, but she couldn't help being slightly disturbed by the coolness of its tone.

There was nothing for it but to wait and hope he would be back soon.

/***/

"Gah! Those Blackrobes couldn't kill me, but are you trying to finish the job?"

Aberforth was complaining bitterly as Albus applied the salve to his burns, which meant, Albus thought, that the injured man's condition had improved significantly since the previous day.

The fact that Aberforth had only said Albus's name but issued no epithets when the latter had arrived at St Mungo's after receiving the owl notifying him of his brother's injury had shocked him more than seeing Aberforth's physical injuries.

The explosion that had destroyed Aberforth's shop and the flat above it had resulted only in several broken bones and some fairly extensive, but thankfully superficial, burns over the man's body. The bones had been healed, but the burned top layer of skin would take several weeks to finish sloughing off to allow healthy, fresh skin to emerge from beneath the charred flesh that spotted Aberforth's back and arms.

"I am sorry, Aberforth. I know it's uncomfortable; I'll try to be more gentle," said Albus as he smoothed the foul-smelling ointment over his brother's back. As much to distract Aberforth from his discomfort as to get information, Albus said, "Tell me again what you remember about the accident."

"You've heard it once, and I went through it about five times with the Aurors," said Aberforth. "I'm not going over it again."

"I'm just wondering if there's something we missed, something that might have tipped us off that they were planning to strike," said Albus, his voice low to avoid being overheard by the ward's other residents.

"Something I missed is what you mean, isn't it? Surely the great Albus Dumbledore would never have been so stupid as to get himself nearly blown up by a bunch of Blackrobes," said Aberforth.

"No, Abe. There's no reason you should have been expecting an attack. You wouldn't be a target if it weren't for me; I'm the one who should have warned you to be vigilant," said Albus.

"Leave off the self-pity, Albus. I'm the one lying here in the bed with a crispy arse." After a minute of uncomfortable silence, Aberforth added, "Anyway, this time it really isn't your fault. Like as not, they really were after me, and not just to get at you."

"How so? Why would they be after you?" asked Albus, puzzled.

"I might've thrown one of 'em out of my shop. Mebbe insulted his mother's honour, too," said Aberforth with a satisfied smirk.

"What happened?"

"One of 'em came sniffing around, asking questions that got a little too pointed, if you take my meaning."

"About what?"

"Come off it, Albus, you know damn well what. It's no secret my last name's the same as yours. Anyway, I told him to piss off and stay out of my shop. He didn't like it much. Called you a 'Muggle-lover' and a 'half-blood', said his 'friends' had some pretty interesting plans for Muggle-lovers and such once they were in control of things."

"I'm sure they do. Go on," urged Albus.

"Yeh, well, I told him that if what I heard about his mum was true, he shouldn't be so sure of his own blood status."

"Did you know the man?"

"Enough to know who he was. Went to school with his mum and dad, and a couple of right brown trouts they were, too."

"So you think the Blackrobes staged the explosion in retribution for you insulting his mother?" asked Albus with some amusement.

"Nah. I'm not so daft as all that to think I'm so important," Aberforth said. "I'm just saying it was a side benefit."

Albus sighed. "You need to pick your battles, Abe."

"Oh, I do, Albus. I do," Aberforth replied, looking at his brother, challenge in his stare.

Albus looked away first. "We need to discuss what we're going to do when you get out of here," he said.

"What 'we'? I'll go to Godric's Hollow until I can organise a job and scrape together enough to get another flat."

"You're going to need someone to tend to your burns; you can't reach your back by yourself, and the ointment needs to be applied by human hands, not magic. And unless you have some money stashed away somewhere that I don't know about, you'll need some for food and other necessities," said Albus.

Aberforth scowled. "I'll manage. Don't you worry about me."

"Why don't you come stay with me for a while, just until you're back on your feet? I have room."

"Out of the question," said Aberforth. "Hated that place the four years I was there as a student, don't imagine it'll have grown on me much since then." He added with a nasty gleam in his eye, "Besides, where would you take your girl? Can't exactly take her to the pub for a pint and a quick one, now can you?"

"That's not a concern," said Albus coolly.

"She might disagree with you there."

"Can't we be civil about this, just for the time being? You need help, at least for now. I am in a position to provide it, but I can't run off to Manchester or Godric's Hollow every day to look after you. In the current climate, it isn't safe, and besides, I can't spare the time. If you're close by, I can see to your burns and anything else you need, and on days I can't come, I can easily arrange for someone else to do it in my place," said Albus.

Aberforth was quiet, and Albus knew he was struggling to accept that he'd have to depend on his brother for a while.

"All right. But not Hogwarts. We'd kill each other like as not if we had to share living quarters, and where would the wizarding world be then? I'll stay in Hogsmeade, if you can arrange a room somewhere." In a low, gruff voice, he added, "I'll pay you back for any expenses once I'm gainfully employed again."

Albus nodded. "I'll ask around in Hogsmeade. I should be able to arrange something by the time you're released."

"Sooner the better. This place gives me the abdabs."

/***/

Albus returned to Hogwarts early Saturday morning, resolved once more to end his affair with Minerva.

The attack on Aberforth had been a sobering reminder of the dangers faced by anyone close to him. He and Minerva had been unreasonably lucky in so many ways, he thought. It was clearer than ever that expulsion from school and the ruin of her reputation was the least of what might face Minerva if her relationship with him were discovered. As much as he loathed the idea of hurting her, the thought that she might be in real, physical danger because of him was intolerable.

I have been incredibly selfish, he thought. How could he have taken up with Minerva...allowed himself to fall in love with her...when he was far from a free man? He couldn't afford the luxury of close relationships, and certainly not with a young girl who had no other experience of love and what constituted a normal relationship. Experience had taught him that it was the innocent that suffered most from their association with him.

And Minerva was certainly innocent, he thought, despite her initial pursuit of him. Eighteen or not, she was a child, and a sheltered child at that. Of course, she had been very clear about what she wanted and quite clever and persistent in going about getting it. And she really was extraordinary in so many ways. Despite the differences in age and experience, they were remarkably compatible; he had felt that almost from the beginning of their acquaintance. It was rare to find a mind that was as sharp and inquisitive as his...the last time had been . . . no, he wouldn't think about that.

It was just his dumb luck that such a mind would be housed in an attractive young woman who was his student. Unfair, really. He had been unable to help falling in love with her.

No, that's an excuse, he corrected sternly. We always have choices.

Even if he could not have prevented his feelings, he certainly possessed the ability to control his own actions. Turning her away at the beginning might have hurt her, but what he was about to do would cause her far more pain.

Albus felt as if he had taken a Bludger to the solar plexus when he saw her face at lunch. She looked so happy, and he knew it was at least in part because he had returned. He allowed himself to smile at her briefly and felt slightly nauseated when he saw her return the smile, knowing that he would likely be granted few of them in the future.