Chapter Twenty-Two

PART II

1944–1950

Here are seen the wave-echoing shores of Naxos,

finding herself abandoned wretchedly to empty sands.

Gauis Valerius Catullus ~ Carmen 64 ("Of the Argonauts and an Epithalamium for Peleus and Thetis") (52-57)

"Vous n'avez vu personne?"

"Non, personne."

"Et des animaux? Avait-il des loups, peut-être? Des corneilles?"

"Corneilles?"

"Oui. Quelqu'une . . . inhabituelle? Étrange?"

"Que voulez-vous dire? Je n'ai vu personne . . . jusqu'à ce qu'ils ont commencé à tirer sur nous . . . que dites-vous, 'des animaux'?"

The young woman was becoming agitated by Minerva's questions. This was going nowhere. Minerva gingerly blotted the injured woman's clammy forehead with the cloth she had conjured, then wiped away the blood that had run into the woman's eyes, saying, "Rien. Rien. Calmez-vous, mam'selle. Reposez-vous. L'aide médicale sera ici très peu de temps."

Minerva tried to stand, but the woman grasped her wrist with a trembling hand.

"Avez-vous de l'eau? J'ai très soif . . . je vous en prie . . ."

Minerva hesitated, not knowing if water would harm the injured woman. Looking at her, the witch decided water would not change the outcome for this poor young Muggle, and said kindly, "Bien sûr. Un moment . . ."

She turned away from the woman and drew her wand, conjuring a small tin dipper and whispering, "Auguamenti," to fill it with cool water. She knelt by the woman and held the tin to her lips, supporting her head gently.

When the young woman had drunk, Minerva laid her back, and the woman whispered, "Merci . . . vous êtes un ange . . . un ange de ciel . . ."

Hardly an angel, thought Minerva.

With all her magic, she had nothing to save this young woman's...this girl's...life nor even ease her pain. Had the young woman's injuries been from a hex or curse, Minerva might have been able to buy her some time with her rudimentary knowledge of healing spells. But she had never seen this kind of injury before. The woman's torso was riddled with small, starburst-shaped holes, black around the edges of the wounds, and her pallor told Minerva that she was bleeding internally. An eerie whistle every time the woman inhaled or exhaled told an even more dire story.

"Mam'selle?" Une tendresse . . . dernière? Entendriez-vous . . . ma confession?"

Minerva was confused. Had the woman been with the Germans? A collaborator? She knelt by the woman's head once again and bent her ear to hear the whispered words.

"Je confesse . . . à Dieu . . . tout . . . puissant . . . je reconnais . . . devant ma soeur . . . que j'ai péché . . . en pensée . . . en parole . . . par action . . . et . . . par omission . . ." the woman murmured, pausing to take a wheezing breath between every other word, and Minerva realised she was praying.

". . . oui . . . j'ai vraiment . . . péché . . . C'est pourquoi . . . je supplie . . . la Vierge Marie . . . les anges . . . et tous les saints . . . et vous aussi . . . ma soeur . . . de prier . . . pour moi . . . le Seigneur . . . notre Dieu."

When the woman's face relaxed a bit, Minerva knew she was finished.

"La paix soit avec vous." It was all Minerva knew to say. The young woman suddenly grasped her hand and turned terrified eyes to Minerva as her breathing became more laboured, with a terrible liquid sound. A small bubble of blood expanded and retreated in the woman's left nostril with each breath, and Minerva had to force herself to keep looking at her face.

Minerva desperately wished she knew of some way to help this young woman, the only one left alive when she had arrived on the scene of the massacre. If only she knew some prayers that might ease her on her way...she was obviously a Catholic, like most of her compatriots. Something occurred to Minerva, and she began to sing quietly:

"Lux æterna luceat eis, Domine,

Quia pius es."

By the time she had finished the final, sombre notes of Mozart's last work, the woman's chest had stopped moving, and her eyes were fixed on Minerva's face.

Minerva gently placed the woman's hand by her side, stood, and after looking around, Disapparated as quietly as she could.

/***/

"It was an ambush. There was no sign of magical involvement; all the wounds appeared to be of Muggle origin," Minerva said without emotion as she gave her report describing the immediate aftermath of the massacre of thirty-five fighters of the French Resistance near the waterfall in the Bois de Boulogne.

The Resistance and their Magical allies had long suspected there was a spy among the Forces Françaises de l'Intérieur. FFI efforts to help secure the liberation of Paris had been sabotaged time and again, and this last betrayal seemed uncanny in its prescience, given the speed and absolute secrecy that had surrounded the operation to transport weapons for the liberation efforts. Hidden among the weapons consignment had been several Portkeys, originally intended to transport important figures to key locations around Paris when the time for the final ouster of the German occupiers came.

Minerva had been dispatched as soon as news of the massacre had come in to the French Ministry-in-exile. She had been selected, she guessed, because, as a mere trainee (and a woman, she thought bitterly) she was expendable. She happened to be in Metz with a group of Auror-trainees who were tracking low-level targets in Grindelwald's Blackrobe cabal. The trainees were there because the Auror ranks were stretched nearly transparent with the wars, Muggle and Magical, coming to culmination in the bloody summer of 1944. Minerva alone among the group spoke good enough French to go to the Bois by herself. Moreover, the leaders didn't want to risk any important assets, as they didn't expect any information was to be had; immediate reports were of a total annihilation of the young FFI agents. If Minerva were captured, there was nothing important she could reveal to either the Blackrobes or the SS, even under torture.

She continued: "When I arrived, there was one survivor, a woman. She was unable to tell me anything other than that they were ambushed."

"What happened to her?"

"She died in the field shortly after I arrived."

Hildebrand Abbot sighed. "Thank you, Auror-trainee McGonagall. You did well."

The director of the Auror training programme had been beyond irritated that one of his best recruits had been used in this pointless and dangerous way. But he couldn't say no to Monsieur Chemoins, who was the head of intelligence for the Free Magical French.

"Thank you, sir. If that's all, I'll go ahead and file my report."

He gave a curt nod, and she turned on her heel and left.

/***/

Minerva sat writing at her desk in the small tent she shared with the two other female Auror-trainees, stopping to stretch her cramping fingers. She ought to get one of those new Dicta-Quills, she supposed, but she hadn't had any time to shop before her deployment, and Merlin knew when she'd next be in Diagon Alley.

At first, she and her fellow interns had been excited to finally get out of the classroom and into the field, but they soon realised that hunting Dark wizards, in this instance, meant many hours of tedium punctuated by occasional bouts of sheer terror.

Minerva herself had been both excited and annoyed at the sudden call to pack up and head to France. She was as pleased as the others to get into the field at last, but she was frustrated at the interruption to her lessons with Professor Falco. One of the benefits of the long training period required of Aurors was supposed to have been that she would be in London long enough to complete her Animagus training.

Professor Falco had turned out to be very different than she had expected. He was a strict taskmaster, but he had a wicked and irreverent sense of humour, and he took great pleasure in teasing Minerva about her seriousness and primness. He had been delighted with the progress she had already made under Professor Dumbledore's tutelage, and they had been talking about attempting full transformation, but then the order to go to France had come. Transformation would now have to wait.

She finished her letter and sealed it with her wand, enclosing it with the official communiqué to the Ministry. They would, she hoped, forward her letter on to her family in Caithness. She couldn't write much, of course...nothing that might give away her location or their mission...but she wanted to reassure her father that she was safe and well and let him know how to write back through the Ministry.

Two weeks later, she was sitting in the small canteen tent when the Auror in charge of their little group called to her across the tent.

"Oi, McGonagall! Got a letter here for you."

She practically jumped up and ran to where the man was standing holding an envelope with her name on it.

"Thanks, Auror McKinnon."

When she got back to her table, she tore the envelope open and greedily devoured the note with her eyes.

3 September 1944

Castle Isleif

Caithness, Scotland

Dear Minerva,

I am so very glad to hear from you, my darling girl. You can imagine how surprised I was when I received your note a few weeks ago that you were being deployed, and how concerned I was...we all were...about your safety. I understand you can give no details, but it means the world to me, Einar, and your gran to know that you are well and that you are thinking of us. You know my heart and thoughts are with you every moment of the day, and I take comfort in the fact that you have a good head on your shoulders, a quick wit, and a ready wand, and I can only hope that these will see you safely through whatever it is you are called to do.

We are all well here in Caithness. It has been a warm summer, and the selkies have been at their mischief again. Einar and I have had to rescue four fishermen between us, and getting an Obliviator up here each time to take care of them afterwards has been quite a challenge; the Ministry is keeping a fair tight rein on their personnel, as you may imagine. I've been half tempted to take care of it myself. (Now, don't go sending any Howlers to your old da; I haven't actually done it.)

Einar was off to Hogwarts two days ago, and your gran and I are feeling rather old and lonesome. I had a letter from him today, and he's as fine as a fiddle. One bit of news that may interest you: Einar tells me they have a new Transfiguration teacher. He says the new teacher (I can't recall her name and can't be fussed to find the letter) was introduced at the Welcoming Feast with nary a word about where Professor Dumbledore has gone. I imagine it's to do with the war. There's been nothing about it in the Prophet, so there you have it. Of course, it's possible he's sitting right there with you, wherever you are, in which case, the joke's on us.

I'll close now but will write again tomorrow, now that I know how to get a letter to you. Take care of yourself, and always remember how much I love you.

Your loving,

Da

Albus was gone from Hogwarts? The idea both frightened and intrigued her. Her father was most likely right; he was probably off on some war-related mission. While she was terrified of the danger he was almost assuredly in, she couldn't help thinking they were somehow together in this fight, both in this war. She forced herself not to wonder if she might run into him.

The summer had passed in a blessed blur. After only one week's rest at home in Caithness, she had moved to London to begin her Auror training and to continue her Animagus lessons with Professor Falco. If she thought she'd been busy at Hogwarts, it was nothing compared to the constraints on her time when June rolled over into July, then to August, when the call-up had come. She didn't mind at all. She was never one to sit around, and besides, it kept her from dwelling on things she couldn't change.

Only at night, when she lay alone, first in her narrow bed in the tiny London bedsit she had leased, then in the even narrower camp bed in the tent in the countryside of Lorraine, did she allow her thoughts to wander over her former lover. Then she permitted herself only a narrow menu of them: Where was he? What was he doing? Was he well? Did he ever think about her? She didn't allow herself to ponder this last too long.

Now she knew where he wasn't.

Please, keep him safe, she prayed to gods she didn't quite believe in.safe, she prayed to gods she didn't quite believe in.