Chapter Five

After the short northern night, the morning dawned clear and cool. Minerva and Albus rose early and went to breakfast in the dining room, which was laid out buffet-style. After Albus had coaxed Minerva to add some eggs and lox to the toast and tea she had eaten, she went to her father's study and knocked softly.

"Come in," came Thorfinn's voice through the heavy oak door. "Ah, good morning, Minerva," he said as she crossed to the large desk to kiss his cheek.

"Good morning, Da. Albus and I thought we'd take a walk—go look at the firth—and wondered if you'd like to come along," she said.

"No, lass, but thank ye. I've still got quite a bit of this to get through before morning's end," he answered, indicating the large stack of parchment on his desk. "Ye two go on. I've a suspicion ye don't get your handsome lad to yourself that often."

She smiled at him. "All right, Da. See you at lunch then?"

"Aye."

Minerva and Albus strolled through the castle grounds to the front gate. They walked at a leisurely pace about a mile through the grassy fields until they came upon the view they were seeking. The fields suddenly opened up and gave way to a craggy cliff, shot through with the brown and tan striated stone of ages. The cliff fell in vertiginous descent to the deceptively calm, azure-blue of the Pentland Firth. Just at the horizon, they could make out the gentle sloping contours of the Orkney Islands.

Albus watched Minerva as she looked out over the water, shielding her eyes from the sun's glare. The ever-present wind had loosed a few strands of hair from her bun, which whipped around her cheeks and jaw like licks of black flame. She looked to him in that moment like the Viking she was by blood—holding vigil as her ancestresses must have done, waiting for their men to return from the North Sea and Norway beyond.

She finally noticed him looking and turned to him, taking both of his hands in hers. "Thank you for coming. It means a lot to him," she said.

"Of course. You don't get to see him often enough. I'm sorry," he said.

"No need to be. It's the way of things, with children—they grow up, leave home," she answered. "I do worry about him, though. All alone in that big house, with me at Hogwarts and Einar in Inverness. I know Einar tries to see him as often as possible, but he's busy, too."

It always amused Albus that Minerva and her family referred to their ancestral home as a "house." It was, in fact, a castle, albeit a small, plain one. The land had belonged to the McGonagalls since their Norse forbears had first crossed the North Sea in the ninth century. The original castle had been erected in the twelfth century—long after the Vikings had been either beaten back across the firth to Orkney and beyond or intermarried with the Celts to settle in and contribute to the brackish history of the kingdom of Alba, soon to be Scotland. The edifice had been knocked down, rebuilt, and added to over the centuries, the family who eventually became the McGonagalls aided by strong magic in keeping what was theirs safe from the upheavals of broadaxe, plague, and gun.

"He's worried about you too," Albus told her.

"Me? Why?" she asked.

"He can't help thinking about what happened to your mother, Minerva," he said, looking her in the eyes.

She turned her head away toward the firth again. "I knew I shouldn't have left you two alone," she said weakly.

He took her hands again and pulled her gently toward him. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I did."

"Not everything."

"No," she said and sighed. "Not everything. I didn't intend to hide it from you—I almost never think about it, actually. Then when this happened," she said, laying a hand on her belly, "I thought it might worry you, so I just . . . didn't mention it."

"Does Poppy know?"

"Of course. She took a thorough history. It isn't something that's genetic, apparently. Sometimes, it just happens. Rarely, she says."

"Are you scared?" he asked her.

She didn't answer for a minute. "I suppose."

He knew it was a thing she would admit to no one but him.

"But I won't be ruled by fear, Albus," she said.

He smiled. "That's what Thorfinn said."

"I am, after all, my faither's daughter. Sigrid Thorfinnsdóttir," she said, giving her Viking name.

He recognised it as a talisman against fear. Her mother had not been Viking; Morrigan had been Celtic through and through. Albus was not surprised that his wife tended to ally herself with the fierce magic of Odin and Thor rather than the nature-bound spirituality of her mother's people. She was a woman more inclined to bend lightning to her will than to worship its power.

"I wonder who our little one will be like?" Minerva said.

"It had better have your looks."

"And your brains? Is that what you're implying?" she asked, raising an impish eyebrow at him.

"How about a combination of your logical mind and my creative one?"

"Creative? Is that what they're calling it now?"

"And what would you call it, Mrs Dumbledore?"

"Untidy."

His retort was to gather her in his arms and kiss her until she was gasping for breath.