Third Version

Thanks to all those who are still reading. The fourth version is coming, and I think it is my favourite.

Also, my sister, who studies cinema, is planning on making a short movie using the plot of the First Version. A kind of "fanfilm". It sounds very exciting to me. I will post a link if we really do it.

THREE

Seasons came and went at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Albus Dumbledore had been there for many years, and the successive winters and summers began to blur after several decades. This year, though, had brought its share of novelty in the teaching of Transfiguration at Hogwarts and in Albus Dumbledore's routine.

Change had come in the form of a letter, interrupting a long evening of the previous December. Young Minerva McGonagall had been writing, which was always a pleasure. It did not seem that she was enjoying her work very much, at the Ministry, but he liked to read about her life in London, about her thoughts and reminiscences of her time as his student. Albus Dumbledore had always had a soft spot for Miss McGonagall and had very fond memories of her training to become an Animagus. This letter, however, had been different. Minerva McGonagall wrote to inquire about a position at Hogwarts.

There was no vacancy at that time. Yet, he could not think of a better successor on the Transfiguration post, and he had been there for a long time - maybe it was time to inject new blood? He was reasonably sure that on his recommendation, the Headmaster would agree to the advantage of training a young Transfiguration professor under Dumbledore's tenure. And Minerva McGonagall's skills were common knowledge. It was only a few days until the next meeting of the Board of Governors. Albus Dumbledore decided that, sometimes, time to dwell upon a decision was superfluous. And he stood up.

A few weeks later, he was waiting for Minerva McGonagall at the gates of Hogwarts. When he caught sight of her, walking along the path, no luggage apparent, he walked to her. He noticed that she hesitated before extending her hand to him. He bowed, took her hand delicately in his, held it, and kissed it lightly.

"Welcome back to Hogwarts, Professor McGonagall," he said.

Albus Dumbledore believed that her cheeks had grown slightly redder than they had been a minute before in the cold Scottish winter, but she looked more pleased than ill-at-ease with her new title.

The former Head Girl was welcomed and accepted quickly by the rest of the faculty. She was a beautiful woman and a powerful witch. Albus Dumbledore watched her integrate promptly, and he acknowledged the changes in her appearance. There was something strong in the lines of her face, that he could remember from her adolescent years, and something stern, that had probably developed later, mitigating the fiery gaze, like an afterthought.

They taught in adjacent classrooms, and he often went to see her in the evening when she did not come to his laboratory and ask about his progress in demonstrating the tenth use of dragon blood. Albus Dumbledore liked this sharing of duties more than he would have thought, and he had not had so much time for research in more than twenty years...and that was when he had been stuck for a few months in a cottage with his brother's goats... well, a different situation, anyway. He could feel that this equilibrium would meet an end after a few years, if only because she would wish to progress to full teaching responsibilities. And he did not know what the next opportunity would be, which path life would open for him...but he appreciated this situation like a breath of fresh air in between the long years of his life.

That evening, he walked to her classroom, happy with his work, eyeing the nice summer weather through the windows. He knocked and nobody answered. He was about to go back when he thought he heard something from the other side of the door. It sounded like a sobbing child. He listened on, but could hear nothing more. Albus Dumbledore wondered whether he should intervene. In doubt, he cast a charm and a patch of the wall became transparent.

But there was no student. Only Minerva McGonagall. She was crying. Severe, restrained Professor McGonagall was bent over her own desk, sobbing voicelessly. Through the blur of the enchantment and behind her hands on her temples, he could see her face wet with tears but her eyes dry, as if she had been crying for too long and there were no tears left in her.

Albus Dumbledore felt that he was intruding in something nearly indecent, and he lifted the charm promptly. Somehow, Minerva McGonagall's grief felt a lot more private than that of a student to him. He hesitated. But then he knocked again and immediately unlocked the door in a whisper and pushed it open before he could ponder what he was supposed to say or do once he would be inside the room.

Minerva McGonagall looked up. She felt caught in flagrance, that much was apparent.

"Oi, Professor, I am sorry, I thought I was alone. I... just give me a minute and I will be ready..."

She looked like a student in that instant. Just a few years younger than she actually was. He remembered their evening sessions during her sixth and seventh years.

"Don't apologize, Miss McGonagall, Minerva. I, if anybody, should be sorry for marching in on you like that. This is, after all, your classroom, Professor."

She smiled weakly.

"But what happened?" He saw the letter in front of her. "Did you receive bad news?"

"I... Well, this is not exactly the kind of story I expected to..." She sighed, "oh, well..."

Albus Dumbledore stepped closer to her chair and patted her shoulder. She leaned on him, her head resting on his sternum, and had he had any doubt, Dumbledore would have known then and there that Minerva McGonagall was not herself that evening.

"I am being silly, Albus," she said, "crying about the past..."

"Are you?" Albus Dumbledore conjured an armchair and sat next to her. Then, he frowned at her own wooden chair, and she suddenly fell back on chintz cushions. She glared at him briefly, but he could tell she was at least somewhat amused. She still carried in her the girl she had been, close to the surface. He wondered how much longer he could afford to do that before she became too much of an adult. He wished it would not change. People seemed to grow up at an alarming rate, as he grew old himself, and they went on to become unsmiling, self-important ministry officials quicker than a professor could congratulate them for their NEWTs.

Minerva McGonagall dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief and sniffed. Dumbledore looked at her sadly.

"Do you wish to talk about it?"

"I don't know," she said and seemed to think things over, "it is quite personal... besides it might sound foolish..."

"You sound like someone who wants to talk about it, if I may say so."

She smiled at that, although it did not reach her eyes.

There was a silence.

Finally, she said, "I have been in love, Professor."

"That happens to the best of us."

"And he is marrying."

Albus Dumbledore looked pointedly through the window.

"And not marrying you, obviously?"

"Obviously." She glared at him, but he could see she felt more herself already.

"Oh, you wouldn't believe how surprisingly important things can just happen without my knowledge at the most unseemly moments... But that is not the matter, in that instant... His loss, in my humble opinion, his loss."

"How so?"

"That he is not marrying you. I would think him to be a fool for rejecting you... but then, love has its ways..."

She seemed to shift uncomfortably, before telling him, "Well, in fact, I refused him."

She avoided his eyes.

"You make me curious," Dumbledore said, arching an eyebrow.

"It was years ago. He was a farm boy in Caithness. A Muggle. His name is Dougal. I had just left school, you know... and I did not want to..." her gaze drifted above the classroom, and she went silent.

"You did not want to?"

"I wanted to live as a witch. I did not want to hide."

"Would you have had to?"

"I don't know. I would have married a Muggle farmer in the Scottish countryside, you know. Not the ideal background for a magical career..."

"I suppose not. Pardon me for being oblivious to what it is to be a woman, in addition to being a witch."

"Anyway. I chose this life. I have it. I live at Hogwarts, and there could not be a more magical place in the world. I ought to be satisfied."

Albus Dumbledore looked at her and could see her steel herself. He could see her sit up and stiffen on the squashy old armchair he had transfigured. He felt sad.

"And yet you were crying."

"Foolishness."

"I am not so sure. For one, I have never known you to be a foolish person, Professor McGonagall. And secondly, love is hard on those of us who chose to resist..."

"It is long past. And he is marrying someone else, now. It is too late for regrets."

"I was not suggesting that you go after him."

"Then what?"

"I do not know. But I find that it helps to allow oneself the proper time for grief."

He could hear her sigh.

"It was years ago, you know."

"I know, I know, forgive an old man like me for not keeping track of time."

She smiled, at that. Somewhat sceptically. "You," she said, "are not an old man. You are using it as a rhetoric."

"Well, 76 this summer, my dear."

She quirk an eyebrow.

"Surprised?"

"You do look younger."

"So I am told, yes." He smiled and saw her look at the classroom, probably thinking of lessons for the next day, already. Minerva McGonagall was good at diluting problems in her work.

"And so," Dumbledore said, "you are satisfied with your life choices."

"I have to be."

"You have no regrets."

"What would it help?"

"You don't cry at night..."

"Of course not." She said it in a voice that was too strong to be true.

"Of course not, my dear. You wouldn't be the kind of woman that keeps her letters next to her bed, attached in a red ribbon."

"I... what... how do you... ?"

She looked outraged, and he knew instantly that it had been the wrong thing to say. Oh my, she kept his letters...?

"Come on, dear, this was a wild guess. I am sorry."

She looked at him fixedly. He suddenly felt exactly why her students would not think of disrupting her lessons in this same classroom. He looked at the desks around him and found himself amused. But it was obviously the wrong timing. He turned his mind back to the current cause of her ire.

"I swear I never searched your bedroom," he said.

He smiled, but she kept a stubborn face.

"And I don't bribe the house-elves."

Her expression finally relaxed, grudgingly. "Well, I am sorry, Professor... I guess you could not bribe a house-elf, anyway..."

"Oh, you would be surprised," he saw her squint, "but I don't, and I certainly would not want to intrude in such things..."

"I know you don't," she said defiantly.

Albus Dumbledore looked surprised.

"There is no ribbon, and the box is under my bed."

They both smiled at the feeble attempt at humour.

Albus Dumbledore still felt that he had trespassed on her intimate realm. And he did not like the tension.

"You know," he said, "as unintuitive as it may sound from an old man like me," she rolled her eyes but he went on, smiling, "I have also been in love, Professor."

This classroom was turning into the most interesting parlour for both of them. Albus Dumbledore fervently hoped that it was private enough. He quickly checked the door.

"I have been told that it happens to the best of us," she said slowly.

"And as you can see, we were not blessed with a happily ever after. Though that might have been my fault for a disastrous blindness in my choice of inclinations. And I do not think that he ever married, either."

"He?"

"Yes, well... yes." Dumbledore hesitated, "It was a long time ago. I had just left school, my father had passed away in Azkaban a few years earlier, and my mother died in an accident. My brother was of age, but I wanted him to go back to Hogwarts. I had to care for my sister. I was trapped. It was not a beautiful time. And I met the worst person possible under those circumstances."

He was pretty sure that was enough information to lose anybody. But she did not blink and immediately asked, "Who was he? Do I know him?"

Dumbledore looked at her for two whole seconds.

"He was Gellert Grindewald."

"Oh..."

Of course, that called for more explanation.

"My sister had been attacked as a child, because she was showing signs of magic, by three Muggle boys. She was left permanently branded, traumatized. My father was sent to Azkaban for having sought revenge on them. Ariana was never whole again, unable to control her magic, could not be sent to Hogwarts. And my mother died in an explosion of Ariana's magic. You can see how easy it would have been to convince me of the culpability of those Muggle boys, of the irresponsibility of Muggles in general... the necessity to control them..."

"Oh, you..."

Dumbledore wondered if it was disappointment or compassion in her voice. But it felt strangely good, anyway, to talk.

"I was young, and hurt. I would never advise to bottle up hurt and anger, even in order to do what one feels to be right and proper."

"And what happened?" she prompted him.

"A catastrophe, of course."

Minerva McGonagall looked at him.

"And my sister died."

Minerva McGonagall did not look at him any more.

"And I was never in good terms again with my brother."

None of them looked anywhere. Albus Dumbledore felt as if he stood naked in front of her. He was not used to people knowing of his past sins.

She spoke first. "Why did you tell me?"

"I apologise if I disappointed you, Professor McGonagall."

He knew she was looking at him, but for the moment, he felt better keeping his eyes on an empty point. She called him back to the present.

"Don't apologise..."

He finally gathered himself and nodded.

"I have admired you for as long as I can remember..." She resumed, "It is not a secret that you are the person that played the most important part in my life outside of my family." He could see her blush, but she continued, "And you have never disappointed me. I feel honoured that you would confide."

Albus Dumbledore felt his heart warm at that. And slowly levelled his eyes with hers as she added, "I apologize, Professor, if I have been brusque this evening. I hope that you know it was not against you. I owe you so much already..."

"Minerva, I can understand that one would be protective about private matters, and I will forgive your alleged brusqueness if you forgive my certain lack of tact. And consider that anything you owe me has just been repaid by accepting this confidence."

She looked like she slowly understood how important this was to him. He added, "To answer your unasked question, yes, you are the only one I ever willingly told about that."

"I am greatly honoured, Professor."

Some time passed in silence.

"And, Albus... that was about time, wasn't it?"

"Right, as always, my dear Professor, right you are."