XXXIII: A Difficult Conversation

Part XXXIII: A Difficult Conversation

"What do you think you are doing roaming the castle?! You should not be out of the Tower – and certainly not alone! Twenty points from Gryffindor. I expected better of you, Miss McGonagall!"

"I'm sorry, I just . . . I just," Minerva stuttered, "I just . . . needed to see you." She felt horrid. He had never yelled at her before; she had scarcely ever heard him raise his voice or use a sharp tone with anyone. Tears welled up in her eyes, and her face burned red with shame.

The hand still gripping her shoulder relaxed then, and she felt him giving it a gentle squeeze before releasing her. "That is not a good enough reason to be out of your dormitory. I would not be pleased if I had to bear the news to your parents, who entrusted you to my care, that you were lying frozen in the hospital wing – or dead. If anything were to happen to you, Minerva . . ." He spoke quietly, his face grim. "Even if you do not care what happens to you – or how I would feel about it – think at least of what it would do to your friends and family."

This was worse than when he had shouted at her. Unable to look at him, Minerva whispered, "I'm very sorry, sir. I didn't think. I needed to see you."

The staircase had swung toward them; Professor Dumbledore took Minerva's elbow and started down the stairs with her. "We will go to my office and talk. You will not leave my sight. Is that understood?" he asked her quietly, an undertone of anger still in his voice.

"Yes, sir," she answered softly.

He did not release her arm until they were in his classroom. He led her to his office, looked around, and then told her to sit and not to move while he warded the classroom and office. She was startled to see that in addition to warding the doors and windows, he extended the wards to the walls and even to the floor and the ceiling. He then took a pinch of Floo-Powder in his left hand, lit a small fire in the grate, and tossed the Powder in. "Gertrude Gamp's Sitting Room," he called out. "Professor Gamp, are you there?" When Professor Gamp responded, Dumbledore raised his wand and cast a privacy screen around himself. It was a variation on the Imperturbable Charm, and Minerva could hear nothing of what was said. He was probably telling the other teacher about Minerva and her flagrant violation of the new curfew. Minerva sank lower in her chair and looked down at her lap. After a several minutes, he rose from the hearth, extinguished the fire, and cancelled the Charm. He stood for a few moments, silently gazing into the empty fireplace.

"It is fortunate," he finally said, sitting down in the chair behind his desk, "that I placed an additional alarm ward on the door to Gryffindor Tower." He looked at Minerva over his glasses. "Should I also place them on the windows, Miss McGonagall, or would it be sufficient if I simply confiscated all of the brooms, hmm?" There was no hint of humour in his voice, just cold disappointment.

"No, sir." Minerva looked at the floor. She had been foolish. If she had caught anyone else sneaking out of the Tower, for whatever reason, she would have recommended detention for the rest of their lives. A student had died, the castle was in an uproar, and she was a prefect who should not only be enforcing the rules instituted for their safety, but who should also be setting an example.

Tears welled up in her eyes again. Minerva fumbled with her prefect's badge, removing it from her robes. She placed in on his desk and, unable to look her professor in the eye, whispered, "Here, sir."

"I do not want your badge, Miss McGonagall. It may be meaningless in a few days, anyway. If we do not discover what has been attacking the students, Hogwarts will close. Possibly for good, if we don't identify the cause of Myrtle MacNair's death."

Minerva gasped and looked up. "No!"

"Quite. Do you think that anyone – any teacher or any member of the Board of Governors – would want to invite students to attend a school at which grave injury or death is a genuine possibility? And what parent or guardian would send their child to such a school? Accidents happen, but this . . . there is a malevolent intelligence behind these attacks."

"Sir?" Minerva asked hesitantly.

"Yes, you risked your life to come to see me, Miss McGonagall; ask whatever questions you may have." His voice was unyielding in its expression of his displeasure with her.

Minerva took a breath and let it out shakily. She had come for reassurance, not because she had questions to ask him. But what he had said about a malevolent intelligence did raise a question in her mind, and since she certainly was not going to receive any reassurance from him, not when he was still so angry with her – justifiably so – she might as well ask a question. "People are saying something about the Heir of Slytherin, and that Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Is that the purpose of it, then, this Chamber, to destroy the school? Why, and why now, sir?"

"I think that whatever intelligence is behind these attacks has an unclear motive – killing Miss MacNair was likely an accident of sorts. Perhaps she saw something she shouldn't have, or she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Certainly each of the petrified students was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but those three had something in common with one another that Miss MacNair does not – do you know what that might be, Miss McGonagall?"

Minerva thought a moment about the three students and of the pureblood slogan that had been painted at the scenes of the second and third attacks. "None of the four are from Slytherin; two of the Petrified students are in Hufflepuff and one is in Gryffindor, and I'm pretty sure that none of them are pureblood. The Gryffindor, I know for a fact, is Muggle-born. Myrtle was in Ravenclaw, and I don't know what 'purists' would say about her family background, but I think she would be considered a pureblooded witch."

"Correct. What does that tell you about the purpose of the force behind these attacks?"

"Maybe that whoever it is just wants all of the Muggle-born and mixed-blood students to be frightened away from the school, or maybe he wants the school to stop admitting them?" she said tentatively.

"That is my supposition, as well. Whoever it was has made a fatal error, however, or has underestimated the value that most in the wizarding community place on all of our children, regardless of parentage. And even if I am wrong, and purebloods care only about their own, the school might have closed even had there been no deaths, if the attacks continued unabated – 'pureblood' is just the same as any other blood, and you can't tell by looking at someone whether they've a Muggle in their family line; it was only a matter of time before a mistake was made or an accident occurred and someone from a pureblood family was injured. What pureblood parents would take the risk of that, even if they didn't care about Muggle-borns?"

"But wouldn't they just want to close the school to anyone who wasn't a pureblood, in that case?"

Dumbledore smiled slightly for the first time. "If they were to try that, they would find they had a very small school, indeed. Hardly worth keeping Hogwarts open for them."

"I see. Well, in that case, if the person doesn't want the school to close, but only wants to drive away anyone who isn't a pureblood, he really doesn't know what he's doing, does he?"

"I'd say that he knows what he is doing; he just doesn't know as much about the circumstances as he thinks he does and does not comprehend the larger consequences. Whoever it is, he has made mistakes, both in unleashing the plan and in its execution." Dumbledore gazed out the leaded glass windows behind Minerva, where the evening shadows were beginning to lengthen across Hogwarts' lawns.

"What about the wards, sir? Can't you tell anything from them?" she asked.

Albus removed his glasses, placing them on his desk, and rubbed his eyes. "I have tried, but the foundational wards, which are the ones that should allow us to discover what or who is carrying out these attacks or at least whence they originate, are still not functioning as they should, despite the work I have done on them over the last four years. Most of my efforts were focussed, first, on making sure that the castle won't physically come tumbling down around us –" At Minerva's alarmed expression, he added, "oh, yes, the physical integrity of the building is strongly affected by the wards – and, second, on the perimeter wards and the wards that protect the castle itself from outside intruders. These attacks must be coming from somewhere within the castle, or there is some entrance to the castle that I have not yet found." He sighed. "I have failed to do what I was brought here to do, and now three students lie in the hospital wing and a fourth is dead." Dumbledore seemed to slump in his chair with his final words.

"That's not all you've had to worry about, though!" cried Minerva, sitting up straight, her heart wrenched at his defeated expression. "You shouldn't blame yourself, Professor! The Ministry has had you working on the War for years; you are teaching twelve classes of students – and with each class meeting almost three hours each week, and every one of them handing in homework and tests, it's amazing that you have time to eat or sleep! Plus you are Deputy Headmaster and Head of Gryffindor House – and that's not even beginning to consider all of the other things you do for people, like giving me Animagus lessons. You told me yourself last summer that you could work on the wards for decades and not be able to restore them to their original condition. It makes perfect sense to start with the wards that protect the castle from intruders and that keep it from falling down around us. You aren't superhuman, Professor; you're just one, single wizard, no matter how powerful your magic or how strong your will! You shouldn't blame yourself," Minerva repeated. "Where is everybody else? What about the Headmaster? Why should you do everything? I know you have done all you could, sir. You wouldn't have it any other way. But if you want to blame someone, blame Headmaster Black for destroying centuries worth of warding because he thought he knew better than everyone else! Or blame whoever has launched these attacks. Just don't blame yourself."

Albus looked at Minerva with a faint smile. "You could have just called Wilspy, you know. I would have come and fetched you. I am sure we could have thought of a legitimate reason for you to come and visit me without you endangering your life, my dear."

Minerva teared up at his gentle expression and fond words. "I'm sorry, sir, so sorry. I just didn't think, and it was more than stupid of me. You would be right to punish me in whatever way you see fit." She smiled through her tears. "Please don't expel me, though, sir, unless they decide to close the school."

Her professor chuckled softly. "You are missing dinner. It is being served in the common rooms. As you would know if you had stayed in Gryffindor Tower. Professor Gamp kindly agreed to oversee dinner in my absence." He smiled at Minerva's expression. "Yes, a Slytherin overseeing dinner in Gryffindor Tower as a favour to the Head of Gryffindor House. That is certainly not something that our antagonist would be pleased to see. I do hope that the students comport themselves well. I would hate to take more points from Gryffindor today."

Minerva looked chagrined as she remembered the points he had taken from her earlier. Not nearly as many as he could have, but probably more than all of the points she had lost over the last six years. Minerva was not one to misbehave or flout rules, despite her temper; it was part of what made her a good prefect – or it had. She still had not picked up her badge from where she had placed it on her professor's desk.

"Sir, I think I should resign as prefect. I set a very bad example in dangerous times. This was not just breaking an ordinary curfew; Hogwarts is in terrible danger, and I behaved rashly and irresponsibly."

"Yes, you did. And I am disappointed in you. However, your lapse in judgment, despite its potentially grave consequences, was atypical and did not lead to any harm to yourself or to anyone else – and although Gertie might qualify overseeing the supper of dozens of Gryffindor students as a harm done to her, I think she will recover!" he said with a smile. "Keep your badge, Minerva. You are more deserving of it than most, and I believe that you understand the . . . foolishness of what you did."

"Thank you, sir." After he had mentioned supper, Minerva realised how hungry she was. She wondered if they would save anything for her in the Tower, or if she would just have to wait until breakfast. She certainly could not expect him to feed her after what she had done.

"Of course, Miss McGonagall," Dumbledore said sternly, "you have also made me miss my dinner, as well, since I was supposed to eat in Gryffindor Tower with the rest of you." He looked at her over his glasses. "I need to escort you back to the Tower, however. I suppose that the only thing to do is to have you wait for me here whilst I eat, and then I will return you to your dormitory afterward."

"All right, sir," said Minerva quietly. She didn't blame him for not wanting to eat with her. She may have been forgiven for breaking the extraordinary curfew, but that did not mean that he wasn't still angry with her.

Dumbledore called Wilspy. "Some supper, Wilspy; just sandwiches, please. I have a meeting with Headmaster Dippet shortly."

He got up and went to wash his hands, then returned to sit behind his desk again. Minerva sat in her chair and looked out the window as her professor put his glasses back on and began reading some parchments – student essays, she thought, though why he would bother under these circumstances mystified her. A few minutes later, Wilspy popped back into the office with a large platter of sandwiches, a pitcher of pumpkin juice, and two glasses, and then left again.

"If you want to wash your hands before you eat, you had better hurry. I am hungry and may not leave you anything!" Wilspy had brought at least five large sandwiches, so it was highly unlikely that he could eat them all himself.

Minerva washed her hands, came back, and helped herself to a very nice sandwich of cheddar, pickles, and cress. After Minerva had eaten a few bites of her sandwich, washing it down with cold pumpkin juice, Dumbledore asked, "Did you really believe that I was going to eat my supper in front of you and let you go hungry, Minerva?"

"I wasn't sure. . . Well, yes, actually, I did. I thought it was the least I deserved after what I'd done."

"Oh, my dear. I thought we knew each other better than that! I was very angry – and I suppose I still am a little upset with you – but not just because you broke the rules. Surely you know that?" he asked.

Minerva swallowed the bite of sandwich she had taken. "I guess so."

"You 'guess so.'" He sighed. "Minerva, the danger is very real. You must know how . . . distressing it would be if anything were to happen to you? And not just for your parents."

Minerva broke off a piece of her sandwich and crumbled a bit of the bread between her fingers. "I suppose my friends would be a little upset, too. I was upset about it when I found Jeremy, and I didn't even know him. And I felt bad about Myrtle, even though – not to speak ill of the dead – but she was not a particularly amiable person. Still, it wasn't anything you'd want to happen to anyone you know."

Albus put down his sandwich and looked at her. "I do hope that you are using the word 'friends' in a broad sense and are including me among them." Minerva continued to crumble the crust of her bread. "Look at me, Minerva." Minerva raised her eyes. "There are many people who care about you and who are concerned about your safety. I am among them. To say that I would be 'a little upset' is an understatement. Do you understand, Minerva, why I was so angry with you?"

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry. I know how hard you have worked to help me become an Animagus. And if they don't close the school, you'll still have to –"

"Minerva McGonagall! Do you honestly believe that I care about the time I spent helping you as though it were some kind of an investment? Do you truly think that I would regret your death only because you would be unable to help with the wards?" He seemed perplexed by Minerva's response.

"I – I don't know. I suppose you know me pretty well. It's a bit harder when someone dies if you know them well."

"I see." Albus finished his glass of pumpkin juice. "And if I were to be killed by whatever attacked Miss MacNair and the others, you would just think it 'a bit harder' because you . . . 'knew me pretty well'?" he asked.

"No!" Minerva cried, responding in horror at the thought of Professor Dumbledore lying cold and dead on a floor somewhere in Hogwarts. "No! That would be dreadful. I don't think I could bear coming back to school. It wouldn't matter if they closed it or not." Minerva shook her head at the vision. "It would be just . . . awful . . ." she finished quietly.

"Do you understand now why I was so angry with you, Minerva?"

"I think so. I am sorry, Professor. I just sometimes think . . . well, I'm just one student out of many, you know? Good at Transfiguration, but . . ."

Albus shook his head. "Minerva, you are one student out of many; the one student out of many; the only one who is Minerva McGonagall. But right now we need to get you back to Gryffindor Tower so that I can go to my meeting." He rose and banished the remains of their supper. "You know, you really do need to work on your . . . confidence. It is one thing to be modest and unassuming about one's talents, and quite another not to recognise one's value, one's importance, in the lives of others."

They walked rapidly back to Gryffindor Tower. Minerva noticed that all of the staircases they took led them just to where they needed to go, and she wondered if that was because Professor Dumbledore was the Keeper of the Wards. When they reached the seventh floor, Minerva stopped and put a tentative hand out to touch her professor's left arm. She had avoided physical contact with him since the day of her accident, touching him only when necessary, which was seldom. Now, though, she allowed herself to touch his upper arm and to leave her hand resting on it lightly. She could just feel the vibration of his magic through his robes.

Very softly, although there was not even a portrait nearby, she said, "Sir, I am sorry. Really. Especially for scaring you. I have been scared for your safety sometimes. Often, actually. But you are, well, you are you, and I always have faith that you will be all right, that you will survive any dangers you face and always come back." She swallowed. "But if you didn't . . . I think I understand what you meant earlier, when you said what you did . . . about it not having to do with an investment of time. And about one's value in the lives of others. I appreciate it, Professor. Thank you."

Albus reached up with his right hand and patted hers where it rested on his arm. "Very good. And you will have detention with me when this is over, just to make sure that you do not forget your error in judgment . . . Provided we don't have to close the school, of course."

Minerva dropped her hand, and they walked the rest of the way to the Fat Lady's portrait in silence.

"Brought this one back, did you, Professor?" asked the portrait. "When she left, I thought I'd probably seen the last of her."

Dumbledore ignored the Fat Lady's remarks and just gave the password. "Periwinkle," he said. "I will see you . . . sometime. Perhaps tomorrow. Good-evening, Miss McGonagall!"

"Good-evening, Professor Dumbledore."

Minerva entered Gryffindor Tower to find the common room empty except for Professor Gamp. It was truly a peculiar sight for Minerva to see her Slytherin Arithmancy teacher, feet up on an ottoman in front of the fireplace, reading a scholarly journal in the empty Gryffindor common room and eating an apple.