Epithalamium (Harry Potter for grown-ups)

Chapter Nineteen

On Thursday, 1 June, Minerva sat her first N.E.W.T.s—Charms and History of Magic—and for the next six days, Albus saw nothing of her other than at meals in the Great Hall.

After the conclusion of her last exam, the Defence Against the Dark Arts practical, the following Tuesday, she was utterly exhausted and completely exhilarated. Moments after Examiner Lestrange had dismissed her with a "thank you" and a reassuring wink, Minerva practically skipped out of the Great Hall and headed directly for Professor Dumbledore's office.

"Enter," came the voice behind the door when she knocked.

She stepped into his office and closed the door behind her, leaning against it. "Finished!" she announced.

"Congratulations, my dear!" he said. "How do you think it went?"

"All right, I think. The Arithmancy exam was a bugger, though. I'm sure I mucked up the Chaldean calculations in one section; I forgot about the differences in Imperial and Post-Achaemenid Aramaic," she said glumly.

"Poor Darius must be spinning in his grave."

"Don't tease, Albus. Besides, my stupidity may just have lost you your Galleons, don't forget."

"Don't call yourself stupid, Minerva. At least not in front of me," he said. Brightening, he added, "I happen to know that you got through Transfiguration with flying colours; Madam Marchbanks came to visit me after the exam and said she hadn't seen such an impressive student since . . . well, since me."

"Really? She said that?"

"Oh, yes. I told her, of course, that it was all down to my extraordinary teaching skills."

"Of course," Minerva said with a smirk. She opened her bag and began to retrieve her books in preparation for their lesson.

"Not today, my sweet," said Albus. She looked up questioningly.

"You have been working entirely too hard. I think the completion of your N.E.W.T.s calls for celebration, don't you agree?"

"What exactly did you have in mind, Professor?" she asked with a knowing smile.

"Step into my private quarters, and we can discuss it."

He knew this was wrong, all wrong. He had decided that the best course of action would be to break it off with Minerva before things got too far out of control.

In the days in which he had seen so little of her, he had promised himself that he would do it after her N.E.W.T.s. It had been almost easy to think of it then, when she wasn't sitting in the front row of his classroom twice per week nor looking up at him expectantly from the chair in his office after one of her transformation exercises. Now that she was standing in front of him, her eyes glimmering with happiness at finally having the weight of her exams off her shoulders, and—he hoped, despite himself—at being with him again, he found it impossible to consider hurting her, even if it was for her own good.

Give me chastity and continence, but not yet, he said to himself with a pained smile.

Albus Dumbledore, like Augustine of Hippo, would come to be venerated in his later years. Unlike Augustine, however, he would make no confession of his youthful follies. Some sins he would ultimately expiate in a fashion that would have pleased the saint; others would remain unaccounted, except in the memory of the woman who loved him.

He did not want to hurt her, no. And he needed a respite from the tension that had been creeping over him in recent weeks. There would be no harm in allowing them another few days of joy, would there?