Betrayal and the Art of Salvation | Harry Potter for Grown-Ups

Chapter Four

12 June 1978

Approaching the entry to the Headmaster's office, Minerva gave the password and slipped past the stone gargoyle as soon as the aperture was large enough to allow her passage. She took the stairs two at a time and blasted the mahogany door open with a flick of her wand, striding through it to stand, hands on her hips, staring at the room.

Replacing her wand in its pocket, she moved to the nearest bookcase and swept her arm across it, sending the various mementos and doodads crashing to the floor. She repeated the procedure with several other shelves and finally tipped the now-empty bookcase over on top of the heap of detritus.

She moved about the room, alternately sweeping items to the floor and hurling them to shatter against the walls of his office. The Heads' portraits fled for the safety of other paintings.

In her final paroxysm of fury, she pushed against the glass shelving unit that held the phials of the memories he had stored for later examination. It didn't budge, so she hurled her full weight—all seven stone of it—against the shelf, glad of the burst of pain the impact produced in her shoulder, glad to have a physical sensation to compete with the agony of her other hurts. When the shelf still wouldn't budge, she withdrew her wand, pointed it at the offending item, and sent it hurtling against the wall, where it shattered and crumpled into a defeated heap.

Panting now, she stood back and surveyed her work.

It would do for a start.

She was about to leave when she espied the heavy stone Pensieve in the corner. Wiping her sleeve across her perspiring face, she approached it, thought for a moment, then used her wand to withdraw a long, silvery strand of memory from her head and deposited it into the Pensieve. She then backed away from it, barely hearing the crunch of the debris under her feet for the coursing of her blood in her temples.

She backed through the open door, then turned and fled, the long tendrils of hair that had escaped her bun flying about her face like the Gorgon's snakes.

~oOo~

It was late—after dark—when she heard the door to her quarters creak open. She opened her eyes—she must have dozed off—and saw him silhouetted in the doorway. He didn't move further into the room, and she didn't speak a word, either in greeting or rebuke.

He finally took a step inside and waved the door closed behind him.

"Minerva," he said.

"No."

"What?"

"You don't get to be kind."

Moving further into her sitting room, he asked, "What can I say?"

"Nothing you haven't already said."

"If I had known you were coming, I never would have ... exposed you to that."

She gave a bitter laugh. "Oh, Albus. Only you could be concerned that fucking another woman would offend my sensibilities."

"You're hurt."

"Fifty points to Gryffindor, Mr Dumbledore. Although you'll forgive Mrs Dumbledore if she doesn't rejoice that we are now in the running for the House Cup.

"It meant nothing."

Sweet Nimue, will he never tire of speaking in clichés? Even to me?

"It never does, to you."

"Tell me what you want."

"What I want is no longer possible."

He sighed and went to the sideboard, poured two tumblers of scotch, then silently handed one to her, which she accepted without comment.