Unexpectedly Expecting

28: Pumping For Information

Minerva

Minerva brushed off the last bit of cat hair from her robes after turning back into her witch self. "Horklump Juice," She said to the gryffin statue guarding the Headmaster's office. After having dinner in the Great Hall, Severus seemed to decide not to reside at the school. He preferred being at his wife's side, his pregnant wife, she amended in her mind.

She scowled at that. Granted, neither of them had any choice in the matter of their first union, but despite Severus's display of honor in taking responsibility for getting Hermione Granger pregnant, the whole relationship unsettled her. She would be mortified if Albus had been forced to sleep with her on such base public display as they were, but even so, he was the only man besides David when she was a mere girl of eighteen, that she would welcome such intimacies.

Of course, she had never admitted as such that besides her ill fated love affair with David Yates in her home village, that Albus Dumbledore had been a factor in her not marrying that muggle. But it was also the fact that she didn't want to walk the same life path of her mother. Her mother had to give up magic to be with her father, and Minerva knew in her heart that she loved magic far more than any man, no matter how handsome he was.

Albus's office was cleaner, more spartan in design, but Severus had set up a clean makeshift potions table for him to formulate potions on the fly. On the desk itself were framed pictures of the Malfoys, wedding pictures of Luna and Draco Malfoy's wedding, his own wedding to Hermione Granger, and some were even framed pictures of his dour faced mother at her own poor civic hall wedding standing next to a straggly haired broad shouldered man with unkind brown eyes. She had a medium sized baby bump, and she looked thoroughly miserable.

Hermione on the other hand...she wore a beautiful mermaid hemmed wedding gown that was heavily beaded on the bodice part, and Severus looked rather dashing in his tuxedo, she had to admit. She looked radiant in her happiness, and so did he in his quiet way.

She heard Dumbledore clear his throat, "If you are looking for Severus, he left not too long ago to go home. What brings you here, Minerva?"

Minerva forced herself to look at the wizard she had secretly loved for years. She exhaled the breath she didn't know she had been holding. "No, no, I know he went home to his wife. I came to see you, actually. We have rarely spoken in all the time we have worked together beyond our nightly Chess sessions."

Albus favored her with a genial smile. "Ah, yes. But you have that look that you are demanding answers."

She flicked her wand, and the guest office chair moved to her side. She sat in it, and put her wand away in the hidden holster in her teaching robes. Her cheeks flushed, "You know me too well. I want to know about the quest you sent Harry Potter on, and why you felt it necessary to assign such a dangerous mission to a teenaged boy."

Albus sighed heavily, his eyebrows knit with concern, "It will take some time to explain. Are you certain you wish to hear it?"

"Yes. You owe me some explanations for your vague behaviors when you were alive. I am still hurt that you trusted a boy and a former deatheater over me," She snapped, hating herself for nearly tearing up.

"Harry and I...Well, I did not want to trust him with any of this Voldemort intrigue, you have to understand that first and foremost. You remember how I was away for most of his fifth year, yes? And that my right arm became wasted and blackened?"

Minerva nodded.

"Well, after Harry had that legilimency vision of Arthur Weasley being attacked by Voldemort's pet anaconda, I charged Severus Snape with teaching him lessons in Occlumency. I had thought that by having Harry learn those lessons from a master in that magical study that Voldemort would not be able to exert more control over his mind. I did not want to believe that Riddle would ever discover the connection he has to the boy, why he can speak to snakes. The answer to this is that the killing curse did not fail the night Riddle killed the Potters in 1981, it rebounded on to the only living thing in the nursery: Harry Potter himself. In that moment, a part of his soul latched on to the infant wizard, and so he was left with his lightning scar on his forehead. I had thought that his relatives would care for the child as they did their own."

Minerva narrowed her eyes. "I told you that night that they were not fit to raise a wizard child, family relations or not. But you failed to listen to me, and as a result the boy was abused."

Dumbledore winced at that, "I misjudged Petunia Dursley's childish dream of joining her sister in Hogwarts. I was wrong in that."

"Wrong? Wrong?? That is all that you have to say to excuse yourself, that you were wrong? Well, that is unacceptable. But do go on, I must hear this tale of your long list of misjudgments."

Albus continued, folding his hands in his lap. "I took on Severus Snape as a valuable Rook to use in my long standing game against Tom Riddle, and you know the circumstances of that. However, what I did not tell you that through his intelligence gathering within the regime, that he gave me the location of where Riddle buried the Gaunt family ring: in his mother's grave. So I, grave robbed her, not caring that he might have placed a curse upon the ring. I don't know how I was able to apparate back to the castle that night, but Severus found me on his nightly patrol. I nearly died in his arms when he put me into bed, but through much trial and error, and a lot of diligent research in the Restricted Section of the library, he identified that my hand had been cursed with the Tou Jours Pur curse, or Always Pure curse. He berated me ruthlessly for my 'Gryffindor recklessness,' and I didn't have the strength to argue with him about it. Nevertheless, he was able to trap the curse to my hand. But he assured me in the gravest of tones that death was certain, and I had but three, four months at the most before my body would succumb to the wasting disease that is the Always Pure curse. I had no choice but to give Harry Potter this mission to hunt down all of the horcruxes so that when he was mortal, he would be vulnerable to death like any normal human being."

"So when he murdered you on the Astronomy tower--"

"It was an act of mercy, and I didn't want to tell you. You would have fought by my side if I asked you. No wizard could have asked for a more loyal witch than you, but...I...I could never fully return your feelings for me, and for that I am truly sorry," Albus's voice was soft, sad even, and she hated herself for the tears that fell down her cheeks now.

Minerva hugged herself in her chair. She hated her feminine weakness, of her lifelong need for this man who had been such a dominant force in her life, and who had long since owned her heart. "Was there ever a moment, a time even when we were both young that you felt anything more for me than a fellow business colleague?"

He was crying freely now. "Yes. I have only ever loved Gellert Grindlewald, but I must admit that if I had had such predisposition for witches, you would have been the only one."

"So, you loved me as much as you were able."

"Yes. Even the few times we were together on those inebriated times after our weekly Chess games here in this office, I tried desperately to love you as you deserved," He admitted. "A part of me has always despised not being able to have those desires in full, and I suffered knowing that despite how much I loved you we couldn't be as what is needed between a witch and wizard fully."

Minerva blushed like the school girl she once was. "I am just happy to know that my feelings weren't completely unrequited. In my vision of the Mirror of Erised I see us together, young, holding one another as if for a family portrait, a boy and girl posed in front of us, my belly rounded with another child on the way. The boy has your eyes, my hair, the girl your dark red hair, and my eyes. We are so happy, and it matters not a fig because of your predilection."

She wiped at her eyes with a handkerchief, and rose. "Well, I should finish up with approving the teacher's lesson plans that Severus wanted. Thank you, for telling me the truth at last."

She was halfway to the door when Albus's voice called her name softly, "Minerva."

She looked up at him. "Your vision is not meaningless. I loved you, and I will always love you."

Minerva nodded. "I know. I will see you at work tomorrow, and this conversation never happened."

"Just like our love."

"Precisely. Good night, Albus."

"Good night, Minerva."

She turned the door knob, and barely held it together until she reached her own private chambers. Once she had changed into her woolen nightgown, and got ready for bed, she gave way to her grief, of what could never be, and it was only sheer exhaustion that allotted her a mere three hours of sleep. This was going to be a very long, tiresome school year, and she had to be ready for the storm to break when it did upon the walls of this very school in its inevitable conclusion of the wizarding war...