Before she was Professor McGonagall, she was Minerva Macnair. After an arranged marriage forces her into an impossible situation, Minerva does what she must to survive. When she makes a new life for herself, her secrets follow and threaten everythin...
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"It was you!"
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1 January 1964
For a moment, the world swam, grey and swampy, in front of Alastor's eyes.
He'd considered the possibility that Minerva had killed Macnair—he couldn't not, Auror that he was—but he'd never believed it. Not in his heart, which, coincidentally, seemed to be the organ that had taken the blow a moment ago.
"You killed him?" he asked, rendered temporarily gormless in his shock.
It was far from the first time he'd heard this kind of confession before, but his brain seemed stuck, and his mouth unable to do anything but repeat her words.
"It wasn't what I intended, but I did it nevertheless," she said, and he recognised by the calm she projected and that others might find strange—but not a seasoned Auror—that the confession was true. Most criminals were glad, at least on some level, when the truth was finally out there. At least until the real fun started in Azkaban.
It was this last thought that shook Alastor out of his stupor.
"Minerva," he said, "I don't want you to say any more. Not right now. I'm ... it's ... I'm an Auror. You should be talking to someone who can advise you of yer interests."
"Who better than you, Alastor? You love me—or at least, you did—and you understand the law."
"Minerva, I don't—"
"I want you to be the one to hear it, Alastor. Please."
This was a bad idea. A terrible idea. If he took her confession, he had to report it. His oath required it. He'd never broken his oath—never even considered it—but how could he do it? How could he turn her in when he loved her so?
Back in 1942, when he had been in his final year of Auror training, he'd needed a way to blow off the steam that built up during that year of nearly unbearable pressure, and he'd found it in a most unlikely place: the Muggle cinema. And his favourites were the American detective pictures. He'd been to see The Maltese Falcon four times, sitting in the dark theatre, surrounded by Muggles, mesmerised by Humphrey Bogart's sad sack gumshoe, flawed, but ultimately incorruptible and hard as dragon's stones, an image that Alastor had, consciously or not, cultivated for himself.
