1.
minerva is no stranger to funerals.
decades after starting her tenure as a transfiguration professor at hogwarts, a small part of her wishes that she could turn back time and warn herself to stay as far away from the castle as possible after graduation. that way, she’d be able to preserve the memories of a time long-gone, an easier time—sneaking into the room of requirements to exchange a few heated kisses with druella, bickering with poppy during shared potions assignments, and taking long walks with pomona at the edge of the forbidden forest as soon as snow began thawing in early march.
more than anything, minerva wishes that she would be able to look at the castle and see the far-away years of unabashed happiness, teenage mischief, and forgotten freedom.
instead, all she sees is a litany of dead bodies that pile up, year by year, as the war that feels never-ending follows her into her late forties. by that time, she has buried too many bodies to count—young men and women she would always see as kids who became order members, taken from this world too soon by a war that was desperate to never let minerva go.
by that time, she hadn’t seen druella for three long years, but minerva’s memory is as traitorous as ever, and the last sighting of her great love is forever burned into minerva’s memory.
2.
late june, the graduation ceremony held by the black lake, an orchestra playing as the last of the daughters of the house of black prepares to leave the castle. as minerva watches narcissa shake albus’ hand and take a lone seat at the front row—meant for the only seventh year student this year to receive outstandings for all her newts—minerva can feel the last thread to druella slip away, slowly unraveling.
druella, who sits in one of the back rows among the sea of other parents, yet her presence is striking, so much so that minerva can’t make herself look away—doesn’t even have the decency or the manners to glance at albus, not once, during his elaborate speech. instead, it’s druella her eyes linger on, with her elegant features, perfectly styled blonde hair, and cheekbones sharo enough to cut through glass. minerva longs for the war-free days of getting to touch her in all the places hidden beneath layers of modest clothing—just what a woman of her status is supposed to wear, minerva knows it quite well.
a woman of druella’s status—pureblood, the lady of the house of black, a wife—is not meant to find her way back into the arms of her past lover. a woman of druella’s status is not meant to melt underneath minerva’s touch as minerva carelessly pins her to one of the castle walls, a short distance away from a faculty party in full bloom. a woman of druella’s status is not supposed t kiss minerva back, to hold her like she’s been starved for this, them , from the very beginning of times.
as always, druella doesn’t care—she just does , and there’s something so utterly intoxicating about it that minerva loses it. suddenly, she’s seventeen all over again, cutting classes to sneak away with druella yet again, to love her in the dim lighting of the room of requirements.
if there’s one thing about the two of them that remains unchanged decades later, it’s the fact that they were always meant to be kept a secret, to stay hidden, to only exist in the shadows of mystery rooms and in whispers exchanged in crowded hallways.
if there’s one thing about the two of them that’s forever-still, frozen in time, it’s the fact that they’re meant to be—for each other, and for falling apart.
3.
minerva is no stranger to funerals.
she has buried countless of students by the time life takes her by the hand and helps her cross into her early fifties, yet druella’s funeral is more heartbreaking than any other.
minerva wonders, briefly, if this will be her point of no return. she knows, instinctively, that it won’t be.
as september of 1981 bleeds into october, as the leaves turn yellow and sunset-orange and slowly die, day by day and night by night, minerva can feel a familiar heaviness, a sense of foreboding settle in her chest. just like that, she knows that there will be more bodies to bury, more the losses she’ll eventually have to move past, get over.
but, as minerva stands by druella’s grave, she knows that this specific loss is one she’ll never forget, no matter how hard she tries.
her hands shake as she places a flower arrangement beside the masterfully crafted tombstone—a single red rose in the sea of white ones.