After

She had spent the day arranging body removal from the hallowed halls of Hogwarts. She had to identify some of them herself when there were no family members left to do so, either because they were arrested as Death Eaters or because they themselves were laid out in the hall. It wasn’t difficult to identify them, she knew every person who had been in the castle the night before, but it was nearly unbearable to say their names out loud and know that they would never hear it. 

The bodies were taken out, one by one, until sixty-eight of her former students were carried through the broken doors, never to return. The seriously wounded were taken out first, to be rushed to St. Mungo’s, four more died there. The less serious cases stayed behind to keep from overwhelming the hospital. Poppy had tended to them, though she herself was worn thin, and the hospital wing was in massive disarray. Eventually, they all limped down the broken front stairs off to homes if they were still standing or the homes of friends and relatives if they were lucky. 

Slowly, slowly, the castle emptied around them. The soft hum of quiet voices speaking in despair grew fainter as the sun sank toward the horizon. Even other professors began to give up their posts for summer homes or the residences of friends and family. Horace Slughorn slunk out quietly soon after the fighting ended, for once not drawing attention to himself. Sibyll Trelawney and Aurora Sinistra supported each other out the door even before the last of the students had gone. Hagrid left soon after Harry had, trudging off in the direction of Hogsmeade with Fang at his side. Septimia Vector dragged Poppy Pomfrey out of her Hospital wing when the last of the patients had been tended to. They were some of the last to go. 

The bravest, brightest, best of Hogwarts Staff were left behind. Minerva McGonagall, Filius Flitwick, and Pomona Sprout stood in the Great Hall as broken as the stained glass windows whose shattered pieces had been swept to the sides of the room around them. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. They knew what the others were thinking. Their home, their school, the place where they had learned and worked and lived for most of their lives, was… destroyed.

Some of the candles that usually hung above their heads were smashed at their feet, bits of the ceiling had come down, and the tables and benches and chairs were smashed or shoved aside carelessly across a floor that was littered with debris and blood. They knew what the others were thinking because it was the same thought that they were having, “How can we possibly go on from this?” Though none of them gave voice to that lamentation it seemed to float in the air around them.

“I’m going outside to the greenhouses,” Pomona said finally, in a flat voice with an almost blank expression. Her face was expressionless as a way to hide her heartbreak, it might have worked on anyone else in the world but Minerva and Filius saw right through her. 

They were in no mood to make an emotional scene either, however, and they kept their own stony facades fixed firmly in place. 

“Why, Pomona?” Filius asked, shaking his head. “You know what you’ll find if you go out there. Every pane is broken. You broke some of them yourself. It’ll be nothing but scattered glass and broken plant pots.” He reached out and laid a hand on her arm to stop her. 

“And my plants,” She replied firmly, a little anger slipping through her cold facade, she never was very good at hiding her true feelings. “I didn’t pitch all of them at Death Eaters, you know.” 

“Yes, of course.” Filius said with a shadow of regret in his tone, “I suppose there are some that could be saved. I could give you hand if you like?” His face too was nearly expressionless, even more so than when he was proctoring exams or grading in front of students. 

“Thanks,” Pomona answered, coldly accepting his assistance before turning to leave the Great Hall. 

Filius followed her as they walked out, but turned back when he noticed that Minerva hadn’t followed. They had both expected that she would. She had been silent since the last time she’d identified a body and hadn’t said a word to either of them as all of the others left for home. They’d given up talking to her, but they had all stayed in each other’s orbit, knowing that among all the survivors it was they three who would best understand each other. They’d followed her to where she was standing now when she’d walked away from them neither of them wanting to leave her alone. 

Filius allowed a little concern to come through in his voice when he asked, “What about you Minerva? You’re not coming?” 

With her back to them, she shook her head and waved him off, but made no answer beyond that. 

“You’re sure?” Filius said as Pomona stopped in the doorway, a few feet away from where the doors to the Great Hall were leaned against the wall. 

She still didn’t answer, but Pomona didn’t have the patience to deal with her. She huffed loudly and said “Well, either come or don’t, but I’m going. I have to see if I can save anything,” She sniffed, her anger mixing with a sudden sadness and she said in an irate whisper, “I’ve got to save something, for Merlin’s sake.” She turned and left finally. 

Filius looked torn for a moment. “Minerva, please,” he said, trying to hold back his irritation. 

Her shoulders dropped a half inch and he heard her sigh. She made only a one-word answer,  “No.”

He also turned away from her, following Pomona out of the hall. “Suit yourself,” He said sourly.

Neither of them knew that Minerva had another job to be done, beyond saving Pomona’s plants. There was one body left to be dealt with, and this one had been ignored all day and was liable to go on being ignored if she didn’t do something about it. 

Harry had asked about it, when he was there helping to identify and recover bodies. She told him it had already been taken care of. She stopped him before he could ask how, she didn’t have the energy to keep up the lie. She sent him to Grimmauld place with the Weasley family, they needed him more than Hogwarts did.  

//

“Professor?” Harry had asked quietly, meeting her in the middle of the floor as she walked away from identifying Aoife Greenwich.

She turned to him, expressionless, holding back everything she felt until she was left alone. “Yes, Potter?” 

He came a bit closer, obviously feeling awkward under her hollow gaze, but he asked then, “I just wondered… what was going to happen… what was going to be done with,” He looked at the side room where the body was placed after everything. 

“It’s done, Potter, don’t think about it,” She had answered blankly, but not unkindly. 

“Oh.” Harry looked surprised, “I was only in Gryffindor tower for a few hours…I thought… thought that would be left for later.” She noticed that he seemed to be much more awkward around her now than he had been for some years. He reminded her of his eleven-year-old self when he was just a first year after she’d caught him flying after Neville’s Remembrall. 

She almost smiled at the memory, and her expression softened slightly before she settled back into reality. Her expression settled back into a stony blankness. “I didn’t feel it should be left long, Potter. I wanted it done before you returned, anyway.” She started to turn away from him and started along the hall again, there was an informal meeting to organise repair crews for the castle that she was supposed to be joining. 

“Erm, professor?” Harry started after her, she acknowledged him, but she didn’t stop so he fell in step beside her. His voice was almost a whisper when he asked, “I just wanted to know… erm… what happened to him?”

Minerva stopped in her tracks and turned to him, put a hand on his shoulder and said, as warmly as she could, “Potter, go home. And don’t give me that ‘Hogwarts is home’ line. I know. Just go. Go back to Grimmauld place and get some sleep, go get something to eat, just go.”

Harry seemed surprised by her, “Well… I just wanted to… help I guess.” 

“And you have, Potter,” Minerva said, as warmly as she could, which was not very, “You have done more than help. And more than anyone should have asked of you. Now get out of here. You’ve done more than your share, young man.” She spotted Molly across the hall, her eyes still red with crying. “Besides, the Weasleys are heading there, and I think… I think that they need you now, Potter. They need all their… family around.”  She gestured in Molly’s direction and started to turn away from Harry again. “Go with them, Harry.”

She knew that he needed to be needed, that was all. And the only thing that would motivate him to go would be if she sent him away where he felt needed. He agreed, “Alright, Professor. But erm… well… you’ll write if you think of anything you need? Won’t you?” 

Minerva’s heart almost melted, she even managed an almost imperceptible smile. “I will, Potter.” She nodded and said, “And I expect the same from you.” 

He started to turn away but nodded in agreement and managed a small lopsided smile. “Yeah, I will, professor. Thanks. Bye.” 

She held back a sudden urge to hug him, “Goodbye, Harry.” 

//

But now it had to be taken care of. There was one body left in her beloved school,  almost unrecognisable after so much dark magic, from the boy she’d known once upon a time ago. None of the others would go near it. That was one body they couldn’t bear to see. 

So as with most things that the rest of Hogwarts couldn’t bear, Minerva took it on. 

With everyone out of her way she took that offending body out of the school, almost retching at the very sight of it, but she kept herself together long enough to cover it with a white sheet. She wasn’t sure where to go but she knew it had to be burnt. 

She decided the forbidden forest was the only place that was both close enough and remote enough to dispose of such unpleasant refuse. She hovered it before her, the white sheet barely concealing just exactly what it covered, and she walked. For a long while she continued on, deeper and deeper into the forest, fearing nothing. She passed centaurs without acknowledging them, they did not stop her. She heard Bowtruckles and pixies in the trees and kept walking until she reached a small clearing where there was little more than an eerie silence. 

She thought of just leaving it there, for the thestrals to find no doubt. She didn’t know if she had enough rage left to incinerate the damned thing. She was so tired, so numb with exhaustion, how could she muster up the strength to get rid of it? 

Then the faces of her students, colleagues, and friends crossed her mind. Like a roll call of the dead, Gideon, Fabian, Earnestine, Eloise, Loyd, Maria, Antony, Regulus, Marlene, Thomas, Doreen, Theo, Harlan, Magdalena, Dorcas, Euphemia, Fleamont, Ilene, Mary, Omer, Douglas, Lily, James, Charity, Cedric, Sirius, Bertha, Alastor, Albus, Bathilda, Amelia, Remus, Tonks, Collin, Fred, Camelia, Mary, Anna, Selene, Emanuel, Romilda, Harrison, Charles, Victoria, Lois, Autumn, Quinton, Emile, Katherine, Ivan, Foster, Luke, Garret, Charlene, Septimus, Pauline, Reuben, Edwina, Oliver, Lorraine, Felton, Adela, Irvin, Constance, Sebastian, Herschel, Odell, Fletcher, Terrence, Donovan, Reyna, Ruth, Sean, Josepha, William, Franklin, Rhoda, Russell, Odessa… and the list went on and on and they were all his fault.

Young or old, murdered or killed in combat, at his hand or someone else’s, they were all his fault. And the rage began to build again in her chest as their faces flashed through her memory, their dead bodies on the floor of her beloved school. Tears pricked the back of her eyes as she raised her wand, all the hate she’d felt for him, and all the pain she’d felt at every loss of every student and friend came out when she spat the spell, “Incendio.”