Genesis.
The first thing Minerva noticed was the smell.
Apparition was uncomfortable at the best of times; the swirling sensation had left many lesser people on the verge of nausea. But now, the resounding echo dulling into silence down darkened alleyways, it was not the magic that brought bile to the back of her throat. It was the stench; it was overwhelming.
Diagon Alley had never been the most hygienic of places. Minerva had always imagined that, between dimly lit alleyways, their pickpocket inhabitants, and the many back-to-back pubs lining the streets, there was no opportunity for it to be. Watching patrons stumble out of the institutions, retching or spilling their drinks across the cobblestones, she was more certain of that than ever.
Slipping past a particularly boisterous set of drunks that seemed more than keen to involve her in a slurred rendition of auld lang syne, the witch turned down a particularly dreary looking alleyway, her eyes latched onto her target: a broad figure in the distance.
She wasn’t one to visit such a place without some incentive, after all.
Alastor Moody had been a subject of her interest since before the war had gained traction. A reasonably well-off man, he had been born to a particularly prominent family of aurors, and did not disappoint. His arrest of Igor Karkaroff, in particular, had grasped her attention in the more recent months. Though, that delivery of justice was not why she found herself slumped against a cobbled wall, peering around the corner as he knocked on a door concealed by what she deemed to be a cheaply made cloaking spell.
Months of stalking, of interrogations, of ruining her favourite boots in bogs and sewers, all in search of a headquarters that was barely hidden at all. She almost slapped herself on the spot. Only the Order could be so insufferably obvious. How the Dark Lord hadn’t found them already was a feat of incredible luck that she could only respect for its stupidity.
The whine of old hinges drew Minerva’s attention back to the situation at hand, and she tilted her head to watch Moody step inside the building. Snapping her want against the mechanism tied to her wrist, she pressed herself against the wall as the Auror cast one final defensive sweep of the alleyway, and waited with baited breath for him to turn away.
Gauging the slanted structure of the building, and the lack of any apparent dimensionally transcendental aspect, she sighed at the realisation that she wasn’t merely going to be able to slip inside as herself. Setting her bag down, she muttered a soft concealment charm and watched as the leather melted into the cobblework, hidden from view. Then, with the precision and ease of a veteran who had decades of practice under her belt, she tucked her hair behind her ears and lunged forward.
The transformation was swift and simple: where she had jumped with two feet, she had landed with four. Her ears, once adorned with earrings, were now pointed; her glasses had melded into darkened pigment in the fur of her feline face. In her youth, she remembered the ache that came with transforming; the uncertainty and fear that coincided with the prospect of not being strong enough to change back. Now, she greeted the ache as an old friend, and took it in her stride as she slank down the alleyway, silently jumping through the door before the auror had the opportunity to close it.
“Alastor! You’re late.”
Minerva paused at the familiar voice, pausing in the shadows. There were very few people that gave her pause, these days. Since leaving Hogwarts, and her pursuits with the ministry, she had grown entirely unperturbed by the people that had once claimed to be her superiors. It was, for the most part, tall talk. All bark, no bite. She could duel them under the table with her eyes closed and an arm tied behind her back, and, on a few occasions, she had.
Albus Dumbledore was different.
Where, usually, she took declarations of superiority with a pinch of salt, she knew better than to lump her old mentor in with the mediocre. He was, undoubtedly, the best wizard she’d ever known. All her tricks came from him; all her knowledge was doused in the influence he seemed to shed on everybody like a raincloud on a stormy day. She hated him for it.
“Trouble at the Ministry. Did I miss much?”
Alastor stepped forward, greeting the headmaster and shaking the hand of a body she couldn’t wholly see from her perch behind a tall beam of wood. Spotting an alcove adorned in a curtain that was dark enough to conceal an inhabitant, but thin enough to hear through, Minerva began the obstacle-course toward her new hiding spot. If this was headquarters, she knew better than to be conspicuous. At best, she’d be kicked out as a stray cat - left in the dirt with so very little to show for all her work. At worst, Dumbledore would recognise her, and she’d be placed in Azkaban. Death, she thought as she slunk behind the curtain, was preferable. She had never much enjoyed failure.
As she transformed back, she shook out her hands silently in an effort to return real feeling to them, and returned her focus to the conversation at hand. For what felt like hours, the few people in the room bickered about guarding duties; defensive charms; safe houses that Minerva supposed she really ought to investigate if she ever had any time at a later date. Emmeline Vance, she’d decided, had been the first to leave: some utterance about needing to check on her wife slipping past her lips as she closed the door behind her. Sturgis Podmore left soon after; the Prewetts practically bounded along behind him. Dearborn, Moody, and Dumbledore remained, however, and fell into a lapse of hushed whispering.
Minerva leant forward as she tried to grasp loose threads of what they were saying, before the soft thudding of footsteps made her jolt back, drawing her wand instinctively as she levelled it at the curtain. Holding her breath, she winced as the fabric cinched at the side, pale fingers becoming visible at the edge as her perpetrator slowly drew the curtain to the side.
Fiery eyes met terrified ones and Minerva moved immediately, grabbing the woman and tugging her behind the curtain. The other witch struggled immediately, batting at her attacker with fervour as she tried to drag herself back out, clawing at Minerva’s arms in an effort to make her let go.
“Hush now,” Minerva whispered, clasping one hand over the healer’s mouth as the other slipped to press the button to release her wand into her hand, “We don’t want to cause any messy accidents, do we?”
Pressing her wand more firmly against the soft of the woman’s throat, she smiled as her jerky attempts at escape dwindled out, a soft gasp of fear brushing against her hand. Casting a swift glance down at her hostages’ attire, she pulled a face at recognising the name etched into the badge on her apron.
Poppy Pomfrey. Of course.
Though the girls hadn’t been close in their youth, Minerva had always been distinctly aware of her existence. Placed in the same house, they had suffered the same lessons, sat around the same tables; listened to the same end of year speeches. By all means, it was a friendship that was seemingly fated; written in the stars. Yet, Pomfrey repelled her. There was something in her unwavering keenness to become a healer; to help anybody, and, everybody, that Minerva could never rationalise.
By the time the healer had stopped wriggling, however, the hushed conversation had ended and Minerva let out a soft sigh of frustration. Her annoyance apparently manifested itself in her grip, as a soft whimper escaped the woman in her arms, and she blinked, prodding her with her wand in an effort to tell her to be silent. Poppy slumped against her, the epitome of defeat, as she leant forward, squeezing her eyes shut as she listened to the remaining members bid their goodbyes to one another.
As soon as three cracks echoed through the room, Minerva’s face turned stony and she shoved Poppy out from behind the curtain, levelling her wand at her with ease. The latter turned immediately, her face paling as she recognised the woman before her.
Minerva was always incredibly aware of her reputation at Hogwarts. She was the half-blood, the know-it-all, top of the class and quidditch team captain. Her reputation was that of academic and extracurricular excellence, and horror. Until her fifth year, her record had been perfect. As of her sixth, she had begun getting into fights, hexing bigots into the hospital wing if they spoke two wrong words to her, or to anybody in earshot of her. Her aptitude for magic had become less geared toward rules, and more toward instinct: her focus was no longer peace, but justice, however violent that might be. The other students had called the change terrible; abnormal. She thought it was a perfectly reasonable reaction to being hit in the head with a bludger. The family of the boy whose arm she shattered did not. Apparently Poppy felt the same.
She didn’t imagine her ever-growing list of casualties and her collection of wanted posters helped, either.
Poppy grimaced, her voice wavering as she pointed to Minerva, who replied to her look of panic with a vaguely bored expression, tidily clipping her wand back into the strap on her wrist.
“You!”
“Me.”
“How did you get in here?! We have-”
“Some rather pitiful shields, yes, and an Auror lapdog that’s all too sloppy in covering his tracks.”
“But you-”
Her voice died out as the other woman stepped forward, her expression stoney as she straightened her sleeves with all the mechanicality of a pocket watch. Poppy instinctively took a small step back, the realisation that this might be her end dawning on her as her eyes darted to her wand on the far table. Spotting the motion, Minerva followed her gaze, looking at the wand for a few moments, before giggling. The sound was not malicious, though it ought to have been; it was merely teasing. The sort of laugh one might offer a friend after telling a long-running inside joke. It made a shiver run down Poppy’s spine.
Extending her hand, Minerva hummed as the wand flew across the room into her grip, and immediately placed it into her pockets. At hearing Poppy’s subsequent gasp, she shot her a smirk, and tucked her hands into her pockets with the air of a businessman about to present his biggest proposal yet.
“Now, Pomfrey. I don’t suppose you know what I typically do to people that get in my way, do you?”
A curt nod of the head made Minerva smile, and she leant forward, perfectly slipping into the personal space that everybody always seemed terribly keen to preserve. Fear tactics were secure methods of progression, she reminded herself instinctively. Nobody listens to simpering, weak individuals for a reason: fear demands compliance, and compliance was exactly what she needed from Poppy. How else was she supposed to uncover some information on the Order that would make this trip less functionally useless than it already was?
“Good. Now- ” she began, nudging the healer’s chin up with her index finger as the other woman’s eyes darted anywhere save her own. “- I am going to spare you that, particularly, grisly demise on one condition.”
That seemed to grant Poppy some necessary courage as the woman’s expression hardened, some traces of bravery seeping into her gaze. Minerva would have described that as admirable, had she liked the witch, but alas.
“What condition?”
Minerva smiled, the gesture sickeningly sweet, “That you come with me, and tell me everything you know about this little club of yours. Do we have a deal?"
She watched curiously as Poppy took a step back, her hands anxiously fiddling with the bracelet around her wrist, and tilted her head as the cogs in the other woman’s mind clicked almost audibly. After what felt like hours, the healer slowly nodded, as though the action itself caused her great pain, and Minerva clapped her hands together.
“Excellent! I knew you had a dash of sense in that tedious little mind of yours.”
“Hang on! I-”
Before Poppy could finish, a cold hand grabbed her wrist, twisting it uncomfortably behind her back to prevent her from any notion of escape. Minerva was at her side again, holding it firmly in place as she shot her a sly grin, then closed her eyes. With a deafening crack, the room erupted into immediate darkness. By the time the lights flickered back on, the women were gone, leaving only disrupted dust from their apparition clinging to the air.