Chapter 4
Being awoken by sunlight shining through a window was so pleasing to Minerva that she always intentionally left the bedroom drapes open at night before falling asleep. The sun’s rays bounced off the white snow that blanketed the ground below and reflected all around the simple wood panelled room cheerfully. It made Minerva smile as she rolled over to face the window and feel its effects more prominently on her skin. Letting it calm her soul and brighten her spirits, so that for a few precious moments Minerva lay happy and unbothered, wishing she could stay like that for a whole day.
Without services to attend and visitors to receive - which is how most waking hours had been spent since she’d returned home to Caithness. Without the distance and distractions that came from being at Hogwarts, there’d been no way to hide from any of it. The Minister’s house was the natural hub for anyone feeling lost or lonely in the midst of all this tragedy and her parents had always had an open door policy for anyone who wanted to pop by for a cup of tea and company.
The worst moment by far had been when Mrs McGregor - Dougal’s mother - had sobbed on Minerva’s shoulder for the deaths of her son and his entire family. The struggle to control her own tears - to be seen as grieving but not too personally - was one of the hardest things that Minerva had ever had to do. And it’s agony was closely followed by the continual heartbreak Minerva saw in her father’s eyes as he concealed the truth from his parishioners about what had really happened to their loved ones. The McGonagalls were the only family in their small village that knew about the Death Eaters, Reverend McGonagall the only muggle to not have had his memory modified.
“Aunt Minerva!” came the cries of three excited voices, breaking Minerva out of her reverie. She reached for the glasses set on the bedside table beside her wand and turned to face the door just before it flew open to admit her three nieces into the room. Kirsty, Maggie, and Jean were the daughters of her youngest brother Robert Junior, and the sight of them caused Minerva’s heart to flutter with rare joy. She loved them dearly, even if the distance and long lengths of time spent apart meant that she didn’t see them as much as she would have preferred.
“Look at how much you’ve all grown!” she exclaimed, as the girls scampered up onto the bed and into her welcoming arms. “When did you get back?”
“Just now!” Jean replied, settling herself directly on Minerva’s lap and getting an extra squeeze in exchange.
From speaking with her brother, Minerva knew the girls’ mother had disapparated with them at the first sign of trouble. They’d gone to London, where their maternal grandparents lived, to stay safe and away from the worst of it all. Meanwhile Robert had remained behind to help fight the Death Eaters and restore their village.
“They killed my friend Paul’s mum,” Maggie said sadly. “Did you know that You Know Who and his followers can strike someone dead in a mili-second?”
“I do know that,” Minerva answered quietly, brushing Maggie’s curly brown locks out of her eyes. “It’s awful.”
“Why did they even come here?” asked Kirsty sharply. “This isn’t a magical community. Why did they want to attack non-magic people who never did anything to them?”
“People like us can’t possibly understand why,” Minerva replied. “Muggles or Wizards - people like us can’t possibly understand why some people have so much hate in their hearts.”
Because it always came down to hate and a desire to overpower someone else, and nothing would convince Minerva otherwise. She had lived through war: losing a muggle uncle at the front and magical associates in the fight against Grindelwald’s regime. It was never magic versus non-magic but an inability to just live and let others be. A discontent refusal to live harmoniously by the golden rule, by what was moral and good. Instead someone always seemed to feel the need to rewrite the rules on human decency and justice to serve their own purposes.
“I heard Mum and Dad talking last night and they’re not sure that they want me going to Hogwarts now,” Kirsty confessed, looking worried. She’d be turning eleven next month and Minerva already had decided to deliver her admittance letter by hand so that they could celebrate together.
“I know it’s very scary right now but they’ll change their minds,” she promised. “If not, I’ll talk to them. There’s nowhere safer than Hogwarts.”
Even though not a week went by without Minerva enduring at least one conversation with a distraught parent unsure of their child’s future at the school. Mothers wanted to keep their families together and fears about sending their children away to school had much more to do with that than anything Minerva considered to be rational.
“How do you know Hogwarts is safe?” asked Maggie.
“Because Hogwarts has Albus Dumbledore,” Minerva said loyally, resting her chin on Jean’s shoulder. “And Professor Dumbledore is the greatest wizard in the entire world. He keeps us safe.”
“Why can’t he stop You Know Who then?” asked Kirsty pointedly, and Minerva hesitated.
“If anyone can, it will be him,” she answered finally, thinking back on what Dumbledore had recently told her about his drive and readiness to begin taking more decisive action. It begged the question of what he had been waiting for, even if that wasn’t fair. Gifted, but heavily burdened, Albus Dumbledore certainly was. And despite all his imperfections, Minerva still trusted him absolutely.
“Is Mr Uquart awake yet?” She changed the subject.
“Yes,” Maggie nodded. “He’s downstairs helping Granny cook breakfast. He told us to let you sleep but you’ve been sleeping forever!”
An exaggeration, but Minerva had been oversleeping and even napping on the regular since she’d been home. Encouraged by Elphinstone, who always insisted that she didn’t get enough rest and who had been staying with her the past few days. Sleeping in the bedroom on the opposite end of the hall that had once been shared by Minerva’s two brothers as children and working by day to ensure that the village was restored and set with the best protective enchantments that the Ministry could employ on muggle residences. He’d been an inexpressible comfort to all of the McGonagall family.
“I guess we'd better get a move on before they eat without us,” Minerva suggested, slipping Jean off her lap as she rose to her feet.
Moving to the wardrobe, she traded her nightdress for a pair of black slacks and a woolly jumper dyed the shade of forest green. Muggle clothes always felt so strange and constricting when compared to the robes that she usually wore. It was as if you could suddenly see too much of her, uninhibited by billowy cloaks. As Minerva looked at herself in the mirror while arranging her long dark hair into a casual ponytail, it was like an acquaintance she didn’t know very well was staring back.
“Kirsty!” Jean shouted suddenly, just as her older sister let out a shrill yelp of surprise.
“Auntie, I swear I didn’t even shake it!” Kirsty cried, as Minerva whirled around just in time to watch her niece drop her wand back down on the nightstand and stomach plant onto the bed next to her sisters in order to avoid being struck by the red sparks that ricocheted in all directions like darts. “Why did it do that? Mum and Dad’s wands never have when they let me hold theirs!”
“Maybe to teach you not to ever touch another witch’s wand without permission,” Minerva said dryly. “They have minds of their own, didn’t you know? They don’t all react the same way to being held by someone they don't belong to. Anyway, those sparks were no more than a harmless warning.”
“Is it alive?” Maggie asked in wonder, her eyes very bright and round in her face as Minerva picked her wand up off the bedside table and balanced it between her fingers.
“Sort of. It’s magic,” Minerva replied with a smirk. She’d always been very fond of her wand and after all these years it was like an actual extension of her body. Its weight and texture felt only natural in her hands and it was always near or on her person.
“When you turn eleven and go buy your own wands, you’ll find out which one suits you,” she explained. “Your parents’ wands might be more tolerant of curious unfamiliar hands. In contrast, my irascible wand is prone to react quickly when I catch students misbehaving across the courtyard that need to be stopped in their tracks.”
She smiled as they giggled, then waved her wand so that the bed clothes fluttered up, arching into a slide that propelled all three girls down to floor. They landed on their feet and watched, enthralled, while the pillows fluffed themselves in the air and the comforter smoothed itself over the mattress exactly.
“I can’t wait to get my own wand!” Maggie exclaimed, as they headed down the stairs to breakfast a few minutes later. “Then I’ll be able to turn any of the kids who are mean to me at school into frogs!”
“Are kids mean to you?” Minerva asked casually, watching Maggie closely out of the corner of her eye and deciding to refrain from giving her nieces a lecture on the morality of when and how to use magic appropriately at this early hour. At their age, it was all about the wonders of infinite possibilities and when they got to Hogwarts it would evolve into theory and a lot of necessary hard work required to become the skilled witches their aunt knew they could be.
“No…” Maggie hesitated, her pale cheeks reddening as she glanced over at her older sister for guidance.
“They just think she’s strange,” Kirsty said matter-of-factly. “That she’s a troublemaker. It’s not her fault though. Mum says it’s just because she gets over-excited and then that makes it harder to control magic.”
“Last week during art class I accidentally made all my paints fly up in the air and splash on the chalkboard,” Maggie confessed. “Susan Chatto told the teacher that she saw me throw them, but I didn’t! Paul was the only one who was nice to me when I said it was an accident. Even if he still thought I was crazy.”
“I know being misunderstood is never fun but all young witches and wizards experience bursts of accidental magic like that,” Minerva said, halting at the bottom of the stairs in the entry of the house with them. “When you get to Hogwarts suddenly nobody thinks you’re weird anymore and all the puzzle pieces of yourselves that didn’t seem to fit finally do.”
Since its conception, Hogwarts had been a safe haven for so many people who’d grown up believing that they would never find a place to belong. It wouldn’t be accurate to say that there wasn’t bullying because Minerva only had to think further than a particular scrawny Slytherin to know that there was. House rivalries, competitive Quidditch teams, and the close living quarters also ensured that the ordinary raucous and drama that likely existed in every school thrived there. However, Hogwarts had the answers that couldn’t be found anywhere else and for Minerva’s nieces who’d always known and coexisted in both the magical and muggle worlds, it would bring the relief of finally settling down into one identity.
“Good morning,” Minerva said, as she followed the girls into the kitchen and watched them take their places at the table with Elphinstone and their parents, Robert and Jenny. All three of them kept silent about the mischief that Kirsty had gotten into upstairs with Minerva’s wand without needing to be told because navigating their magical gifts in a mixed-family meant understanding that as a general rule magic wasn’t practised in Granny and Grandad's house.
“Thank you,” Minerva said to her mother, accepting a steaming cup of coffee graciously.
“Your father and Malcolm just ran next door to unlock and turn the heaters up before the service,” Isobel said, setting the coffee pot back down in its holder and peering through the floral curtains at the church next door. “They’ll be back in a minute.”
"I hope the girls didn’t wake you, Minerva," Jenny said, eyeing her daughters suspiciously as she stood up from the table to give Minerva a single armed hug and kiss on the cheek.
"No, and I needed to get moving anyway," Minerva replied, kissing her back. "How are you doing? Holding up?"
"As well as can be expected," Jenny nodded, as she took her seat back down next to her husband. "I got the girls to London at the first sign of trouble. We all could have gone but -"
"Robert never would have agreed and I’m not foolish enough to waste time arguing in the open when we should be laying low," Isobel interjected defiantly, lifting her chin stubbornly and ignoring the exasperated looks all the adults at the table flashed her. "I haven’t attempted apparition in over forty years - I’d rather come face to face with Lord Voldemort himself than wind up getting decapitated during a botched escape plan."
Hearing the name of Lord Voldemort spoken when she wasn't expecting it caused Minerva to flinch. She wasn't the only one who had reacted either. Elphinstone, Jenny, Robert, and even the girls had all done a double take at the name that had become taboo in nearly all magical conversations.
"Mum, hearing that name makes me feel like he could be looking through our windows right now," Robert said, using his napkin to dab at the coffee he'd sloshed down his front.
"I’ve never seen the logic in being scared of a name," Isobel frowned.
Minerva rolled her eyes as she sat down in the chair that Elphinstone pulled out for her. He was already dressed in the long black overcoat he habitually wore to and from the office, implying that he was going into the Ministry that morning. Long overdue, Minerva supposed. He’d been absolutely wonderful to her and a supportive figure to all the family in the time that they'd spent in Caithness together. It was more than anyone else would give and far more than she knew she deserved.
"Good morning," she whispered to him with a smile.
"Good morning," Elphinstone smiled back, passing her the coffee cream before he returned his gaze to the others and their heated discussion.
"It might not be logical, Isobel, but avoiding using the name has become common practice at the Ministry and taken root nearly everywhere in the wizarding community. In fact, I think the only person who I hear regularly insist on using it now is Albus Dumbledore,” Elphinstone added, glancing at Minerva for verification who nodded.
"We never avoided Grindelwald’s name last time," Isobel commented, joining them at the table.
“Well to quote Dumbledore, apparently this is different," Minerva chimed in dryly.
Isobel, Elphinstone, Robert, and Jenny stared at her but Minerva just shrugged. She wasn’t sure that she entirely bought that either, though she was naturally more frightened of Voldemort now that his followers had ransacked her entire village and murdered countless people she’d known. However, Isobel was so disconnected from the wizarding world that she could perhaps see the situation more logically, and also not. Logic would have dictated armouring yourself with the magical abilities you’d been gifted and joining in the fight. But Isobel had abandoned all of that when she’d settled into life as a pastor’s wife and broken the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy. Footsteps that Minerva had sworn long ago not to follow in.
"Brrr…that’s cold!" Reverend McGonagall exclaimed, putting their conversation to rest as he led the way into the house ahead of his middle child, Malcolm, and the frost-biting wind that rushed forward before the door was closed.
"Good morning, treasure," he greeted Minerva, pausing by her chair to kiss her cheek and chuckling to himself as she let out a little shriek from the coldness of his lips and the snow in his grey beard.
"Are you leaving us?" He turned his focus to Elphinstone, taking note of his formal jacket as he pulled his gloves off and hung his hat up by the door.
"Yes," Elphinstone nodded. "I’ve already put off returning longer than I should. Other duties that I’ve neglected…"
"Well you’ve done so much for us here," the Reverend said appreciatively, pausing to kiss all three of his granddaughters as he proceeded to his place at the head of the table. "I’m very grateful that you took such care to ensure that our small population wasn’t overlooked by your Ministry."
Minerva squeezed Elphinstone’s fingers extra tightly when the family all joined hands around the table to pray, watching out of the corner of her eye as he bowed his head respectfully like the rest of them even though she knew he wasn’t religious. It pleased Minerva that her father recognized and understood, even in his limited understanding of the way the Ministry of Magic operated, that it wasn’t always practical and possible for departments to send out teams of their employees to cast protective enchantments on every muggle dwelling nor to repair and secure every targeted building. They simply didn’t have the manpower and yet Elphinstone had acquired Caithness the extra care that would hopefully assist the village in their recovery.
"Constance working overtime again, Malcolm?" Jenny asked, assisting Jean to butter a piece of toast while everyone else filled their plates with generous portions of Isobel’s delicious cooking.
"She’s got so much to write," Malcolm nodded. "Though I pointed out that she might want to pace herself. With the way the country is going, there’s not going to be any shortage of terrible stories to report on even if she skips a few."
"Is she going to take some time off once the babies come?" asked Minerva, who always remained at Hogwarts for Christmas but who had received an owl from home that morning announcing that her brother and his young wife were expecting twin boys.
“She’s set up an office at home to hopefully help stay on top of things, but I’m hoping to cut back my hours at the hospital if I can,” Malcolm replied, who worked as a Healer for St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries and whose schedule had also been becoming increasingly exhausting due to the influx of Death Eater attacks and deceptive merchandise sold on the black market with false claims to protect against the Dark Arts.
“How about you, Minnie?” Robert asked, using the name her brothers had called her since they were children. “Are you going back to Hogwarts tomorrow?”
“I don’t know,” Minerva hesitated.
She knew that she’d be regretting these days spent at home once she saw how many things had piled up during her absence. However, Dumbledore hadn’t told her to be back for Monday and Minerva wasn’t longing for her own space like she normally would be by now. On the contrary, she’d found the constant company to be comforting and wasn’t looking forward to returning to her solitary quarters in Hogwarts with only her thoughts for company. She’d found staying up late to play cards and drink scotch with her parents and Elphi or else indulging in television and other pursuits not accessible in the magical world to be very good distractions for the grief she was struggling to keep at bay.
“I think you should at least stay a full week,” Elphinstone urged her once they were alone after breakfast.
Standing on the outskirts of town where Minerva had walked him to apparate discreetly to work, she in a belted grey coat of her mother’s and he in his black cloak, he smiled. “Get some more colour back into your cheeks. You’re looking much better.”
“Because of you,” Minerva said, rising on her tiptoes to kiss the dimple he got near the corner of his mouth when he smiled. “Thank you for staying when I asked you to. Thank you for not hating me when I’ve given you every reason to.”
“Never,” Elphinstone shook his head. “And without any ulterior motives, either. I just enjoy having you in my life and supporting you in yours. I know you’re hurting.”
And he kissed her forehead before disapparating, the first time that there had been more than a hallway between them since she’d told him about Dougal McGregor and his death. He’d been attentive and considerate to her in every conceivable fashion. Always available but respectful of the walls Minerva often put up when life was hard. Perhaps Elphinstone should have been in Hufflepuff, instead of Ravenclaw, for all the kindness and patience that he had shown her, Minerva thought as she turned to go back the way she had come and join her family for church.
But as much as she relied on Elphinstone’s presence, she still didn’t see what she brought to him. For the entirety of their relationship it had been he giving and Minerva withholding. First in guidance and opportunity when she was fresh from school and just trying to make her mark in the workforce, and then in offers of friendship and his heart. Elphinstone took care of her family and tried to take care of her. Meanwhile Minerva’s own flaws and inadequacies nagged persistently in her head throughout the entire service and caused her to leave church feeling even less peaceful than she had been walking in.
“What’s happened now?” She almost yelped, when she rushed back to the house ahead of everyone else and discovered Albus Dumbledore waiting on the porch.
Her heart felt like it was sinking into her stomach as her brain flooded with worst-case scenarios. Was there another attack? Had something happened to Hogwarts right after she’d assured her nieces that there was no safer place?
“Goodness me, nothing like that!” Dumbledore rushed to say, seeming quite taken aback that his mere presence could provoke such anxiety in her. “Shall we go inside to talk?”
“Not dressed like that, my father would have a fit,” Minerva said shortly, eyeing his plum purple robes, long white beard, and high heeled buckled boots. “You know that it would have only taken all of two seconds for you to transfigure your clothes into something this town wouldn’t associate with a costume party, Albus.”
“I’ve spent most of his life dressing in grey suits to fit in with everyone else, Minerva,” he said, pulling a sherbet lemon out of his pocket and popping it into his mouth before continuing. “And as an old man I finally gained the confidence to dress the way I want to without any worries about what other people will think.”
“So there isn’t an emergency?” Minerva confirmed, leading him around the back of the house to the private garden not visible from the church. Slipping her wand out from her waistband she used it to melt away some of the untouched snow that was higher than her knees so that they could walk. “Is this a social call?”
“My dear professor, can I not simply pay you a visit without wanting something?” Dumbledore replied, looking amused and good-natured despite her disapproval of his wardrobe.
“You can’t miss me already,” Minerva insisted, slipping her wand and both of her hands into the pockets of her coat.
“I certainly can,” Dumbledore said firmly. “But aside from that, I’ve been worried about you.”
“I’m okay,” Minerva told him.
“And you’d say that even if you weren’t, Minerva,” Dumbledore said, not looking at her, but speaking with the air of someone who knew her through and through. “Scottish Crossbills -”
“What?” Minerva frowned, her gaze following Dumbledore’s eyes to spot the red birds swooping around the treelines that had caught the headmaster’s attention. “Yes, my mother feeds them - so?”
“I’ve always been fond of birds,” Dumbledore told her, “but the owls at Hogwarts - not to mention Fawkes - do a splendid job of keeping the smaller species from flying too near my office windows.”
Minerva raised her eyebrows at him but didn’t comment. An avid bird watcher or not, when put next to Dumbledore’s magnificent phoenix bird, Fawkes, she was quite sure that he was pretending to be much more interested in the common Scottish Crossbills than he was. Quite possibly to give her time to reflect on how not okay she currently was feeling.
“I really am doing fine though, Albus,” Minerva said after about a minute during which nothing was heard aside from the chirping of birds. “I’m holding up just as well as anyone else in this village. And it’s been nice to be home but I was planning to come back to work tomorrow.”
“There’s no rush,” Dumbledore told her. “I’ve enjoyed taking your classes the past few days. Your students really are quite advanced - all due to you of course. I’m impressed but never surprised.”
“Well, it’s not all me,,” Minerva replied, thinking with a pang of James Potter and how pleased she’d been with his talent during the last lesson she’d given before learning that Dougal had died. It felt so much longer than a few days ago but maybe that was just because she’d been already in silent mourning for years.
“You’ve lost someone that you love,” Dumbledore said gently, his eyes focusing back on her again. “You trusted me with that part of your story - perhaps only me?”
“I told Elphi very recently,” Minerva admitted, relieving Dumbledore of his role as her sole confidant for better or worse.
“That’s good,” he said, his blue eyes twinkling with something maybe akin to pride as he smiled. “But I’ve still felt terribly guilty for telling you the last time we spoke that I wanted you to channel your grief into angry retribution. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Well of course you meant it that way, Albus,” Minerva’s brow furrowed, “but I don’t begrudge you that. Don’t all of our personal histories and tragedies pave the way for our motivations and passions? Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work - sometimes I’m not as sure about you.”
“What do you mean?” Dumbledore asked, frowning slightly.
“History is repeating itself,” Minerva said sharply, touching very close to what she tried hard never to question but currently felt too transparently visible to hold back. “You delayed acting last time too and how many more lives might have been saved if you hadn’t?”
Her dark eyes locked with his bright blue, which seemed to become cooler and more ice-like the longer Minerva looked at them. She was irascible enough that even her wand could spark fury with a single twitch in the hand of a child, and she knew this man. She knew his tendency to keep everything to himself and wasn’t afraid to try to get it out of him. Especially when the Death Eater numbers were rising right under their noses and retaliation seemed almost non-existent.
“You always want to see the best in people and give second chances and I love that about you, Albus!” she implored him. “But not when people are disappearing and dying, or when Slytherin house is producing Death Eaters in our school, and Minister Minchum is still idiotically insisting to the press that things are under control!”
“I’m taking matters into my own hands, Minerva,” Dumbledore said calmly. “I’m not going through Minchum’s office anymore. I told both you and Elphinstone that in your chambers a few days ago.”
“Well if you meant that then don’t apologise for telling me to get angry about Dougal’s death and to use it in this fight,” Minerva snapped. “That’s what you were supposed to say! Just like I should have told you a long time ago that your denial of just how dark Gellert Grindelwald became is probably the only thing that I don’t like about you!”
It was a blow that even Dumbledore didn’t appear to have foreseen and when he spoke his voice was steady, though it looked like it pained him. “I put him in prison to rot for the rest of his life. I’m not in denial about the death, destruction, and terrifying ideals that he spread worldwide. I know what he is. How could you suggest otherwise?”
"A heart and a conscience - even if poorly formed," Minerva recited, unable to resist quoting Dumbledore’s own words back at him. "As human as you or I…"
"Minerva, perhaps it is you who is blinded right now, not me," Dumbledore said quietly. "Gellert is imprisoned, he isn’t a threat. He also isn’t Lord Voldemort."
He dropped her gaze as he removed the half-moon spectacles from the bridge of his nose and breathed on them. His breath visible in the cold air, it fogged the glasses and Dumbledore used the velvet sleeve of his robe to wipe them. And the silence between them this time was Minerva’s doing. With the ball in her court waiting for her next argument or concession, knowing he would hear out whatever she needed to say.
“I’m really scared, Albus,” she admitted. “And I’m so angry. I want justice. I want our side to get control over the situation before more innocent lives are lost and you’re the only person I think can do that. But I shouldn’t be using the parts of your story that you trusted me with against you - I’m just very scared.”
“I know,” Dumbledore said, using his wand to wave a circle around them so that from the tips of her toes to her fingers, Minerva felt warmed up even while the snow under their feet remained solidly present.
"I’m not stalling, Minerva," Dumbledore said heavily, the white flecks of wind blown snow stuck in his beard making him look even older than usual. "I’m lost. I don’t know what to do. I don’t think I can kill Voldemort and he certainly cannot be captured. I refuse to condemn all children of a certain house just because a small percentage of them might go to Voldemort. I need help -”
"And I'm here to help," Minerva reminded him.
"Then I need you to hear me out and understand why Gellert Grindelwald and Lord Voldemort are not the same so that we can move forward in the only way I think might work,” Dumbledore said sternly, waiting for her to agree before proceeding.
“Gellert was organised and motivated, concentrated not on self-preservation but on the preservation of his cause and concerned with operating for the greater good. Voldemort, meanwhile, operates under no moral code at all. There is no greater good - misguided or otherwise- it is only about Voldemort. Voldemort cannot love, he has no empathy - he will stop at nothing in his personal quest for power, will never cease in torturing and murdering senselessly to express that power, and will impose fear in every single beating heart."
Minerva nodded her head as she released her hands from her pockets into the warm air surrounding them. She knew what Grindelwald’s aim had been - taking the wizards out of hiding so that they no longer would have to be oppressed by a majority that is weaker than them. He and his followers had believed that was for the greater good of society. But even if the intentions were not as sadistic, the results had still been the same: death, destruction, and fear.
"Was Gellert wrong to want to break the Statute of Secrecy?" Dumbledore continued. "Of course he was. Your father is a muggle, Dougal was a muggle. Their lack of magic does not make them inferior to you or I and we know that. That’s why we have the Statute of Secrecy. It’s not in our best interest to have it - it forced you away from the man you loved, it alienated your mother from the wizarding world for marrying your father, and occasionally I get reprimanded by my deputy for sporting wizard wear instead of conforming to muggle fashions…"
He gave a small smile to let her know that he wasn’t really angry and Minerva nodded her head again. She didn’t want to argue with Dumbledore. She didn’t want to tell him that it was irrelevant to her whether Grindelwald had believed he was enacting a noble crusade or not; the same number of people had died and the bigotry that he’d bred had made it so easy for a new Dark Wizard to come up to take his place. Though all of it seemed imperatively important to Dumbledore.
"There is not a singular doubt in my mind that such a brilliant wizard couldn’t escape from prison after all this time if he wished to,” Dumbledore said quietly. “Nor do I not doubt that that same wizard wielding the elder wand - otherwise known as the unbeatable wand - would have lost the duel against myself if there wasn’t something invoking Gellert in his heart to surrender."
“Albus -” Minerva’s voice broke as she watched him remove and clean his half moon spectacles for a second time. “You think there’s remorse?”
"It would explain why he has remained in prison; choosing to spend his days on books and quiet contemplation, rather than seeking revenge,” Dumbledore said simply.
Finally feeling like they had come to the same page in understanding, Minerva stepped closer to Dumbledore and wrapped her arms around his neck. Believing now that she saw the way forward that hadn’t been visible to her a minute ago. Realising that it didn’t come down to blindspots or forgiveness for an atrocious person who had done atrocious things, but was transactional. An opportunity for a condemned prisoner to do something good with his limited life while they benefited from a brilliant and insightful mind that could probably understand Lord Voldemort better than they could. It wasn’t about all the ways two Dark Wizards were the same, but this one way they might be different.