Resolving a Misunderstanding

“So, my boy, have I been able to answer your questions? Set your mind at ease?” Albus asked.

“That you have, thank you, sir. Although I would prefer if there were a more . . . coherent approach to the ethical use of magic, but if you say that it is integrated into the individual classes, I will take you at your word.”

“It can also be encouraged through the use of the House point system and other discipline outside of the classroom. Developing a moral compass is very important for children, I agree. And I also agree that the curriculum is not explicitly designed to assist with that. But I myself was greatly influenced by one of my teachers here, my Ancient Runes teacher, Finn Futhark. Of course, I did not always listen to what he said, but later on in life, I remembered it and came to understand its truth. So another person, even a well-intentioned mentor, can only do so much, even as a role model. And I do hope we provide positive role models, although the world is not perfect, and the children must learn that, as well.”

Quin shrugged. “As you say, Professor – ”

“Albus – unless you prefer ‘Professor,’” Albus interrupted with a smile.

Quin smiled. “Very well, Albus. I do think that the staff members whom I know well, Gertrude and Minerva, would provide very positive role models. And as Head of Gryffindor, Minerva will certainly have a wide and long influence.”

Albus nodded. “Yes, for as long as she is Head of Gryffindor, generations of Gryffindors will look to her guidance. . . . You are quite . . . taken with her?”

“Taken with her?” Quin asked, feigning puzzlement. “She is a fine witch, o’ course.”

“Yes, a fine witch, with much to offer a wizard,” Albus answered. “It may be impertinent of me to say so, but if you are interested in her, there would be no better witch whom you could find.”

“Ah, I see. You are wonderin’ if I’m after takin’ her away from you and Hogwarts, now that she’s the Head of Gryffindor,” Quin said. Albus tried to interrupt, but Quin continued. “Nothin’ like it in me head, Albus. She’s yours, and the school’s. Doubt she’d leave for any cause. Besides,” Quin said with a shrug, “I’m believin’ that she has her sights set, actually, and not on me, even if I were interested in her – which I am not, not that way. O’ course, she’s a proud witch. She’d not chase a wizard, not if he didn’t give some indication that he was interested in her first.”

“So . . . she is interested in someone?” Albus asked.

Quin just shrugged again. “As I said, she’d not chase a wizard who gave every indication he wasn’t interested in her, so . . . I can’t really say.” Quin took his watch from his pocket. “’Tis gettin’ on. I told me wee beasties I’d be home for dinner tonight and spend the rest o’ the weekend with ’em, so I must soon be off, and Hagrid is still expectin’ a visit from me.”

“It was good to see you. And I do thank you again for the basket of candy. You are a very lucky man! I used to think it might be nice to own a sweets shop, but an entire factory! And you make Peppermint Pillows, my current favourite Muggle sweet.”

“Glad you liked ’em, sir. Me kids enjoy it, too,” Quin answered with a grin.

Albus stood and came around to the fireplace. With a quick jab of his wand, he lit a small fire in the fireplace, then he tapped the mantle.

“You can go through now, my boy. Just say, ‘McGonagall sitting room,’ and you’ll be there before you can blink,” Albus said.

Quin took a pinch of Floo-Powder and did as Albus told him. Indeed, he was there faster than he could blink, and he stepped out quickly. Minerva sat up and yawned.

“You’re back. Have a good talk?” she asked.

“Satisfactory, I suppose. Alroy will just have to write a lot of letters home,” Quin answered.

“Why don’t I walk you down to Hagrid’s, then?” Minerva suggested.

Albus stood on the rooftop of his tower and looked out across the grounds, watching Minerva and Quin making their way to Hagrid’s cabin. Hagrid was working in his garden, a bottle of ale conveniently within reach. When the two reached him, Hagrid stood, seeming large to Albus even from his current vantage point. He watched the three of them speaking together, Quin, head thrown back, apparently laughing at something Hagrid said. He was a handsome, energetic wizard with so much to offer a witch, and rich as Croesus, to boot, with his own sweets factory. Albus tried to regret that Quin was not interested in Minerva, but a small selfish part of him was so glad, he could not muster any regret at all. On the other hand, it would be far worse if some unworthy wizard, one whom he didn’t like, were interested in his Minerva.

Who could the wizard be to whom Quin had alluded? Quin could be wrong, of course. He hadn’t sounded particularly certain about it. But if there were such a wizard, someone Minerva had set her hat on . . . perhaps someone in London, at the Ministry? Minerva had scarcely visited London since she began teaching. If it were someone in London, she must have given up on him. But if it were someone here at the school. Albus again ran through the list of available males. He was completely certain that it wasn’t Ogg or Pringle – she seemed to despise Pringle, and Ogg . . . that toothless old groundskeeper. Albus shuddered at the thought. And Ogg did not hold particularly enlightened views. The only men at the castle whom Albus had ever seen Minerva spend any time with at all were Hagrid and Johannes.

He furrowed his brow. Johannes was a lovely wizard, but he had taught Minerva, even though it was only briefly. Albus doubted that Johannes would consider Minerva an eligible witch, and he was leaving the school at the end of the year. Perhaps that was what discouraged Minerva. But they didn’t seem close enough for Minerva to have developed such an interest in him. On the other hand, perhaps that was the trouble. She loved him from afar. Albus’s breath hitched at that thought, and he forced himself to push aside his feelings for the moment. But she never seemed to particularly seek his company or to be nervous in his presence, both of which Albus considered the primary hallmarks of a crush.

Hagrid. That seemed even more unlikely on the surface, but they had been friends for many years. Albus watched the three small figures in the garden far below. Minerva was fond of Hagrid. She always had been. Something of a champion for him. If he had considered it before, he would have thought her feelings toward Hagrid to be more . . . maternal than anything else, despite their closeness in age.

Perhaps Quin was wrong. The young wizard hadn’t known Minerva long, after all. But Albus would watch Minerva and see if he saw any signs of unrequited love when she was near Hagrid or Johannes or any other wizards in the castle. Of course, it might not be someone at Hogwarts at all. Perhaps that was why she had come to Hogwarts in the first place, to escape her unrequited love. Albus sighed. Knowing how he felt, he did not wish Minerva to feel the same. No wonder she had resented his attempts to encourage her to view Quin as an eligible wizard if she were trying to recover from unrequited love. She no doubt was still pining for whomever the other wizard was and was not ready to consider a new relationship. Albus’s heart ached for Minerva. However much he loved her and wished she were his, he wanted her to be happy, and the thought that she was not caused him sorrow.

Albus turned and headed down the stairs to his suite. Minerva would likely be returning to the castle soon, and then coming up for dinner. He considered changing his robes, but he did not want to put on anything drab that evening, and as much as he would like to wear the robes she had given him, he thought that what he was wearing was suitable. He had come to certain conclusions that morning, and it was best just to focus on that, and on his resolve. It would likely be a very long evening, and he didn’t know how Minerva would feel at the end of it, or what she would think of him. No need to have her see him in those robes, reminding her of the nice evening they had spent together and of the . . . of the gratitude and affection that had inspired her to give them to him.

Albus went into his study and sat at the desk. It was smaller than the one in his office below, but certainly adequate for his personal use. He usually used his office for most things, anyway. Except for very personal business. Albus opened the drawer in which he kept his few most private papers. If he died tomorrow and they were found . . . Albus shook his head. Likely it would be Gertrude, as his Deputy, and she would have the good sense to dispose of things as he would have wanted. Not that he wanted anyone to see what he had written a month ago when he was missing Minerva, even Gertrude, much as he trusted her, but he could not bring himself to destroy the parchment. He left those papers in the drawer and pulled out the photographs of Minerva. Minerva as a student. Minerva as a young Ministry witch shortly after the defeat of Grindelwald. Minerva as an accomplished witch following her successful Challenge. Albus touched Minerva’s face as she turned to smile at him in the photo. So alive . . . was that when he had finally fallen in love with her? That day, was that the day that his pride in her had tipped irretrievably into what it now was? Or had it been earlier? When she rescued him a few years before that, she had been beautiful, lovely, caring, so competent, and so very brave. And then, just days later, when he had seen her at her parents’ home, there had been something so moving when he looked upon her, and as he turned away from her, he had felt it then, that hitching pain and a void in his heart. Somewhere, sometime, he had gone from loving her as a child and a student in his care, to loving her as an independent witch, and then, somehow, that love of her as an independent, adult witch had become passionate and no longer the platonic love of a mentor or of a friend. It had happened without him being entirely aware of it until it was too late. And now he could not escape it.

He closed the photographs back into his drawer. Taking off his glasses, he shut his eyes and thought about his decision. Albus was sure that it was the right one. He had been telling her for some time that he would tell her about Grindelwald’s defeat someday, a story he had shared with very few, but she deserved to know. And he had told her that he would tell her more of the story of their wands and how he had come to have his. It was all tied together, really, all of it. Minerva had great respect and affection for him. He knew she didn’t believe him infallible, and he doubted that she had thought him omnipotent and unbreakable since sometime when she was a student. Nonetheless, her view of him would change after tonight. It couldn’t help but change, and Minerva would see that the wizard whom she had come to know over these twenty years . . . what she had known of him had created a very incomplete picture.

After having read her letter to her parents, Albus began to feel uncomfortably as though Minerva had been willing to give her life for a wizard whom she scarcely knew, though she believed that she did know him and that he was deserving of her sacrifice. This feeling had crept up on him slowly, and now he could not ignore it. Albus didn’t believe that Minerva would be so shocked by what he told her that it would destroy their friendship – at least, he sincerely hoped that was not the case – but it was all bound to be new to her, and likely nothing she could ever have conceived. Still, they were growing closer, and this was all such an integral part of how he became who he was . . . she deserved to know. And if her regard for him diminished, so be it.

When he had been out that morning, exercising in his Animagus form, it had seemed so clear to him, what he should say, how he should say it, and the very fact that he should tell her at all. But now, sitting there, his back and shoulders still aching some from their unaccustomed work-out that morning, it no longer seemed so clear, and the thought of dredging up all of those memories and their attendant emotions no longer seemed so simple. But if he was to tell her any of it, he would tell her all of it, the entire bundle. Not that he would have to go into truly embarrassing detail about certain things, of course.

He stood and called Wilspy, asking her to serve their dinner ten minutes after Minerva arrived. With only slight misgivings, he also asked her to serve the left-over birthday cake for dessert. It was likely to be a late night, and the sooner they finished eating, the better, but he certainly did not want to rush through dinner, and he wanted the meal to be pleasant.

“The cake tasted just as nice the second time around,” Albus said with a smile, putting down his fork. “Now, would you like some tea or coffee or anything else, my dear?”

“Not at the moment, Albus. And you were right. The cake was very good,” Minerva agreed.

“Shall we move to the sitting area, then?” Albus asked, standing and gesturing toward the sofa and chairs arranged near the fireplace.

Minerva smiled. “That would be very nice. But you must be tired after the past few days of activity. Please feel free to tell me if you would like me to leave so that you can have an early night.”

“I am fine . . . and I don’t anticipate an early night,” Albus said. Minerva took a seat in one of the wing chairs, and he settled on the sofa. He waved a footstool over in front of Minerva and put his own feet up, as well. “You have expressed interest, at times, in certain events in my life, and when I told you about our wands, I told you that there was a longer story behind them and that I might tell it to you one day.” He tilted his head and looked at her. “Are you still interested, my dear?”

Minerva was sitting up straight, but she straightened even further. “Of course! But only if you wish, of course.”

“It is a long story, Minerva, long and involved . . . and it begins a very long time ago,” Albus said slowly. “Some of it will be difficult to tell, and some of it may be difficult for you to hear. But yes, I wish to tell you, if you wish to listen.”

Minerva nodded seriously.

Albus took off his glasses and sent them over to the side table. He looked off into the distance for a moment, and then he began. . . .

“It was a long time ago, as I said, that it all began. When I was a child, really, I suppose. I would like to be able to say with some modesty that my time as a student was unremarkable, but it was not. I excelled at whatever I put my hand, mind, and magic to. I was eager to learn, even more eager than you were – indeed, the Sorting Hat very nearly put me in Ravenclaw, but it decided, in the end, that my nature and my need were Gryffindor.

“I chafed at what I saw were restrictions on me and my progress. I found most of my teachers wanting, and believed them dull and unimaginative. Nonetheless, I wanted to please them, and please them I usually did. But I pushed every boundary and stretched it. If it weren’t for the guidance and firm hand of Professor Futhark, I might have become even more insufferable than I no doubt was. But despite my general attitude, I found myself with friends of all types, and, with a rather foolish and overblown sense of my own importance, I came to believe myself not only advanced academically but also better than my peers and their natural leader. And, I suppose, I was – academically advanced and a leader, not better than they,” he clarified.

“None of this changed the fact that when I returned home for the holidays, I returned to a small cottage in Wales where my mother spent half her days brewing simple potions for sale to local apothecaries and the other half going about to larger cottages and houses and ridding them of Doxies and garden gnomes and such. I never wanted to think about why my mother did these things, or even that she did. My school tuition was paid for by my Uncle Christopher, and he provided me with pocket money, and when Aberforth started school, he did the same for him. The summer I turned seventeen, I went to my Uncle Christopher and asked him if I could stay with him during the holidays from then on, but he told me that my place was with my mother and that she deserved more support than I had been giving her. The previous two summers, I had worked in an apothecary – cleaning, sorting, performing inventory, and occasionally preparing ingredients. I chafed at the work, believing that I could do as well brewing potions as either of the master’s two apprentices – and I probably could have – but I needed the money, or thought I did, because Uncle Christopher’s generous allowance seemed less adequate with each passing year. And yet, despite seeing how hard my mother worked, I had not seen fit to share any of my earnings with her. I would rise early in the morning, mount my broom, and fly to the apothecary, then I would return late. My mother would always have dinner waiting for me, even if she and Aberforth had eaten hours before, and never did she have a word of reproach. She was proud of me. And, to my great shame, I was not proud of her.”

“Where was your father?” Minerva asked, interrupting.

“Ah, now that is the question. Where was Father? Where was Father . . .” Albus murmured. “Two days after my ninth birthday, he disappeared. My brother and I didn’t even know, at first. Our mother kept it from us for a few days. But finally, she sat us down and told us that she did not know where our father was, and neither did his brother Christopher nor anyone else. Father had gone to work and sometime during the day, he simply vanished. There was no trace of him anywhere. Aurors had been called in, but they found nothing, absolutely no indication of where he had gone or why, or even whether he had disappeared of his own accord or had been a victim of foul play. If he had gone of his own accord, he brought nothing with him but the clothes on his back and the few Sickles he had in his pocket when he left home for the last time.”

Minerva sat in astonishment and horror. “Did you ever find out what happened to him?”

Albus shook his head. “No, my dear. As you can imagine, I kept expecting him to walk through the door, to tell us why he had been gone . . . so long. And I made up stories for myself to explain what had happened to him, and I would tell them to myself as I lay in bed at night – in most of them, he was a hero and still alive. Gradually, I imagined him as a hero, but a dead hero, that he had died heroically and alone, and that was why we did not know where he was and why he could not return to us. But during the day, I came to blame my mother. I heard rumours that he had run off with another witch, or sometimes it was with a Muggle woman, or that he had fallen in with a bad crowd and was part of a criminal network of wizards on the Continent, or that he had simply fled to Australia to escape his dull life. And all of these stories brought me to blame my mother. And when, the summer before I started at Hogwarts, my mother moved us to Wales, near her Muggle relatives, I saw it as a betrayal of our father. I believed she should stay in Cornwall, where we lived not far from my Uncle Christopher and Aunt Beatrice, stay and wait there for my father. But the fact was, we could not afford to stay there without accepting more money from my father’s brother, and that my mother did not want to do. I think she only accepted anything from him because of us boys.

“But, as much as I disliked the fact that we moved from Cornwall to Wales, I did like coming to know my Muggle relatives better, only a few of whom knew that my mother was a witch. It was interesting to visit them. I liked them, in fact, but I . . .” Albus shook his head. “It is difficult to describe, Minerva. I was amazed at all they could do without magic, and how well they managed to live without it, but there were so many things that we in the wizarding world could do that they could not, and the world was far more open to us because of our ability to Apparate, our Healing methods were far advanced compared to those of the Muggles, and there were so many things that we simply could do with greater ease. You must remember, this was the eighteen-fifties. Much has changed in the Muggle world since then, and rapidly, much more rapidly than they have ever changed in the wizarding world. At the time, though, I viewed Muggles as primitive, and somewhat valiant in their continued efforts to live a civilised life without the benefits of magic. Gradually, as I came to know them and to learn of Muggle science and philosophy, my views changed, of course, and my measure of them became based far less on external, material characteristics, and more on the internal values of mind and spirit. I think, in retrospect, that my mother’s decision to move us was a good one for many reasons, and not the least because of my closer association with the Muggle world.”

Albus smiled. “It is funny, actually, to be telling you this. I had planned to tell you so much, and I knew that this story had its beginning many years ago, but I had not thought I would be speaking so much of my childhood. Yet I suppose that my father’s disappearance, forever mysterious and unexplained, and the changes that it brought to our lives . . . perhaps the story does begin there, after all.

“My uncle’s words did not fall on deaf ears, and I saw that I had been selfish. Between the time I started school and when I entered my final year, I had come to see my mother differently, and as I matured, I realised that she was no more responsible for my father’s disappearance than I was, and I . . . I was not, despite the fact that I had staved off my own guilt over it for years. Our father had loved us and our mother, and I do not believe that he would have left us willingly, not without at least telling us something. Not if he were able to stay or to say good-bye.

“So . . . after hearing what my uncle had to say to me, the summer I was seventeen, I worked even harder, and my employer began to allow me to brew very simple potions and not just prepare ingredients for others to use in their brewing. And every week, I came home to my mother and proudly handed her three-quarters of my earnings. At first, she protested, but she saw how important it was to me and she accepted it. I believe she spent it all on my brother – buying him new school robes and new textbooks and getting him his own broom. Aberforth always had to borrow mine, and as he wanted to try out for the Quidditch team in September and I was already on it, it would have been more difficult for us to share it,” Albus said with a chuckle. “In fact, I had thought about it, and considered quitting the team if he were selected – not because I did not want to be on the team with him, but so that he could use my broom. So I was not entirely self-centred. Indeed, one reason it was important to me to earn money, aside from my belief that I needed more money to spend on myself, was that I enjoyed being able to treat my friends. It was partly from the desire to appear to come from a more well-off situation than I actually did, but I also truly did enjoy surprising friends with little gifts or treating them to a butterbeer when we went into Hogsmeade. And, of course, I liked to be able to purchase little trinkets for Dervilia and to court her in my naive way.

“And there, then, was Dervilia. I already told you of that, of how my apprenticeship was more important to me than the life of my wife and my unborn child . . . it was not truly more important to me, of course, but I only discovered that after I had lost them. I was foolish. I should have either accepted my mother’s offer of a house-elf, or insisted that we live in Wales near my mother and her family, or that she live with one of her relatives while I was away, despite the fact that they were all Muggles. Instead, I did as she wanted – believing that it was the least I could do for her and that I was being unselfish by doing so – and we moved to a small cottage that had belonged to her grandparents, but which had been empty for several months by the time we married. I assuaged my conscience by telling myself that she was in her own country, that she was near her family, that her older sister visited her regularly. . . . But it did not change the fact that I left her for days at a time and that she was alone when she died and . . .” Albus closed his eyes and sighed, shaking his head. “She was a pretty girl . . . I called her my ray of sunshine because her hair was like golden fire and her laughter was like light. I did love her . . . but not enough. And I was young, too young. I believed I knew what was right and wrong and what my priorities should be and how a wizard should live his life and support his family, but I was . . . I was too young and too impressed with myself. Father . . . Father used to tell me as a child that the world did not revolve around me, yet for far too long, I behaved as though it did.

“And you know that after Dervilia died, I discovered my friend’s fiancee being attacked and savaged, and that I destroyed her attacker just as thoroughly as if I had killed him, his mind gone. Uncle Christopher gave me the wise advice to take some time and learn about the world and to . . . to get outside of myself for a while.”

Albus sighed and closed his eyes a moment. Minerva, who had been listening attentively, looked at him with a furrowed brow.

“You needn’t tell me everything tonight . . . if you are tired, if it is too difficult . . .”

Albus opened his eyes and looked over at Minerva, and he smiled, almost in relief. “No, I wish to continue. I haven’t even really begun, my dear. But it is thirsty work. Perhaps some tea. Would you like some?”

“Yes, please, whatever you would like,” Minerva agreed.