Chapter 5 Ghostly Memory
Gostly memory
Remembrance so sweet
Lost from history
Marked with deceit
Be my escape
My remedy
Give me hope
Be my key
Five Killed and Four Injured in Death Eater Attack on Muggleborn and Halfblood Families Last Night; St Mungos Officials Throw Arms in Air Over Chaos
Minerva slammed the paper down on the desk and let her head fall into her tired arms. They were losing. Losing lives and time and morale and strength…just losing. And it seemed to Minerva that the students who used to test her patience were so sensible comparing to the older generations in the Wizarding World. No matter how much of a failure Dumbledore’s House Unity plans had been, reasoning with the sundered families of witches and wizards was worse. It was all about protecting themselves now, mistrust, and isolation. They would never win like this, they would never even have a semblance of hope if they stayed like this.
She closed her eyes and let the familiar smells of her office, and the taste of the Lemon Drop in her mouth take her away and release her from this torturous weighing and worrying. She remembered the days of her youth as Professor Dumbledore’s student and the first day she had stepped into this office looking for a job. The first time she had seen that twinkling in his eye. She remembered even the first days of Voldemort with warmth, because they had had Dumbledore with them then. The most powerful Wizard of the Age; the only one that the Dark Lord feared. The man responsible for the defeat of Grindlewald. But what did they have now?
The Chosen one, many would still say on the streets of the Wizarding World. The Chosen one would save them all. The chosen one would vanquish Voldemort single-handedly. And that was all good and well for them to say, because to them the Chosen One, Harry Potter, had been so glorified and magnified that he had become something of myth or legend. Legends and prophecies were all well and good for the hopeless to cling to, but not if they knew the truth of the legend. Not if they had seen the small boy fall and err and cry and lose hope.
Minerva knew that it would never be enough. They could not rely on Harry Potter alone, could not place such a burden on his shoulders and expect him to carry it and them to some kind of happy, rosy future. She knew darkness and she knew it crept in like smoke through every nook and cranny, slowly, deceitfully, and even sometimes unnoticeably until it became an all-consuming destructive force. She knew also, that it must be fought in the same way, slowly, patiently, and with every ray of light one could lay their hands on. Even if he was truly destined to be the end of Voldemort, Potter could not save the world from Voldemort’s darkness and corruption.
Sometimes she even believed Moody when he said that Potter and his Prophecy had already sentenced the Wizarding World to death along with Voldemort.
“It’s sucking every last bit of willpower and bravery we have left Minerva,” he would say over and over again, “Only the chosen one can defeat Voldemort, so they’re just sitting at home breeding cowardice and fear and hope. Hope doesn’t catch Dark Wizards and neither do Ministry decrees. Hope doesn’t build the rubble that they’ve created and protect innocent children!”
A knock came at her office door interrupting her from her worn train of thought. “Come in!”
It was Alastor Moody, a man to which Dumbledore had often looked for strength and help and even wisdom. She wished she could turn to him in these dark times and be sure he would take care of it, but she knew she could not, because he also made it a habit to drop by and ask for her help and advice.
“I’ve convinced Remus,” he said, “In one month’s time if we still haven’t convinced Potter to let us know exactly what he’s up to or found another way by which we can put up a solid resistance, he’s going to publicly discredit this Prophecy and-”
“Why are you meddling in something you know isn’t your strength, Alastor, why this sudden interest in the war of words?”
“Because I have to, Minerva,” his voice rose, “I can’t train or lead imaginary soldiers!”
There was a moment of encompassing silence, in which Minerva recalled those days in the tower; the lazy games of chess and the passion and light in his eyes as he had stood, lion-like, before the blazing fire.
“You’re clinging to your trust in Dumbledore, Minerva, but that was before he died. That was when he was there to watch over Potter and guide him along. We could trust him then because we could see the certainty in his gleaming eyes and the power of his actions. We didn’t trust the Prophecy even then, Minerva, it was Dumbledore we trusted.”
He waited a few moments with that statement hanging in the air between them and then continued: “He would never have been so certain, or confident, without something more than the Prophecy, Minerva. He’s been looking for more clues and hints for years and he finally found something, some knowledge that he could work with. I can’t trust Potter with that knowledge or burden, it would be insanity to even think of that. So we need to extract information from him or dismiss the possibility and find ourselves something else to fight with. Potter isn’t doing us any good right now and we can’t sit and wait for that good to come.”
“We aren’t just sitting and waiting, Alastor, we’re-”
“Sitting, thinking and drawing blanks. There’s no perfect soldier that’s going to come and fight under your command, there is no phenomenal power that is the answer to all-”
“You’ve seen it,” she hissed, “You saw it with your own eyes and joked about how we didn’t need to wait for Prophecies if we had power like that-”
“But she ran away,” he said with finality, “Our little Badger ran away. Just like always, the firsts and powerful allies and fancy curses are in the hands of the dark and all the defense has to work with are the old fashioned strengths of will and mind and conviction. I’m looking for bravery, Minerva, not fancy complicated miracles.”
“So find it then, without-”
“Without what? Breaking the little fantasy you’re still clinging to. You’re forgetting who came up with the idea to drop divination as a bunch of airy nonsense in the first place.”
A lopsided grin broke on Minerva’s face as she looked at his grim smile and replied: “Now, now, Alastor, remember who it was that called the woman a featherbrained fool in the teacher’s lounge.”
“Of course, so you won’t be stubborn about it when I do begin to educate my future army of completely sensible individuals?”
“Why is it so important to you that I agree to this?” she said in a rather shrill voice, “You know my views on Education, Alastor, it is a very subtle and slow art.”
“Turn up the heat a little under the cauldron…” he trailed off.
“Yes, but that makes for shoddy potions,” she said, “With unsure results.”
“I’ll take it if it’s all I have to make do with until the proper one is finished brewing in secret.”
“Madness!” Minerva finally declared, “You want to rob them of the last bit of hope they’ve got left so you can make them into valiant soldiers and iron wills.”
“Only because that hope has become destructive,” he ceded when he saw that she’d given up the argument, “And after all, the truly brave deeds are the ones that are done in the absence of hope.”
“Don’t be so grim, Alastor, have a Lemon Drop and tell me if you’ve heard anything more about Hannah!” Her thoughts always went back to that lost glimmer of hope and that gnawing thought of her own responsibility for the poor girl’s fate.
“Nothing besides the strange colored fires the Weasley Twins saw in that Muggle neighborhood. And even that seems to be too tame comparing to her previous shows of power.”
“Of course,” she agreed, “But she didn’t have an emotional attachment to that incident. Has anyone else seen anything besides the Weasley boys and Remus?”
“No,” Alastor assured her for the hundredth time. He didn’t elaborate as his eye had just caught the Grey Lady before she passed in through the door. Suddenly, as the interrupted conversation played in their ears Alastor Moody’s eyes narrowed and he looked back towards Minerva.
“Except,” he said slowly, “For Binns.”
Professor Binns, thankfully, was not as hard to find as the other ghosts, because he tended to follow a routine and stay in certain places. Sometimes Minerva even suspected he was afraid to stray too far from his usual haunts. She did not bother herself with the thought that it must be very boring, especially without the students, to confine himself to such a limited space. Her mind was bent on only two questions: How much had Binns seen? And why was he interested enough to wander away from his office to watch her, twice, as Moody had reported?
The History of Magic Professor was floating before his blackboard and it seemed as if he was waiting for something. Minerva felt a pang of guilt as she stood with him in the empty classroom and listened to the silence. She had felt a twinge of sadness and loss when she first realized that there would be no students to teach this year. As if the profession she had dedicated her life to had become useless and had ended. She could only imagine what he felt now, as he realized, in his death, that there really was no more Hogwarts.
“Why don’t we go to my office and talk a little bit, Professor?” she asked softly.
“I can’t!”
He said it with such strength, and … life, that Minerva was shocked. “Why not Professor Binns, please I need to consult you with something.”
“I cannot leave, Miss McGonagall, I have a class to teach!” he said with increasing force, “I must teach!”
There was a short, echoing silence before Minerva was able to wake herself from her astounded stupor. She walked down between the rows until she reached the third desk from the front beside the window and sat down in her old place. It still felt the same, although the face of the desk was much more abused by the generations of students that had occupied it since she had last sat there.
“What is today’s lesson going to be about Professor?” she asked recalling that eager voice, and the snickers that would follow every time.
“War,” he said. And for the first time, in both life and death, his voice rang through halls of stone and echoed even to the deepest parts of the dungeons.
He spoke of ancient friendships and alliances and of trust and bravery and war. He spoke, for the first time, with a passion that could move hearts. Most of all, he spoke about power. About pure, uncontrollable power the like of which had not been seen more than once in the Wizarding World. And then he paused.
“And do you know what has happened to Witches and Wizards who have possessed even a fraction of this power, Minerva?” he asked, but he did not wait for her to answer.
“People have died,” he said ominously, “They’ve gone mad. Entire cities have been wiped out and tyrants have caused their own destruction because they could not control their power once it had been unleashed. I speak not only of recorded History that is in books, but of lost kingdoms and ruined empires. It is corruptive and destructive, terrible power. And we are sitting on the key to it right here in this castle!”
Minerva could not help the gasp that escaped her lips. But she shook her head immediately and tried to soften her expression of sheer disbelief as she looked into her old Professor’s face. This was even more ludicrous than that blasted Prophecy.
“You don’t have to believe me, Minerva,” he said, “This finding came to me only after years and years of research. Just follow me and I will show exactly what is connected to the fate of Hogwarts.”
He led her through the halls in the direction of the Hufflepuff common room. A secret doorway under the common room windows that she doubted even the legendary Marauders had known about revealed a dark, damp hallway that stretched for a few feet before ending in another blank wall. But Binns was ready and he gave the command for another complicated spell rather eagerly. So they traveled in a maze of old forgotten corridors, which even the spiders had forsaken, until they reached a wall of earth.
This time Binns gave the command for a simple cleaning spell and she cast it at what turned out to be a mud-covered wooden doorway. Minerva stretched her hand out, despite the feeling that she was trespassing on something personal, and opened the door.
It was a small, simple dwelling. A cozy wooden house on top of which, it seemed, Hogwarts had been built. There was a calm, but powerful sort of magic at work here and it was evident in every little detail. She had entered into what must be the living room. There was still a small fireplace and simple curtains covered the now blocked-up windows. Blue colored socks were lying, half-knitted, on the largest couch and some small woven tapestries depicting what looked like an early version of the Hogwarts insignia hung on the walls.
A very large bookshelf covered the far wall and a wooden staircase, lined with more books, wound its way up to more rooms. Minerva stepped past the comfortable-looking couches and peeked in through the kitchen doorway. It looked as if someone had been cooking in here only a short few hours ago. She felt a shudder creep up her back as she walked up the staircase behind Binns. He was still eager to go somewhere, and she wondered what the rooms upstairs would reveal.
They walked through the upstairs hallway, which still managed to have a sunny, airy feeling despite being buried under thousands and thousands of bricks. Passing five closed doors very quickly Binns led her in through the sixth. He hurried towards a desk in the far corner without allowing her to take in all the details of this bedroom and pointed towards a small leather-bound diary.
“You are a clever woman, Minerva,” he said, “Begin with this diary and you will find all that you need to know.”
She was speechless as she stared at the ghost’s silvery form. Picking the diary up, Minerva followed him back downstairs. She wanted to begin the exploration of the rooms from the beginning. She watched Binns glide over to the couches by the fireplace.
“And now,” he said in his old quiet voice, “I am tired, and weary.”
With that the ancient History of Magic Professor settled himself down on the couch and closed his ghostly eyes. And as Minerva watched, he faded into silvery little wisps of smoke and vanished, peacefully, into thin air.
