June Week

Chapter 14: Pax Vobiscum

The following week was the start of Christmas holidays. Minerva spent most of it locked away in her room, nursing a huge case of hurt and bitterness. She´d been betrayed. All Bella´s friendliness and hospitality had been no more than an act to get her to spill her guts about her personal problems. Worse, she´d been compromised, had had her judgment and self-control wrenched away by artificial means yet again.

If they ever hand out an award for Person Most Likely To Be Slipped A Mickey, I´m a dead cert to win, she thought with a touch of grim humor.

As she generally did, she found relief in anger, which, in this case, she directed against Bella. She had an unhappy feeling that this wasn´t quite fair - now that she was thinking about it with a clear head, she could see that Dumbledore had probably asked his cousin to talk to her - but she didn´t want to be angry with him if she could help it, and Bella was a convenient scapegoat. She´d received a couple of messages from Bella by owl, apologizing for any misunderstanding and asking if they could meet again. So far she had ignored them, though not without guilt.

Dumbledore had said nothing about any of it to her. He didn´t have to. On the few occasions she´d ventured out to go to a meal or fetch something from their shared office, his distressed looks had spoken for him.

Minerva had never realized another person´s concern could be such a burden. It left her feeling sad and guilty for making him worry about her. It also drove her mad with resentment. Shouldn´t he have a little more faith in her ability to handle her own affairs by now? After all, she´d managed to face down a gang of spies and traitors, even if she´d nearly ended up dead in the process. If that didn´t inspire confidence, what would? Would he still be treating her like a child when she was as old as he was?

Stop acting like a child, and he´ll stop treating you like one, piped up the ever-helpful part of her mind that specialized in unpleasant truths. You´ve been sulking about all week because he committed the awful crime of trying to find out what´s on your mind. And don´t say he could have asked you himself, because he did, more than once, and you wouldn´t tell him.

"Quiet, you!" she snapped. Then she turned red, realizing she´d said it aloud. Only a few days without companionship, and already she was reverting to her old habit of talking to herself. She´d done it often when she was a child - she´d had no one to play with, and her father had spent the greater part of most days stirring vile concoctions in the basement, where she´d been forbidden to go. After he´d died, she´d talked to herself constantly, out of necessity. The house would have been silent as a grave itself if she hadn´t.

You don´t want to go back to that. Talk to Albus. It´ll make both of you feel better. There´s no need to spill any secrets, just reassure him that you´re all right. You know what it is to be isolated when you´ve no choice in the matter; why isolate yourself when you do?

Maybe, Minerva thought, she should just go to bed. The clock only said seven p.m., but the sooner she was asleep, the sooner she could stop dwelling on these things for a while. She yanked the pins from her hair - it was ridiculous to wear it up while she was in here anyway, as if anyone was going to see her! - and started brushing it out in preparation. It was getting very long. Nearly waist-length now. No wonder her neck hurt all the time, with so much weight coiled up at the back of her head.

Just as she finished the brushing, she heard a knock and called "What?"

"Minerva, it´s me." It was Dumbledore´s voice, a bit muffled through the thick oaken slab of the door. With brush still in hand, she opened it to find him standing in the hallway, looking very fancy in a set of bottle-green dress robes.

Here´s your chance to say something to him. For heaven´s sake, do try to make it something nice.

"Going to a party?" she asked.

"A concert," he said. "The choir at St. Paul´s is putting on a performance of St.-Saens´ Christmas Oratorio. Hagrid and I had planned to attend, and I wondered if you would care to come along."

"Hagrid? Is he a closet classical-music fan?"

"It was my idea," said Dumbledore. "I thought it would be good for him to go. His cultural horizons could use a bit of broadening."

She looked at him in confusion. A week of awkwardness and not speaking to each other, and suddenly he was asking her to go to a concert as if nothing had happened? What was he trying to do?

Suddenly, she was embarrassed at her own suspiciousness. All the plotting and sneaking she´d done lately had poisoned her mind when it came to other people´s motives. Maybe he just wanted the pleasure of her company. Maybe he was trying to patch things up between them. That shouldn´t be so difficult to believe.

"Oh - well - all right, then, I´m sure it´ll be lovely," she said. "Just give me a minute to change clothes." Hurriedly, she went back into the room and threw on her own dress robes, which were also green. She supposed she ought to get some new ones - she´d bought these to wear to an awards ceremony in her sixth year, and they were already out of style. They served their purpose, though. It wasn´t as if she had occasion to dress up very often. Smoothing down her skirt and straightening her cuffs, she went to join Dumbledore and Hagrid in the hall.

Hagrid was too young to Apparate, and wouldn´t have been allowed to in any case, so they had to take a rather circuitous route to their destination. It made them late, and the prelude had already started as they slipped into the very last row of the packed cathedral, Dumbledore murmuring a concealing spell to help keep the Muggle congregation from noticing them. Christianity was very clear on its anti-magic stance; none of the people here were likely to appreciate the presence of three wizards - music lovers or not - in their house of worship. Contrary to popular Muggle legends that had them erecting black altars to demons from the deeps, most members of the wizarding community were agnostics, though they did tend to invoke the names of various gods when under stress. Now, however, was not the time to start trying to explain that to an outraged mob.

Once seated, Dumbledore immediately settled back, folded his hands into his robe sleeves and closed his eyes to better enjoy the performance. Anyone would have thought he was asleep, if not for the rhythmic tapping of his booted foot on the floor.

Hagrid, for his part, had looked like he was anticipating an evening of torturous boredom all the way from Hogwarts, but was transfixed by the music now that he was actually here. Unfortunately, all the words were in Latin, which was a mystery to him beyond the bit he had learned during his abortive career as a student. Every minute or two, he leaned down to stage-whisper "What´re they singin´ abou´ now?" into Minerva´s ear. His voice had changed over the last year, descending to bass tones so deep that the pew vibrated slightly each time he spoke. The Muggles sitting closest to them kept looking around, sure they´d heard or felt something, but perplexed at their inability to locate it.

At last Minerva hissed "Hagrid - sshhh! I´ll tell you all about it later, I promise. Just listen." He obeyed, and she leaned back against the pew, wincing a little and cradling her left arm with her right. It was healing much more slowly than any of her other injuries had - it still ached when she was cold or tired, and she was both at the moment. All she wanted was to lie down in some dark, warm, quiet place and rest till it felt better. Instead, here she was, sitting on a hard wooden bench with a frigid draft from the rear doors of the cathedral blowing across her. She was beginning to wish she hadn´t come. She was just worn out.

That, she realized as the choir moved into a recitative section of the piece, was her problem in general these days: fatigue. Physical fatigue from late nights and hours of prowling around the halls. Mental fatigue from puzzling over Tom´s actions and looking for new avenues of investigation while simultaneously trying to fulfill her duties to her students. Emotional fatigue from keeping the whole problem to herself.

For the first time, she seriously considered letting it all go - just leaving the past in the past and trying to move ahead with her life. That was Hagrid´s philosophy. It seemed to have worked for him.

She peeked sidelong at his face, incongruous in its combination of size and smooth youthfulness. He´d been publicly humiliated, disgraced, had his entire future ripped away, but had still managed to carry on, even to be happy.

And she - her life had been altered, and not for the better, but what had she really lost?

What Tom had done was a terrible thing, but it was ultimately a small thing. He might have touched her, but he couldn´t take anything away from her. Not unless she allowed him to. She´d been dreaming of justice all these months, but there would be no justice if she lost herself in the process of winning it.

"Et in terra pax," sang the choir. Peace on earth. That was a fine ambition, thought Minerva, but a lofty one. She´d settle for inner peace.

She stole another glance, this time in the other direction, toward Dumbledore. As if he could feel her gaze on him, he opened his eyes for a moment and smiled at her with all the old, uncomplicated affection she remembered from a few years ago, when she was his student and he was her teacher and there were no secrets or misunderstandings between them. The tenderness of that expression solidified her decision.

I´m going to be different, she promised him silently. I´m going to try to forget. And then - then maybe you and I can go back to the way things were.

Dumbledore looked down at the arm she was still protecting. A shadow of worry passed briefly across his face again.

"It hurts?" he asked. She thought of denying it, but then admitted "A little."

Putting down the program he´d been holding, he reached over, straightened her arm carefully and wrapped both his hands around it, one at the wrist and one just below the elbow, where the breaks had been. If you looked closely, you could still see the faint traces of scars that the jagged edges of her bones had left when they tore through the skin. Those would disappear soon, or so Madam Valerian had told her. The residual discomfort would take longer. There was only so much that magic could do. Madam Valerian had offered to give her a potion to help, but Minerva had refused - unpleasant as the pain was, her distaste for being drugged was worse.

Dumbledore whispered a spell under his breath, and gentle but intense warmth began to radiate from his body to hers. She let out a slow sigh as the ache ebbed and vanished - she hadn´t realized how bad it had been until it had gone. He watched her face intently until he saw her relax, then laid her arm across her lap and covered her hand with one of his.

"Peace be with you, Minerva," he said softly, so no one but she could hear him.

"And with you," she replied.

And for the moment, it was.