In The Cold

Warnings: Some angst. Some bittersweet fluff. A little Hagrid. And a lot of cat.
Author's note: This was written for istalksnape as part of Livejournal's hp_holidaygen fest in 2006. I set it just before Christmas in 'Seventh Year', but Deathly Hallows has since rendered aspects of it uncanonical. In particular, the Death Eaters haven't taken over the Ministry or Hogwarts: Minerva is Headmistress and Severus is on the run. And Severus' Patronus is not a doe.
But please don't let that put you off – this story is focused on the characterisations, and those, I believe, still stand.

In the Cold
~ by Chthonia ~

"That's what you want, isn't it, Minerva McGonagall? You want Cornelius Fudge replaced by Albus Dumbledore! You think you'll be where I am, don't you: Senior Undersecretary to the Minister and Headmistress to boot!"

The words rang through Minerva's mind every time she walked through the door to the Headmaster's–no, the Headmistress's–office. Umbridge had been as wrong about that as she had been about everything else; Minerva refused to fool herself into pretending that she'd never thought about this room one day being hers–but not like this. Never like this.

Albus was asleep again, his beard spread across his chest like a wispy white blanket. Strange, that none of her daydreams of being Headmistress had included a portrait of her predecessor. Perhaps she'd always assumed he would take up a position at the International Confederation of Wizards, or at the Ministry... perhaps Umbridge had been right after all.

And that sort of nonsense, she told herself, was precisely why she couldn't afford to wallow in the past.

She turned her back on Albus' portrait, adjusted her glasses and unrolled a small scroll of parchment on her desk: the house-elves' final menu for tomorrow's Christmas feast. If there was one thing she felt less like doing than celebrating...

But it was, after all, her job. And Merlin knew, her students and staff needed a morale boost, what with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named waging chaos outside the castle wall, Harry Potter disappeared to do God knew what, and the worst flu outbreak she could remember in all her years as a teacher making the dormitories more hazardous than the Forbidden Forest. Poor Poppy Pomfrey had so far failed to find a way of even relieving the symptoms, despite seemingly attempting to equal Hermione Granger's third-year feat of being in three places at once. Finally, Minerva had ordered her to get some rest.

So all in all it was not exactly the merriest of atmospheres. At times, Minerva even found herself missing the Weasley twins–at least they would have livened the place up.

Well, maybe she wouldn't go quite that far.

At least the glen was dressed in its Christmas best. There had been a light snowfall during the day, enough to reflect the moonlight, enough to make any potential intruders stand out as starkly as the black tree silhouettes in the grounds. Not nearly enough to dispel the shadows.

She hated feeling there was nothing she could do. Or rather, that there was something she could do, if only she could work out what. As the autumn nights had lengthened she had taken to pacing the castle and its grounds, telling herself she was standing guard against external threats rather than her own gnawing anxiety.

Minerva quietly closed the door to her office and shrank to her four-legged form. She blinked–as she always did–at the sudden burst of sensation: the amplified chatter of distant students; the acrid stink of Mrs Norris, mixed with an underlying stench of illness and the intoxicating scent of mouse; the faint air currents tugging at her whiskers.

It was these that she followed. For the small in stature, there were more secret exits from Hogwarts than the students could ever imagine.

She batted aside a stray strand of tinsel to slink behind a tapestry and along the cat-sized passage that brought her down through the walls and out behind Greenhouse Three. She kept well away from the glass doors–that was one place where being small was definitely not advantageous.

Her fur bristled against the night air, but her soul welcomed the biting cold that cut through the dull ache of Albus' absence and narrowed her focus on her duty. Keeping to the shadow of the wall, she padded across the flagstones and into the garden. Once away from the greenhouses' scent of earth and exotic plants, she could smell nothing unusual in the air. And the tingle in her whiskers told her that the protective spells woven across the grounds were intact.

The snow glittered in the moonlight, beckoning her on across the lawn. She bounded towards the lights of Hagrid's hut, which she and Filius had reconstructed after Hagrid refused to leave his beloved forest. Not for the first time, she wished he would agree to move into the castle: not only was he was isolated out here, more vulnerable both to intruders and his own dark imaginings, but to her sensitive nose the timbers still stank of smoke.

She jumped onto the windowsill. Hagrid was sitting with his back to her, tying holly into clumsy wreaths and whistling an out-of-tune Christmas carol. Fang, sprawled in front of the fire, turned his head towards the window–and yawned, long since accustomed to the little tabby cat with the unblinking eyes and unreasonably sharp claws.

Despite Hagrid's best efforts, she recognised the carol, the words familiar since girlhood.

Silent night... Holy night... All is calm... All is bright...

And tonight, those words rang true. The night was still, Hagrid was content, Hogwarts was settling down to sleep and the darkest night of the year had passed. Soon, they would notice the days getting longer; the light would return. Surely there was hope to be wrung from that, in spite of everything?

Perhaps she would have something real to say to the school tomorrow after all.

She landed lightly on the ground and moved away, running towards her favourite vantage point, almost lost in the joy of the movement allowed her by feline bones and muscles. From where she stopped she could see back to the castle, and down to the gate and the faint glow of Hogsmeade beyond. And above her the vast night sky glittered with stars known for generations before she was born and which would still be known generations after she was forgotten.

The gate moved. Instinct pressed her to the ground as a cloaked figure slipped through. She felt her fur stand on end.

But there was no ripple in the spells protecting the grounds. So who–or what–had entered? Just a student, returning from an illicit excursion?

If that was the case, she would personally make sure that he or she was banned from Hogsmeade trips for the rest of his schooldays.

Could it be Harry Potter, returned from his self-appointed mission? Or was it something much more dangerous?

Swiftly and silently, she took shelter in the shadows and moved closer.

The stranger moved away from the gate, not towards the castle but into the Forbidden Forest. She followed. It was a man, judging by his build and his walk, though the night was too still and cold for her to catch a confirming scent.

When they were out of sight of both castle and gate, he stopped. He glanced back. And took out his wand.

Minerva crouched, poised for action. She was too close to transform unnoticed, and she needed to know what he intended before he knew she was there.

A small silvery shape burst from the end of his wand, rose through the trees and veered towards the castle. And at that moment she knew who she was watching, and her back arched in fury.

She'd misunderstood that Patronus the first time she'd seen it. Then, she'd seen it as a gifted creature, unjustly condemned for its love of the shadows. But now she knew it was evil to its core.

In instant she was a witch, with a wand.

"Expelliarmus!"

He stumbled backwards into a tree as his wand flew to her hand. The shimmering bat circled down from the sky towards her, and with a silent flick of her wand her own Patronus leapt up and caught it between two great translucent paws and flung it to the ground before biting off its fading cry of Minerva, I need to-

"How dare you set foot here!" she spat.

He leaned his head back against the tree, his hair lank across his face, his black eyes... dull, their usual bitter resentment replaced with a resignation she'd never seen in him before. For a moment, she almost wondered–

"Well?" she said sharply. "Say something!"

He shrugged. "What's the point? You've already condemned me, haven't you? So much for priding yourself on being fair!"

"You condemned yourself, Severus. You–" she swallowed. "You killed Albus."

He winced. "Yes. He left me no choice."

"What? There's always a choice! Don't try to fool me with your coward's excuses!"

"Don't call me a coward! You of all people know what I've done for the Order!"

She snorted. "And I suppose you said the same to your real master, when you went crawling back to him?" She raised her wand. "This ends here."

"Minerva, plea–" He bit off the word as she sent her Patronus hurtling towards Hagrid's hut.

"I don't want to hear it," she snapped. "Save it for the Ministry."

He looked about wildly. "But you have to... Oh, what's the use? It's always been so simple for you. But Albus wouldn't have wanted–"

"How dare you talk about what Albus would have wanted!"

He locked his gaze on hers. "Draco Malfoy."

"What?"

"Albus died to protect him. Turn me in now and Albus will have died in vain."

"Poppycock! Albus Dumbledore died to protect Draco Malfoy? That's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard!"

He sneered. "Is it so unbelievable? So surprising that not everyone thinks Slytherins are expendable?"

"That's not fair."

"I haven't the luxury of being fair. And I haven't the luxury of time, either." He reached into his cloak.

"Don't move!" She aimed her wand at his heart. "Don't think I won't use this."

He sighed. "I'm telling the truth, Minerva. If I came here to deceive you, I'd never have got through the jinx you set on the gate. You know that as well as I do."

He was right; she hadn't even felt a twinge when he entered. Yes, he was an exceptionally skilled Occlumens... but then she and Filius were exceptionally skilled spell-casters.

She lowered her wand. "Tell me," she said.

He shook his head. "We're running out of time." He held out a vial. "Here, take this."

She Summoned it silently. "What is it?"

"Give it to Poppy. She'll know what to do with it."

"For the flu?" She looked at him sharply. "Are you telling me you're responsible for that?"

"No. I'm responsible for the fact that nobody's died from it–yet."

"But... Severus, what have you done?"

"I had no choice." He ground out the words. "I have been given no choice. Can't you understand that?"

"Frankly, no! No one forced you to join the Death Eaters! No one forced you to poison my students–your students! And it's entirely your choice whether or not you tell me how you did it!"

"I can't," he snarled. "They'll know. Let them think Poppy worked it out. I've given her all she needs."

"Severus!"

A dog barked in the distance, and Hagrid called out, "Where are yeh, Professor? I'm comin'!"

Severus lunged at her. "Albus put me in this position," he hissed. "Don't pretend anything you can do will get me out of it!"

She flung out her arm. A Stunning Spell cracked uselessly into a tree. She tried to pull away, to aim... but he had youth and desperation on his side. He wrenched his wand from her hand and flung her to the ground.

Her breath misted above her in the cold air. He kicked her wand away and pointed his own down at her. She saw the wild despair in his eyes, and for a moment her world froze over.

His wand hand shook.

And he bared his teeth in a stunted laugh. "If I was what you thought I was, you'd be dead by now. How does it feel to be wrong?"

She drew in a breath. "Get out of here! Just go!"

He turned, and wordlessly walked away.

She sat up and grabbed for her wand, just as Hagrid came crashing though the undergrowth.

"Professor? Professor! What happened?" He fumbled with his crossbow.

"No, Hagrid," she gasped. "It's alright. I'm alright."

He helped her to stand. As they left the wood, she glanced down to the gate. There was a shadow on the road to Hogsmeade. As she watched, it blinked into nothing.

It was only later that she realised that she hadn't asked Severus about the Malfoy boy. Albus, she thought, would not have made that oversight.

~ ~ ~

The Christmas feast was more festive than anyone had expected. Horace Slughorn had tested Severus' potion and pronounced it safe–but provided Poppy with a jar of bezoars, just in case. They hadn't been needed. By lunchtime Poppy had reported that the most dangerous temperatures were down, and only a few unlucky students were confined to the Hospital Wing during the feast.

The rest took their places in the Great Hall, where the house-elves laid on turkey soup for those who had still to regain their appetites. Minerva watched them as they ate. They may still have been weak, but they were smiling, and they were there. Her responsibility now, and she would meet it in her own way. She wasn't Albus, and she wouldn't pretend to be.

This was what she was fighting for, after all: not the grand battle between light and dark–though she would take her place in the ranks when the time came–but a school where the only battles were those waged on the Quidditch pitch, or between students and staff over the amount of homework. A school whose students feared exams rather than death in the corridors, where the greatest challenges lay in learning to cope with the trials and tribulations of normal life.

For too many, it was far too late for that.

She swirled her glass, the candlelight glowing through the red wine. She lifted it to her lips in a silent toast.

Merry Christmas, Severus.

Whether that felt quite right, she wasn’t sure. But it was surely fair.