True Nature

Minerva's Chambers, 1970

Dreams

Minerva's Bedroom, 'Round 4 a.m.

Minerva's Chambers, 1970

The ice bucket was a puddle of cold water, now, and the room was quiet around them. Minerva and Hooch sat on the couch, neither saying a word as they stared off, each contemplating a separate patch of wall. The words Minerva had spoken hung around them like an accusation.

Finally, Deanna grabbed the bottle from the ice bucket and split the remaining Sciacchetrá between their two glasses. She handed one to Minerva. "A toast."

Her companion didn't smile, or show much reaction at all through the somber expression she wore. "To what?"

"To battle scars," Hooch declared, tipping the glass so she swallowed its contents in one gulp.

"And forgiveness," Minerva added, and drank her wine.

"So you're forgiving me?" Deanna asked in a dark tone.

"No," Minerva responded. "There's nothing at all to forgive you for, Deanna. You did nothing wrong. I'm forgiving myself."

"Your friend Billie thought I was the cause of everything bad that ever happened to you."

"My friend Billie adored me, and was all too willing to let me blame someone else for my own stupid decisions." She shook her head. "No, love, I can't blame anyone for what happened to me. I've spent too many years doing that. My mother, you, the husbands. Everybody was the cause of my own unhappiness but me." She sighed, reaching out a hand to stroke Deanna's cheek. "I saw you that day, all those years ago, kissing Ashton in our grove."

"You know I wasn't..." Deanna began, but Minerva stopped her.

"I know you weren't. If I had confronted you at that moment, I would have discovered it for myself, and life would have been very different for both of us. But I didn't. I ran. I ran from you, and from anyone I could ever love, for fear of being hurt again. I purposefully alienated myself from my family, and I started down a path that assured me I'd never get close enough to anyone again to feel the kind of pain I felt that day."

"What about Billie?" Hooch asked.

"Utter perfection. He provided enough intimacy to feed my soul, but remained completely unavailable physically. In other words, perfectly safe." She set her empty glass down on the table, pulling her feet up under her. "When he forced me to face my real feelings, and I couldn't lie to myself anymore, I decided to turn myself around."

"Yeah," Hooch murmured. "You were going to stop sex altogether."

Minerva shot her a mildly superior look. "You doubt my ability to do that?"

"Did you?"

She nodded. "Not since Michael, although I did try with Conner."

Hooch shook her head. "Wait, didn't you tell me that Michael died in 1951?"

"Yes."

"It's 1970," Deanna said. She folded her arms in disbelief. "Are you telling me that for the last 19 years, you've..."?

"Been celibate?" Minerva looked up, doing the math. "Yes, it's been about 19 years."

"I don't believe you."

"Why not? I was serious when I said I didn't want to be with another woman. The mid-1950s were not a time one wanted to be an active lesbian, and I certainly didn't want the only kind of man who could satisfy me sexually. So I decided it was more productive to focus that energy on getting my career back in order. Dumbledore had mentioned in one of his letters that there would be an opening in Transfigurations, and I jumped at the chance. Went back to school, got my teaching degree in short time, and the rest, as they say, is history."

"And it was all just like that? I'm not having sex anymore, and poof, no more sex?"

"You make it sound easy," Minerva mused, scratching her head. "It was hard as hell, especially that first year or so. What I had with Michael, it was as tough to give up as any addiction to drugs or alcohol. Every time something went wrong, when the stress became too much, it popped out of the crevices, trying to lure me back in. Things too rough? Let me take that burden off your shoulders. Give up control. Give up your freedom." She bit her lower lip, trying to put into words what she was thinking. "All that time with Michael, I could have gotten free. We both know I could have used magic to escape, and I could have done so in such a way that Michael would never have known I was a witch. But I didn't. I gave myself freely to him; I let myself become his slave because it was too difficult to be my own master."

"There's always somebody perfectly happy to take control, if you're willing to give it to them," Deanna agreed.

"For years, that desire to give up control, completely, like with Michael, pounded at the walls. I fought it by studying, by reading especially." She laughed. "I dreamed of Michael, I picked up a book. I thought about being tied up, I picked up a book. For a while there, I had more books than a library. But I got through, and I never slipped again."

"At all?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Nineteen years," Hooch shook her head with a low whistle.

At Hooch's horrified look, Minerva laughed, taking the other woman's hand in hers. "It wasn't so bad." She gestured about the room with her free hand. "I thrived in this place. Each student, each term, was a new challenge, a new opportunity to learn and test my abilities. My own guppies have come through these walls, and I've taught them. Now their children will soon be starting, along with all those other children. I've never been happier or more fulfilled in my life."

"But you're still celibate?"

Minerva started laughing. "Why are you so obsessed with the celibacy?"

But Hooch wouldn't answer. She shrugged, seemingly unable to express what was going on inside.

"Deanna, there has only been one person I've ever loved that I'd want to be with, and that person just wasn't available. So why put myself through hell for someone I didn't want?"

"Billie," Hooch nodded.

"No," came the soft contradiction as Minerva stroked the curve of Hooch's jaw. "Not Billie. Someone I couldn't even speak to in a civil tone until a mysterious Remembrall showed up to remind me of what I used to know with all my heart." She leaned in to kiss Deanna's lips softly. "You."

"Me?"

"That's what I said," she murmured, kissing Deanna again, this time more deeply, with no hesitation and no fear. "You."

"So you're telling me," Hooch pulled back, as if to make certain she were interpreting the situation properly. "That you have no intention of making it to your 20^th anniversary, as far as celibacy is concerned?"

Minerva laughed, a full, throaty sound that filled the entire room. "Not if you don't want me to."

"I don't want you to," Deanna whispered as she pulled Minerva close. "I hate round numbers."

***

Dreams

Breathe, she ordered silently as the moonlight cut through the tiny window in her bedroom. It had been ages since she'd had a panic attack of this magnitude, and the last thing she wanted to do was wake Deanna, who was sleeping peacefully beside her. The pounding in her chest, the shooting pains through her arm and side, the feeling of suffocation, these were all things she'd almost forgotten as her spirit healed these many years at Hogwarts. And knowing what it is, knowing it would soon be over, did not make the experiencing any easier than the first time she'd had an attack so many years ago in the alley outside the Familiar.

She'd been dreaming of her first year teaching, a dream so realistic that she'd had to force herself to remember the present when she came out of it. She'd dreamed of Trelawney and Sprout, so eager to bring her into the fold, so eager to share the gossip of this place. They'd huddled about her in the staff room, told her about Hooch, about the husband who'd hit her in front of several staff members, about his mysterious disappearance, about Dumbledore's odd reluctance to mount a full investigation.

She'd dreamed of Hooch back then, her eyes hollow, deep dark circles, her soul a skeletal remain of the girl she'd known in school. She dreamed of how she'd fought the desire to go to her, to comfort her and heal her. How she'd let her suffer, how easily she'd allowed Deanna to hate and hurt as much as she herself hated and hurt.

Minerva dreamed of how it felt to become Professor McGonagall, to become that bespectacled woman, that proper woman, who intimidated first years and professors alike. Her dreams had remembered the process she'd used to systematically devour her vulnerabilities and transform them into cold, pristine confidence. All this she dreamed about in the timeless, shapeless void of sleep.

Then the dream had shifted to that horrible day, only three weeks or so into her first term teaching, when Trelawney had heard her voices. She had looked at her with the clearest of eyes and whispered of death, of shattering glass and running feet, of a dark man falling from the sky. She'd stared at Minerva in horror as she said this, and even now, as the dream faded, Minerva felt the pang of guilt and fear in her stomach. She'd been exonerated, true. It had been self-defense, right? Michael had never believed in safety nets; it was only justice that he died as he'd lived.

But Trelawney, Trelawney could have ruined her in a single moment, if she hadn't managed to keep her wits about her. Even now, fifteen years later, she was much crueler to Trelawney than necessary, mocking her ruthlessly, discrediting her in front of students and teachers alike. How close she'd come to the truth in that one, rare flash of insight, Trelawney herself didn't know. And she never would.

Minerva's head sank into the pillow as she listened to Deanna's soft breathing. It felt so good, just being here next to each other. As students, they'd never had the luxury of a bed, finding their pleasure where they could, mostly in a secluded grove on the far end of the grounds. Now, it seemed so natural to be here, side by side as the wee hours of the morning crept by.

Fear was already beginning to play at her. Dumbledore would take the secret of Michael to his grave; she felt sure of that. If the truth got out, she doubted her teaching record would do her much good against the public outrage over the scandal.

Gods and goddesses, Puss, Minerva thought with a dry mouth. As if you haven't got enough skeletons in your closet. And now here she was, sharing a bed with a fellow teacher, and a woman at that, a woman with a past seemingly as checkered as her own.

The panic threatened again, her breath choking in her throat as she tried to ponder what her life would become without Hogwarts, without her beloved students, without the friends she'd come to know. Tears formed in her eyes, but she rubbed them away angrily.

These were the 70s, she thought, the beginning of a new era. Just last year, the Americans had rioted at the Stonewall club, sending a shockwave through the world. Gay rights, they yelled these days, to anyone who would listen. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe she wouldn't be fired. Maybe she wouldn't have to hide anymore....

She could hear Billie's voice in her head as clearly as if he were standing next to her. Quiet, puss, he whispered in her thoughts, don't worry so much. You're in love. Enjoy it. She smiled. Billie would never let her worry herself out of the bliss she felt, underneath the fear and paranoia. He would force her to enjoy it, and force her to let herself be loved.

Maybe it would be alright, she thought, yawning. Maybe I won't dream about Michael tonight. Maybe I won't have to keep running. Maybe I'll have a home of my own, here at Hogwarts.

She reached out to stroke Deanna's shoulder. The woman had hogged all the covers--why did it not surprise her that Deanna was a cover hog, she mused happily.

Morning was still hours away, and they'd have a time getting Deanna out of there before anyone was about. But it didn't matter. Minerva curled into the sheet, dozing off with the image of her lover in her eyes. It didn't matter at all.

***

Minerva's Bedroom, 'Round 4 a.m.

Deanna woke with a start. It was late, and she had to take a moment to remember where she was.

Minerva lay sleeping next to her, arms and legs flayed about like someone who had spent years getting used to having a bed all to herself. She'd draped the sheet across her torso, keeping her legs and arms bare to the moonlight. Her hair fell across the pillow in a sex-mussed wreck. She's going to have a devil of a time with it in the morning, Deanna thought sleepily as she leaned back on her pillow to watch the woman sleep.

She'd made a rule or two in her own time, Deanna had. And one of them was that, regardless of whom she went to bed with, she had no desire to wake up next to that person in the morning. Ever since Ashton died, and there had been many since Ashton died, she'd followed that rule to a man, and woman.

But it was Minerva who lay next to her now, her eyes moving rapidly under her lids in deep dream sleep, her face worried and her body restless.

Deanna didn't need telepathy to know who and what her lover was dreaming about. She leaned over, wrapping the sleeping woman in her arms as she whispered, "Feet on ground, love. Don't slip." She kissed Minerva's forehead, and the woman seemed to calm in her dream state. "I won't let you fall."

This time, when the sun came up, she'd still be there.

The End