Rating:
PG-13
House:
Astronomy Tower
Characters:
Minerva McGonagall
Genres:
Slash Angst
Era:
Multiple Eras
Spoilers:
Order of the Phoenix
Stats:
Published: 12/19/2004
Updated: 12/19/2004
Words: 13,574
Chapters: 1
Hits: 1,742

It Was All on Account of the Little Russian Girl

Fabio P. Barbieri

Story Summary:
And so, when Minerva McGonagall saw Dolores in the Hogwarts SCR, with a triumphant smile hovering over her lips and threatening every second to break out, she knew what it was about. In that smile lay the horrors that Dolores would single-mindedly pursue for a whole academic year: the pursuit of Dumbledore, the assault on Minerva’s prize student Harry Potter, even the attempted murder in the night near Hagrid’s hut. Minerva doubted that Umbridge had ever had any loyalty for anyone but herself. It was not about ambition, cruelty, or deception – at least, not primarily; for all these things could be indulged just as easily elsewhere... It was all on account of the little Russian girl.

Posted:
12/19/2004
Hits:
1,271


It Was All on Account of the Little Russian Girl

I

It took a while. At first, Minerva McGonagall did not recognize Dolores Jane Umbridge. She had changed almost beyond belief; even though Minerva had known, long ago, that Dolores' beauty would not last.

When she first saw Dolores, at the Touch of Venus pub, the younger woman had been a well-built, pale-skinned enchantress, with engagingly irregular features, a long but sexy mouth (Minerva might have thought of Carly Simon or Barbra Streisand, had she known anything about either of them), a dusting of slight freckles and a big head of wispy blonde curls; a kind of beauty that the older woman had already seen, almost overnight, collapse into a scrawny, spinsterish set of lines and folds. And that had been in Martha, a former girlfriend, possibly the only person she had ever been serious about. Martha had taken it well - on the surface; but she had started to hide in her house, and, while she still wrote long and amusing letters to Minerva, she kept finding excuses not to have her over. Clearly she did not like to show her withered and chapfallen figure to the person who had known it so well in the days of her grace.

And yet... Martha was a generous, kindly soul; and, while Minerva knew perfectly well that she had suffered from the brutal decline in her looks, she also knew that it had not been allowed to sour her. She knew that Martha's home was a real powerhouse of benefactions to good causes and needy wizards and witches, and that the same person who was so unhappy about showing her face in public had no problems at all about letting her money, her influence, and her own magical powers, go where they were needed. Minerva had more than once received charming, confidential letters, calling on her to unobtrusively help this or that unhappy, unfortunate person. And when she looked at this woman, what struck her was not how like, but how unlike Martha she was. Sure, physically they were close; they might almost have been sisters. But Minerva could not feel the generosity, the openness of spirit, that her lover had had back in the good old days; nor the mad helter-skelter sense of fun, that had briefly drawn "Tortoise McGonagall," as Martha liked to call her, out of her shell. ("Not tortoise - kitten!" That is what she had used to answer; and her insides briefly twisted at the memory.)

Physically, this woman was attractive enough; "I would not pitch her out of my bed if I found her there," thought Minerva with a cynicism that would have startled her students. But she would not have made any effort to get her into bed, either. For out of this woman, there came no generosity, no openness, no fun; there came nothing. She sat there and looked and looked and looked at the customers.

.........................................................................................................................

Minerva's relationship with the Touch of Venus pub was peculiar. It was the only lesbian witches' pub in London - so far as she knew, in the British Isles; to go there was as much as to fly a flag over one's broomstick. The clientele was composed in equal parts of hardened adventuresses, bored housewitches out for a fling, and curious schoolgirls; the beer and food were rarely inspired, and it was clear that the staff tended to cruise on the fact that they had an established customer base.

Yet Minerva rarely came to look for company. For one thing, she had never regarded herself as attractive, and her youth was past. And while she had no doubt about her identity, she had no very strong sex drive. She could go without sex for months without missing it. On the rare occasions when she was approached, she usually said yes, unless there was some good reason to refuse that particular person; but she did not initiate pursuit; she sat with her glass of Laophroaig (procured especially for her by management, after some pressure) and watched the world go by. The lesbian-witch world, at least.

So why did she come to the Touch of Venus? Sometimes she had wondered. She supposed it was equal parts of habit; of a certain desire to assert her identity; of pleasure in a like-minded community; and of curiosity, an itch to know what was going on. One of Minerva's many cat features was curiosity, and in the Touch of Venus she managed to unobtrusively satisfy it time and time again. It was never without gossip and rumour and aggressively flaunted affairs and break-ups; and the most unexpected women would turn up and make quite a show of cruising.

And when Maria Dolores Juana Gutierrez began to be a regular at the Touch of Venus, it did not take Minerva long to find out all about her. Not that she found her very interesting: a Beauxbatons graduate who had moved to England, there was little that was notable about her except her looks and her determination to climb the Ministry ladder in a hurry.

.........................................................................................................................

At the time, Minerva was only working part-time as a probationer in Hogwarts; the rest of her time she spent in London, in a tiny Ministry office. "It has always been my experience," Dumbledore had said to her, squashed between desk and bookcase, when he first had visited her, "that the best in the Ministry is often found in the obscure little corners... Are you aware," and she had been surprised at how piercing his glance suddenly was, "that half the Unspeakables are working on stuff that you set into motion?"

"Probably," she answered.

"And you do not care?"

"I would if I wanted a promotion. But I'm unmarried," (Dumbledore smiled to himself) "and don't need money or position. And I don't care for feathers in my cap. They'd look ridiculous on me," she concluded, her Scotch intonation very evident.

"You don't mind that someone else takes credit for your work?"

"What matter, if the work gets done?"

For a split-second, Dumbledore was stunned. The woman meant it, it was clear: it simply did not occur to her that personal prestige had anything to do with success in research. Then he smiled. "Well, Madam McGonagall, it's not a promotion I'm offering you. It's a different job.

"Now that I have been promoted to full Headmaster, I can no longer teach Transfiguration. Hogwarts needs a new expert, and according to the views of the ten or so people whose opinion I respect, you are the best prospect in this country."

There was some silence.

"I can't say I haven't thought about it, Headmaster. Of course I could foresee that the need would arise... and, unless you can get hold of Irina Gingiskanova or Guru Maharaja Sudharma Sacchidananda, I think that, technically speaking, I am as good a prospect as any." She then fell silent again. "You realize, of course, that I am no teacher? I am perfectly without social skills, and I doubt that I could establish any personal relationship with your students."

"Teachers establish their own styles and methods, Madam. I have found that to insist on everyone being equally open and friendly... is useless, and can be counterproductive. You have a skill that you can communicate, and you are an intelligent woman. You will no doubt find your own way to do so."

"Well, Headmaster, thank you for your confidence. Say that I start with a few lessons, just to see if I can do it, would that suit you? And if I'm not a failure, then you can take me up full time."

II

A few months later, a delegation from Durmstrang came to visit to the Ministry in London and meet one from Hogwarts. Minerva found herself heavily involved in the plans, being in the unusual position of being both a Ministry employee and a prospective Hogwarts teacher. Dumbledore, one way or another, was at the back of this; long before he hired her, she knew that he was keen on this kind of international friendship junkets. Minerva was neutral about their benefits; she did not think that a few days cheek by jowl with people you had never met before, often speaking a language you did not know, really did much to help international understanding. Besides, she did not yet know Dumbledore well.

And this visit had begun under very bad auspices. Even Dumbledore had been visibly put out when it had turned out that the head of the delegation was Durmstrang's freshly nominated Deputy Headmaster, a man of more than dubious reputation. When Dumbledore shook Igor Vladimirovich Karkaroff's hand in the Ministry gardens, it was with an almost visible mental reservation.

It was more in order to avoid Karkaroff's oily face than out of any real curiosity, that she allowed her eyes to rest on the rest of the delegation. She knew most of them - Gongoladze, the specialist in mysterious Asian languages - Von Stammenbach, one of the Dark Arts specialists - Gingiskanova, whom she regarded as a better Transformationer than herself (and Minerva was never other than sparing with praise) - on the other hand, there was that incompetent Barberi - and - good grief, they never said they were bringing students, did they?

No, not a student. Definitely not. A young adult woman. But so small! Can hardly make five feet. And with the proportions of a child - her head was rather large in proportion to her body, emphasized by a thick, marvellous bush of sleek, shiny brown hair. Her smile...

Something was happening to Minerva. Her breath was short, her hands unsteady, as if a shock had gone through her. She suddenly realized that she was staring at the strange little woman in a way that went decidedly beyond manners and sense, and forced her eyes away with an inner jerk. She had to pay attention to Karkaroff... Professor Irina Feofanovna Gingiskanova was coming over. There was a smile of professional respect on her face. She was offering her hand.

"Madam... I mean, Professor... McGonagall. What a pleasure to meet again."

"Likewise, Professor Gingiskanova. But please, call me Minerva."

"I take that as a great compliment... Minerva. Thank you... and, of course, I am Irina Feofanovna to you. Now, I would like to introduce you to my designated successor... surely you heard I am retiring?" For Minerva had suddenly looked shocked.

"No, indeed. Nobody mentioned it. You'll be a great loss to Durmstrang."

"I don't know. I am not a natural teacher, you know. Research is what I do best, and I think I can do it better without dozens of pestilential teen-agers taking their silly hormones into the classroom or in my private office. We are going in opposite directions, it seems... How have you managed?"

"Well, so far they tend to treat me rather like an unexploded petard - sort of respectful and scared. But I'm enjoying it... rather more than I'd have thought, to be honest."

"In that case, you probably are one of the naturals. You are lucky, Minerva, I am not and I know it. So when I found one student who has both major talent as a Transformationer and a natural skill with classes - well, it was only a matter of time...

"Olga? May I introduce you to Minerva McGonagall, whom you heard so much about. Minerva, this is Olga Petrovna Makariyeva, our teacher of Transfiguration from next year."

It was the small woman. Well, thought Minerva to herself, I suppose it was inevitable.

III

Was she even pretty? Minerva's mind kept revolving on Olga over and over. She had a funny-shaped nose, opening out in a flat button rather than a tip; hardly classical. And she rather unwisely did not pluck her eyebrows, which were thick and brown. On the other hand, her forehead was broad and her jaw-line perfect; and Minerva heartily disliked low foreheads and weak chins. And her lips were lovely, softly swelling and of exquisite cut. And her eyes, huge in that small face and pale blue... it took a while to realize that they slanted slightly, with just a suggestion of China. But was she even pretty? It changed with every expression, with every motion, with every angle of light...

No. It was not her features. Her features were strange, unusual enough to be memorable; but the real magic was the animation and the smile. That smile! It darted on and off her lips at the least provocation, luminous and sparkling and adorable; like sunlight on the ever-changing surface of rippling water. Those lips! Minerva talked lively Transfiguration shop, discovering that the girl had a mind - and a remarkably quick one at that; and all the time she had to fight down the impulse to bend over and bite and kiss them. In forty years of life and twenty of sexual activity, she had never been so violently and immediately aroused by anyone; she had not known that it was possible. Olga's little body curved sweetly under the decorous Durmstrang robes, shapely and anything but childish, almost demanding to be held and hugged and cuddled and kissed. Such animation; her words tumbled over each other, hardly able to keep up with the urgency of her thoughts, and that smile sparkled again and again, from the understanding of how funny her broken urgent talk could sound - amused at herself, not shy or embarrassed, and continuously followed by new thoughts, new views, new ideas. Such animation; as if the energy of an ordinary woman, packed in such a small frame, had somehow double the effect; and yet never anything but graceful.

Adorable. That was the word. No matter how obviously unlike a child she was in every way, there still was something of the child, not only in her proportions and huge eyes, but in her energy and grace, and in her sheer openness... what Minerva would almost have called innocence. Minerva had never met less defensiveness or self-concealment in a witch, and certainly never in a Durmstrang teacher. Everything with Olga was on the surface; she wore her heart on her sleeve, and it had never occurred to her that there was any advantage in disguising her emotions.

...............................................................................................................

Minerva could never remember the rest of the evening; except for one scrap of Russian conversation at the Ministry banquet, overheard and understood (she never found it wise to disclose exactly how many languages she spoke), in which Olga told Irina Gingiskanova how you could sometimes tell a really outstanding expert right from the first few words. "Professor McGonagall must be nearly as good as yourself, madam..." And then the crowd had parted them, and she had heard nothing else.

She does remember, and never will forget, how she went to bed, that night, with an ache in her breast that would not go away, an emptiness and need that cried out of her; she remembers hugging a pillow like a sixteen-year-old and crying till it was wet with her tears. For she did not for one minute believe that this heart-stealing twenty-year-old, glowing with charm and sex appeal, would pay her a second look - her, a forty-year-old woman who had never been attractive even at twenty, and who had never taken any particular care of her appearance. Minerva counted herself defeated even before any battle had started. So she literally cried herself to sleep; and woke up unwillingly, dreading the day to come.

The day was structured as a series of four colloquies (seminars) on matters of common magical interest, in two of which Minerva was to have a leading role. She did not know whether to cry off sick to avoid meeting Olga again, or to rush out just for the chance to lay eyes on her, even if it hurt. It did not help that she was almost the first thing she saw, talking to Dumbledore and Professor Gingiskanova with her usual wonderful vivacity; nor that, as soon as she noticed her, she broke out into a warm, luminous, welcoming smile that just melted Minerva's heart. Her hello rang out like the sound of a bell; what a lovely voice she had, Minerva thought - she had not noticed it before. Low and vibrant, full of depth, musical. I hope she sings. I want to hear her sing.

Minerva joined the conversation, which went on without a break through breakfast and into the debating room, changing by almost imperceptible degrees into the first of the four colloquies as people drifted in and joined. Minerva was taking a full and inventive part; showing, indeed, so much animation that Dumbledore's eyebrows rose. Minerva, he knew, was a good, sound, moderately inventive classroom teacher and speaker; but he was not used to hear her indulge in poetic imagery on quite the scale of today, nor to see her take an almost skittish manner. But then it was not Dumbledore that Olga was looking at with shining eyes.

..................................................................................................................

What a day, what a day, what a day! In Olga's company from beginning to end; at seminars, at lunch, in the gardens during the break; discussing, arguing, discovering, agreeing and disagreeing - and always that animation, that sparkle, that ever-reborn smile. (If Minerva had imagined that Albus Dumbledore and Irina Gingiskanova would not realize how things were with her, she would have been grossly wrong. As the day went on, there had been a number of raised eyebrows, exchanged glances, and smiles behind her back. But in fact, she did not have the energy to think of them at all.) So much intellectual space, so many insights, a constant ebullition of new ideas and possible perspectives. The conversations and debates of this single day were to become Minerva's own personal Bible for years to come; she always referred back to them in her research, in her discussion, in her teaching.

But now evening fell; and Irina and Olga left with a few charming words of thanks, to "go play tourist" elsewhere in London, as they said. And Minerva had to decide what to do with herself. Well, there was no choice. She was going to go, and, for the first time, actively fish. Tonight, she did not want to be by herself. Verses written long ago had come back to her; she awoke for the first time to the full horror of the last line -

For now the moon has set,

And the Pleiades; Half-way already

Is the night, the time is going by -

And I sleep here alone.

There was clothing in her closet that she had almost never worn; only enough to know that it made her feel ridiculous. But here and now, it was the only thing that suited. Her ordinary clothes would not do; she wanted clothes with a message. She wanted it clear to all the clientele of the Touch of Venus that she was available. Now anything like a mini-skirt or a basque - anything that showed a lot of skin - would have been absurd. Her figure was not bad for a woman in her forties - she thought, and she was not wrong - but mutton dressed as lamb was not her style, and while she was willing to shock the regulars - who knew her as the woman who sat back and observed, and would not expect her to put out so aggressively - she was not ready to look ridiculous before them all. Thank heaven, then, for this outfit. Martha had bought it for her ten years ago, and she had worn it only once, to please her. Lucky it fit still - with a little pushing and pulling... A heavy, ankle-length cloak, elaborately embroidered in black on black with runes of power and desire and lust, and complex magical designs; designed to billow open around her body as she walked - six-inch stiletto heels clicking on the pavement - opening to show its subtly glowing grey inner lining, to outline the body it covered, dressed in impenetrable black from shoulder to toe. Only, under the neck, a V-shaped cut opened like a slash, to show the white of breast and throat, severed half-way across by a black collar studded with jet; and at waist height a number of thin, silver, bejewelled belts interwove, to underline the figure. Her long black hair were tied back tightly in a long ponytail, and her face was framed by a black ivory headpiece with white ivory and pearl inlays. Well, if they recognize me, they will have something to talk about, she thought... she had a crazy impulse to look for a whip... and she smiled grimly to her image in the mirror.

It went pear-shaped. Hoo boy, did it ever go pear-shaped. But in a nice manner. Minerva made straight for the Touch of Venus, practicing her aggressive six-inch stiletto swaying walk as she went. And then she spotted a small figure before her, wearing a little Bordeaux-purple dress and a jacket, with a thick bush of brown hair, heading in the same direction. She thought she recognized her, and her breath went short. Ahead of her, street after street, the little brown-haired figure went, occasionally checking the road layout in what was clearly an AtoZ or Nicholson's guide to London; but as they walked, Minerva's longer legs gained inexorably. The little person turned, gave her a look (Minerva's heart stopped for a second), and went on. Closer and closer they came, neither addressing the other; neither, perhaps, had the nerve. And it was only as they reached the pub that she caught up with her was sure, what her beating heart and quivering nerves had long been telling her, that it was indeed Olga; as if it was intended. And Olga looked at her again...

"Professor McGonagall?" she said, star-like eyes opening wide, in utter, virgin astonishment.

I go out most nights
Attracted by the lights
Listen to the jazz in Harry's Bar
And I know it won't be long
Before they play that song
Do you know how wonderful you are

It's a sentimental sound
Make me wanna fool around
With somebody who is wishing on a star
I'll pull my hat down low
Go up and say hello
Do you know how wonderful you are

To the eyes of all the customers, they had made an entrance as a couple. Minerva realized this, and was terrified. If Olga was here by chance!... by some crazy mistake!... If she did not want her! But Olga did not seem at all discomposed, and, after her second's astonishment at Minerva's presence and outfit, had taken again the air of a person who knows where she is going and is satisfied with what she found. She saw an unoccupied table and sat down.

Minerva asked her what she wanted (a Vodka Martini), and, to Olga's surprise, got up and went to the bar to get it. International understanding, thought Minerva sarcastically; and we never even think of telling foreign guests that British pubs have no waiters, and that you have to take your order at the bar. International understanding, indeed. She came back with their two Vodka Martinis and explained.

"So... what are you doing here?"

"Well, I asked Professor Gingiskanova if she knew where lesbian witches go in Britain, and she mentioned this place."

"Is she...?"

"No," said Olga cheerfully, "strictly boys only. She just knows a lot of things. I always ask her whenever there is something I don't know."

"But you are?"

"Mostly. I've had a boy or two, but I really like women better." And again, the smile; Minerva felt that she would melt into a puddle without her tight dress to hold her together.

"The thing is, tonight I did not want to be alone." And Olga's voice grew low, serious, and hesitant. "I was terrified of asking you out. I did not think you would be interested. I've lost more friends that way... I wanted to be with you very much, so I thought I'd come here and find someone else to spend the night. I did not want to be alone."

Oh we struggle with the art of conversation
And there'll be those for whom this song has no appeal
But I know it works for me
And I'm sure you will agree
That it illustrates exactly how I feel

Things can happen fast
Some things are built to last
I've seen it all go down in Harry's Bar
Though we've only just begun
This sure will run and run
Do you know how wonderful you are

"I cannot believe it. I simply cannot believe I could be so lucky. Beautiful young girls like you don't go for old bats like me."

The conversation had shifted to Russian. And this was strange, thought Minerva; no later than yesterday she was thinking how important it was to keep her languages to herself. Now she was just giving herself away to this tiny, clever beauty as if there were no precautions to be observed, distances to be kept, spaces to be left inviolate.

"Do you know, Minerva... Minerva?"

Minerva realized that she was asking for the patronymic. "My father was called John, Olga Petrovna."

"Oh. Minerva Ivanovna, then. Well... Do you know what I see when I look at you, Minerva Ivanovna?"

"No. I honestly can't imagine."

"I see discipline. I see a sense of control, of focus, of... it's hard to explain, because I am sounding like it's something aggressive, and it's really not. I see..." she stuttered, came to a halt, started again... "focus. A concentration on what is important. Almost ascetic, but there is no violence or contempt for others. You like people... you just don't let them get in the way. You are like a ray of light focussed through a lens, and I think it's beautiful."

She stopped, and then started again. "It's incredibly English - I mean, sorry -" (for she had suddenly seen Minerva's eyes flash) "I mean British, Scottish... What I mean is, it's not Russian. This natural discipline... Discipline, to us, comes from outside, or not at all."

"It seems a strange reason to find someone attractive."

"It is! It is a reason, Minerva Ivanovna! You can have no idea... for you it's just natural, it's the way that you live. But it is something great... it's what makes you a great scholar, and it shines out in everything you do and you say.

"Besides," she said, stuttering again in her stumbling eagerness to find words for her feelings, "it's not the only thing that is incredibly attractive about you. There is also that... how can I say it... objectivity. Commonsense. Being down to earth. Not using big abstractions to show how clever you are. A simplicity of style... but lively, open... And that, too, is incredibly British. We don't see so much of it on the Continent."

A slight flush came to Minerva's cheeks, and a shadow of a smile to her lips. "I had never thought that sort of thing could seem seductive."

"Oh, Minerva Ivanovna... so wise, and you cannot see it?" Olga looked upwards, straight into Minerva's eyes. "You cannot see yourself?"

It was a breathtaking appeal, wide-eyed and utterly undefended, with something between a smile and a plea on those wonderful lips; a monk sworn to celibacy could not have ignored it, thought Minerva. It may be that I do not know that I am attractive, but, my goodness, this creature has no idea that she could simply snap her fingers and demand, and men and women would rush to satisfy her. She genuinely does not know how stunning she is.

Minerva had no intention whatever of resisting. Their Russian conversation may have been incomprehensible to most of the locals, but nobody could doubt the meaning of what happened when the tall older woman bent over, and, with one swooping movement, swept the tiny one into her arms, crushing her breast against hers and her lips against her lips - kissing passionately, without restraint, for minutes at a time, and being kissed back.

I've always struggled with the art of conversation
And there'll be those for whom this song has no appeal
But I know it works for me
And I'm sure you will agree
That it illustrates exactly how I feel

Things can happen fast
Some things are built to last
I've seen it all go down in Harry's Bar
Though we've only just begun
This sure will run and run
Do you know how wonderful you are
Do you know how wonderful you are
Do you know how wonderful you are

IV

Things began to go wrong almost from the start. Minerva and Olga lived at different speeds; Olga was always rushing headlong into things, while Minerva, while capable of cat-like speed and deftness when needed, was most like cats in her deliberation and desire not to be hurried. The younger woman managed to be underfoot an amazing, and ultimately irritating, number of times. And Olga found that it was one thing to admire the focus and discipline of the likes of Minerva, and another to live with it. The two had unwisely moved into Minerva's little London flat together on the very night they met at the Touch of Venus, and almost from the next morning, Olga felt - unfairly, no doubt - that she was the target of a shower of silent criticism.

It was not that she was not self-critical. She loved to laugh at herself; indeed, she loved to act the clown. Their happiest times together were when she fooled around. How could Minerva not laugh out loud, watching the solemn, femme fatale-style way in which she brought a cigar to her lips and lit it, acting a golden-age Hollywood star? She had never looked more like a child; and Minerva would hug her and laugh till she cried.

But Olga had never realized what it would be like to live with a woman with very high standards and intensely set in her ways. Her own mother had never been so bad. Every crumb out of place drew a swift and pitiless glance. Minerva never even realized that her constant attention to detail could be hurtful; it never even occurred to her that Olga would notice. But Olga had big, quick, noticing eyes, and a quick, noticing, sensitive mind. And every time that she saw Minerva pick up or clean after her, she felt smaller and more squashed.

And her hours! Olga slept fourteen hours a day; it was something like the other side of the hummingbird energy she showed in the remaining ten. The first time Minerva had seen her pretty head start to droop about ten in the evening, she had asked her whether she had had a hard day; for it never occurred to Minerva that anyone might go to sleep so early. Minerva rose at half past five and rarely went to sleep before midnight. Sometimes she would wake Olga going to bed, and then it was Olga who remained awake half the night and was clumsy and morose the next day.

The sex wasn't good either. Neither woman had a lot of experience, and their approaches were incompatible. Early on, Minerva actually shrieked in pain as Olga touched her; and Olga, in her turn, had had to resort to doing things by herself because Minerva just did not seem to understand how to please her. They talked about it, but they never quite seemed to get the hang of each other's bodies.

The last straw was the silliest. Minerva turned into her Animagus form one day; and it turned out that Olga was violently allergic to cat hair.

In a minute, they were shouting at each other like fishwives.

"If you'd had any consideration for me, you'd have told me first! A cat! A damned cat!"

"I couldn't know, could I?"

"You didn't know that people get allergies? And you are meant to be such a clever mind, too!"

Minerva grew colder as Olga got hotter. "I think," she said, Scottish accent particularly strong under strain, "you are beside yourself. You'd do well to fall silent a wee while, and reflect."

"Don't do that to me, Minerva Ivanovna! Don't you dare talk to me like a child!"

"Not a child, just..." - but Olga was out of control.

"You do it all the time!" she bellowed in Russian; "you are always straightening things out after me and correcting me and acting like you were a mommy and I was a silly girl! I didn't sign up for this! I'm not here to be taught, Minerva Ivanovna, I'm here to be a partner! If you cannot live with that, then I'll leave and find myself someone who respects me, and bloody good riddance!"

"Olga Petrovna," answered Minerva in her own language, "I am surprised. It sounds to me as if you had issues that you had been waiting to throw at me, and the cat hairs were an excuse. If I cannot make you happy, I am sorry; but I do not desire to be abused in my own rooms. Kindly remember that you are a guest here."

That was unforgivable. Even a less sensitive person than Olga Petrovna Makariyeva would have resented hearing her own lover call her a guest. Indeed, by this time, enough unforgivable things had been said on both sides; but the row went on for a long time, dying down into an angry silence - the prelude to an inevitable conclusion. That night, Minerva slept on the couch; and Olga did not sleep at all. Come morning, she started packing.

There'll be no strings to bind your hands

Not if my love can't bind your heart.

And there's no need to take a stand

For it was I who chose to start.

I see no need to take me home,

I'm old enough to face the dawn.

Just call me angel of the morning ANGEL

Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby.

Just call me angel of the morning ANGEL

then slowly turn away from me.

Two weeks. Two weeks of what had started as the greatest happiness Minerva had ever felt. And as she looked at Olga, she knew that she had never been more in love. Olga had never seemed more lovely, more deeply desirable, than at that moment of final separation; never more accessible, more open, less defensive. Minerva was incapable to make her imagination understand that they must twine; that there were basic reasons why she could not live with this beautiful, honest, guileless creature. She bent over to drop a tiny, heartbroken kiss on the funny squashed tip of Olga's nose. "At least," she said, trying to keep her voice steady, "I can say that I have been loved by the most lovely creature I ever met... at least for a wee while. I owe you a lot for that."

Maybe the sun's light will be dim

And it won't matter anyhow.

If morning's echo says we sinned,

Well, it was what I wanted now.

And if we're the victims of the night,

I won't be blinded by light.

Olga could not say anything. She had expected McGonagall to rage and fight; she had almost hoped for it, with an irrational feeling that another bout of shouts and mutual charges might in some manner break down the wall that had so quickly risen between them. Instead, she saw the older woman giving up without a fight, even though anyone could see it was tearing her apart inside. Oh, these British! - she thought to herself. Why must you always be good losers? Why do you have to be gentlemen or gentlewomen and suffer in silence? You should be raging at me, Minerva; slapping my face; or forcing me into your arms in a storm of tears and telling me that you would never forget me. But you are all so scared of exposing yourselves... And yet, she found herself acting the same, saying a composed and polite good-bye as though she had not briefly hoped to spend the rest of her life side by side with the great scholar.

Just call me angel of the morning ANGEL

Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby.

Just call me angel of the morning ANGEL

Then slowly turn away,

I won't beg you to stay with me

Through the tears of the day,

Of the years, baby baby baby.

Just call me angel of the morning ANGEL

Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby.

V

Minerva meant what she said. She had briefly felt loved by someone as exquisite and precious as a diamond. And it was true that she did not feel quite as awful as on that first night, when she had been certain that she could never achieve the thing that she ached for. At least, now she had the memories of her golden little body and her sun-like smile, her slanting eyes and her quick stuttering talk. On one precious afternoon, she had even heard her sing.

But that did not mean that she did not ache. She dragged herself through grey days and awful nights, pulled by the demands of her work, unable not to think, not to remember.

One late evening she realized that this simply could not go on. She called on Dumbledore and she asked whether she had proved acceptable as a schoolteacher. Years later, when she had come to know him well, she realized that he must have understood what was at the back of her question; for he not only told her without hesitation that she had - which was no more than the truth - but made immediate arrangements for her to move into Hogwarts and leave her London flat with its horrible memories. It was only when she had been a teacher for a few years and become familiar with the delicacies of administration and teacher relations, that she understood how unusual this prompt move had been; and that it came to her, all at once, that Dumbledore must have understood what she was going through.

..................................................................................................................

When she moved in, Trinity term had not yet begun. Minerva knew Hogwarts well enough, as well as all the generations of wizards and witches who had lived and worked there; she had done all her seven years of study there as a child, and her time as a probationer in Michaelmas and Hilary terms had refreshed her memories as well as giving her valuable new information. But she had never seen the great castle except when crowded with children, and indeed had never stopped to think how it would be without them - all the ample, echoing, empty spaces, the monumental furniture and the paintings, the Gothic decorations on the ceiling. She slowly walked the length and breadth of the school; conscious that in a few hours all that calm, solemn grandeur would be overrun by hundreds of small, whizzing bundles of energy, running and calling, playing and fighting, laughing, mocking each other and quarrelling. There was something about the great, solemn spaces, that spoke to her; something that said that teaching and wisdom are things beyond the daily, the everyday, the mundane... that what she was there to do had its roots in time and eternity: that she was there to be the lens through which what was undying and eternal would shine to her students.

It was just as well that she did, and that she came to feel this - which she never confided to anyone else, except to Dumbledore, much later. For this unspoken, inner certainty became the anchor to which she was to cling when another inner storm threatened to overwhelm her.

It started two days later, when she had her first Transfiguration class with an older group - fifth-year Ravenclaws. Student after student noticed; Minerva herself was the last to realize, because one does not realize when one is going quietly and suddenly mad. Your actions always seem fair and reasonable to you; you rarely perceive the break, even the violent break, with the way you had used to think and behave. So it was with Minerva that day.

Put it simply, Minerva was all but flirting with Jackie Verona, a young Jewish witch.

Half her questions seemed aimed at her, and they managed to have a complimentary edge that was completely out of character. Now Jackie was not a particularly good student, nor in any other way eminent; she came as close as Ravenclaw House would permit to mediocrity. But she was small, shapely and attractive, and her big bush of brown hair looked exactly like Olga's; and she blushed very prettily when embarrassed.

Minerva only realized what she was doing when she caught the vulgar glances of a couple of the more worldly female students. She then noticed that Jackie looked uncomfortable. An ugly flush spread over her cheeks. Fortunately the class was almost finished, because she really did not know how she was going to recover from her realization. And what, in the Eternal's name, had come over her?

Next class was seventh-year Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs; and she found her attention held, as helpless as if in chains, by Annelore Franke, who was not even very attractive, but had a figure exactly like Olga's. And when she forced her attention from her, it was only to be captured by Molly Prewett, who was red-haired and slightly taller, but curvy, pretty and vivacious in a way that reminded her of... oh, my God. And suddenly she knew what she felt.

She was, unmistakeably, excited. Aroused. She realized that she was thinking of Olga's little body; and that she was... My God, what has happened to me? What have I become?

In the days when Minerva had lived quietly and on her own, doing her duty at the Ministry and visiting the Touch of Venus from time to time, there were few things for which she had felt less pity than teacher-student relationships. Nothing had disqualified old Armando Dippet in her eyes, so much as the revelation of his senile passion for a recent Hogwarts graduate (Slytherin, of course, she thought with a sneer), whose rumour had run through the wizarding world like wildfire. There was nothing formally wrong with it; the girl was of age, and Dippet had just resigned from Hogwarts headmaster; but the thought of the frail old wizard and the blooming young bride, his student no more than yesterday, had turned her stomach. And now she herself was... unmistakeably... her students. Her students! From the depths of her being rose disgust against herself.

Night had come without bringing her any relief. Sleepless, uncomfortable, tired, her thoughts writhing, writhing, writhing on themselves - she slipped her feet into the first pair of sandals she found and forced herself up. Maybe a walk around the castle would do her good. Maybe... the corridors were dark, carved by the strong silver light of the full moon. Nobody was to be seen. The enchantment was different from what she had experienced before the start of term - more charged with mystery, with shadow. Already weary, careless, devoured by her inner pain, the spells of the castle found it easy to make her lose herself. The cold wind of the morning woke her up, curled up in a cramped, aching ball under the crenellations of the outer wall.

Minerva changed, that day; in an instant, and for ever. All the students noticed her sudden alteration, an almost physical shift. A stern and lowering expression seized her, something more than her usual dry and matter-of-fact manner. All at once, she was forbidding, severe, rigid. But they did not realize - and nor would decades of succeeding students, who all became used to that rigid attitude - that it was not against them that she was raising that barrier; it was against herself.

VI

She saw Olga once. She went to the Touch of Venus one evening and sat there, trying to keep her eyes on the regulars, her attention on their everlasting affairs and feuds; and all the time her heart was beating at the thought of Olga, their meeting, the chair and table where they had sat. And suddenly the door opened - and Minerva could have been looking at herself. Olga was coming in, wearing the very same little dress and jacket she had worn that night; arm in arm with a taller woman dressed mostly in leather. But it was not at herself that Minerva stood and stared for one incredulous second: it was at Maria Dolores Juana Gutierrez.

Olga, of course, saw her straight away; her eyes never missed anything. And Olga was not cruel or vulgar; she immediately toned down the happy prattle and enamoured smile she had been directing at Maria Dolores. Clearly she did not want Minerva to feel that she was gloating, showing off her new love.

Minerva watched, her pain momentarily overlain by sardonic amusement, the effect of little Olga on the crowd. When she had last been there, she had been too taken with her little escort to observe the Touch's clientele as she usually did. Now she could see that the Olga effect did not strike her alone. Everywhere conversations stuttered or stopped, heads turned, questions were whispered. Dolores, herself handsome, walked with the unmistakeable pride of someone with something quite extraordinary on her arm. And when Minerva's eyes caught hers, she saw, lurking at the back of her bland smile, an air of triumph that the Scotswoman found irredeemably ugly.

...............................................................................................................

It was in these days that Dumbledore won her eternal gratitude. It had of course been he who had noticed the change in her first. But he also swiftly perceived that any attempt to penetrate her secret would be stubbornly resisted. She did not want to open herself to anyone; her mind was bristling with defence. He followed her with concern, but her classroom performance did not seem to be suffering; if anything, this new stern persona seemed to help, imposing more respect on the students.

Minerva was perfecting a private ritual that she performed every morning and every evening; simply sitting on a hard wooden chair, letting her mind empty itself of emotion and thought until it was completely calm. She found that it was necessary to keep herself on an even keel. Things could never be the same again. Here among hundreds of fresh young faces, many attractive, most animated and charming, she was everlastingly in the way of temptation. She could not afford to feel it - now, or tomorrow, or ever. And so, every morning and every evening, Minerva fought her lonely battle in her own room; every morning and every evening she speared her own inner dragon to death; only to find it again in her path, inescapably, every morning and every evening.

But there was a time when she wanted to speak, to remember, to go back to days that meant as much as life herself to her. And Dumbledore approached her, still shy and proud, the junior member of staff, unwilling to open herself to any of the tight-knit community of teachers of whom she did not yet feel a part; spoke with her with delicacy and fatherly warmth; and then sat and listened as she spoke of Olga by the hour, never showing any annoyance or boredom, paying attention, answering intelligently and with kindness. He was the only one who understood.

VII

Summer came, and autumn; and, for the first time since her schooldays, Minerva was looking forwards to a full academic year at Hogwarts. Her spirits had risen with the summer, but the summer had been all too brief. The next day was the start of the academic year. Like the first day she had moved in, she decided to spend the last few hours before the Hogwarts Express' arrival walking around the building, deliberately opening herself to the impersonal awe and timeless grandeur of its empty halls penetrated by shafts of light. Like many other things, this was to become a private ritual, never shared with or explained to others, a personal source of meaning and value.

She was now the full-time Transfiguration teacher, a post that ranked with the most senior in Hogwarts. Having spent all her life avoiding notice, notice had come to her unexpectedly; and, on the whole, in a guise that did not displease her. She had worried about other teachers being jealous and obstructive, but in general had noticed nothing. In point of fact, she had impressed everyone with her unfussy efficiency and brilliance; and the one person whose temperament might have threatened jealousy and meddling, young Severus Snape, was himself barely promoted from student teacher to full rank, and was at any rate wholly uninterested in Transfiguration.

The one duty of a Transfiguration teacher that she dreaded was the welcome to the invariably wet and bedraggled first-years on opening day. It involved an element of standing out and showing off that was wholly antipathetic to her. But the day came, and she saw them come in so small and scared and wet and excited, looking around them with big eyes; and her heart went out to them.

This was the last year before the Voldemort problem became serious, and nothing intruded on the cheer and excitement of the occasion. The Hat did its song; the ghosts appeared to oversee the Sorting, and the Bloody Baron and the Fat Friar found especial reason to be satisfied. The children banqueted till they were full; Dumbledore made a brief speech full of jokes; Argus Filch was introduced as the new caretaker, and the children were informed that he would be unlikely to take much nonsense (this was answered by a roar of amused defiance from all ranks). Finally, tired but excited, they made their way to their beds. Minerva then found that she was supposed to follow Professor Semiramis, the Gryffindor Head of House, to inspect the bedrooms; "just see how things are done in Gryffindor, my dear. Confidentially," the elderly DADA teacher told her, "I am thinking you will probably make an excellent Head of House once I am gone." Minerva had felt her stomach sink, and heartily hoped that the sprightly old wizard would see fit to last another thirty years.

When she finally made it to her rooms, she was exhausted. She looked forwards to a tot of Laphroaig and bed; even Minerva McGonagall, after all, had her limits.

Instead of which, she found her fireplace burning violet.

Great. Someone wanted to speak with her - urgently. Merlin knows how long they had been waiting. She pointed her wand at the flames, and Irina Gingiskanova's face appeared.

Immediately Minerva thought of Olga. Had something happened to her? "Good evening, Irina. Is there a problem?"

"Good evening, Minerva. There is. Is Olga Petrovna with you?"

"No! Of course not."

"Are you sure?"

"Irina Feofanovna, I hope I am not so addled that I do not know who is with me!" Then, realizing that she had raised her voice: "I'm sorry, Irina Feofanovna. No, she honestly is not with me. You frightened me. Do you mean she is not at Durmstrang?"

"No. School is about to start, and nobody seems to know where she is. I will have to stand in for her." In the last sentence, there was definite annoyance as well as concern.

"And you haven't been looking at her home?"

"Her home?"

"I mean, I suppose she'll be living with her girlfriend..."

"Her what? Minerva, are you - ?"

"Oh my God, she never told you? Last I heard, she was having a relationship with Dolores Gutierrez of the Department of Muggle Relations at our ministry. I saw them both at the Touch of Venus once."

"Oh... I see." Irina Feofanovna was clearly upset. "I never took her to be fickle."

"Fickle?" And Minerva bridled slightly. She was in no mood to be told that Olga had any flaws.

"Well, I thought you two were in love, weren't you?"

"Oh... Yes, I suppose I was. We broke up. We found we were incompatible.

"But don't call her fickle, Irina. She just could not live with me, and it was mostly my fault. But I know that she has not forgotten me. It's just that, well, I suppose Madam Gutierrez can give her something that I cannot."

The conversation ended swiftly after that, because Professor Gingiskanova wanted to track down Dolores Gutierrez and see if she could help. But it left Minerva worried and upset. If anything had happened to Olga... That night she slept even less than usual. Why give up her teaching post, anyway? Even if her lover lived in London, Olga would not have had any problem in Apparating daily from London to Durmstrang and back by magical means. In her worst moments, Minerva had reassured herself by thinking that, at least, somewhere in London, Olga was alive and happy. Now she was no longer sure; her last thread to her love had snapped.

VIII

It was one Friday evening late in Trinity term, as she performed the calming rite, already exhausted in the run-up to exams, that she saw the door of her room open by itself. She heard the tap of feet, and thought she recognized them; the soft swish of an Invisibility Cloak - a sound which not every magician could have identied; and a strange drip-drip-drip. And suddenly Minerva felt her heart stop in her breast, as she recognized the disincarnate voice that spoke:

"I wish you did not have all those Anti-Apparation spells around Hogwarts. I materialized in a bog six miles out, two hours ago. And in case you hadn't noticed, it's raining outside." And Olga let the Cloak fall off her head, as she smiled a wet and bedraggled but still inexorably enchanting smile.

.......................................................................................................................

The cloak had not yet been shrugged off her shoulders, when, after a perfunctory knock, the door opened, and Dumbledore strode in.

Now, it was in moments like these that the special quality of Dumbledore showed. Most wizards who have perceived an alien presence in their own stronghold, and who enter the private rooms of an associate only to find the disconcerting sight of a head floating in mid-air, could be expected to take some hostile or at least threatening attitude; not Dumbledore. He took off his long wizard's hat in a sweeping bow, and said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world:

"Good evening, Professor Makariyeva."

"Good evening, Professor Dumbledore... well, at least you are. I don't think I can be called professor any more." And a shadow fell on her face.

"I think they will want you back," answered Dumbledore with a smile. "After all, a sorceress who manages to enter Hogwarts uninvited is worth having."

"Actually, Professor, I am impressed. I expected to be found out sooner or later, but not the moment that I arrived. You are a most extraordinary magician."

"Frankly, Olga Petrovna," retorted Minerva, who had recovered her poise, "it does more honour to your power, that you managed to enter Hogwarts at all. Of course the Headmaster was going to know that you were here." Dumbledore smiled and bowed slightly. "And not that I'm not overjoyed to see you, dear... of course I am... but I am curious to hear what brought you here."

Minerva could not mistake the expression that briefly passed over Olga's expressive face. It was pain; pain so recent that she did not want to face it. She did not press her. Olga would tell her in her own time. Meanwhile, there were other issues to address.

It was Dumbledore who got to the point. "You are, of course, a welcome guest, Professor Makariyeva. I shall have a guest-room made ready."

"A guest-room," said Olga. It was not quite a question.

"Yes. I would rather you did not take residence with Professor McGonagall. Not on account of any possible past or future relationship" - for a second, Olga had looked furious, "The private lives of our teachers are their own business, but there are disciplinary reasons why we have a policy of not cohabitating, especially among people of the same sex."

"Disciplinary?"

"Our students are in the age of sexual maturation. Many of them, not only of the younger years, are immature and curious. If they surmised a relationship between teachers, they would find it terribly funny, and start making vulgar jokes about those teachers; their respect for them would diminish, and classes would become more unruly. Especially a homosexual relationship. Children of thirteen or fourteen find it terribly funny to mock 'poofs' and 'dykes'."

"Yes, of course," said Olga quietly. "I had never thought of that, but of course you're right, Headmaster."

"Well, Professor, you are too late for the evening meal, but if you come with me I will show you to your room and have some refreshments sent over. If you want to visit Professor McGonagall afterwards, I should make use of that admirable Cloak again."

IX

The "refreshments" promised by Dumbledore turned out to be an ample and delicious supper; the "guest room", a gorgeous Gothic fantasy with separate bedroom and bathroom, an enchanted lyre (someone had informed Dumbledore of Olga's love for music), a wizarding wireless, and a lovely selection of books including some advanced Transfiguration treatises. Fed, washed, and changed, Olga felt - well, not so much like a new woman, but at least less like a fright. She still was tense. The last few days had been tremendously stressful, and the last few hours, what with the rain, her flight from London, extensive use of magic to enter Hogwarts, the awe-inspiring beauty of the castle itself, the high nervous tension as she walked, invisible, the corridors, looking for Minerva's rooms, Minerva, Minerva - her face... - all of it had left her on edge, unrelaxed and restless. She could not sleep. She put on her invisibility cloak again.

As she made her way through the deserted corridors (the local poltergeist managed to sense her, but she warned him off with a well-placed Durmstrang hex), her mind was revolving, over and over, the traumatic events of the last weeks... heck, of the last months. Her thoughts were like rats on a treadmill, caught in a vicious circle of doubt and self-doubt, intensely guilty. Even now, she was more than unsure that her chosen course was right. Caught in the whirl of her doubts, she did not know what she would do five minutes from now; but she knew that she did not want to be alone that night. She sought Minerva, not for an answer one way or another - she did not know if she even wanted to tell her the facts - in fact, she did not know whether they could be called facts - but to have something, someone, to cling to.

She was still wearing the Cloak as she opened Minerva's door - and froze. A familiar voice came from Minerva's inner chamber. She cannot be here, wailed Olga's spirit within her; she cannot have tracked me down already...

Holding to the Invisibility Cloak as a drowning man clutches at a straw, she staggered, driven by a horrible compulsion, in the direction of the voice.

Minerva's fireplace was burning violet, framing Dolores Gutierrez's face.

......................................................................................................................

"...if she left, Madam Gutierrez, she left. I cannot force her to go back to you."

"Of course not. I would not want you to. I just want a few minutes face to face with her. Without magic. Look, you can place me in a Magic-Dampening Room and confiscate my wand, if you suspect that I might be trying anything illegal."

"Oh, I hardly think that will be necessary."

"So you will let me speak with her?" Behind Minerva, unseen and unheard, Olga was struggling not to scream, no, no, no!

"When she wishes, Madam Gutierrez. Not earlier."

"But..."

"Madam Makariyeva is an adult. We cannot give her orders, and we have no authority over her. And no, before you ask, she hasn't come back to me and I don't want her to."

At first Olga could hardly bring herself to believe what she was hearing; then a wave of relief swept over her, so intense that she felt her legs might not hold her. Someone was resisting Dolores. Someone was not allowing her to use her powers of conviction. Someone was not allowing what Olga feared most: to be left alone with Dolores, exposed to her arguments... to feel, perhaps, that the others, Dumbledore, Minerva, were really on Dolores' side. It was so easy to believe her. It was so easy to be stampeded. Thank God for a stubborn Scotswoman, thank God ...

"Nobody is questioning your principles, Madam McGonagall. I am just telling you this: that Olga was happiest when she was with me. She knows it. I love her and I want to make her happy."

The silence from Minerva was an answer in itself. It was the kind of silence that said, Yes, that's why she allowed herself to materialize in a peat bog and slog six miles through hostile spells, Scottish mud and driving rain just to find somewhere to hide from you.

"If you do not believe me, you can ask her yourself. Ask her if I was not able to make her happy... I don't mean only in bed, but in providing an environment in which she could work and blossom and flourish. Someone so gifted and beautiful should by rights be at the leading edge of the wizarding world."

"She was elected to a full professorship at Durmstrang at 20. That doesn't seem so bad to me." And you got her to give it up - Minerva left this unsaid, but if reverberated in the silence between them.

"Oh, no doubt it is an excellent thing in its way. I would be the last to downgrade the work of a teacher. But Olga is capable of much better... Do you know what she is actually fleeing? Has she even told you?"

"She will tell us when she's ready."

"I, on the other hand, will tell you now. What she is escaping is a proposal of marriage from James Kinsey. One of the highest-placed bureaucrats and Purebloods in the Ministry."

Minerva was staggered. Whatever she had been expecting, it was not this. Surely a marriage proposal, however obnoxious, was not something to flee so desperately? And what did that have to do with not taking up her post at Durmstrang? There was something here that was not being said.

"Olga doesn't like men."

"As a matter of fact, she does. If she had stayed with you a bit longer, sooner or later you would have found her as I did, snogging the neighbours' boy on the sofa."

Bitch, thought the invisible Olga. You know perfectly well that you had driven me up the wall all week. I was sick of your pestering and of your use of sex for blackmail.

"So, if she tells you that, she is not saying the truth. Not altogether. She is escaping, yes... from such things as facts and circumstances."

Don't listen to her, Minerva Ivanovna. She always manages to sound rational. She always managed to make it sound as though it was your fault for resisting her plans.

"I can tell you that there is a new party making its way through the upper layers of our society. They are a new version of the old Pureblood movement, and a lot of prominent families - the Malfoys, the Leontynes, the Notts - are rumoured to be involved. They call themselves the Death Eaters.

Minerva had heard of the Death Eaters, of course. But she did not want to give herself away to Dolores by admitting anything that Dolores stated as fact. She remained silent.

"Believe, me, they are dangerous. These people have made deep inroads into the Ministry, and, by the time they are ready to declare themselves, the Ministry will have no power to resist them. I have seen it all happen, and I felt close to despair... When Umbridge told me that he was in love with me, and I knew that Kinsey was falling for Olga, it seemed too good to be true."

Damn you, thought Olga, gritting her teeth till she thought the noise must be audible. As though you had done nothing to make it happen. As though you had not paraded me to that lecherous old moron like a cow to market. As though you had not done it time and again, forced me on his attention till he could look at nothing else. Damn you, Maria Dolores.

"Let me get this straight. You are a lesbian and you propose to marry old David Umbridge for his position?"

"Of course I am. It is a wrench, but what can I do? It is necessary, Professor McGonagall. The Ministry is leaderless. Someone has to take it in hand before the Death Eaters do." Is that your line now, thought Olga. When she had been selling her little plan to her, Dolores had only briefly mentioned the Death Eaters. To Olga, the important thing was to support the part-humans, to build a new platform in the Ministry to encourage progressive measures towards such discriminated races as giants and werewolves.

(Of course, twenty years later, Dolores was to emerge as the most implacably anti-part-human figure in the Ministry, building a platform and even a following on restrictive and persecutory proposals. This was to surprise Olga very much.)

"David Umbridge has proposed to me. I am going to marry him whether Olga helps me or not. But I will not break with her on his account, and he understands that. He is quite willing to have a wife who has a girlfriend. He will be a good husband, and I will be a good wife to him.

"However, once I have really entered politics, Olga cannot really expect to be my partner unless she shares my life, and my life is the Ministry.

"Don't you realize what it would mean - me, Olga, Umbridge and Kinsey moving together? We would form practically a party at the high levels of the Ministry. Between Umbridge at Personnel and Kinsey at the Unspeakables, we would pretty well have a barrier in place against further infiltration by Death Eaters. We can decide who the Ministry hires and fires. We can decide in which direction investigation moves. We can help the Aurors and the Magical Law Enforcement people... There is no limit to what we can do. As for Olga... do you realize that, if she marries the Head of the Division of Mysteries, she will be at the very top of the Unspeakables? She always told me that she loved research; could there be a better position for a talented researcher?

"She is afraid of taking a major position in the wizarding world. She claims to hate politics, which I find a rather cowardly position. I think she has honestly tried to withdraw into her infantile personality --- you know what I mean, Bambi eyes and trying to charm people into letting her off things... but as you said, Madam McGonagall, she is an adult and should be treated as such."

Minerva felt as though her head was spinning. This woman had a way of making you think that black was white. "Cowardly... as you said..." You, indeed! It was like a perversion: not only making it a moral issue, but putting you in the wrong - a refined version of emotional blackmail. If you did not agree with her, if you did not fall in with her plans and her policies, it was because of some moral flaw, something wrong and contemptible in your own make-up. So, that was how she had manipulated poor little Olga... appealing to her sense of values and prospects of playing a great role in the great movements of the age... even some temptation to be heroic. That, and her insistence that she could make Olga "happy"... what did she mean by that, if it involved being pushed off on a lecherous elderly man? Probably, thought Minerva with disgust, the use of sex to manipulate your lover.

Minerva recovered her poise. Her voice rang out, Scottish, clear, and chilly. "Let me explain to you what you were trying to do, Madam Gutierrez. You were trying to prostitute the woman you claim to love, and for purposes that were yours, not hers. You reached and manipulated her to try and make her will a carbon-copy of yours. That you used no magic in this is irrelevant. What you did is wrong by any decent human standards." Minerva wanted to say much more, but she had the feeling that if she went on, she might lose her temper and her fluency, and so she fell into an icy silence.

The face in the fireplace seemed shaken by some powerful emotion, but went swiftly back to its mask-like calm. "You would be more honest, Minerva Ivanovna, if you admitted that you have simply succeeded in getting her back after you had driven her out of your house. Now she has no further chance to grow, and she will become just another second-rank teacher. But I guess that's all right with you, because it means that she will never get the chance to be something greater than what you are." And without waiting for an answer, the face vanished and the flames died down.

Minerva turned - and jumped, as, for the second time that evening, the air opened out before her and revealed Olga's head. Then the rest of her wiggled free from the Invisibility Cloak. She was shaking with sobs.

"Spazeeba, Minerva Ivanovna... thank you so much... without you t-t-to make it clear.... I might have fallen for her again..."

"Yes, she knows how to hit where it hurts. All that stuff about me wanting to keep you under my thumb...!"

"Don't believe that!" Olga almost wailed. "It's all her lies, she's just trying to make you doubt yourself!"

"Don't be afraid," answered Minerva with a smile. "I was almost expecting it. I'd got to see how her mind works, and I could practically have written her those lines."

"Oh, thank God..." said Olga almost in a sob, and threw herself into Minerva's arms. Minerva had a crazy impulse to pat her on the back and talk baby talk at her. But when the storm of tears had abated itself, she pushed her slightly away and put on her serious face.

"We cannot get back together, you know. It would only end up same as last time."

There was an instant of shocked silence, and then - "Oh, Minerva Ivanovna, I wish you thought different."

"So do I. But you know I'm right."

"I know that you think you are. But I cannot force you to take me back. I wish I could... You mean more to me than ever, Minerva Ivanovna. You are my dragon-slayer now. You could have me for the asking."

"And then what? My dear, we are different in every way, and I am too old to change my ways. And even if I was not, what future would we have? I am not young now. I am old enough to be your mother. You are at the beginning of your active life; you do not need an old partner to tell you off and weigh you down and make you do things her way. If I took you in now, I would justify what Madam Gutierrez said to me."

This was really shadow-boxing. Neither of the two women was saying what was really on her mind. Olga felt grindingly, crushingly guilty; she was sure that Minerva was drawing back because she had suffered too much the last time they had parted, and did not want to run the risk again. Minerva feared that to renew their relationship - indeed, to have any sex at all - would only strengthen those desires of which Olga knew nothing, but she all too much.

X

A few days had gone by. There had been a certain amount of palaver, a certain amount of feathers that needed unruffling; but the end result was never really in doubt. Olga Petrovna Makariyeva was about to go back to Durmstrang as their regular Transfiguration teacher.

"No chance?" she asked one last time to Minerva.

"I don't think so, my dear. But..." Minerva halted, fell nervously silent, then forced herself to speak "...there is one thing... I mean, I would like you to do one thing for me before you leave."

Olga moved towards her. "Anything you want. Anything."

Oh-oh, she's got the wrong end of the stick, thought Minerva. "Could you sing for me, please?"

Olga stopped in mid-step. "Sing?"

"I have always loved your voice. I heard you sing once, and it was really beautiful. So, could you?"

"Oh..." Olga had been ready for any outrageous idea; but at this unexpected request, she blushed like a virgin. "Oh, my God. You must have heard someone else, Minerva Ivanovna. I'm no singer."

"Just do it for me, Olga Petrovna... please? Let me worry whether it is any good or not."

"Well..." And Olga smiled her delicious smile. "Upon your head be it, then. Do you have a piano?"

"In the music room, on the third floor."

"Well, let's go, then!"

Five minutes later, they were in the deserted music room, and Olga eyed the concert grand with satisfaction. Bechstein. They never did things meanly in Hogwarts, she thought. How long was it since she had practiced on anything except her shabby little upright? She sat down and caressed the keys, then let herself wander, chord after chord, until she found a song that called to her to be sung: one from her own country, Mussorgsky's Shto vam slova lyubvi?

Minerva stood behind her, watching her play, hardly daring to breathe. It was not a perfect voice; there were faults in intonation, and the upper tones tended to shrillness; but almost from the first note, she could have wept. There is a beauty in singing that goes beyond flawlessness, that can take the worst flaws and turn them to account, a beauty in which all aspects of the work come together to produce something that hits the centre of the listener's personality, that involves all their emotional life, that overwhelms the merely critical faculty like a flood. Such a singer was Olga Petrovna; or at least, she was such here, today, to this listener. She did not stop playing between songs, but modulated, improvising tentatively till she found something else - Fauré; Reynaldo Hahn; Cole Porter (So haunt me/And hurt me /Defeat me /Desert me /I'm yours till I die! /So in love /So in love /So in love with you, my love, am I); Verdi; Schubert; Irish traditional (Low lie the fields of Athenry/ Where once we watched the small free birds fly...); Schubert again (Und ach, mein schnell verrauschend Bild,/Stellt sich dir's nicht einmal?); Paul McCartney (a heartbroken Yesterday); Charles Aznavour (Yesterday, when I was young/ so many drinking songs were waiting to be sung,/ so many wayward pleasures lay in store for me/ and so much pain my dazzled eyes refused to see. /I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out, /I never stopped to think what life was all about) John Lennon (Gather round, all you clowns/ Let me hear you say: /Hey! You've got to hide your love away); Robert Schumann (Ich hab' in der Welt nur ihn geliebt, /Nur ihn, dem jetzt man den Tod doch gibt! /Bei klingendem Spiele wird paradiert; /Dazu, dazu bin auch ich kommandiert.)

Minerva could not miss it: each song was more passionate, more bitter, more desperately lonely than the previous one. She had never realized that so much pain, so much irate and hopeless bewilderment, could be boiling in the sweet little figure before her. She had an all but irresistible impulse to hold her in her arms and comfort her; but at the same time she felt herself charged, guilty of inflicting all that loss. And whether or not she should reproach herself so, she could hardly bear to look at her any more. As Olga modulated again into another song, with an angry, hammering marching sound, Minerva found that she could no longer bear to look at her - the strength and anger in her small arms, her back straight and unmoving, her head that never turned. She turned and rested against the wall; and so, not daring to look, she heard the start of the last song.

Fremd bin ich eingezogen,

Fremd zieh' ich wieder aus.

Der Mai war mir gewogen

Mit manchem Blumenstrauß.

Das Mädchen sprach von Liebe,

Die Mutter gar von Eh', -

Nun ist die Welt so trübe,

Der Weg gehüllt in Schnee.

Bitter, bitter, bitter more than death: whether Olga meant it or not, Minerva could not but be sure that this was for her. She could see the rejected lover on her lonely winter path, as if it was taking place in front of her eyes:

Ich kann zu meiner Reisen

Nicht wählen mit der Zeit,

Muß selbst den Weg mir weisen

In dieser Dunkelheit.

Es zieht ein Mondenschatten

Als mein Gefährte mit,

Und auf den weißen Matten

Such' ich des Wildes Tritt.

In these last two lines, twice repeated, Olga managed to put a sense of being almost outside mankind, something rejected and all but damned before God and men; a terrifying lead-in to the terrible sarcasm of the verses that follow -

Was soll ich länger weilen,

Daß man mich trieb hinaus?

Laß irre Hunde heulen

Vor ihres Herren Haus;

Die Liebe liebt das Wandern -

Gott hat sie so gemacht -

Von einem zu dem andern.

Fein Liebchen, gute Nacht!

Olga was not sticking strictly to the original, however incomparable: her piano part especially was played according to her own mind, with a more extreme texture and tone, a shower of dissonances as clanging as the sound of broken glass. In this stanza, moving from the savage pride of rejected Cain to the annihilating irony of a love as wandering as the wanderer herself - yes, indeed, let the dogs who have been kicked out of the house come whining back! Love does not, and neither will I; and good night, sweetheart, have nice nice dreams - this harmonic texture really came into its own, rising to a terrible, disconcerting final chord. Minerva could not help but look then; and - Olga was not there. Driven by magic, the keys kept playing, and the voice rose again, like a memory, but in a different mood...

Will dich im Traum nicht stören,

Wär schad' um deine Ruh',

Sollst meinen Tritt nicht hören -

Sacht, sacht die Türe zu!

Schreib' im Vorübergehen

Ans Tor dir: Gute Nacht,

Damit du mögest sehen,

An dich hab' ich gedacht.

Perhaps someone had passed by her, invisible, out of the room; perhaps there had been another path. But the music died out in a tender and loving gesture. The last thing I have thought of, my love, has been you.

Conclusion

And so, when Minerva McGonagall saw Dolores in the Hogwarts SCR, with a triumphant smile hovering over her lips and threatening every second to break out, she knew what it was about. In that smile lay the horrors that Dolores would single-mindedly pursue for a whole academic year: the pursuit of Dumbledore, the assault on Minerva's prize student Harry Potter, even the attempted murder in the night near Hagrid's hut. It was not about loyalty to Fudge; Minerva doubted that Umbridge had ever had any loyalty for anyone but herself. It was not about ambition, cruelty, or deception - at least, not primarily; for all these things could be indulged just as easily elsewhere. It may have been partly spite; for Minerva had known her in the days of her beauty, and was now struck by her desperate attempt to cling to a feminine grace that looked both sinister and ludicrous over her withered, toad-like face. That was certainly enough for her to hate Minerva. But Minerva was sure that what had most driven her to take this particular post was the undying scar - the scar that she had cradled for many years, indulging it, allowing it to fester, pampering it like a lover. It was the words thrown at her long ago; and it was that time when she had first refused to look at the logic of her actions, preferring to blame someone else for taking something she needed, that she ached for; when she had refused to accept that she, and she alone, had driven Olga from her, to take brief, desperate refuge with a lover she had already abandoned. It was all on account of the little Russian girl.