Stolen Time

Friendship, Loyalty, and Love

The train rumbled through the scarred countryside, smoking piles of rubble dotted the landscape from time to time, and students pressed their noses against the windows to exclaim in wonder over the destruction. 'What are you doing over the holiday, Minerva?' Augusta Rowlands asked.

'Nothing, really,' Minerva McGonagall replied absently, peering at the latest letter she'd received from Alasdair. 'Take my Apparition examination so I don't have to rely on Da to fetch me from King's Cross.'

Augusta looked over Minerva's arm and snorted. 'Oh, honestly, Minerva, you're still writing to that boy?'

Minerva gave August a severe look over the frames of her glasses. 'I fail to see the problem, Gussie.'

'Well, he's...' Augusta shifted and turned her gaze to the window.

'What? Working-class? So?'

'That isn't what I meant,' Augusta muttered.

Minerva carefully folded the letter and tucked it into her bag. 'Then what did you mean?'

'I'm sure he's a wonderful sort,' Augusta hedged, pleating her skirt between her fingers. 'But you're only seventeen, Minnie,' she said finally. 'With another year of school, and does he understand your ambitions?'

Minerva laced her hands together. 'I havena told him,' she admitted, her Scots lilt broadening under the emotional stress. She impatiently tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. By the end of the day, her plait would have loosened to the point where several wisps of hair fell around her face in curls and waves. It irritated her to no end.

'We're no' gettin' married, aye?' Minerva snapped peevishly. 'So could ye possibly find another topic, Gussie?'

'Neville wrote to me,' Augusta said quietly. 'The Minister's considering their proposal to embed wizards in the British Army and Navy. They'll have to pass all sorts of exams meant to test their ability to adapt to Muggle society.'

'That would discount most pure-bloods,' Minerva scoffed. 'They can hardly tolerate automobiles.'

The station came into view and Augusta pulled her school bag down from the overhead rack. 'My cousin managed to get a Portkey from France two weeks ago,' she whispered fearfully. 'She told my mother they took her husband.'

'Who took him?'

'The ones in the black uniforms. Carrie said they came in the middle of the night. She was able to put a Disillusionment charm on herself, but not to Jean-Claude before they burst into their bedroom. They knew about Carrie. She said they beat him severely asking for her, but he wouldn't say anything. Then they dragged him out into the street and threw him into a lorry. She asked discreetly where they had gone. All anyone could tell her was east. Into Poland or Germany.'

Minerva collected her things and prepared to leave the compartment. Aurors were emptying one carriage at a time, putting up Shield charms over the students' heads until they were handed off to a waiting parent. 'That's horrible...'

'It is...' Augusta hefted her bag to her shoulder. 'What are we going to do about it?'

Minerva turned sharply around. 'What can we do? If we do something on a large scale, we might as well violate the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy,' she said primly.

'And we can't continue to do nothing,' Augusta argued. 'Jean-Claude was a wizard, Minnie. And we can't be certain that more wizards or witches won't be arrested like he was!' She opened the door of the carriage at the Auror's signal. 'Carrie said he was forced to leave his wand behind. He might as well be a Muggle now.' She hastily descended to the platform. 'Any action is worth it, Minnie, no matter how small it seems.'

Minerva followed Augusta off the train and met her father standing in the shadows of a pillar. 'Da...'

'Ciamar a tha thu, Minnie?' Angus McGonagall rumbled

'Tha mi gle mhath, athair.'

Angus reached for Minerva's trunk. 'The journey wasna dangerous?'

'No, Da.'

'Come, then. I dinna like bein' in London wi' those aeroplanes droppin' bombs. We might be able t' protect Diagon Alley, Platform Nine and Three Quarters, the Ministry, and St. Mungo's, but I dinna want t' be caught here in case something breaks through, aye?' Angus held out his hand, and Minerva took it, firmly settling her bag on her shoulder. She understood the reasoning behind making all the students undertake the journey to and from Hogwarts together on the train. It built camaraderie. But it was awfully inconvenient when she had to basically turn round and return to the Highlands to go home. She practically traveled the distance twice in one day. Before he could Apparate, Angus brushed tendrils of Minerva's hair from her eyes. 'I'm glad to hae ye home, Minnie. It's been lonely wi'out ye, lass.'

Minerva merely squeezed his hand with a smile. Proclamations of affection were rare, and yet there was no doubt in her mind her father loved her. He turned and the tense buzz that surrounded them on Platform Nine and Three Quarters vanished, replaced with the cliffs, mountains, lochs and towering forests of her beloved Highlands. Her shoulders dropped a fraction. Home, she thought contentedly. Hogwarts might have been nestled in the Highlands as well, but here she could wander peaks and valleys freely. With Alasdair.

xxxxxx

'Book list's arrived,' Angus told Minerva when she came down for breakfast one morning in early August. 'I'll tae ye down t' London wi' me next week for yer things.'

Minerva lifted the heavy, black hair from her neck and fanned it across her shoulders. 'All right.'

Angus eyed her clothing - a pair of sturdy Muggle trousers, sensible shoes meant for hiking, and a thick jumper. 'What are yer plans for today, lass?' he asked mildly, although he suspected they involved Alasdair.

'Devil's Staircase.' Minerva picked up a bannock, still warm from the oven, and broke it in half, slathering it with butter and drizzling honey over it.

'Wi' the wee lad?'

Minerva picked up the elderly brown teapot and poured a cup. 'Wee lad? Is that what we're callin' him?' she chuckled mirthfully. Alasdair was well over six feet tall and with broad shoulders. Minerva herself wasn't exactly petite, but he made her feel as if her height was an advantage. 'But yes, wi' Alasdair.'

Angus stirred his porridge and examining his daughter. 'And how are the twa of ye plannin' on getting' all the way down t' Glencoe?'

Minerva frowned, a line between her eyebrows. 'Bicycle...? Is that the right term?'

Angus pointed his porridge-laden spoon at Minerva. 'I forbid it,' he said sternly. 'Those things are dangerous!'

'No more dangerous than a broom. And ye havena any problems lettin' me play Quidditch, Da.' Minerva sipped her tea, her eyes twinkling impishly at her father over the rim of her cup.

Angus heaved a sigh and crammed his spoon into his mouth. 'Minnie...' he began warningly. 'He's a Muggle...'

'Do ye hae somethin' t' say about it, Da?'

Angus laid his spoon down next to his bowl. 'Hae either o' ye given the slightest thought to how ye'll live, m'annschd?'

Minerva pushed her chair back and rounded the table, kneeling at her father's side. 'Da, there isna anythin' between Alasdair and myself.'

'Oh, aye?' Angus snorted skeptically. 'For how long? And with the Muggle war?'

'He's no' joined the British army, Da. Nor the navy.'

'Yet.' Angus gently stroked the strands of hair from her eyes that always seemed to escape from whatever concoction she tried to pin it back. 'Wi' the war, Minnie, people get daft, and do things they wouldna ordinarily do. Like marry someone in haste.'

Minerva clasped his hand between hers. 'I promise ye, Da... I willna make any promises t' Angus until I've finished school next June.'

Angus' mouth crimped, but he nodded, sadness and concern etched in his face. 'I dinna want t' see ye hurt.'

'I ken that, Da, aye?' Minerva unfolded herself to her feet and returned to her abandoned breakfast.

Angus pushed his porridge away. 'It's no' because he's a Muggle, Minnie,' he said heavily. 'If ye love him...' he trailed off, embarrassed, face blazing above the dark beard.

Minerva felt warmth creep up her neck and spread over her face. 'He's just courtin' me, Da. And he's kind and most respectful. Doesna try to make me do anythin' I dinna want t' do.'

Angus rubbed his hand over his face. 'Dinna fret, lass,' he mumbled. 'I'd feel the same if ye were seein' the Longbottom lad.'

Minerva only smiled at him and with a flick of her wand, scooped her breakfast dishes from the table and sent them to the sink, where they began to wash themselves. 'I'll see ye when I get home later, aye?' To Angus' surprise, she bent and swiftly kissed his cheek. 'I'm takin' my wand.'

'Is that supposed t' make me feel better?' Angus asked dryly.

'Did it?' Minerva's smile grew wider, and she slipped through the door of the house, not waiting for his answer.

Alasdair waited at the end of the lane, balancing two bicycles. His dark reddish-brown hair played in the wind, and he grinned as she joined him. 'I didna think to ask if ye knew how to ride one of these infernal contraptions.'

'I know how,' Minerva said uneasily. 'Havena ridden one for longer than a few minutes, though.'

'We'll be on them for a few hours,' Alasdair laughed. 'Ye'll get the feel for it soon enough.'

Minerva fingered the plaid wool draped over one of his shoulders. 'I see ye're broadcasting your Scots pride this morning.'

Alasdair's expression shifted into something that wasn't quite a leer, but it was close. 'Would ye like t' see if I'm wearin' it properly, Min?' He twitched the muted woolen kilt so it swirled around his knees.

Minerva's mouth dropped open, and she stared at him in consternation. 'Erm... I...'

Alasdair's laugh boomed around the valley. 'I'm just teasin' ye, Min. I happen to be wearin' pants under the thing. Too scratchy otherwise.' He held one of the bicycles out to Minerva. 'Shall we?'

Minerva took a deep breath and straddled the bicycle, pushing off in a wobbly line. 'Are ye not comin'?' she called over her shoulder.

xxxxxx

Alasdair pulled the plaid off his shoulder and spread it over the ground. 'Sit...' he murmured, unstrapping a picnic hamper from the back of his bicycle. Minerva lowered herself to the edge of the plaid looking over Loch Leven. 'Ye wouldna ken there's a war goin' on from here,' he said wistfully.

'It's the same at school,' Minerva said absently.

Alasdair set the hamper next to her and joined her on the plaid. 'Where is this bloody school of yours?'

'It's a little remote...' Minerva temporized. 'In the mountains... In the north... Hasn't been touched by the war yet.'

'No rationin'?' Angus said in surprise. He'd used nearly his entire week's ration of sugar to make the biscuits packed in the lunch.

Minerva once again felt her face erupt in flames. She had felt extraordinarily guilty the entire previous year, seeing the Gryffindor table nearly groaning under the weight of the food they were served at meals, knowing Alasdair made do with what he had been allotted by the British government. 'Some,' she stammered.

'Do ye still get eggs?' Alasdair asked longingly. 'I'm supposed t' hae one egg a week. Canna find any and I dinna trust the black market.'

'We do. School has a garden and greenhouses. Chickens...' The freshening wind off the lock blew several tendrils of hair across Minerva's nose and mouth. With a huff of dismay, she impatiently scraped them back, in a vain attempt to tame them into the combs that held the sides of her hair back.

'Sounds nice,' Alasdair commented idly.

'It is.'

'Does it hae a name?'

'Ye wouldna know it.'

'Because I'm workin' class? It's that posh?'

'Posh?' Minerva pictured the myriad Weasleys that lined the Gryffindor table. She wouldn't call them posh. The only students she knew to be truly wealthy were the Blacks, Malfoys, and Lestranges. She and her father didn't want for anything, but he was a frugal sort with his Galleons. 'No. It isna posh, Alasdair. A wee bit exclusive, though. You generally go if your parents were students there.'

'I've signed up wi' the Army,' Alasdair said abruptly.

Minerva froze. 'What did ye say?'

'I joined the Army.'

'Why?'

'Everyone else I know has signed up. And it isna as if I hae anything here,' he argued. Minerva visibly stiffened and edged away. Alasdair's large hand landed on her knee. 'I dinna mean it like that, Min,' he said stiffly. 'I'd be most honored if ye waited for me to return. If I return,' he amended. 'There's no work for the likes o' me. There isn't a university in Scotland, Ireland, England, or Wales that'll tae me on as a student. I finished school because it was important to me mam. We left Ft. William and went to Glasgow when the war started so she could find work. It's a base for the Home Fleet, aye? And Mam hoped I might learn a trade. The Luftwaffe blitzed Greenock, where we were livin' and Mam... She died in one o' the fires. So I was left on me own. Greenock was... Parts o' it were piles o' rubble. And I came back here.' Alasdair ran his fingers through Minerva's hair, tugging the combs out so it billowed around her head. 'Min... ye dinna hae anythin' to say?'

'I'm sorry about your mother,' she said softly. Her own mother had caught dragon pox when Minerva was five, while she'd nursed Minerva through it. By the time anyone had realized how ill she was, Flora McGonagall was delirious with fever. She'd died just a few days later. Minerva only had a few hazy memories of her, of the striped tabby cat that loyally followed her mother around the house, the thistle she arranged in a small vase on the table. 'Do ye ken where they're goin' to send ye?'

'No. The continent, India, North Africa... Could be anywhere.' Alasdair brushed his mouth over hers. 'I'll tell ye as soon as I know.' He rummaged in the hamper, and emerged with a small velvet drawstring bag. 'Me mam said this was a load of superstitious Irish rubbish,' he said, as he shook a small silver ring into the palm of his hand. 'If it wasna Scots, it wasna worth her time.' He turned the ring around in his fingers. 'Me da brought it back from Ireland when they wed,' he explained. 'I'm no' askin' ye to marry me, Min,' he added hastily. 'Just that ye wait for me.'

Minerva took the ring and held it up. A small heart was cradled between two hands and topped with a crown. 'What does it mean?'

Alasdair's blunt finger lightly touched each part of the ring as he named it. 'Heart is love, obviously.'

'Oh, obviously...'

'Mind the cheek, lass,' Alasdair teased, his head bent close to hers. 'The hands are friendship, and the crown is loyalty.' He rotated the ring so the crown faced away from them. 'Ye wear it like that if ye're single,' he informed her. 'On your right hand.' He spun it so the crown faced them. 'Like this if your heart's tae'n.' His voice was husky in the clear afternoon.

Minerva looked up into Alasdair's face, hope shining in his eyes. She took the ring and began to slide it onto her left hand, but Alasdair stilled the motion. 'Is somethin' amiss?'

'No' that hand,' he said seriously. 'No' until we're married, aye?' He picked up her right hand and gently slid the ring over her finger. 'I gie ye my heart wi' my twa hands an' crown it wi'my loyalty,' he said softly, cradling her hand between his, and pressing a kiss on its back.

Minerva wriggled her finger, watching the gleam of the silver, then without warning, rose on her knees and threw her arms around Alasdair. The forward motion sent him toppling over on his back. She quite thoroughly kissed him, leaving them both breathless. 'If ye die, I will have to kill ye.'

'I'll do me best no' to die, mo chride.'

Minerva's hair fell in silken sheets around them. Curtained from the rest of the world, she allowed herself to say something she normally would never have uttered aloud. 'Tha gaol agam ort.' I love you.

'Tha gaol agam ort-fhèin, mo nighean mhaiseach.'

xxxxxx

Minerva drew her cloak around her body tightly and scurried from Greenhouse Five to the castle in the thickly falling snow. Inside an inner pocket of her school bag resided a small photograph of Alasdair in his army uniform, along with what letters she had been able to receive from the front in Africa. Her father sent news of the war when he could manage. It was still more than Alasdair could tell her. His letters had been heavily censored to the point where nearly all that was left were their names and comments about the weather. They were bundled together with the ribbon she'd worn around the end of her plait the day he left.

It was bitterly cold, as it usually was in February, when the promise of spring seemed like a cruel joke, and all she wanted at that moment was a seat by the fire in the Gryffindor common room.

The warmth of the entrance of the school nearly slapped her in the face, and made the lenses of her glasses opaque with fog. Cursing under her breath, she pulled them off, and haphazardly wiped them on the front of her cloak.

'Ah, Miss McGonagall! I was just coming to take you out of class.' Professor Dumbledore strode toward her, looking unusually grave.

'I wasn't the one who changed Professor Flitwick's tea to whisky during class,' Minerva stated.

'Guilty conscience, Miss McGonagall?'

'No.'

'It has nothing to do with the incident in Charms. However, I must speak to you in private.' Dumbledore indicated the staircase that would take them to the Transfiguration classroom. Mystified, Minerva ascended the staircase ahead of him and followed Dumbledore into the empty classroom. He waved his wand, and the door partially closed behind him. He made another expansive wave of his wand and a squashy armchair floated in mid-air for a moment, before it lowered to the floor with a soft thump. 'Please, Miss McGonagall, sit down.' He took the chair behind the desk and drew a letter from the sleeve of his robes. Minerva recognized Alasdair's hand on the crumpled envelope.

'I'd rather stand, if you don't mind,' she told Dumbledore, the corner of her mouth turning up slightly, as she imagined how Alasdair would laugh at the decidedly plummy accent she adopted at school.

'I insist that you take the chair,' Dumbledore repeated, a hint of steely command in his voice.

Minerva warily perched on the edge, eyeing the envelope. It was smudged with dirt, or so she thought. 'Why have you got my letter?'

Dumbledore's normally twinkling eyes were somber. 'Your father owled this to me.' He gently pushed the envelope across the desk.

Minerva felt as though time slowed, her heart struggling to beat. They never go to Da first... She slowly rose from the chair and took a tentative step back from the desk. Her head shook in mute denial.

'Minerva, take the letter...'

If ye dinna read it, it didna happen, a voice whispered in her ear. 'No...'

'Minerva, you have to take the letter.'

'No. I willna, and ye canna make me,' she said thickly. She took another step back.

Dumbledore picked up the envelope and held it out. 'Believe me, Minerva, it's best if you do take it and read it. It will make the next days and weeks more bearable...'

Haltingly, Minerva reached out and plucked the envelope from Dumbledore's fingers. Two sheets of paper fell into her trembling hands. 'Kasserine... In Tunisia...' Her knees gave out and she crumpled into the armchair. Her breath came in shallow gasps, as she unfolded the one written by Alasdair.

Minerva, mo chride... If you are reading this, I suppose you'll have to kill me...

I have no regrets, Min, and neither should you.

Love, friendship, and loyalty to the very end...

Alasdair

xxxxxx

A/N: Quick translation of the Scots Gaelic...

Ciamar a tha thu? - How are you?

Tha mi gle mhath, athair. - I am well, father.

m'annschd - my best beloved

mo chride - my heart

Tha gaol agam ort. - I love you.

Tha gaol agam ort-fhèin, mo nighean mhaiseach. - I love you, too, my beautiful girl