What He Would Have Wanted

Minerva had known he was dying.

Albus wouldn't tell her, of course. He kept that sort of thing to himself, rather than burden others.

The burden would have been lighter if he had shared it with her.

She watched, and could not say a word. Long ago they had established the rules; how she behaved, what she asked, what she left alone. Albus insisted, without seeming to do so. The distance made it easier to maintain her professionalism.

They ran the school together. He trusted her judgment, and her character, implicitly.

He never wanted to be loved. It was the strangest thing about that strange man; he gave love so easily, yet he would not accept it in return. He was too aware of his position to be weak.

He paced in his study. She would come in and find him standing on the same worn track of carpet. He was always genial, always kind, always concerned about her. He never spoke a word about himself.

There were times when she almost told him. She would have, if she had known what to say. He didn't want to be worshipped. If he had, she wouldn't have admired him so deeply. He stood alone, and took care of himself--though not well enough. He refused to be sacrificed for, and always made the sacrifice himself.

He cared about others. That was part of what she so admired. Everyone else disappointed her at some point--even herself. Yet he was able to remember a house-elf within hours of Voldemort's return, and that night he comforted Minerva with quiet words.

She ached to return it to him, but his own goodness made that impossible. He faced down the ministry for Harry, and would not let her stand beside him. It was for the best, of course. She was needed at Hogwarts, and would only have been in the way.

She loved him enough to give him what he wanted. She helped him protect those he cared for. She would gladly have suffered for him, if the occasion had called for it, but he wanted no such gift.

She watched him die. All that horrible year she watched, and never said a word about that black and withered hand. She knew for certain when she realized how urgently he was training Harry.

A light went out in her heart when she heard. She felt cold and empty. She drew on her strength to be there while she was needed, and tried not to think about what it would be like when she finally felt it.

And then young Nymphadora did what the head of Gryffindor House had never had the courage to do. She demanded the right to love and sacrifice in return.

He said it was not the time.

Tonks was his last connection. He had lost his boyhood friends. He had lost his mentor. She realized this from a long way off, but she only told him, curtly, that Albus would want a little more love in the world.

She kept busy for most of the night. It was the best way to hold together--to be needed, to be essential. Finally, with the morning light staining the sky on the first day he was not alive, she sunk into an armchair and cried. Harsh, breathless sobs tore her lungs, so she thought they would be wrenched apart in her chest. She could scarcely take a breath, and her head swirled with color as darkness closed over the pale morning.

Nymphadora woke her, very gently, later that day. Minerva brushed off her concerns, saying only that she was getting a bit older. She asked how things had gone with Remus.

She was quiet at the funeral. She had torn her lungs out last night; this morning, the intense grief was quieted. It would return later, she didn't doubt that, but when she was alone.

Everything they said meant nothing. Just words, words to describe a man without equal, who had left the world a poorer place with his death. Words couldn't bring back what he was. Even memories couldn't do that. She would never see him again.

There were tears on her face. She watched the tomb in silence.

She could not wish he had allowed her to help. It was part of who he was, part of the man she loved--he had to go alone. He protected and gave, and took nothing in return. That was what why she loved him.

The tomb sank into the lake.

A light has gone out of her world. She is calm. Others around her are not.