Left With More Than a Memory

In Another Life

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In Another Life

Minerva was slow to rise the following day. With nowhere to be and a lot on her mind, she lounged in bed for most of the morning. Eventually deciding that this wouldn't do, she began to get ready for the day. Distractedly reaching for a hair pin on her dressing table she sent the picture frame that sat upon it tumbling to the ground. Hurriedly reaching for it to no avail, she jumped as the sound of breaking glass reached her ears. Lowering herself to kneel beside it Minerva slowly turned what was left of the cracked frame face her and gazed down as her wedding photo looped around in her hands

"Marry me, Minerva"

The words rang in her ears as she closed her eyes. Suddenly the room was filled with the smell of freshly bloomed flowers and the warmth of an unusually hot setting summer sun. She could still see him, standing just behind her as she straightened up from The Great Lake's edge after skipping a stone across it. They had stepped away for a moment from a summer staff garden party at Hogwarts. He had been wearing a light summer shirt and had his hands in the pockets of his brown suit pants. She was wearing her favourite flowing green summer dress. She had turned to meet his eyes, which stared unwaveringly back at her bathed in the dusk light. At that moment she knew it. It had taken countless rejections and the death of her first love but there was no denying it now. Minerva McGonagall had fallen in love with Elphinstone Urquart. Dougal's death had taken something from her she did not know she had. And although she knew nothing would ever replace that missing piece, as she walked toward the man now in front of her she felt some part of that hole filled again. Yes. She loved Elphinstone Urquart.

She stopped right in front of him.

"Yes" she whispered to him. He had put gentle hands on her back and moved closer to her. He hesitated for a moment. Then he kissed her gently, but it soon evolved in vigor and confidence as a long restrained passion unfolded from him. Time seemed to stop as Minerva leaned into his embrace. They walked back to the castle arm in arm and announced their news immediately. Thus began the happiest three years of Minerva's life. Their wedding had been an intimate one, only immediate family and their closest friends. She remembered so vividly the moment the photograph had been taken. Malcolm had called them over immediately after the ceremony and Elphistone had brought her hand to his lips and she had raised them to hers. Then they turned to the camera. That moment had replayed every day on her dressing table, both at the cottage and Hogwarts, since. Their first moment as husband and wife. She was pulled from her reminiscing by a sharp pain in her finger. In her absentminded remembrance she had run one of her fingers over the photograph and caught it on a piece of the broken glass. She put the photograph down and rose to go to the sink. A stray tear rolled down her cheek as she cleaned a bandaged the wound. Gone now were the images of her engagement, wedding, life as a wife. They were replaced by the darkness of a far off wing at St Mungo's, the numbness of taking her husband's cold hand for the last time.

It had all happened so quickly. None of it had seemed real. That day, Elphistone had come downstairs telling that the ministry wanted him down in Hampshire to investigate suspected illicit trading. As a result he would be late and to have her dinner without him if she was hungry. Seeing as he was going to be out of the office she had halved her sandwiches and packed them for him to take along. He had thanked her and kissed her goodbye. Four hours later he was dead. Albus had pulled her from her morning class and she knew immediately that something was wrong. Albus was famous for being a somewhat indirect man, so when he made no attempt at small talk and brought her directly to his office she knew whatever he had to say was not good. But nothing could have prepared her for the truth. Nothing in the world. She had arrived at St. Mungo's knowing her husband was dead. She was brought into a back room where her husband was laid alone in a bed. He had been bitten by Venomous Tentacula that had been used for the illicit trading of its valuable seeds. He had accidentally disturbed it before he realised what it was. She was assured he had died quickly. The image of his lifeless, bandaged body was burned into her memory. She shivered as it resurfaced. She had return home that evening to an empty house and found she could not bear it. The very day Elphistone was laid to rest she had moved back to Hogwarts. A swift jab to her ribs snapped her back into the reality of that very room. She placed her bandaged hand on the spot and was met with another shove. Returning to the broken picture she picked up her wand and watched as the picture and framed were returned to her hand as though nothing had happened. She gently replaced it on her dressing table and sat across from it.

Elphistone had wanted desperately to be a father. She had wanted equally as much to be a mother. But as weeks, months, and then years passed they began to resign themselves to the idea that perhaps it was not to be. They were no less happy together, but the weight of the absence was never lost on them either. What, she wondered, would he think if he saw her now? That resurfaced one of the aspects of the whole situation that had plagued her most at the beginning of her pregnancy. Why now? Why not then? Why not for him? None of it was fair. But then nothing was, was it?

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