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Put Your Claws Away


Minerva McGonagall woke breathless and with tears upon her cheeks. She had dreamed of the green flash of light again. She lay in the bed that had been hers when she was a girl, in a room she had not been in in years, and stared about at the ceiling, and the old furniture, at the knick-knacks and photographs and relics of a life long ago left behind. Being here, in the Reverend’s Manse of Faere Dhu, made her feel small in a way she couldn’t explain. And now, she shivered from a nightmare beneath the same quilt she’d shivered beneath as a little girl, and it made her heart ache.

Casting aside her blankets, she got up and walked ‘round the bed to the window. It was freezing outside, but she bundled herself up in her cloaks and she used her wand to unstick the window frame and melt a patch of the snow from the roof outside her window sill and she sat on the edge of it, like she used to do when she was a small girl, and she stared off at the glow of the town lights over the hill. The town used to be small enough to not give off enough light to glow like that, when she was little she used to be able to see the flash from the lighthouse on Dunnet Head. But no more. Now the street lamps and glow in Faere Dhu caused a faint glow on the horizon that blocked the lighthouse’s flash.

She hugged her knees, her nose aching from the bite of the chill in the air.

In the summer, when she was young, Dougal McGregor used to come walking up that driveway, more often than not eating an apple or some other bit of food, and whistling. Oh how Dou liked to whistle, she thought. She could almost hear it. He would stand there at the corner by the barn, look up at her as she sat exactly where she was now, usually holding a cat, and he’d call up to her, “Minnie McGonagall, are yeh goin’ ter come down here yeh self or should I come up and get yeh?”

She stared at the place by the barn he would stand, smiling. Sometimes holding a fishing pole, sometimes not.

Sometimes it was at night he would come, like this, and he’d have a low-glowing lantern and would have thrown tiny pebbles up at her window to wake her.

Sometimes she ran through the house, shouting she was going out, and sometimes she had to sneak out, grabbing onto the branches of the old tree and letting herself down slowly - though she’d always had the ability to land on her feet.

She looked over her shoulder into the bedroom and got a sudden urge to give climbing down that old tree a go. Not as a person, of course, she wasn’t that silly, but -- with a pop, she was a tabby cat and she took a moment to adjust her eyes to the new way of seeing. The night was less dark when she was a cat - and the feelings weighing her down, the echos of her brothers laughing in the yard and shouting in the halls behind her, all seemed further away. She shook her fur out and walked slowly, gingerly over the snow, shaking out her paws to clear the ice from the pads of her feet as she hopped through it to the gutter rail and prepared to jump. She flicked her tail and took a leap and she would have done just fine, but the branch was coated in a sheer bit of ice and instead of gripping well, her paws slid and she slammed into the branch quite hard, knocking the wind from herself, and losing her footing. She let out a yowl of pain, slipped along the branch, scrambling for grip with her claws out and then felt herself slip from the branch altogether… dropping down… falling, spinning, trying to get herself turned over in gravity so as to land on her feet… and she’d nearly done it when ---

Whomp!

She’d landed in a pair of arms that caught her in mid-fall and pulled her in and at first she panicked, her legs darting out to scratch the offender, until she heard a chuckle, and, “Hey now, hey. Put the claws away.”

She looked up into the eyes of Elphinstone Urquart.

Trying her best at dignity, Minerva struggled out of his grasp, leaped neatly to the porch floor and changed back into herself. She dusted herself off, neatened her cloak and looked at him shrewdly. He was smirking ever so slightly, and lifting a mug of steaming milk from the rail of the porch, where he’d put it down when he’d heard the distressed cry of the tabby cat in the tree.

“Aren’t you even going to tell me what a great catch I’ve just made?” he asked, “Any chaser on the Canons would envy my skill.”

“Only because they’re the Canons! They would envy a child’s ability to catch a ball too, Mr. Urquart,” Minerva said primly.

“I forgot you’re a Pride of Portree girl.”

Minerva stared at him.

Elphinstone’s lips twitched.

“What are you doing here?” she asked him.

“Keeping watch.”

“Keeping watch?” she repeated.

Elphinstone said, “Min, I don’t want you to be hurt.”

Minerva shifted her weight uneasily. “Bit late for that, Mr. Urquart,” she said lowly.

“And I regret that.” He had been just down the road, staying in an inn, not wanting to leave Faere Dhu until he knew Minerva McGonagall was alright, and using his old auror skills for trying to learn more about the attack that had led to the death of Dougal McGregor… but nothing had come of his search, no evidence of whom might have done it. But then the attack at the Manse had occurred, the attack that killed Malcolm McGonagall, and he had come to the conclusion that someone was perhaps after Minerva herself, and the thought had chilled him to his bones worse than any frigid Scottish winter air could do and here he was, standing guard outside her home, sitting on the porch, huddled against the night, drinking warm milk. If he’d been here before, he blamed himself, perhaps Malcolm McGonagall would still be alive.

But no one would touch Minerva. If they did, it would be after killing him first.

Of course, there was little to be done if she was going to be flinging herself into trees as a tabby cat.

“It’s cold,” Minerva said, “At least come inside, Mr. Urquart.”

He glanced down the driveway to the shadows of the street and hesitated.

“Come, Elphie.”

Elphinstone turned around in surprise at the nickname. She was holding open the door, standing in the frame of it. He followed.

Minerva was careful not to step on the spot where Malcolm had laid when she and Halley had come down the stairs. She was careful not to even look upon the old braided rug. Memories of sitting upon that rug as a child and spinning upon the slippery wood floors beneath it had been written over, instantly replaced by the sight of her brother’s lifeless body. Even looking at the rug now tore her apart. So she was very careful not to look upon it as she turned and led the way into the warmth of the kitchen.

Elphinstone held his palms over the heat coming off the iron oven in the corner and he sighed in relief as the bones of his fingers warmed.

“Are yeh hungry, Mr. Urquart?” she asked.

He nodded.

Minerva set to making him a plate of food.

His fingers warmed, Elphinstone turned back from the oven and watched her work. She was flicking her wand and moving about a pot of stew, filling a bowl and warming bread and there was a mug of warm tea, steeped exactly as he liked it with milk and strong black leaves and a spot of whiskey to warm him up and she put extra carrots into the stew and he was touched she remembered his preferences…

He walked ‘round the table and up behind her. He wound his arms around her waist, his chin hooking her shoulder and she froze, feeling him against her like that. “Minerva….”

She stood very still.

He kissed her shoulder, right at the base of her neck.

Minerva could barely breathe.

“You’ve been through so much, honey…” his voice was gentle. “It’s okay to let someone hold you.” When she still didn’t give, he added, softly, “Put your claws away.”

She turned around slowly so that she faced him and his hands were on her back. She stared up at him, tears in her eyes.

“I love you, Minerva. Let me in. Let me be the one to hold you. Let me be the one that shares your burdens. Please… please. Let me love you… I, I swear I’ll do it well, if you’ll only let me.”

She leaed into him, her cheek against his chest and closed her eyes.

Gingerly, he tightened his grasp around her, his hands shaking, a bit of disbelief that it was happening… and he kissed her forehead and she clung onto his shoulders a bit tighter, her hands hanging onto him.

“I’m not verra good with… this,” she whipsered, “I’m not verry good at being weak.”

“Never weak, Minerva,” whispered Ephinstone. “Merely supported.”

She looked up at him.

And he kissed her.




Far away, in London, an attack had struck the Ministry at the very start of working hours, an explsosion in the bank of floos had collapsed several of the fireplaces as witches and wizards were attempting to arrive for work. Augusta Longbottom, Frank’s mother, a healer, had been one of the witches on the emergency team to react to the attack and it had been in this way, kneeling to help at saving what she believed to be just another victim of the attack, that she had found herself living a nightmare. Beneath the rubble of the floo, she had found her husband -- Frank senior. Mr. Longbottom had been going through the floo when it collapsed. Severe magical burns and injuries associated with the crumbling floo had killed him and six others, and injured dozens more...

It was this news story that the Marauders had found.

“NO!” Sirius was shouting, and he looked up and down the Gryffindor table searching for Frank Longbottom only to confirm that he wasn’t there - and neither was Ali Prewitt.

Peter was crying. “Poor Frank, poor poor Frank.”

James stared at the paper. “I need to write my dad.” He got up and ran from the table to fetch some parchment, afraid his dad might’ve been going to the Ministry that morning, afraid and sickened at the thought of what Frank Longbottom was going through.

Remus grabbed onto Sirius’s shoulders as Sirius continued to curse and thrash about. “Shhh, love,” he whispered, hugging Sirius tight. “Shh.”

“It isn’t goddamned fair! It isn’t goddamned fair!” he bellowed.

He looked up to see Professor Gaunt just walking past and Sirius grabbed the paper from the table and thrashed his way out of Remus’s grip. He took the paper and waved it at Gaunt, “Do you see this?” he yelled, “Do you see what fucking blood purity gets you? Do you see the sort of cruelty and pain hating muggles causes? What Dark Magic does to a man?” He slammed the paper into Gaunt’s chest, “Fuck you and everyone who thinks like you do! Fuck Voldemort and his fucking followers!” And Sirius turned and stormed from the room.

Remus jumped up, his eyes meeting Gaunt’s, catching the shiver of a smile on the edges of Gaunt’s mouth. He ran from the room after Sirius, followed by Peter, who scrambled to keep up, and tried not to feel Gaunt’s eyes follwoing him as he went running after them, squealing for them to wait up.