Disclaimer: I don't own any of this. I'm just enjoying this playground.



A/N: Many thanks to Aequitas, GringottsVault711, and Ksenia for their kind help.




Minerva sat on the battlement, arms wrapped firmly around her knees. The wind blew her long black hair out behind her and buffeted the skin on her face. Cold gusts cut through the sleeves of her robes, driving like icy pins into her. She did not care. Cold was at least a sensation. The barren stone of the Astronomy Tower chilled her behind and below. She was above the school, above normality. Beyond the shadowed stone, there was only sky.

Surrounded by stillness and stars and tears, Minerva heard the distant chime of the castle clocks. It was midnight, and she was perched atop the Astronomy Tower. It occurred to her yet again that she was out of bounds, prefect badge or no. Let them find me, she thought savagely. She did not care.

The afternoon had been so bright and cheerful. Lunch had been unusually tasty -- large helpings of bangers and mash -- and there had been Bread Pudding for dessert. Hestia had entertained her with stories about her botched Draught of Peace in Slughorn's class the day before. The two of them had laughed merrily and openly, eating heartily and drinking deeply.

Arithmancy had been wonderful, as always. She never lost the sense of exhilaration she felt at working out a perfect cycle of numbers and conditions. With Arithmancy she ordered her world, and by ordering, conquered it. Transfiguration had always been her favorite and best class, and Professor Dumbledore always had a kind word and a twinkle in his eye. They had started on Vanishing Spells, and she had managed to master them before class was out. Those classes were always fun, and as such not a source of great excitement. Divination, usually so onerous and frustrating, had gone well for a change. They had started fire omens. Dutifully she had stared into the fire, expecting to see nothing out of the ordinary.

For the first time in her life, Minerva McGonagall had Seen. She had Seen omens in the fire: omens of life and luck, safety and strength. Their promise had burned so brightly. She had seen them so clearly! She had trusted them.

They had failed her.

When her owl tapped on the Common Room window just after supper, she had laid aside her homework and gone to it confidently, stroking Cometes' beak before sending him off to the Owlery. She had torn off the seal, eager to discover the good news she had foreseen so clearly in the fire.

A polite yet distant letter from the Ministry of Magic regretfully informed her that William and Diana McGonagall would not be returning home. She had not expected such a letter, not tonight. She had often worried about her parents; the war against Grindelwald was dangerous. But she had not worried today; the afternoon had been too wonderful, too hopeful. They had died fighting, killed with a single curse. Gone in a flash of green light she had never seen.

Minerva had fled the Common Room rather than face questioning or concerned looks. She couldn't breathe. So she ran up, up to the top of the tallest tower. And she had breathed, or tried to, but somehow she had ended up crying instead. She cried until the stars blurred together and the sky became one shimmering dome of blended light and darkness.

Before her tear-blurred eyes, the shimmering sky looked like a dark fire, the constellations like omens. They surrounded her, dancing far beyond her reach. They mocked her. The omens were not real. They had not been real. They meant nothing more than the constellations; they were nothing more than meaninglessness turned to meaning by the human mind.

Tears rolled down the girl's cheeks and chin, cascading like falling stars onto her knees and down into her lap. But beneath her tears and shaking body, her face was tight. As she thought, her mouth drew slowly into a thin line. She knew now what she had Seen.

Even a few hours ago she had wanted to be good at Divination. She had wanted to be good at it, just as she had wanted to be good at every subject. Its difficulty had only made it more desirable. Now she wanted no part in it. She would leave the class tomorrow, if only Professor Dippet would allow her to. Divination held no truth. She had Seen no omens, only wishes and empty dreams.

The shapes in the fire had been nothing more than her own hope--her own desire. She had Seen because she was so desperate to See. There was nothing precise in them. Nothing solid. They were as worthless as the ashes of the fire that had remained at the end of the lesson, no more solid than the air that whipped against her face.

In the depths of icy night, high above the school, nothing was real save her pain, her tears, and the cold of the stone beneath her. The stars shimmered and danced, too high to grasp. They were full of hope and beauty--so full of hope she could not bear them. Yet she continued to stare into the sky.

These same stars had, only the night before, presided over her parents' final breaths. She envied them for being there when she was not. She hated them for doing nothing to protect her parents. She scorned them for their irrationality and imprecision. And yet, she loved them. For even in the darkest hour of deepest night, they still shone brightly.

Maybe the stars were only reflections of human hope. But they were stronger than she; they were constant. Even when her own hope dwindled and flickered, they still shone brightly through the darkness, guarding the world until the dawn. Perhaps hope was worth something after all.

Minerva clung to the stars as tightly as she clung to her own knees. She clung to them with her eyes. Pain numbed by cold and silence, she stared into the night, eyes fixed upon the stars. Hope was no omen, no predictor of the future. She knew that now; she would never mistake it again. But like the stars, hope had its place. It stood watch in the night.

Tears poured and poured down the girl's face until her robes were wet and her eyes were dry. Still she stared, unmoving, into the multitudes of stars. She sat through the darkest hours of the night, aching with pain and wonder and disbelief.

As the first rays of pink and gold spread across the sky, Minerva began to cry anew. It was there that Professor Dumbledore found her: tears pouring silently down her face, body stiff from cold. She did not see him or hear him come, and when she tried to stand she could not move. Gently and silently, he picked her up, wrapping the child in a heavy purple cloak. Silently he carried her from the tower.

As he began to descend from the tower, she murmured softly through her tears: “The stars did not fail. They kept their watch until the dawn.”