31. HOMEGOING

The term was almost over. Minerva sat her exams with something like relief. She'd worked hard all year, and she'd be going home soon. She hadn't heard from Da in a while, and hadn't written him, except to report on the in-flight behavior of the Dreadnought. Ever since it had arrived so conspicuously in the Great Hall, students—even some sixth and seventh years—had been clamoring for rides. Her conscience, if not their whining, prodded her into letting the more experienced fliers try it out. They all loved it, especially the boys. It was big and impressive-looking and would be perfect for picking up girls. They promised to pester their parents to order one as soon as it came on the market. She herself was a bit more critical and talked technicalities in her letters: the need for a kind of harness or Sticking Charm for younger children, a gyroscopic spell to counteract the rather high moment of inertia caused by so much extra weight above the shaft, and a heftier braking charm.

News about Petey came to her ears gradually. Unfortunately the most reliable source—Walden Macnair—was also the least sympathetic. No, his spoiled brat of a brother wouldn't be going back to Durmstrang, Waldo complained to anyone who would listen. After the stupid baby had 'blubbed to Mum' about all the stuff that went on there, she refused to let her 'darling boy' go back.

Walden gave out every detail of the Durmstrang regimen with disgusting relish—the punishments, the unheated dorms, the meager diet, the vermin in the bedclothes. He also boasted that the Laird would not give an inch; he refused to have Petey back at the manor. So they were going to send the ungrateful little bugger to stay with some distant relatives in the U.S. Apparently they had schools of magic over there too, although they were far inferior to the British system. Savage types, those Americans. At one point, Walden wondered aloud if he could get his baby brother to send him some specimens of exotic Western beasts, like Clabberts or a Dugbog. Or maybe he could smuggle in the egg of a Peruvian Vipertooth, a smallish dragon with a particular liking for human flesh. He kept going on about the cage dimensions necessary for a ten to fifteen foot drake as well as what he was hoping to feed it (half the student body at last count). It was Dugald who finally shut him up with a casual mention that Peru was in South America, and that that was about as far away from where Petey would be living as the moon.

~*~

Minerva sighed and read the final statement of her Transfiguration exam: For extra points and a chocolate frog, describe one transformation that has not been covered in the above questions. She smiled. It was typical of Professor Dumbledore to give students a last chance to redeem themselves, a way to eke out a passing grade if their other answers were lacking. She knew what Raymie Sykes would write about: the toothpick-to-needle change they'd learned the first day of class. It was still the only one he could perform reliably. She herself would choose a more advanced topic, something not even covered in first year. The Surface Softening spell she'd used to fix Hildy's history book would be perfect. It technically qualified as a first-year spell as it only involved a change in shape. But before she could marshal her thoughts, Professor Dumbledore appeared at her side.

"Are you near to finishing, Minerva?"

"I've only the extra points question yet to do, sir."

"I wonder—could you go with young Macdonald now?" He beckoned to the door where Robbie the Prefect waited, fidgeting. "I'll keep your paper until you get back."

"What's it about, Robbie?" she asked as they approached him.

"Headmaster wants to see you, Minerva. Something about an urgent message from home."

She felt a sudden thrill of fear and it must have shown on her face because Professor Dumbledore did something then that she had never known him to do with any student. He took her by the shoulders, and gazed long into her eyes. She thought she heard for a moment the sound of a bird singing. The song and the gesture warmed and strengthened her. It alone kept her from collapsing as she trailed out of the classroom after Robbie. The message had to be from Da, and he was going to tell her that Ma had had another relapse.

~*~

But it wasn't Da's head in the fireplace of the Headmaster's Office. It was the last person she'd ever expected to see: her Aunt Charlamaine.

"I hope you are well, Minerva."

"Yes, ma'am."

"You should sit down. I have unfortunate news."

Minerva gulped. Anything Aunt Charlamaine had to say could not be pleasant for her, but why wasn't it Da who had come to tell her? Between breaths she realized why, and two tears were already rolling down her cheeks, even before her aunt made the pronouncement.

Headmaster Dippet, looking very grave, conjured two chairs and sat down beside her.

"I'm sorry to say, Minerva, your father—my brother—is dead."

Minerva bowed her head. She had no reason to disbelieve this woman, who, however selfish, however boastful she might be, had never lied to her outright.

"How—how did it happen?"

The answer came almost too quickly."It was an accident."

An accident. Jupiter McGonagall, twenty-third Lord of Connghaill Keep, didn't have accidents. He was alert and strong and magically powerful…

Her aunt went on. "You know that execrable display your father has—had— out by the gate—the corpse of that creature that supposedly caused your mother's mental condition?"

Minerva registered nothing. Even the hateful implication in the word 'supposedly' could not touch her. She was seeing Da's face, nothing else.

Aunt Charlamaine sighed and plowed on. "Something—some creature—tore down the corpse overnight. This enraged your father, and he took off after it. Its footprints I understand were very large. His dogsbody Filch followed him. According to him, the footprints led to the mine. Your father didn't hesitate, but followed the creature inside. Filch followed, but couldn't keep up with him. Jupiter was always so impetuous; he just couldn't wait for help. He chased the creature—whatever it was—through the mine, shooting spell after spell at it. Some went awry and somehow—apparently— undermined the Propping Spells my Cuthbert had placed on the supports. The ceiling caved in on the two of them—tons of rock. There was nothing could be done."

"Have they found him yet?"

"Yes, the bodies were recovered about an hour ago." Minerva watched as the face in the fireplace paled and crumpled. She thought at first it was a premature dissolution of the Flooing Charm, but Aunt Charlamaine did not vanish, at least not right away. Was it possible her aunt was actually crying?

~*~

Minerva emerged from the kitchen hearth, her face clean and carefully wooden. Ma would need her more than ever now. She dropped her bags on the floor. Outside the window, she could see a chair in the sunlight, and her mother's head bent over something, a letter perhaps. She ran out to her and rounded the chair. She meant to be strong, supportive, but when her mother looked up, she melted instantly to the ground. Grasping her mother about the waist, she buried her head in her lap, like a little child.

"Ma—Mama." Her voice was muffled in the soft folds of her mother's apron. She felt she could sit here all day, swathed in the warm, sweet-smelling cloth, shutting out the harsh, unforgiving light, the fierce pain.

Gentle hands lifted her face. The warm, familiar voice washed over her. "My dear girl. I don't believe I've had the pleasure…" The words shocked Minerva to the core, like a sluice of cold water.

She looked up into the hazel eyes, which were clear and frowning in puzzlement, not red and puffy with grief. She pushed herself back onto her heels.

The voice continued, cool and courteous. "I'm sorry. Pleasure is a terribly inappropriate word to use at a time like this. You're Jupiter's daughter. Minerva, isn't it? My dear child, I'm so sorry for your loss. He was a good, generous man."

Minerva looked again—hard. It was her mother, down to the last freckle. The voice was her mother's too. But the words were those of a stranger—or of a woman denying a grief too great to bear. She wanted to reply, but words stuck in her throat like dry bread. Then something, some motion, caught her peripheral vision. Her eyes were swimming with tears, yet she managed to discern a dark figure at the kitchen window beckoning to her. Goodie Gudgeon it was, it had to be, white-faced, looking timidly, fearfully, sadly out at her. Dear Goodie. Minerva gathered herself and nodded to the stranger in her mother's chair. She walked stiffly back into the house.

Goodie took her arm and steered her to a place at the work table. Minerva realized that her nurse had shrunk quite a bit since Christmas. She had a sudden irrational, horrifying thought. Was this too part of some deranged spellwork that had planted a stranger who looked like her mother out there in the courtyard? Was it perhaps not Goodie there in front of her, but a dwarf, a few inches too short, and badly Transfigured to look like her? It took all Minerva's self-control to curb the fantastic scenarios that ricocheted about her mind. Only her memory of gentleness in the strange witch's voice, the care of the dwarf's touch, stopped her from spilling her suspicions out in a howl of grief and anger at the mockery. She sat automatically when prompted, and when a steaming cup was placed before her, blew and sipped. It might have been water for all she could taste of it.

The dwarf-crone took a seat across the table from her. She looked at it. Eyes very like her nurse's gazed out at her. The wrinkles were almost perfect, but the lines at the corners of the mouth were much deeper, and the skin over the forehead was stretched tightly as though there hadn't been quite enough to complete the disguise. Minerva almost laughed. Who was it playing this cruel trick on her? She thought back to the face in the Headmaster's fireplace. That wasn't really Aunt Charlamaine either. She never cried, no matter what. It had to be an imposter, just like the woman in the courtyard and the dwarf pretending to be her nurse. But who would do this? As she was coolly running down the list of her real and imagined enemies, which ranged from evil warlocks unknown to renegade goblins overrunning the countryside to a plot by Cuthbert and the Macnairs to take over the estate, something touched her hand, stroked it. "Lass," said a voice infinitely sad. She looked up. Goodie was looking at her. It was she, there was no use pretending. And her father was dead, and the woman outside who didn't know her was her mother. She knew all this in a wink, by the touch of that hand, that rough, aged, loving hand.

~*~

In the end, it was not Goodie Gudgeon who answered Minerva's questions. The old woman was simply incapable of putting more than two words together without breaking down. They came together and sobbed in each other's arms for a long while, and there Donnie found them.

"Come, my dear, let us go for a walk." She took Minerva's arm and led her through the Great Hall to the front entrance. Minerva was relieved to be going out that way. She didn't want to meet the strange woman who looked like her mother, who was her mother, but who didn't know her from a sprig of heather.

They walked in silence down the road towards the fields, past the gate where the Pogrebin's corpse had been spread-eagled. There were just a few remaining bits of gray flesh and tendon nailed to the hoarding, which a farm hand was now removing. A heap of cloth lay next to him, black crepe to drape the gates and walls with.

"I'm so sorry you had to hear about this from our sister. Was she very…cold about it?"

"Aunt Charlamaine? No she seemed actually sad."

"She was the first one to hear, and rushed to contact you before any of us could…"

"It's all right. Oh, Donnie, what's happened to Ma? She didn't recognize me. Is she—is she in shock?"

Her aunt bowed her head. The words, when they came, were a mere murmur. "No, it's not that. She's been that way ever since that night—when she tried to kill herself."

"Oh no—Aunt Donnie, did I do that to her?"

"What are you saying?"

"When I pushed her back off the ledge—I heard her skull crack against the stone."

"Oh no, dearie, no." Donnie seized her hands. "You saved her. Saved her life."

"But her memory is gone—she doesn't know me—"

"The Healers don't know how it came about. They tried for months to restore it—with all kinds of tonics and stimulants, soaks, sedatives… There's no way of telling if it was the blow to the head that did it, though that is a common cause of Muggle amnesia. Healer Kirke thinks the Geas somehow managed to wreak one last bit of havoc on her brain as the Pogrebin died. In any case, she's at peace now."

"She doesn't remember…anything?"

"She knows she's a witch. But she has no idea about her family."

"So she doesn't know she's married. Doesn't know about me."

"She knows you as the daughter of a very kind man who took her in when she'd suffered an accident on his property."

"And he…Da…never said anything more to her about it or tried to make her…"

"The Healers we consulted, including Magus Kirk—especially her—thought it best to let her memory come back naturally. The calming sleep Brianag Doohan cast on her lasted about a week. When she came out of it and didn't recognize your father, we called in specialists. They assured us it was a temporary state, that in time, she would remember."

"And now? Shouldn't she be told? So she can mourn him?"

"Healer Kirk believes that so much painful truth would, in fact, destroy what sanity she has left, that no good can come of trying to force her to remember."

"I still don't understand. Da wrote to me back in March. He said she was fine."

Once again her aunt hung her head. "I helped him with the wording of that letter. I'm sorry, dearie. We misled you."

"But…it says Ma asked about me."

"No. If you read it carefully, you'll see…oh it doesn't matter. The point is, we lied, and for that I'm so very sorry."

Minerva was angry. "But why did you not tell me? Am I not to be trusted with an understanding of my own mother's health?"

"We thought you should have a normal time at school, with no worries for a change. And of course we expected that she'd be better by the time you came home. We never…never dreamed…"

"And now, they're both lost to me, and it's all my fault."

"What do you mean?"

"It was me that caused her to hit her head. Oh, Donnie—and Da too."

"What about him?"

"I knew about the monster he followed—the yeti. Petey told me. It escaped from Laird Macnair's collection. I should have roused the countryside, as soon as I found out."

Now it was her aunt's turn to be angry. "Laird Macnair had a yeti on the grounds of his home? And it escaped? Why didn't he rouse the countryside?"

"I don't know. But I should have told. And anyway, I should never have gone back to school. I should have been here, to take care of Da. Where is he…his body?"

"Down in the undercroft, being prepared for the viewing. Brianag Doohan kindly volunteered to supervise in light of your mother's…indisposition."

"When…when is…"

"The wake? The morn's night. And the burial the next evening."

"In the Crypt."

"Of course. He'll rest beside our father and mother."

"With his wand."

"Yes."

Minerva didn't know why this knowledge affected her so. Or perhaps she did. Their last intimate act together had been the Wanding. She could see her father's face: by turns quizzical, proud, angry, and finally, jubilant. She'd never see it that way again.

She looked out over the fields, small stubs of plantations rising out of them: barley and rhubarb and oats. His fields no longer. Soon to be whose? Hers. Oh no oh no oh no oh no…

She put her hands to her face. "I can't do it, Aunt Donnie."

"What?"

"What he wanted. I can't take over. I'm too…too…"

"Young?"

"No…yes…no it's not that. I don't…care…enough. And I can't live here. Not with Ma. I can't look at her."

"I understand."

And now I'm to take his place as Laird…Lady of the Keep. I can't do it, Donnie, I can't."

Her favorite aunt drew her close and stroked her hair, her compact, energetic body supporting her niece's limp, gangling frame. "You needn't think on that, dearie. Not just yet."