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The wind cut right through her and Professor McGonagall shivered. She was no stranger to the harsher sides of Scottish weather, but all she wanted to do right now was sit down with an old friend. These past few years she had been feeling a little chilly.
She sighed as she pulled out her wand to cast a quick heating charm - she really was getting old. A memory from almost a century ago flickered through her mind and she briefly indulged it - she was speeding towards the hoops on her broom with the quaffle under her arm and the Hufflepuff chasers out of position due to the hailstorm that was pounding the Quidditch pitch. They had lost that game if she recalled correctly, but only by a small margin, then going on to trounce Slytherin in the next match - a far more satisfying victory. Hmph.
Old and nostalgic it seemed. Huffing as she gripped her cane and started for the center of the isle, she banished all notions of foolish pride. She wasn’t the young spring bird she was back then, and almost seventy years of teaching had worn her down. Of course - she slammed the cane down onto the packed dirt path with a satisfying thud - had she her time again, she wouldn’t change a damned thing.
Before long the clearing came into view, and Minerva saw the tomb. It was as white as the day it had been made, kept clean and a clearing permanently formed by Pomona’s various enchantments. Or, Minerva mused as her own idly curious reveal charm zipped across the clearing, her friend was just that good with the plant life.
She reached the tomb and paused. There was no more real motivation to come here than a simple whimsy but Professor McGonagall knew well what the movements of fate felt like, and while she thought those times had passed for her, the return of this feeling reminded her of the action of her youth.
She squinted at the tomb and it’s distinct lack of seating before sighing. Then lowering herself slowly to the grassy floor, she grunted as something popped in her knees. That certainly wasn’t supposed to happen. It was probably a result of getting far too used to the Headmistresses’ chair, and the rather plush ones in the staffroom which had remained resolutely the same throughout the years, no matter how many bad tempered witches or wizards sat on them.
The cold shot through her again, and something stirred the grass beside her - a white wisp - gradually forming into the approximate shape of a person, before it solidified into one of Dumbledore, wearing the supremely relaxed demeanor that he had in life and beaming, eyes twinkling like twin stars. She an eyebrow at him.
“Now I know I’m going mad.”
The false Dumbledore shrugged. “That is what they said about me my dear, and yet many still came to me for advice.”
She stared at him and the corners of his eyes gradually creased, looking for all the world like there was some great private joke, and only he was in on it. She huffed. He hadn’t changed. “So, Albus, are you a ghost, or just a particularly whimsical part of my mind?”
Dumbledore nodded. “To the point as ever, Minerva. In all honesty, I think I’m a little bit of both.” Glancing at her best unimpressed expression - practiced upon generations of students - he continued, unaffected. “Well as you know, we all carry a little bit of our closest, the ones we love the most in our hearts. What I’ve found in death however, or at least this version of me has, is that it is an entirely literal situation. We keep a tiny fragment of our closest ones to ourselves. I am therefore, in effect, the shade, silver or impression of Albus Dumbledore you kept to yourself.”
Minerva nodded to herself, turning it over in her mind and accepting it, before a small smile crept onto her face. “Even in death, or whatever this is now, you still can’t keep yourself from being a teacher.” As she glanced up, Dumbledore returned the smile like she had just given him the greatest complement in the world. She chuckled and continued. “I don’t know how you managed to keep yourself from popping into every other one of my transfiguration lessons. Even after all these years as Headmistress, I still want to take just one class of young witches and wizards through even the most basic theory.”
The chill shot through in her chest and she bent over slightly. Albus regarded her with an aura that had moved to one of slight sadness.
“It’s almost time Minerva.” he said.
She coughed, and glared, a flash of her old fire shooting through her. “And who are you to dictate that, you old coot?”
Now she was the one on the receiving end of raised eyebrows. If he had dared to do that while he was alive, she would have been sorely tempted to hex them off. More's the pity.
Sighing, she looked around for something to lean back against, and not finding anything else she shifted herself to the coffin and put her back to it, not bothering to get up fully, given her knees. Albus, being the ghost he was simply lifted off and floated the centimeters with her.
He hummed. “I think that the reason you can now see me is that you are gradually getting closer to death, which is where the vast majority of me resides.”
She nodded and said “I suppose. I’ve actually put thought into becoming a ghost, Albus. But since you never came back” - she eyed him - “properly at least, I think it quite right that I-”
Cold shot through her chest again and she bent over, taking shallow breaths.
It was truly absurd. Albus himself had died prematurely at the age of 115. She was 24 years behind the old coot and already her body felt like giving up the ghost.
“Any regrets?” he asked softly.
She considered for a second, her mind still as quick as ever before she shook her head. “No. Not a single one. Some women might have wanted to become mothers, but I had generations of students to look after, which was more than enough for me.”
Her fingers trembled, and her wand slipped slightly but remained in her curled hand. She looked at and tried to move it, but it remained numb. Wonderful.
“Perhaps we could have done more to prevent that toad, Umbridge.” She attempted a little humour - never her strong side - and lifted up her hand, wand wobbling, towards Dumbledore’s transparent, calm face. “I blame her for this. All those stunners can’t have been good for my heart.”
The numb feeling began to move up her arm and old muscles instinctively tensed before she forced herself to relax, letting it fall back to the ground.
“But you feel you succeeded?”
McGonagall eyed him. “You can’t stop yourself from being a teacher even for a moment, can you? Of course I succeeded. I was instrumental in stopping two wars, and was able to teach generations upon generations of young wizarding minds about the wonders of magic. I was proposed to twice, and accepted both. I have colleagues who I count among my dearest friends, and friends who I would happily take a spell for - though some have already passed on.” She felt a pang sweep through her but continued. “I have lived my life to the fullest, Albus. I do not regret a single part of it, and if I had it again, I would likely do the same.”
“Then I’m glad and honoured you would choose to spend your final moments talking to this old coot.” He smiled, genuinely happy for her and she relaxed giving a rare, full smile back. Dignity could go to the wolves, where she was going she likely wouldn’t need it.
She coughed. “You may be an old coot Albus, but you have been, and always will be my idol and my mentor. It’s because of you I managed what I did. Thank you.”
Albus beamed, then his image shimmered as if a reflection in a rippling pond. He noticed it too and glanced at his hand.
“I’m afraid it’s time dear. Are you ready?”
“When… am I not?”
He smiled and faded further, and all of a sudden the clearing contained only her.
She sighed, and Minerva McGonagall leant back against the coffin - as close to her mentor, inspiration and guiding star as the cruel stone would allow, that numb sensation bringing with it a sense of peace and finality which spread through her entire being. Her wand gave a final spark, a small white wisp curling out and taking an almost cat-like form before dispersing. She smiled.
“I’ll see you soon, old friend.”
The search party the next day eventually flew over the island, and with a shout, they descended upon the clearing. There, they found there one old witch, with a wand held in as firm a grip as she had had on life and a faint smile on her face.
The former students of the party, and later on her sniffing co-workers all agreed on one thing. In life, she had never looked so at peace, save when she was teaching.