Archive of Our Own

“Enough, Minerva,” she said to herself, closing her office’s door, which involved gently kicking aside a pile of silver instruments she’d meant to catalogue for… oh, weeks now. “It all needs dealing with, and you’re the only one to do it.”

She wrapped her hands around her mug of tea, allowing the brief comfort while she took a steadying breath. Then, she surveyed the room.

Albus’ things were everywhere, still, though she’d held this role for months. There would be no better time than now, with the students mostly home for the holidays.

She licked the tip of her quill and readied her stack of Weasley’s Magical Stick-It Notes.

“Right. To work, then.”

PERCH, previously used by Fawkes.
Condition: Fair. Sturdy, usable. Cosmetic damage (scorch marks).
Direct to: OWLERY.

She could only assume that Fawkes would not return. He’d been a wild bird before Albus, and she hoped the transition back to the savage woods had been a pleasant one for him.

For the first time, it struck her as odd that Fawkes had stayed in Albus’ office all those years. How had they come to be so tied to each other? What had Albus done, or said, to inspire that loyalty in a wild creature?

And had it been true?

“Stop,” she scolded herself. She couldn’t go down that road—she’d never get through everything.

BOOKS, myriad.
Condition: Varied, but generally good.
Direct to: LIBRARY.

She hoped they were already catalogued. If not, Pince would be furious when the elves showed up.

PORTRAITS, ex-Headmasters.
Condition: Good.
Direct to: LIBRARY.

Pince could deal with those, too. She was sick of looking at them. They gave her these pitying glances. All except Albus, of course, since she’d flipped his portrait to face the wall.

She hadn’t meant to. Or at least, she hadn’t meant to keep him there.

At first, the painted version of Albus had kept silent, allowing her to mourn. He’d eventually started in with offhand remarks—small things, how’s-the-weathers, password suggestions for the gargoyle—and one day, had gone so far as to say, “He did his best, you know. He did what he thought was right.”

“That’s what I told myself,” she had answered, after a few moments in which she could not have answered, except perhaps to scream. “Every day, for all those years. 'He’s the Headmaster, Minerva,' I told myself. 'If you were in his shoes, perhaps you would do the same, Minerva.'”

And then she’d turned the portrait to the wall, and left it there.

INSTRUMENTS, silver, miscellaneous.
Condition: Indeterminate.
Direct to: DIVINATION TOWER.

Minerva had never known what the damn things were for. Perhaps they would be useful for tea leaves, or something.

SORTING HAT.
Condition: As ever.
Direct to: SECURE STORAGE.

Why did he keep that flea-ridden fop here with him?

Perhaps he spoke to it.

It could peer through the lies people told themselves, though. So maybe he didn’t speak to it.

PENSIEVE.
Condition: Excellent.
Direct to:

She frowned, quill hovering above the paper.

Direct to: SECURE STORAGE.

No, that wasn’t right. There was so much history in there. It shouldn't just be locked away.

Direct to: SECURE STORAGE MINISTER FOR MAGIC.

There was research value in it, certainly. The archivists would have a field day. They could dive in to everything that Albus had put in there; all the memories he’d decided were important enough to keep. Everything filtered through his own mind, his perspective. His side of the story.

Minerva found that she needed to sit down.

She’d expected to use it. The Pensieve. Before, when she was still making her decision, when she was trying to collect enough of herself to understand if she wanted to step into those shoes. When she imagined what it would feel like to be Headmistress of this school. This place. This institution, that she loved so much. She had imagined that her feelings toward it might change; that the love in her heart, the love for her students and their capacity for learning, their sheer potential, the love for the stairwells, the ghosts, that something about that love might shift beneath the weight of the Headmistress' robes. She had imagined that her love for it all was a professor’s love, unburdened by responsibility, the kind of burdensome responsibility that made someone use students the way Albus had used students, the way he had used the school, as a pawn in the Great War. She had imagined there would be a widening of her love, an expansion of its borders to encompass more, more of the world, and with that expansion—a necessary permeation, an allowance for some evils to prevent the coming-to-be of greater ones. Because if you held dough in your hands—the dough was love, an imperfect metaphor, but hush—if you held it and stretched it, and kept stretching, it would expand, and then it would thin, and then it would shear, and tear badly if you kept pulling, and then it would be buns.

Minerva took another sip of her tea.

STATUE, marble bust.
Condition: Good. Ears of above-average size.
Direct to: ART DEPARTMENT.

Did they have an art department? They must, surely. Art was a thing students did sometimes.

The elves would figure it out.

ASTROLABES, various material.
Condition: Good to excellent.
Direct to: ASTRONOMY TOWER.

It was nice when things had a clear purpose. She knew where to put them, in those cases. Merlin knew there were enough things in life that didn’t have a place to go.

Her anger, for example.

She had become Headmistress, and her love for the school had changed. It had deepened. It had broadened. But it had never, ever torn. There was simply more of it, its depths actually frightening in their unfathomability.

She had not known she was capable of such love. She would have thought her heart too old to contain it.

She had already mourned the loss of Albus, and now—damn him!—he’d given her cause to mourn him again. The version of him that she’d created. The one that had to, because he was Headmaster. The one she had told herself she would understand, once she was Headmistress.

Well. She was Headmistress now.

She was Headmistress now.

HAT, wizardly, spare. Previously worn by Albus Dumbledore.
Condition: Good Scorched beyond repair.
Direct to: DISPOSAL.

She let the flames do their work, and finished her tea, then conjured new tea and doused the embers with it.

“Sodden hat,” she muttered.

She looked at her teacup, which filled itself again.

She looked at the next item to be inventoried.

LETTERS, personal, written by Albus Dumbledore.
Condition:

She held the teacup over the stack of paper.

It poured, and poured, and poured.

Condition: Unsalvageable.
Direct to: DISPOSAL.

“Myrtle Warren,” she commanded, and the ghost appeared.

“Headmistress!” she said, surprised. “I didn’t—I haven’t—whyever did you call?”

“Calm, child,” Minerva said. “I’m hoping you can help me with something.”

WORK ORDER: Headmistress’ Office.
Plumbing disruption caused systemic damage.
Some items, catalogued for dissemination, already distributed to intended persons.
All remaining office contents, consider unsalvageable.