Harry Potter 1. Professor McGonagall

Photographs  
  
Professor McGonagall dropped into her chair, covering her face with her hands. She agreed with Dumbledore that the students should be told about Voldemort. But Dumbledore didn't have to deal with the students afterwards. He didn't have to reassure hysterical children. He didn't have to pretend to be calm and strong.  
  
The students were gone for the summer, sent off on the train, home to their families. She would leave in a few days, after she finished some paperwork. Home to a small flat with faded paint and worn furniture and an old pumpkin juice stain on the carpet, unchanged from when she had moved in so many years ago.  
  
McGonagall muttered a complicated opening charm, tapping a small lock on the bottom drawer of her desk. The drawer stuck, since she rarely opened it. As a professor, head of Gryffindor house, and deputy headmistress, she could not afford the weakness and self-indulgence represented by the drawer's contents.  
  
Two photographs. That was all. There were more at her flat; photo albums, pictures hung on the wall and displayed on the tables. But she only allowed herself to bring these two with her to Hogwarts. They were enough.  
  
One was unframed, its colors faded and grainy, the edges worn, one corner creased. The teenaged boy in the photo was dressed casually in dark shorts and a white striped shirt. His light brown hair was tousled and overdue for a haircut. His skin was tanned and he held a broomstick in one hand. He was waving at the camera, blowing kisses, and winking with a slight smirk.  
  
Professor McGonagall turned the picture over and read the short note on the back.  
  
"Minnie-  
  
Yes, I know you hate that nickname. I like how you glare whenever someone uses it. But it's better then Nerva. Plus, you can't hex me right now, so I can call you anything I like, my little kitten.  
  
Just a quick note to tell you I miss you and love you. You not being here makes this whole vacation seem like torture, and the thought of seeing you in a month makes school seem like the Promised Land. A thousand kisses,  
  
Patrick."  
  
McGonagall laid the picture on the desk, face up, looking at the young man who was now mouthing "I love you." After a few moments, she pulled out the second picture.  
  
This one was framed and better preserved, although the silver frame was tarnished. There were two people in this picture; the young man from the other picture, now several years older, and a young woman. Patrick's hair was neatly combed, and he wore formal black velvet robes with white borders along the sleeves, and a top hat. The woman was wearing white robes, half her dark hair framing her face, the rest pulled back and hidden under the veil trailing from a small tiara down her back.  
  
The two had their arms around each other and were laughing. Every now and then, Patrick's hand would wander down from her hip, making the woman blush and laugh as she shoved his hand away. As Professor McGonagall watched, Patrick pulled his young bride into a dance. It looked like an attempt at waltz by someone who had never learned the dance. They waltzed out of the picture, and Professor McGonagall laid it down, wiping tears from her eyes.  
  
Two months after that picture was taken, a week after they'd finished moving into their tiny new flat, she had come home from grocery shopping to find Patrick sprawled on the floor, vacant eyes staring up at the ceiling, the Death Mark glowing in the air above his body.  
  
She heard the sound of the glass bottle breaking as she dropped the groceries and fell to her knees beside his body, shaking and crying as she took his cold hand and with her other hand, shut his eyes.  
  
Professor McGonagall returned the pictures to the desk drawer, wiping her eyes with a small handkerchief as she locked the drawer. 


	2. Madam Pomfrey

Disclaimer: Not mine. Please don't sue.  
  
  
  
Thanks to Kelti and Katherine Silverhair for reviewing the last chapter!  
  
  
  
  
  
Most people ignored the portraits in the Infirmary. They were solemn and quiet, easy to overlook. They had to be. It was important that Madam Pomfrey's patients were not disturbed. And the portraits had little reason for joy or levity, as they watched over injured students, seeing the little scrapes and cold, and the more upsetting cases, like the basilisk victims and the results of hexes and potions gone wrong.  
  
  
  
  
  
Most people put the portraits' solemnity down to those causes. There were jokes how even the portraits wouldn't dare Madam Pomfrey's wrath, and how she must have chosen them all herself.  
  
  
  
  
  
She had, but not the way most people imagined her doing so, interviewing old portraits before deciding which would be hung in her Infirmary. No, every painting had been commissioned by her, based off of photographs she'd provided. Most people didn't realize that a portrait painted from a photo was different from one that had had a live model, or created wholly from the artist's imagination. They lacked the life and spirit of the other portraits. "A shadow of a reflection," one artist had said. It did not help that all the paintings were done in somber colors. Madam Pomfrey had the original photographs, but she did not display them. They were kept in a locked box, and she only opened the box to add a new photograph or remove one to be used as a model in a new painting. Unlike the paintings, the photographs tended to be happy and light hearted.  
  
  
  
  
  
Most of the portraits were of young people, though few people realized that. No one paid much attention to them, and no one noticed that the face half hidden by the feathered hat was that of 15 year old, or that the girl walking next to him in the flowing, elaborate dress couldn't be more than 12. Their somber mood only helped convince people of their age, since young portraits were rarely restrained and quiet.  
  
  
  
  
  
The old fashioned costumes they wore helped add to the impression of age. Madam Pomfrey did not like the costumes. She wished they'd been painted in what they actually wore. But Professor Dumbledore had pointed out that it might make her patients curious, and then they would ask questions they would not like to hear the answers to. Questions about why the paintings were no more than 25 years old, when so many paintings in Hogwarts were centuries old. Questions about why all the people were so young, why so many wore school uniforms.  
  
  
  
  
  
Because I knew them as children, she thought watching a painting of a girl flirting quietly with a young man. They both looked to be about 16, and their flirting, like everything else they did, was quiet, restrained, and oddly formal. They could not be said to be more than content. But they were not less than content either.  
  
  
  
  
  
The girl's name had been Alice. She had been brought in with a broken leg, having fallen from her broom during quidditch. The boy had been Ben. He'd shown up several times from spells gone awry. He'd been a bit of a klutz, but sweet and charming and always optimistic that the next spell would work better.  
  
  
  
  
  
His last spell hadn't worked, but backfired. He hadn't had any face left when they found him. The Death Eaters took credit for his death, but Madam Pomfrey knew better. He'd killed himself, trying to take them out.  
  
  
  
  
  
Alice had died in childbirth. It had been a hard pregnancy, and Alice was suspicious of doctors, refusing to stay in a hospital. She'd insisted on Madam Pomfrey to assist in the labor, saying she was the only medi-witch Alice trusted. She'd gone into labor late one night during a snowstorm. Apparating while pregnant was extremely dangerous, and Floo powder could be risky too, so Alice had sent her husband to bring Madame Pomfrey's from Hogwarts, forgetting that she had gone home for Christmas break. By the time he'd tracked her down and the two had apparated back to Alice's flat, it was too late. Both mother and child were dead.  
  
  
  
The next portrait was one of the few older ones. A young man in his late twenties, who at the moment was reading a book. He had messy, dark blond hair, and was wearing a nightgown with a dark blue dressing gown belted over it. His feet were propped up on a footstool, and a fire crackled softly in the background.  
  
  
  
  
  
His name had been Eric. He had trained to be a medi-wizard with her, and she'd healed him a few times when he had overworked and made himself sick. Dumbledore had killed him and captured another Death Eater, saving a family of five that had chosen to stand against Voldemort.  
  
  
  
  
  
Madam Pomfrey liked the portraits like this, quiet and subdued, in dark colors and shadows. The happy photographs made her cry inside, bemoaning the loss of so much life. The portraits did not radiate life, but seemed nearer to death. Looking at them made Madam Pomfrey feel closer to the dead, to their spirits, while the photographs reminded her of a past she could never reclaim.  
  
  
  
  
  
The portraits, never happy, never bright and cheerful, served another purpose. They made her want to make sure no more portraits would be added. They encouraged her to save them all, to keep fighting as the children kept finding new ways to hurt themselves, as Voldemort gained power and war crept closer.  
  
  
  
  
  
But she knew it wasn't enough. Once they left Hogwarts, she would lose them, and death would take them. And all she could do is sit on the battlefield, surrounded by cold bodies staring at her with empty eyes, holding someone she'd seen grow up and who's skinned knees she had healed as he gasped and choked, her hands wet with blood. 


End file.

Harry Potter, Angst