19 Years (HP - Drarry)

Chapter 4: Better Be... Hufflepuff!

Friday, September 1, 2017

Minerva McGonagall sat at the Head Table with the others, though her position now was merely to advise the young man beside her. Teddy Lupin, freshly graduated from Hogwarts himself, had agreed, after much convincing by herself and Headmaster Longbottom – Minerva suppressed a chuckle, as she always did when thinking about hapless Neville Longbottom as Headmaster, never mind that he was proving to be more than competent – to accept the position of transfiguration professor and head of Hufflepuff House.

Of course, he'd been easy to convince. Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, though... She grimaced as she recalled their interviews. At least their legendary rivalry would be Neville's to manage now. She didn't envy him in the least. Harry and Draco sat farther along the table, alternately glaring daggers at one another and ignoring one another completely. She shook her head. She'd never doubted Hermione's intellect until the girl had shown up in her office, demanding she hire the two rivals, swearing their years of rivalry had stemmed from unacknowledged attraction and even a secret relationship. Minerva had lost her calm mask at that point, dissolving into hysterical laughter whilst Hermione glared and tapped her foot pointedly. That she had Pansy Parkinson, Astoria Greengrass, and Ginny Weasley backing her up...

Minerva sighed, then shook her head when Teddy turned a questioning glance her way. It was bad enough that Hermione Granger and Pansy Parkinson– the cleverest and most cunning witches Hogwarts had ever seen – had joined forces. The combination of Ginny Potter, nee Weasley and Astoria Malfoy, nee Greengrass – pranksters and schemers who, Minerva personally thought, rivaled the infamous Weasley twins in deviousness – was, quiet frankly, terrifying. If Potter and Malfoy ever teamed up and turned the fire of their rivalry against the world... well. It didn't bear thinking about.

She glanced at the men in question and rolled her eyes. Two professors, Heads of House, even, and they were glaring at one another like schoolboys. She watched them, fascinated, as her brain helpfully provided an overlay of seven years of glares. That they glared across the Head Table, now, instead of across their respective House tables, over the heads of their classmates, didn't change anything. The years fell away from their faces, and they were once again two boys embroiled in a bitter rivalry.

She felt a sudden desire to smack the both of them over the back of the head, then drag them off by their ears – which she had done to each of them, before, when they were students – and stick them into a broom closet until they resolved whatever issues were consuming them. She fervently hoped they could learn to work together – or at least tolerate one another. She was sick of petty rivalries between the DADA professor and potions professor... between Gryffindor and Slytherin. She might love her house, but she held no illusions about its culpability in that feud. The feud that, she suspected, had its roots in the two men who glared daggers at one another just down the table.

Minerva sighed heavily, then patted Teddy on the shoulder. "Good luck, dear," she whispered, "I think you'll need it."

Teddy just winked at her. "Don't worry – Hermione and Pansy have a plan."

Minerva raised an eyebrow. "Yes. That's what I'm worried about."

Minerva was startled out of her thoughts when Neville's magically enhanced voice echoed through the Great Hall, announcing the name of the first child waiting to be sorted.

The child stepped up to the stool at the center of the hall, trembling slightly. She took a fortifying breath, then hopped up onto the stool, lowering the hat gingerly onto her head. She closed her eyes tight, screwing up her features, and jumped slightly as the Hat shouted: "Gryffindor!" She hopped down, gently set the hat back on the stool, then skipped over to the Gryffindor table, where a seat opened for her. She was quickly hidden from view, as the Gryffindors closed ranks around her, with much back slapping and friendly hugs. Minerva smiled fondly, remembering. She would always have a soft spot for Gryffindor, no matter how she tried to love each House equally. Gryffindor was her home – always had been, and always would be.

The next sortings passed in a blur as she thought back on her many years as Gryffindor's Head of House. "Slytherin. Ravenclaw. Hufflepuff. Slytherin. Gryffindor...."

"Scorpius Malfoy."

There was a collective indrawn breath, as the small, pale boy hesitated, then ducked his head and hurried to the stool.

"Merlin," Minerva breathed, "I'd forgotten his son would be here."

Teddy shot her a questioning look. "He's quite nice, actually. Shy, but friendly. He and Al have been getting close, this summer."

"Albus?" Minerva stared. A Malfoy and a Potter? Surely not...

"Hufflepuff!" the Hat boomed. And the Hall went deathly silent, as every whispered conversation halted abruptly.

Scorpius slipped off the stool and slunk over to the Hufflepuff table, head bowed. He didn't look at his father.

Minerva glanced at Draco, and felt her mouth drop open at the look of compassion, understanding, and love on his face. He'd known, she realized. He'd known, and he accepted it. Perhaps he had changed.

Scorpius looked up then, and caught his father's gentle smile. The worry lines cleared off his forehead, and he grinned hesitantly back. Then he turned back to his new housemates and began talking quietly to them. The whispered conversations resumed, and the preternatural stillness was broken.

It returned when Albus Potter's name was called.

Minerva felt her mouth drop open once again as the hat called "Hufflepuff!" and Albus practically ran to the table. Scorpius wrapped him in a one-armed hug, ruffled his hair fondly, and continued his conversation. Al joined in happily after a jaunty wave toward his father. Minerva turned to Harry, and smiled involuntarily as she caught the amused, resigned smile he wore.

Well. Perhaps they'd all grown up.

She didn't notice the rest of the sorting – she was too busy watching Malfoy and Potter dance around one another – both sets of them. Al and Scorpius were clearly friends, and maybe more. They were closer than boys their age tended to be, seemingly more prone to physical gestures of affection. Harry and Draco spent the dinner staring at one another, pretending they weren't, taking turns looking away. She was reminded again of countless dinners over the years where they'd done the same, sending covert glances across the tables. Perhaps Hermione wasn't so far off after all.

Looking down at Hogwarts' newest Malfoy-Potter pair, their small heads, pale and dark, bent together over some book as they laughed fondly together, hands still clasped under the table, Minerva was hit with a wave of nostalgia, of might-have-beens. She remembered the gossip, that first night, that Potter had refused Malfoy's friendship, good riddance. The clumsily-masked hurt she'd seen in Draco's eyes that night, but discounted - he was a Malfoy after all - and wondered. She looked back through the clearer eyes of memory, probed beneath the the anger and hostility in all those gazes. Perhaps... She turned, looked again at Harry and Draco, engaged now in a childish staring contest, and there it was. In the green eyes and the grey. There was anger, yes, and pain, and betrayal. The hurt was more skillfully masked, now, but it was there. And under it all... She sighed, turning back to her food. Yes. She could see it now - the desperate, hungry longing that lurked in both pairs of eyes. And she had no idea what to do about it.

She turned to Teddy, to say - well, she wasn't sure what she would say, come to think of it. What she could say. But he smiled at her, flicked his eyes to the stubborn pair, turned the smile into a smirk. Then he turned back to his conversation with Neville, and Minerva felt a weight lift off her shoulders. Well. He knew, and presumably had some plan. Perhaps she could leave this - and all the other burdens that had fallen to her, over the years - on his younger and considerably broader shoulders. One couldn't correct the mistakes of the young forever, after all. She felt the first taste of a quiet peace, and began to eat, savoring her food as she seldom gave herself leave to do. She was getting old - it was time to turn the world over to the next generation. She was finally, she decided, ready to retire.