FIC: Mark
Title: Mark
Author: kellychambliss
Characters: McGonagall
Rating: PG
Prompt: From woldy: The scene with the lit wands raised to salute Dumbles, from Minerva's POV. I'd also love to hear if there is backstory to that gesture in the context of Minerva's life.
Summary: Minerva and the thousand points of light
It was the way they signaled one another in the other battles Minerva McGonagall has lived through, the other wars she's fought: just a thin point of wandlight shot upwards to touch the clouds, a brief, bright beacon sent to the stars.
Odd, she's always thought, that a simple stream of energy could say so many different things; she's used it to point out targets and to show a destination reached. To ask for help. To bring her cohort home.
She remembers the first time she sent it aloft in triumph, after a sortie in the war against Grindelwald; she'd been deployed in cat form to locate hostages held by some Dark agent or other. The details have faded from her mind: now all that remains is a fierce memory of the pride she'd felt as she raised her wand arm and proclaimed her victory to the heavens.
She had believed, then, that wars could be won, that enemies could be vanquished, that the many deaths were for the greater good.
She had been very young.
They'd used the signal beam in the first war against Voldemort, too. So many of the original Order members had been Grindelwald veterans that it had seemed natural to them, and the younger recruits had been happy to continue a tradition forged during that legendary War -- the war that was going to make the wizarding world safe for good.
Except that it hadn't, of course, and all too soon they had found themselves back in the darkness once more.
She remembers standing in an overgrown field on the night the Prewett brothers died, the acrid, ozone aftermath of battle magic crackling around her as she lifted her wand to mark the night with her light. But there had been no pride that time, no victory: just a flare to show the position of the bodies.
She had been much older then, but she had still thought that the battles were worth fighting. As she'd stood there, with the drying blood of her fallen comrades stiffening her robes, she had believed that their sacrifices mattered.
Tonight, she stands again in war, in the Hogwarts courtyard-turned-battlefield, looking at the body of their leader Albus Dumbledore, now a broken heap of bones and beard and hope surrounded by the children who will do most of the dying this time.
She doubts whether their sacrifices will have meaning to anyone except perhaps those who love them, doubts whether "victory," even if it comes, will do more than buy a few years of the quiet-that-passes-for-peace before the inevitable rise of the next dark lord.
But perhaps those gains will be enough. And in any case, she doesn't know what else to do but fight the fight again. Light the light again. Leave a mark.
With a soft rustle of robes, Minerva raises her wand to the sky.
Author: kellychambliss
Characters: McGonagall
Rating: PG
Prompt: From woldy: The scene with the lit wands raised to salute Dumbles, from Minerva's POV. I'd also love to hear if there is backstory to that gesture in the context of Minerva's life.
Summary: Minerva and the thousand points of light
It was the way they signaled one another in the other battles Minerva McGonagall has lived through, the other wars she's fought: just a thin point of wandlight shot upwards to touch the clouds, a brief, bright beacon sent to the stars.
Odd, she's always thought, that a simple stream of energy could say so many different things; she's used it to point out targets and to show a destination reached. To ask for help. To bring her cohort home.
She remembers the first time she sent it aloft in triumph, after a sortie in the war against Grindelwald; she'd been deployed in cat form to locate hostages held by some Dark agent or other. The details have faded from her mind: now all that remains is a fierce memory of the pride she'd felt as she raised her wand arm and proclaimed her victory to the heavens.
She had believed, then, that wars could be won, that enemies could be vanquished, that the many deaths were for the greater good.
She had been very young.
They'd used the signal beam in the first war against Voldemort, too. So many of the original Order members had been Grindelwald veterans that it had seemed natural to them, and the younger recruits had been happy to continue a tradition forged during that legendary War -- the war that was going to make the wizarding world safe for good.
Except that it hadn't, of course, and all too soon they had found themselves back in the darkness once more.
She remembers standing in an overgrown field on the night the Prewett brothers died, the acrid, ozone aftermath of battle magic crackling around her as she lifted her wand to mark the night with her light. But there had been no pride that time, no victory: just a flare to show the position of the bodies.
She had been much older then, but she had still thought that the battles were worth fighting. As she'd stood there, with the drying blood of her fallen comrades stiffening her robes, she had believed that their sacrifices mattered.
Tonight, she stands again in war, in the Hogwarts courtyard-turned-battlefield, looking at the body of their leader Albus Dumbledore, now a broken heap of bones and beard and hope surrounded by the children who will do most of the dying this time.
She doubts whether their sacrifices will have meaning to anyone except perhaps those who love them, doubts whether "victory," even if it comes, will do more than buy a few years of the quiet-that-passes-for-peace before the inevitable rise of the next dark lord.
But perhaps those gains will be enough. And in any case, she doesn't know what else to do but fight the fight again. Light the light again. Leave a mark.
With a soft rustle of robes, Minerva raises her wand to the sky.