"Incarnation," Tom/Minerva, Marlene, PG-13
Title: Incarnation
Author: kethlenda
Pairing/Characters: Tom/Minerva, Marlene McKinnon
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: character deaths, oddly sequenced narrative
Word Count: 1248
Summary: "The body is a tool," Tom is fond of saying. "A useful tool, yes--one can't hold a wand without it--but nonetheless, only a tool."
A/N: For the idea of McGonagall having a daughter, and the speculated identity of that daughter, alas, I can take no credit. I got it from a lecture given at Phoenix Rising. schmoo999 can attest to my jawdropping during the lecture, and the fact that I got probably about a half dozen plot bunnies just by listening to this woman. And since I'm a Tom/Minerva shipper, the idea took on a twist that I doubt the lecturer ever intended.
VI.
No answer.
The silence is more alarming than any bell or siren. There should be an excited shout from one of the children, or the ring-click of the dog's tags. Anything but nothing. Minerva has a key; she lets herself in.
Bruce, Marlene's terrier, is sprawled on the rug just inside the door, his eyes glassy. Minerva bends down to touch the gray-furred form. He is cold. She tells herself this need not mean anything.
Bruce was elderly. Nearly fifteen.
Marlene wouldn't just leave him here.
She finds Ian next, in the kitchen. His wand is still clutched in one hand, a large cast-iron skillet in the other. A strangled noise escapes Minerva's throat, and she is running as she goes deeper into the house. "Marlene," she calls, knowing now that there will be no answer, now or ever, praying to gods she doesn't believe in that she's wrong.
Marlene is in the hall, her limbs splayed at unnatural angles. Scorch marks and cracked picture frames on the walls tell Minerva that battle was waged here. My girl. Of course you did. Minerva hears a choked noise come from her own throat; her vision blurs as she smooths Marlene's raven-black hair from her cheeks, rearranges Marlene's arms and legs into a semblance of repose, closes Marlene's eyes with tender fingers.
Minerva has to wipe her eyes before continuing on to the children's room. She sees precisely what she expects to see. She wonders if they ever woke, the precious little ones, before going to sleep for the last time.
And so the innocents pay for my sins.
V.
Even a Gryffindor's courage can falter.
Marlene is an inquisitive child (and the truth is, Minerva would have been disappointed had she not been), and as soon as she is old enough to know that the other children have both fathers and mothers, she begins to ask after her father.
He was a very nice man who... No. No lies. He was a brilliant man, and handsome. She thinks of adding dangerous, but there is no need to frighten the child.
Minerva refuses to utter the name, either the one she knew or the one he assumes. She carries it like a toadstone, heavy and glittering in her head, only to be prised from her in death. She tells herself it's for Marlene's own good, not telling her she was sired by the man who paints the Prophet green and red, but she wonders if it's only cowardice after all.
IV.
Marlene: Variant of Madeline. Woman from Magdala.
Minerva touches the fine black curls with a tenderness unfamiliar to her. Innocence, born of its opposite. Surely now the sins are forgiven. Surely now the demons are cast out.
III.
"Of course," says Professor Dumbledore (she can never quite accustom herself to do as he asks and call him Albus; old habits die hard). He drips a puddle of wax on the bottom of the parchment and presses his seal into it. "We all need a leave of absence from time to time. In fact, I was thinking of cancelling classes this Friday; I find myself in dire need of a trip to the beach. This dismal weather..." He strokes his beard absently, then blinks and focuses on Minerva again. His smile is a bit sheepish, as if acknowledging his digression.
"My classes..."
"With any luck, I still recall a bit about the subject," Dumbledore said with a wink.
"Thank you," says Minerva. "And one more thing. Would you mind...not telling the students about this?"
"Professors' personal lives are no business of the students'. You have my word."
She gives him a tight smile of gratitude. He doesn't ask the obvious question. It would be easy to ascribe this to his discretion, but Minerva suspects he simply doesn't need to ask; he already knows.
II.
Years have passed since she last saw him. She's not sure what she expected to see, only that this is not it. His face looks wrong somehow, not aged (that, she would have expected; she is no longer sixteen herself) but twisted in some way she cannot put into words. It's the moonlight, she tells herself, and opens the door to him.
"Are you ill?" she asks. "Would you care for some tea?"
Tom doesn't speak, only clutches her fast. His lips curl in something Minerva reads as a snarl, but his hands are all over her body, ripping at her robes, whether to ravish or to cling like a drowning man, she doesn't know.
Something in him calls to her, even now, summons the old desire to the circle that is the present. She reaches for him with her lips, remembering too late when he jerks away abruptly that he was never one for kissing. Only this: rough and wordless against the sitting-room wall, Minerva's nails leaving gouges in the wallpaper that she will find later. His eyes glint red in a candle's flicker. Another trick of the light, that's all.
I.
"The body is a tool," Tom is fond of saying. "A useful tool, yes--one can't hold a wand without it--but nonetheless, only a tool."
Minerva, who has been thrown over by three boys in the past year for being "too intellectual," feels like a quivering morass of flesh around Tom Riddle. He mocks her when she shows emotion. He calls it useless in its stubborn illogic. He doesn't like it much when she points out that his whiplash temper, too, is emotion.
He touches her, yes, but even as she trembles she's brought low by the ironic twist of his mouth. His body covers hers, his face two inches from hers, his soul miles above hers in some rarefied air he never allows her to breathe. She knows he's wrong, of course, that skin and nerves and tongues are made for joy, that discounting them is foolish, but knowing and feeling are two different things.
Tom likes to see Minerva shatter. Crumble. Deliquesce. Her walls fall a thousand times for him. He is impenetrable.
VII.
When the Aurors have gone, and the undertaker, Minerva walks through the house one last time, alone. She knows she will never think of this house again without this night rising first to the surface of her mind. She will never remember Marlene without seeing the empty staring eyes, where once there was fire.
Should I have told her? Would she have been safer, knowing?
Did he know?
She takes pictures from the mantel, one by one. Marlene triumphant, hoisted on James Potter's shoulders, holding the Quidditch Cup aloft as though to pour herself a draught of sky. Marlene and Ian's wedding. Marlene with the first baby, then the second. Marlene grinning, her Auror badge illegible behind a flash of golden glare. Marlene standing among the ranks of the Order of the Phoenix.
Marlene as a little girl, playing in the surf, the flash lending a scarlet tinge to her eyes. It was the only one where she resembled him at all, and only because of that. Did he know?
There was no Dark Mark above the house.
She was proof he was only a man of flesh and blood.
No Dark Mark. He hadn't wanted the Aurors to find her. He'd wanted Minerva to find her.
It told her all she needed to know.
Author: kethlenda
Pairing/Characters: Tom/Minerva, Marlene McKinnon
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: character deaths, oddly sequenced narrative
Word Count: 1248
Summary: "The body is a tool," Tom is fond of saying. "A useful tool, yes--one can't hold a wand without it--but nonetheless, only a tool."
A/N: For the idea of McGonagall having a daughter, and the speculated identity of that daughter, alas, I can take no credit. I got it from a lecture given at Phoenix Rising. schmoo999 can attest to my jawdropping during the lecture, and the fact that I got probably about a half dozen plot bunnies just by listening to this woman. And since I'm a Tom/Minerva shipper, the idea took on a twist that I doubt the lecturer ever intended.
VI.
No answer.
The silence is more alarming than any bell or siren. There should be an excited shout from one of the children, or the ring-click of the dog's tags. Anything but nothing. Minerva has a key; she lets herself in.
Bruce, Marlene's terrier, is sprawled on the rug just inside the door, his eyes glassy. Minerva bends down to touch the gray-furred form. He is cold. She tells herself this need not mean anything.
Bruce was elderly. Nearly fifteen.
Marlene wouldn't just leave him here.
She finds Ian next, in the kitchen. His wand is still clutched in one hand, a large cast-iron skillet in the other. A strangled noise escapes Minerva's throat, and she is running as she goes deeper into the house. "Marlene," she calls, knowing now that there will be no answer, now or ever, praying to gods she doesn't believe in that she's wrong.
Marlene is in the hall, her limbs splayed at unnatural angles. Scorch marks and cracked picture frames on the walls tell Minerva that battle was waged here. My girl. Of course you did. Minerva hears a choked noise come from her own throat; her vision blurs as she smooths Marlene's raven-black hair from her cheeks, rearranges Marlene's arms and legs into a semblance of repose, closes Marlene's eyes with tender fingers.
Minerva has to wipe her eyes before continuing on to the children's room. She sees precisely what she expects to see. She wonders if they ever woke, the precious little ones, before going to sleep for the last time.
And so the innocents pay for my sins.
V.
Even a Gryffindor's courage can falter.
Marlene is an inquisitive child (and the truth is, Minerva would have been disappointed had she not been), and as soon as she is old enough to know that the other children have both fathers and mothers, she begins to ask after her father.
He was a very nice man who... No. No lies. He was a brilliant man, and handsome. She thinks of adding dangerous, but there is no need to frighten the child.
Minerva refuses to utter the name, either the one she knew or the one he assumes. She carries it like a toadstone, heavy and glittering in her head, only to be prised from her in death. She tells herself it's for Marlene's own good, not telling her she was sired by the man who paints the Prophet green and red, but she wonders if it's only cowardice after all.
IV.
Marlene: Variant of Madeline. Woman from Magdala.
Minerva touches the fine black curls with a tenderness unfamiliar to her. Innocence, born of its opposite. Surely now the sins are forgiven. Surely now the demons are cast out.
III.
"Of course," says Professor Dumbledore (she can never quite accustom herself to do as he asks and call him Albus; old habits die hard). He drips a puddle of wax on the bottom of the parchment and presses his seal into it. "We all need a leave of absence from time to time. In fact, I was thinking of cancelling classes this Friday; I find myself in dire need of a trip to the beach. This dismal weather..." He strokes his beard absently, then blinks and focuses on Minerva again. His smile is a bit sheepish, as if acknowledging his digression.
"My classes..."
"With any luck, I still recall a bit about the subject," Dumbledore said with a wink.
"Thank you," says Minerva. "And one more thing. Would you mind...not telling the students about this?"
"Professors' personal lives are no business of the students'. You have my word."
She gives him a tight smile of gratitude. He doesn't ask the obvious question. It would be easy to ascribe this to his discretion, but Minerva suspects he simply doesn't need to ask; he already knows.
II.
Years have passed since she last saw him. She's not sure what she expected to see, only that this is not it. His face looks wrong somehow, not aged (that, she would have expected; she is no longer sixteen herself) but twisted in some way she cannot put into words. It's the moonlight, she tells herself, and opens the door to him.
"Are you ill?" she asks. "Would you care for some tea?"
Tom doesn't speak, only clutches her fast. His lips curl in something Minerva reads as a snarl, but his hands are all over her body, ripping at her robes, whether to ravish or to cling like a drowning man, she doesn't know.
Something in him calls to her, even now, summons the old desire to the circle that is the present. She reaches for him with her lips, remembering too late when he jerks away abruptly that he was never one for kissing. Only this: rough and wordless against the sitting-room wall, Minerva's nails leaving gouges in the wallpaper that she will find later. His eyes glint red in a candle's flicker. Another trick of the light, that's all.
I.
"The body is a tool," Tom is fond of saying. "A useful tool, yes--one can't hold a wand without it--but nonetheless, only a tool."
Minerva, who has been thrown over by three boys in the past year for being "too intellectual," feels like a quivering morass of flesh around Tom Riddle. He mocks her when she shows emotion. He calls it useless in its stubborn illogic. He doesn't like it much when she points out that his whiplash temper, too, is emotion.
He touches her, yes, but even as she trembles she's brought low by the ironic twist of his mouth. His body covers hers, his face two inches from hers, his soul miles above hers in some rarefied air he never allows her to breathe. She knows he's wrong, of course, that skin and nerves and tongues are made for joy, that discounting them is foolish, but knowing and feeling are two different things.
Tom likes to see Minerva shatter. Crumble. Deliquesce. Her walls fall a thousand times for him. He is impenetrable.
VII.
When the Aurors have gone, and the undertaker, Minerva walks through the house one last time, alone. She knows she will never think of this house again without this night rising first to the surface of her mind. She will never remember Marlene without seeing the empty staring eyes, where once there was fire.
Should I have told her? Would she have been safer, knowing?
Did he know?
She takes pictures from the mantel, one by one. Marlene triumphant, hoisted on James Potter's shoulders, holding the Quidditch Cup aloft as though to pour herself a draught of sky. Marlene and Ian's wedding. Marlene with the first baby, then the second. Marlene grinning, her Auror badge illegible behind a flash of golden glare. Marlene standing among the ranks of the Order of the Phoenix.
Marlene as a little girl, playing in the surf, the flash lending a scarlet tinge to her eyes. It was the only one where she resembled him at all, and only because of that. Did he know?
There was no Dark Mark above the house.
She was proof he was only a man of flesh and blood.
No Dark Mark. He hadn't wanted the Aurors to find her. He'd wanted Minerva to find her.
It told her all she needed to know.