Author: Minervacat
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: R. McGonagall gen.
Disclaimer: JK Rowling, Warner Brothers, Bloomsbury, Scholastic Press and a bunch of people with way more money with me own these characters. I'm just fucking around, profit-free.
Summary: it is too early to sing and dance at funerals

During the second war, she does not count the funerals from the first war. It is the same war, she knows, but at the same time it is not - they are fighting different battles this time, and it does no one justice to compare these deaths to ones before.

Sirius is the first. After everything, Minerva thinks that it is unfair, that Sirius is the first tangible casualty of this war. He did not even have his life back yet, and then he was gone in a fit of the same stupid reckless courage Minerva remembers from his years as a student. No body, no funeral; only stunned silence. Harry howls his grief at anyone who will listen, and Remus drinks his.

Minerva counts the days backwards, before Sirius and after, and she makes tea for Remus when he asks.

Sirius is the first. Minerva counts forward from Sirius.

Two and three are intertwined; Emmeline Vance, Amelia Bones, old friends of Minerva's both. Her generation fell by the dozen in the first war, but Emmeline and Amelia survived, and yet.

Minerva's life is a long series of and yets; to survive the devastation once and celebrate its end, only to discover that - and yet - the death will still continue.

The funerals are quiet, the Ministry in turmoil and unwilling to mark them as early sacrifices to a war already fought once. Minerva has her own wake; Old Ogden's and a photo album. She owes them that, if nothing else.

Albus is the fourth.

She always expected that Albus would not be the last, but she had thought ... she had thought that there were more years left, or months at least. Time for her to know the things that Albus did, and at his funeral, Minerva feels no better than the children crying on the shoulders of their classmates.

Albus is dead, and Minerva does not think she knows enough to stop anything.

But she watches Harry, his back straight and his eyes dry, and she hopes that Albus has taught Harry enough so that someone will survive this.

Fifth is Pettigrew, rat, traitor, spy for the wrong side. He appears, already dead, on Remus Lupin's doorstep, an offering of some kind that Minerva does not want to understand. Remus calls her first, and if Sirius was still - well, there is no reason to tell the Ministry anything now, and Minerva and Remus burn the body in his back yard.

Remus says, "Good riddance," and falls silent, but Minerva knows that he is thinking what she is; this is an offering from Severus, from the other side.

It is an offering, but still she is wary to reach back.

She has been at Hogwarts for a long time. Not as long as Albus, but now longer than anyone else. She doesn't mind this, but it means that while some of the deaths are strangers to most of the Prophet's readers, none are strangers to her. All have been students, once upon a time.

The sixth death of the second war is a junior Auror, dead in his home, signs of a massive struggle and the Dark Mark hovering overhead. Minerva sits at her desk with the Prophet and regrets that she cannot remember what subjects he took N.E.W.T.S in.

Minerva herself is almost seven. Another ambush on the school, and the Aurors take them down in the end, but Minerva takes a curse meant for Pomona Sprout and spends too long, far too long for her tastes, in a sterile bed at St. Mungo's. The governors vote to close Hogwarts before Minerva wakes up, and the fuss she causes at this news earns her another two weeks confined to bed.

Albus always swore that the school would only close over his dead body. Minerva was not even dead before they stripped her of any power she might have had.

They thought eight was Nymphadora Tonks, when Moody laid the body in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place, but within an hour the Polyjuice fades and it was Kingsley Shacklebolt instead.

"Ambush," Moody growled. "Damn sneaky bastards."

Minerva held her tongue. Tonks came through the front door, upsetting the umbrella stand, and her eyes scanned the pale, worried faces around her in the kitchen. Minerva knows that look - while you were gone, something happened.

"Who?" she said sharply.

"Kingsley. Polyjuice," Moody said. "Thought it was you."

Tonks slumped to the floor; Minerva wishes she lacked the dignity that keeps her standing.

The final battle rages over the streets of Hogsmeade, sooner than Minerva could have hoped or would have thought; she has served the Order faithfully but that does not mean that she has known how Harry Potter has been spending his time. When the sixth Horcrux is spread before her, she knows the end is soon.

It is sooner than she would like - all these faces are still only children to her.

Nine is Ronald Weasley, his face twisted with surprise, too young to be a war hero, too dead to be anything else, and then all hell breaks loose.

And then there are too many left to count, a hail of curses and green fire and bodies falling all directions. Minerva steps over bodies that she recognizes, bodies charred beyond identification, as she fights her way through the battle. She is fighting off Bellatrix LeStrange when she sees the flare of green light from the center of the melee, and she knows that either this will all be worth something in the end or she will not be here to see the end.

She would count Bellatrix, for Sirius's sake, but that particular curse hardly leaves more than dust.

When the dust clears, Remus Lupin is alive, leaning on Andromeda Tonks' shoulder. Harry is, as well, and Hermione Granger, both Weasley twins and at least half a dozen students. Minerva is still standing, as well, and she looks past Harry's shoulder as the smoke clears; Hogwarts is still standing.

author's notes: 1000 words; 9 drabbles and 2 sets of 50. for atra, on her birthday, a month late. much love, kid. you're the best of us. title and summary from carl sandburg, "broken faced garygoles".