Round Robin #1 "Flickers"

[Taylor]

June 1943

Young Minerva McGonagal stepped off the stage and hurried back to her seat clutching her diploma from Hogwarts School of witchcraft and Wizardry. Her feet almost didn't touch the ground she was so happy

"I've done it, I've graduated, Nothing can stop me now!" she thought as she settled down waiting for the cerimony to end. She nodded to her parents in the crowd, her father taking photos of her. She could see he was beaming with pride. They knew that she had a certain fondness for an older man, and while the friendship was important, they knew she wanted to continue her studies.

With a rush, the event was over and she found herself in the great hall shrugging off the rented gown and morter board for the cerimoney. She felt a bump at her elbow and turned. A bright faced young man was standing there, with a wistful expression on his face.

"Andrew! There you are!" she said smiling. He had been a great friend through her time at Hogwarts and the two of them had gotten into some hijinks over their daring plans to raid the kitchen while the house elves slept, covering the headmasters study with sticky every flavored beans in a moseic patten of the gryffindor lion when they won the house cup- If there was mischef to be found then young Andrew McMeten - Mickie -was the one to do it with. He caught her hands and pulled her closer so she could hear what he had to say over the roar of the students.

"Mackie, there is something that I want to tell you- that I wanted to tell you... I love you. I loved you the moment that I first met you and I didn't say anything "because, well, with my parents getting divorced, I was being sent back and forth between them and it was a power thing, and I knew you , like, well, him, alot and I didn't want to come between you or make you chose. I- I couldn't go with out telling you." he finished in a rush. Stepping closer he gave her a sweet kiss on the lips and thrust an address into her hands. "This is my new address. I will be living with my muggle dad, he, he isn't into owl delivery, so, if you can, can you write me?"

Minerva found herself nodding. Their friends crushed around them, hugging them, passing addresses back and forth. She thought to ask her parents if Andrew could stay with them over the summer- as a friend would, but he was swept away by his mother before she had the chance. Their eyes met for one last time before the door closed between them.

June 1991.

With the students safely away on the train Minerva McGonagal drew in a sigh and picked up her copy of the Quibbler. While it was not the most - forcoming of direct information, she knew the editor of the paper, a former student of hers that she was very proud of. It ran articals and ads in it that the daily prophet wouldn't think to. Sometimes, she needed its mindless fluff to clear her mind of all the horrors that had happened during the school year. She turned to the Personals section, always a source of great amusment

"wizard seeking Squib Hskeper, Tired of being blasted out of bed in the morning. References please. Owl Post box 42"

"Witch looking for Doxie do's for medical research. OP box 76" Minerva chuckled. all that would get that witch was time in St Mungos.

"Better Swamps and Bogs in your back yard. Tired of high priced shops wanting an arm and a leg, and several toes for the things you can grow yourself? Trust Biggie Punts inc to deliver just the right swamp mud to your back yard. Muggles in quicksand not included. OP Box 174"

Minerva rubbed her eyes and folded the magazine across her lap. The other teachers wondered why she continued, after all these years to get the Quibbler. She would wave the personals at them and they would laugh with her. But it was something - more.

All of her classmates - her friends, knew Lovegood had been promoted to the editor, and it was, the paper of choice for them to keep in touch. She would see personals in it when sending an owl wasn't safe during the time of He who must not be named. They would use their names from school, and it was the only way they could keep in touch, or ask the nameless things. A few years back, she found out quite by accident that Andrew was a subscriber. She had thought about placing an ad in it, to contact him, but it had been years. Her being appointed to Hogwarts had made all of the papers. He couldn't have missed it, couldn't have not seen- and she had written him. She just never got an answer back. She thought about him over the years, and waited- putting her romance on hold, yes, she stayed friends with that older man, but- she had never since been kissed like that before. or since.

Rubbing away a tear off her cheak she was about to chuck the Quibbler into the dust bin when something caught her eye.

Mackie

curious she opened the magazine back up and spread it on her lap. Her hands clenched the magazine pages as her eyes blurred for a moment. There couldn't be any doubt .

Mackie
It's taken five years from the quib nagging me to Join their personal club and I did it just so that I could contact you. Their filters will prevent me from saying where you can owl me, but, Dormevu. Hope to hear from you soon.
Mickie

"Andrew..." she breathed softly. Warm thoughts of him began to flicker in her heart. It was if she was in the great hall once more with their lips together.
"What am I going to do?"

[Nerweniel]

So, here's the second part, written by me. Hope you like it- and hope someone takes the proverbial torch from me here .

Yes, what was she supposed to do? Contact him- reply to his message just like she had replied to other messages over the years? Or just let go- like she had let go of so many things over the years, too?

“Andrew.” she repeated softly, re-reading the words in front of her, as if to really convince herself of the fact that yes, it was truly him- after all those years. Andrew McMeten- Mickie.

It was a long time ago since she had, even inside of her head, last heard that nickname and somehow, it made her smile. It reminded her, after all, of different times- of, perhaps, happier times- and if not happier, then still more… carefree. Memories of a pair of boyishly mischievous, honest brown eyes in a bright, blushing face- memories of childish, innocent mischief to brighten up the sometimes boring school days- memories of friendship.

For that was what it had been, after all- friendship, a very strong and fostered one, but still a friendship. She had never suspected he had loved her the way he apparently had- but then again, Minerva grimly remembered, she had never really believed that she could possibly form any attraction to any member of the male gender whatsoever. She’d been entirely dumbfounded at Andrew’s declaring his love for her- and deep down, she had over the years blamed herself for it many times.

If only she had grabbed her chance, back then. If only she had, despite everything, clung to him and told him-

Yes, told him what?

It was with a sigh that Minerva McGonagall asked herself, for perhaps the thousandth time in more than forty years of separation, if she really did love, or had ever loved, Andrew McMeten the way he had told her he loved her. She still recalled the soft, tender expression in those honest, brown eyes of his- and deep down she wondered if she would ever be able to mirror that devotion with an equally strong one of her own.
It wasn’t a matter of not caring enough for him, because that she did- it was a matter of loving him, not as a mere friend, but the way a wife loved her husband- and about that, she found herself unable to be sure.

That was, too, why she found herself hesitant to reply to the printed letters still in front of her.

And then, of course, there was Albus too.

Her ex-teacher, now employer and good friend, who, she sometimes believed, had captured her heart ages ago and stubbornly refused to let go of it. A faint smile graced her lips at this idea- yet it immediately turned grim as she realized that she could never have him anyway.

He had his duties, she had her duties- and that was it. A deep and good friendship, almost as old as her and Andrew’s- but nothing more.

As she took up her quill, she wondered if this, Andrew’s message, was her last chance then. Her last chance on the life of a normal woman- a sort of last resort sent to her from heaven- a last chance she had to grab.

Part of her opposed to this, true, she realized, twirling the end of her thick, black braid between her fingertips- but part of her knew that she simply had to reply. If not to find a lover, then still to find a friend back- and if- but she wouldn’t think about that.

Mickie

I am so glad to hear from you again, after all these years. I sent you quite a few letters, as you have surely noticed, but when they were all returned to me unopened, I came to assume you were gone or- dead. I am happy to be proven mistaken. I am well, as you probably know- how are you? Where have you been all these years? I definitely missed you.

Mackie

As the witch stopped writing to re-read her small message, a blur came over her usually bright, green eyes at the last words. I definitely missed you. As she’d written them, she had wondered if they weren’t too pushy, too- well, too tacky even, but she knew very well that, whether she loved him or whether she did not, she had felt them in her heart.

Now all she could do was wait.

[Bellatrix]

Hey this is really good, i really want to see the next update. ;D

So, to anyone out there> please take up the round robin thingy!!!

[Ivy_Wize]

Hmm, nothing special, but maybe not too bad? Forgive my style, I know I'm not that good.

Minerva McGonagall tossed and turned in bed that night. The turmoil in her head meant for a fitful sleep - she would have been better off with a strong, healthy dose of insomnia. Dreams wandered back to her fifth year...

Her fellow prefect, Tom Riddle, had blamed her good, if eccentric, friend Hagrid for killing her cousin, Myrtle. Tom knew she had taken the half-giant under her wing in his first year, had he planned this just to hurt her? Professors Dumbledore, Dippet and Slughorn had been discussing this as they meandered out onto the astronomy tower. There, under the stars, they met an unusual sight. She and Andrew, Mickie, had been playing chess earlier, when the subject of the recent attacks came up. Sobbing to themselves, they cast invisibility charms on each other. A half completed chess game with disembodied crying startled the three professors into leaving, but the students had stayed on. She remembered waking in the hospital wing, many hours later.

A single tear rolled down Minerva's cheek as she remembered. Memories may bring joy to some, her subconcious thought bitterly, but a dreamless sleep potion would bring more.

At the same time, an owl was pecking at a certain Dark Lord's window. "Oh, this is precious," he hissed to his snake, Nagini.

[silvertabby]

'Mini...Minerva..."I definitly missed you".' 'My Minerva...' but then his eyes fell on the name, "Micky", it wasn't adressed to Tom, or to 'The dark lord, not even to Voldemort. She wasn't writing to him, or at least she didn't know it. She never loved him, she will never love him, she was to great, she could only love a great man, suddenly, he felt it, beeing evil was shurly making him powerful, but not'[great'. It was only one 'Great' man that minerva cared about, one even to silly to realise it, and that man was albus dumbledore and he had to die!