Archive of Our Own ^beta

Snow was falling in Hogsmeade that night, and festive music played in the background, wishing passers-by a merry Christmas, but the two women seated in Minerva McGonagall’s living room were not smiling. In her arms, Augusta Longbottom held a sleeping toddler, who lay with his head against her chest, drool dribbling down his chin. Minerva sat in an armchair nearby, while baby Harry lay in a floating cradle, making cooing noises and reaching for the tiny golden snitch on the mobile that hung overhead.

“I’m so terribly sorry for your loss,” Minerva said.

“Yes, so you’ve said twice already,” Augusta replied.

“They ought to have thrown the Lestranges in prison years ago,” said Minerva. “It’s a crime that it was allowed to get to this point.”

Augusta nodded in silence, glancing down at the sleeping child with a somber expression. Another moment passed by, and then:

“Is it really over, do you think? Is he truly gone?”

Minerva shook her head.

“Albus doesn’t think so.”

“Ah. I was afraid that might be the case.”

Minerva glanced at the infant in Augusta’s arms, then at the one in the crib, reaching for that golden snitch.

“I was surprised,” said Augusta, “when I heard you were raising the Potters’ child. Doesn’t he have any family?”

“Yes, he does,” said Minerva bitterly. “A Muggle aunt and uncle - horrible people. Albus wanted to leave him with them, but I wouldn’t hear of it. He said they’d give him a normal childhood, so that his fame wouldn’t go to his head. Which would all be well and good, if they could be trusted to be decent guardians, but - well, you weren’t there, Augusta. You didn’t see what they were like.”

“No, but I trust your judgment,” said Augusta. “So you offered to raise him yourself?”

Minerva nodded.

“It hasn’t been easy,” she admitted. “Caring for an infant at my age, while teaching full time - but it’s better than the life he’d have had with the Muggles. And Albus couldn’t possibly object, you see, because he knows perfectly well I’d never spoil the child, and he knows I’m perfectly capable of keeping him safe.”

Augusta was silent for a moment, then spoke in a very quiet voice.

“It hasn’t been easy for me, either.”

She looked as if she couldn’t believe she had admitted that. As if she would never willingly admit to any weakness. But she took a deep breath and continued.

“I’m not as young as I was when Frank - when Frank was a baby. And I wasn’t a widow then, either.”

“Perhaps we could help each other,” Minerva suggested.

Augusta nodded.

“Yes, perhaps we could.”

Minerva had never wanted children. Teaching was more than enough to satisfy whatever maternal instincts she possessed, and she struggled even there, when her teaching responsibilities demanded more than classroom management and knowledge of the curriculum. She was not the sort of gentle and nurturing teacher who first-years confided in about homesickness. But, as she sat with Augusta, watching Harry and Neville play together, she knew these two toddlers had wormed their way into her heart.

It was unfair beyond belief, she thought, that they would never know their parents. But they would be loved nonetheless, if only by two elderly widows who had never expected to raise children again, or at all in Minerva’s case.

“You never married again, after Urquhart?” Augusta asked quietly.

Minerva shook her head.

“He was the love of my life, and I never found anyone who could compare. You?”

“I wish I could say that,” said Augusta bitterly. “My marriage was a duty I had to fulfill. He was good to me, and we were happy together, for the most part. But I’ve never found men very appealing.”

“Ah.” Minerva nodded. “I can understand that.”

“Can you?”

“I loved my husband,” Minerva said, “but he was - let’s just say, something of an exception. There was another, when I was just out of school. But for the most part…”

She shook her head. Augusta reached out to take her hand, and something that had never quite made sense suddenly clicked into place within her.

They moved in together not long after that. The snows had melted, the sun shone warmly overhead, and school had let out for the summer. On the vast grounds of the Longbottom estate, they sat on a picnic blanket, sipping lemonade and watching Harry zoom about on a toy broom as Neville played with a teddy bear, having toppled off his own toy broom and refused to get back on.

“Harry called me mama yesterday,” Minerva said.

“Ah.”

“We ought to tell them about their parents,” said Minerva. “They won’t remember them much, I suppose. But they ought to know, they ought to understand.”

The idea of Lily’s son calling her mama didn’t sit right with Minerva. She wasn’t his mother. She had never wanted to be anyone’s. His mother was a courageous young woman who had died to save him, and he should know it.

It was late, and the boys were sound asleep. Minerva and Augusta sat up together, writing letters to the old friends of their young wards’ parents.

“Mary Macdonald was a friend of Lily’s,” said Minerva. “And Lupin’s the best person to reach out to for James, I suppose. Of course, it was always - it was always Sirius who was closest to him, but…”

But of course, he wasn’t an option. Augusta nodded and made no comment on that situation. She didn’t know what to make of Sirius Black’s sudden betrayal, and it seemed pointless to dredge it all up now.

“Ted and Andromeda knew Neville’s parents well,” she said instead. “Kingsley Shacklebolt went through Auror training with them. And I believe Emmeline Vance was quite close to Alice at school.”

There was only so much the two of them could share with the boys they were raising. Minerva had known their parents only as her students, and Augusta had barely known Lily and James at all, Alice only as a daughter-in-law. But there were others who had known them as close friends, who could show pictures and tell stories that perhaps the boys’ guardians had never seen or heard.

They would know who their parents had been. The two old women would make sure of it.

It was strange how quickly they had become a family. Minerva woke up beside Augusta in bed and shared breakfast with her, savoring the tea and scrambled eggs before setting off for work.

She returned home with papers to grade and lessons to prepare for, but she did have a home to return to now instead of spending all evening in her office and all night in her room at the castle.

She sat with the boys and read to them from children’s books, and as they grew older, she patiently taught them to sound out words and add numbers on their fingers.

She kissed Augusta, and slept beside her at night, and stayed up with her long after the boys had gone to bed. The voice in her head that insisted she would never love again grew fainter and weaker.

She had never wanted a second love. She had never wanted children. But somehow, she’d managed to end up with both, and now she couldn’t imagine her life without them.