Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

"Winds of Change"
by Christine Anderson
aka Lilly Malfoy

He is changing. And gods help him if they ever truly realize it.

He is changing, his priorities and goals shifting, loyalties turning...

He hasn't cared much about the war in a long time. Oh, he wants to survive it- most days he does- and he would prefer not to lose, but he has begun to wonder if a victory for Dumbledore's side would be any better for him- or the world- than a victory for Voldemort.

A month ago it hardly mattered. He stood between, where it seemed he would always stand, truly belonging to neither camp. Never daring to get as close as he could have been to the Death Eaters, always so unwelcome in the Order of the Phoenix, whatever Dumbledore might try to say to the contrary- when he bothered to say anything at all.

It is easy for him to take the greater risks, easy for him to push himself past his limits. Easy to sit in the dark, waiting for the knife he knows one day must fall. It is so easy...

And then one day it isn't, anymore.

He turns, and she is there. So tall and so proud, so strong. So strong though inside she weeps for the ones she has lost, the ones she is going to lose- old students, older friends... It eats at her like a cancer. He sees it, knows that few others do. Thinks they are fools for not realizing it. But this war is never going to break Minerva McGonagall. She will never in a hundred years, a million, allow that.

Every time he looks back, she is there. Waiting, when it seems no one else is. Always ready, no matter how late or how dark the hour, with a kind word, a smile, a brush of her hand across his shoulder. Some acknowledgment that she has worried for him, that she is glad to see him back safe again.

He's never been quite sure what to do with the idea that someone gives a damn.

In the dark of those nights he has to admit to himself that he can no longer pretend that this isn't happening. If it were only him he would already be gone- she doesn't need this, nobody needs this. No one needs to sit up so late, waiting the inevitable. He'd rather no one grieved the death he is sure is coming.

But there is her to consider now, and whatever he says, whatever he denies he feels, she will still be there. Still standing. Still waiting. He knows that. His loss will wound her even if he never speaks to her again. And he cannot bear the thought of that.

He has no idea how he is going to live with her- how he is going to keep her safe in this world going crazy, when she insists upon standing on the front lines, so brave, so bloody Gryffindor- but he knows now he'll have to figure something out. He will have to find a way.

He can't live without her, either.