Outtakes from my current twisted universe. Happy birthday (early!) and I hope you like Minerva.

The queen mother calls to mother west wind.
Let's be nice, all right. Bless the castle, and the titles, and protocol.
- Mecca Normal, Ice Floes Aweigh

Winter brought ice, little crystals on her window panes. She knew Winter in her shimmery folds and veil of diamonds this way. Minerva was a witch, and no witch of her time would have ever dared - or even entertained the idea of such a thing as more than a folly - to water her witchery with the borrowed thorns of Christianity. Winter was Lady, ice and shimmer and kiss.

Minerva was a witch. Of Muggleborn heritage, yes, and a harsh lineage; but no witch could ever mistake Winter for what she was. Ripe Spring, heady Summer, crisp Autumn, yes, but not Winter. When Winter laid her white-ice fingers on the castle it was nothing short of divinity; purely magical.

Nowadays they did not speak of the Lady to the students, Winter or any of her other forms. All the old pagan rites dead with the children, ten years ago now. Harry Potter would be arriving in the next fall, she knew - the first of the babies of babies. (They were all children, to her, those she had taught. She saw few enough of them again.)

Winter in her brilliant garments brought ice, and the winds. She lit the tapers on her altar this solstice with quiet introspection, as she waited for the snowstorms to begin.