I don’t generally feel the need to defend my favorite ships (and certainly not to attack anyone else’s), but since Tumblr user @kudgaret invited me to particpate in “Malbus Week,” I thought I’d scribble a shortish post on what I find appealing about the much-maligned Albus/Minerva (or “Malbus” or “MMAD,” as it’s also known).
From the cradle (practically), I’ve been interested in, inspired by, and attracted to women with certain characteristics. Strong-minded, smart, competent, starchy, a bit scary … you get the picture.
So, when I encountered the Harry Potter saga, the character I was most naturally drawn to was Minerva McGonagall. I am unlike McGonagall in many ways, but one canonical trait we almost certainly share is sapiosexuality. (Or it would be canonical if Rowling’s books hadn’t been written for children and had focussed on the lives of the teachers.)
It followed, for me, at least, reading the stories in the years before Rowling outed him as gay, that Dumbledore and McGonagall were a couple. I mean, the two smartest people in any given room (okay—there’s Snape, too, but that’s another shipping lane) would naturally be attracted to one another. This is how my brain (not to mention other key parts of my body) works.
When I got into the HP fandom, I went looking for stories about them, and what I found at the time (early 2000s) were lots of fics that presented Albus and Minerva as a perfectly adorable couple, focusing on romance and courting, ending in happiness and commitment.
Bully for them.
But as lovely as many of those stories were, it wasn’t really how I saw the two of them. Are they soulmates in my head? Quite possibly. But soulmates doesn’t always mean “happily ever after.” I see a romantic partnership between the pair as a journey full of great joy and deep understanding, but also lots of heartache, angst, and anger. And maybe happily-(enough)-ever-after, but maybe not.
I’ve written before that the obstacles a couple faces are what excites me about a pairing.
While the similarities between Dumbledore and McGonagall—their intelligence, power, interests, profession, and commitment to fighting Dark wizards while somehow running a secondary school full of adolescents with wands—make an attraction plausible, it’s their differences that intrigue me.
I’m not interested in hearts and flowers or sweetness in a ship (at least, not often). I want a Minerva who is frustrated, and sometimes furious, with Albus’s secretiveness and who struggles with his “ends-justify-the-means” ethos.
I don’t want to erase his attraction to Grindelwald (and to GG’s lust for power), nor the large age gap between them; I want to explore how they experience and overcome them. Or not.
I like the contrast between her no-nonsense posture and his performative frivolity, which are fun to read and write, especially when they’re subverted to reveal something deeper about each of their characters.
Their past as teacher and student, and their present as superior and subordinate, provide fodder for an interesting dynamic, both sexually and as partners, platonic or otherwise. I like to think about how they’d navigate them and the ways their relationship might evolve from that.
Like the best pairings, Albus/Minerva can be interpreted and presented in a variety of ways.
As an author, my own explorations of the ship have included angsty romance (the Epithalamium series); late-in-life realizations of love (“Fools Rush In”); lighthearted sexual exploration and roleplaying (“The Birthday Gift”); infidelity and reconciliation (“Betrayal and the Art of Salvation”); and more.
Some of my favorite interpretations from other authors include:
MMADfan’s epic Resolving a Misunderstanding/Death’s Dominion series, which features a conventional Albus/Minerva romance, with deep and believable characterizations of two people who enjoy a long and intensely loving and intimate relationship against a backdrop of complicated pasts, other relationships, and wizarding wars.
Dark Nights by morgan72uk, which shows us an Albus and Minerva who are deeply disturbed—even traumatized—by the events of the First Wizarding War, and are tentatively navigating a new kind of relationship as they confront the ugly realities of a post-war magical Britain.
Elemental by PurpleFluffyCat. A beautiful musing on an Albus who bewitches the people around him (including Minerva) and enriches their lives in surprising ways.
For Him by bil. As much about the relationships between Albus and Severus and Severus and Minerva as it is about Albus and Minerva, this short fic gives us a glimpse of the spell Albus casts (metaphorically speaking) on the other two, for better or worse.
The Reluctant Phoenix also by PurpleFluffyCat gives us the most plausible, and possibly the sweetest, student!Minerva/Albus by turning the power dynamic on its head, with a romantically and sexually inexperienced Albus falling for a confident (but believably youthful) Minerva.
We Change the Nature of Things by dueltastic shows us how the seemingly impossible differences between Albus and Minerva can be reconciled by the addition of another similar-but-different person (Severus) to the relationship.
Margaretrevie’s The Way It Should Have Been and its sequel, The Way It Was After, give the reader an unusual take on the “soulmates” trope that features a highly fallible Albus and a Minerva who may or may not be able to find happiness with him.
I hope you enjoy some (or all) of these. More Albus/Minerva recs are available on my Airtable recs list.
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