This is absolutely marvellous. I don't even know where to begin. Your characterisation of Minerva as this practical, level-headed but also deeply feeling woman is just perfect. She has such a wonderful understanding of herself, of those around her, and you show us time and time again how this adds strength to her relationships.
Your style is beautiful. You deal with complicated situations and large swaths of history in broad brush strokes that don't give us a full backstory of every event, but tell us a lot about the emotional truth of it. The death of Xiomara and the birth of Rolanda - the dead son and the grief and the comfort - that is one of the most subtle, powerfully human scenes I have rad in a long time.
Alstor, wow. I love this entire section. The final day of school and all the older characters with such wonderful cameos. I love that sense of camaraderie. And your Alastor with his sharp tongue and his and Minerva's attraction to each other's strength - wonderful. And how very apt that it is Alastor's own perception of his failed strength that makes him unable to continue with Minerva - and that Minerva can recognise it.
Unlike the epiphany he had engendered in her, creating feelings of rightness and splendour and completion, her actions instead left him with a sense of pain and inequality and incompleteness. He had taken her love and praise and patience for pity and was armouring himself against all kindness. This was his choice, and now as she studied him, she realised she could not take it from him when so much else had been taken already. - This paragraph, it breaks my heart. Beautiful.
And Snape. I can't quote anything here because if I did it would be the whole section. But I think what is most beautiful is the way Minerva learns from her past experiences and works them into this one. The beginning of their relationship is so wonderfully practical, and that reflects Minerva's compassion but certainly not pity so very well.
Oh, but I will quote. It made her feel a deep sense of responsibility, and in the aftermath of Alastor, she questioned her capability. The last time she held a man's happiness and dignity in her hands had been a sobering lesson, indeed. This. This is a summation of everything she's learned and everything she understands, and you proceed to show us how complicated the relationship is, but how she ultimately succeeds in keeping him in tact.