Title: Mythopoesis
Author's Note: Apologies to JK Rowling for taking liberties with her characters. Minerva's background especially is fabricated to coincide with the historical context.
Part I:
September 1938
To twelve year old Minerva McGonagall, London weather felt unpleasantly moist, but she liked the city well enough. Her mother would've complained that the air felt ripe for mold and then would've probably ranted about how she thought London was a rotten city.
But her mother wasn't there, was across the world in a city of parching heat whose warmth she preferred over that of her husband and child. Of course, Lady McGonagall had not articulated those rather shameful feelings to Minerva, but had sent the girl off with a kiss after murmuring,
"You may write to me, darling, but nothing over a page. I shall be attending some very important engagements with very important people. And you mustn't allow that Crouch boy to overtake you in that class...even if it is Divination."
Minerva's own secret shame was that she felt perfectly content with just her father accompanying her to London. A former professor who viewed every experience as a learning experience, he had taught her a fair amount of magic ahead of time. On her ninth birthday, he had turned some candles into a set of short-lived fairies which had hovered above her cake like a gem-set halo. For days afterward, she had practiced before showing her father a fairy of her own.
It was not until Hogwarts that Minerva discovered how much more existed besides Transfiguration, and now she was returning for her second year with anticipation as well as a deep resolve to maintain her place at the head of her year. Too soon, the father and daughter arrived at the train station where they found their way to an ordinary wall between platforms nine and ten.
"You first, liebling," her father said. Minerva nodded and slipped through the barrier.
A throng of parents filled platform nine and three quarters, yelling last minute farewells and reminders. As Minerva turned around, her own father placed a chapped kiss on her cheek and handed her a small glass container.
"Your mother's gift," he explained. "It's not that roomy so I think Nagini would appreciate some time outside the box." Her father's eyes, Minerva noticed, were wet, but he boosted her onto the train before she could say anything else.
Five minutes later, she was comfortably seated in a compartment with her friends when the door slid open and in stepped a dark-haired boy wearing rather shabby robes. A fellow Gryffindor, Charlus Potter, glanced at the boy and said loudly,
"This compartment is for second years only."
The boy looked unfazed. If anything, he looked dismissively at the older student and replied, "Your side is half empty, and there's nowhere else to sit on this train."
Charlus stared at the boy. "Merlin, does no one respect seninority any --- "
"Charlus." Minerva couldn't resist. "It's seniority…and you're being a twit."
"Oh look at him Minerva --- "
"Ignore him and just sit down."
The boy did so and remained silent for the next hour during which most of the older students pointedly ignored him. Immediately, they had identified him as different from their crowd. They were a purely pureblood lot and knew one another because their parents had attended Hogwarts together, had played Quidditch against one another, and had exclusively socialized their offspring with other purebloods to continue the cycle. They did not recognize this boy who wore second-hand robes and who was currently reading a tattered version of A History of Magic.
"You, first-year, what's your name?" Charlus asked finally.
"Tom."
"Just Tom?"
"Riddle, Tom Riddle."
"Huh," Charlus grunted. "Who are your parents?"
Minerva looked up from her book. "Might I make the outlandish suggestion that Tom's parents might also be Riddles?"
"More prickly than usual, eh, Minerva?"
"Stop it Char," Dorea Black said and smiled at the boy. "You don't look like a first-year Tom. You're so tall. Doesn't he look older Minerva?"
"Positively ancient," Minerva answered, immersed in her book again. She flipped a page and then frowned. Where was ---?
"Char, do not panic," she said gravely. "But I do believe that Nagini is under your feet."
"What are you ---"
"Snake!"
"Son of a blast-ended skrewt! Minerva, pick it up before I curse your bloody pet!"
Extending her arm to the reptile, Minerva gently brought it to her lap where it arranged itself into several green coils in the folds of her robes. Across from her, Tom was gazing at the snake intently, and something in his eyes did indeed make him look older than his years.
"Do you like snakes?" she asked him.
For the first time, she saw a flicker of interest in those eyes as he coolly replied, "They like me."
"Then I think you'll enjoy this trick."
She removed a small flute from her pocket and began to play. To nearly every human ear in the compartment, it was an unnatural and repulsive sound, but Tom leaned toward her as did the snake. It raised its flat head, and its body surged like a wave as if to strike before receding to begin the pattern anew. Having just recently learned how to handle the instrument, Minerva managed only a few brief chords before her throat became dry, and she put it down.
Charlus let out a low whistle. "Sometimes, Minerva, I wonder if the Sorting Hat didn't read your head correctly."
She glared at him. "I come from four generations of Gryffindors. Mother would've wrung my neck if I had turned out as anything else."
"You're luckier than me," Dorea cut in. "I'm probably the first Black since the Dark Ages to go into a house other than Slytherin."
The conversation morphed quickly after that. Complaints about parents turned into talk of broomsticks, but Minerva noted that the Riddle boy kept looking in her direction, alternating his attention between her and the snake. Later, after everyone else drooped asleep, he finally spoke.
"I thought that Gryffindors hated snakes."
"Generally speaking, they do. I don't because I was raised in India, and snakes don't represent Slytherin there. They symbolize death and mortality, but also regeneration, rebirth, prosperity, and of course, the deities called nagas. That's where Nagini's name comes from."
"Nagini," Tom repeated, savoring the word. "Beautiful name. May I hold her?"
The snake responded noticeably to Tom's touch, twisting around his long fingers, flicking a tongue against his skin, provoking a surprisingly charming smile on his face. Turning back to Minerva, Tom opened his mouth, but then the train lurched heavily to a stop, and the rest of the students awoke. As they made their way out of the train and toward the lake where lantern-lit boats waited, Tom said softly,
"I want to show you something, but it has to be just you. Tomorrow night after dinner."
Minerva looked at the boy uneasily. There was something off about him. Like Dorea had said, he seemed so much older as if he lacked the essence of being a boy. Initially, he had seemed disinterested in everything and everyone, but her little trick with the snake fascinated him, made him eager and made her unwilling to refuse.
"All right, Riddle. Any other instructions?"
"Bring Nagini too."