Summary: Minerva McGonagall's thoughts the summer POST BOOK 7 about re-building a school and the two men for whom she has new-found respect.
Re-building a school is never an easy task for, like any institution of note, they consist of so much more than bricks and mortar. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a fool and probably working for some branch of the Ministry.
The aim to re-open Hogwarts for the start of the next school term in September was a ludicrous one, especially when proposed in the heat of the moment, standing in the castle's shell only hours after the defeat of the greatest threat to both Wizarding and Muggle worlds in a century.
The fact that I agreed to it I would, in hindsight, like to blame on the adrenaline that must have been the only thing keeping any of us standing at that point. That we were alive at all seemed almost beyond belief but that the world had not even slowed down at Voldemort's death, events till transpiring almost too quickly for sense must have left my old over-taxed mind several frames behind my mouth.
When Kingsley Shaklebolt approached me and asked if I would do the honour of agreeing to be amongst his first appointments as Minister for Magic, and once more become Headmistress of Hogwarts we had joked about the length of my tenure. My last appointment to the post barely lasted three months.
Despite the jokes however I was deeply touched. It was a huge responsibility that he placed upon my shoulders during that stolen conversation in the anteroom off the great hall, and despite what many have suggested over the years, it was not a role for which I had spent the last twenty years studying.
I was, and I suppose still would be, quite happy to be Albus Dumbledore's deputy.
Needs must however, and as I have heard said to many a student over the years, it is how we deal with the situations we would never ask to be placed in that truly reflects who we are.
Never let it be said that Minerva McGonagall lacked the courage to take the bit in her mouth.
Bravery will never overcome the fact that I am only human however and my choices in the past have not always been exemplary.
I can not say in all honesty that I do not worry that I will make more mistakes in the future and with this increase in responsibility that the consequences of them will in turn be greater but, as I sit at my desk signing the last of the letters inviting our students, both those who will come to the castle for the first time and those who will be returning to pick up their incomplete education, I have the company of the portraits of two men who have proved that mistakes are no barrier to being one of the best Heads in Hogwarts history.
After seeing all the remaining students were returned home safely, if they had homes and families to go to, or were settled in the temporary accommodation in the school if they did not, and that all the immediately necessary repairs had been conducted to ensure that the castle was not in imminent danger of further collapse or attack, I attended to a matter of principle.
It seemed of the utmost importance to me to commission a portrait of my immediate predecessor, despite the fact there were probably many other tasks that others would have prioritised over this seemingly insignificant act.
When Mr Potter sought me out and related what he had learned about Severus Snape I was not wholly surprised. There had been moments over the last year when I had been convinced that Snape had turned on us, that I not only lost faith in him but also in Albus and his judgement.
There had been moments though…
Shaking myself, I turn back to my work, my good humour partly due to the fact that despite the apparent insanity of it all, it would seem as though the bricks, mortar and staff at least will be ready for the approaching start of term. The rest I know will require long hard work, but that has never frightened me before and the heated, if quiet, debate currently taking place between the two newest portraits of the Heads' gallery, reminds me that I will always have council when I need it.
A/N: Ok so - less than 11 and a half hours after the release. Read it over night had a bath and this is what happens. As ever, I'd love to here what you think
thanks
Linds