Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters. This was written for fun and no copyright infringement is intended.
A/N: Chapter one includes references to Henry Kuttner's classic science fiction short story "Nothing but Gingerbread" and Monty Python's "World's Most Dangerous Joke" skit.
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McGonagall's Moment of Brilliance
by whippy
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Chapter 1: Transfiguration
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"This is going to take all week!" moaned 16-year-old Ginny Weasley.
"You should have thought of that before you chose to boobytrap Miss Lang's and Miss Wallis' makeup kits then, shouldn't you have?" said Professor McGonagall sternly.
"Yes, Professor," said Ginny in resignation.
She realized, in retrospect, that her prank had been a little over the top - Tunnelling Facial Moles were no joke - but she'd just been so angry at her dormmates for always hogging the mirror! Professor McGonagall had assigned her a whole load of detention, including - at the moment - correcting First Year Transfiguration papers.
As Ginny sighed and got to work on reading the first paper, ("Why Bugs are Easier to Turn Into Buttons than Bowling Balls" by Janie Abbot) McGonagall's first class of the day shuffled in and found their places. It was 7th Year Slytherins. Ginny did her best to ignore the sneers and snickers aimed in her direction.
"Quiet down class," said McGonagall, and the shuffling and murmuring subsided into silence.
"Today, we're going to talk about Animagi," continued the Professor. "As you may already know, an Animagus is a wizard or witch who can transform him or herself into a particular animal. You've seen me do it before, but I'll demonstrate again."
There was a moment of near-silence, with only a small rustling sound. Then the class broke out into moderately appreciative oohs and ahs. It was a struggle, but Ginny managed to resist turning around to watch the professor's transformation. Instead, she corrected Hannah Abbot's little sister's mistaken belief that ivory buttons and plastic buttons that looked like ivory had the same properties in basic Transfigurations.
"Now that we've covered what the wizard on the street knows about Animagi," continued the Professor, "let's move on to what exactly an Animagus really is."
There came the sound of chalk on blackboard and Ginny assumed McGonagall was writing "What is an Animagus?". However, the squeaking writing-noises continued on for some time and Ginny realized the professor must be answering her own question as well. Ginny continued to listen as she laboriously corrected several dozen misspellings in Abbot's work.
"Now," said Professor McGonagall when she was done writing. "I'd like you all to copy this down into your notes, and then if each of you will please -"
CRASH!
Ginny's hand jolted forward leaving a big streak of red ink on Janie Abbot's paper. She spun around to see what had happened and stared.
Where the thirty-five students of the Slytherin 7th Year class had been sitting, there were now 35 stunned-looking animals. The tremendously loud noise had been two Cape Buffalos who were so heavy the seats they'd been sitting in had collapsed under them.
A moment later, utter chaos broke loose. A cacophany of lowing, shrieking, smashing and screaming rent the air. The Cape Buffalos lunged to their feet bawling, flattening ten more chairs and two lab tables and bowling a dozen others (and their occupants) to the floor. A pelican flew out through an open window. An ostrich stood up, knocked its own chair over, and ran out of the room nearly slamming the door off its hinges. It was quickly followed by the others in a mass stampede. In the confusion Ginny thought she identified a poodle, a gila monster, a Puffskein, a pig, and several more birds.
When the dust had cleared, the floor was littered with broken boards, iron desk-legs still fastened upright to the floor, rumpled textbooks, piles of mixed-up notes, quills, broken bottles of ink, and the forlorn body of a pure white ferret that appeared to have been knocked out and trampled in the confusion.
There was also a gray cat with spectacle-shaped markings around its eyes clinging to the chandelier.
A moment later, the cat let go and dropped to the floor, becoming Professor McGonagall in mid-flight.
"Yes, well," she said after a dignified pause.
She picked up the limp ferret, brushed ineffectually at a large filthy paw print and an even larger hoof print embedded in its silky fur, then sighed.
"You there," she said to an owl sitting on an open windowsill. "Are you an owl or a student?"
The owl just stared at her.
"Never mind," said McGonagall, holding the ferret out. "Take this to the Hospital Wing." As the owl took off, the ferret dangling from its talons, she called after it, "And if you're a student, get to class!" And as an afterthought she shouted, "And if you're not a student, don't you dare eat that!" but by then the owl was out of earshot.
"Professor McGonagall, what happened?" blurted Ginny.
"I'm not certain, Ginny. Go back to work - I must speak to the Headmaster."
And with a flick of McGonagall's wand, the room and blackboard were instantly clean, and the chairs and tables repaired and back in place.
McGonagall left the room with the Slytherins' school supplies bobbing in a train after her through the air.
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It took Professor McGonagall so long to return from her hurriedly arranged meeting with Dumbledore that Ginny had managed to complete three of the Hufflepuff papers by the time the classroom door opened again. Ginny was now working on the fourth: "Five Ways to Make Bugs Into Buttons" by Sheill Drake. She was not finding that the writing skills of the eleven-year-olds were improving with experience. At least not for her.
McGonagall's next class followed the professor into the room, apparently having been waiting outside. This time it was the 7th Year Gryffindors, including Ginny's brother Ron, Harry Potter (who Ginny still had an awful crush on), and their best friend Hermione Granger. She also knew a bunch of the others because of hanging around near Ron and Harry. They were a good deal more sympathetic than the Slytherins, sending her pitying and supportive glances.
Apparently McGonagall had already partially explained what had happened, because she continued from what what seemed to be the middle.
"Now, because we don't know why it happened, we must be prepared for a possible repeat of this occurrence," said the professor. "Therefore I would like you to please sit in your assigned seats today so that I will know who was sitting where. In the event there is any transformation please remain calm and remain seated until I have been able to take inventory and give you further instructions. Is that understood?
There were some murmurs of assent as everybody finished sitting down, and then Ginny heard the chalk begin to squeak on the chalkboard.
"Now. As I told you last time, our lesson today will be on the Animagi - wizards and witches who can transform into animals. I'd like you all to copy this down and explain in your own words...."
A disturbing rustling noise sounded throughout the room, along with a muffled horrified squeak and the sound of someone's quill falling on the floor. Nothing else.
Ginny turned around slowly, dreading what she'd see, then gasped.
A lion and a tiger were sitting side by side at the table formerly occupied by Harry and Ron. The two big cats turned and looked at each other, blinked, then looked back at Professor McGonagall. For her part, McGonagall was standing with her back to the blackboard looking aghast.
The entire roomfull of students had once again been transformed into animals. Except for Ginny and, oddly enough, Hermione Granger.
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By the time McGonagall was finished checking off the seating chart against the animals sitting in the chairs, the professor was appearing quite the nervous wreck compared to her usual stern bearing and dry sense of humor. Her hands were shaking and she had already twice said "I must speak to Albus".
There was only one Gryffindor left unaccounted for. "Where's Neville Longbottom?" asked McGonagall, scanning the walls, ceiling, and the faces of all the assembled animals.
"There he is, Professor," said Hermione, pointing.
"My word!" exclaimed McGonagall. Sitting underneath Neville Longbottom's desk were two identical toads. Only one of them was Trevor.
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After the professor had dismissed the students (to their next classes, because the Infirmary was already full of Slytherins) Hermione lingered.
"What's this you have written on the blackboard?" asked Hermione. "Did you write this the same way for the last class?"
"It's a new way I've thought of to describe the Animagus ability to those who have never studied it before. It's quite effective, don't you think?"
There was a beat of silence, and then McGonagall said, "You don't think - "
"That maybe the words themselves caused the transformation? That sort of thing is not unheard of," said Hermione. "There are certain words and phrases which, though seeming ordinary, contain such powerful magic that they had to be banned from usage for the good of all humanity."
McGonagall started to say something but Hermione pressed on eagerly, apparently forgetting that McGonagall probably knew more about it than Hermione did, being a professor and all. "For example, there was the case of a great Muggle war lost because of an innocuous-seeming marching chant about a man and his wife and seventeen gingerbread-eating children. And then there was the Muggle joke that was so dangerous that a person could die simply by hearing it. The disastrous consequences of such accidental magic phrases are not confined to the Muggle world, either. In 1745 for example -"
"Yes yes, I realize that," interrupted McGonagall. "But why didn't it affect you and I?"
"Maybe it only works on people who aren't already - er, that is to say, people who haven't already studied to become an Animagus," suggested Hermione.
"And you have?" asked McGonagall sharply.
"Well, er," said Hermione awkwardly. Then she brightened. "Yes! I've read all the literature. Maybe knowing too much blocks the power of the magical phrase."
"Perhaps" began McGonagall.
"Perhaps a small test?" said Hermione, who was really starting to become excited about her theory. "Ginny," she called out. "Could you help us out for a moment?"
Ginny turned innocently as if she hadn't been eavesdropping all along. "Yes Hermione? Professor?"
"Come here and have a look at this blackboard," said Hermione. "What's it say?"
Obediently Ginny walked over to stand near them. "It says...." she paused to read the words. "It just says.... oh wow. I never thought of it that way before."
And then, everything changed. Utterly, catastrophically, and humiliatingly.
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Let it be stated for the record that Ginny Weasley never, once, ever, drew an intentional mental or emotional association between herself and flamingos before the events of this day. In fact, Ginny had taken a particularly dim view of flamingos ever since a couple of years before when Pansy Parkinson, a Slytherin a year older than her, had told her she resembled a big pink stork when upset.
The fact that she did, in fact, resemble a big pink stork when upset is entirely beside the point.
The point is, the effect the sentence on the blackboard had on her must certainly have been driven by random chance, or at the very least horrible irony. A flamingo would not, under any circumstances, have been the animal form she would have chosen for herself.
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Her first clue that something had gone horribly wrong was when Hermione and the professor were both suddenly taller than her, instead of shorter than her as they should have been. Her second clue was when Professor McGonagall gasped and Hermione stared at her in wide-eyed astonishment and no little trepidation.
"Oh, my," said the professor.
"Oh, Ginny," said Hermione.
"What?" asked Ginny. Only it came out as more of a, "Honk?"
"What??" asked Ginny again, this time louder. ("Honk!!?")
Then she looked down at herself and saw about two feet of bright pink neck, a feathery chest, and hot pink legs for miles.
"SQUAWK!" she shrieked and fell flat on her arse in dismay.
Professor McGonagall pulled a map down over the phrase on the blackboard so that nobody else would accidentally read it.
"Oh, Ginny," said Hermione again. Her eyes shone with a bizarre combination of admiration and pity as Ginny floundered about on the floor. "I'm so sorry!"
"Er detention is over then," said Professor McGonagall hastily. "Run along to class now, girls. I must speak to Albus."
"What?" said Ginny again. ("Honk?")
Hermione grabbed Ginny by one wing and hauled her to her feet.
"OK Professor. Come on Ginny. Where's your book bag? Is this it?" Hermione lifted the strap carefully over Ginny's head and settled the bookbag on Ginny's back. It felt like it had quadrupled in weight since Ginny had last worn it. "How's that, not too heavy?"
"I hate you," said Ginny. It came out as a few plaintive squeaks and of course the meaning was lost entirely on her fellow Gryffindor.
"Don't worry Ginny," said Hermione as she led Ginny out of the room. "I'm sure they will turn you back just as soon as Professor McGonagall has had a chance to speak to the Headmaster. Do you want me to walk you to your class?"
Ginny shook her head emphatically and jerked her wing out of Hermione's grasp. If she walked alone, fewer people would be able to guess who she was. Not that a joke of this magnitude could stay secret for long. She'd be the laughingstock of the school in no time.
As she stomped off down the hall (well, tried to - but despite her best efforts it came out as gawky mincing) she girded herself for the horror that would be her Potions class and tried to tell herself that her day could not possibly get worse.
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