One of Your Own Kind

by oneadmmlife

Disclaimer: I own nothing. HP (sadly) belongs to JK Rowling and alas I am a poor student from IL who's sitting in Sociology class right now. The music belongs to Stephen Sondhime(sp) etc not me either damn my luck.

Forget that boy and find another

One of your own kind

Stick to your own kind

A boy like that will give you sorrow

You'll meet another boy tomorrow

Isobel McGongall wouldn't have given up anything of the past nineteen years but, she was determined her daughter wouldn't go through the same thing. Though half-bloods, her children lived more like muggles during the summer. She'd lived as a muggle since she'd married Robert; he was a wonderful husband but, there were days even now she wondered if he'd been worth giving up magic. Caithness' magical population numbered all of four. It was safer just not to mention magic much.

The matriarch stood at the kitchen window washing the dishes. . . or watching her daughter, and her beau, in the garden rather. Despite being named for one of the most powerful witches of the age, Minerva seemed to have grown up more muggle than magical, and it broke her mother's heart. The girl was even falling in love with a muggle. It wasn't that she was against the idea of magical/muggle marriages but Caithness just wasn't the place for a witch. Minerva could have anything she wanted in the magical world; what she wanted, it seemed, was a muggle.

"Penny for your thoughts?" A voice sounded from the doorway.

Isobel's heart leapt. "Robert!"

"That water went cold an hour ago."

"It's fine." Isobel said, picking up a discard dishrag.

"She's not in the house so you're not even going to bother keeping up the appearance of doing chores?"

She glared. "There's too nothing to 'keep up appearances' about." Okay so the water had gone cold. . . quite a while ago. Still she hadn't been spying on Minerva and Dougal. They just happened to be sitting outside on the back swing. The man thought he knew her every thought just because they'd been married for nearly two deades. He wasn't a mind reader by any means. "I was just thinking."

"Hmm thinking while watching Minerva outside hanging on young Dougal's every word?" He kissed her forehead with a chuckle. He'd already given the young man ample warning about breaking his little girl's heart. If they boy had any sense he would have deserted the field long ago. Nonetheless he seemed to genuinely care for her. Robert was fairly certain that didn't have any bearing with his wife's thoughts on the subject. "Have you set the boys on them yet?" He teased.

"Oh stop. I haven't told either of them to spy on her and that bloody boy."

In the last few months, since Minerva's return from her final year at Hogwarts, Dougal McGregor had gone from Dougal, to "him", to "Minerva's friend", and finally in the last week or so "that bloody boy". Getting caught necking in the back garden had put the last nail in the young couple's coffin, at least as far as Isobel was concerned. Minerva was too young to be worrying about a boy. Caithness was too small for the plans Isobel had for her daughter.

"No," Robert chuckled. "But it didn't stop you from giving them extra pocket money when they came and tattled on her."

"Call it a mother's prerogative."

"Belle."

She put on her best innocent smile. "Yes?"

"Stop worrying." The straight laced minister wrapped his arms about his wife's waist. "She's got a good head on her shoulders. Might I point out you were only a year her senior when we got married."

Isobel froze. Married. She wasn't even ready to contemplate that. It was one thing when she'd off and eloped at eighteen; now she knew how her own mother had felt. "Don't you even dare joke about something like that." Marriage hadn't ruined her life, far from it in fact, but Isobel didn't want her daughter to throw her chance with the Ministry away for a boy.

"There's no need to joke." He nodded toward the window. Dougal had arrived at ten; Robert was sure the young couple hadn't left the back garden bench since then, it was nearly one in the afternoon.

"Robert." Isobel insisted. "He won't understand why she's leaving at the end of the summer."

"He won't understand" stuck a cord with Robert. He'd always hoped all three of his children would marry "muggles" as Isobel called normal people. He loved his wife but try as he might the man just didn't understand why she had kept her abilities a secret from him for years. Marrying a "muggles" from the Caithness might not have "stamped out the magic" but they would be with their own kind. The muggle world was the normal world. It was where they belonged. For goodness sake none of them ever carried a wand when they were home; even Isobel had taken to leaving hers in a box under the bed years ago. Magic took too many lies to cover up. It was better to just leave it alone.

Robert hated lying to everyone in the town. The news the reverend's daughter moving to London for a job wasn't exactly kosher with the Caithness community. No one knew she was leaving for more magical training; it was a job in London was all they'd said. Robert himself wasn't quite sure what his daughter was about to set off to do. The best she had explained it was she was to be a police officer, but a magical one. He wished she would stay home and settle down. "She'll be fine." He insisted.

Isobel shook her head. "She's not giving up that job for him."

"She doesn't have to."

"Robert," she narrowed her eyes. Needless to say, if looks could kill Caithness would have been in need of a new minister. "He's going to inherit his father's farm in a few years. She's going to work at the Ministry."

"Belle, let her make her own mind up." He sighed.

Again the fight was starting. Over the past eighteen years the same fight had repeated in the McGongall household, it was the one reason Isobel cast a spell over the small manse, the last thing they needed was a parishioners coming up the walk to talk to Robert and overhearing an argument about magic. "She's a witch. Nothing is ever going to change that."

He nodded toward the window. "She can be a witch and happy with Dougal. You should know that you've been standing here watching her for an hour."

Isobel bit her tongue. She'd been happy with Robert, she adored him more now that she had when they'd married. That same look her daughter now wore had been on her face though their courtship. Would she have changed anything if given the chance? In hindsight not telling Robert about magic earlier had been a mistake. Hiding magic for so long ruined the trust they'd had before Minerva's birth. "Don't start this with me again." She pushed him away.

"It was your choice to leave all that."

"I never said it wasn't my choice."

"Then give her that same choice."

She couldn't stand by and let Minerva ruin her chances in the magical world. She'd graduated top of her class in Transfiguration, Head Girl, Prefect, winner of the Transfiguration Today Most Promising Newcomer award, and to top it all off an animgaus. Isobel refused to let the girl throw all that away for a boy the way she had. "Robert! She was the brightest witch in her class. She was Head Girl. Even if you don't give a fig about magic that has to mean something to you. Minerva's the youngest animagus in fifty years. That little trick as you call it when she turns into a cat is the some of the hardest magic there is. There have been five of us who can do that in the last century; your daughter is one of them!"

"I never begrudged her any of that! But if she's happy with Dougal she deserves that chance at a normal life. You certinally didn't have any problems leaving that world to marry me. Let her make her own decisions, Belle. She's not you."

"Minerva can have a normal life working at the Ministry." Isobel insisted. "Her job will take up her time once she moves to London, she won't have time for him." More than throwing her life away Isobel was worried if Minerva stayed in Caithness she would end up married to a muggle and miserable. The girl loved magic too much to throw it all away on a boy. She'd studied too hard to throw it all away on a boy. It sounded hypocritical but there was a reason Minerva and her brothers had never met their maternal grandparents or even gone to her home town. It wasn't as if any of the three of them would have been disowned if they married against either her liking or Robert's. She just couldn't stand to see her daughter throw her life away getting married at eighteen.

Robert let his wife have her way in most things; this however was a different story. She was not breaking Minerva and Dougal apart. His little girl had been glowing the last few months; it was more than just being happy about graduation. "They're happy. Just leave them be."

It wasn't that Isobel begrudged her daughter any happiness with Dougal. She just believed Minerva would be happier in London. If there was one thing she regretted in her life it was giving up magic; after-all what minister's wife practiced magic? The people of Caithness had thought her odd since Minerva's birth eighteen years ago. It hadn't changed her feelings for Robert but she didn't want any of her children going though that. They didn't deserve it. "No."

With that the couple was storming in opposite directions. Robert to his office and Isobel towards the garden.

CLIFFHANGER! Yha I'm evil... RandR and I'll give you cookies though. Next Chapter shall be up soon.