Written for TGS Gobstones Championship for the prompt: Write about a Gryffindor character. Write about Gilderoy Lockhart shopping at Madame Malkins. Submission from Mahoutokoro, House Mizu. W.C. 762.
Hogwarts is my Home
Headmistress Minerva McGonagall straightens her robe and her hat before making her way through the doors and into the Great Hall for the end of the term feast. She has been holding these feasts for past twenty-five years, giving out the House Cup to the winning house and bidding a farewell to the seventh-years, but this one feels different. She feels nervousness creep into her bones as it did the day she walked down this path for the first time, young and innocent, both eager and scared at the same time.
She had been sorted into Gryffindor after much arguing with the Hat, and her eyes inadvertently turn to the table she had joined that day, but she quickly turns her gaze to the table she will be sitting at today—the staff table. The faces that look back at her are not the ones she used to see a quarter century back, but she's grown used to them after all these years, and she can safely say she's proud of her staff members.
Now that she's finally reached her table, she takes a seat, wincing slightly as the back of her knee hits the chair and a sharp pain shoots up her leg. She looks at the students sitting in front of her, taking their faces in, waiting for the babble to die, and she stands again, wondering why she even bothered to take a seat.
"Yet another year has passed," she says, a soft smile making way to her lips, "and before you all taste the delicious feast the Hogwarts elves have prepared and get too sleepy to listen to me, I would get certain things out of the way." The students at all four tables chuckle a bit and Minerva beams at them.
"The house points stands as follows: in fourth place, Ravenclaw at three hundred and seven points; in third, Gryffindor with three hundred and twelve; Slytherin at with three hundred and twenty-one and Hufflepuff, three hundred and thirty-three points. Well done, everyone."
A cheer breaks at the Hufflepuff table, and soon the other three join in, too. Minerva's smile widens at the sight as she thinks on how far they've come.
She let's the students clap and cheer for a minute before raising a hand. The room gradually quitens. "I have one other announcement before we all say a farewell to the seventh-years who will now become an active part of the society and everyone else gets a well-deserved break from school." She pauses; every eye is on her and there's a hush in the room.
"I'll—I'll—" A tear streaks down her cheek and she finds she can't speak. Minerva thinks about what she has to say, reconsidering herself before she shakes her head and tries again, but no sound escapes her throat.
She turns slightly when a hand settles on her shoulder to steady her. She attempts a smile as Neville guides her back to the seat before going back and taking her place. "Well," he starts, and a chuckle rises from the student body at his awkwardness at public-speaking. Neville grins slightly and rubs a hand on his neck. "What Professor McGonagall wanted to say is that she'll not be coming back to Hogwarts next year."
Neville stops, and there's a pin-drop silence in the room. "Professor McGonagall is retiring," he concludes, his voice slightly choked up.
The silence becomes deafening before protests rise from the Slytherin table—from Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy to be precise—before they spread to all four tables. She stares at them, some sobbing, some standing up and shouting, and another tear escapes her eye. And then, she finds her arms full of her godson and the Head Boy, Albus Severus Potter—the child named after two Hogwarts headmasters and a godchild of a third. "You're not going anywhere, Aunt Minnie."
She then finds herself being hugged from behind by his sister, and soon, students are latching onto her arms or just standing around her, somehow unconsciously being organised as they speak one by one while the others remain silent, waiting for their turn. Tears are streaking down Minerva's cheeks as she soaks in the love bestowed upon her by all of Hogwarts. It is then she makes the decision, and as she opens her mouth to speak, they all fall silent. "Thank you all. I'll be leaving the post of the school Headmistress, but I'll stay in the castle. Hogwarts is my home." And when an applause rises from somewhere in the back, another smile tugs at her lips, the tears forgotten.