I apparated myself to the edge of the anti-apperation bubble around Hogwarts, just outside of Hogsmede, and walked briskly down the path leading to the little town. I intended to just pass through but when I saw people shouting and singing in the streets, I decided to drop by the Hog's Head and ask Aberforth what the commotion was about. I opened the door into the inn and crashed into a little wizard in a top hat exiting the pub.
"Whoa there" he slurred merrily. Drunk at this hour, I thought astonished, why its barely 8:00am.
"Minerva is that you?" Dedalus Diggle asked as he righted himself and put at wobbly hand out as if to help me up. I refused the hand, no doubt useless gesture, I thought as I eyed his swaying body and got to my feet, snapping
"Who else would it be?"
"Now don't be angry, its not allowed today." Diggle cried joyously.
"What is so special about today?" I demanded. What is so important that it is suddenly okay to shove people to the ground? I thought irritated.
"Blimey! You haven't heard! He's dead! You Know Who is dead!" I was stunned, then angry, what a horrible trick to play. It was Diggle's turn to be shoved as I stormed into the pub to find it filled to bursting with people. I marched toward the bar to find Aberforth and demand why he was having a party at this time of day. As I shoved my way through the throng my ears caught the whispers.
"They say it was the Potters' son." Said a blue robed wizard.
"Lily and James didn't survive," whispered a young witch to my right. I froze as an image of the family bursting with joy over their adorable baby boy flashed in my mind. This joke wasn't funny out side, and it is not funny now!
"Get out of my way" I snapped at the crowd, irritated that people thought this was a good joke. My anger did nothing to quell the excitement permeating the room. A tiny sliver of doubt to enter my head. No! No this is ridiculous, but as I pushed a particularly stubborn witch aside I came face to face with a copy of the prophet being waved around by another, half intoxicated, wizard. The title glaring up at me:
YOU KNOW WHO DEFEATED!
I yanked the paper out of the wizards hand, ignoring his protest, my eyes flitting over the words and not quite believing what I was reading. I lost track of how long I stood there. Relief and happiness began to rise in me. Finally after all the hiding, fear, and death, its over. Then the witch's words rolled through my head again. Lily and James didn't survive. My eyes scanned the paper but little details were given. Albus will put those rumors to rest, they cannot be gone, a baby defeating Voldemort, absolutely insane. I started my trek to the bar again renewed by a desire for the truth. I made my way to the counter and caught the attention of the old, bearded wizard at behind the bar.
"Aberforth!" I shouted over the din.
"Minerva" He exclaimed surprised when he looked up from the mug he was filling.
"Do you know if Albus is at the school already?"
"No he came by about an hour ago he was here to give instructions to Hagrid, and then left for the Ministry to sort something out."
"Do you know when he will be back?"
"No but I know that he is meeting Hagrid tonight at so place called Number 4 Privet Drive Little Whiging, Surrey. But you should stay and celebrate with us I see you have read the paper." He said looking at the prophet clenched in her fist. I leveled a severe look at him,
"I will not believe the night's events until I have full confirmation from Albus." I turned on my heel and stormed out of the inn. Only when I got out of the bar did I realize that I had no idea when Albus would be there. Looks like I will just have to get there early.
...
Looks like all I have to do is wait, but I'm not sure how much more of this child's screaming I can take. I thought as I sat on the garden wall outside Number Four. I surveyed the what was perhaps the neatest yard I had ever seen. Not a pebble out of place, almost too tidy. Four the past eight hours I had been trying to come up with a reason for Albus Dumbledore having a meeting here. I had had as much luck as the woman inside had had with appeasing her screaming son. I winced again as I heard him shouting at thoughts kept bouncing back to Godric's Hollow where the Potters had been living and to the Potters themselves. Lily and James had always been favorites of mine. I remember the James' first Quidditch game and Lily's intelligence and courage.
Finally just when I could feel my feet getting numb from sitting atop the wall, an automobile pulled into the driveway. I recognized the large man glaring at me from the interior as the same large man who had been glaring at me this morning when I had first arrived on this accursed street. Except he had not been as purple shaded then. Surely he can't live here. What could Dumbledore want with these Muggles?
"Shoo!" said the man loudly. Oh all things! Remember Minerva he thinks you're a cat… I reasoned. Even so it was not like I was a rat or a toad. I watched the man head into the house still glaring at everything, and asked myself again for the thousandth time What could Dumbledore want with this people. Thankfully, the Muggles turned on a type of voice box that seemed to loudly emit their version of the news and provided relief from the endless babble of the mother about her neighbors. And blessed be, they had wrangled the monster to bed.
I was enjoying listening to the Muggle world, so isolated from the problems of the wizarding world, when the reporter came to the last story.
"And finally, bird-watchers everywhere have reported that the nation's owls have been behaving very unusually today. Although owls normally hunt at night and are hardly ever seen in daylight, there have been hundreds of sightings of these birds flying in every direction since sunrise. Experts are unable to explain why the owls have suddenly changed their sleeping pattern." I froze. Of all the irresponsible, reckless, foolish, negligent, things to do. Well at least it is nothing that directly points to wizards or magic.
"Most mysterious. And now, over to Jim McGuffin with the weather. Going to be any more showers of owls tonight, Jim?" I heard a different voice reply then.
"Well, Ted," said to what must be another reporter
"I don't know about that, but it's not only the owls that have been acting oddly today. Viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire, and Dundee have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, they've had a downpour of shooting stars! Perhaps people have been celebrating Bonfire Night early - it's not until next week, folks! But I can promise a wet night tonight."
Bloody hell! We may as well all wear signs around our necks saying we are wizards. How can the Ministry not being doing anything about this?! A little whisper came back to me then Maybe nobody showed up to work since You Know Who is gone and they are celebrating. I silenced that thought. Albus will know the truth.
Inside the house, the husband cleared his throat. He sounds nervous.
"Er - Petunia, dear - you haven't heard from your sister lately, have you?"
I tried to drown out what was sure to be a horrendously rude commentary about from what I could gather the Muggle man's sister in-law.
"No, why?" the woman named Petunia asked sharply. Here we go let the ranting begin.
"Funny stuff on the news," Mr. Dursley mumbled. "Owls... shooting stars... and there were a lot of funny-looking people in town today..." What a funny man, why does he bring up his sister in law and then changed the subject? I wondered, I cocked my ears, to catch the wife's response.
"So?" snapped Petunia.
"Well, I just thought... maybe... it was something to do with... you know... her crowd." I almost fell off the wall. Could they be some of the few Muggles who knew about wizards, the relatives of Muggle borns? No, no, there is no way, these are the biggest Muggles I have ever seen.
The man spoke again sounding like he was trying very hard to sound casual.
"Their son -he'd be about Dudley's age now, wouldn't he?"
"I suppose so," replied Petunia, sounding as frosty as ice.
"What's his name again? Howard, isn't it?"
"Harry. Nasty, common name, if you ask me." A thought struck me, Are they perhaps related to, no…. Don't be stupid Minerva.
"Oh, yes," said the man, sounding very depressed. "Yes, I quite agree."
I heard the click and the voices from the box ceased and I could hear them get up and leave the room presumably to retire for the night. Even the Muggles are behaving strangely today. I thought, and it made me feel uncomfortable.
I was stared down the street, desperate for Albus to show up. Tell me its not true, pleases don't be true. As the minutes ticked by I calmed myself with the thought that there could be a million Harrys in the world, Harry Potter was just one of them. I was unsure of how long I had been sitting on that wall, and was seconds away from giving up and returning to Hogwarts to wait, when Albus appeared on the corner. My tail twitched and my eyes narrowed as I scrutinized the purple robed wizard. He looked as out of place on this street as the garden knome in this perfectly trimmed garden. He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. He must have sensed my gaze, because he looked up at me, and laughed. I narrowed my eyes further.
"I should have known." How does he know it's me.
He used the Put-Outer to extinguish all the lights on the street. Then strolled down the sidewalk and clambered up onto the wall next to me.
"Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall." He said merrily. I decided enough was enough and changed in order to asked the cacophony of questions that had been raging inside me all day. But bizarrely all that came out was
"How did you know it was me?"
"My dear Professor, I've never seen a cat sit so stiffly."
"You'd be stiff if you'd been sitting on a brick wall all day," I snapped back.
"All day? When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here."
"Oh yes, everyone's celebrating, all right," I said impatiently.
"You'd think they'd be a bit more careful, but no - even the Muggles have noticed something's going on. It was on their news." I gestured to the Muggles dark living-room window.
"I heard it. Flocks of owls...shooting stars... Well, they're not completely stupid. They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent - I'll bet that was Dedalus Diggle. He never had much sense." I sighed.
"You can't blame them," Albus said gently. "We've had precious little to celebrate for eleven years."
"I know that," said I grumbled irritably. "But that's no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumors."
I threw a pointed glance at Albus here, as though hoping that it would push him to start talking, but he didn't, so I said. "A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Dumbledore?"
"It certainly seems so," said Albus. My heart rose. So it is true! "We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a lemon drop?"
"A what?"
"A lemon drop. They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of"
"No, thank you," I said coldly, How can he be so casual about this? "As I say, even if You-Know-Who has gone -" I began but Albos interrupted me
"My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call him by his name? All this 'You- Know-Who' nonsense - for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: Voldemort" I could not stop myself from flinching, but Dumbledore, who was unsticking two lemon drops, seemed not to notice.
"It all gets so confusing if we keep saying 'You-Know-Who.' I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort's name.
"I know you haven 't, but you're different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know- oh, all right, Voldemort, was frightened of." I pointed out.
"You flatter me," Albus replied calmly. "Voldemort had powers I will never have."
"Only because you're too - well - noble to use them."
"It's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs."
I shot a sharp look at Dumbledore and said,
"The owls are nothing next to the rumors that are flying around. You know what everyone's saying? About why he's disappeared? About what finally stopped him?"
I fixed him with a piercing stare. I will not believe that they are gone unless Albus says so.
"What they're saying," I pressed on, "is that last night Voldemort turned up in Godric's Hollow. He went to find the Potters. The rumor is that Lily and James Potter are - are - that they're - dead. " I choked the last part out, barely managing to get the words out. Albus bowed his head . My heart gave a squeeze and I gasped.
"Lily and James... I can't believe it... I didn't want to believe it...Oh, Albus..." My face dropped into my hands, tears filling my eyes as once again I saw the happy couple holding their new baby as I walked out the door just days before. I felt Albus' hand patting my shoulder.
"I know... I know..." he sighed heavily.
My voice trembled as I continued.
"That's not all. They're saying he tried to kill the Potter's son, Harry. But – he couldn't. He couldn't kill that little boy. No one knows why, or how, but they're saying that when he couldn't kill Harry Potter, Voldemort's power somehow broke - and that's why he's gone.
Albus nodded glumly.
"It's - it's true?" I faltered.
"After all he's done... all the people he's killed... he couldn't kill a little boy? It's just astounding... of all the things to stop him... but how in the name of heaven did Harry survive?" The killing curse is unstoppable.
"We can only guess," said Albus. "We may never know."
I pulled out my lace handkerchief and dabbed at my eyes. That poor poor boy, everyone will celebrate this day and he will be alone. This day will forever live in his did it have to be like this. What was Voldemort doing at the Potters. Dumbledore gave a great sniff as he took a golden watch from his pocket and examined it.
"Hagrid's late."
"And I don't suppose you're going to tell me why you're here, of all places?" I asked.
"I've come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle. They're the only family he has left now."
Good Lord surely he cannot mean the people who live here. Bring Harry to live here after what I just heard them say about Harry.
"You don't mean - you can't mean the people who live here?" I cried, jumping to my feet and pointing at number four. Surely that is too cruel. These people hate him. They hate his parents. They hate anything to do with magic.
"Dumbledore - you can't. I've been watching them all day. You couldn't find two people who are less like us. And they've got this son - I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets. Harry Potter come and live here!"
"It's the best place for him," said Dumbledore firmly. "His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him when he's older. I've written them a letter."
"A letter?" I repeated faintly, sinking back down on the wall.
"Really, Dumbledore, you think you can explain all this in a letter? These people will never understand him! He'll be famous – a legend - I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter day in the future - there will be books written about Harry - every child in our world will know his name!"
"Exactly," said Dumbledore, looking very seriously over the top of his half-moon glasses. "It would be enough to turn any boy's head. Famous before he can walk and talk! Famous for something he won't even remember! Can't you see how much better off he'll be, growing up away from all that until he's ready to take it?"
I wanted to argue with him, argue for the poor little boy but Albus was right. I just wish he wasn't.
"Yes - yes, you're right, of course. But how is the boy getting here, Dumbledore?" I eyed his cloak suddenly wondering where he could be hiding the boy.
"Hagrid's bringing him." What!
"You think it - wise - to trust Hagrid with something as important as this?" I asked.
I would trust Hagrid with my life," said Dumbledore.
"I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place," I admitted, "but you can't pretend he's not careless. He does tend to - what was that?" I was cut off by a low rumbling sound. I reached for my wand before relaxing when Dumbledore remained calmly looking up and down the street. The sound swelled to a roar as we both looked up at the sky – and a huge motorcycle fell out of the air and landed on the road in front of us. Hagrid dismounted the motorcycle
"Hagrid," said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. "At last. And where did you get that motorcycle?" More like why did you choose to use such a loud vehicle?
"Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir," said the giant as he walked towards us.
"Young Sirius Black lent it to me. I've got him, sir." The image of proud, strong Sirius Black at Lily and James wedding. Flashed in my mind.
"No problems, were there?" Inquired Dumbledore.
"No, sir - house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarmin' around. He fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol."
I had to hold back more tears at the thought of the little boy all alone as his life literally crumbled around him. Dumbledore and I bent forward over the bundle of blankets. Inside, just visible, was a baby boy, fast asleep. Under a tuft of jet-black hair over his forehead I could see a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning.
"Is that where -?" I whispered.
"Yes," said Dumbledore. "He'll have that scar forever." To remind him forever of that night and that horrible monster. I realized glumly.
"Couldn't you do something about it, Dumbledore?" I asked.
"Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars can come in handy. I have one myself above my left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground. Well give him here, Hagrid we'd better get this over with." Albus took Harry in his arms and turned toward the Dursleys' house. However after just a few steps, Hagrid stopped him.
"Could I - could I say good-bye to him, sir?" asked Hagrid. He bent his great, shaggy head over Harry and gave him what must have been a very scratchy, whiskery kiss. Then, suddenly, Hagrid let out a howl like a wounded dog.
"Shhh!" I hissed, "you'll wake the Muggles!"
"S-s-sorry," sobbed Hagrid, taking out a large, spotted handkerchief and burying his face in it. "But I c-c-can't stand it - Lily an' James dead- an' poor little Harry off ter live with Muggles -"
"Yes, yes, it's all very sad, but get a grip on yourself, Hagrid, or we'll be found," I whispered, patting him gingerly on the arm as Dumbledore stepped over the low garden wall and walked to the front door. He laid Harry gently on the doorstep, took a letter out of his cloak, tucked it inside Harry's blanket. For a full minute we stood and looked at the little bundle; Hagrid's shoulders shook, I blinked furiously, trying to hold back tears. He does not deserve this. He will pay the price for the fall of the Dark Lord.
"Well," said Dumbledore finally, "that's that. We've no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations."
"Yeah," said Hagrid in a very muffled voice, "I'll be takin' Sirius his bike back. G'night, Professor McGonagall - Professor Dumbledore, sir." Wiping his streaming eyes on his jacket sleeve, Hagrid swung himself onto the motorcycle and kicked the engine into life; with a roar it rose into the air and off into the night.
"I shall see you soon, I expect, Professor McGonagall," said Dumbledore, nodding to me. I blew my nose in reply. I transformed back into my cat form and hurried down to the street corner and disapperated. Once I was back in Hogsmeade. I weeded my way through the parties in the streets. Ignoring everyone. I made my way back to the empty castle, up the staircases to my rooms.
I stood in my room for a while, not in the mood for celebrating. I felt hollow and old. Lily and James had been from Gryffindor, I had watched them grow into confident, strong adults. Lily and James, gone. Beautiful, passionate, courageous, clever Lily, and Brave, loyal, determined James, now dead. Harry now an orphan. The life he should have had destroyed along with Voldemort. I poured myself a drink. As I raised my glass, I choked out
"To Harry Potter the boy who lived." my tears running freely down my face.