Chapter 1: Professor Felix Grimmauld
"I don't quite understand you," the woman in a black coat concluded. She shuffled in her seat; the high chairs the bar offered were too uncomfortable for long hours of drinking.
"What part don't you understand?" The man beside her had a peculiar sense of fashion: orange tie to go with an electric blue tuxedo. What looked even more ridiculous on him was his hair colour—then again, the bartender supposed that this man had enough time on his hands to get his hair coloured in a different hue everyday. See, this specific customer came by every day to order the same drink.
Amaretto Sour was what he always had. Sometimes, he would order two but would prefer just one on normal, quiet nights. Tonight was a different night, however. Said customer had ordered two glasses (for his guest and himself) from that bottle of whiskey this customer had asked him to keep safe. It was some amber colored liquid that smelled toxic compared to the bottles of whiskey he'd serve his other customers.
"How can you possibly convince me to believe that the future of Hogwarts' inter-house relations depends on Miss Granger and Mister Malfoy?" Mr. Usual Customer's guest seemed to be in her early sixties or her late fifties. A tall woman, he should note, whose glasses seemed to be perpetually situated on the lower bridge of her nose. Whenever she would stop to listen to whatever Mr. Usual Customer had to say, she would lower her head and glare at him—unless that was her usual demeanor.
"I've seen it, Minerva. Did you honestly believe that after the Battle of Hogwarts, the animosity between all the houses would finally come to an end?" Curious, the bartender thought, what is Hogwarts? What ever it was, it definitely sounded distasteful. He continued to wipe the glasses clean, inspecting every glass for a speck of dirt or smear of lipstick he might have missed.
"You might have forgotten the terrible path Draco has chosen two years ago, Felix. He was the reason the Death Eaters were able to infiltrate the school!" Her voice had risen slightly and although she seemed like she had more so say, she immediately pursed her lips to regain composure then after a while took a sip from her drink.
"Minerva," the bartender noted their names: Felix and Minerva. However, he was lost in the terminology used in their conversation. Death Eaters? Hogwarts? Even Minerva's name seemed unusual. The only word normal—or name, for that matter—mentioned in what the bartender could make of their conversation was Mr. Usual Customer's name, Felix. "Draco Malfoy had no other choice. There was no lapse of judgment in his actions. In fact, they were very much calculated. Imagine if young Draco had done anything against Voldemort's wishes… he would have had his head on a platter before he could call Miss Granger, mudblood."
The bartender noticed Minerva shuffle in her seat once more. He assumed it was something Felix had mentioned. It seems to him that this conversation (he had been so desperately eavesdropping in) had developed darker by every half hour that passed. Was it something to be nervous about? It seems that these two people had been involved in something dangerous and by gathering bits and pieces of the conversation, he assumed it involved an entire school.
He wasn't too far from the truth, of course. In fact, he was right on track. Except muggles such as this bartender wouldn't understand the gravity of the situation the wizard and witch had been discussing for nearly three hours.
Minerva seemed to have noticed the eavesdropper and shot a scathing look in the bartender's direction. Lowering her voice, she sighed, "I suppose you're right, Felix. If we are speaking in context, one could even consider his failure to murder the late headmaster a lack of judgment."
What Minerva McGonagall failed to understand was the internal conflict that Draco Malfoy had harbored the moment he had been "gifted" the Dark Mark. If there was anyone (apart from Pansy Parkinson) anywhere close to understanding this pain was Harry Potter. Harry was the only one made privy what Moaning Myrtle had to say about Draco—how he was sensitive and afraid. Although ninety-nine percent of his brain believed this to be utter bollocks, Harry Potter reserved one percent for some sympathy towards Draco.
The conversation Draco had with the late Headmaster Albus Dumbledore in Battle of the Astronomy Tower was enough to confirm Harry's measly percentage of sympathy towards the blonde-headed fool. He said they were going to kill him. Harry knew who they were. And after seeing Severus Snape's memories, he could not help but feel sorry for the Malfoy—for being used as a pawn.
Everyone else, however, spared Draco Malfoy no amount of sympathy. And by everyone, this included Minerva McGonagall. It wasn't until Felix Grimmauld had badgered her into taking a trip to Muggle London to somehow convince her that the boy and Hermione Granger was the key to stopping a possible civil war in Hogwarts. In short, this vision suggested a possible salvation in Hogwarts that she found impossible until today.
Felix's proposition had been tempting, of course. Not only had it given her an entirely different perspective; it gave her a chance. Here was a chance to rebuild the school right. And as the appointed Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, she would allow no mistakes from here on.
The proposition? It was to appoint Hermione Granger as Head Girl and Draco Malfoy as Head Boy. Easy, right? Easy enough for the entire student body to revolt against the administration. And although Felix Grimmauld was one of the wisest wizards (and one of the most convincing seers) she had met, Minerva McGonagall wouldn't dismiss the idea that maybe the war had finally performed its fair share on her dear friend's sanity.
Meanwhile, the bartender had felt as though had just trodden on a very, very dangerous path. His stomach would tremble whenever Minerva would glance towards his direction. Still, he couldn't help but wonder what these all meant. As his two customers delved deeper into their conversation, he would hear even more curious terms and would hear equally curious terms that were already mentioned earlier: Defence Against the Dark Arts, muggles, Hogwarts… what these meant, he didn't know.
"So you are telling me that you are willing to give up your retirement and come to Hogwarts as a professor for Defence Against the Dark Arts?" Minerva's eyes widened. If word got out that the Felix Grimmauld were to become a Hogwarts Professor, the entire magical community would bow their heads in recognition. She would also need his wisdom in rebuilding the school. This was not a case of not believing in her capacity to run a school; it was more of the absence of Albus Dumbledore in a situation wherein she most needed him.
Felix Grimmauld had been offered the position of British Minister of Magic quite too many times and quite too many times he has declined the offer. Also, if it were not Albus, Felix would have most definitely been given the position of headmaster. Instead, the man had chosen to live a simple life, staying in Muggle London after he had retired as consultant to the Minister.
The man was brilliant and this was an understatement. At the age of twenty-four, he served as a visiting professor in Hogwarts for Magic Theory shortly after releasing a book on his study of Dementors. The said book has been awarded the Nicolas Flamel Award, the highest academic award given to a wizard or witch for an outstanding contribution to the archive of Magical Studies. Ever since he received such recognition, he had been most sought by many magical schools all over the world. Minerva always wondered as to why Felix refused the many tempting offers, opting to teach at Hogwarts as a mere visiting professor.
Some academicians ridiculed him for this, of course, thinking: why on earth would you decline every offer sent your way? And as wise as Felix Grimmauld may be, the answer sounded as equally simple to his proposition to the current Hogwarts Headmistress: he did not want the responsibility. It seemed selfish but he believed that taking on the responsibility of a professor would entail jeopardizing his researches that applied to both studying defences against the Dark Arts and defending himself against it.
They became friends in the fall of 1954. Felix was two years older than Minerva who had only turned nineteen. It was also the first time that Minerva McGonagall had gotten intoxicated with Firewhiskey. She was clumsily making her way through the massive crowd of the party to snatch her fourth goblet when an equally intoxicated electric blue-haired boy grabbed her hand, forcing her to dance with him amidst the crowd. And in a drunken stupor, she complied but stopped only halfway into the song as she excused herself, telling him how much she needed to use the loo.
Felix followed her (perhaps at the time due to his raging hormones) and sobered up when he watched her bawl her eyes out, pounding her fists on the sink, screaming, "Bastard, bastard, bastard!" Immediately, he realized that this was Minerva McGonagall, winner of the Transfiguration Today Most Promising Newcomer Award. If he could recall, he was two years her senior and while he was Head Boy and she, a prefect. The two never held an actual conversation and as far as their exchanges were concerned, were only about the shifts for nightly rounds.
She eventually opened up to him after his hour's worth of badgering and talked about a muggle named Dougal McGregor—handsome boy, apparently—and how she had been proposed to a few months ago. She cried about how it was so painful to leave this boy, that she was so very afraid of breaking the International Statute of Secrecy. She cried about how she chose magic over love, said that giving magic up would mean sacrificing her own life. The muggle did not believe this and assumed Minerva had another man, an assumption to which he took revenge by finding another woman.
Being the noble Felix Grimmauld, he channelled all his anger drawn from her situation and kissed her (whether or not she reciprocated he never really remembered). What he remembered was that sometime after his lapse of judgment, they decided to have some more Firewhiskey and ended up waking up in his flat in Muggle London, both with a massive hangover.
For around two years they became good friends in the office and outside the office. The common grounding they both had was this thirst and love for knowledge which became the primary reason as to why two of the youngest and brightest employees in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement decided to resign from their positions in order to venture off in their preferred fields.
Minerva McGonagall decided to apply for a post in Hogwarts as a professor in Transfiguration under Albus Dumbledore who was then the Head of Department. Felix Grimmauld chose to embark on a journey to study everything about Dementors. And because they had chosen slightly different paths, the two would lose connection until Elphinstone, Minerva's husband, died from a Venomous Tentacula bite.
Today, her oldest friend sat in front of her, with a proposition too tantalizing to forgo. Was she willing to gamble? Was she willing to risk such a thing during the reconstruction of Hogwarts?
"If you had wanted a Gryffindor, surely you could choose someone else. Take Harry Potter, for instance," the bartender caught every word and again, he could single out yet another curious word: Gryffindor.
"Potter would not do, Minerva. You'll have to understand that my vision required Hermione. I could only assume that it had something to do with her blood purity. You see, despite the boy's actions in the past, he is still the most influential amongst all Slytherin students. If Draco Malfoy can abolish this idea of prejudice, then he can influence his house to do so. The students are most vulnerable now; one could say that everyone, post-Voldemort…" he noticed McGonagall cringe, "…have another go at his/her formative years. The bigoted mindset these pure-blood children can be changed."
He allowed Minerva to speak but when the silence went on, as though it was her way of ushering him further into his tangent, "Look at the Japanese Muggles. I trust that you are a bright witch and that you know about the horrifying aftermath of the Second World War. Horrifying for them, at least. The Japanese had this idea that their Emperor—is what they call their Minister—is divine. They believed that their leader was a god that could perform miracles, and this was a belief no amount of magic can live up to. But of course, they're not like us; they believed in a godly man who was just a man. He had no powers, could not perform magic. Hirohito—that was their emperor, if I remember correctly—had to renounce his status of divinity, had to disillusion his entire country by proclaiming that he was not a god."
"So," Minerva cleared her throat, "you are telling me that pure-bloods, specifically V-Voldemort-worshipping pure-bloods are undergoing a state of disillusionment?"
"Yes. Precisely. These specific pure-bloods are mostly under the Slytherin house, who is led by none other than Draco Malfoy who, is in turn, hated by all the other houses for the events that occurred that led to the death of their late Headmaster. If Hermione Granger were to see through that and understand Draco's psyche, she would be able to influence the rest of the houses in seeing the good in Draco."
"Are you suggesting that Miss Granger and Mister Malfoy jeopardize their academics for this—this agenda?" she whispered dangerously.
"These are perfectly capable students, old friend. Miss Granger was constantly engaging herself in dangerous journeys with Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter while Malfoy was able to formulate a plan to kill the Headmaster. And, if my research remains true, both were still able to achieve exemplary scores up until the war began."
What a convincing man, Minerva thought. The bartender's heart was racing. He had tried to put two and two together, and he had come up with the conclusion that these two odd looking people most definitely did not belong to this country. They had been mentioning a war, a murder of a Headmaster, odd terminologies that he could never understand for the life of him. He had considered calling the police but he feared they might be armed.
"And if I agreed to this, Felix? How do you suggest you'd begin with this preposterous-sounding plan of yours?" She straightened her back and lifted her chin to examine him through her spectacles.
"We begin by releasing the memories of Severus Snape," he smirked as he watched his most favourite friend's eyes widen in horror.