this has been sitting on my computer doing nothing for months- so i decided to upload it. probably going to stay a one-shot, unless people want otherwise. please review!
"Now, now, Miss McGonagall. Calm down, child." Dumbledore gently soothed, holding up his hands in submission to her.
"Oh come now Professor. We both know that isn't true." Minerva sighed, putting her hands on her hips.
"And what do you mean by that, Miss McGonagall?"
Minerva glared at him. "Is that what you see? When you look at me Albus? A mere child?" She said spitefully, deliberately trying her professor's patience.
"Well, yes." Said Dumbledore, confused. "You are a child, Miss McGonagall." He smiled, frowning.
McGonagall sighed, and straightened her back. Pointing a finger at her teacher of three years, she said "Now you listen here!-"
"Miss McGonagall!" Roared Dumbledore. "You would do well to remember your place! No matter what you might think you are a student! A child! I am your teacher and your elder, and you would do well to respect that fact!"
The young McGonagall sighed, and glared at Dumbledore, before reaching for the thin golden chain around her neck.
Upon it, was a locket, a pocket watch. Etched onto the object, in marvellous details were various astronomical phrases and planets, spelled to be an accurate map of the night sky which the wearer would be able to see come sundown.
"Do you know what this is?" Minerva asked in a quieter voice than before, but not totally submissive.
"A locket, heirloom. From your mother." Dumbledore stated, failing to see the connection between this and their conversation.
Minerva nodded, and turned back to her teachers. "But its more than that. Look."
She carefully took it off her neck, and opened it, revealing a rare, yet beautiful device inside.
"Minerva... Where did you get that?" Dumbledore asked, eyes wary, slightly scared and excited.
"My mother gave it to me. Well, left it to me in her will. When she died, when I was six or seven, I didn't know what it was. I used to play with it. Spin it. And well... You can probably guess why I claim my father to be dead."
Dumbledore sat down on the edge of his desk, fingers forming a bridge between his hands as he thought.
"How often and how many times would you spin it?" He finally asked.
Before I knew what it was, a lot. I never realised for a while, about a week, I think. Because the manor is so old, I would go back several days at a time... And not know. Now it seems obvious... but... Somehow, Mother seems to have put a spell on it, so whoever uses it ages slower..."
Dumbledore put his head to one side. "Oh? How do you know that?"
Minerva smiled, and put the time-turner back into it's case before replacing it on her neck.
"Albus, what do you see when you look at me?" She asked, quietly.
He took a look at her, scrutinising the question as much as her.
"I see- a young, intelligent-" He begun, but was cut off.
"-No. I- I mean what do you actually see? How old do you think I am? What styles do I follow? That kind of thing..."
"Oh I, I see. Um, well in that case. I see a third year student, of." He made a face, "Thirteen? Thirteen or fourteen years, very well dressed if not rather conservative. Prim, proper. Lady-like. Intellectual." Albus smiled at his description, obviously pleased with himself.
"Mm." Minerva remarked, not impressed. "Not then, I gather, a woman of thirty seven, tired of being mistaken for a teenager, wanting nothing better than to settle down, out of school which she has completed way too many times, and not, I take it, a 'child'" Minerva mimicked speech marks with her fingers, "Who is depressed, and has only not taken her life because a certain young Slytherin intervened?" She demanded rhetorically.
Minerva watched the Professor with large, curious eyes. His face was guarded against emotion, yet Minerva saw his eyes phasing through various emotions.
At the end of it all, Dumbledore was speechless. After much thought he came to a decision.
Nodding, he looked at his 'pupil's' smug face. "Thirty seven." He acknowledged. Then promptly fainted.