Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter. I am not Leslie Charteris. I do not own The Saint.

Note: This chapter gives the take on things of a somewhat tired and frustrated Minerva McGonagall as the evening of the first of September, 1991, draws to a close at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This material is set in the Saint Potter universe and is supplemental to my 'Saint Potter' story. The universe is an alternate one which was impacted by The Saint and in which some characters and situations differ considerably from canon. In this universe James Potter married a grand-daughter of Simon Templar, and Sophie Theresa Potter is known as 'The-Girl-Who-Lived'. Following the events of Hallowe'en, 1981, Sophie was brought up by her (muggle) grandfather, Seamus Tombs.


It was the first night of a new school year and Minerva McGonagall, deputy headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, had had an evening best described as 'trying'. There had been multiple minor frustrations such as the delay in getting the first years to the castle because one of them had had a run-in with probably the Weasley twins and got left behind on board the train – Minerva was sure those two would never have run wild had they been in her house the way that they had done in their first year under Filius, and she just hoped that after a quiet second year this wasn't a sign of their being back to the bad old days again. And then there had been the antics of Mr (Zacharias) Smith and Mr. (Ronald) Weasley during the actual sorting, which had required her attention – with her time already stretched – once the sorting was over (she had treated Mr. (Ronald) Weasley sympathetically since he had at least voluntarily acknowledged that he did not belong at Hogwarts). And between that and that the headmaster had insisted she check arriving trunks for 'contraband' before they went on to the appropriate dormitories (not all of them, thank Merlin, but just one in every ten), she'd missed most of the post-sorting feast.

Not that on this occasion the headmaster was much bothered about the contraband items many pupils might be bringing into the school or the uses to which they might put them – what he was really interested in was whether or not Sophie Potter had brought her father's invisibility cloak to Hogwarts, which item for some reason the headmaster had spent far too much spare time during the past decade obsessing about. The 'search of every tenth trunk' instruction was simply what he considered a reasonable excuse to have Minerva poke around (as allowed by school rules) in Miss Potter's trunk. Every other trunk which Minerva checked as part of the search (for all that spread throughout some of them had been three bags of firecrackers, a giant tarantula, and ten books of dark magic, all of which she'd duly confiscated) was of no significant concern to him beyond that it offered the illusion that Miss Potter had not been specifically targeted. And whilst Minerva had been searching trunks in the depths of the castle (and being baffled in her errand by one in particular), Albus Dumbledore had been sitting upstairs making polite conversation with the Minister for Magic and enjoying some first-rate nosh.


But the bitterest disappointment of the evening had been Miss Potter. Minerva considered it perhaps a touch unwise and reckless of the headmaster to have directed the Sorting Hat to disregard family traditions as a primary reason for a house-placement. She could grasp at why he had done it, but in terms of one of his primary goals it had turned out to be a failure, because the Black girl had ended up in Slytherin anyway. And then, of course, Miss Potter had ended up in Slytherin, no doubt at least partially because the headmaster had taken family traditions out of the reckoning – although Miss Potter's upbringing had almost certainly had a lot to answer for too.

Clearly Miss Potter's muggle relatives were a bad lot. Minerva had wanted Sophie raised in the wizarding world, but for some reason in the wake of the events of Hallowe'en 1981 the headmaster had considered her best placed with immediate family, even if what immediate family of Miss Potter survived was entirely muggle. But even so, Minerva could have kept at least an eye on Miss Potter's doings over the years, if it hadn't been for those blasted wards. Minerva had no idea if it was Albus or Remus who had cooked them up – each had informed her that they'd left security for Sophie to the other – but every time she'd tried to go anywhere near the residence indicated by the Hogwarts records to be Miss Potter's habitual abode, she'd become hopelessly confused and ended up unable to find it. It had been impossible for her to get any kind of glimpse of the girl at home, and the one occasion she had seen her had been achieved only by pretending to be a muggle school inspector and attaching herself to a team making routine checks in the London area, until she'd finally hit a school which Miss Potter was at at that time. And that had provided a foretaste of the disappointment yet to come – the girl had seemed to have no idea that she was a witch – and worse still seemed content with her muggle life and her muggle school and her muggle friends. She apparently possessed no kind of knowledge of or regard for the important side of her heritage.


Minerva had, of course, looked for Miss Potter amongst the gaggle of new pupils as soon as the boats arrived at Hogwarts earlier this evening, but the solitary school inspection sighting of her which she had had was now several years past and insufficient for her to identify Miss Potter out of a crowd of fifty odd first-years. She'd had suspicions as the group moved through the castle, and the first-years milled around whilst waiting to be looked over by Poppy. She thought she might perhaps be the blonde girl that Amelia Bones' niece had attached herself to – but it subsequently turned out that that was 'Hannah Abbott' (and her eyes were the wrong colour, anyway) which had left Minerva feeling inwardly embarrassed and completely flummoxed as to which girl Miss Potter could be? She'd dismissed the other closest possibility in terms of hair and eye colour and face shape – the girl in the ridiculous pink jacket and baseball cap – on the basis that despite her attire that girl actually looked as if she had half an idea about what was going on around her, and had grown up in the magical world. She even had what looked like a custom-made goblin-work wand-sheath, for Merlin's sake, which would have taken knowledge and connections to obtain.

Of course, when Minerva had called for Miss Potter it had been she-of-the-dubious-fashion-sense-and-wand-sheath who had got up and headed for the hat, discarding completely her till then casual manner. For a few painfully long minutes, whilst the hat pondered, Minerva had dared to hope that the girl might actually be worthy of the name of Potter after all, before had come the bitter moment when the hat sent her to Horace's house instead of that of which Minerva was the head and which also happened to be that of Miss Potter's witch and wizard ancestors.

She was a Potter only in name Minerva had concluded. Minerva could see nothing in the girl of one of her most favourite pupils ever, James Potter, but only traces of that nasty muggle girl who'd seduced him. She was half inclined to suspect that Selena or whatever-her-name-was must not have been quite completely muggle after all, but have had some sort of veela blood.

If only James had lived longer, then despite his unfortunate marriage, at least he might have fathered other children, worthy to carry the Potter name – children who might have borne something of his semblance. Instead… instead of this thing which was a mockery of everything James had been, and which had been sorted into Slytherin of all houses.

Minerva almost wished this thing and You-Know-Who had blown each other to blazes, and that nobody at that fight in Godric's Hollow almost ten years ago had survived that night.

Almost.

The Potter name might be about to become extinct, but maybe if this thing survived long enough to mate, some of the grandchildren would bear a resemblance to their noble grandfather, James Potter. Sometimes desirable traits skipped a generation. Minerva had been a teacher for long enough to have noticed that.

In the meantime, Minerva was going to have to grit her teeth and try to salvage anything of James Potter that she could out of this wretched girl – despite the fact that she was only going to get transfiguration classes in which to do it thanks to the Slytherin sorting. Although Merlin only knew that Minerva was going to have her work cut out. The girl's trunk had said how little like James she was. Nothing refined, old, and elegant with the Potter family arms on and a simple locking charm, but something solid and spanking brand new with three of those blasted goblin locks on it. Three locks. Locks of a design so rare or new that the deputy-headmistress hadn't seen anything like them before. Minerva hadn't had a hope of getting into the trunk as Albus had ordered, within the time-frame available before the Slytherin first-years headed for their dormitory – or not without permanently damaging the trunk and potentially destroying some of the contents (including any present invisibility cloak). She'd had to send the trunk on unopened to Slytherin and an urgent note to Horace that Sophie's trunk had been one of the 'tenth' ones and would he please accordingly check it for contraband, in accordance to the headmaster's directions, with Miss Potter's assistance?

Minerva could have been in and out of James Potter's trunk in ten seconds. She had been, on occasions, in fact, when she'd had to carry out searches for prank items after yet another suspected 'Marauder' incident during James' later years at Hogwarts. Of course she'd never found any such items in Mr. Potter's trunk after the first such search. He'd rapidly learned how to take a hint, had James, and to race ahead each time she stopped by their dormitory on such an errand, whilst his friends politely delayed her and he removed any items which might embarrass her or Gryffindor house.

He'd had such natural charm and instinctive grace, had James…


Author Notes:

As a reminder, this is set in an alternate universe, where characters may differ from canon counterparts.

The 'Black girl' referred to, is Kara Black, daughter of the late Regulus Black, and heiress of the Black family, who is also starting at Hogwarts this year.

In the Saint Potter universe, in recent years Hogwarts has employed additional teaching staff in some of the subjects taught to all seven years. Since transfiguration is one of these subjects, this afforded Professor McGonagall the time to go gallivanting off around London, tagging along with normal school inspection teams, trying to catch a glimpse of Sophie Potter.

On an ironic note, at this point Professor McGonagall is so caught up in her memories of James and superficial appearances, that she's overlooking the most obvious thing which Sophie inherited from her father – magic.

Minerva has not remembered the name of Sophie's mother correctly. Sophie's mother was Selene, not Serena – not that Minerva is likely to care much about that at this point.

Whilst in this universe, at some point after 1978 as in canon Albus Dumbledore developed a private theory about James Potter's ancestral invisibility cloak, unlike in canon he was unable to persuade James to lend it to him so he could inspect it, once he had his theory. (Sophie's mother may have been a muggle but she could see how useful it was and refused to let her husband let the cloak out of his sight, given the war which was on.) Albus Dumbledore has, however, been unable to forget the cloak, and a decade without being able to confirm/deny his theory has somewhat got to his judgement.