Title: Temper
Disclaimer: JKR created the world of Harry Potter and all the characters therein. I just enjoy playing with them for my own personal amusement.
Summary: Minerva isn't always calm.
I have always had a wicked temper. It's one of the things I disliked most about my personality. Of course, it was therefore what Albus would always tease me about, saying that it was my inner lion's heart coming out. There were several times that he ended up hexed six ways from Sunday because of that teasing, when he'd stretched that same temper to the breaking point.
He'd taken me aside and warned me before That Woman came to Hogwarts. At the time, I couldn't believe that anyone could possibly be both so pettily nasty-minded and so horrendously evil, yet still act in a sickeningly sweet fashion. I didn't want to believe him as he relayed what had happened at young Potter's hearing, though I knew he would never have lied to me.
But any illusions that Albus had overstated things disappeared the moment that she entered Hogwarts. Only Lockhart had rivaled her for sheer stupid incompetence, and at least he had been easily put off when he tried to interfere with the rest of us doing our jobs correctly. She was a petty bureaucrat, a brown-noser for the Ministry with illusions of grandeur, she attacked the students who wouldn't bow to her twisted concepts of proper behavior, and she refused to teach anyone. That was the worst of it, she knew that, even if the Ministry denied it, Voldemort had returned and she still refused to teach the students how to defend themselves.
For a while I restrained myself. I made more than the normal amount of icily polite comments, followed by an increasing number of waspish insults. Had she been anyone else, I might have eventually repented the harsh words or refused to say more, but she was still That Woman, and after what she did later in the year, I can only state that I was not harsh enough in my conversations and actions with her. Not nearly harsh enough, actually.
When she attacked Sybil, I was outraged. Much though I may dislike Sybil and her course, no one should have had to face the public humiliation that That Woman had created for her own sick amusement. When she tried to interfere with Potter's career counseling and denigrate the boy's very real talents because of her own irrational biases, I was livid. And if Albus himself hadn't asked me to stay and protect the students, I would have walked out when she forced him to leave. It was a relief to be able to act when she sent those evil men to attack Hagrid, even if it did end with my own injury. Poppy was rather irate with me when I awoke in the infirmary.
And I do admit, watching Peeves attack her with my own walking stick when she finally left did soothe the nasty side of my temper. She had done too much damage to the students and to the school for me to not want to get at least a taste of revenge.
I did say I had a wicked temper, didn't I?