When she was nine, Minerva McGonagall woke to her parents in the middle of blazing row.
"One of my children bloody will be a fiddle player!" her dad stormed. "Bad enough I have six girls and another one the way!"
"This one's a girl, Frank, how many times have I told you?" that was her ma, soothing, not entirely hiding the fear in her voice.
Her dad swore, and then "Not bloody likely! Another ruddy, useless, girl and my own youngest brother with three fine sons already!"
"So give the fiddle to one of them!" her ma returned, anger overtaking her voice.
Her dad swore again. Minerva shivered as she heard him slam a chair against the floor, and then blinked in surprise as she heard her ma say,
"Or take Minerva, for all I care!"
In the attic room she shared with her sisters, Minerva felt like she'd been slapped.
"She's better off yours. Something funny about that child" her ma added, anger lacing every word.
"MINERVA!" her dad had bellowed then. Minerva had pattered down the steep stair from the attic, self-conscious as she heard her sisters stir awake, and appeared in front of her dad, still in her nightdress.
"Play," he'd ordered her, putting her great great grand dad's fiddle into her arms. "Just a scale. Anything," he added, more quietly now.
She hadn't needed telling twice. The fiddle, which looked like a toy next to her dad, was giant in Minerva's arms. And she never really felt she knew, what coaxed "Drowsy Maggie" out of her fingertips so perfectly that night, but when she'd played both sections of the tune through she was aware of her dad knelt before her, as though in prayer. But that was absurd, for she knew he never really prayed, not even in church.
"Jesus!" he exclaimed, low and reverent.
"Are you happy now?" her ma spat at him, in bitterness. "Can the lass go back to sleep now?" she put a tentative hand on Minerva's shoulder.
"That's no lass," he muttered, turning his back on them to put the fiddle carefully back in its case.
Dismissed, Minerva crept back up to bed and feigned sleep.