Disclaimer: I obviously do not own any of the characters in this story aside from Brenna and Patrick McGonagall. I'm just playing with them for a bit!

A/N: Wow. For all those of you who read chapter one...I am extremely sorry. Sometimes real life is a bummer and mine has been super busy...however that doesn't excuse me making you wait like six months for chapter two!! Anyways, here it is, finally. I'll do what I can to get ch 3 up before I leave for camp at the end of June, but otherwise it will be up mid-August when I return. And I warn this has not been edited...

This chapter is dedicated to my one reviewer girl of ireland 44

I would appreciate reviews folks...even if all you say is hey, I read it. Please enjoy!

Minnie

October 4, 1933

I'm 7 today! I'm a big girl now, so daddy gave me a diary for my birthday. Brenna was real jealous. She's only 4, see, just a baby, and super annoying. I also got a new kitty cat, so it'll be trained when I go to Hogwarts. It's only 4 years now. Patty, my brother, just started in September. Oh, and I got a new jump rope, and Patty sent me a birthday card all the way from school. It's a bit lonely with just me and Brenna here. But I've got Tabby to keep me company. I have to go now. It's supper time. We're having pasgetti and chocolate cake. Yum!

Minerva stifled a laugh at the old journal entry. She could remember that day clearly. She'd made such a mess of her birthday dress with the red sauce and chocolate! And she remembered even more clearly the day her older brother Patrick had started Hogwarts. She gotten in such trouble.

She tried to sit still; really, she did. But everything was so terribly interesting. At first, she just fidgeted on the bench beside her sleeping sister, but, well, that was awfully boring for an almost seven year-old. Her mommy was distracted helping her brother put his trunk on the train and she was bored. So she left Baby Brenna asleep on the bench and tiptoed across the platform.

She found a lovely picture of a beautiful lady who was probably one of the singers she heard on the wireless every night and tucked it carefully in her pocket. She slipped between all the big people, mostly students carrying trunks as big as she was, and tickled the heads of a few cats. She watched the old conductor ringing the warning bell and turned to wake Brenna and wave at Patrick. Except….Brenna was no where in sight. She couldn't find the bench she'd left her sister on. Minnie turned around and around in circles, searching, and started to panic. There were people pressing all around her. Finally, feeling hopelessly lost, she screamed and started bawling.

Her mother came running over, Brenna in one arm and Patrick trailing behind her. "Minerva Alice McGonagall! Didn't I tell you to stay on that bench?" Minnie nodded miserably. "Come here, dearest. Never scare me like that again, alright?" Minnie huddled against her mother and waved miserably at her brother as he climbed back on to the train. She'd only wanted to see everything.

She had been a curious child, and a happy one too, despite the challenges her parents had had raising three children in the midst of the Great Depression. They'd had little money to spare in those days, but her parents had done everything they could to make Brenna, Patrick and her happy. She remembered one Christmas in particular, during Patrick's first year.

The tree was decked in a multitude of colours and it seemed to be overflowing with presents. The candles were stubby and dirty and the decorations were made of old bits of paper and wood, but the tree was bright and, to Minnie, the most beautiful thing in the world. They ate a wonderful breakfast, that, unbeknownest to the children, their parents had been saving for since the Christmas before, and each child received a plethora of gifts. Just little things, mind you, but special enough to make them happy. She didn't stop smiling the whole day.

Later, just before bed, Minnie pulled out her birthday diary and wrote one short sentence. "It was the best Christmas you could ever ask for."

Minerva didn't think she'd ever had a better Christmas. Her childhood had passed in a happy, oblivious blur. Minerva had been completely unaware of the rising tensions in the magical world. She'd been even less aware that her father's job put them right in the middle of it. He'd worked in the Department of International Magical Relations, and Minerva remembered many a day sitting in his office while people worked busily around her, rushing off to try and fix the world's problems. She'd thought her father was unstoppable. She'd thought the biggest problem in her world was picking more apples than Patrick when he could climb the trees and she couldn't. And then...

She was eleven years old now, only a few months away from Hogwarts. Her brother was home for the holidays, and she was ecstatic to have him home. But he was distant, it seemed, fifteen, and completely aware that the world was not the utopia his sisters still saw. Their parents had gone out to a Ministry banquet and left Patty in charge. Around eight, Minnie and Patty put Brenna to sleep in her room. They went to the front room to play Gobstones, hoping Brenna wouldn't hear. That's when they saw the men. The men who set the fire. They didn't like her father's policies, Minnie learned later. So they'd come to destroy what he loved most; his children. The flames were nearly unbearable. Brenna had no hope.

Three days later, Brenna Elizabeth McGonagall, just eight years old, was laid to rest in the earth. Minnie cried through the whole service. She didn't really understand what had happened. She went through the rest of the summer in a daze, unable to settle. By the time she started Hogwarts, she had withdrawn almost completely into herself. She was scared, lonely and lost. She missed Brenna. But she was brave. She would be okay.

Back in the present, Minerva pulled a tiny, faded picture out of a photo album and tucked it reverently into the corner of her mirror. The picture showed two little girls hugging an older boy. It had been taken only days before Brenna's tragic death and Minerva hadn't looked at the picture since her Hogwarts days. Now she would look at it every day.

"You were right, Albus, you old meddler," she whispered to the slumbering frame. "This is helping...and it's healing." But she would never admit it while he was awake.