MINNIE MCGONAGALL'S SCHOOLDAYS 2
A/N: Well, I actually wrote a second part after all the nice reviews I received on the first piece. I wasn't expecting any. If I get some more on this there might even be another part; however I will only do one if most people who read also review. Get the picture? I can't be bothered putting all the time into writing something if I get no feedback on it at all. Again, I apologise for the title. If you can think of something better, please let me know. You've probably realised I'm scumming from Tom Brown's schooldays as inspiration here!
Disclaimer: As always, they're not mine if Rowling had them first. They belong to her. OTHERWISE THEY'RE MINE!!! Mine mine mine!
Yes, that did make me feel better.
Onto the story! Onwards!
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You had to laugh, Minerva thought idly. Some things were just too plain ridiculous to let you do anything else. Stretching lightly she kicked off a shoe and watched as it impacted against the far wall of Dumbledore's study. The other followed moments later.
It made her feel a lot happier.
Nearly six weeks ago he'd announced his intention to tutor her. What could she lose? She'd agreed. So far she'd created countless little disasters out of well-structured lessons, broken her wand twice and put Dumbledore in the infirmary.
He should have known better than to present her with a group of Cornish pixies. In casting the spell to get rid of them she'd been too enthusiastic and brought the ceiling down on both of them.
But as soon as he left the tender ministrations of Madame Pomfrey the transfigurations teacher had insisted their lessons begin again. This time, with added safety precautions.
Sighing Minerva tried to read the scroll again. It was the last assignment that he'd set her, with annotations and corrections pencilled in the margin and between her scrawls. Dumbledore's last instructions to his student had been to rewrite the essay, incorporating the elements he'd suggested, but she was finding it near impossible to concentrate.
What did he expect her to do? Every day she had her normal lesson timetable, but after dinner she was supposed to meet him here, at his office, for several hours worth of extra classes.
It was giving her a headache. Secretly she suspected that if Dumbledore didn't already have grey hair she'd give him a head full overnight. Nothing she did ever seemed to work out properly. Maybe James had been right, perhaps she was a squib.
But I can do some magic, she reminded herself quickly. Curiously Minerva picked up her wand and examined it. It had been sellotaped in several places where she'd broken it, the first time with the pixies and later after she'd tried to heat a cauldron of water and the spell had backfired, heating the wand instead.
Heat wand. Burn hand. Swear loudly. Drop wand. Boil nicely, add in some herbs and flavouring and you have roasted wand in neat bite sized pieces ala Minerva McGonagall.
The girl laughed, replacing the wand in her sleeve. Tiredly she brushed the hair from her eyes. She was sick of having to do something with it. Each time she tied it back it fought with a vengeance.
"If I could only sic it onto Sybill I'd be set," she mused, a wicked gleam replacing the exhaustion in her eyes. The crazy Hufflepuff had teased her unmercifully when she'd discovered she was taking extra classes. She took such a delight in heaping shit on Minerva.
Surprisingly, a number of other Gryffindors had stood up for her as soon as they'd heard. "Leave her alone" James Potter had told the vixen firmly, never mind that he was only a first year and she a fifth, "it's nothing to do with you if she wants to improve at her school work, because at least she's trying." He'd been somewhat condescending, but Minerva hadn't objected to the unexpected support. She'd laughed outright when his friend, the mischievous Sirius Black, had added "And if she's taking extra lessons we'll know that she's not the one sleeping her way to the top of the class."
He'd smirked, saucily, batting his eyelids at the Hufflepuff girl. James dragged him away, but not before he'd had the chance to give Minerva a friendly wink. She'd smiled back. For once it had seemed as though she were actually part of something at Hogwarts, not just the outsider. Then the bell for class had rung and she was once again by herself, but it didn't matter quite so much any more.
She thought about sitting with them at meals, but it seemed so silly to think she could intrude on their little clique. They laughed with each other, cheerily, talking and joking and having fun, confident that they had a place there.
Did she? She didn't know.
Trelawney didn't seem to think so.
Minerva's eyes narrowed and her fingers clenched at the thought of her. That cloud of blonde hair, those perfect features, that irritating little laugh, all made her want to grab her by the neck and snap it. She wanted to hear her bones crack beneath her hands, feel her trembling in fear and whimpering in pain.
Stupid. Little. Bitch.
Slowly the girl got to her feet, stalked around the room. Dumbledore had a meeting but he had insisted that she study anyway.
A poorly made portrait of the first Dumbledore stared accusingly out at her from the wall. Minerva shuddered, disliking the baleful glare. Picking up a throw rug from the sofa she tossed it over the picture, arranging it until she could no longer see the beady scowl that tracked her every move.
Idly her fingers traced across the tomes arranged across the heavy shelves. Too difficult. A half made potion bubbled on the cluttered wooden desk, letting off a foul aroma. Selecting a small glass eye-dropper, she extracted a drop of the mixture and let it fall.
One spot of the desk was now coloured bright blue. Hmm. A slight smile crossed Minerva's face. This could be a possibility. She extracted another sample of the fluid and sealed it in a small specimen jar from the bottom drawer. That disappeared into one of the long pockets of her robes.
Continuing the search she found a bag of cherry crackers hidden inside a cupboard. She fingered one lightly, deciding, before dropping a small handful in with the jar. She'd heard about these crackers once in the common room, from some of the older boys bemoaning the confiscation of their entire stock. All you had to do was twist the top of the cracker once for each hour you wanted it to wait, then you placed it somewhere and after the set time it would explode.
Definitely a possibility.
Minerva hummed tunelessly to herself as she looked. For some reason she found herself coming back to the bookshelf. Grabbing a chair, she balanced herself precariously so she could read the titles of the higher volumes.
"Potions, procedures and precautions," she read aloud. "Illuminating Illusions. The wonder of werewolves, a teacher's guide." Huh? Strange. Pure Dumbledore, only he would have such a ridiculous book.
"Touching on Transfiguration. Hogwarts: A History. As if anyone would read that!" She scoffed.
"Marvelling at Muggles. Muggle studies of the Ministry. Hunting Hobgoblins. Catching Cornish Pixies. Hogwarts Annual, 1952." Minerva continued to read the titles, laughing at some and shaking her head at others. She couldn't imagine anyone reading a book titled "From House-elf to Bumblebee, a History of the Dumbledore Family Name" for instance, but she was sure there would be some who'd find it interesting.
"Spelling for Squibs." Should she? Heaving the slender volume in one hand, the girl chewed her lip. On the plus side, he wouldn't notice it was gone. The minus was it meant extra study. Oh well. Maybe it would help?
It went into another pocket. "Tricks to baffle muggles and impress your friends" followed soon after, as did "Becoming Animagi: A User's Manual."
Finding nothing else Minerva clambered down and returned Dumbledore's chair to its position at his desk. She gave the potion another longing look, but decided that if she took any more, it was bound to be noticed. Even by Dumbledore.
"I can't do that tonight, I just can't," she mused, staring dejectedly at her scrunched up scroll. Her pen-marks sat like drunken scratches next to Dumbledore's flowing script, and it had funny little holes on the edges where she'd clawed it. "Stupid scroll. Stupid stupid scroll," she muttered. It stared back mockingly. She snorted. "Good one, having a staring match with a piece of parchment." It ranked right up there with extra classes as a measure of insanity. Shaking her head she picked it up and vainly tried to straighten it. No luck.
Minerva yawned. Her foraging had left her tired and with an appetite. "If I leave now, I can grab something at the kitchen," she reasoned, debating between that and staying to try and work on her essay. Food won.
Ah, who am I kidding?
She thought. Who could resist food when the alternative is school work? She laughed. Recently she'd been able to imagine all kinds of strange stuff about herself. But the kitchens of Hogwarts were as appealing as ever…"Maybe they'll have some of that strawberry flan, the one with the shortbread edging," she mused, "or even that cream cake with the caramel centre! And hot chocolate, I need hot chocolate, can't live without hot chocolate."
The door slammed shut behind her, causing a light wind that ruffled the abandoned scrolls on the desk. The light of a single candle flickered on the walls to cast strange shadows.
It danced on the curtains and reflected on the glass of the small window. Only the candle saw a lone bee detach itself from the top of the window ledge and dive towards the centre of the room.
It saw the insect hover a moment, buzzing curiously. It was still watching as the bumblebee began to glow with a strange light, and noted, moments later, when it reformed into Albus Dumbledore.