"I have to what?" Minerva's father asked louder than necessary.
Her mother quietly answered. "Just go through the wall, dear. It's not solid at the moment. You didn't think we could have a train to Hogwarts in plain sight, did you?"
He looked around as if one of his parishioners might have followed him to London. Then he linked arms with his wife, and they went through the brick wall together. She had to hand it to her father. He didn't waiver from the task like some Muggles might have the first time.
He had stayed behind at the hotel while they had gotten supplies for Robert Jr., as well as her and Malcolm's books, so this was his first real taste of the wizarding world. Since it was the only time all three of his children would be in Hogwarts, he'd decided to make this journey just this once.
He shook his head in disbelief as he looked at all the witches and wizards roaming around the platform. "I really wish I was sending you all off to an all-girls and all-boys boarding schools. At least I know you have a good head on your shoulders, Minerva. You won't have your head turned by some flowery speech and a handsome face."
"What about me, Dad?" Malcolm asked with a smile even as the thirteen-year-old watched a platinum-haired classmate walk by.
"You're the one I worry about most, son. Keep your nose in your books. There'll be plenty of time for girls after you've got an education under your belt." He took a step back in shock as he saw a witch give her son a treat to take on the train, using just a wand. It appeared to come out of thin air, but if her father knew Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, he would know she had merely summoned the sweet from its last location. "As unorthodox as it may be."
Robert Jr.'s bright eyes were still transfixed on his new, gleaming sycamore wand. "You won't have to worry about me. I just want to learn everything there is to learn."
"I'm afraid of that, too. You tend to absorb it all, good and bad. It's hard to tell what you'll learn at that school." He sighed and turned his attention back to Minerva. "At least it's your last year. Then you'll be home for good."
Minerva wasn't so sure of that, but she didn't want to tell him so and make him worry more. The truth was she wasn't certain what she wanted to do yet. "Don't worry about Robert Jr. I'll make sure he only learns what's profitable." Keeping him away from the Restricted Section in the library was going to be tricky though. The boy was too curious for his own good. They might as well post a sign on the rope: "Come and read, Robert Jr."
Her father kept a constant eye on the train even as he carried on conversation as if he expected it to jump off the tracks at any moment and fly away.
Her mother noticed, too. "It's just a train, Robert."
"Nothing is just what it is around here." He wasn't reassured at all by her words. Her parents loved each other, but they didn't trust each other, and he probably suspected she was lying to him just to set his mind at ease.
"It really is just a regular train, Father. The only thing magical is the wall and the people on it, and I suppose it's fueled by magic rather than steam, but it operates in a normal fashion."
She spotted Pomona, who waved in her usual cheerful way. Minerva waved back.
"She looks like a nice girl. I'm glad you made another close friend," her mother said. "I know how you miss Vera."
"Friends are important," her father added. "I hope she's from a good Christian family."
She wondered if he fretted over that because Pomona had two wanded parents beside her, but it was her dad's business to fret over people's salvation and particularly his own children's. He would have asked the same if the friend had two Muggle parents. "Actually she is. Our shared faith is one of the ways we bonded."
"I thought as much. A minister can tell those things about people."
She looked harder at the Sprout family. She didn't know what he saw that she didn't. They did look happy though, but the McGonagalls were a Christian family, and they probably didn't look particularly happy to an outsider's eye.
It was nice to be reassured that her father didn't carry a prejudice towards witches and wizards and think they were excluded from walking with God. It certainly seemed that way at times when he insisted on there being no magic at all within their four walls.
"Well, I need to go help instruct the prefects on what to do before we get going," she announced.
"My daughter a head girl; I can't believe it," her mother said. "Actually I can. They couldn't find a smarter, harder working, honest, or all around good person. Though I may be a little bias, I admit."
Compliments, however well intended, embarrassed her. She was only doing what was required of her. She hoped no one had heard. Enough of them thought her uppity as it was without her mother's gushing praise.
Her mother hugged Minerva tight. "I'm so proud of you I could burst."
"Come on, Isobel. Let the girl go," her father said. Though he didn't state his pride, she could hear it in his voice.
All of the prefects and Head Boys and Head Girls were waiting in the car reserved for them except for one, a Slytherin, who probably thought he was above such things as being on time as a pure-blood. The Ravenclaw Head Boy had been elected to recite the rules to the others.
The rules of being a prefect were now almost as familiar to her as scripture. Minerva's mind and gaze wandered out past the window to the platform where her parents stood, waiting to wave them off.
Her mother, though tearful at her empty nest, was as pleased as Punch that all her children were following in her footsteps in this way. Her father was a different story. She could see him struggling with the pain, trying to stand tall but sinking in shame.
It wasn't just that magic unsettled him though that was certainly true. It was the lies he had to tell that caused the shame. He'd looked like he was about to have a fit of apoplexy as he'd had to lie to the congregation about the trip from the pulpit, telling them he was taking them to schools he wasn't taking them to. She didn't blame him; she hated the lies just as much; she just got to live away from the lying for most of the year.
She knew one thing for sure about her future after Hogwarts. She couldn't ever go back to the lying, not full-time.