WHOOMP. Here they is. :)
1 September 1992
"Evening Prophet, hm?" Minerva asked, not looking up from the book she was reading as Pomona sat down beside her in the staffroom and unfurled a newspaper. "What's happened?"
"Don't know yet," Pomona replied. She put on her spectacles, which glinted in the light of the sun setting outside the windows. She glanced at the spine of Minerva's book. "What are you reading? Is that—is that Travels With Trolls?" she asked incredulously.
"Year with the Yeti. As my dear father would have said, know thy—well, perhaps not enemy, but know thy thorn in the side," Minerva told her, lifting one eyebrow. She lifted the book. "He's still got quite a flowery vocabulary. That's one thing that makes me think he actually wrote this." She marked her page with her finger and checked the back of the book. "Only three hundred pages to go."
Pomona chuckled and returned to her newspaper. After a few moments, she rustled it and said, "Oh, now, that isn't good."
Minerva, who was in the middle of a particular purple sentence, gave it up as a bad job and closed the book. "What's not?" she asked, resting her chin in her hand.
"Someone's gone and poked the old Secrecy graphorn," Pomona told her, laying the newspaper out between them so that they could both read the headline:
FLYING FORD ANGLIA MYSTIFIES MUGGLES
Minerva rolled her eyes. "When will people learn?" she asked, skimming the article and seeing that at least seven Muggles had reported sightings of a flying car, just in the last eight hours. "Someone's gone on a joy ride. They've probably got the Ministry on their backs by now."
"I don't know, Rita Skeeter says here that the Ministry's still trying to track the thing, it's not a registered form of transport, so they're having difficulty with it," Pomona told her.
"I must tell Malcolm that gossip columns shouldn't inspire an entire evening edition," Minerva said, rolling her eyes.
"It's a breach of the International Statute of Secrecy, actually," said Pomona.
"Only if they find out whose car it is and what exactly they did to it, and if the owner has any sense, they'll have done away with it by now, which Rita Skeeter knows full well, or she wouldn't have any interest in stirring up trouble. A boring arrest is one thing, a little mystery is another," Minerva replied, tapping the byline of the article. "But I take your point. It's a stupid thing to do in the first place, enchanting a car."
Minerva looked down at her pocket watch as she paced the flagstones of the entrance hall; Hagrid was a little behind in his arrival with the new first years, and she was running out of "settling-down time" for the older students that had all filtered past her into the Great Hall. Finally, there was a knock at the enormous doors, and Minerva opened them.
"Thank you, Hagrid," she said, as the little cluster of wide-eyed first years hurried into the warm entrance hall, all looking positively frozen. It was rather a chilly night for September.
"Sure thing, Professor, but—"
"Professor McGonagall," said another voice over her shoulder. She turned and saw Snape standing on the threshold of the Great Hall, watching her and the little crowd of eleven-year-olds expectantly. Two girls near the front of the group edged away from him nervously.
"Yes, we're coming, Severus," she said tartly. "All of you, line up, please," she told the first years. "Single file, no pushing—"
"Professor—" Hagrid began again.
"Hagrid, I'm sorry, but I cannot—"
"No, Professor, it's Hermione," Hagrid told her. "She came up ter me on the platform, said she didn' see Harry or Ron on the train. I was jes' wonderin' if they made it up here all righ'?"
Minerva stared at him blankly for a moment. The first years were lined up behind her, all staring up at Hagrid.
"Ron wasn't on the train?" one of them piped up loudly, and Minerva, Hagrid, and Severus, who had come over to investigate the delay, looked around at the girl who'd spoken. She had brilliant red hair down to her shoulders, and an inquisitive expression—Ginny Weasley, Minerva thought.
"Have you asked Percy?" Ginny suggested, her brow furrowed thoughtfully. "Maybe—"
"Did you say Potter was missing as well?" Severus cut the girl off smoothly, looking up at Hagrid.
Hagrid's expression became stormy, but Minerva knew that he would never lose his temper with a professor—no matter how warranted it may be. "Severus, let me—"
"Not at all, Professor," he said, as a rather twisted smile revealed his crooked teeth. "Let us not delay the Sorting ceremony any longer. You've both done your part. I shall look into Potter and Weasley's whereabouts."
Minerva had a bad feeling about this, but there really was no time to argue the point; one of the first years, a blond boy who'd been standing beside Ginny Weasley, had wandered away from the group with an enormous Muggle camera raised, and was snapping photographs of the portraits on the nearest wall, to the occupants' great irritation.
"Mr. Creevey!" Minerva barked, and the boy jumped and scarpered back to the line, blushing beet-red as the other children giggled. "Come along, all of you. Professor Snape, let me know what you find out, and I will handle it when the Sorting Ceremony is finished."
"Of course, Professor," he said, with another smile that made Minerva narrow her eyes in suspicion.
Ginny Weasley looked worried, but Minerva didn't have time to assuage her fears; she led the group into the Great Hall with the intent of getting the ceremony over with as quickly as possible. She barely registered the Sorting Hat's song, and it wasn't until she was almost halfway down her list of names that she had to concede defeat; no matter how many times her eyes raked up and down the Gryffindor table, landing on the empty spaces between Hermione Granger and Parvati Patil, Potter and Weasley were not in the Great Hall.
This cannot be good, she thought, as "Lovegood, Luna" became a Ravenclaw and removed the Sorting Hat, revealing her enormously protuberant silver-blue eyes and a pair of earrings that Minerva believed were made out of radishes. She picked up the hem of her robes daintily and wandered, as though she was lost, towards the Ravenclaw table.
In the back of her head, Minerva put together that this girl had to be the daughter of Xenophilius Lovegood—and if she was anything like her father and mother, then Minerva had no cause for surprise.
At long last, Ginny Weasley, blushing furiously, was Sorted into Gryffindor—to raucous cheers from her older brothers and from Colin Creevey, also a new Gryffindor—and the ceremony was over. Minerva gave the hall another sweeping look for the two boys, just in case, and went to put away the Sorting Hat. Just as she was returning to her chair beside Albus, Snape came sweeping into the hall and caught her by the elbow.
"I've located your delinquents," he informed her in a low voice, looking unpleasantly overjoyed. "Did you happen to see an issue of this evening's newspaper?"
Minerva frowned. "Yes," she said slowly.
"It would appear that a flying Ford Anglia has crashed into the Whomping Willow," Snape told her. "Its—ah—enterprising young pilots are in my office."
"What?" she snapped, and several students at the Slytherin table looked around. She felt the blood drain from her face.
"Right this way, Professor," said Severus, and Minerva practically shoved past him, storming from the Great Hall.
A million furious thoughts chased themselves around her head, starting with demanding to know what exactly they had thought they were doing, and covering every inch of ground about what she'd come to expect from them both, and what kind of example they thought they were setting.
"If you'd like help, Professor, I am more than happy to assist—"
"I am their Head of House, if you remember," she snarled at Severus, as he caught up to her halfway down a flight of stairs.
He smirked. "I've let the headmaster know as well, he's said he'll be along shortly—"
"How very helpful," Minerva replied tartly. She rounded a corner to the dungeon stairs and sped down the last few steps, coming to a stop before Severus's office door. She turned and fixed him with a glare. "Not a word, you understand me?" She lifted a threatening finger in his face, and Snape pursed his lips sourly, but stood back.
She flung open the office door and strode in. Potter and Weasley were standing before Snape's desk—she would wager they were exactly where he had left them, judging by the petrified looks on their faces. She surveyed them both for a moment, and then, annoyed, raised her wand, causing the two boys to flinch as flames jumped up in the fireplace.
She took two steps towards them. Harry had a large bruise on his hairline, and Ron, who seemed to have grown half a foot over the summer, had a shallow cut over one eye that was oozing blood down his temple. They both looked ashen and terrified.
"Sit," Minerva commanded. As one, the boys backed up and dropped into chairs beside the fire. Minerva took another step to stand over them both, her eyes narrowed. "Explain."
"Well—what happened was this, Professor," said Ron unexpectedly. "We were at King's Cross this morning, we all left with my parents, and we were running late, and—and Harry and I decided to go through the barrier together, but that didn't work."
He looked up at Minerva for some kind of reaction. When she did not blink, he cleared his throat.
"The barrier wouldn't let us through, just as it turned over to eleven o'clock. And see, my mum and dad, well, they'd already gone through with Ginny, and we were by ourselves, and so—so we—we used the—the car to get here—"
He went suddenly white to the lips, and Minerva had a shrewd idea why; assuming that the Weasleys were connected to this car, it could mean a lot of trouble for their family. But what interested her most was the idea that Platform 9¾ had somehow sealed itself against students. If it was true—and, law-breaking aside, she did not know why Weasley would lie about such a thing—then surely there would be a reason? Had she missed an important security missive from the Muggle Liaison Office?
Ron was looking nervous again, and trailed off in his story. "So…we had no choice, Professor, we couldn't get on the train."
Minerva glared at him. "Why didn't you send us a letter by owl? I believe you have an owl?" She swiveled her gaze to Harry, whose jaw dropped, as though this had never occurred to him before. Well, she thought, at least she knew that they weren't lying—they really had been this stupid.
"I—I didn't think—" Harry stammered.
"That is obvious," she replied, unable to keep the irritation from her voice.
There came a knock at the office door and Severus, who was positively overjoyed, moved to answer it. A moment later, Albus had entered the room. Minerva could tell from the look on his face that he, too, had pieced together much of what had happened. He surveyed the boys for a moment from Minerva's side.
Finally, he folded his hands and said quietly, "Please explain why you did this."
This time, it was Harry who answered, but Minerva noticed that neither he nor Ron was able to look up at Dumbledore. Harry told the exact same story Minerva had just heard, staring down at the floor the whole time. She folded her arms and waited for Harry to finish speaking, then shared a long look with Dumbledore.
He gave a nod and looked down at the boys again, who were both looking very ashamed and anxious. Minerva let a slow breath out of her nose, just as Ron opened his mouth again.
"We'll go and get our stuff," he said dismally.
Minerva was taken aback. "What are you talking about, Weasley?"
"Well, you're expelling us, aren't you?" said Ron. Beside him, Harry blanched and looked up at Albus.
"Not today, Mr. Weasley," said Albus softly, and behind him, Minerva heard Severus make a sound that was somewhere between a squeak and a gasp. "But I must impress upon both of you the seriousness of what you have done. I will be writing to both your families tonight. I must also warn you that if you do anything like this again, I will have no choice but to expel you."
Minerva glanced back at Severus, whose expression was unmistakably disappointed. She glared at him, but he stepped forward anyway.
"Professor Dumbledore," he began in the voice he reserved for trying to win Dumbledore over, "These boys have flouted the Decree for the Restriction of Underage Wizardry, caused serious damage to an old and valuable tree—surely acts of this nature—"
"It will be for Professor McGonagall to decide on these boys' punishments, Severus," said Albus, overriding Snape firmly, but politely. Minerva, on the other hand, seriously considered sticking her tongue out at him. "They are in her House and are therefore her responsibility."
Albus faced her once more and met her eyes significantly, his slight nod indicating that they would certainly discuss this matter later tonight. "I must go back to the feast, Minerva, I've got to give out a few notices. Come, Severus, there's a delicious-looking custard tart I want to sample—"
And he and Snape left the office. Minerva rounded on the boys, glaring down at both of them for a moment. Yes, they would have to be punished, and they knew it, judging by the looks on their faces—but being knocked around by the Whomping Willow and caught by Severus was more than enough punishment for tonight.
She pointed at the cut over Ron's eyebrow. "You'd better get along to the hospital wing, Weasley, you're bleeding."
"Not much," he said quickly. "Professor, I wanted to watch my sister being Sorted—"
"The Sorting Ceremony is over," she told him. He looked very disappointed, so she decided to add, "Your sister is also in Gryffindor."
"Oh, good," he replied, suddenly grinning as though he hadn't a care in the world.
Minerva narrowed her eyes. "And speaking of Gryffindor—"
"Professor," Potter interrupted, and she looked down at him in frank astonishment. "When we took the car, term hadn't started, so—so Gryffindor shouldn't really have points taken from it—should it?" He gave her a look that she suspected he thought would win her over.
Technically, Minerva thought, he was correct…and the boys would have plenty of opportunity for punishment without putting the House Cup in jeopardy. And it would really annoy Snape, she thought, which was enough to make her almost want to smile. "I will not take any points from Gryffindor," she decided at last, "but, you will both get a detention."
And for the sake of keeping the story contained, for now, though she knew it to be a fruitless effort—Minerva raised her wand again and produced a plate of sandwiches, two silver goblets, and a jug of iced pumpkin juice on Severus's desk. "You will eat in here and then go straight up to your dormitory," she told them, fixing them each with a look that plainly said she expected compliance and nothing else. "I must also return to the feast."
With one last glance at each of them—and, satisfied that they would not disobey—Minerva went to the door and shut it behind her, pausing for just a moment to listen. She heard a sound like a whistle, and then Ron's voice:
"I thought we'd had it," he said.
"So did I," Harry replied.
Minerva couldn't repress a little self-satisfied smirk.