A/N – There is dialogue from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in this chapter.

Chapter Thirty-Seven – The Chamber Reopens

September 1992

'Loony Lovegood!'

Loony, loony, Luna!'

Minerva sighed as she walked down the hall. Term had just started and already the teasing had begun. She knew she needed to stop the older children from teasing the younger ones.

Luckily, the teasing stopped as soon as Minerva walked over to the small crowd that formed around the small first year. The other students vanished in an instant, leaving Minerva alone with the young girl.

Minerva hadn't met any of the first years yet. Because of Potter and Weasley's stunt with the flying car, Professor Flitwick did the sorting this year.

"Hello, Professor McGonagall," the girl said dreamily.

Minerva looked down and her breath caught in her throat. In front of her was Netta. But it wasn't Netta. It was Netta's face, but with long dirty blonde hair and grey eyes.

She took her in as quickly as she could. The girl was wearing Ravenclaw colors, the House that the majority of Minerva's extended family had been in. Could this possibly be…

"What's you name, dear?" asked Minerva in a voice she didn't recognize.

"Luna Lovegood," the girl said softly. She looked at Minerva and a slow smile spread across her face.

"Hallo, Luna. You're a first year, aren't you?"

Luna simply nodded her head and placed her wand behind her ear.

"I'll have you in class this afternoon, then," said Minerva. She was grateful to see the girl now and not during the start of class.

"I can't wait," said Luna, her eyes taking on a far away look.

"You'll learn a great deal," said Minerva, approvingly.

"I want to be an Animagus someday," said Luna serenely. She closed her eyes and spread her arms out wide. "I want to fly."

"Someday you might," whispered Minerva, watching the girl skip happily down the hall.

88888

That night, Minerva told Albus everything. He listened to Minerva talk on and on about how bright Luna was at transfiguration. And how much she looked like Netta.

Finally, after Minerva had ran out of steam and was sitting comfortably next to Albus in front of the fire, Albus asked, "So what do you do now?"

Minerva thought about it for a moment. To be truthful, she had concentrated so much on finding her granddaughter that she didn't think about what would happen afterwards.

"Lovegood…" Minerva trailed off. "I recognize the name. Was he a student here?"

"Laden Lovegood," said Albus. "He runs the Quibbler. I believe he married Lola Cornfoot. She died a few years back."

"Luna's mother is dead?" asked Minerva, horrified at the thought. Her mind was reeling with all of the possibilities.

"I believe so," said Albus. He took his hand and started playing with a strand of hair that had come loose from her bun.

She knew she couldn't do anything unless she was certain that Luna was Netta's granddaughter. It would hurt everyone involved if Luna wasn't.

Minerva almost jumped when she felt Albus nuzzle her neck. Theirs wasn't an overly physical relationship. It had been quite a while since they had made love. Albus was over one hundred and forty years old now. Certain things simply didn't respond the he wanted them to all the time. And he didn't want to use magic to help things along, which Minerva understood. There are some things that shouldn't mix.

Briefly, Minerva let herself remember the times right after they admitted their feelings for one another, so many years ago. They couldn't keep their hands off each other then. So often making love had relieved the stresses and cares of the day. But that was a long time ago.

She suspected that Albus wanted to distract her. And quite frankly, he was doing a very good job of it.

Minerva let Albus lead her to bed.

88888

November 1992

Minerva mentally went through the list of all the muggle born students in her house. Gryffindor currently carried fifty-three students. She believed that eleven of them were muggle born.

"What are we going to do, Albus?" asked Minerva worriedly. They were just going back to Albus' bedchambers after seeing Colin Creavy to the hospital wing. It was such a shock to see Colin like that.

Minerva was glad that the students in the Gryffindor common room had decided to make a great deal of noise tonight. So much noise that Minerva was forced to go back to the common room and tell them to go to bed or she'd take points away. Though she was just as happy as any of the students that Gryffindor won at quidditch today.

But if she hadn't needed to check on the students, who knows when Colin would have been found?

Albus looked lost in thought.

"What I just don't understand is who is opening it," said Minerva, trying to get Albus to talk to her. "We know it's not Hagrid. I still can't believe they blamed him last time. But who did it, then? I know when the Chamber was opened during my time at Hogwarts, we were all convinced that it was a Slytherin who opened it. Perhaps we should speak to Snape, see if he has any ideas-"

"Minerva?"

"Yes, Albus?" said Minerva, pleased that he was joining the conversation at last.

"We should get some rest."

Minerva tried not to be disappointed that he wasn't willing to discuss the matter further with her.

Briefly, her mind wandered to Luna, who was excelling in Transfiguration. She was almost as good as Hermione Granger had been last year. Minerva realized selfishly that she was glad that Luna wasn't a muggle born. She chastised herself right away for those thoughts.

She slid under the covers, knowing she wouldn't sleep easily tonight. How could she, when two members of her House were in the Hospital Wing?

88888

December 1992

"And then I made sure the students knew not to panic. I had seen garden snakes that were scarier, but you never know, you simply never know with students," said Gilderoy Lockhart, shaking his head thoughtfully.

Minerva looked up from her papers. She was sitting in the staff room, along with several other teachers and at the moment, Lockhart had everyone's undivided attention for once.

"Severus kindly offered to take care of the snake himself, however, I knew that sometimes, those type of snakes could cause trouble…"

"And then what happened?" asked Pomona exasperatedly. She must have heard the same rumor that Minerva had.

"Potter stalked up to the snake…and a strange, hissing voice came out from his mouth," said Lockhart slowly.

"Potter's a parseltongue?" Rolanda Hooch said quietly. There were murmurs building in the staffroom.

Lockhart clearly was relishing being the center of attention. "He's obvisously going down the path of darkness," said Lockhart with an inappropriate smile. "I must say, the moment I saw him in Florish and Botts so many months ago, I had him pegged as a Dark Wizard. Sure, he tried to fool me by showing up to my book signing…"

Minerva lost track of what Lockhart was saying at that point. He was infuriating. How a Hufflepuff that only managed to scrape by with four O.W.L.S. managed to become a celebrity, she didn't want to know. Minerva taught Muggle Studies when he was here, and luckily, that elective he chose not to take.

She had heard all of the ridiculous rumors floating around that Harry was the one who opened up the Chamber of Secrets. But it didn't make sense. The Chamber could only be opened by Slytherin's one true heir. That would mean that one of Harry's relatives would have had to have opened up the chamber fifty years ago.

The only person related to Harry that went to Hogwarts during that time was Tabitha Kirke, who went on to marry William Potter, Harry's grandfather. Minerva dismissed the idea immediately. Tabitha couldn't have possibly opened the Chamber of Secrets. She simply couldn't have.

Lockhart was still talking about Potter when the warning bell sounded. She gathered her papers and headed towards her classroom.

With Christmas only a few days away, Minerva had quite a hard time keeping her seventh year's attention. She was just having them try to change the color of their hair when-

"ATTACK! ATTACK! ANOTHER ATTACK! NO MORTAL OR GHOST IS SAFE! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! ATTAAAACK!"

Without thinking, Minerva ran into the hallway, hearing her class follow her. In front of her was a horrible scene. Justin Finch-Fletchley was lying on the floor, obviously having been attacked by the monster. But what had happened to Nearly Headless Nick?

The crowd buzzed either with terror or excitement, Minerva was not sure. Somehow Minerva managed to make the students go back into their classrooms.

Her eyes lingered on Harry for a moment. Suddenly, she remembered when she found Moaning Myrtle all those years ago. Harry's grandmother was the one right outside the bathroom, telling Minerva that there had been another attack.

Albus would have to talk to him straight away.

"This way, Potter," said Minerva quickly.

"Professor, I swear I didn't-"

"This is out of my hands, Potter."

Harry followed Minerva like she had just sentenced him to the gallows. Together, they walked through the corridors and went up to Albus' office. Minerva instructed that Harry stay there while she went to get Albus.

Albus was already walking down the hallway when she stepped off the landing.

"What has happened?" asked Albus, his brow furrowed.

Minerva explained as quickly as she could. Albus simply nodded and continued walking. With frustration, Minerva stalked down the hallway. Why wasn't he talking to her about this?

She was the deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts after all. Even if Albus didn't want to talk to Minerva directly, the Headmaster needs to discuss things with the deputy Headmistress.

Just as she was about to step into her classroom, Pomona stopped her.

"I suppose we need to talk to Justin's parents," said Pomona softly. "They're muggles. We can't explain this in a letter."

"Or floo powder," mused Minerva. "Come, Pomona. We'll have to take the Knight Bus."

"Should we change into muggle clothes, do you think?" asked Pomona, looking terrified at the thought.

Minerva shook her head. "His family knows he's a wizard. We shouldn't need to change."

Close to a half hour later, Minerva and Pomona were walking down a very ordinary muggle street. Minerva checked the address. "There's the house," she said softly.

Together, the witches walked up the drive. Luckily, no one seemed to be walking down the street. And not even a single car passed. If the reason why they were here wasn't so tragic, they might call this their lucky day.

Minerva pressed the doorbell and waited for someone to answer the door. The pleasant looking woman who Minerva remembered to be Justin's mother answered the door.

"Professor McGonagall!" she said in surprise. "Please come in!"

"Thank you, Mrs. Finch-Fletchley," said Minerva gravely. "This is Professor Pomona Sprout, who is the head of Justin's House at Hogwarts."

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley's hand flew to her mouth. "Is Justin all right?"

"Why don't we sit down?" asked Minerva. The three women sat down in the living room. "There is no easy way to say this. But Justin has been petrified."

"He's been…what?" The poor woman looked thoroughly confused.

Minerva closed her eyes, completely unsure of how to tell this woman what had happened.

"Justin was attacked by a creature at school," Minerva said, pleased that she hadn't used the word monster. "He's alive, but currently cannot move."

"He's been paralyzed?" asked Mrs. Finch-Fletchley in horror.

"No," said Minerva quickly. "He's been petrified. Being petrified means that you're…you're…"

"Like a statue," interjected Pomona.

"Exactly, like a statue," said Minerva.

"Can you fix him?" asked Justin's mother, tears welling in her eyes.

"Yes," said Pomona confidently. "But it will take a while. There's a specific ingredient needed for the potion that will help him. But it won't be ready for a few months."

"So Justin will be a statue for a few months? How is that possible? How will he eat? Who will bathe him? How will he keep up with his classes?"

Slowly, Minerva and Pomona answered all of the woman's questions. She had almost the exact same questions that Colin Creavy's family had. Though she didn't threaten to get her lawyer involved like the Creavy's did.

Minerva could only hope that she didn't have to answer these questions for another student's parents.