Who was pounding on her door at this ghastly hour? Minerva had barely gotten any sleep this week, teaching by day and spying by night. She hadn't even had time for cat naps ironically enough.
She was the Head of Gryffindor, so it stood to reason one of the students might have had some sort of emergency that couldn't wait until the morning. Peeves was known to cause some nighttime mischief on occasion, but she doubted he would have knocked. He would have found a way to wake her through more interesting means.
Whoever it was better have had a good reason. She couldn't control her terse tongue at this time of night on this little sleep; they would be letting themselves in for the scolding of their lives if it were something trivial.
"Pomona," she said with surprise, tightening her robe as she opened the door wider to let her old friend in.
"Have you heard the rumors?" she said, barreling in like something was on fire.
The irritation returned at once. "You woke me up to gossip like a couple of schoolgirls? I didn't even like gossip when I was a schoolgirl."
"I know, I know, but you'll want to hear these rumors. They're saying You-know-who is no more." More somberly, she said. "They also say-they say Lily and James Potter are dead."
"Who is they? Where are you getting your information?"
"I was up late, planting, and thought I'd step into The Hog's Head for a nightcap, and everyone was talking about, and I do mean everyone."
She did a long sniff. "Everyone talking about it doesn't make it so." Inwardly though, she worried. They were so young, barely out of Hogwarts. And they had just had a baby not so long ago. They'd been sweet enough to invite her to the wedding and to send a notice when their first child was born. A boy if she remembered correctly. "The baby?"
"Is alive and well, or so they say. They say the only harm that came to him was a lightening bolt cut to his forehead."
"Thank God. Where will he go?"
"Who's to say?"
"I've got to get dressed. There'll be plenty of work to do if even a tiny part of it is true. Thank you for the information."
Dumbledore was out. Where he was she had no idea, but he would be in the thick of it she knew. She went by Hagrid's cottage. He most likely would have seen him leaving the property.
Hagrid looked fully alert when he answered the door. He had either never gone to bed or had been up for some time.
"Do you know where Professor Dumbledore is?" she queried.
He fiddled nervously under her gaze. "I'm not supposed to tell. I'm supposed to meet him later."
"Please, Hagrid. He may need help. It may not be over just like that."
"4 Privet Drive, but I'm not to meet him there until dusk."
At least he was not going out into the open and becoming a target if this were all some sort of trick. She refused to believe that James and Lily were dead. The story seemed too fantastical, and she had seen some fantastical things. "Thank you. Maybe I can get the lay of the land, and discover if it's all some kind of trap."
On arriving in England, she made a map of London appear. It was just an ordinary street full of ordinary Muggles going about their morning. What was so special to bring Dumbledore here? She studied the map to make sure there was nothing she had missed like another Privet Drive.
That's when she noticed she was being watched, and she made the map disappear. The rather rotund man continued to stare at her. She stared back at him. For a second he might wonder why he had seen a cat reading a map, but he would dismiss it as a trick of the eyes.
He got in his car, and she turned her attention to the sign. It did say Privet Drive. She jumped up on a garden wall and waited.
She passed the time by observing the Muggles. She watched a mother and son walking down the street or more like struggling down the street. "Sweets! Sweets! I want sweets!" He punctuated his screams with kicks and she only cooed at him and promised he would get it soon. It was a most distasteful display.
The original man returned. He looked alarmed to see her sitting on his garden wall.
"Shoo!" he shouted loudly. What rude behavior. What harm was a cat causing by sitting on his wall? She looked at him sternly, causing him more alarm, but he went into his house.
Night fell, and still she stood at her post, hours upon hours of spying making her a pro at the waiting.
Albus arrived at last, appearing, and noticed her almost at once. With a chuckle, he said, "I should have known." He used the Put-Outer to make the street dark and then made his way over, where he sat down beside her on the wall. "Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall. "
She turned back into her true form. Granted, he had seen her cat form before, but she could have been any stray in London. "How did you know it was me? " she asked.
"My dear Professor, I have never seen a cat sit so stiffly."
"You'd be stiff if you'd been sitting on a brick wall all day, "
"All day? When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed to dozen feasts and parties on my way here."
Was he purposely rattling her chains? "Oh yes, everyone's celebrating, all right. You'd think they'd be a bit more careful, but no — even the Muggles have noticed something's going on. It was on their news."
She jerked her head back at the Dursleys' dark living-room window. "I heard it. Flocks of owls . . . shooting stars. . . . Well, they're not completely stupid. They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent — I'll bet that was Dedalus Diggle. He never had much sense."
"You cannot blame them. We've had precious little to celebrate for eleven years. "
"I know that." She was annoyed. Few knew it better than she did. "But that's a not
reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumors. "
She waited with a gaze that would have cowered a lesser wizard, waiting for him to tell her what she wanted to know, but he didn't, so she continued. "A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Dumbledore? "
"It certainly seems so. We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a lemon drop?"
"A what?"
"A lemon drop. They're A kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of."
"No thank you, " she said as if she were speaking to a misbehaving student.. Who could think of lemon drops at a time like this? There was a time and place for candy, and this wasn't one of them. "As I say, even if You-Know-Who has gone -"
"My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call him by his name? All this 'You- Know-Who ' nonsense - for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: Voldemort. It all gets so confusing if we keep saying 'You-Know-Who.' I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort's name."
"I know you haven't," she said. He was so frustratingly cool about it, but she couldn't help admiring his courage. "But you're different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know- oh, all right, Voldemort, was frightened of. " She wasn't superstitious after all, especially now that he was dead.
"You flatter me. Voldemort had powers I will never have. "
"Only because you're too - well - noble to use them."
"It's lucky it's dark. I have not blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs. "
"The owls are nothing next to the rumors that are flying around. You know what everyone's saying? About why he's disappeared? About who finally stopped him?" She had to know if the rumors were true and this whole sorted affair was finally over. She eyed him carefully, waiting for his response, knowing he would answer her plain and true.
Yet, he was excruciatingly slow about it as he took another lemon drop, so she kept going. "They're saying that last night Voldemort turned up in Godric's Hollow to find the Potters. The rumor is that Lily and James Potter are - are - that they're - dead."
Dumbledore bowed his head, and she gasped. "Lily and James. I can not believe it... I did not want to believe it...Oh, Albus... "
Dumbledore reached out and patted her on the shoulder. "I know... I know... "
Her voice shook. "That's not all. They're saying he tried to kill the Potters' son, Harry. But — he couldn't. He couldn't kill that little boy. No one knows why, or how, but they're saying that when he couldn't kill Harry Potter, Voldemort's power somehow broke — and that's why he's gone."
Dumbledore nodded.
"It's - it's true? After all he's done... all the people he's killed... he couldn't kill a little boy? It's just astounding... of all the things to stop him... but how in the
name of heaven did Harry survive?"
Of course, maybe that was just it: by the will of heaven. Her prayer had been answered to the letter. A baby boy with no magic of his own yet to speak of had been the downfall of the human agent most like Satan with only a scar to show for it. Ironic really. The baby had been wounded saving the world. There wasn't a wizard or witch who wouldn't know his name.
"We can only guess. We may never know."
She could hold her emotions back no longer, and she had to pull out her handkerchief to dab the tears away.
Even Dumbledore had to give a great sniff and looked at his watch to distract himself. "Hagrid's late. I suppose it was he who told you I'd be here by the way?"
"Yes, and I don't suppose you're going to tell me why you're here, of all places? "
"I've come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle. They're the only family he has left now. "
"You don't mean - you cannot mean the people who live here? " She jumped up and pointed to the house, so there would be no confusion on that point. "Dumbledore - you cannot."