"Okay, wait, hold on. Read it again," Luna closed her eyes and pressed her forehead into the heels of her hands. Poor Lavender must have read the letter a dozen times by now. After she, Ginny, Rania, and Padma managed to find Luna and Tonks in the fields, they had begun the trek back to the complex of Circle buildings, which suddenly seemed longer than it ever had before. They ran into Parvati, Sylvia, and Caroline on the way, and others soon joined their panicked procession. Faces flitted in and out of focus as they went to fetch others, asking Lavender to read the letter again, then again from the beginning, then just once more.
Now they were gathered around the large central table in the chapter house, discussing Lavender's letter and all of its implications. Luna had probably heard the letter in its entirety several times, in snatched fragments broken by the babble of panicked voices and running feet, but still could not absorb the full meaning. The words skittered and collided on the surface of her mind as if on ice.
"It's like I already told you! 'You have been found to be using underage magic on several occasions, in violation of the Ministry of Magic's Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery...'"
"But they don't say exactly when or where or what spells or anything," Ginny cut in.
"'A disciplinary hearing will be scheduled and you will be summoned to appear before the Wizengamot to answer to these charges. If found guilty, you will lose the privilege of performing magic. Your wand will be seized and destroyed,'" Lavender continued reading, her voice wobbling.
"Well then, it doesn't say they're definitely going to destroy your wand, now does it?" Mrs. Weasley said as she put a steaming mug of ginger tea with lemon in front of Lavender and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.
"It sounds like they're planning on it! If they really have proof that I've broken the decree on underage magic like they say, how can I possibly defend myself? They'll have to find me guilty, because I am guilty, and then they'll snap my wand!" Lavender wailed. Mrs. Weasley clucked sadly, gave Lavender a final pat on the head, and moved away to serve the others their tea. Mrs. Brown pulled her daughter's head into her lap and cradled it, shushing her with soothing words audible only to Lavender.
"What I want to know is how they could have even known for sure Lavender was doing magic? Does that mean they know where the Circle is? Could they have been spying on us?" Luna turned and addressed Tonks, wringing her hands and shooting her cousin a worried look as if to say, See, I told you! But Tonks only shrugged.
"Unlikely. It's almost guaranteed to have been the Trace that gave us away. The Ministry certainly has more important things for their agents to do than trying to catch out a few girls doing underage magic," Professor McGonagall said with the brusqueness she usually adopted when dispelling what she considered to be the others' flights of fancy.
"But you girls have been doing magic at the Circle for nearly two years now. It does beg the question of why we're only hearing about it now, when the Ministry must have known about this for some time," Mrs. Patil cooled her steaming mug of tea with a wave of her wand before taking a sip.
"We always tried to practice our magic in the open air, in the fields with a lot of people there, a mix of adults and children. We thought that would trick the Trace," Mrs. Brown murmured. Lavender's breathing was still uneven and shuddering, and Eudora was running her fingers through her daughter's curls to soothe her. But when Lavender's breath settled and she closed her eyes, Mrs. Brown's eyebrows knitted together and she bit her lip. It frightened Luna to see the unshakeable Mrs. Brown so worried, more worried than she had ever seen her. Luna imagined that like the rest of the adults, she was pained by the realization that she thought she had done all in her power to protect her daughter from something like this, but it had not been enough.
They all sipped their tea and wallowed in their self-pity for a while. Luna suddenly realized that she had not heard her mother speak once since hearing the news. Cressida sat slouched in her usual chair, fiddling with her bracelets and letting her tea grow cold. Luna got up to fetch a box of biscuits from the larder, placing a sleeve of Fig Wands, her mum's favorite, in front of her.
"Thank you, dear," Cressida patted her daughter's hand and smiled absently, then passed the biscuits to Padma without taking one.
"But how would they even know it was Lavender in particular doing magic? How did they know it was her and not Mrs. Brown or Luna or me or any of us?" Rania asked.
"Remember, no one knows for sure how the Trace works," Tonks said, "We didn't even get told very much about it for the auror exams. Just the basics of the theory, really, and how all the legal stuff works once the Trace catches you out."
"Well if we don't know how it works, how do we even know they have the proof? What if they just made it up?" Luna popped a Jammy Dragon into her mouth, not because she was hungry but because it was something to do. It was chewy and made her jaw ache.
"It doesn't really matter, does it? If they made it up, they made it up. We'd have no way of proving it, anyway. The real question is what we're going to do about it," Mrs. Brown said, passing the box to Lavender, who shook her head and kept her arms crossed tightly across her chest.
"We have to fight it," Ginny said fiercely.
"How? If we go to the trial, Lav will be found guilty and they'll take her wand. And it's not like not showing up to the hearing is an option. She'd be a fugitive, and then they'd find the Circle for sure, if they haven't already found it," Luna said. She put the rest of the Jammy Dragon down uneaten. Eating a few bites had somehow shrunk her appetite even further and made her feel nauseated. She put her head back in her hands. Lavender started crying again. Hopelessness wafted through the room like an insidious gas.
"Wouldn't Madam Bones be able to help us? She's on the Wizengamot. The letter said Lav would be summoned to the Wizengamot, right?" Parvati said.
"Yes, exactly right! Thank you, Parvati," Ginny said, slamming her palms down on the table in an attempt to snap the others out of their malaise. Luna knew that Ginny hated feeling hopeless, but her insistent optimism was grating.
"Read the room, Gin," she muttered.
"What? There's no use moping around, we should do something," Ginny hissed back, flicking Luna on the arm as she reached over for a second helping of biscuits.
"One person can only do so much, I expect," Mrs. Figg ventured. She was sitting next to her niece and rubbing Caroline's back in an absentminded sort of way.
"Oh, Lavender, I do pity you! Having your wand taken away sounds like just the worst thing in the world," Caroline sniveled and buried her face in her aunt's jumper, mimicking Lavender's pose in her mother's lap. Luna folded her hands in front of her, fighting the urge to punch Caroline. She had an incredible ability to make Lavender's plight all about her, all while insulting her saint of an aunt who had never owned a wand in the first place.
"Thoughtless git!" Ginny was clearly thinking along similar lines, and Luna grabbed her arm to prevent Ginny from lunging across the table at Caroline. But Professor McGonagall managed to restrain Ginny with only her pursed lips and raised eyebrows.
"Amelia will do what she can, but we mustn't expect much from her. She has a duty to enforce the decree regardless of her personal feelings about Lavender and the Circle of Peloresow," said McGonagall, and an even deeper pallor fell over the room. Even Ginny shrank back in her seat, her hands fidgeting before resting on the table, silently this time.
"So you're saying it's hopeless, then? We should all just give up and...and go back to Hogwarts?" Ginny's lip quivered.
"Now, I didn't say that," McGonagall smiled, "You forget that some of us know the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot."
There was a sharp intake of breath from the adults and more politically-aware children in the room.
"Wait...who?" Caroline whipped her head around. In her haste to whine and stomp her feet about being left in the dark during an important conversation, she almost forgot that she was pretending to cry. She remembered just in time, and added an unconvincing sniffle for effect.
"Dumbledore, child, Professor Dumbledore!" Mrs. Figg tapped Caroline gently on the head as if checking if it were hollow. This was as stern as she ever became with her niece, but Caroline still wailed and ran from the room as if she'd been slapped. For once, Mrs. Figg let her go. She just pushed in Caroline's chair and took a sip of her tea.
"You really think Dumbledore would help us?" Mrs. Weasley asked after Caroline's shrieks had faded away into the November fog outside the chapter house.
"I don't know, but I think he'd be sympathetic to our cause. In the past he's resisted the Ministry's attempts to make Hogwart attendance compulsory for all wizarding children in Britain," Professor McGonagall shrugged.
"Would you talk to him about it, Minerva? It might be our… It sounds like our best shot," Mrs. Brown said. Lavender's sobs had quieted to sniffles, but her face was crusted with dried tears. None of them said it, but they knew what Mrs. Brown had begun to say. Dumbledore might be their only hope.
"Of course I will," Professor McGonagall nodded once. None of them wanted to grovel before Dumbledore, she perhaps least of all. But she would do what needed to be done.
A single note of hope trilled through the air, but it was enough to revive their spirits. They all sat up a little straighter. Mrs. Weasley replaced their tepid tea with a lovely, fresh, steaming hot brew. Lavender sat up and allowed Ginny and Luna to give her the best biscuits from the box of Creature Crackers, the unicorns and phoenixes. Tonks made absurd faces and soon had the girls laughing. Only Cressida remained withdrawn.
There was a strange ruffling noise from the ancient stone chimney, and an owl flew out of the broad fireplace. It dropped a letter in front of Sylvia. She broke the Ministry seal with trembling fingers, read the first line, and dropped the letter onto the table.
"You're not going to believe it," she whispered.
"What is it, dear? No, that can't be right!" Mrs. Fawcett said, grabbing the letter her daughter had dropped on the table, reading it, gasping, and then passing it around so the others could see. It was identical to Lavender's apart from the name in the salutation. At first, they all assumed there must have been a mistake, a clerical error made by some Ministry bureaucrat's automated quill.
But then another owl flew down the chimney and dropped a letter in front of Ginny. Then another arrived for Padma, followed almost immediately by one for Parvati. Even Caroline got one; she ran into the chapter house crying because the Ministry owl had caught her unawares while she was sulking in the dormitory and nearly accosted her in its urgency to deliver the letter. Soon every girl had received a letter from the Ministry of Magic except Luna.
They stayed up late into the night until their theories, tears, and tea ran dry.
Minerva McGonagall rarely got what she wanted, but she was very rarely disappointed. And that was because she was almost never surprised. Minerva paid attention. She had an uncanny ability for sensing the various and sundry ways in which what she wanted and what other people thought they wanted were at odds. She was occasionally able to make others see how they might align, and those were the rare instances when she got exactly what she wanted. Otherwise, she paid attention, kept her head down, and got on with things.
She wouldn't call it the secret to a happy life, but it was the secret to something. A content life, a predictable life. A life of industrious busyness. A life that was rarely happy, but that was rarely unbearable, either. This was the bargain she had made with herself on that cloudy autumn morning when she chose to break Dougal McGregor's heart. Minerva had learned that getting what you wanted often meant living a life that was not on your own terms.
So Professor McGonagall was dismayed when her conversation with Headmaster Dumbledore took her completely by surprise. Of course she had not been expecting him to outright support the Circle's cause, or to storm into the Ministry and immediately demand a resolution. But she had known Dumbledore (despite his insistence, she still struggled with calling him Albus; after all these years, she had finally accepted that there would always be something of a student-teacher dynamic between them) for most of her life, and she had felt sure that he would agree with the Circle of Peloresow's cause at least in theory. Besides, he owed her so many favors that Minerva had stopped keeping track years ago.
But he seemed distracted and worried, and she could tell that he was barely listening to what she said. He pressed his fingertips together to form a steeple and rested his chin on them, nodding and making sympathetic noises in the right places, exactly like he did when Cornelius Fudge or Lucius Malfoy was burning a hole in his ear about something or other. Minerva paid attention. She knew that this meant Dumbledore had already made his mind up, and was fobbing them off with politeness and feigned attention. She saw that it was useless, so she stopped talking before she had even gotten to the delicate proposition she had come here to make.
She returned to the task at hand, rearranging the timetables of the ornery Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students who insisted they were still unhappy with the courses they had been given. She snapped the tip of her quill and nearly swore aloud when yet another ink blot bloomed on the parchment. Minerva was angrier with herself than she was with Dumbledore. She and Dumbledore's opinions differed frequently, and she could usually see a disagreement coming from a mile off and adjust her expectations accordingly. But this about-face had caught her completely off guard. She should have seen this coming. How had she not seen this coming?
But then Dumbledore put a hand over hers and took her into his confidence. Something was weighing heavily on his mind, he said, something to do with Harry Potter. Minerva bit back a biting retort. If he suddenly regretted allowing Harry to compete in the Triwizard Tournament after seeing the Boy Who Lived nearly roasted alive by a Hungarian Horntail, it was a month too late for that. Her circumspection served Minerva well, however, because that day, over stacks of timetables, Dumbledore told her for the first time that he suspected Voldemort had returned to Britain, or would do so very soon. It was the first time Minerva heard the word "horcrux."
McGonagall gave up on the endless mound of paperwork for the day and walked to Hogsmeade in desperate need of a drink. She nursed her firewhisky in the Three Broomsticks and thought about all the ways she had been surprised today, all the ways she had not gotten what she wanted. All the ways the bargain she had made with herself all those decades ago was suddenly coming back to haunt her with a vengeance.
That the Dark Lord might be back hardly surprised her at all. That Dumbledore looked so afraid was more unsettling than it was surprising. But Dumbledore's refusal to help the girls stung all the more because she had not expected it. She had never known him to be less than solicitous to anyone, even his enemies. She still remembered the countless owls and impromptu visits from Cornelius Fudge soon after he became Minister for Magic. Dumbledore had actively campaigned against Fudge, and yet still he had helped him. And as a teacher, he was always willing to say a kind word and do a favor for even the most apathetic and exasperating of his students.
Professor Dumbledore had seen something in a young Minerva McGonagall all those years ago and devoted countless hours to her Transfiguration studies. It had been Dumbledore who first offered to sponsor her animagus application, before she had even entertained the possibility of pursuing advanced Transfiguration studies. So to see him turn his back on the girls...it hurt. It felt like she was thirteen again and her favorite teacher had declined to help her practice her animate to inanimate transfiguration.
Shock and hurt curdled to anger as the firewhisky burnt her throat. What gave Dumbledore the right to brush off his deputy headmistress when this was the only thing she had asked of him in years, if not decades? And had he decided he did not care about the girls just because they had chosen not to go to Hogwarts? It went against everything he stood for, or rather everything she thought he stood for.
As she settled her tab and bundled herself in her scar and earmuffs, Minerva was approached by a man who looked like Dumbledore. Her heart startled in a flutter of hope, thinking he might have changed his mind or at least come to apologize. But it was not Albus Dumbledore after all, but someone like him.
"Come with me," he said, and ushered her out of the Three Broomsticks and through a labyrinth of alleys. The high street had looked like a Christmas card, but this part of Hogsmeade was poorly lit and slick with dirty slush still unswept from the last snow. In the Hog's Head, over butterbeer in foggy glasses, she laid out the whole of it. The Circle, the letters from the Ministry, and how Dumbledore could not or would not help.
"It seems unlike him, doesn't it? I expected he'd do anything to prevent the Ministry from setting a precedent for meddling in the affairs of Hogwarts. And he's always been a strong advocate for people who choose to educate their children independently."
"He's got a lot on his mind," the man said with a shrug.
"Yes, I got that impression."
"Do you know what he has planned for that poor boy?"
"Who?" Professor McGonagall's mind's eye had been far away from boys, focused on the girls of the Circle, "What boy?" She blinked and shook herself as if coming out of a trance.
"The Potter boy."
"You mean letting Harry compete in the tournament? You know I advised him against it. But even I have to admit, Harry seemed to hold his own well enough in the first challenge. Although that doesn't mean we're out of the woods yet, of course. Why he wasn't more suspicious when Harry's name came out of the goblet, I have no idea. And it seems obvious, now that he's told me he suspects…" she trailed off, suddenly aware that what followed was not her secret to tell.
"He's told you he thinks the Dark Lord might be back?"
"Oh! He's told you, too? I did not know you had become close again. He's never mentioned it," McGonagall took a sip of her butterbeer to hide her pursed lips, but there was no disguising her eyebrows, which had shot up nearly to her hairline.
"Yeah, well, I didn't say we were close, did I? Something's gotten into the old fogey. Maybe it's old age. I reckon he needs someone to talk to. If he doesn't talk it all out with someone, he'll go mad. Even madder than he already is, anyway," the man chuckled mirthlessly.
Minerva's lips curved ever so slightly upwards.
"Anyway, about Potter. It's not just the tournament. I meant his long-term plan. If it can be called a plan."
"Long-term plan?" As far as she knew, the only plan there had ever been for Harry was the same as for any student at Hogwarts: keeping him alive and out of trouble. It was admittedly more difficult for Harry Potter, what with the Dark Lord's annual attempts on his life. In any case, it could hardly be considered a strategy on Dumbledore's part.
He told her what he did not know for sure, but what he suspected. Dumbledore must have told him about horcruxes as well, or perhaps he had already known about them. Professor McGonagall was horrified.
"Do you have proof of this?"
"Proof? Of course not. You know how he is. But I suspect. And he'd hate to admit it, but I know him better than anyone."
"But Harry's just a boy! There must be another way, something else he could do rather than just sitting around and..."
"If there is, Albus hasn't been able to find it. But that doesn't mean there isn't another way. Which is where this Circle of yours comes into it."
"Well, it's not my Circle," she hedged, thinking to herself that if it were her Circle, things would be done quite differently, thank you very much, "But you think the Circle might be able to find another way."
"If you haven't already found it. So, tell me about it."
She did. She started with Cressida's prophecy, then described the early days of the book club and Luna discovering the hidden complex of buildings at Cornworthy Priory.
"What's this now?!" he interrupted, "A cynic like you, letting a couple of Seers run amok be put in charge of a school? And one of them a child, no less!"
"Cressida and I have had our differences," she said stiffly, "But Luna is...she's young, but has already shown immense promise. I don't care if it's because of her mother's prophecy or because of all those dirigible plums her parents feed her. She's done remarkable things."
"Tell me," he said again. He lifted his glass to his lips and put it down again, wincing. He had not touched it for some time and the butterbeer had gone flat.
Minerva told him about Luna discovering the witch cave in Cornwall. She told him about how a small sacrifice of blood made healing magic, potions, charms, and amulets exponentially more potent. She told him about the Dark Lord's diary, and how Luna had cut off her own finger to save Ginny in the Chamber of Secrets. She told him about how Luna had crafted her own wand, and how she and Xenophilius were trying to find the Deathly Hallows. She told him about the debate at Whitby Abbey. She told him about the rites Luna had written for the first bleeding ceremony. She told him how Luna ran drills with Eudora, and showed Mrs. Figg how to brew potions, and wove with her mother. She told him about how closely Luna paid attention, and how fiercely she cared. She told him how much Luna reminded her of a young Minerva McGonagall, before the world taught her to expect disappointment. She told him how Luna worked to create the world she wanted to live in instead of waiting for the world to be ready for her.
"I want to help," Aberforth said.
"I'm so glad to hear you say that, although I must admit you're not the Dumbledore I was expecting to offer me help today," McGonagall raised her glass in a grateful toast.
"But this girl, Luna, she's meant to be a Seer? You've sung her praises but not mentioned her prophecies once, I've noticed."
"Her prophecies aren't the most important thing about her, or about the Circle," McGonagall said simply. Aberforth only sat silently rubbing his whiskers. His brother had the exact same habit; it meant that he was not satisfied with that answer and was waiting for her to elaborate.
"I will admit that she and her mother make prophecies often. And perhaps the other members of the Circle set more store by them than I would like. But if it takes a prophecy or two to allow us to carry out our work, who am I to object?"
"But you think it's a bunch of bung," he said. Minerva bristled at this intrusion on her turf. She was used to being the one who made blunt, incisive statements.
"No, I don't. As far as prophecies go, Luna's have been no less accurate than any other Seer's, if not more accurate. They often seem to come true. And…" she paused for a moment, swilling the dregs of her butterbeer in the bottom of her cup. Aberforth waited.
"She says she's Seen me leaving Hogwarts," McGonagall said.
"Well, anyone with two eyes and half a brain could see that," he said, gruffly. A small smile played at the corners of his mouth in anticipation of her cutting rejoinder, their usual game of verbal fencing, but shriveled away when she only put her head in her hands and took a shaky breath.
"Is it so obvious I've been thinking about leaving? Have you heard the other teachers talking about it? Or Merlin forbid, the students?"
"No, no, nothing like that. But listen, everyone knows you do the giant's share of the work for the pixie's share of the reward. It's always been like that with Albus."
Minerva did not respond for several moments, only pulling out a tartan handkerchief and dabbing at her eyes. Aberforth patted her hand once and then put his hands back on his mug. He had never been one for social graces, and now found himself talking because he did not know what else to do. He had never seen Minerva cry before.
"But I don't need to be the one to tell you that. Remember back in his research days, he'd recruit the best and brightest as his research assistants? You'd help him with his research and then he'd steal your work!"
"When I was young and vain I will admit, it stung when he didn't even acknowledge me in his publications...But people always told me I was helping history get made! For my part, I was just lucky to be in the room," Minerva sat up straighter, folding her handkerchief again and again into neat squares and triangles, still not meeting his eyes. Finally, she took a deep breath.
"That was a very long time ago. Things were different then. I wouldn't be where I am today without Albus," her voice had returned to some semblance of her usual clipped tones.
"Doesn't make it right," Aberforth shrugged, "But you're right. There would be no point speaking up about it; you'd only ruin your own career. He did the exact same thing to poor Ivor Dillonsby, and look what happened to him and all his research on dragon's blood! All published under my brother's name, and Dillonsby was made a laughing stock when he tried to speak up about it."
"Well, Ivor made the mistake of taking his tale to Rita Skeeter."
"Tale? Come now, Minerva, I'd be willing to wager you'd have quite a few tales of your own, if you were inclined to tell them."
"I have no idea what you mean," Minerva said. But she did. She did not allow herself to think about it often, but there was a small, cluttered corner of her mind reserved for exactly the sorts of tales Aberforth was alluding to. The door creaked when she opened it, and it smelled of dust and the cleaning products the old Hogwarts caretaker had used and her awful flat in London. She could hear her parents bickering several rooms away. There was a stack of Dougal's letters and a miniature Venomous Tentacula in a pot, stained with Elphinstone's blood. And there on a desk was a notebook, meticulously filled with her own tidy adolescent handwriting. She could still remember it with alarming clarity; there were even coffee stains and crossings-out exactly where they had been forty years ago.
For months after her graduation from Hogwarts, young Minerva McGonagall had been researching the limitations of cross-species switches. She brought this notebook to a meeting with her mentor, clutched tightly to her chest. Dumbledore was impressed, and Minerva was gratified when he asked to borrow it. His acclaimed article about the limitations of cross-species switches appeared a year later in Transfiguration Today. It was the first time he had betrayed her, but Minerva McGonagall had already learned not to be surprised when the world was unkind to her. She never saw the notebook again.
"Ah," Aberforth said with a knowing smile at her stricken face.
"Look, Aberforth, I'm glad you want to help the Circle. But if your only motivation is to find a new battlefield for your feud with your brother, I'd ask you to leave me and the girls out of it."
"You don't have to worry on that account, Minerva. I've long since come to terms with my brother's less than admirable qualities. One of which is his spectacular habit for driving away all the people who have the potential to change him for the better. It will be a shame if you leave Hogwarts, and not just for him. A damn shame," Aberforth shook his head.
"Says the man who just told me I had every right to be bitter, and that no one would be surprised when I leave!"
"Don't misunderstand me, now. I'm sure you'll be much happier. Hell, it'll probably add a good decade to your life expectancy. I assure you, my reasons are utterly selfish. Because it means I'm going to have to see the old tosser more often. Someone will have to keep an eye on him. And with the pub to run, I won't be able to travel very often to this Circle - did you say it's in Devon? And it's so difficult to ensure secure communication these days. Everything's being watched - owls, the Floo network, none of it can be trusted. So if something with Albus came up and I needed to...that's to say…"
"That's to say…" McGonagall repeated slowly. Aberforth raised a finger to his lips. Two middle-aged men had entered the pub and were milling about nearby, within hearing distance of their grimy little table. Aberforth ignored them. They clearly were not regular customers. They stood expectantly at the bar as if waiting to be seated. No one came to the Hog's Head for exemplary service.
But Minerva had understood Aberforth's point. If she left Hogwarts, how would the Circle be kept abreast of these things? The things Dumbledore had told her, they wouldn't just affect Harry Potter and Hogwarts. They affected the entire wizarding world, and they wouldn't be published on the front page of The Daily Prophet, that was for certain. And if Aberforth was right, Dumbledore had more frightening plans that he was keeping to himself. Who would keep an eye on the man who was more powerful than the Minister for Magic, but with less accountability?
"Yes. You're beginning to see now. We'll need the both of us. He tells me some and he'll tell you some. Between the two of us, we can piece it together."
Minerva nodded. That prophecy Luna had told her about in the ruins of Whitby suddenly took on a new meaning: a crest, half red for Hogwarts and half purple for the Circle. Not leaving Hogwarts completely, but shifting her loyalties. One foot in the Circle, and one in Hogwarts. A go-between. Not a spy exactly, but something like it.
"So what's next?"
"Well, I've got to meet this Luna you've been raving about. Reckon I should serve these bastards first?"