July 17, 2019 Hogwarts
Minerva McGonnagal sat in the overstuffed chair that she had placed in her office chamber years ago. The house elves had left her an arrangement of biscuits, tea, and three fingers of single would be on call, but they knew to leave the Headmistress alone.
She nibbled on a biscuit and smiled. Butter and sugar solved many problems, not that she would ever tell the elves that there was a problem with their cooking. That would be a lie. No, she had buried a friend this morning. Rubeus Hagrid's giant heart had worked too long and too hard. It had given out a week ago as he was ministering to a wounded griffin. He passed quickly and according to the Healers, with very little pain.
The funeral had been this morning. 998. He had no other home. He had no other family. She had no other choice but to bury him in the small graveyard near the lake. Hogwarts was Hagrid's place of being, his place of joy and his place of rest. Thousands of students had owed their love and occasionally fear of the great beasties to the gentle giant of a man. And today, much of the wizarding world of Great Britain and many scholars, handlers and wranglers from Europe had paid their last respects to the man. They had cried, they had laughed, and they had all politely nibbled on rock cakes. His recipe could not be salvaged by the elves.
Minerva sighed as she took the first sip of her whiskey. Today was a peaceful day. Grawp had cried until Charlie Weasley and his crew could distract him with caber tosses into the Forbidden Forest. But beyond a single sad giant, there was no violence, there were no wands or words or wards raised. The Marauders did not disrupt the ceremony. Neville Longbottom paid his respects and asked for a moment of the Headmistresses time in the following week as he would like to endow a scholarship for a student showing exceptional promise in the realm of Care for Magical Creatures. Ginny Weasley led twelve pallbearers, all survivors of the Battle of Hogwarts, to the altar with the casket bearing heavily on their shoulders.
The Dark Lord had not arrived to grieve for one of his first friends. The Dark Lord had not disrupted the funeral of a man who was not complex, but saw the essence of most things. The Dark Lord had stayed away.
As she was lost in thought and had only a few sips of the Islay left, the wards shocked her. Three individuals penetrated wards that should have been a challenge for Dumbledore as if they were barely there. She felt the sourness of the soul magic radiate and intertwine between her three Lions that had formed a new pride. She could raise the alarm and call for the Aurors, but she waited a moment. Dozens more witches and wizards began to apparate just yards from the wardline and then they walked across. She could taste the readiness for violence, she could taste the warriors, she could feel the spring in the steps and the eyes moving back and forth even as dozens of disclosure spells arced outwards. The Marauders had arrived.
The Marauders had never attacked the castle during the years that Teddy Lupin was educated in the Scottish Highlands. The Dark Lord had sent four letters to the Headmistress. One was a request that the teachers crack down on his godson's showboating as they might have more success than he had. One was a note congratulating Professor Flitwick for a recent publication on integrating charms and runes in an extremely novel manner. The third was a draft sufficient to cover the purchase of sixty four high quality training brooms; half for the first years and half for the rest of the school. That donation had arrived a week after Teddy Lupin, then serving as a prefect, had supervised half a dozen students in detentions where they had to perform upkeep on brooms that had been bought before the current Dark Lord's parents were murdered. That donation was anonymous. The final note was a short note full of gratitude. It had arrived a week after Mr. Lupin had graduated.
No, the Marauders had never attacked Hogwarts. They had almost no need to. They effectively controlled it with Lord Longbottom on the Board of Governors. Only with extreme effort could Neville not assemble at least seven of the thirteen votes. The coalitions changed and shifted depending on the topic, but Longbottom seldom had less than nine votes in his pocket. And he used them well. The House rivalries had been squashed everywhere except on the Quidditch field and the Quiz Bowl. Hogwarts was, undisputedly, the premier educational facility for wizards and witches in Europe if not the world. The facilities had been upgraded, the teaching staff had been ruthlessly recruited. Twenty seven international students had been educated under her visage this past year, and thirty one foreign students including three students representing previously unrepresented countries had deposited the first half of their tuition for the upcoming year.
So the headmistress finished her drink and lazily made her way over to the Floo as she felt the Marauders go into a combat formation along the grounds of her school. They were ready for violence but they were not looking for it. As she tossed powder into the fireplace to finally notify the Aurors, she could feel an amazing ripple of magic near the graveyard. She looked out the window. The wards were being parted as if a scalpel was being used by a skilled surgeon. Off to the south, a slight flare of orange and red filled the sky. Darkness occluded the stars, and then the silhouette of a dragon crossed the half moon.
She could not panic. She would not panic. A dragon inside the wards of Hogwarts could destroy the school. Yet, she still could trust Ms. Granger's love of learning to protect the facility. She stood still and barely felt the pop of an elf who joined her on the balcony to take in the sight.
A Norwegian Ridgeback landed and soon put her massive head next to the freshly dug grave. She keened like a banshee. Fire lit the sky over the lake. As the dragon began to mourn, the Fiendfyre Lord cast his specialty over the lake as well. The flames formed first into a blast-ended skewt, and then a manticore, and next a threstral. The Aurors on the rapid response squad had stopped as they crested a small hillock. They stopped as they could feel the temporary wards impede them. They stopped as they saw a master of his craft pay tribute to his friend. They stopped as they realized that they were outnumbered and outmaneuvered and if spells were to be cast. the eight Aurors would be lucky if they could throw three spells apiece. The Aurors put their wands down at the suggestion of the Dark Lord's child's mother. She had guaranteed their safety as long as they were not complete dunderheads. The veteran Auror chuckled as he yelled out that he would enjoy watching these friendly animals fill the sky.
Minerva McGonagall watched as a ridiculous display of power and control played out over the lake for the next twenty seven minutes. She saw all the beasts that her friend loved. And she could feel a tear well in her eye as the Fiendfyre Lord beat down the flames and then apparated through wards that had been thoroughly demolished from the inside and out.