Thank you, Gozzy78!
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Chapter 6
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"Minerva! Minerva!"
Someone was shaking her, ruffling her fur, and Minerva let out an irritated meow.
When she opened her eyes to see the deeply-lined face of Madam Professor Marchbanks bending over her, she returned to her human form at once.
"My apologies, Griselda," she said, getting to her feet and running a surreptitious hand over her hair. "The fire was just too tempting."
Griselda waved these words away. "Never mind that; of course you need time to relax. Come, sit down; I've something to show you."
But when they were side-by-side on a sofa, the old woman made no move to show anything. Instead, she used her wand to light a thin cigarette.
"Kingsley," she said finally, taking a puff and charming the smoke away. "Kingsley will have told you that he and Arthur and I received copies of that letter from your Lady Wandsdown."
"Hardly my Lady Wandsdown," corrected Minerva, "but yes, he told me."
"Well, I hope it goes without saying that none of us cares two figs about whom you share your bed with. Unless it's a student, of course."
"I have no interest in bedding students."
"Of course you don't; who said you did?" demanded Griselda sharply. She smoked furiously for a moment. "The point here is that this Lady Wandsdown seems to be trying to stir up trouble, and I'm trying to tell you that it's all bollocks. You're an excellent headmistress, Wilhelmina is a fine professor, and the Ministry and the Board of Governors are more than satisfied with you both."
"Thank you," Minerva replied. "I'm glad to hear it."
"But I don't want to talk about that now," said Griselda, her tone accusatory, as if Minerva had been the one to introduce such an irrelevant topic. "I want to show you this."
She held out a digest-sized book.
The lurid, moving cover showed a busty woman in an old-fashioned gown, high-waisted and cleavage-baring. Bosom rising and falling rapidly, she repeatedly fainted toward a handsome, rakish man wearing the sort of tail-coated robe and neck stock that rich wizards had favoured about two hundred years earlier. Over and over, he caught the woman in one arm, then used his other hand to point his wand at a pile of parchment, setting it aflame.
The title Lady Scandalship's Magical Surrender scrolled across the top of the cover in flowing red letters.
"Er. . .your recommendation for Yuletide reading?" Minerva asked, bemused.
"Of course not, though it's probably a corker. A little escapist fiction never hurt anyone. No, I'm showing you this because I just found it in the Room of Requirement."
There was a pause while Griselda Vanished the butt of her first cigarette and lit another.
"I stopped there during my walk, you know," she continued. "I asked the Room for a place to rest my old bones, and it gave me a sort of Regency boudoir with gold hangings and mirrors on the walls and a long gold sofa heaped with tasselled cushions. Very comfy, it was, too - good fire, dozens of candles. This book was lying on the sofa. I think you'll find it extremely interesting. Go on, read the blurb."
On the back of the book Minerva read, "Miss Lucy Wandsdown had never found the gentleman who could tempt her hand in marriage. As she watched her friends make one painfully bad alliance after another, all for the want of proper guidance, she decided that her life's work lay in supporting the sisterhood - offering wise counsel to young women through disinterested, helpful letters. Thus was 'Lady Scandalship' born.
"All went swimmingly - - her Ladyship wrote her letters; right loves were found, and wrong matches averted - - until the dashing, mysterious Lord Dandridge arrived for the Season, oozing danger from the tip of his top hat to the soles of his bespoke boots. His apparent object? The affections of Lady Scandalship herself. Will Miss Wandsdown heed her own sage advice about suitable partners? Or will she fall headlong into the risky pit of love?"
Minerva turned astonished eyes to Griselda, who nodded vigorously. "Uh-huh. Told you you needed to see this. Obviously someone here at Hogwarts has decided to turn this little fantasy"- - she gestured with her cigarette towards the book - - "into a twisted reality. But who, eh? That's the question."
"I think I might know the answer," said Minerva slowly. "I didn't want to believe it was possible, but - Beldy!" she called.
"Your headship needs Beldy?" said the elf, popping into the room. His eyes widened when he saw the book in her hand.
"Does this book belong to you, Beldy?" Minerva asked.
The elf nodded slowly. "But Beldy did not steal it from the library, your divine headship!" he burst out, his elaborate vocabulary deserting him under stress. "It is Beldy's own property; he traded for it last summer. All those visiting elves came with their masters to rebuild Hogwarts, and they brought things with them. To trade; it is the elf way. Beldy traded for that book fair and square!"
"That's fine, Beldy; I'm not accusing you of stealing it. But it's a book about a lady writing anonymous letters, isn't it?"
Beldy nodded again.
"Surely you can see my dilemma. I know you don't lie, and you told me that you didn't write those letters. But this is your book, and it's a story about secret letters. Written by someone named Miss Wandsdown. And here at Hogwarts, we've been receiving mysterious letters written by a mysterious lady called Wandsdown."
"Beldy didn't do it!" cried the elf.
"Did anyone ask you to copy letters from this book, or write down letters that they dictated to you?
"No, your headship!"
"Do you know who did write the Hogwarts letters?"
"Beldy does not know; he swears it."
"Has anyone else been reading this book?"
Beldy shook his head so violently that he staggered a bit from dizziness. "It is Beldy's book just for himself."
Griselda Marchbanks had been listening keenly, and now she spoke. "Beldy, where do you go to read your book?"
"Beldy uses the Room of Requirement," said the elf promptly. "Or as he prefers to call it, the Chamber of Perquisite. Beldy goes there on his days off. It is a grand place to read and study - - a nice fire and many candles and a long, soft golden sofa. For the objective of reclining," he added.
"And do you leave your books there when you finish reading?" Minerva asked.
Beldy nodded vigorously.
Just then the staff room door opened, and Hooch strode in. "Merlin, but I'm ready for a drink," she was saying to Aurora Sinistra. "Yet another reason to love the Yuletide - - Christmas drinks on the Hogwarts tab every night for a week. Oh, here's Min."
Minerva stood. "The drinks table will be set up shortly," she told Rolanda.
To Beldy, who was standing by looking anxious, she said quietly, "Thank you, Beldy. Everything is fine now, don't worry. Please continue to enjoy the Room of Requirement whenever you like."
The elf bowed and disappeared. Other staff members were now trickling in - - Horace and the Ministry Committee, Hagrid carrying his giant tankard. Filius, Poppy. and Septima. Wilhelmina, who caught Minerva's eye and winked.
Under cover of the resulting noise and chatter, Griselda whispered to Minerva, "Seems like I'm not the only one who found the elf's Room of Requirement." She grinned and amended, "Chamber of Perquisites, I mean. Lady Wandsdown obviously found it, too. But we're still no closer to knowing who she is, are we?"
Minerva shook her head.
"Well, I'll give it some thought," Griselda said. "Meanwhile, I think I'll have a little chat with Hooch about her fascinating Wandsdown letter. A training school. Interesting possibilities, no?"
She walked off. Minerva stayed where she was. Generations of Hogwarts students would have recognised her thin-lipped expression and quaked in their boots accordingly.
"I think it's my turn to pay a visit to the Chamber of Perquisites," she said to herself. "We'll see what it can show me. Merlin knows I have requirement enough."
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It was Christmas Eve before the Room of Requirement opened for Minerva onto the setting that Beldy and Griselda had described: a rococo fantasy of elegantly-curved furniture legs, subdued turkey carpets, mirrored walls with gold hangings, dozens of candles, a blazing fire.
But the room was not empty.
Seated on the golden sofa was a woman.
She wore a high-waisted, scoop-necked dress of ice-blue, rather like an older woman's much more decorous version of the bosom-baring gown on the cover of Beldy's romance novel. Long white gloves covered her arms to above her elbows, and diamonds glittered at her ears and throat, their reflections twinkling brightly in the room's many mirrors.
Minerva found it impossible to determine her age. Her abundant hair, piled in a fluffy knot atop her head, was white, but her skin was smooth; her dark eyes watched Minerva with a penetrating stare.
"Headmistress McGonagall," the woman said. Her voice sounded rusty, as if she spoke rarely. "Minerva. We meet in person at last."
"Who are you?" demanded Minerva, drawing her wand.
The woman laughed. "My dear, you live up to your warlike name, and of course the school has long been the better for your courage. But you have no need to point your wand. It couldn't harm me, and it does seem rather unfriendly. Come. Sit with me and talk."
An ice-blue armchair shimmered into being next to Minerva, and suddenly she was sitting in it, her wand back in her sleeve. She tried to leap to her feet, but was unable to move. A wandless Immobulus jinx, evidently.
"Who are you?" Minerva repeated, forcing herself to speak calmly despite her pounding heart.
The woman tilted her handsome head consideringly. "I suppose you could say that I am Lady Wandsdown."
"Lady - - " Minerva struggled to makes sense of this; questions tumbled through her head. "But. . .how did you get here? Are you a ghost? And why are you tormenting us with those letters?"
"Tormenting you!" Lady Wandsdown looked shocked. "My dear, nothing could be further from the truth. I am not 'tormenting' you; I am helping you! I could never harm the staff of Hogwarts. . .well, at least not those who love her."
"Helping us?" Minerva was angry now. "You have been scaring people, violating their privacy, exposing them to possible ridicule and censure and perhaps even the loss of their livelihoods!"
Lady Wandsdown pressed a gloved hand to her chest. "No, no, you misunderstand! Hogwarts could ask for no better staff, yet I know that many of you are still not as happy or satisfied as I would wish. I am trying to help you become your best selves, free and at peace."
"As you would wish? What right have you to meddle in any of our lives? Just who are you?"
A broad smile spread across Lady Wandsdown's face.
"If you were not so stressed and agitated, you would have divined the truth long ere now, dear Minerva; you were a Ravenclaw-Gryffindor hatstall for good reason," she said. "Who am I, you ask?
"I am the Castle. I am Hogwarts."