Minerva McGonagall and the Chamber of Secrets

by MinnieCat5

1942- In the middle of the war against Grindelwald, Hogwarts was a refuge. Minerva McGonagall entered her 6th year ready to make more memories with her friends, expand her prowess in Transfiguration, and even fall in love, hoping it all would distract her from thoughts of her family fighting on the front lines. A shocking attack on Halloween night, though, changed all that...

3. Light in the Dark

Light in the Dark

Saturday, 5 September, 1942

Minerva sat in the library with her three best friends, working on schoolwork. They didn't have much – a few short essays – but the four witches wanted a head start on it, especially since both Rolanda and Minerva had time slots booked on the Quidditch pitch the next day. Minerva had two slots booked, actually: practice tomorrow morning and tryouts tomorrow afternoon. She'd already placed a flyer on the notice board in the Gryffindor common room the very day she made the reservation with Mr. Plumpton, on the second day of school. They worked diligently and quietly, with the occasional murmured question. Minerva loved that she had friends she could count on to take their studies seriously. For all Rolanda joked about none of this mattering should she become a famous Quidditch player, she tried as hard as her friends to do well in her classes. Currently, Rolanda was measuring the length of the Charms essay she was working on in her seat next to Minerva. She made a satisfied sound and, with a flick of her wand, she cut the parchment with the appropriate margins; with a wave, the essay rolled itself up neatly. Rolanda sighed happily at the sight of her finished work. She leaned back in her chair, intent on a break. It only took her a few seconds to become bored watching her friends work on their essays, and so she broke the silence by turning to Minerva and asking, "So, are you excited for your date?"

In response, Minerva's head jerked in surprise at being addressed while she was working. She made a noncommittal noise and continued to read over her Transfiguration essay. At the same moment, Pomona flicked and waved her wand, and her Charms essay rolled closed like Rolanda's. She looked up across the table at Rolanda and Minerva, glancing between them. Her eyes settled on Minerva and she asked, "Are you nervous?"

Minerva pursed her lips and shrugged. Her eyebrows pinched together in a way that her friends were familiar with: this was her pretending-to-be-concentrating face. Poppy looked up from her own essay and eyed Minerva. "She's nervous."

Finally, Minerva looked up from her essay. She scowled at Poppy, "I am not."

Pomona smiled kindly at her, "It's alright to be nervous. He's your friend. It's normal to be nervous about that changing." Rolanda and Poppy nodded in agreement.

Minerva sighed and shook her head, turning back to her essay. She picked it up and held it in front of her face, squinting and adjusting its distance. Rolanda scoffed, "Minerva, stop being so dramatic and talk to us."

Setting the essay down she turned defiantly to Rolanda and replied, "I'm not being dramatic, I'm having a hard time reading."

"Then how did you write it?" Rolanda asked, an eyebrow quirked.

"With my face close to the paper. I don't read that close."

Concerned, Poppy asked, "Do you think you need an eye correction?"

Minerva shrugged, "Maybe. Maybe reading glasses."

Rolanda narrowed her eyes, "Great, a solution. I'm not letting you change the subject so easily, though."

Minerva sighed and threw Rolanda a sour look before turning back to the parchment in front of her. Adjusting it primly, without looking up at her friends, she said, "Perhaps I'm nervous. But I'm also looking forward to it. I don't want to jinx anything with expectations or color it with my worries. That's why I don't want to talk about it. If I go into the date with a positive attitude, I'll have a good time."

"That's understandable," Pomona returned, cutting off whatever Rolanda was about to say. Rolanda sat back and closed her mouth. "When are you leaving to meet him?"

Minerva checked her watch, "In about twenty minutes, so could I finish proofing my essay, please?"

Poppy smiled, "Of course."

The remainder of Minerva's time with her friends in the library passed in silence. When she finally rolled up her essay and packed her bag, they each murmured a farewell. She bestowed a tight smile upon them before turning to leave. She was more nervous for her date than she would care to admit, especially now that she was walking towards it. Minerva headed for Gryffindor Tower to drop off her bag and freshen up. In her dormitory, she stood before the mirror above her bedside table, smoothing the creases out of her robes, and took a deep breath. It would be fine. Talking to Oliver has always been easy. We'll have a good time. With one last curt nod at her reflection, Minerva left to meet Oliver in the common room. At the bottom of the stairs she hesitated, wondering if she should sit and wait or stand in plain sight. She hovered by the stairs for a moment before deciding to take a seat that gave her a good view of both the boys' staircase and the portrait entrance. She wasn't sure where he'd come from. Around the common room, Gryffindors sat talking, laughing, playing games, and doing assignments. She had a hard time working in this environment, but she knew many Gryffindors preferred it.

She only sat waiting for a few minutes before the portrait hole opened and Oliver Brown stepped in, looking around. In his hand, he held a picnic basket, which raised Minerva's eyebrows. He grinned when he laid eyes on her. Minerva smiled back as she stood to greet him.

"Are you ready?" Oliver asked cheerfully once Minerva was beside him. She nodded and hummed her assent, and they stepped through the portrait hole together.

Eyeing the basket as they walked, Minerva inquired, "Wherever did you get that basket?"

Oliver jerked the basket in question in her direction and replied, "The kitchens, of course."

"You stole it from the kitchens?"

"What? Of course not! The elves insisted I take it. They gave it to me!" Oliver replied with a roguish half-smile. "Who do you take me for, a daring Gryffindor?"

Minerva laughed, "My apologies, honorable sir. I'm simply amused to see you carrying it, I suppose. Did you have the house-elves cook our lunch for us as well, or did you prepare that yourself?"

Oliver stared at her and slowed to a stop, "Have you ever actually been in the kitchens?"

Stopping beside him, Minerva slowly replied, "No…why…?"

He snorted and replied, "Because if you had, you'd know that those house-elves wouldn't let me lift a finger, and provided us more in this basket than we could eat in a weekend." Minerva laughed, and he continued to stare at her in amazement. "I can't believe you've never been in the kitchens and you have a Hufflepuff as one of your best friends."

Minerva shrugged, trying to mask the creeping sense of inferiority at the fact that she was a sixth-year who had never set foot in the kitchens, "It's never come up."

Shaking his head, Oliver resumed walking, "I have half a mind to take you there straightaway, but that would make this a whole different kind of date. They'd never leave us alone." Minerva felt her face get warm, but tilted her face to attempt to hide the color surely spreading over her cheeks from him.

As they made their way towards the Black Lake in search of an acceptable picnicking spot, Oliver said, "Oh! Before I forget," a sly smile grew on his face, and Minerva raised her eyebrows at him apprehensively, "I told Nicholas Pomfrey what you said. On the train."

Minerva rolled her eyes and looked away, stopping at a spot by the lake she approved of, "Good."

"He admitted to sizing up Poppy, but he said he wasn't looking for himself. He was looking for his brother."

Minerva whipped her head around in surprise, "Really? Nathan, isn't it? Oh, he's a Ravenclaw!"

Oliver nodded, grinning, "Apparently shy Nathan Pomfrey can be quite talkative around his brother when it comes to Poppy Nadson."

Eyes sparkling, Minerva smiled, "I'll have to relay this to Poppy. Merlin knows that boy won't say anything himself."

They shared a conspiratorial grin and descended into comfortable silence as they unpacked the picnic basket. While Oliver laid out the blanket the house-elves provided, Minerva sorted through the food they had packaged inside, "You weren't joking about how much they gave you." Oliver merely scoffed lightly, raising his eyebrows significantly in agreement.

The wide variety of choices, from meats and cheeses to puddings and pies, ended up making for good conversation starters as they laughed over the extravagance of some of the food items provided by the enthusiastic house-elves. Minerva enjoyed talking and laughing with Oliver. It felt easy. It felt comfortable. He made stupid jokes, but most people didn't usually make stupid jokes around her. It was refreshing to not be treated as if she were too serious to laugh with, too intimidating to jibe. Her nerves slowly dissipated as the date went on. She perhaps laughed a little too loudly at his jokes sometimes, but overall, she was having a good time, remembering how easy it always was to talk to Oliver. She enjoyed hearing about his summer, about his younger brother and sister who were still not old enough for Hogwarts, and about the things he got up to with Donnie Longbottom. She hadn't realized the sort of shenanigans her two teammates liked to partake in, and couldn't believe the things they had gotten away with, such as spooking Donnie's mother around their manor home, or playing tricks on Muggles that were barely legal. Allegedly, they didn't perform any magic, but simply used magical objects to befuddle poor, unsuspecting Muggles, somehow without breaking the Statute of Secrecy.

When conversation lulled, it was easy to talk about Quidditch. Not only did they play the game at school, but they followed the League and had their own teams. Minerva enjoyed poking fun at Oliver's team, the Appleby Arrows, for their mediocre record, as well has his vehement dislike for the Tutshill Tornadoes. She had a sneaking suspicion that his dislike stemmed from the fact that the team's most recent celebrity had retired from professional Quidditch, only to take the position teaching flying lessons and refereeing matches at Hogwarts. Roderick Plumpton was very popular around Hogwarts: the girls swooned over him, and the boys wanted to be him. The fact that he had his own Chocolate Frog Card only helped his popularity. Minerva would never confess to Oliver that she liked to think she and Plumpton had a bond, as Seekers, and admired him maybe a little more than she'd care to admit. It was too fun to tease Oliver to give him that kind of ammunition. At least, Minerva reasoned, she didn't pretend like she'd followed the Tornadoes her whole life like some of the students at school. Minerva's team was the Montrose Magpies, and she would never betray them, not even because she knew a famous player from another team.

They sat by the lake for much longer than they ate, physically drawing nearer as time went on. Minerva had noticed while they were eating that they brushed fingers more than necessary while they passed each other food and drinks, and, to Minerva, it was embarrassing how giddy these simple touches were making her. Their legs were now touching ever-so-slightly as they sat next to each other on the picnic blanket, staring out over the Black Lake. With their bellies full, their conversations were slower and their silences longer and more peaceful. It was a beautiful day. Oliver looked over at her, and although Minerva could feel his gaze, she continued to watch the water in front of her. "I talked a lot about my summer. What about yours? What did you do? Don't you ride horses?"

Minerva smiled and looked over at him. Her heart skipped as she noticed how close his face was. She looked away again to focus on her answer, "I do, yes. I haven't always lived at McGonagall Manor, but when I was younger my father would teach me how to ride anytime we visited my grandparents. They have the horses. Clementine is my favorite. She's brazen, but she likes me and responds well to me."

"Your dad taught you? So he rides, too?" Minerva hummed an affirmative to Oliver's question. "I've never ridden, but it sounds like it would, um, hurt…me." He glanced downwards, his face coloring.

Her face coloring too, Minerva replied with slight laughter in her voice, "My dad and I don't talk about that aspect, but he doesn't seem to have a problem."

The silence that followed was a little more awkward than before, and after a few agonizing seconds, Oliver put his face in one of his hands, "I can't believe I said that, I'm so sorry."

Minerva laughed more fully now that he'd acknowledged the tension, "It's alright, really."

Shaking his head, his cheeks still red, Oliver attempted to change the subject, "What else did you do for fun this summer? Anything else? Anything at all?"

This only made Minerva laugh more. Oliver's eyes sparkled as he watched her laugh, and a wide smile grew onto his face. When Minerva used his shoulder as support, his smile faded into something fonder. This was the expression that Minerva saw once she looked up, her cheeks ruddy with laughter and her eyes shining, a little watery from her mirth. Her heart skipped again at the way he was looking at her, but this time she didn't look away. Her heart raced as she watched his eyes flicker to her lips. They stared at each other for a few long seconds. Oliver was the first to move; he slowly moved to close the distance between their lips. Minerva could distinguish more of his individual freckles this close, she noticed. Her breath hitched as he stopped centimeters away from her lips. Their noses brushed, and they made eye contact again.

Her heart pounding wildly, Minerva murmured, "Do you remember our first kiss?"

Oliver blinked, his eyes flickering up from her lips to her eyes. She watched his lips, though, and a small smile quirked at the corners of them. He murmured back, "Our first Hogsmeade trip, of course."

Minerva licked her lips nervously, and with a slightly teasing lilt in her voice, quipped, "I hope you've improved."

Oliver's eyes opened wide, and his smile grew in his amusement. Accepting her challenge, he brought his hand up to cup her face and leaned forward to close the distance between their lips confidently. The feeling of his lips against hers immediately filled her with warmth, her heart fluttering giddily. She placed her right hand on his chest as she leaned into the kiss, and each time their lips met, little thrills shot up her spine, her arms, and her legs. They separated too quickly for Minerva's liking, but it made her giddy to see the exhilarated look on Oliver's face from their simple kiss. She reached up and gently touched his cheek, guiding him back to her.

It was a little longer this time before they broke apart. Minerva's lips tingled. She wanted more but she was also nervous about moving too quickly. She let her hand drop from his face to grasp his hand. Oliver smiled at her. She laughed softly and leaned against his shoulder, "What were we talking about?"

She glanced up at him with a mischievous look in her eyes, and he knew that she remembered exactly what they had been talking about. He grinned and shook his head, putting his free arm around her, "Something completely unromantic." Minerva laughed.

"I think if we sit here much longer, I'm going to be sick," Pomona said to her friends. She, Rolanda, and Poppy were sitting on the set of moving stairs above the Entrance Hall. The bottom set, the grand staircase, was stationary, so they were one level up. They still had a good view of the Entrance Hall from their position, and half the time they had a good view of the main doors to the castle. They sat staggered on the stairs in a way that allowed people to still walk past them.

"Odds that Minerva will hex us for waiting to spy on her and Oliver's reentry to the castle?" Poppy asked no one in particular.

"Depends on how the date goes. If he snogs her brains out, we're in the clear," Rolanda replied. Pomona giggled. Poppy snorted and turned back to the Healing textbook in her lap. Rolanda had the latest edition of Which Broomstick? to entertain her, while Pomona was studying for Arithmancy.

All three girls looked up when the castle doors opened. They each reacted with various combinations of wide-eyes, grins, and gasps to see their friend walk in hand-in-hand with Oliver Brown. Of course, the stairs chose this moment to move. Rolanda whispered, "No!" as she and her two companions moved to keep their eyes on the couple walking through the doors. They exchanged excited glances as they observed the closeness between Minerva and Oliver.

The two Gryffindors had moved a little away from the door and were now facing each other. One of Oliver's hands was lightly touching Minerva's opposite hand. He was saying something softly to Minerva, too quietly for the spying friends to hear. They did hear the laughter that came from Minerva in response. Her back was facing her friends, but they could see the smile on Oliver's face. Minerva must have been saying something, because he was still smiling at her without moving his lips after her laughter quieted. Then, he leaned forward to kiss her, and Minerva's friends started hitting each other excitedly. The lack of hesitance in their kiss, and the way Oliver confidently wrapped both of his arms around Minerva, suggested to the trio that this wasn't the first one they'd shared on this date. They grinned happily for their friend. Poppy pressed her fingers to her lips to suppress a giggle. The date seemed to have gone quite well.

Once they separated, Oliver pulled farther away, taking Minerva's hand with him. He spoke a little louder now, enough for his voice to carry to the girls just a flight of stairs up from them, "I'm going to return this basket to the kitchens. Do you want to meet the house-elves?"

"Alright!" Minerva responded enthusiastically, entwining her fingers with his as she fell in line with him.

Rolanda, Poppy, and Pomona waited a few seconds after the pair disappeared from view before expressing the extent of their excitement. Pomona was the first to break the silence with a squeal of glee. Poppy exclaimed, "Sweet Merlin!" shortly after Pomona opened the floodgates. Rolanda added, leaning back on the stairs with her arms splayed out, "Bloody hell!" This exclamation stopped Pomona and Poppy's short. They instead broke into laughter and both slapped Rolanda playfully.

"I'm happy for her," Poppy sighed after her laughter subsided.

"Me too," Rolanda murmured, smiling. Pomona nodded, smiling too. Rolanda continued, getting to her feet, "Well. I think their unexpected trip downstairs has given us the perfect opportunity to avoid finding out how Minerva would take us spying on her, at least for now. Ladies?" Pomona and Poppy stood as well.

"It's times like these when I wish we were all in the same house," Pomona sighed. "I wish we could sit in our common room and wait for her to return so we could hear all about it."

Poppy gave Pomona a sympathetic half-smile and a one-armed hug from the side. Rolanda countered, "Aw, no. Us being in different houses is what keeps things interesting!" She flashed them a smile and started making her way down the stairs, "I'll see you two after dinner!"

---

Meals in the Great Hall were another reason Pomona, Poppy, Rolanda, and Minerva occasionally wished they were in the same house. They had other friends in their own houses, but they were close to none of those people like they were close to each other. For Minerva, the friend group she sat with primarily consisted of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Rolanda's boyfriend Richard, who was not on the Quidditch team but was rather the Quidditch announcer, usually sat with the team and his best friend Theodore. Both boys shared a dorm with Oliver and Donnie. The previous year, the new Chaser, Amelia, started sitting with the team and had brought her best friend, Augusta, with her, which was how Donnie and Augusta got to know each other and started dating. The oldest member of the Quidditch team was seventh-year Ignatius Prewett, who preferred to just be called Prewett, and he was the most distant member of the team. He did sit near them, but Minerva thought that it was probably because of his friend Nicholas Pomfrey, who liked sitting near Oliver and Donnie, rather than because of his relationship with his team.

That evening, when Minerva took her seat next to Oliver, only Donnie, Augusta, and Amelia were already there. Oliver smiled up at her as she took her seat, and she smiled back at him. Donnie and Augusta smirked knowingly at them. "So, it looks like the date went well?" Donnie teased.

Minerva quirked an eyebrow at him in a manner that was supposed to be intimidating, but there was a certain happiness in her eyes, and a certain slight upturn of her pursed lips that countered the expression that usually intimidated on the Quidditch pitch. Donnie grinned at her. She laughed lightly and shook her head, reaching to serve herself some of the roasted chicken in front of her, "Yes, if you must know."

"I hope you won't be showing any favoritism when he starts attacking me with those Bludgers during practice tomorrow," Donnie commented playfully.

"I wouldn't want to get in the middle of your flirting," Minerva shot back, smirking.

Augusta laughed. "See, she sees it too, I'm not being jealous."

"My dear Augusta, forgive me if I have infringed upon your romance with my dearest friend, but I can't bear to be parted from him for more than two hours," Oliver said with a mock-lofty tone.

Augusta rolled her eyes and leaned towards Minerva, "Honestly, these two are worse than girls sometimes."

Minerva smirked, "I've noticed." Her smirk faded when she made eye contact with Oliver, a light smile replacing it. He beamed at her in return, and the sight of it filled her heart with giddy warmth. Donnie and Augusta exchanged amused looks, and then Augusta turned to giggle quietly with Amelia.

"Oy, get a room, will you?" Richard interjected in lieu of a greeting as he plopped down next to Minerva. His friend Theodore sat down next to Donnie on the opposite side of the long table.

Oliver placed a kiss on Minerva's temple, and looked at Richard over her head. "You're only jealous your girlfriend isn't in your house and you can't sit with her at dinner."

"I am, actually," Richard retorted honestly. "And is it 'girlfriend,' now? Already official? That was quick."

Minerva, still pink from Oliver's public display of affection, straightened her back stiffly, raised her eyebrows, and pointedly cut into her roasted chicken as she replied, "Agreeing to be monogamous while navigating the beginnings of a relationship is hardly a leap for the average person."

Richard held up his hands, "Right you are, my apologies."

As they turned to their dinner, Minerva felt Oliver wrap an arm loosely around her waist. She shimmied out of the touch; she needed to talk to him about public displays of affection, it seemed. She met his gaze briefly to find confusion in his eyes, and she attempted to offer him a reassuring smile as she squeezed his hand under the table. That was not a conversation that was appropriate for the table, surrounded by their friends.

Meanwhile, at the Slytherin table, Rolanda was sitting across from the Slytherin Seeker, Lucretia Black. The other members of the Quidditch team usually sat nearby, but while they all respected their captain – Rolanda – some of them were part of Abraxas Malfoy and Tom Riddle's gang. It ended up being that the team sat in a way that separated Malfoy and Rolanda, who had gotten into enough fights about the Malfoy-McGonagall rivalry for them to keep their distance from each other, even though they had mutual friends. Mason McGonagall did his best to stay out of all of that and sat far away from them at meals.

"So, what do you think about the other Gryffindor Beater also dating a Seeker?" Rolanda asked Lucretia, grinning.

Lucretia smiled and rolled her eyes, "I really don't think much of it. Iggy will likely have more of an opinion, but we haven't talked about it yet. I don't expect Brown dating Minerva is going to impact how likely he is to hit a Bludger my way."

"But you think Prewett will…what? Take it more personally? Surely not!"

Lucretia shrugged, "I think it's possible. We've talked about this in the past, how I expect him to do his job and hit Bludgers at the rival team's Seeker, but I have noticed that he tends to focus almost exclusively on the Chasers on the pitch."

Rolanda snorted, "I noticed too. I still don't see how he would take any shots Oliver made at you more personally now than before. It's not as if me being best friends with her has ever stopped me from telling our Beaters to give her hell."

"He's a Gryffindor, Rolanda," Lucretia said, looking at her with an amused half-smile and eyes that conveyed that this should be very obvious. "It's a noble thing. I am more important to him than Quidditch. Protecting me takes precedence, and I imagine that his girlfriend being 'attacked' by a Beater who also has a Seeker girlfriend, who should understand, will rub him the wrong way." At Rolanda's continued look of skepticism, Lucretia added, "Just because something makes sense in the mind of a male Gryffindor doesn't mean it actually makes sense when you say it out loud."

This, Rolanda laughed at, and she conceded to this point, "Don't I know it." Lucretia smiled and released a quiet, short laugh.

Even during the time of war, dinner was usually a lively affair. Bad news usually came at breakfast with the Owl Post, and by the end of the day those not directly affected had already moved on with their lives because refusing to dwell on tragedy was the only way they could cope with the tense environment they were living in. Other things had already happened throughout the day that helped any bad memories from the morning fade away, at least for those who weren't directly affected. Minerva, Rolanda, Pomona, and Poppy were able to eat with their friends in their houses with smiles on their faces and laughter in their hearts because they had grown up with the war against Grindelwald, and the larger Muggle war it was part of, as their normal. They sat at their tables, talking to their friends, long after their bellies were full. Minerva was the first of the four to part from her from her friends, but she took Oliver with her. After waving goodbye to their group at the Gryffindor table, they walked hand-in-hand to the Entrance Hall, where Minerva stopped them from going further by pulling Oliver off to the side by the grand staircase.

Oliver looked at her quizzically. Minerva gave him an awkward, nervous smile before beginning what she needed to say, quietly because of the other students walking by, "Remember how, when you tried to put your arm around me at dinner, I shook it off?"

"Yes, I thought since everyone knew…" Oliver began, his brow furrowed, but he trailed off as Minerva smiled reassuringly and squeezed his hand. His other hand went up to run its fingers over his hair in his characteristic tell of nervousness. "I thought you might be embarrassed or ashamed—"

At this, Minerva's eyes widened and she quickly cut him off, "No, no! I'm not ashamed of you! I'm simply…." she crossed her arms in a subconsciously self-soothing way, "I'm uncomfortable with public displays of affection. When I'm talking to my friends, I don't…. I don't want to be held, or kissed anywhere." She tried analyzing his expression. His head was titled down and he was rubbing the back of his neck, now. Minerva uncrossed her arms and grasped his free hand again. He finally looked up at her, but she wasn't sure what expression or emotion was in his brown eyes. "It's nothing about or against you. It's simply that I feel like it's distracting, not only for my ability to pay attention to the conversation, but also for anyone who is trying to talk to me. And when it happens, I can't help but feel like the people who are trying to talk to me feel uncomfortable."

Oliver finally nodded. "I understand that."

Minerva gave him a relieved smile and squeezed the hand she held, "Wonderful." She stood on her tip-toes to give him a soft kiss on the cheek.

He smiled at her, and started walking backwards towards the stairs, pulling her hand with him, "Are you ready to go back to the common room?"

"Actually, I usually spend some time with Rolanda, Pomona, and Poppy right after dinner, before curfew. We meet here in the Entrance Hall."

"Oh," he blinked, his smile fading for a moment. "Okay. I'll see you later, then?"

"I'll come back to the common room before my rounds," Minerva assured him. Each Saturday, a different group of Prefects patrolled the halls so that no one had to work on Saturdays every week. This first Saturday of term, Minerva's group had been assigned to patrol.

Oliver smiled in acknowledgement and leaned forward to kiss her goodbye. He hesitated, though, and his eyes darted to the passing students. Minerva smiled at him and leaned forward to place a lingering kiss on his lips. "We'll work on it together." This time his smile seemed more genuine; it reached his eyes. A giddy smile spread across Minerva's face in response. She waved as he started climbing the steps, headed for Gryffindor Tower.

Minerva sighed and turned away from the stairs once he disappeared from view. Oliver certainly made her feel more things than Peter Green had in the spring. The awkwardness of addressing things that made her feel uncomfortable would fade, she was sure. It was probably only nerves. She sensed that once they were more comfortable with each other, their relationship could be wonderful.

Not too long after Oliver left, Rolanda came through the Great Hall doors with Lucretia. Rolanda grinned at the sight of her best friend waiting by the stairs. As the pair approached Minerva, the Slytherin Seeker addressed her Gryffindor counterpart, "It's nice to see you, Minerva. How was your summer?"

"As good as can be expected," Minerva replied with a polite smile. "And yours?"

"As good as can be expected," Lucretia returned. Minerva nodded in acknowledgement, and Lucretia turned to her companion, "I'll see you later, Rolanda."

Rolanda waved goodbye, and Lucretia descended the stairs towards the dungeons. Minerva sighed as Rolanda rounded on her with a sly smile, "Sooo…"

Shaking her head, Minerva laughed, "Can you wait until we're all together?"

Rolanda crossed her arms and defiantly pointed her chin up at Minerva, "Absolutely not."

"Oh, piss off," Minerva laughed, turning away from Rolanda to watch the Great Hall doors. Rolanda laughed and uncrossed her arms.

They didn't have to wait too long before Pomona and Poppy came through the doors together. They grinned at their friends, but Rolanda made a show of tapping her foot with mock-impatience. In response, Pomona leaned over to plant a kiss on Rolanda's cheek, which made them all laugh. Minerva wordlessly started climbing the stairs, and her three friends rushed to follow her once they noticed through their laughter. Minerva resisted all of their attempts to prod her for information with a smile, and by the third floor, they had given up. Minerva led the way up four more flights of stairs silently, while her friends behind her settled with small talk about what their other friends had said at dinner. Rolanda, Poppy, and Pomona finally stopped walking once they reached the seventh-floor tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy attempting to teach trolls ballet; Minerva continued walking ahead of them, with her hands clasped behind her back. They waited as Minerva took a few more steps and then turned back to them, and as she turned back around to walk away from them once she reached where they were standing. Finally, Minerva turned to face the wall opposite the tapestry of Barnabas. None of them were surprised when a door appeared.

They had found this room in their first year. As close friends in each of the four houses, they had wished for their own place where they could sit around and talk and laugh with each other, like a common room. In September and October, they had resorted to sitting outside together, but as the weather chilled, they wanted to spend less time outside. Many students spent time with their friends from other houses sitting in less traveled hallways during the winter or when it rained. Pomona had liked the tapestry of trolls attempting to dance ballet, and so they ended up meeting there. One day, Minerva had been particularly angered by something Abraxas Malfoy had said to her as he walked by their spot with some of his gang, and was ranting about it as she paced. She had wished for a more private space to spend time with her friends, where they couldn't be bothered by the likes of him – and then it appeared. They had tried to find information about the room, but it wasn't mentioned in Hogwarts, a History and they weren't sure where else to look. They also weren't about to ask any professors or older students about it for fear of being prevented from using their new hideaway. Whatever the room was, they were grateful for finding it, because it truly bolstered their friendship to have such a comfortable place, like a common room, to spend time together.

The room that appeared to them had changed over the years, and they discovered that they could ask for nearly anything within the limitations of magic. The one that appeared today was what they usually called up: a small, cozy room that featured an elaborate fireplace with a Hogwarts crest on the mantle, a fire already crackling within. Four large armchairs sat around the fireplace – one crimson, one emerald, one bright yellow, one dark blue – with a round walnut coffee table between their semicircle of chairs and the fireplace. The red and yellow armchairs were worn and plush, in the style of the chairs in the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff common rooms, while the green and blue armchairs were neat and button-tufted, in the style of the chairs in the Slytherin and Ravenclaw common rooms. The four friends moved to take the seat corresponding to their house.

Minerva made a show of arranging her legs and robes in her chair while her friends stared at her intently. Finally, as she stopped adjusting her legs but now turned to picking off crumbs that were allegedly on her robes, Pomona exclaimed, "Minerva! Enough!"

Minerva finally looked up, a mischievous look in her eyes and an amused twist in her pursed lips. Poppy added, in a more reasonable tone, "We've been waiting all day to hear about your date."

"Well," Minerva began, "he got a picnic basket full of food from the house-elves in the kitchens – which, evidently, I should have been to by now seeing as I have a very close friend in Hufflepuff." She paused her story to give Pomona a pointed look.

Pomona threw her hands up defensively, "I've been in there only a few times, and I've only ever gone because other Hufflepuffs took me with them. It honestly has never occurred to me to take you lot."

"Is it odd I've never thought of the kitchens as a place we can actually go?" Rolanda asked the room in general.

"Yes," Poppy scoffed. Pomona gave her a sheepish smile and shrugged.

Rolanda rolled her eyes and waved her hand at Minerva, urging her to continue, "Anyway."

"We set up our picnic near the lake, and…we…talked," Minerva shrugged, folding one arm across her chest to grasp the other, suddenly appearing very shy.

"You 'talked,'" Poppy repeated skeptically, a knowing look in her eyes. "What did you talk about?"

"Quidditch…our families, our summers…," Minerva supplied. Rolanda looked like she was about to start pulling her blonde hairs out of her head at how Minerva was dragging out the details. Minerva eyed Rolanda's practically constipated expression with amusement before continuing, "The specifics of what we talked about aren't important. What meant the most to me was how easy it was to talk to him, and how he wasn't afraid to make stupid jokes. Too many times I've felt left out of the conversations at Quidditch practice that seem to consist mostly of traded puns and bad jokes, because they typically stop when I come near. It's made me feel…not fun. As if perhaps my hatstall makes me not enough of a Gryffindor to joke around with. Today, with Oliver, I felt fun."

Her friends were smiling happily at her. Pomona supplied, "Aw! That's wonderful, Min."

Feeling emboldened, Minerva added nonchalantly, "And, we kissed. Several times." A smile crept onto her face, and she eagerly observed the reactions of her friends. They were all grinning; Rolanda laughed, Pomona clapped her hands together, and Poppy's lips formed a silent 'aw' through her grin.

Minerva eyed them suspiciously at the lack of any surprise, particularly Pomona. She knew after five years of friendship that it was easiest to tell when Pomona was hiding something, and now, Pomona found Rolanda quite interesting. Minerva's eyes darted to Rolanda, and then to Poppy. Rolanda was smiling at her, completely normally. Poppy happened to be glancing at Rolanda when Minerva's gaze shifted to the Ravenclaw, and Minerva saw Poppy's grin slip ever so briefly before she turned back to Minerva. When Poppy saw Minerva watching her with eagle-eyed observance, Poppy blinked in surprise and her grin faded slightly again. Finally, Minerva turned back to Pomona, who was finally looking back at her again with a smile, but now, her eyes were wider than they normally were. Looking directly into Pomona's wide eyes, Minerva asked, "What are you not telling me?"

Pomona's demeanor crumpled. Rolanda sighed and shook her head at Pomona. The Hufflepuff blurted, "We waited in the Entrance Hall, on the moving stairs just above the grand staircase, for you and Oliver to come back from your date."

Minerva sighed in exasperation. Poppy and Pomona eyed her nervously, while Rolanda crossed her arms defensively. They all blinked in surprise, though, when Minerva's long, exasperated sigh turned into laughter. The three others exchanged surprised looks. Pomona was the first to join Minerva's laughter, mostly out of relief, and the other two shortly were laughing too.

When Minerva's laugher subsided, she sighed, "Honestly, at this point, I'm genuinely not surprised." This renewed Rolanda's laughter. Minerva smiled at her best friend and waited until her laughter had subsided again before saying, "Well, enough about me. Poppy."

Poppy blinked as Minerva turned sharply to face her. She was startled at first at how serious Minerva looked, but then she noticed the crinkle around the Gryffindor's eyes, and the ever-so-slight upturn of one corner of her mouth. "What…?"

Minerva smiled mischievously at Poppy's apprehension, which did nothing to soothe her. The Ravenclaw could not fathom what Minerva was about to say, considering she was not in a relationship, nor had she mentioned an interest in pursuing anyone. That shouldn't single her out, though, either, because Pomona was currently in the same situation. Finally, Minerva continued, "How much do you know about Nathan Pomfrey?"

Again, Poppy blinked, and now jerked her head, taken aback, though to Minerva's delight, a light pink flush appeared on her face. "Nathan Pomfrey? Not much, really. He's in my year, of course, so we had all our classes together before O.W.L.s, but he's so quiet. I don't know much about him as a person but from class…I'd say he's intelligent and insightful. Why?"

"Well, Nicholas Pomfrey told Oliver that while his brother is indeed quiet, there is one topic that he tends to speak a lot about." Minerva grinned at Poppy's confused expression. "You, darling."

Pomona gasped and Rolanda raised her eyebrows, whipping her head in Poppy's direction. Poppy's blush darkened. "What? We've hardly spoken!"

Minerva shrugged, her smile widening into something almost predatory, "I'm simply relaying what I was told. Does he sit near you at meals? Does he have any opportunity to listen to you talk to your friends, even if he's not saying anything?"

Poppy stared into the fire, looking both thoughtful and amazed, "Well, yes. I sit with Lillian and Daphne, who, you know, are both seventh-years, but we sit right next to the rest of the sixth-years and sometimes talk to them as well. Nathan is often on the edge of their group, which puts him nearer to us than others in sixth year."

Rolanda snorted, "Personally, he sounds a little creepy to me. He doesn't say anything, at all? He just listens to you talk? How much does he know about you from listening?"

"Oh, don't be so harsh," Pomona chastised. "He's shy. I've spoken to him, actually, and I think he's quite nice. I think you should try getting to know him. I personally think a good listener is a wonderful trait in a man."

"Do you think you'd be interested in him at all?" Minerva asked nonchalantly, already rather sure of the answer.

Poppy was positively red, now, "Well, I…maybe. I'll try talking to him, I suppose."

Rolanda was smirking lightly now, "But are you interested in him?"

"I just said—"

"Physically."

Poppy focused on smoothing the creases in her robes, tilting her flaming face down and away from them. "He's – he's – he's quite – neat."

Minerva and Rolanda laughed. Pomona shot them stern looks before turning back to Poppy with an encouraging smile. She validated Poppy's statement by agreeing, "Yes, he's quite well-groomed, isn't he? He keeps his hair and robes very nice."

"Nothing like his brother," Minerva muttered, grimacing.

Rolanda rolled her eyes, "Why do you hate Nicholas so much? Why are you alright with your aunt sleeping with a dozen men, but condemn him?"

Minerva's jaw dropped, "Because that's completely different!" Rolanda raised her eyebrows skeptically. "No, really! Aunt Sylvia makes it quite clear that marriage and long-term commitment aren't for her. She doesn't start dating men, let them dream of marrying her, and then turn into a completely different person one day who pretends like she had no idea that the man she was dating had long-term plans for them. Nicholas does that. He lets girls think they can change him, that they can be the one that tames him. He goads them!"

Poppy was nodding, grimacing herself. She'd managed to control her blush, and said, "I've seen it, too. That's part of why, I…I wonder about what kind of partner Nathan would be with a brother like that. He doesn't say much, after all, so I can't truly know."

Pomona shook her head, "I don't think he's like his brother. I really think you should give him a chance."

Poppy sighed, blushing lightly again, "Well let's start with me trying to talk to him, okay? Then we can talk about me 'giving him a chance.'"

Pomona grinned happily, "This reminds me of that time when we were fourteen and that Muggle boy – Leonard, remember? – fancied you and watched us in the library –"

"– and your older sisters didn't like it and insisted one of their boyfriends escort us…" Poppy continued.

As Pomona and Poppy launched into a memory together – as they often did – from the breaks they spent in their hometown, away from their other two friends, Minerva smiled fondly at them. Even though she and Rolanda were not part of these memories they shared, watching them interact like this always warmed Minerva's heart. She glanced over at Rolanda to see that the Slytherin was smiling a little too, but her smile seemed stiff, and her eyes seemed distant. Minerva's eyes darted down to Rolanda's hands, which were absently bunching her robes at her knees, twisting and pulling and switching hands. This was Rolanda's nervous tell, which Minerva was quite familiar with. She observed her best friend for a moment longer, how she clearly wasn't fully present, until Rolanda sensed her gaze and glanced over. The distance faded from her eyes and she smiled genuinely at Minerva with a focused gaze. Her hands folded neatly in her lap.

Minerva leaned slightly closer to Rolanda, away from the other two, who were still wrapped up in their memories. Minerva sat in her armchair between Rolanda and Pomona, and Poppy sat on the other side of Pomona. The Gryffindor spoke lowly, just loud enough for Rolanda to hear with the two of them leaning towards each other, "Are you alright?"

"Of course. I'm simply preoccupied with Quidditch. These next two years are important ones for me for League scouting," Rolanda replied, and her expression of mixed stress and openness would have been convincing if not for the fact that Minerva had known her for five years now. Minerva indicated her skepticism with a simple, raised brow and a hard stare. It made Rolanda's lip twitch, and she sighed, running a hand through her blonde hair and turning her head to stare into the fire. Minerva watched her silently. Eventually, she turned back to Minerva, lifted her hands and opened her mouth as if to start speaking animatedly, and then set them down and closed her mouth again, glancing back at Pomona and Poppy. Rolanda sighed, and turned back to Minerva. She opened and closed her mouth twice before she finally said, "I need to say what I need to say to all three of you."

Without conveying her surprise and concern with so much as a blink, Minerva turned to Pomona and Poppy, "Hey – hey ladies!" The pair stopped mid-conversation and turned their heads towards Minerva, who jerked her head towards Rolanda, "I'm sorry to interrupt your trip down memory lane, but Rolanda has something important to tell us."

Appearing taken aback, Pomona and Poppy rotated their entire bodies to face their Slytherin friend. Rolanda sighed and smiled lightly into her lap, shaking her head, "It's not – it's really not that serious. I just," she was gesturing as if she was having difficulty forming the appropriate words. She shook her head more abruptly, and looked up confidently, "Remember when we found this place, we promised each other that we would never tell anyone or show anyone else?" After a chorus of yeses, Rolanda continued, "Well…with your permission…I'd like to bring Richard here."

The three other friends' eyes flew open wide. Pomona made a suggestive, "Ooooo," noise, and Poppy reached over and smacked her playfully on the thigh. Minerva's mouth twisted in amusement at them before she turned that smile on Rolanda in a sisterly way. Rolanda made and held eye contact with Minerva apprehensively, as if awaiting judgement. The Gryffindor simply said, "I'm sure you've thought a lot about this."

"I have. And I won't make the same mistakes as our older siblings," Rolanda joked, but Minerva noticed she was twisting at her robes again. Minerva reached over and offered Rolanda her hand, which Rolanda grasped with a smile. "This is what I want."

Minerva glanced over at Pomona and Poppy. She could tell they were slightly uncomfortable, but she was sure that it was with the idea of their friend having pre-marital sex, not with her sharing their room with her long-term boyfriend. For Minerva, having the examples set by her mother's sister Sylvia Chase and by her own brother, Mitchell, sex was not as taboo as it was for other people her age. She knew, though, too, that the war was encouraging looser attitudes about sex, at least among young people. She'd heard it come up during one of her mother and aunt's arguments over Sylvia's lifestyle.

Pomona and Poppy looked to Minerva for guidance. She gave them encouraging smiles, and slowly, they each nodded. Minerva turned to Rolanda and spoke for the three of them, "We'll allow you to make Richard an exception to our promise." Pomona and Poppy nodded. Rolanda beamed.

It was past curfew, now, and Minerva was walking alone through the halls of Hogwarts. Her Prefect badge glinted in the light of the oil lamps hanging on the walls. She only needed to patrol the corridors for the first hour past curfew, as her job was primarily to corral the stragglers and, particularly in September, direct any lost students to their dormitories. Prefects were not really meant to be patrolling as disciplinarians. That task was left for the professors, and the ghosts were their late-night eyes.

Her patrol partners for the term were sixth-year Kenny Martin of Ravenclaw, fifth-year Lois Walsh of Hufflepuff, and seventh-year Gordian Bulstrode of Slytherin. Kenny had gamely stood up to Bulstrode when they were determining which areas of the castle they would patrol, and with Minerva's support he'd insisted that they should not be patrolling their own houses' areas of the castle to minimize bias. That was how Kenny ended up patrolling the dungeons, basement, and ground floor; Bulstrode the first and second floors; Minerva the third, fourth, and fifth; and Lois the top two floors.

This division of labor was how Minerva found herself climbing the moving staircases from the fourth to the fifth floor. She quite liked the moving staircases. Not everyone did – some people felt they were unnecessarily inconvenient – but she felt that they gave the castle character. McGonagall Manor had many of the same features as Hogwarts, just on a smaller scale, but one feature Hogwarts had that McGonagall Manor did not was the moving stairs. It made the castle unique, in her opinion. She also enjoyed walking around the castle by herself, with no one else around, with only the sounds of the castle itself surrounding her. It was comforting, in a way. After losing her childhood home to the war, Hogwarts had become more of a home to her than McGonagall Manor. This was probably in large part because she spent more time at Hogwarts than in her ancestral home, but there was also just something about Hogwarts that made her feel at peace.

Minerva's peaceful walk was disturbed, though, as she began walking through the corridors of the fifth floor and heard confident footsteps coming her way from around the corner. She raised her eyebrows and craned her neck, attempting to see around the corner ahead of her prematurely. The path her feet were traversing curved more in service of this goal. Finally, a wizard with shoulder-length auburn hair and a neatly trimmed, triangle shaped beard that just reached past where she imagined his collarbone would be, completely concealing his neck, rounded the corner, indigo robes swishing around him. Minerva caught a brief glimpse of a furrowed brow and tense, balled fists before he noticed her, at which point all of that melted away miraculously into a friendly smile. He called out to her as they walked towards each other, "Good evening, Miss McGonagall!"

"Good evening, Professor Dumbledore," she returned. Albus Dumbledore was her favorite professor, and not only because he taught her favorite subject, nor because he was her Head of House. She admired his genius, his infectious enthusiasm for Transfiguration, and his skill as a teacher. It was clear that because of his charisma, many students in his class enjoyed Transfiguration when they may have not otherwise. He had noticed her extraordinary aptitude for the subject early on in her academic career and began challenging her more than her peers. There had been no first year prouder than Minerva when he singled her out in this way – privately, so as not to make any student feel inferior – and no first year that worked harder to maintain that level of regard. Now that she was older, she respected the contributions he made to the war against Grindelwald, although what she knew about the war was vague, or sensationalized by the media at best, since her parents still refused to share details with her.

"You were saddled with the Saturday night shift, I see," he remarked as they closed the distance in the long corridor.

"For this weekend," she replied, smiling wryly. "I'm surprised to see you here."

He raised his eyebrows, "Where else would I be?"

Minerva pursed her lips and looked away from him, towards a painting that had been vacated by its occupant so it now appeared to be no more than a garden landscape. She turned back to him, her lips still lightly pursed, and replied boldly, "Somewhere in France is as best as I've been able to gather from my parents."

She was relieved to watch him smile broadly in response. "I do not spend the entirety of every weekend in France. This is the first weekend of the new school year, and there's nothing urgent happening in France, for now, so I decided that Hogwarts needs me more."

He had given her almost no details – in fact, he'd essentially said nothing was happening – but still, her heart raced; it was the first time anyone had spoken directly to her about what was going on. Usually she had to eavesdrop, or listen to her family refer to it with euphemisms. Minerva could only tilt her head in acknowledgement at this point. She did not know what else to say. Dumbledore, thankfully, changed the subject, "Are you excited for human Transfiguration?"

Minerva's eyes flew open wide, "Absolutely!" As Minerva spoke, Dumbledore gestured for them to continue their patrol. They fell into step together as he listened to her talk, "I've been doing research on the subject because our ability to morph our own bodies has fascinated me for some time now. I actually have taught myself all of the basic theory in the textbook and have been trying to do some of my own research into some of the more complex aspects – only theory, though, I've remembered my promise to not attempt any complex Transfigurations without your supervision—" Dumbledore laughed out loud "—and I'm curious about the potential for Color-Changing Spells working on changing the molecular nature of a human's genes, rather than only the pigmentation. This has been postulated upon, but researchers thus far think it's too dangerous. I think—" Minerva cut herself off, glancing over at her professor. Dumbledore was walking beside her with his hands folded behind his back, watching her speak with an eyebrow raised and a slight upturn of his mouth. She suddenly felt self-conscious. Did she sound foolish? Had he researched this himself to no avail? "I'm sorry for bombarding you, I know I'm only a sixth-year and we haven't discussed this much in class yet. And you must have so much else—"

This time, it was Dumbledore who cut her short, "Miss McGonagall," Minerva snapped her mouth shut and stared at him apprehensively. He was now looking ahead as he walked, but his smile was wider, "This may come as a shock to you, but I find Transfiguration to be quite a fascinating subject to talk about."

Minerva blinked and stared at him for a moment, her mouth slightly open. After a few seconds, she began to laugh, quietly at first, but then a full, half-hysterical laugh as she released her nervous energy. Dumbledore was positively grinning now, his eyes sparkling in the light of the oil lamps they passed. When her laughter subsided, he continued, "I would much rather be listening to a student passionate about my subject discuss her well-thought-out theories than be left alone to think about the war." He paused for a moment. To Minerva, in that moment it seemed as though his mind was far from Hogwarts. "These days, it seems, the war is all anyone wants to talk to me about."

They walked in silence for a few more steps while Minerva pondered that. She knew very little about the war effort. She knew her parents, her uncle, and her aunt were involved, and she also knew from the Daily Prophet that Dumbledore was as well. She knew Nicolas Flamel was their leader, and separately, she knew from her own private research that Dumbledore had once apprenticed under Flamel in alchemy. That led her to believe it was likely Flamel trusted him with important duties in the war. Still, all of her information and assumptions amounted to very little tangible information about what was being done to combat the atrocities committed by Gellert Grindelwald and his followers.

Dumbledore broke her from her reverie, "Well, are you going to continue?"

It took Minerva a moment to remember what she had been talking about, but when she did, her eyes sparkled, she smiled as she spoke, and her hands were animated as she explained the research that she'd done into Color-Changing Spells.