Disclaimer: I don't own HP or any of these characters. That belongs to JKR, Scholastic Books, Warner Brothers, etc. This is just something to pass the time while waiting for the next book.
Chapter Five
The mumblings coming from Severus's corner of the teachers' lounge were most inappropriate. Granted there were days when one's patience was tried to the utmost by some student. Despite that, thought Minerva McGonagall, one could not give in to one's impulses and act without restraint. One had the duty to maintain the proper image in front of the students.
Minerva sighed and shook her head. The large black dog at her side looked up at her and then went back to glaring at the incensed Potions Master. She supposed there was no real danger of a student entering the lounge. She would not be concerned if most of her fellow professors were unable to control their language on an especially bad day. Severus was a different story. She had substantial doubts about Severus's ability as a teacher. While his proficiency at his chosen art was virtually unrivaled, his methods left much to be desired. He professed rather than taught. The only encouragement he offered his students was an assortment of sarcastic barbs and constant criticisms. He never seemed to consider that one simply could not use the same method for all students. Certainly yelling and screaming at Neville Longbottom did not improve his performance—if any thing, it only made it worse.
Of course, she rather doubted that his methods were the best for any students. Still, one had to choose one's battles.
McGonagall also had serious qualms about his extreme favoritism towards his own House. Such favoritism was only natural for a Head of House. She did her best to not to act on such instincts. If her colleagues did not choose to take such measures that was mostly their own business. They only held positions as Head of House and professor. However, Severus took house favoritism to a new level. It was simply ludicrous. Moreover, his attitude towards her own House was most distressing. She understood the reasons why Severus hated the Gryffindors so. James Potter and his friends had never been kind towards the boy. That perhaps had been their greatest fault—not to know when enough was enough, when pranks became too much. She should have stopped it then. She did not want to make the same mistake again. Because she wasn't the one who paid. She could understand his pain.
Nevertheless, it was nearly twenty years ago. There came a point where you had to let go. You couldn't let a few bad memories get in the way of you making new and better ones. You couldn't let the past get in the way of your future. You couldn't let resentment well-deserved get in the way of you growing into a better person.
Minerva knew he kept his pain. She knew he nursed his grudge, and added to it all the slights and smirks he received each day. Severus had made remarkable progress, in many ways, since his schoolboy days. But Minerva knew that somewhere, deep down inside of him, was that lonely boy who didn't want to change.
She sighed again, then pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind. There was no undoing of past mistakes. There was nothing she could do for a man who refused her aid. You couldn't live in the past. Sometimes, you had to let go of your losses and look to the future.
In spite of everything that had happen, she still believed the future was bright. In spite of all the events occurring even in the present, she still thought things would work out. She had her students and she just knew the world would make it through.
Just thinking of them made her smile. Minerva truly loved working at Hogwarts. She loved the first day of the year and watching the excitement and awe on all the young first years. She made the right choice, on that day so many years ago, when she decided to work here. This was truly the place where she belonged.
She was truly proud of her students, especially of the current crop. She knew most of her colleagues would never think that much of Neville Longbottom. The boy was a klutz and almost a squib. Still there was no one in his year who tried harder than he. It was almost heartbreaking to watch him work so hard for so little improvement. Anyone else would stop. Anyone else would think the reward was not worth the effort. Neville did not give up. He continued to work for his scraps of achievement, and Minerva rather thought that no one would have expected him to come as far as he had when they saw him on that first day.
Often seen in his vicinity, for they belonged to the same House, was Ron Weasley. Both Gryffindors, yet so very different. While Neville had the burden of no expectations, Ron had to deal with the burden of all his expectations. It could not be easy to be the youngest of six brothers, particularly when all of your older brothers were outstanding in some way. One could hardly avoid the comparison. Minerva rather thought that Ron was his own worst critic at times. He also did not do himself any favors, by comparing himself with the very best in his brothers and by wishing about, rather than working towards his goals. In spite of the fact that he lived in the shadow of his brothers' achievements, he was truly his own person. It would have been so easy for him to mimic any one of them, yet he stayed true to himself. The same could be said about when he was with his friends. He could have easily stayed in the background and let his friends deal with everything. He didn't do that—he stood by their side. He disagreed with them, when he thought they were wrong. She knew that he would never see this as being enough. However, she had to respect him for while he did not lead, he refused to be blindly led.
It would be nothing but the truth to say that most people had bad expectations of Draco Malfoy. It came with the name. Lucius Malfoy was known to be a strong supporter of all things dark. While he may not have been convicted as a Death Eater, there were many in the Wizarding community that believed he had been and in fact still served his old master. Bad expectations also came with the House. Minerva knew better than anyone else that Slytherins were expected to be evil, but she also knew that this simply was not true. One need only look at the Slytherin Head of House for proof of that. Like Ron, Draco contributed to his problems. His words and attitudes made everyone believe that he was essentially a Death Eater in training. Yet he was not as cruel and vindictive as he could have been. The poor boy must have known that everyone expected him to turn to the dark. His father literally demanded it. The Gryffindors, much to Minerva's sorrow, were too willing to think the worst of each and every Slytherin, and the other two Houses were not far behind. Despite all of this, Draco had yet to turn. He had not turned and it was a miracle every day.
Her last two students were victims of great expectations, though from different sources. Harry Potter had those expectations thrust upon him, through no choice of his own. People expected great things from him ever since that fateful Halloween eve. Hermione Granger, on the other hand, created her expectations. People came to expect her to be the best in all subjects because of her constant work. In Minerva's opinion, Hermione was the only one who tried as much as Neville, although her results were vastly superior.
It was strange, she pondered, how she tended to think of those two students as a pair. At first, she thought it was mere alliteration—Harry and Hermione sounded like they belonged together to her ear. Then she had begun to thought that it was more than that. Those two together were truly something to see. Together, they proved that the whole could be more than the sum of its parts. This was not because they had different strengths, although that was certainly true enough. Rather, it was because one helped the other to grow. One provided the challenge that the other needed to improve—and then went even further and provided the support the other needed to see the way through. While Minerva did not pretend to be the voice of fate as certain other professors did, but she did know that those two belonged together. It was because they were able to grow together.
That was all she really wished for her students—to become the best people they could be. She did her best to make sure all of her students got that chance, even though it meant repressing her own instincts. It hurt when she saw any of them fail. It hurt even more when she knew her own mistakes caused a fall. Yet it was the best thing in the world when she was able to help a student reach into their inner potential. She loved seeing the adults they became. There was no other place she'd rather be.
