Nine ~ A Decision at Easter

By morning the broken statue and the writing on the wall were gone – Professor Dumbledore had gone to Headmaster Dippet, and together the two of them had arranged for its surreptitious removal. I had not been told expressly to keep it a secret, but I did, for I felt that if both Dumbledore and the Headmaster saw fit to leave it alone, then I should not go broadcasting what we'd seen all around Hogwarts. I reasoned to myself that it was probably just a mean prank, meant to frighten, for neither Professor Dumbledore or I knew what could be meant by a chamber.

I was more concerned, actually, with hearing the rest of Professor Dumbledore's explanation for the existence of my unusual term project, but I had no opportunity to speak to Professor Dumbledore in the following few days, first with Hogwarts being caught up in Quidditch fever – the match of Ravenclaw against Hufflepuff was an important one – and then my scheduled trip home for Easter.

That particular Quidditch match is one I will always remember with fondness. I was sitting in the stands, bunched up with Cliona, Cora, and Myrtle, and I was twisting my hands and trying to hide my anticipation.

Ravenclaw came out first, looking somber and dedicated in their elegant blue and bronze uniforms. And then it was Hufflepuff's turn.

There was a stunned silence as Emmet Fawcett led his team out onto the pitch. Each of them wore a Quidditch robe of such a vile, glowing electric pink that some people had to look away. It might have even made Gilderoy Lockhart cringe. Emmet's face was almost the colour of the robes, as were the faces of the other players, and seven identicals scowls played out across their features.

Professor Caldecott, who was refereeing the match, looked at them with his mouth agape. "Boys – what's the meaning of this?"

Emmet looked at the rest of his team, asking an unspoken question, then turned back to Professor Caldecott. "We forfeit," he said gravely.

"Forfeit?" Caldecott exclaimed. "You can't forfeit!"

"Someone's tampered with our robes," Emmet contested, his voice surprisingly like a whine. "We can't reverse the charm – it's too good." Just then, he turned and glared straight at me in the stands. A part of me froze up, but some other inexplicably wonderful part of me managed to flash him a wide, insincere grin and wave.

"You ought to blow him a kiss," Cliona said, leaning over me excitedly.

"Next time," Cora said from my other side. I could tell by the expressions on their faces that they had already mentally identified the author of this particular prank, and, not a second later, Cora whispered into my ear, "Don't worry, Minerva. I'm not going to tell."

Since none of the Hufflepuff players were injured or otherwise engaged, they were denied the forfeit and forced to play through – and it was one of the greatest Quidditch games I have ever had the fortune to witness, and one of the most spectacular losses ever suffered by Hufflepuff House. I won't ever forget the sight of those bright pink robes swishing through the air. Charles St. Clair was knocked off his broom by a Bludger early in the game, and it was particularly satisfying to see Niall take a rough dive for the Snitch, only to hit the ground. Hard.

"Psychological warfare," Cliona breathed.

"Brilliant," Myrtle added.

The final score was two hundred and twenty to forty, and Ravenclaw was in the final match against Gryffindor. When it was over, the four of us tumbled into the Gryffindor common room laughing so hard that our sides ached. Cora had abandoned all sense of decorum and was lying on the floor, chuckling and gasping all at once. "Did – did you – oh, my, their faces!" she wheezed incoherently, clutching at her stomach. "I – almost died!"

Cliona was wearing a wide, triumphant grin, no doubt mentally crowing over Hufflepuff's defeat. "How'd you manage that, McGonagall?"

"Yeah, how'd you do it?" Myrtle asked, eyes shining. For the first time in a long time she was beaming.

"Why do you automatically assume it was me?" I asked loftily. I was actually quite nervous. It would not take a large degree of sleuthing for Professor Dumbledore to figure out that it had been me – especially after my surprising presence in the Transfiguration room – but there was no way I'd confide this to any of them. "It might have been divine intervention."

"Sure, sure," Cliona said. "God, that was brilliant! I'm going to treasure that forever!"

We moved our merriment into our dormitory, where Cora managed to rustle up a box of sweets she'd been hiding and Cliona dug into her secret stash of Butterbeer. "This is really something that needs to be celebrated," she announced, uncorking a bottle and passing it to me. "No matter how it got done."

"Must've been magic, I tell you." I shrugged, and realised that my shoulders felt a lot lighter than they should have. "Oh, for God's sake, I left my bag in the common room. Be back in a minute."

I saw my bookbag lying on one of the big overstuffed chairs – and I saw something else. Kneeling by the fireplace, prone as though he were praying or repenting, was Rubeus Hagrid. And I could hear him crying.

It was only then that I remembered he had not been at the Quidditch game – how could I have forgotten? Surely I should have noticed the absence of such a great, hulking boy. But I had been nervous and too absorbed in myself. I went over to where he was crouching, remembering the night I had found his secret room and the promise I'd made. I placed a careful hand on the middle of his back. "Hagrid?" I whispered, as gently as I could. "What is it?"

"Dead," he choked.

"Dead?" I sucked in my breath. "Who's dead?"

He turned to look fully at me, then lifted his head to observe the rest of the common room, which was abandoned. "Yeh remember where I keep my critters?" he asked in loud whisper. "I wen' this mornin' and more were dead – I dunno what happened."

"You brought more in after the first ones were killed?"

"Yeh." He gave a sniff and wiped at his eyes. "Poor little buggers."

"But you're keeping that other creature in there! Hagrid, I—"

"Don' you say it, Miss Minerva!" he howled, suddenly uncaring of whoever might hear him. "Don' you say it, too! Aragog wouldn't hurt nobody!"

"It was just a possibility," I said gently. "Listen, Hagrid, sometimes – the way you are with creatures – you think of them much too kindly at times. You look at something dangerous and you see something akin to a fluffy kitten. It's not that way with animals. No matter how you might see them, there are always ones that will bite you. And sometimes animals'll attack other animals."

"Ye're wrong," he sniffed.

I patted him at the back. "I might be, at that. You ought to find out for yourself – but please, Hagrid, don't do anything that could end badly. I know Professor Dumbledore lets you keep your – er, pets – here, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't use a little caution."

"I know, Miss Minerva. He said the same thing. He said they was gonna die."

My ears perked up. "He? Who's he, Hagrid?"

But Hagrid had gone red and was already standing up to leave, looking very much as though he would have liked to take that comment back. He looked down, so that his face was concealed by his grizzled mass of hair, and started to shuffle away.

"Do you want me to get Snappers, and we can talk some more?" I tried desperately.

"No, Miss Minerva, yeh've done enough, thank yeh." And he disappeared into the boys' dormitory before I could get to him.

I went home for the weekend the day after – it was Easter. We had never celebrated it much as a family and I was dreading my homecoming. I took the ordinary train back home and I was surprised at the town; everything was empty and ghostly, and the twenty-minute walk to the farm left me completely alone – I saw no one else.

It was a very grey day, back at the farm, and eerily quiet compared to Christmas. All of the families tucked into our house and barn had left for even safer places. Only my family remained. Kitty was outside waiting for me when I arrived; she was dressed somberly in a black peacoat and navy scarf, looking years older than she had in December.

"Brought you dangerous sweets," I said quietly, and at this she pulled me into a hug and began to weep.

Inside there was a large dinner set, the sort of thing I had not expected after receiving letters from Kitty commenting on the repulsive nature of rationed food. Both my mum and my dad were sitting at their places, looking more like life-sized wooden dolls than real people; Kitty sat down, her face still red and straining. I knew what was coming, from having kept the secret with my sister, and I braced myself, eating in silence, moving the fork around on my plate. I had come to a decision, but it had not been an easy one, and already I could foresee pillars of regret on the horizon, but there would be no changing my mind.

"Minerva," my mother began, "I don't know how much you get of our news at that – that place – but surely you must know something, from all the people who were here at Christmas." She swallowed, awkward, unable to phrase things the way she wanted them. "Your father and I – we'll we've made a decision. In two months—"

"I know," I said flatly, deciding on impulse to spare her the misery. "Kitty wrote me."

"Oh." This was said with soft shock, and a darting glance at Kitty, who picked miserably at her potatoes and would not look up.

"And I'm not coming with you." As soon as I said that, it sounded far too stark and naked to leave alone, so I covered it up with more words. "I am safe here, you know – there are spells and things that prevent the war from ever coming to us – and there are things I can study at Hogwarts that no other school will offer." I did not say anything about the Animagus transformations. "I can't go. It isn't as though we won't ever see each other again – I hope you'll come back, when this is all over."

"All right," my father said. There was no pleading, no talking of the beautiful things we could find in America, nothing. I had at least expected something, but then I realized that they had known my decision before even asking me, and this was why they had hesitated in telling me, for they did not want to hear it. Without my knowledge, an invisible wedge had shaped itself between my family and I, thickening, all because of my magic and my living in a world which I then realized was wholly different from their own.

"I – I'm sorry," I choked, and then I was crying, and I had to get up from the table and go into my old room.

Kitty came in a half an hour later and instead of saying anything right away, she sat down on the bedcovers beside me and rubbed at my back, the younger sister taking the role of the older. I almost could not resist the urge to run down into the kitchen sobbing, apologizing, saying that of course I would go with them.

Almost.

The rest of the Easter holiday passed depressingly enough. On the next day, Good Friday, we fasted; on the Sunday we made a half-hearted attempt at feasting. We attended church and I noticed all the things Kitty had said – barely anyone was left, and none of the boys we had known growing up were there. Dead in battle, or halfway to getting there. I had brought some of my textbooks with me and spent most of the time shut up in my room, studying for OWLs.

Before leaving, I kissed each of them goodbye in turn, and lingered the longest at Kitty, but on that Monday, I was glad to be back at Hogwarts. I told no one that they were gone – of course Cliona and Cora and Myrtle knew from the letter – but there was something different about it actually happening, something far more awful, and I found I could not form the words to describe my decision, for I always came out sounding hollow and shallow, or else I would say it so true that I would begin to weep.

It also happened that on that very Monday night I had one of my regularly scheduled meetings with Professor Dumbledore. I was looking forward to it and dreading it all at once. I knew it would not be like one of our ordinary sessions – me practicing, him observing and sometimes grading Transfiguration papers – and it seemed as though he felt the same way, for when I got there he had two chairs set up with a table between them and a tea setting waiting for my arrival.

I sat down and poured a drink. "I spoke to my family this weekend," I said flatly.

"What did you say?"

"I told them I wasn't going with them," I said. This, too, sounded foolish by itself, so I pressed on. "And I won't lie to you – it's partly because I do want to see this Animagus project through to completion. I will even do the work the Ministry asks me to do." It sounds foolish, but I would have done anything; my greatest passion at that age was a thirst for knowledge of all things magical, especially those as prestigious as Animagi. "But I want to hear everything you know first – no interruptions, no half-truths. If I am to be part of this, I need to know what I'm getting into, and the Minister can go hang if he just wants an easily-manipulated puppet." This last bit came out with unexpected vehemence.

To my surprise, Dumbledore chuckled. "I'm sure Julius Applethorne would appreciate being told to go hang."

"Forgive me, sir, but I would appreciate the opportunity to tell him."

"You may just get it," he said cryptically. "But very well. I will begin at the beginning, Miss McGonagall. As I was telling you before – prior to the interruption – Grindelwald is no longer in his place at Azkaban. We suspect he is somewhere in the east. He is a Muggle-born and he feels that his rights and privileges as a wizard have been long oppressed, and, frankly, we think he's gone quite mad."

"Mad?"

He took a sip of tea. "Rumour has it that he is – gathering an army, of sorts. He is a skilled magician; in fact, it is with his devious wards and charms that we were able to exert control over the Azkaban Dementors in the first place."

"I didn't know that."

"It's not in the histories," he said curtly. "At any rate, we don't really know what Grindelwald is up to. Six months ago, after discovering that he'd left his post, the Magical Law Enforcement Squad discovered several written tracts in his hand. All of them were rather – gory, for lack of a better word – describing the deaths of pureblooded wizards and insane plans for battles and such."

"So – Grindelwald – he fancies himself a sort of hero, I suppose? A revolutionary?"

"I would imagine so."

"A hero for the Muggle-borns," I mused aloud.

Professor Dumbledore nodded. "I know that you, too, are Muggle-born, Miss McGonagall, and I am not fool enough to think that you have encountered no prejudice, but you must understand that we are dealing with a madman rather than a supporter of equal rights."

"I do understand," I said, a bit crossly. Surely I couldn't justify killing on either side.

"Good," he said. I was suddenly aware that he seemed very old, very tired. "So your part in all of this is simple – as I said, we are going on rumours and mad evidence. We know very little of Grindelwald's actions, but reason dictates that he will wait to strike until he is ready. He may be mad, but I knew him, and he is quite methodical, quite deliberate – the sort of person who does not do things unless he knows for sure that the outcome will be the one he wants. So, for now, the Ministry is building intelligence. And, Miss McGonagall, though you did hear from the Minister that he wants someone easily manipulated, the fact is that there are very few witches and wizards who are capable of the sort of dedication that it takes to become an Animagus. And we need spies. What we've truly been doing, Miss McGonagall, is training you for a career in espionage."

"I see." I sat silent for a few minutes, thinking it over. I had never given much thought to what I would do after getting out Hogwarts – though my careers sessions were coming up – but I had always assumed, in the back of my mind, that I would end up doing something purely academic, something to satisfy my intellectual curiosity. But I felt a strange pull, and though I could not identify it then, I can now. I was needed – for my skills and my intellect – and, admittedly, it was flattering.

"And do you still say yes?"

"I do." Let it never be said that I was a coward.

"Very well," he sighed. "The project will continue as before, with you preparing me status reports and the false reports to go with them. Our meetings, too, will continue as usual – except you may find that some members of the Ministry of Magic will want to join us. There are some Aurors who are quite interested in meeting you."

"I should like to meet them." I wasn't sure if this was the truth or not. "Am I dismissed?"

"Yes." He looked very distracted, and was resting one hand against the side of his head, almost knocking his scarlet hat off. "You need not treat me as a professor while we are here. In this context, we are colleagues."

Colleagues. I rolled the word around in my mind and decided it was altogether too strange for me. I nodded and gave him a thin smile. "All the same, sir, I would like to have an established sense of order and rank. I don't want this to seem too surreal."

"Ah. As you wish." I had turned to go, and I was almost out the door when he spoke again. "One more thing, Miss McGonagall."

"Yes, sir?"

"I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibition of your skills at last week's Quidditch match."

I believe I turned a thousand shades of red. "Er – sir, I—"

He reached into his robes, standing and striding over, and drew something from his pocket, then pressed it into my hand as I stammered. I looked down; it was my prefect badge. "Just be certain that it was the end of your mischief-making," he advised, and then he was gone, leaving me open-mouthed and embarrassed.