The Grindelwald Scenario: Chapter One

Disclaimer: If I have come to one conclusion in my life, learned one lesson that I wish to outlast

me, it is this: you can not come up with a creative disclaimer. So, ladies and gents this is me

giving up. Me. No. Own.

AN: I'm going to apologize now in case this turns out to be a single paragraph, single spaced,

with no indentation. For some reason FF.net seems to enjoy completely disregarding all my

formatting. Good times, good times... Anyway, please read and review. I'd really appreciate

some feed back on characterization. And grammar, you can, pretty much, consider it open

season on my grammar.

AN2: If anyone would be interested in being a beta reader for this story, please leave your e-

mail in your review and get a hold of you.

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Minerva McGonagall had been propped up in the corner of an old, splintering and

depressingly empty train car for most of the day, and night, and most of the day before as well.

"It isn't as if this is an avoidable part of the assignment," she tried to tell herself. "A part

of an assignment that is invaluable to the resistance. Gathering reliable information is

just, if not more, important them the actually fighting. If we don't have information we're

as good as gathering our entire army, marching out to a random spot in the desert,

drawling our wands and expecting Grindelwald to appear out of the sand." This would

have been a very convincing argument had this been what she was worried about.

(Flashback)

"Ya be getten ta take ah wee little trip Minnie," informed Mark O'Sweeney. He had been

actively in charge of the underground resistance movement, against Grindelwald, in central

London for the last seven months, after the pervious leader was killed under mysterious

circumstances. He had, also, been diligently trying to improve upon his accent, which on one

could pinpoint to a specific country, for the past four years. "Yah be needen ta pack light lassie.

Ya goin' to Tokyo, but ya can't be startin out there or he'll know somethin's happening. So, ya

going' the muggle way. Ya be ridin the rails until ya get to tha Atlantic. Then, ya're gonna want to

take a boat down and around to Japan. After tha ya're back on a train." Minerva nodded

slightly, her face impassive, trying to sort out a possible reasoning behind the aforementioned

trip. However, she concluded, not long after starting on her third possibility, that she simply did

not have enough facts to draw a valid conclusion, and decided to wait for more information. She

didn't have to wait long as O'Sweeney seemed to remember she couldn't read minds, and

explained, "We've been startin ta think; Grindelwald's bound to know Hitler is gettin' much

worse for tha wear. The Alliance is movin' in on 'em. And tha means there isn't gonna be a

muggle war for 'em to hind under in England much longer. So...where's the other big rumba?

Japan," he proclaimed answering his own question. He had been walking throughout the

cluttered and cramped briefing room as he explained; shifting aside papers and stooping down

to check under chairs. "Looking for the map again," Minerva presumed. Whatever he had

been looking for apparently was not in the room, for as he said the last sentence he opened the door to leave.

Albus Dumbledore exchanged a curious look with Minerva, whom he had been standing

beside all through the 'briefing,' then asked, rather boldly in Minerva opinion, "Is there a purpose

behind my presence here?"

"Hum?" Mark O'Sweeney was a fun-loving man who could come off down right stupid

sometimes, but he had a temper. It, apparently, was bobbling quit near the surface today, as he

spun around and regarded them both with a disapproving gaze. He did not take kindly to

disrespect. "You, ma young lad, are here because ladies do not, usually, travel alone on long

voyages. It would look odd if she was unaccompanied" he replied coldly, his accent all but disappearing with his anger.

"So, I'll be escorting her then?" asked Albus with a calm suavity that Minerva sometimes

envied.

"Ah course!" Mark practically bellowed over his shoulder as he slammed the door behind

him.

(End Flashback)

To say that Minerva had rested at all during the journey would be a bold faced lie, true she

had slept occasionally, but never, truly, had she felt rested when she awoke a few minutes or

hours later. The most common excuse she had taken to making to herself for this was the

weather: cold and hard and...loud. You could hear the unrelenting rain coming down on the

rumbling car in sort of a plop, plunk, bloop, and then again, and again; more times than she

would care to recall upon later retellings. The air inside was dense and heavy and smelled like

the remnants of yesterdays storm, old, molding wood and . . . something. "I would very much

like to figure out just what this car hauled last," she suddenly announced out loud. Whereas,

most people in the resistance had long ago built up a tolerance for strange smells; it was, sadly,

not a talent Minerva McGonagall could boast. "Just one of the side effects of having a cat

as your anamongious form," she had concluded long ago. "Be grateful," she suddenly spat at

herself, aloud again, "Albus is sitting in bitter, murky cell somewhere tonight just to get you on

this train, and you're complaining because it smells!" And I just left him, I got on the train and

practically left him there to die..." she let the though fall meekly away, and abandoned what was

left of her inhibitions about talking aloud to herself.

"You have to carry out your assignment. Reliable information is just, if not more, important

than fighting," Minerva stated; starting, once again, to repeat her new motto to herself. The

mandate, of sorts, speed its way through her head for several long minutes, twisting and turning

onto its side to be looked at and examined from all possible angles. Then, of course, she

dwelled on each of these new angles. After that, she pondered how all things can be looked at

in, at least, three million different ways. This random, muffled train of thought continued on until

Minerva found herself barely paying attention to the musings, at all. It wasn't until some time

latter that it occurred to her that she had stopped thinking, altogether. This wasn't entirely a

displeasing sensation, so she allowed herself to float in and out of consciousness for the rest of

the night.