Celeste entered her mother's office at one minute after nine that night, her anger melting slightly as she caught sight of her mother. The O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. exams were just a hard on the teachers as they were on the students and Minerva McGonagall was clearly showing the strain. Minerva was forty-eight years old, and while she usually looked much younger, the stressful examination time always gave her dark circles under her eyes and frown lines around her mouth, aging her considerably. Even after seventeen years of teaching she was still unable to handle the stress well.
Upon seeing Celeste enter the room, Minerva rose from behind her desk and smiled apologetically. "Ah, Celeste," she began,"I'm sorry to have summoned you here as I did. It really wasn't necessary to give you a detention in front of all those students; however, I think it very necessary to write your essay under my eye. I realize tomorrow is Sunday, but I highly doubt you would bother to write it then."
Celeste agreed that she would probably have neglected her essay tomorrow as well and forgave her mother for her brief humiliation.
"Well, then" said Minerva. "Lets go back to my rooms and you can do your work there."
Walking over to her fireplace, Minerva took a pinch of powder from a pot on the mantle and threw it into the flames. "McGonagall's chambers," she said clearly, and stepped into the emerald flames, Celeste did the same, careful to keep her bag close to her body as she spun around in the flames. When she had stopped spinning, Celeste took a few unsteady steps and found herself in her mother's small apartment, located in the east wing of the castle, off limits to students, a wing solely for the purposes of the professors.
Her mother had decorated her rooms in crimson and gold, as she was the Gryffindor Head of House. Above her fireplace was the McGonagall family crest and below that, spread out across the mantle were pictures. There were five pictures; each of them featured Celeste in various stages of her life. The first was of a young Minerva McGonagall, black hair cascading down her back, smiling, arms around a tiny baby with a wrinkled face. The second picture showed five year old Celeste, each hand held tight by her parents as she skated on ice for the very first time. The next picture was one Minerva could never look at without a shudder of painful remembrance. Seven-year-old Celeste lay on a bed wrapped in her mother's arms while her father sat on the edge of the bed, running his fingers through his wife's hair. The Celeste in this picture looked frail and lifeless, her small body made weak from a violent illness. The looks on her parent's faces were those of helplessness, Celeste had survived but her health had never been strong since. The last two pictures were not nearly as melancholy, and much more recent. One a picture of Celeste and her father on horseback and the other of Celeste asleep in a hammock, a kitten curled up at her side.
Celeste gazed at these pictures for a few moments while her mother made tea. They then sat down at a small table together and Celeste showed her mother the assignment. The essay was entitled, Restorative Potions, their origins, uses and the advances made in that field over the past fifty years. Celeste pulled a thick stack of notes from her bag and laid them on the table in front of her.
"Good Heavens," exclaimed her mother. "Are those your notes?"
"Of course not," answered Celeste. "Those are Severus' notes from last year, he told me to keep them after I kept asking to borrow them."
Minerva marveled that anyone could write so small and yet so legibly while Celeste wondered that anyone could pay so close attention in a class like Potions.
Celeste spent the next two and a half-hours bent over her essay, constantly scratching things out and massaging her wrist. Finally she handed the papers to her mother.
"There," said Celeste. "Edit it and I'll rewrite the stupid thing."
Minerva took the work and for a few moments only the occasional scratch of her quill could be heard. Celeste was just dozing off when her mother returned the papers.
"Add a bit more about the history in that fourth paragraph and take a look at my notes near the bottom," she instructed. "That should do it I think."
Celeste bent over her work again while her mother prepared for bed. After what seemed like ages she wrote out the last line and threw down her quill.
Getting up stiffly from her chair, Celeste stretched her legs and crumpled onto her mother's couch.
Coming out of her bedroom in her nightgown, Minerva stood over Celeste's sleeping form. Minerva McGonagall had achieved many things in her forty-eight years, at Hogwarts she had been an outstanding scholar, she had been sought out for and offered a highly respected teaching job at the school, and had recently been named the Gryffindor Head of House. But none of these achievements could compare with the joy she received from being a mother or the pride she felt as she watched her daughter grow into a mature young woman. Her one fear was of one day losing Celeste; this fear had never been greater than nine years ago as she watched Celeste struggle with a deadly illness. Promising never to let harm come to her daughter, Minerva leaned down and kissed Celeste lightly on the forehead.