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Harsh Disapointment

Chapter 2

Nobody it seemed escaped the famous wrath of Professor McGonagall. She worked all of her classes harder to vent her frustration and punished the students harshly when they did not give Minerva the answers she wanted.

"It's just not fair!" exclaimed Fred as he and George walked out after her class in a rage. Minerva had given them a four-hour-each-day detention over Christmas for turning their owl in to a lama when it was supposed to be a badger.

"I only did it for a bit of Christmas cheer," George moaned miserably to his twin as they walked along the corridor.

"Yeah, I thought she would appreciate it," agreed Fred nodding furiously. "I know, I wonder what crawled up her backside this morning! McGonagall's not normally this grumpy, especially at Christmas!" ranted George as they climbed the moving staircases to the Gryffindor dorms.

"Well, what ever it is, she's keeping it up there!"

"Either that or Snape's playing a Christmas prank on us." replied George and both boys stopped for a moment then looked at each other with screwed up faces.

"Bad mental image! Not necessary! And besides, Snape doesn't have a sense of humour!" said George his face still screwed up.

"Or if he does, it's not a very good one," said Fred as they walked up to the fat lady who was trying to prove to the scholar in the painting next to her how well she could dance. "Humbugs,"

"No, no, no, no! Just wait and watch!" replied the fat lady as she waltzed and fell over her own feet.

"HUMBUGS!" shouted Fred in annoyance.

"Oh we are impatient today!" replied the Fat Lady looking highly affronted.

"Thank you." muttered Fred in annoyance. "Wow looks like were not the only ones she hit down hard,"

In the Gryffindor common room, every table was packed with frustrated looking people trying desperately to complete their workload for the next morning. Some of the seventh year girls looked on the edge of hysteria as every subject had given them extensive homework as their exams were coming up soon. The usual happy faces of Gryffindor had disappeared, only to be replayed by looks that could burn holes in the great tapestries.

"Oooh, something is really wrong with her," commented George as they walked past a few sour-faced fourth years that were snowed under with books of different ways to transfigure furniture and parchment.

"I'm thinking Gred and Forge need to do a little investigating," said Fred thoughtfully pinching his finger and thumb together under his chin as he stared around the room.

Minerva sat at her desk glaring at the fourth year's homework as if it had just made a rude gesture at her. She tried to think of anything that had gone wrong or seemed out of the ordinary over the past couple of weeks. The only thing Minerva could think of was the constant nights out at the Three Broomsticks with Poppy, Rolanda and Georgia. After a while, Minerva decided to investigate to see if there was any particular reason that her best friends had organised these trips. Picking up the latest romance novel that Poppy had lent her, Minerva strode purposefully out of her office and along the corridor, making a nervous Filius Flitwick topple off his little stepladder in the cupboard.

"Sorry Filius, would you like a hand in there?" Minerva offered politely as the little wizard climbed back up the steps, careful not to let her see what he was hiding in there.

"Oh, no thank you, Minerva. I'm almost done anyway, but thank you for the kind offer," Filius reassured her. Minerva nodded in understanding and carried on her journey to the hospital wing.

"Poppy, are you in here?" Minerva asked when walked into the hospital wing ten minutes later. She heard Poppy gasp and then a cluttering noise came from behind the curtain along the left side of the gloomy hospital wing.

"Are you ok Poppy?" Minerva asked with concern as she made her way down to the curtain. Poppy poked her head around a curtain and smiled at her then started to clear the bedside table.

"Yes, thank you Minerva. You just gave me a fright that's all. I wasn't expecting you!" she said airily. "So what can I do for you? I assume there is no student accident for lack of student body beside you," Minerva decided to get straight to the point.

"Is there some sort of staff prank that I don't know about? Why is everyone ignoring me?" She demanded.

"Who is ignoring you? If there were a staff prank surly you would be in on the joke too? We all know that when you participate, the joke only gets better, so I shouldn't think so." Poppy replied cautiously, busying herself with the range of potions on the bedside table.

"It's not just that though. Everybody, including you, seems to have forgotten that it's my birthday today!" Minerva said miserably and sat on the bed.

"It's your birthday today? Oh Merlin, I've been so busy and everything, I forgot! Minerva I'm so sorry!" Poppy said sympathetically and clasped her hand over her mouth for effect. She sat down by the side of Minerva and hugged her soothingly.

"Maybe we could go out this afternoon to the pub with Rolanda and Georgia?" Minerva suggested hopefully. "Oh Minerva I can't, I have to go to St Mungo's this afternoon to hand in my coursework on new medicine's. Ro's got that quidditch meeting with Ludo Bagman as she is on the Quidditch Committee and Georgia has to visit her husband as he has gone back into hospital." Poppy lied, feeling a little ashamed of herself. You had better make this a good surprise, Albus.

"Oh, ok," said Minerva offhandedly. "I'll see if Albus will talk to me," With having said that, Minerva stalked out of the hospital wing just as tears began to roll down her sculptured cheekbones.

"Oh stop it, this is childish!" Minerva scolded herself as she walked along the corridor, wiping her face with her tissue, as the tears came streaming down her face uncontrollably.

"It's ok Ro, you can come out!" called Poppy from behind the curtain and witch with a pair of golden eyes and silver hair appeared.

"Nice work Poppy, now we can focus on a few preparations." said Rolanda excitedly.

"I feel so rotten for letting her down that way, I do hope she will forgive us!" said Poppy sadly as she straightened out the bed covers Minerva had been sitting on.

"Oh come on poppy, once she see's what we have in store for her, of course she will forgive us! Come on let's go, just in case she comes back," Rolanda grabbed Poppy's hand and dragged her out of the hospital wing. Quickly looking out into the entrance to check if the coast was clear, the two witches hopped onto a broomstick and flew down to the quidditch pitch to prepare for the surprise later that evening.

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