It was snowing. Big, heavy, wet flakes of snow fell slowly, blanketing the town of Hogsmeade. Slowly, a lone figure in black moved up the street in the dim light of a winter evening, one gloved hand clutching a staff. Minerva McGonagall would rather have been indoors at Mrs. Hudson's, reading a detective novel, or just curled up in her chair in front of the fire. Tonight, however, was Christmas Eve, and McGonagall had not missed a Christmas Eve dinner at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in over half a century.
How strange, she thought, watching her feet leaving holes in the white blanket of snow as she trudged up the hill towards the gates. She could remember the first Christmas Eve at Hogwarts... she'd been fifteen, and the terrors of the Great War were behind her; behind the country. There'd been that business with Grindlewald, and the poor girl who'd been turned to stone, but those things seemed far away in nineteen forty-seven. Armando Dippet had been headmaster then... and how strange, Minerva thought again, that she was probably the last person left alive who had a memory of Dippet at Hogwarts.
He had been fastidious, she recalled. Dinner with him presiding was quite different from what she'd known with Dumbledore. Like Albus, he'd arranged the small group around one table, but he'd seated them by house, in descending order of age. She remembered Ancelm sitting across from her, his hazel eyes alight with barely-suppressed mirth at the old boy's Victorian manners. When Professor Tester, the Potions Master, had suggested dancing, Dippet had hemed and hawed for a moment before deciding that it might be allowed.
The great stone gateposts with their statues of winged pigs loomed up out of the snow, and Minerva patted them as she passed through, like greeting an old and faithful hound. They'd stood here in silent faith for longer than McGonagall had been associated with the school, and there wasn't much that could make that claim.
Inside the gates, the Potter boy waited, a large umbrella held up. "Hello, Professor," he said. "The Head sent me down to make sure you were all right."
"Potter," she said with a nod, letting him fall in beside her, holding the umbrella over her.
"Oh," he said, looking confused. "Have we met?"
Minerva smiled slightly. "Never underestimate what an old witch knows, boy." She didn't stop walking up the road, kept magically clear of snow, between the mounded banks. So many of the old families sent their children, generation after generation. She'd had more influence over them than their own parents, she sometimes thought. The parents had their children for a couple of months each year; she'd had them most of the time.
Dumbledore had sent for her, when old Dippet retired. He'd read the papers she'd published, had followed her career with great interest. "I would like to offer you something more challenging," he'd said, and after a moment's hesitation, she'd accepted. She hadn't believed then that it would be more challenging, but because it was Dumbledore asking, she'd accepted. In the end, it turned out that the old boy was right... he so often had been. That was the year he'd admitted the werewolf, she recalled. Remus Lupin. Oh, those boys! Remus, Sirus, James... even poor Peter. Yes, she thought. Poor Peter, who had wanted so much to be a part of something bigger than himself, but had never quite worked out the right way. Peter and Draco, she thought. Two wizarding families who wouldn't be sending descendants anymore.
"Tell me, boy," Minerva said, placing a hand on the boy's shoulder and squeezing lightly, "how is your father?" She didn't listen to the answer, though, not really. She was too busy thinking about Dumbledore. As they walked up the steps of the castle, she realized that it was here... just here, outside the door, on an autumn night, that she'd met Albus Dumbledore for the first time. He'd looked so old to her, then, though his hair was still auburn... he'd been much younger than she was now. He had greeted them with quiet good humor, and led them, the first year students, into the great hall to be sorted into their houses, just as she, years later, would lead so many eager and frightened children through these doors.
She should have known, she thought. When they started asking her questions about the Morphus equations, she should have known what they were up to. Hadn't she started in the same place, when she worked out the Animagus transformation the first time? She'd gone to Dumbledore's office with Volsung's My Year as a Wolf, and asked him about the equations. She should have known what they were doing.
It was the first time anyone had asked her that question, though, and she'd been an animagus so long that she'd forgotten how she started. Later, she would have known. Later, with experience of years and students, she would have known their carefully innocent looks were a sham, hiding excitement, hiding mischief. She'd had no more experience as a Master than they'd had as pupils, though, then.
"Ah, Albus," she said, so quietly the boy beside her couldn't hear her. If only she knew how to work the transformation that would make her younger again; the transformation that would make her joints stop hurting, would make her sleep through the nights.
