Harry woke to a gentle hand on his shoulder. He swiped some remnants of drool from his mouth and looked around in confusion. This certainly wasn't his cupboard nor the headmaster's guest room. Suddenly, the morning's events came whirling back at him and he looked up into the kindly eyes of the former professor.

"Prof-" He started, but corrected himself at the woman's stern gaze. "Minerva, what time is it?"

"It's nearly dinner time." She said with a hint of worry in her voice. "I lost track of time. I hadn't thought you were so tired you would sleep the whole day through."

Harry stretched and blinked a few times. He supposed he had been rather tired after everything and it wasn't often he was allowed to have a lie in. "Oh." He said dumbly and she patted him on the leg before getting off the bed.

"Let's eat shall we? I didn't have much in the cupboards so I took the liberty of going to the shops while you slept."

Harry nodded enthusiastically as his stomach rumbled in agreement. Food sounded amazing right now. He wondered if the witch was expecting him to cook since they weren't able to have the help of the Hogwarts house elves anymore. The Dursleys had made him cook sometimes when Aunt Petunia wasn't feeling up to it. He could at least make three things without burning them. What kind of food did Minerva even like? They had pretty normal stuff on the two occasions he had eaten with her, but he wasn't sure if those were the things she preferred.

He unfurled from the heavy blanket with no trouble and stood up beside the professor. Harry realized then that his ratty t-shirt and jeans had changed into a set of soft pajamas. These were the nicest clothes he had ever gotten to wear before. The soft cotton didn't even itch against his skin and there were no holes to be seen. A small cough brought his attention back to the woman who smiled at him pleasantly.

"We'll sort out the rest of your wardrobe soon enough, Harry. Come on." She directed him out the doorway and he followed her down into a small kitchen. It was all wood tones and placid green stone floors.

"Sit." She waved to the kitchen table and Harry listened. He watched as she began to get out some chicken and potatoes from the pantry.

"I can help." Harry offered, but the witch just shook her head and continued on her mission to make them dinner.

Harry took the time to look around the house. It was rather big for just the woman on her own, he thought. Perhaps those children in the photographs had been her children. They would be all grown up by now he reckoned. Minerva must have been at least sixty from what he could tell - not that she acted at all like he imagined an old person should. He was surprised at how normal everything was too. He had expected with her being a witch and all everything would be magical, but he watched as she prepared everything the muggle way he knew well.

"Minerva," Harry asked curiously. "How come if you're a witch you're doing everything normally?"

The woman snorted and looked at him with an exasperated expression.

"Just because magic exists that does not make other skills useful to continue practicing." Her expression softened. "I grew up in a muggle household."

"Will you tell me about how you grew up?" Harry asked, feeling suddenly more intrigued by the witch in front of him. He could see her debating her options and gave her the best pleading look he could.

"Oh very well." Minerva resumed preparing the food while she talked. "We grew up in the highlands. My father was a very well respected preacher and so we had a small house next to the parish. He was non-magical, you see. My mother however was a witch from a very long line of pureblooded wizards and witches. They lived as muggles until I was born and things began to change."

Harry watched as she stopped cutting the potatoes up to brush back a hair that had loosed itself from her customary tight bun. The lines in her face seemed to deepen as she continued to tell the tale. Harry slightly regretted asking her about her childhood as it seemed to bring her great sadness.

"I was a very precocious child and my magic showed itself much sooner than I expect my mother had intended. She did everything to keep my bouts of accidental magic hidden from my father as he had no idea magic existed, nevermind that his wife was a witch." She let out a long sigh and plopped the potatoes into a boiling pot. "It was hard for me to understand as a young child. On one hand, I was excited I could do amazing things especially transforming my toys into animate creatures. On the other, I was being told it was bad and had to be hidden. My father often gave sermons on how following the occult could pave the road to hell."

"Minerva, you don't have to keep telling me if you don't want to." Harry said softly and the stern witch frowned, but shook her head.

"I see myself in you, Harry. We both grew up thinking that we were damned by our birth because of how the adults in our lives chose to handle the situation." She said simply, but Harry could see the unshed tears in her eyes. "Magic is a gift and should be cherished and nurtured, not starved or abolished. You were never a freak just as I was not an unrepentant sinner damned to the pits of hell."

Harry let the words sink into him and felt a warm feeling in his chest. He was a wizard and that did not make him abnormal. He had never thought his relatives' motivations were to keep him from magic. He had simply thought they did not like him, but what Minerva had said made sense. His aunt had known his mother and father were magical and had wanted to punish him for it. It wasn't his awkward manner or his unsightly appearance that made her angry at him - it was his innate ability to do things she couldn't explain. That was why they had locked him away when he had ended up on the rooftop; why she had strapped him down and shaved his head when his hair had suddenly regrown after being to the barber's; why when he had started talking to a garden snake they had killed every slithering pest within shovel distance and made him watch them burn in the firepit. He was magic and they hated it.

Somehow the realization made him feel a little bit better about himself. It suddenly pieced together the puzzle of why no matter how good he was they refused to even tolerate him. It wasn't that he was an abhorrently bad child. It was that they couldn't love someone with something they couldn't have. He was drawn away from his thoughts as Minerva plopped a plate in front of him with roasted chicken and boiled potatoes.

"I can continue to tell you of it while we eat." She said kindly and he nodded.

As always he waited for her to take the first bite before heartily digging in himself. Harry noted she had given him a much larger portion than she had taken for herself.

"My brothers soon came into the world not long after me. Malcolm and Robert were right scallywags from the womb. My mother had employed me as the eldest to help hide their magic from my father, but soon enough accidental magic was exploding all over the place that even he couldn't ignore something was amiss. Then I got my letter to Hogwarts and it all came to light." Harry set down his fork mid bite to pay attention, completely entranced by the story. "My father was horribly cross with my mother for concealing her heritage for some time. I was torn between the elation of finally getting to be myself and the overwhelming sense of shame for disappointing my father by being magical. Him and I had been kindred souls to one another and magic had wedged itself between us."

"That sounds awful." Harry said, pushing his plate away from him. He no longer felt hungry, but instead a familiar feeling of sadness crept into him.

"It was miserable for the first few years of my schooling, but when Robert's letter came along I think my father finally accepted that magic was just a part of our lives. We fell into a much more comfortable routine as a family after that although things never quite healed between my mother and father."

"Do you still see them?" Harry asked.

"Who? My brothers?" Minerva asked.

"Er- your family I guess?" He amended and she looked at him thoughtfully.

"Well, Robert and Malcom both went on to have families of their own. You probably saw the pictures of my nieces and nephews on the mantelpiece in my quarters at the school." Harry nodded, that explained it then. "They used to visit often, but after Elphie died they moved away and started their own lives although we still write on occasion. My parents are long gone from this world - both of natural causes."

"Who is Elphie?" Harry inquired and regretted it instantly at the struck look across the woman's face.

"Elphinstone Urquart was my husband." Minerva sniffled a bit, but shook away the hand Harry had offered to comfort her. "It's fine - I'm fine. Thank you, dear." She smiled weakly back at him and seemed to steel her resolve. "We were only married for three years, but we had been friends and colleagues for some time longer. He died two years ago in an accident with a magical plant. In fact, I haven't been here since."

"I can go back to the Dursleys. I'm sure the headmaster would give you your job back." Harry offered weakly. He wanted to do something to ease the witch's pain - it was obvious to him that coming back here was difficult for her.

"You will do nothing of the sort." Minerva gave him an indignant glare that cowed Harry back into his chair. "As hard as this may be for me, I am an adult and I can handle myself appropriately. I only brought us here because it is conveniently located close to the castle in case I am needed to help tidy up any loose ends. You needn't feed yourself to the wolves on my behalf, Mr. Potter. I assure you I am capable of managing a few old memories."

"Sorry." He squeaked and waited to be tossed back into his room as he would have been at the Dursleys. He shut his eyes tightly waiting for the impending grabbing and shoving, but it never came.

"Oh, child." Minerva had gotten up and embraced him again. "I did not mean to be so cross with you. I know you were trying to help. I just cannot stand the idea of you going back to that place. I am still very angry at those people for treating you that way and the headmaster for advocating it. I am not angry at you."

Harry simply nodded and snuggled into her robe more closely. He had just woken, but already he felt tired again. He felt the elder witch pick him up suddenly and carry him along the narrow hallway.

"I'm beginning to think you may be coming down with something." Minerva mused more to herself than to Harry as she tucked him back into the bed. "You should not be this exhausted by mere conversation."

Harry just grumbled something intelligible and dug his head into the pillow. His head was starting to ache terribly and his stomach wasn't handling the big portion of food he had ingested well. He idly felt himself getting tucked in again and fell straight into deep sleep.