Author's Notes:
Okay, first off, thank you to everyone who's been reviewing. It's always nice to hear that one's work is appreciated. I would also like to note that if anyone has any constructive criticism or even just wants to make a suggestion because there is something they would like to see, please feel free. I want to hear whatever my readers have to say, short of anything rude (which I would like to note there has been none of).
And so, with that said, here is the last of the notable events in Minerva's rather noteworthy third year at Hogwarts.
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As usual, the hospital wing began to stir to wakefulness at 7:00 in the morning. Mr. Farron came out of his office in his pajamas and robe as he always did, with his little girl Sarah following sleepily at his heels. Thought Minerva had been of late, sleeping in until about 8 o'clock when she would have normally been going off class, this morning she was awake. She'd been in the hospital wing for a week now and before that, in St. Mungo's. She'd had quite enough. She was going to be going to class today, despite the fact that the effort she was supposed to put forward was what she needed to walk for an hour each day as Mr Farron had ordered.
Minerva watched with a sort of charmed fascination as Mr. Farron and Sarah moved toward a tank of glow fish and the young girl, no more than eight, was lifted by her father to reach the tank. They then sat down on one of the empty cots and Mr. Farron took her long brown hair and brushed, then braided it. It was their morning ritual, Minerva knew, and she also knew that Mr. Farron took great delight in it.
There was a great amount of tenderness in the way Mr. Farron handled his daughter. Minerva had seen it straight away and at first had thought the little girl lucky to have such a father. Not everybody did. She had never changed that opinion. However, she had revised her ideas of the girl's luckiness when upon idly comment on Mr. Farron's regard for his daughter, Professor Dumbledore had given her a little background.
Mr. Farron had been absolutely captivated by his wife and had loved her more than anything else. Despite the time he had to devote to his job here at the school they'd managed to spend much time together. The light in his eyes whenever he had laid eyes on her had been undeniable. When they'd had Sarah, he'd been delighted. They'd lived happily for a little over a year, when Mr. Farron's wife had been killed by one of Grindelwald's followers. Mr. Farron had, of course, been devastated, but he'd continued on without fail since that day because of his daughter.
Apparently it had been that event which had caused on the teachers in the school to begin concealing their spouses and children from the world. It had been that fact that had caused the death of Mr. Farron's wife and nobody wanted that to happen to their family as well. Apparently many of the teachers at the school were married, though they kept their private affairs carefully away from their students, whose tongues could be quite lax.
Minerva probably would have felt a stab of jealousy upon hearing this, for she probably would have thought of the fact that her dear Professor Dumbledore could be married, had she not been so busy trying to wipe away her tears. She was very fond of Mr. Farron. While she did not like the medical orders he gave her, she found him to be a very kind-hearted person. He most certainly was the last person who deserved what had happened to him. The idea that someone would intentionally do that to another person was unthinkable—but that did not make Grindelwald or his followers any less capable of it. He'd been created a dark cloud over Europe, and now the world, for years. Only Hogwarts seemed to remain free of it.
On the day that Professor Dumbledore had told her that, it had occurred to Minerva that Hogwarts was not as free of that dark cloud as the students believed.
Mr. Farron tied off his daughter's long braid and the two moved off together into his office. They were going to be flooing to where ever it was that teachers took their children to be cared for during the day.
The door to Mr. Farron's office closed and Minerva sat up in her cot and began to get dressed. Now was her chance to escape and start going to classes again. Minerva felt loathe to break a school rule like this—her sense of lawfulness railed against it—but there were things that went beyond school rules. Her need to be in class and actually doing something qualified perfectly.
Dressed and ready for the day, Minerva grabbed the cane she'd been using to walk and hurried out of the hospital wing before Mr. Farron returned and stopped her. As usual when she walked her legs felt weak and uncoordinated, but her health had been improving and she managed to make good progress out the door.
Free and clear of the hospital wing for the first time in a good long while, Minerva took the longest route possible to Gryffindor tower. She felt like it had been a million years since she had walked down the corridors and hear the sharp taps of her boots on the flagstones. She wanted to savor being able to do what even after long summers away from the castle she took for granted during her yearly stay at the castle.
She strayed near the Great Hall as she walked, near where everyone was eating. She herself was not particularly hungry and did not go into the hall. She did not expect to see anyone out and about in the corridors and was thus very surprised when she spotted Peeves chasing a frog-faced girl down one of the corridors by tipping suits of armor at her. Minerva couldn't help but chuckle. That particular Slytherin was one she found to be particularly unpleasant and she was only sorry to see that he was about to run out of suits of armor to tip at her. If she thought that she would have gotten it back, Minerva would have lent him her cane so he would have something to continue threatening Delores with.
When she finally reached Gryffindor tower, there were only about fifteen minutes until class started. As such the Gryffindor common room was all but empty. There were a couple of seventh years hanging about in the armchair s talking, but Minerva ignored them and began to move towards the girls' dormitory. Before she could reach it, Kiril came streaking strait toward her, nothing more than a furry orange blur. He did as cats will often do when they want something from their owner and put himself right underfoot and she tried to continue her limp-like walk, leaning heavily on her cane. She quite nearly fell flat on her face but managed to stay upright, though barely.
"Kiril! You're going to kill me if you keep that up."
Kiril just looked up at her with large, innocent eyes and mewed pitifully at her. It seemed he'd missed her during her long absence from Gryffindor tower. Minerva softened perceptibly and carefully sat herself on the ground near her long-unseen cat.
As soon as Minerva had placed herself securely on the ground, she found six kilos of orange cat in her lap, purring madly. She sat there for about five minutes, just petting Kiril and giving her beloved pet all of her attention. He'd not been attention starved, she knew that Dan would have seen to that, but he wanted her. Anyone who thought that cats were not loyal, loving creatures was a fool in Minerva's eyes.
She hoped Dan was right. She hoped her animagus form was a cat. There was no creature she was more fond of.
It was all too soon that the five minutes passed and Minerva was forced reluctantly to push Kiril from her lap, struggle to her feet and go into her dormitory to get the rest of her things. She had only ten minutes to do that and get to History of Magic. She might even end up being a few seconds late. Not that she minded. History of Magic was a class where she ignored the teacher and simply read the book. That was far more interesting than listening to Professor Binns talk.
She ended up being more than a few seconds late to History of Magic. She'd run into Malcolm who upon seeing her had run up to lifted her swiftly from her feet and hugged and kissed her, expressing his happiness that she was out of the hospital wing. Between that and their short argument over whether or not he would carry her bag to class for her—he insisted and eventually won out—she never did manage to correct him assumption about her being released from the hospital wing.
When Minerva entered the History of Magic classroom, the first thing that came out of her mouth was a soft gasp. She'd thought Malcolm was kidding when he said that Professor Binns had died and was now teaching as a ghost. She'd not seen any bodies come into the hospital wing, nor heard any hubbub from the teachers and had therefore thought it quite impossible. Floating near the chalkboard and reading from a book, however, was the evidence that Malcolm had not been kidding.
Minerva recovered herself and took a seat in the back. Professor Binns did not even look up. He had no idea she was out of the hospital wing—probably didn't even know she'd been gone—nor did he know that she'd been late. He simply droned on, quite literally dead to the world.
Minerva did her best not to stare and tried to read as she normally did. It was nearly impossible. One did not often suddenly discover that one's teacher had died and continued to teach.
"Kind of weird isn't it?"
"Hrm?" said Minerva, turning to the boy who'd spoken to her.
"Suddenly having a ghost for a teacher, I mean," he said. "First class he came in to teach was a class full of first year Hufflepuffs. They went screaming into the corridors and ran strait to Professor Chantry's class. They all crowded around her scared like she was their mother. It was really funny."
Minerva would never understand why older kids always thought it was so terribly funny to scare the younger ones. It wasn't funny and it scared the poor things out of their skins half the time. At least Professor Chantry had probably been quickly able to comfort her frightened charges.
After the first fifteen minutes of class, Minerva began to found it easier to ignore Professor Binns' new state of being and continue on in the class like she always did. She actually finished the text book about five minutes before the bell rang—she'd made a substantial dent in the book while in the hospital wing—and began reading her book on translating Ancient Runes instead.
Class let out and Minerva found herself walking about 30 paces behind her classmates. She had no friends in her own year and thus no body waited for her or walked with her. That was fine. There was no animosity there, she's simply just happened to make friends with students in higher years. She was casual friends with Aries and he was four years older than she. She simply got along well with older students and not particularly well with those her own age and younger. She did not know why.
Malcolm caught up with her quickly in the corridor and again insisted on taking her bag for her. She argued less this time, figuring that if she so neither of them would be late to class.
Malcolm sat her bag down next to her seat, kissed her swiftly, much to the astonishment and jealousy of a couple of girls in the class, and was running off to Arithmancy. Minerva took her seat and pulled out her wand, eager to begin. This was why she'd snuck out of the hospital wing today. This class right here. She loved it and she'd missed it so. She'd missed it so much that often when Mr. Farron had his back turned, she would practice whatever Malcolm had told her her day's lesson had been on the spare cot next to hers.
The bell was nearly ready to ring and Minerva noticed that Professor Dumbledore was strangely absent. She wondered where he had gotten to. It was unusual for him to not be at the front of the room, smiling at them as they came in. Even when he was away he was nearly always back in the classroom by now.
The bell rang and Professor Dumbledore had still not returned. Minerva wondered where on earth he could have possibly gotten to. She'd never seen him be late to class. Never.
A low murmur had filled the air. It seemed everyone else had noticed the Professor's absence as well.
When Professor Dumbledore finally blew into the class room ten minuted late, he did not apologize as Minerva would have expected him to. Instead, he spoke not a word and began walking straight towards her, a rather authoritative sort of angry look on his bearded face. Instantly, Minerva knew where her Head of House had been. Mr. Farron must have called him down to the hospital wing to tell him of her absence. He was going to make her go back.
But she did not want to go back. She'd snuck out of the hospital wing to come to this class specifically. She wanted to go to the others too, but this one was the reason.
Thinking quickly, she transfigured her cane into a fly, which flew quickly away. There. Now she couldn't go back. She couldn't walk without that damnable cane.
"Miss McGonagall, Mr. Farron has just informed me that you are to still be in the hospital wing, not in my classroom."
She simply looked at him and did not say anything. It would be silly to deny what was true, but he had not yet told her to back.
"Might I suggest that you return there, then? Before I begin deducting points from Gryffindor?"
Now was the time to say something. "But, sir, I can't. I can't walk without my cane."
"You mean the one you transfigured into a fly a few moments ago?" He asked with a raised auburn eyebrow.
"Yes."
"No matter," Professor Dumbledore responded and Minerva thought that he was about to turn some random item off of his desk into a cane, then order her off to the hospital wing.
That was fine with her, she decided. She would turn the entirety of Dumbledore's desk into flies if there was a chance that it would allow her to stay.
It was because of this, that Albus Dumbledore's next move took her completely off guard. He simply leaned down and picked her right up off her chair.
"Excuse me, while I go return Miss McGonagall to the hospital wing," he said to the class. "If you will all pass out the candles I have sitting on my desk, hopefully we may get started as soon as I return."
Minerva had been too stunned by Dumbledore's actions to do anything as he spoke. There was an almost sputtering disbelief in her that he was carrying her back down to the hospital wing, his arms wrapped securely about her back and legs and his beating heart in close proximity to her body.
This quickly dissipated, however, as anger took hold of her. Who was he to be forcefully taking her anywhere? The nerve of him. Her wand was still clutched in her hand. She could do something about this.
She turned his hair purple.
Some students gasped, others laughed and still others looked at their professor's hair in stunned silence. Professor Dumbledore simply continued on, taking Minerva back to where she belonged. Perhaps he had not noticed his hair changing colors.
So she turned his beard purple too.
He still continued on.
Minerva's temper grew. Her eyes were a brilliant green, her mouth practically non-existent from the thin line it form and her cheeks were alight with a brilliant pink. This was war. She was not going back to the hospital wing to sit in bored solitude for another however many days.
She turned his hat to a large parrot.
He kept right on walking.
She turned one of his shoes into a wooden box.
He still kept walking.
She turned his other shoe into a mouse, which quickly scampered off his foot and into a crack in a nearby wall.
He kept walking, his steps now uneven as one foot was bare and the other in a box. It did not seem to matter to him.
She turned his robes into a jester's motley, then a dress rather like the one her muggle grandmother wore. He did not care, he simply continued on. There was nothing she could do to stop him, try as she might.
They reached the hospital wing and Professor Dumbledore walked strait past Mr. Farron and placed her on her bed. She stared at him, her face sharply defiant, her arms crossed and her wand clutched tightly in her hand.
He placed his hands on the bed on either side of her and brought his face so close to hers that their noses nearly touched. Her eyes blazed green at him and he stared back at them, not backing down in the least, but instead telling her firmly exactly what was what.
"Fifty points will be taken from Gryffindor. You will serve two nights detention with me as soon as you are released from the hospital wing. You are never to so much as think about ever doing that again."
And with that he pushed himself sharply off of her bed and strode calmly from the room as though nothing had occurred, his steps still uneven from the box and the bare foot.