Hey Lovelies! So I wasn't originally going to post this today, but then I decided that since it is October 4th and Minerva McGonagall's birthday, it is worth putting this up a day earlier than expected. I hope you enjoy it! Let me know what you think!

Chapter 2 – Breakfast at Number 12

The summer sun cut through the moth-ridden curtains the next morning as Harry woke up on the couch. For a moment he didn't know where he was, he sat up and stretched out, his body aching with the strain caused by the dementor attack. The dementor attack! Harry's eyes shot open and he looked around the room. Number 12 Grimmauld Place, that's what the note had said.

He looked around the dusty library and his eyes fell on the blanket-covered person lying on the couch opposite him. Memories of the previous night came flooding back in as he looked across at her sleeping form. He had kissed his professor! And not just any professor he had kissed Minerva McGonagall!

Harry shook his head slowly side to side as he stared at her. She looked different with her hair loose and her teaching robes discarded. As he watched her she began to wake up and Harry took it upon himself to look busy folding the blankets he had used.

"Good morning Mr. Potter." Her voice sounded from behind him and he turned to look at her. She was standing there in a black dress that she must have had on under her robes, her hair loose around her shoulders.

"Good morning Professor." He couldn't help but stare at her she looked different than he had seen her before. She looked, younger? He shook his head a little as she reached back to pull her hair into its normal, tightly wound bun. She definitely looked different.

"How are you feeling this morning Harry, I know that the attacks can take a lot out of you?" There was a friendly concern in her eyes as she spoke to him, carefully looking him over for any injuries she may have missed the night before.

"I'm alright." He gave her a weak smile as he tried to subtly check and see if she had managed to heal all of her own wounds as well. "How are you feeling? You took a more direct hit than I did."

"I'm fine. I've felt better, but it's nothing a little rest and chocolate can't fix." She took a step forward and her breath hitched as she grabbed her ribs. Harry reached across the space between them to steady her.

"Professor, I think there is something wrong." Concern clouded his features as he guided her back to the couch.

"No, there's not. It's an old injury; it flares up from time to time. It's nothing to worry about. I'm sure it will be better in a minute." She took a few deep breaths before attempting to stand up again.

When she did she turned over her shoulder and gave him a rare smile. Somehow it didn't seem as out of place mixed with her features now as it had before. Harry studied her for a moment. "Professor?"

"Yes?" She turned to look at him.

"Is there something different about you this morning?"

"Excuse me?" She looked shocked at his abrupt manners. "What kind of question is that?"

"I'm sorry Professor, it's just that I've never seen you like this before." He pointed to the mirror over her shoulder. "Take a look."

She turned around and found the mirror that he was pointing at. He saw in the reflection as her eyes widened at what she was seeing. The lines on her face had lessened, and the skin around her eyes had tightened somewhat. There were fewer grey streaks in her hair and her cool green eyes had taken on warmth, turning them almost to emeralds. She looked closer to thirty-five than she did to fifty-five. "What happened?"

"I take it you don't always wake up looking like that then?" There was a sarcastic note in his voice and she spun on the spot to face him. Turning her head first to one side and then the other she smiled.

"No, I do not, however there is a simple fix for that." She waved her wand once and the air around her shifted and changed, when it stopped the woman standing before him once again resembled the teacher he knew so well.

"What did you do?"

"It's a simple glamor spell. It hides the changes in my appearance so no one will be the wiser until I figure out why my features have reverted back at least twenty years. I suggest you look closely at yourself though Mr. Potter. It seems that you have changed a bit over night as well."

He stepped in front of the mirror and discovered that she was right. He had changed over night as well. He seemed to have grown a bit, now almost matching the witch in height, whereas yesterday she had been taller than he. Some of the muscles in his chest and arms had filled out; he didn't look as lanky and malnourished as he had the day before.

"I think a growth spurt and exercise will be able to explain the changes Mr. Potter. As for what really caused them." She paused and turned to look at him as she collected her robes from where she had laid them over a chair the night previously. "I have no idea."

She opened the door to the hall and led him down the stairs towards the main hall of the house. When they had both agreed that they were presentable McGonagall pushed the kitchen door open and at once the room hushed. There was a sudden scraping of chairs on the stone floor and all at once Harry found himself engulfed in the arms of his friends and his godfather.

Minerva smiled warmly at the sight of Harry being welcomed, and turned to the table. Molly was watching the scene at the door, but quickly turned her attention to the woman in front of her. "Professor, we didn't know that you and Harry were here. When did you get in? Just now?"

"No." She shook her head as she reached for a piece of toast. "We arrived last night, after everyone had gone to bed. There was an attack and I thought it best to bring Harry here for the remainder of the summer. At least this way we know he will be safe."

"An attack?" Sirius turned over his shoulder to look at his former Head of House. "What kind of an attack? Are the two of you alright?"

"We're fine Sirius, the professor patched me up when we got here, and other than a scrape on my knee that she missed because of my jeans I'm fine." He smirked at Minerva's outraged scoff.

"Let me see your knee then Mr. Potter." She stood from the table and made her way over to where he was still standing by the door. "Why didn't you say anything last night, or this morning when I checked you over again?" She was huffing around at his knee level when she looked up to meet his amused eyes with her angry ones. "There is nothing the matter with either one of your knees. You think this is funny."

She snorted air through her nose as she stood up. When she did her breath caught and Harry grabbed her elbows as her hand flew to the same spot on her ribs. "Sirius!" Harry barked over his shoulder. "Get a healer here now. I don't care who it is as long as it is someone we trust."

Without asking any questions Sirius moved to the fireplace as Harry lowered Minerva into the closest chair. "This is not some old injury that is flaring up. What happened last night?"

"Nothing." She looked intently into his eyes and he knew, somehow, he knew what had happened. It was almost as if he were watching the scene play out through her eyes. He was watching himself, earlier yesterday, when all of a sudden he felt the pain in his own rib cage.

"Nothing my ass." He glared back at her as he winced, suddenly feeling everything that she was feeling.

"Harry!" Hermione was shocked at his language, and in front of Professor McGonagall and Mrs. Weasley! The girl found herself blushing. "That was entirely inappropriate!"

"I don't care Hermione." He looked over his shoulder at her and then around at the Weasley's who were milling about. "Can we get the room please?"

"Mate?" Ron looked concerned but Harry brushed him off.

"Please everyone, the room?" Slowly they nodded and the Weasley's all shuffled out of the kitchen, Ron and Hermione were the last ones left when Sirius pulled his head back out of the fireplace and out stepped Madam Pomfrey. "You two can go as well. Sirius, will you help them out please?"

The older wizard had no idea what was going on, but he guided the two newly appointed prefects out of the kitchen. When they had gone and the door was shut behind them Harry turned back to Minerva. "What happened?"

"You saw what happened." She snapped back at him.

"No I felt what happened! You got hit by a car and didn't think that was worth mentioning!" He wasn't sure why he was so angry with her, but she didn't seem to be in much of a condition to fight back.

"No I didn't. I had bigger things to worry about last night Mr. Potter, and making sure you weren't kissed by the dementors was one of them!"

"So you thought that hours after getting hit by a car you would just willingly jump in front of a dementor to help me?" They were both yelling by now and the majority of the house could hear them.

"Yes I did, and it's a good thing I was there! What if I hadn't been then where would we be now?" She spat back.

"Probably not sitting here with your ribs busted in three places." Madam Pomfrey had been magically checking her over as the two had been arguing. "Hold still, I'm going to mend them and then we are going to have to wrap them. Harry will you please go ask Sirius or Mrs. Weasley for an extra bed sheet?"

Harry didn't take his gaze from McGonagall's until the witch nodded. "Go on. We have plenty of time to figure all of this out, I'm going to need that sheet." He nodded to her and without another word he shot out of the kitchen and up to the library to find Sirius.

When he was gone Madam Pomfrey turned to Minerva. "What was that all about? Why are the two of you screaming at each other? You would normally never let a student talk to you like that."

"I know, I'm not entirely sure what's going on, all I know for sure is this."

She dropped her glamor and Poppy gasped. "Minerva? What on earth? You look twenty years younger."

"I woke up like this this morning. I decided to glamor myself so that no one asks any questions."

"Who all knows about this?" The mediwitch looked concerned for her friend. Magically de-aging twenty years in one night was no little thing. Even for a witch as powerful as Minerva McGonagall.

"Just you and Mr. Potter. He was the one that noticed it this morning, and I'm glad he did. Who knows what would have happened had I walked into breakfast looking like this?"

"Sirius wouldn't have stopped gawking at you and Ron and the twins probably would have fainted." Harry's sarcastic comment floated their way from the door. "Here you go." He held out the sheet to Madam Pomfrey and she used it to bind Minerva's ribs.

"How does that feel?"

"Better." Both Harry and Minerva answered at the same time and Poppy looked back and forth between them.

"You both can feel that?" The pair locked eyes over the top of her head and nodded. "Oh dear." She sighed as she sat back on her heels and her gaze locked on the tiny silver band on Minerva's hand. Her blue eyes shot up to meet her friend's emerald ones, a look of awe reflected in them. "What have you done?"