3. Owl Post

The arrival of the post in the morning was always a sight to behold. In the first week of school even more owls than usual descended into the Great Hall and circled to find their owners. Parents were especially anxious to hear from their children, to congratulate them on having been sorted into their preferred house or having made the Quidditch team, or they were sending them stuff they had accidentally left at home.

At each of the four house tables students eagerly craned their necks to see if they would get news from home. Even if it meant being showered with raindrops when the owls shook water out of their wet plumage. Minerva was no exception. She had finished her letter to her parents on her first day, raving about Transfiguration and telling them in detail how she had been the only one to transform her matches.

A tawny owl headed right for her, but it dropped the large package it was carrying in Augusta's lap instead.

"Sweet!" Augusta grinned. The package was filled with her favourite sweets. "My parents are thrilled that I got into Gryffindor. They were both in Gryffindor, too, you know. Fell in love here at school. But don't mention that to them when you meet them or they'll tell you the whole story. They can be so gross."

Minerva mustered a smile as best as she could. She would really like to meet Augusta's parents. She didn't know many pure-blood families. But she was a little disappointed that she hadn't got word from her parents, too. She wouldn't have needed any sweets. A letter would have been enough.

But she didn't have time to dwell on that because they were learning so many new things and she needed her full concentration in all of her classes. Today they had double Potions for the first time. The Potions master looked like he had eaten too many of Augusta's sweets and he seemed to love to hear himself talk. It took him forever to check the attendance list because he got sidetracked whenever a name was familiar to him.

"Longbottom… why, would your father be Barnaby Longbottom who works in the Obliviator Headquarters at the Ministry?" he asked Augusta.

"Yup, that's him," she nodded.

"Great lad! Helped me out once when I got in a bit of a… well, never you mind now. And then your mother is Maude Longbottom, of course. Oh, do ask her to send me some of her wonderful homemade fudge, would you, dear girl?"

"Sure thing, Professor."

"Excellent! Now, who's next? McGonagall, Minerva?"

She raised her hand and watched as Professor Slughorn mouthed her last name and then clearly came up short. He gave a little shrug and moved on to 'Monahan, Padraig,' with whose uncle Slughorn had gone to school, which led to five minutes of reminiscing and catching up.

Meanwhile, Minerva was beginning to understand why they had a double lesson today. Whoever was in charge of the timetables clearly knew how much time Professor Slughorn needed to get acquainted with his new students. When they finally started with their Potions lesson, Slughorn seemed to know what he was talking about, though.

"I'm sure you're all very taken with all the wand waving and incantation muttering you've been doing in your other classes. But I can assure you that no other subject will teach you how to make someone fall in love with you, go to sleep forever, or even tell you their deepest and darkest secrets. Now, those things are highly illegal, of course, but it goes to show you how much power a true Potions master can wield – and without even poking anyone in the eye with their wand!"

Professor Slughorn beamed broadly at them and proceeded to put them into pairs to mix a simple potion to cure boils. It was incredibly difficult work and Minerva had to check the instructions in Magical Drafts and Potions over and over again to stop Augusta from adding the wrong ingredients at the wrong time. No matter what Slughorn said, she much preferred wand waving and incantation muttering.

At the end of the lesson Slughorn came around the room to check on their progress. Minerva thought that she and Augusta had done all right, and sure enough Slughorn's face lit up when he looked into their cauldron.

"Oho, this is excellent work! For a first attempt truly exceptional! Clearly you have inherited your mother's talent," Professor Slughorn said, looking at Augusta.

"Actually, Professor, Minerva did most of the work," Augusta replied hesitantly, catching both Minerva and Professor Slughorn completely by surprise.

"Is that so?" Slughorn's eyes went from Augusta to Minerva. "Then can you tell me, Miss…"

"… McGonagall," she helped him out when he faltered.

"Right. Can you tell me why your potion does not look like that?" He pointed to their right where Holter and Duncan had ducked under their table for cover because their cauldron was boiling over and burning holes into the floor.

"It looks like they added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire. Arsenius Jigger says on page ten that that will make the potion extremely unstable," Minerva replied.

Professor Slughorn seemed to look at her in an entirely new light. "Quite right, quite right. Well, ten points for Gryffindor, I suppose. Five for each of you."

"Nice," Augusta said when they were leaving the dungeons. "I got five points for doing exactly what you told me to do."

"Why did you tell Professor Slughorn that I did all the work?" Minerva wondered.

Augusta shrugged. "Because you did. And Slughorn already loves me because he loves my mother's fudge. I figured you could use the help more than me. Can't have a teacher who doesn't love you," she teased.

But she didn't say it in a mean way. There seemed to be no jealous bone in her body. For which Minerva was very grateful because she couldn't have stomached a row with Augusta. By the end of the week she was quite thoroughly disheartened. She still hadn't received an answer from her parents.

It was raining nonstop outside the castle windows, casting the Charms classroom into a dim light. The perfect opportunity to learn the Wand-Lighting Charm, according to Professor Sowerby. All around the classroom wand tips started lighting up, some brighter than others, some kept flickering or going out again whether their wand owners wanted them to or not. It certainly made the room look less gloomy. But it wasn't enough to cheer up Minerva.

She wasn't the only one who was a little on edge at the end of their first week. Alison was arguing with Drew Carmel about whether dogs made better pets than cats, and suddenly the sleeve of Drew's robes was on fire. She screamed, jumped to her feet and almost bumped right into Minerva in her panic, very nearly setting her on fire as well.

Minerva quickly extinguished the light at the end of her wand by saying "Nox!" and then pointed her wand at Drew, yelling, "Suffocari!"

Nothing happened at first, but then the fire was slowly snuffed out as though smothered by a blanket. By now, Professor Sowerby had hurried over to them from the other end of the classroom.

"Are you hurt? Do you need to go to the hospital wing?" she asked, checking Drew's arm for injury.

"No, I think I'm okay, Professor. Thanks," Drew said, glancing at Minerva.

Professor Sowerby followed her gaze. "That was some quick thinking you did there. How did you know how to do that? That's no ordinary textbook spell."

"Er…" said Minerva. The truth was she had seen her mother do it once when Malcolm had accidentally set Junior's bed on fire – with Junior still in it – and her mother had panicked. She had later made all of them swear not to tell.

"In fact, I remember seeing that particular wand work before…" Sowerby continued, thinking. "McGonagall, is it? What was your mother's name?"

"Isobel Ross?" Minerva replied, but it came out like a question.

Professor Sowerby smiled widely. "I knew it! I've seen her do that spell in this very classroom. Graduated top of her class in Charms your mother! Never again had a student who was that quick with a wand," she remembered fondly. "How is your mother?"

Minerva hesitated. "Fine."

"Good, tell her hello for me, will you?" Professor Sowerby asked and Minerva could only nod. But she could hardly tell her mother anything as long as her mother wasn't actually talking to her, she thought bitterly.

Preoccupied with her own thoughts, Minerva made her way to Transfiguration. The rest of the class was still working on their first transformation attempts, several more matches now at least turning silver. With her thoughts a million miles away, Minerva almost missed Professor Dumbledore telling her how pleased he had been with her essay. He seemed to think that her distraction meant that she was bored because he placed a couple of pencils on her table.

"I assume you are familiar with what the Muggles call a 'fountain pen'?" he asked.

"Yes, Professor," Minerva nodded. Her father always used one to write his sermons.

"Excellent. Then I would like you to transform these pencils into fountain pens. The principle is rather the same as before, but I think you will find this a bit more challenging."

Dumbledore smiled and he was quite right. When the bell rang, Minerva had created a bunch of writing utensils that were quite impossible to write with. Some of them looked close enough to fountain pens, but inside they were still made of wood or lead, which left Minerva quite flummoxed and frustrated. She had no choice but to ask Professor Dumbledore for more pencils. He handed her an entire pencil case.

During the weekend the Gryffindor common room was packed with students at all hours. The rain still hadn't let up. It was now coming down sideways because the wind had picked up to. The fourth- and fifth-years were especially loud and rowdy. They took the best seats by the fireplace, played Exploding Snap and made it impossible to concentrate on homework. Minerva was the only first-year who was annoyed by this. The others were happy to relax and rest up after their busy first week. Minerva didn't feel like spending time with them. Mostly because Duncan wouldn't shut up about the new broom his parents had just promised to buy for him.

When Chase Abney reminded him for the umpteenth time that first-years weren't allowed to have their own brooms, Minerva left the common room and hid in the library. After she was done with her homework, she took out her pencil case and started practising again. But even hours later she hadn't produced a single fountain pen that had even a drop of ink in it. She knew she was getting more upset about this than she normally would have. She practically whipped her wand through the air and yelled the incantation in anger.

Her newest fountain pen exploded and sent its ink flying – right into Professor Dumbledore's face. He had just rounded a shelf, carrying a whole bunch of books in his arms, and was therefore unable to protect himself.

Horrified, Minerva jumped to her feet. "I'm so sorry, Professor! I'll fix it!" She pointed her wand at his face and yelled, "Scourgify!"

Which caused Dumbledore's mouth to fill with soap.

"Oh no! Oh no!" Feeling as though she was trapped in a nightmare, Minerva raised her wand again, but she was so panicked that she had no clue what to do.

Dumbledore dropped his books on her table and Minerva's wand flew straight out of her hand and into Dumbledore's before she could even think of another spell. He properly cleaned his face, and now that there was no more soap in his mouth or ink on his glasses, he was free to actually look at her.

Minerva wished he wouldn't. He didn't look pleased. "Professor, I didn't mean to… I…" There was nothing she could say in her defence, so she sank back onto her chair and buried her face in her hands to hide the tears that threatened to spill over. She didn't want to cry. She never cried. Certainly not in front of a teacher!

"Now, now, I hardly think this is worth crying over," Dumbledore said calmly. "It's quite possible that I forgot to brush my teeth this morning, so really, you might have just done me a favour."

Somehow the fact that he was joking about this, perhaps even trying to cheer her up, made everything worse. Minerva screwed up her face as hard as she could to hold back the tears, but she clearly wasn't fooling anyone. Dumbledore sat in a chair across from her and wordlessly offered her a handkerchief.

Minerva took it, but she only bunched it up in her fist. "It's not really about this, though I am terribly sorry," she managed to say.

Dumbledore merely looked at her, patiently waiting for her to speak her mind. Or not. She was quite certain that it was completely up to her.

"I haven't heard from my parents all week," she confessed eventually.

"Well, we've been having terrible weather," Professor Dumbledore said lightly. "I myself have only had one owl since Monday and, between you and me, I get a lot of owls, and they generally don't even like me all that much."

Minerva's lips twitched despite her dark mood. "I'm worried that it's not about the weather. My mother… she was crying when I got my Hogwarts acceptance letter and when I left for school."

"I know that it must seem strange to you now, but parents do tend to get rather emotional when they realise that their children are growing up."

"What if… what if they also resent them for it?" Minerva asked quietly.

Dumbledore's eyebrows creased. "I'm afraid I don't follow."

"We live in a Muggle village. My father is the minister there. If people were to find out that my mother is a witch…" She didn't finish that sentence, but she didn't feel like she needed to. "My mother hasn't really done any magic in a long time."

"Ah," Professor Dumbledore said slowly. "I see."

Minerva waited for him to say more, but for the longest time he just sat there with her. At least she didn't feel quite so alone anymore.

"If I were you, I wouldn't count on my owls before they are delivered," he said eventually.

"Because you think that my parents' owl is just late?" Minerva asked.

"Because, judging from what I've seen and heard of your class work this week, I have no doubt that both of your parents are every bit as proud of you as they ought to be," Dumbledore said and rose from his chair. "Having said that, I must warn you to never again use a spell if you're not absolutely certain what it will do."

Minerva, who had allowed herself a hopeful smile, quickly schooled her features. "Yes, Professor."

"Good. Then I'll be handing this back to you." He gave her back her wand.

"Thank you, Professor." She watched as he got ready to leave. "Professor?"

"Yes?"

"Why are you researching dragon's blood?"

Dumbledore looked from her to the books in his arms, whose titles she had deciphered upside down, and chuckled. "Just some light reading for the weekend. I'll be seeing you on Monday."

He left the library and, feeling a lot better and a lot more willing to have company, Minerva packed up, too, and returned to the common room.

"You know how you always tell me that I shouldn't only invite pure-blood students to join my Slug Club?" Horace said while he poured a generous amount of sugar into his porridge on Monday morning. "And get more girls, too?"

"I believe I said that once, yes," Albus replied, sipping his tea.

"I may have found a real diamond in the rough, who's not a pure-blood. She's still too young, of course. Only a first-year, but in a couple of years and under the right tutelage…"

"Are you per chance talking about Miss McGonagall?"

Horace paused with his mouth hanging open. "Don't tell me you found her first!"

"She's not a collector's item, Horace," Albus replied, shaking his head.

"Of course not, but she could make whoever were to teach her look very good, indeed," Horace mused.

"Well, you have a whole year at the very least to teach her everything you know."

"I suppose. But I was rather hoping to be the first…"

Albus frowned. "The first to what?"

"The first to make an impression with her," Horace explained. "We all know there's no competing with you and your flashy Transfiguration trickery."

"Excuse me? I wasn't aware that I was teaching my students magic tricks."

"You know what I mean," Horace said, waving off the insult. "You're not that different from me, you know. You have your favourites and you recruit students for your little fan club. You just don't call it that."

Having no idea how to respond to that accusation (which unfortunately meant that there might be at least some truth to it), Albus remained silent. Which Horace of course took as confirmation. "But I'm not giving up that easily, Albus. She may be in Gryffindor, but I can still convince her that Potions is the best subject to make use of her impressive skill set. May the best man win!" Horace yelled, brandishing a sausage like a sword.

Albus rolled his eyes at him. "I will not wage war against you on the back of a student."

"We shall see, Albus. We shall see!"

But Albus fled the staff table before Horace could draw up battle plans. He was just crossing the Entrance Hall when he bumped into a student on their way towards the marble staircase. When Albus saw who it was, he bit back a laugh and was secretly glad that Horace wasn't around to witness this.

"Sorry, Professor," Minerva McGonagall said. "I was distracted."

Albus followed her gaze to the piece of parchment she had clutched in her right hand. It looked like a letter. Judging from the cheerfulness in her step this morning, it was the letter she had been waiting for.

"Good news, I take it?" Albus asked, pleased that his prediction from two days ago had proven to be correct. He had gone out on a limb with that one. But as complicated as her parents' situation might be, he had refused to believe that there was anything complicated about their love for their daughter.

Her smile confirmed as much. "The best," she nodded. "Thank you, Professor."

"Think nothing of it," Albus told her and continued on his way.

"Professor Dumbledore?" she called after him and he turned around one more time. "I thought you might like a new pen," she said and handed it to him before she hurried off towards Gryffindor Tower.

Albus looked at the pen in his hand. It was a fountain pen in brilliant red and gold colours. Back in his office he carefully set it down on a piece of parchment and the ink flowed easily. Smiling, Albus leaned back in his chair.

Horace was not going to like this.