A/N: Thank you all for the great feedback on the last chapter. Here's the next one. Hope you enjoy. :)
19. Dark and Light
In the following weeks Minerva threw herself into both Quidditch and her schoolwork with all her might – proving to Professor Dumbledore that she was still the extraordinary student she had always been. Even if he no longer seemed to think so.
Which wasn't completely true. In fact, Dumbledore acted as though nothing had changed. No matter how intently Minerva glared at him or how she virtually punched the air every time she raised her hand in class, he called on her with the same soft smile on his lips and generally calm demeanour as always. It was like waging war against someone who was completely unaware of your hostility and showed no intentions whatsoever of fighting back. Which made it rather impossible to fight them at all.
Minerva barely noticed what else was going on around her as she spent another breakfast picking at her food and staring up at the High Table where Professor Dumbledore was chatting with Professor Sowerby. (She was the most powerful witch among the female teachers of Hogwarts; perhaps she would be sympathetic to Minerva's request?)
Robert was just telling Malcolm how much he loved Care of Magical Creatures, though Malcolm wouldn't need to choose additional subjects for another year. "Look, this is what we did yesterday."
"Er, you played hangman in class?" Malcolm guessed. Minerva glanced at the scroll of parchment Junior had unrolled and snorted.
"No, we learned about Bowtruckles. We were supposed to draw them," Junior explained indignantly.
"They don't look very scary to me," Malcolm noted. "You said that you get to see lots of dangerous creatures!"
Junior quickly rolled up his Bowtruckle drawing. "We do. Just the other day I heard the gamekeeper and his assistant argue about some kind of monster that's shown up in the Forbidden Forest. Apparently, all the other creatures are terrified of it."
"What is it?" Malcolm asked, his eyes wide.
"No one knows, do they? Because no one's seen it yet and lived to tell the tale," Robert said with mock sincerity.
"Will you stop scaring him?" Minerva finally butted in.
"I'm just telling it as it is," Robert protested. "I'll ask Professor Kettleburn if next lesson we can go into the forest and look for it."
"Don't be ridiculous. Students aren't allowed in the forest," Minerva reminded them both, slipping into her prefect voice. "Professor Kettleburn will never agree to it."
Or so she hoped. Minerva didn't really know him, but he did have a reputation for being on probation even more often than he visited the hospital wing.
"Just because your teachers don't agree to things you want to do doesn't mean the same goes for all of us," Robert delivered a perfectly well aimed blow that caused Minerva to fall silent again.
She was so distracted, she almost missed the announcement that Apparition lessons would be starting soon. But once she had read the sign on the notice board and signed up, Minerva was just as excited as her fellow classmates. Here was another thing into which she could channel all her pent-up anger and energy.
The Apparition lessons quickly turned into a race between her and her fellow prefects, Eric Elcoat and Padraig Monahan, as to who would manage to Apparate first. Minerva won. Only she didn't reappear on the mark two feet in front of her. She overshot it by a wide margin and almost crashed right into Professor Dumbledore, who only just managed to step aside. All four Heads of House supervised their Apparition lessons because the instructor from the Ministry couldn't be expected to keep all of the sixth-years in line on his own.
The problem wasn't that Minerva hadn't listened to him.
Destination. Determination. Deliberation.
The problem was that all those things led her right to Professor Dumbledore every time.
Funnily enough, that did not change his mind about teaching her to become an Animagus.
The Ministry instructor assured Minerva that overshooting her mark was nothing to worry about because any Apparition attempt that did not result in Splinching was considered a full success at this stage. Then he launched into a couple of truly horrific stories about students who had splinched themselves in a myriad of ways. Minerva tried to give Professor Dumbledore a meaningful look. She could have lost an arm or a leg or half of her intestines while trying to Apparate and yet no one seemed to think that should stop her from doing so!
Professor Dumbledore, however, seemed perfectly unaware that she was trying to get his attention. Never mind that she had practically just stomped on his foot.
Thoroughly frustrated, Minerva spent the evening in the library, reading a chapter called "The Terror of the Twin Heartbeat" in an old tome about Transfiguration history. She was hoping for a new argument she could make. But as the title had already suggested the chapter did little to make the transformation into an Animagus sound less frightening.
Minerva slammed the book shut in annoyance and replaced it, wincing in pain when she cut her hand on a jagged edge of the shelf. Cursing under her breath, Minerva held up her hand as to not get blood on the books.
"Come over here. You can soak your hand in this."
Minerva whirled around in surprise and spotted a young girl from Hufflepuff who was sitting at a table by the window. She pointed towards a bowl filled with some kind of blue liquid that stood next to a pile of her schoolbooks.
"You're a first-year, aren't you?" Minerva asked as she slowly approached her table. She thought she remembered girl's face from the Sorting, which she had watched closely this year because of Malcolm.
"Yup, but this is still going to help. Cross my heart and hope to die," the girl said with an infectious grin.
Quirking an eyebrow in amusement, Minerva slowly lowered her hand into the bowl. Immediately, the bleeding stopped and the stinging eased. "What is this?" Minerva asked, now both of her eyebrows raised.
"Murtlap Essence," the girl replied. "Great for healing cuts and abrasions. I just used it myself." She lifted her arm and pulled back her sleeve to reveal a dozen cuts and bruises that were in the process of healing.
Minerva's heart skipped a beat when she saw that. "Who did that to you? Did you tell a teacher? Or a prefect? I can help you. You don't have to be afraid."
Bemused, the girl shook her head. "That's awfully kind of you, but this was only Peppers."
"Peppers?" Minerva repeated. She didn't know anyone by that name. "Which house are they in?"
"Hufflepuff, I guess, because that's where I'm sleeping. Peppers is a Devil's Snare, you see?"
"You have a Devil's Snare in your dormitory?" Minerva asked, aghast.
"Only a tiny one. He's not dangerous. Just gets a little handsy sometimes if I forget to cut him."
That much was obvious. "I'm sorry, but you really can't keep it in the castle. You should talk to Professor Beery and ask him to move it into one of the greenhouses."
The girl bit her lip. "Yeah, I suppose..." The other girls in her dormitory had probably already told her the same thing.
Though Minerva couldn't relate, she could tell that this made her sad, so she said, "I'm sure Professor Beery will take excellent care of your plant. Most of the greenhouses are always open, so you can visit it... him... Peppers."
"Good idea. I'll definitely do that," she said, brightening up. "My name's Pomona, by the way. Pomona Sprout."
"Minerva McGonagall."
"There's a Malcolm McGonagall in my Herbology class," said Pomona.
Minerva nodded. "That's my brother."
"Brilliant."
"So, you have a green thumb then, huh?" Minerva noted.
Pomona grinned at her. "What gave it away?"
Glancing over her shoulder, Minerva asked, "You don't happen to have a Mandrake in your trunk by any chance?"
"A Mandrake? No, can't say that I have. Blimey, they're a handful!"
"As opposed to Devil's Snare?" Minerva said dryly.
Pomona giggled. "Oh, okay, yeah. Well, I don't have any. But I could ask Professor Beery..."
"No!" Minerva said quickly, once again looking behind her. "That's all right."
"Are you waiting for someone?" Pomona wondered.
Yes, for Professor Dumbledore to be standing right behind her and kick her out of school because she was inquiring about ingredients for a certain forbidden potion, Minerva thought wryly. "No, but I better get back to my homework. Thanks for this," she said, lifting her hand out of the bowl with Murtlap Essence.
"Thanks for being nice to me," Pomona replied, beaming.
Next Saturday morning at breakfast Malcolm plopped down on the bench at the Gryffindor table next to Minerva and said, "Pomona Sprout told me to tell you that the thing you're sorta kinda not officially looking for is in Greenhouse three."
Minerva almost choked on her pumpkin juice and looked up at the staff table in sudden paranoia. But Professor Dumbledore wasn't there. He had left the castle last night for an urgent meeting of the Wizengamot. She knew that because the other Heads of House had talked about it during their Apparition lesson where Dumbledore had already been absent.
So Minerva relaxed again and laughed. That Pomona Sprout was one smart cookie.
Of course, the information she had passed on to her was completely irrelevant to Minerva and she tried to put it out of her mind during Quidditch practice that afternoon. But after practice, when the rest of the team had gone back up to the castle and the grounds were mostly empty, Minerva found herself skulking around the greenhouses. She felt like the proverbial donkey with the carrot dangling right in front of her nose, only that she was very much aware of the stick it was tied to.
"Oi! You there!"
Minerva jumped so badly, she made sparks shoot out of the tip of her wand. She knew it couldn't be Dumbledore because he had never and would never address her with "You there." But her guilty conscience had still overreacted.
She turned around and looked up in alarm as she saw a giant man who was coming right at her. She quickly recognised him as the gamekeeper's assistant, but it was still a frightening sight. Luckily, he stopped just in time, as he would have run Minerva into the ground otherwise. "Yer a prefect, ain't yeh?"
"I am," Minerva confirmed, though she felt a little less certain than usual.
"Good, 'cause I need yeh to get help..."
Taking in the man's wild hair and dishevelled look with some dirt on his face, Minerva ventured a guess. "Is this about that... that creature that's rumoured to have appeared in the Forbidden Forest?"
"Heard of it then, have yeh? 'Course yeh have. Well, Professor Kettleburn brought a Fire Crab in for his N.E.W.T. students an' it go' away. He said it was okay. It should live out the rest o' its days in the forest. Only, it was a female, yeh see..."
"What's that got to do with anything?" Minerva snapped, annoyed that there was even prejudice against women when it came to magical creatures.
Except, the gamekeeper seemed to be miles away with his thoughts. "Nothin', 'cept she might have run into him... "
Minerva had no idea who "he" was and she felt completely lost in this conversation since she had never even taken Care of Magical Creatures. "What kind of help do you need?" she asked to get back on track.
Relieved, the gamekeeper pulled his mind out of the forest. "It's not me that needs help. Students been tryin' ter sneak into the forest ter see the creature an' we've managed ter stop 'em all. But Ogg's down in the Hog's Head an' I was helpin' out Professor Beery with somethin' an' when I got back, I found tracks leadin' into the forest."
"You're saying there are students in the forest?" Minerva's eyes widened in concern.
"Must be. Two sets o' footprints. One bigger, one smaller. I'd have followed 'em, but I'm not supposed teh. When it's students, I'm supposed ter get a teacher..."
He scratched his head and Minerva realised that he was still a very young man. It was just hard to tell because he was so abnormally tall. And he was only the assistant gamekeeper, but if the real one was off drinking, that wasn't much use either. But the missing students definitely needed help.
Minerva froze. Two students, he had said. One bigger, one smaller. Robert and Malcolm had walked down to the Quidditch pitch with her earlier to watch, but by the end of practice they had disappeared. She had assumed that they had got bored and returned to the castle. What if they had gone the other way? She only knew about this "monster" because Robert had told her about it. He had also said that he wanted to go look for it. Show it to Malcolm. But surely, he couldn't possibly be that stupid...
Fear crashed over her in waves. Why, oh, why had she never taken Care of Magical Creatures? One bloody subject more wouldn't have killed her. But it just might kill her brothers.
"Go back up to the castle and get... get help!" she said, her voice constricted. She had wanted to say "get Professor Dumbledore," but he was still miles away in London. "I'll go look for them."
"Wha'?" Startled, the gamekeeper tried to grab her, but Minerva was already running. "But yeh can't go on yer own!"
"Just get help!" Minerva hollered back, sprinted past the little cabin by the forest's edge and then she was swallowed up by the trees.
She found the tracks the gamekeeper had mentioned and followed them for as long as she could. When the trees thickened, it got too dark and the trail was lost. It didn't help that dusk was beginning to settle. Minerva wasn't sure if she should light her wand. It meant to see, but also to be seen. Robert and Malcolm had clearly ventured deep into the forest, if these were truly their footsteps.
How could they have been so stupid? So reckless? Or, a small voice added, so fed up with living in her shadow. This was a path Minerva had definitely never taken. It was sheer madness! She would have never believed them capable of such lunacy. She would wring their necks if...
If they were still alive.
Minerva shuddered at the thought. It was too horrible to dwell on. She needed to find them. She knew some spells that could help, but they would still take time. Time her brothers might not have. There was one other spell. Professor Hawkyard had only mentioned it in passing. He had never actually demonstrated it for obvious reasons. It was crude, dark even, and placed too much importance on blood. But in this particular case...
She shook back the sleeve of her robes and pointed her wand at her left forearm. "Diffindo!" Minerva hissed as the spell cut her skin and a thin stream of blood began to trickle down her arm. Quickly, she pressed the tip of her wand into the fresh wound and thought, "Point me!"
A perfectly round drop of her own blood rose into the air and hovered there, pulsating rapidly. For a wonderful second Minerva thought it would reverse course and zoom back towards the castle, but then a thin string of reddish light appeared, leading her deeper, deeper into the forest. There was no longer any doubt. Robert and Malcolm were in there and she had to follow them.
Minerva ran, ducking under low-hanging branches and stumbling over roots thicker than her whole body. She tried to ignore all the odd-looking shapes and shadows that might be nothing or might be something she wouldn't ever want to meet. She didn't know for how long she ran, but her lungs were burning and her breath was ragged when she heard them.
Malcolm was yelling and Robert was trying to shush him.
Faster even than the mad beating of her heart Minerva broke through the thicket onto a clearing. She saw her brothers and she saw... something stalking them. Without thinking, Minerva pointed her wand and yelled, "Expulso!"
There was a loud bang and the thing, whatever it had been, was blasted off into the darkness.
Malcolm, clearly scared out of his mind, hurled himself at Minerva and wrapped his arms around her midriff. "Minerva! You're here! You came for us! I want to go back to the castle!"
Robert stayed where he was, but he couldn't hide a glimmer of relief in his eyes either, which made Minerva think that she should get them to safety first and yell at them later.
But getting back wouldn't be easy because the blood magic that had led her to this clearing was gone, having fulfilled its purpose. Only now Minerva realised that she had forgotten to mark her path in any other way, making it a lot harder for her to retrace her steps or for anyone from the castle to find them.
Stupid, stupid witch, she cursed, kicking herself mentally, but it was no use. They would have to go slow then.
"Let's go. Before that thing comes back," she said with as firm a voice as she could muster. "Unlike certain other people I don't have to find out what kind of monster it is."
"That wasn't the monster," said Robert.
"What?"
"That was just…"
"Ssh!" Minerva held up a hand to silence him. "Are you hearing this?"
There was no need for Robert to answer because the noise that had been faint at first was swelling. The undergrowth was quivering, moving, and then it broke out of the darkness of the forest onto the clearing.
It was not a monster. As in just one. It was a whole army of them. They were small, not much larger than a Quaffle, but there were dozens, hundreds. They looked like a cross between that Fire Crab the gamekeeper had mentioned and an Acromantula. Minerva didn't need to study Magical Creatures to figure that out. The eight legs and sharp pincers were a dead giveaway.
Her heart plummeted and she could feel the blood draining from her face. "RUN!" she yelled and pushed Malcolm off her and towards Robert, who groped for his brother's hand and for once did as he was told.
It only took a second for Minerva to realise that they could never outrun these things. She turned back around and raised her wand. Abandoning nonverbal spells for the satisfaction of voicing her terror, she did as many rapid-fire spells as she could think of. "Stupefy! Impedimenta! Evanesco! Stupefy! Vera Verto! PROTEGO!"
Every crab–spider mutation that she hit got stunned, frozen, vanished or turned into water goblets, but there were so many of them, it made hardly any difference. They poured onto the clearing in waves and simply scuttled right over their fallen comrades. With so many assailants Minerva's Shield Charm couldn't hold for long.
"Get off the ground! Climb!" Minerva screamed at her brothers, her voice shrill with her mounting panic. She couldn't find a spell that was truly useful. "Duro! Locomotor mortis! Petrificus Totalus! Immobulus! PROTEGO!"
Several more mutants rolled away harmlessly, their legs bound, petrified or literally turned to stone. Many more were stopped mid-movement by the Freezing Charm. But the rest simply climbed over them and they started climbing the trees, too, when Minerva's protective shields got in the way. Being half spider, of course they could climb!
"Confringo!" Minerva roared, blasting a hole into a cluster of monsters. Her spell took half of the tree her brothers were climbing with it. The tree swayed dangerously and Robert and Malcolm could barely hold on to the branch they had just reached.
It didn't really matter because they weren't any safer up there than down here. There was no more safety anywhere unless Minerva could think of something to do and think fast. Help, they needed help.
There had to be something, anything. Something Dumbledore had taught her. Something he would do. But then, Dumbledore was Dumbledore. He could do anything. He was the greatest wizard there ever was. But he wasn't here. And yet, there had to be something he had once said to her. She just needed to remember. Well, he had probably said not to be dumb enough to go into the forest or else suffer the consequences. No, he wouldn't say that. He wasn't vindictive. He was a protector. A guardian. And she was failing him. Failing her brothers. Failing…
The most beautiful sound Minerva had ever heard suddenly filled the clearing, filled her ears and her heart. A musical cry so powerful and pure it strengthened her spirit and uplifted her soul. Suddenly, there was hope.
A red flame erupted against the night sky and Dumbledore's magnificent phoenix swooped down and scattered another wave of oncoming creatures. They shied away from the blinding light that emanated from the magical bird. But they were half Fire Crab, they couldn't be burned, not even by a phoenix's flames.
"Fawkes!" Minerva breathed, momentarily dazed.
Fawkes had come to help. Fawkes, who was a phoenix. Relief crashed into her, profound, all-encompassing, overwhelming relief. "Fawkes! Take my brothers! Get them out of here!" she cried.
Fawkes circled closely around her head.
"No, not me! Them! Save them! Please!" Minerva begged of him.
He ruffled his feathers impatiently, but he flew over to the tree that her brothers were barely still clinging to. Robert was firing a couple of spells of his own towards the ground.
"Robert! Take Malcolm and hold on to Fawkes!" Minerva told him.
"What?" he shouted, looking at her like she was barking mad.
"The bloody bird, Robert! Grab the bird's tail!" Minerva yelled back.
Holding on to Malcolm with one hand, Robert shakily lifted the other one and reached out for Fawkes' bright and quivering tail feathers, clearly expecting to be burned. Instead, Fawkes beat his wings and lifted both Robert and Malcolm off that tree into the air as easily as if they were made out of nothing but cotton candy.
Once again Fawkes swooped down low over Minerva's head, now with both of her brothers hanging on to his tail. Even though his eyes were round and petrified, Malcolm held out his hand for her, his fingers stretched apart as wide as they would go.
But another wave of creatures was coming and Minerva had to jump back, firing curses. She was terrified that Robert or Malcolm wouldn't be able to hold on for long. "Go! Get out of here!"
Fawkes began to rise up into the air, up and up, and then he was gone. Without his light and his warmth, Minerva had never felt more alone.
"Expulso!" she cried again, but her attempts were getting feeble. The strength that the phoenix's song had given her seemed to have vanished with him. There were just too many of them! She couldn't even see all of them in the darkness. Some of them pierced her feet with their pincers, burned the hem of her robes and her legs underneath. Minerva buckled and her wand fell out of her hand.
With a bitter sense of disappointment, she wondered if this could truly be the end.
There was an almost inhuman roar and something enormous, gigantic even, rumbled onto the clearing, charging right into the sea of creatures. It was a man, a huge man, who Minerva faintly recognised as the gamekeeper's assistant from earlier, before he went down and disappeared under an onslaught of monsters.
With enough of them drawn away from her, Minerva suddenly found that she could reach for her wand again. Her fingers closed around it securely. Only what to do with it? Individual spells were of no use. She needed something more powerful. But there was nothing here, nothing for her to transfigure, nothing but trees…
Raising her hand and waving it in one giant circle, Minerva bellowed, "Piertotum Locomotor!" She had only a single thought left. Defend!
A hush fell over the clearing. The leaves of the trees that had swayed in the wind began to quiver and shake. Suddenly, roots started shooting out of the forest floor. They pierced the creatures' weak underbellies or pulled them under, swallowed them up beneath the earth. The trees were bending, their branches swept monsters up and away by the dozens, brushed them off the trembling form of the gamekeeper, crushed them, stomped them until, eventually, they were all gone or scattered.
Her wand fiery warm in her hand, Minerva collapsed and landed on the forest floor, breathing heavy. One after the other the trees became still again.
"Thank you… um…" she faltered when she realised that she didn't even know the name of the gamekeeper's assistant.
"Hagrid. 's just Hagrid. Everyone calls me that," was his response.
"Nice to officially meet you, Hagrid."
He didn't get to answer because now there were other voices coming.
"There they are! Up ahead!"
"Merlin's Beard! Did you see the trees move?"
Professors Sowerby and Slughorn burst onto the scene. Sowerby ran over to Minerva, Slughorn stopped in the middle of the clearing with his wand raised high.
"Are there any more of these things?" He asked with a strange mix of fear and hope, eyeing the corpses that lay all over the clearing.
"I don't think so," Minerva managed.
"Fought them off, did you, my dear girl? Well, of course you did!" Slughorn roared.
"Will you stop shouting?" Sowerby hissed before she turned back to Minerva. "Are you badly hurt? Can you walk?"
Minerva nodded because she wanted nothing more than to get out of here.
"What should we do about these?" Slughorn asked, picking up a dead creature and looking at it intently.
"I can take care of 'em," Hagrid offered. "Round up what's left of 'em."
"No, you should come to the hospital wing, too. Let Ogg deal with this. Really, I thought that's why we had a gamekeeper! And of course Silvanus is off visiting his brother." Sowerby shook her head.
"Really, Professor, I can do it," Hagrid insisted. "Should be me, really, since it's me fault."
Sowerby frowned. "Why would this be your fault?"
"Er," said Hagrid.
Minerva got back to her feet but swayed a little, which Professor Sowerby noticed with alarm. She seemed to decide that everything else could wait. "Never mind now. Let's get you back to the castle."
They slowly made their way out of the forest. Right next to the gamekeeper's cabin, much to Minerva's surprise, waited Robert and Malcolm. Professor Beery was taking care of them, but they had been anxiously watching the forest. As soon as Minerva emerged, they ran at her, almost knocking her off her feet. But she didn't mind and she hugged them back as hard as she could.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," Robert sobbed into her shoulder.
"That's enough now, boys. Let her breathe," Beery separated them.
When Minerva was given room, she spotted Fawkes. He was sitting on the front steps of the cabin, watching them all with his beady eyes. Minerva staggered towards him. Now that she had confirmation that everyone was safe, she suddenly felt bone tired, but she made it over to him.
"Thank you," she whispered. "For my brothers."
She awkwardly reached out to touch him. When she saw a tear glistening in his eyes, she thought for one delirious second that she had hurt him. But then the tear dropped onto her arm and healed one of her many cuts and she understood.
Minerva smiled at him.
And then she blacked out.
When she woke up again, it was to the sound of her mother yelling. She must have been unconscious for quite some time. She was lying in the hospital wing and she was still terribly tired. But none of that really mattered because Minerva had never heard her mother be beside herself like that.
"You could have got yourselves killed! You very nearly got your sister killed! All because she was trying to save you two fools!" Isobel was yelling.
There was a voice closer to her bed that said, "Go back to sleep, Minerva."
She opened her mouth. She wanted to say something to defend her brothers, though she didn't really know what.
"Sleep, Minerva," Dumbledore said again and Minerva slept.
Later that night Albus Dumbledore entered his study, to which Fawkes had long since returned.
Albus finally took off his travelling cloak. He had headed straight to the hospital wing upon learning what had happened when he had returned to the castle from London.
Now the man and the phoenix regarded one another for a rather long time.
"You came to her aid when I couldn't," Albus finally said. "Well done, my friend. Very well done, indeed."
Fawkes only continued to look at him solemnly.
"It's because of the sweets she's been giving you, isn't it?"
The phoenix cocked his head and gave a soft musical cry.
"Yes," Albus said softly. "I know."