November 1
1:44 am
Harry had had a simply wonderful time in Professor McGonagall's office. Sadly, the same couldn't be said for the transfiguration teacher.
At fifteen minutes to midnight, when she'd shut the door to her office, taking in note everything that Sirius, James, Lily and Albus had said, she turned to Harry, setting him in a small bed that had once been a Transfiguration Today magazine. "Harry," she said, "Do me a favor and just be a good boy for a little while, please. Why don't you take a look at this Transfiguration book? Quietly, please."
Harry blinked. "Kay."
"Thank you," said Minerva gratefully.
For approximately thirty minutes Harry looked through the book. There were pictures of all kinds of transfiguration. There were bottles turning into books, matchsticks turning into needles, beetles into buttons, animals into water goblets (Harry didn't really see the point of that), and also, interestingly, people turning into animals. There was a picture of a man turning into a dog. Harry squinted at the book. He pointed his tiny finger at the diagram and looked up at Minerva. "Paaaaddfooooot!"
"What?" she said distractedly.
"Unca Padfoot! Unca Sirius!" he said excitedly.
"Let me see," said Minerva. She tugged the book from his hand and stared at the picture of the man turning into a dog. She frowned at the man, "This doesn't look anything like Mr. Black."
"Unca Sirius!" he insisted.
"Harry, he's not an animagus," she said.
"An-mag-us! I heard an-mag-us" said Harry brightly. "Unca Sirius an-mag-us! Daddy an-mag-us! Unca Peter an-mag-us!" Then he frowned. "Unca Remus not an-mag-us. Moony where!"
Minerva McGonagall adjusted her spectacles. "They're all animagi…except Lupin. That explains why they were so good at transfiguration, even Pettigrew, when he was horrible at almost everything else. But…that can't possibly be true, they weren't registered on the list of animagi…unless they were unregistered. Of course, that sounds exactly like something they would do. I wonder what made them become animagi…they never tried very much, although Potter and Black came top in transfiguration every time - unless they were dethroned by Evans," she smiled.
"But Harry, I don't know where Remus is," she said. "Probably on a mission somewhere, or organizing the meeting."
"Moony where!" he insisted.
"I'm not sure, Harry. You are talkative, aren't you," she said fondly.
"Unca Remus where-wolf!" said Harry finally.
"Oh!" said Minerva, realization dawning on her face. Then she narrowed her eyebrows. "Is that why they became animagi? To help Remus, because he was a werewolf? If I recall properly, werewolves don't hurt animals too badly, and they can't turn them into werewolves, either."
Harry didn't get the whole thing. But he knew this much. "Daddy and Unca Sirius and Unca Peter help Unca Remus!"
Minerva sighed. All this time…and she had never noticed. She didn't mind so much that they'd been unregistered anymore. So this was why. She really should congratulate them on becoming animagi, the next time she saw them. "Your dad and Sirius and Remus are all very good people, Harry. You're lucky to have them."
"Unca Peter?" he asked.
"No, not him," she said uncharacteristically unpleasantly.
Harry frowned.
"Long story," she said.
"Story!" said Harry happily. "Story, story, story!"
"Sorry, Harry, I can't tell you a story right now. Maybe later. Why don't you have this book back for now," she said, handing him the transfiguration book.
Harry took the book and flipped through it some more. For approximately another thirty minutes. Then he got bored. Even though his attention span was larger than most babies. But He couldn't read anything, and he'd flipped through the book more than twice already. And a bored Potter was dangerous. Unfortunately, Professor McGonagall, too absorbed in marking essays, didn't see this.
He started pointing at random objects with a face scrunched up in concentration, trying to turn them into other objects, like the pictures in the book. The teacher did notice this.
"Awww," she sighed. "Just like your father. He was particularly good at my subject." To her surprise, a few minutes later, there was a soft 'pop' as one of the books turned into a muggle rubber duck. But it wasn't a normal rubber duck. It was oddly…scary. It had red eyes, sunglasses, spiky feathers, an angry face, scars across its face and a small rubber knife. It looked like a weird combination of Lord Voldemort, Sirius Black, James Potter, Lily Potter when she was mad at someone, Remus Lupin after a particularly bad full moon, Bellatrix Lestrange and a duck. It was certainly creative. But it was SCARY. She knew that she shouldn't be scared of an evil-looking muggle toy, but she was.
She sighed. "You're like your father in other ways, too, I expect." Then there was a larger 'POP' and a burst of red smoke. When it cleared and she blinked, she saw that all the books in the office - the ones strewn across her desk and the ones in her bookshelf - had all turned into demon rubber ducks. Yes, she decided that was what she was going to call them.
"HARRY. JAMES. POTTER! Put that right NOW!" she exploded. The boy just giggled and pointed his fist at her. "Oh, no, you don't, Mr. Potter!"
Thankfully, he didn't turn her into a demon rubber duck. But instead of her hat, it seemed like there was a duck on her head. "Aaargh!"
Harry just clapped his hands and laughed. This was going too far. She had to do something to ensure the next time, it wasn't her. "Oh, Potter, what have I done to deserve this? I'm sorry, Harry. But you're too dangerous. Petrificus Totalus!" and the office was finally quiet. Trying to remember the books (and her hat) she un-transfigured them, and the office was at last devoid of demon rubber ducks. Except one. She'd kept that, and Geminio-ed two more for James Potter, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. Who knew what other kinds of magic pranks they were teaching him?
Around 1:30 in the morning (she was still checking papers; teaching seven years really was a bit much, she reflected), a silvery deerhound floated in through her office window. With Sirius Black's voice, it said, "Hello Minnie (she grimaced). Order meeting at 1:45, Longbottom Manor, bring Harry too".
That was in fifteen minutes! She'd actually unpetrified Harry around thirty minutes ago, because he'd fallen asleep. She went to the bathroom to change out of her sleeping robes and cap and donned her usual school robes and tied up her hair in a bun again. Then she went out again, picked up Harry Potter with his blanket wrapped around him, and Floo-ed to Longbottom Manor. With practice, she landed standing in the fireplace and Tergeo-ed her robes and Harry.
"Hello, Professor McGonagall," said Frank.
She smiled slightly. "You don't need to call me that anymore, I'm hardly still your teacher, you can call me Minerva."
"But, really, er- Minerva, you were the best there was," grinned Alice.
"It's true," said Emmeline Vance.
Dedalus Diggle and Benjy Fenwick smiled. Hagrid shifted in an enlarged armchair, which despite being so large, splintered and cracked under his weight.
"Whoops!" he said.
"That's okay," said Marlene McKinnon from over where she was talking to Dorcas Meadowes, casting a quick 'Reparo' on it.
Alastor Moody grunted. "Everyone ought to learn that one, be useful if any of our security equipment got damaged."
Aberforth Dumbledore and his older brother, Albus (Minerva hadn't even known he'd had a brother until she'd joined the Order), were both at opposite corners of the room and were making no attempts to start up conversation with each other, or even approach each other. The older Dumbledore was engaged in a conversation with Edgar Bones and Caradoc Dearborn. Arthur Weasley was talking to Sturgis Podmore about some or the other eckeltronic Muggle device. Fabian and Gideon Prewett were talking to (or rather, cowering in front of) a red haired woman who could only be their sister Molly (who was actually shouting at them about some sort of prank they'd played, which made Minerva wonder whether the twins had met James, Sirius, Remus and…P- no, that was it. Just James, Sirius and Remus. No one else). Which reminded her. It was almost 1:45. Where were the boys and Lily?
Just then, they all popped into being in the middle of the hall. They all looked very sweaty, but happy. Somewhat happy.
"Lily! We'd been looking for you!"
"James! How are you?"
"Remus! Are you alright? How was the mission? Did you find anything new?"
"Sirius! There you are!"
Lily came over to Professor McGonagall and gently lifted a still sleeping Harry into her arms. "How was he?" she asked anxiously. "Was he any trouble?"
"Oh, perfectly charming," said Minerva in a tone that would've convinced no one. She stuck her hand inside her pocket and drew out the three demon rubber ducks. With practiced Quidditch agility, she tossed them all at once towards James, Sirius and Remus, who had turned to Aberforth Dumbledore. Since they weren't paying attention, the toys hit them on the backs of their heads. Surprised, they all whirled around.
"Minnie!" said Sirius, grinning. "What's this?"
"I never gave you permission to call me that," she said, trying to hold back a laugh. "And that is what your godson turned all the books in my study and my hat, of all things, into. And you still have to call me Professor McGonagall, Sirius Black. All the rest of you, you may call me Minerva."
"Awww. But that's not fair!" said Sirius.
"Well, you don't want me to give you detention, again, do you, Black?"
"No, thanks," said Sirius hastily.
Remus and James were picking up the mysteriously scary demon rubber ducks.
"What even are these?" said Remus.
"I don't know," said James. "But they look like Tommy boy, Lily when she's mad, Padfoot ("Me?" said Sirius, seriously offended), you after a bad moon, er…me, and Siri's cousin Bellatrix Lestrange, you know, the one obsessed with Tommy ("They all are," said Sirius darkly), all mixed up together with a duck.
"Odd," said Minerva. "That's exactly what I thought!"
"They're surprisingly…scary!" said Marlene.
"I think so, too," said James.
"Yeah, right, like you didn't teach him to do that," snorted Lily.
"No, I did not!" said James defensively. "At least not alone. Moony and Padfoot helped, too!" he said shoving them in front of him, one hand on each of them.
They all crashed into each other and ended up in a tangle of the floor.
"Ow, Padfoot, that's my nose!" said Remus.
"Stop sitting on me, Prongsie!" said Sirius.
"Moony! Your shoe is in my face!" said James.
"But we didn't teach him to create demon rubber ducks!" said Sirius.
"Yeah," said Remus. "We only taught how to make rubber ducks that looked like specific people," he blushed, "Oh."
Lily glared at the three of them. "Get up, all of you." The three Marauders were still lying on the floor.
"Right," said Sirius. They all helped each other up. Everyone else in the room, even Mad-Eye Moody was laughing at the silly spectacle.
"Now that it's all sorted, I actually have something to tell you. I am warning you. This may come as a rather large shock, especially for those who graduated Hogwarts in 1978," said Dumbledore, slowly.
James, Lily, Sirius, Remus, Marlene and Dorcas all exchanged glances.
"Especially Lily," continued Dumbledore. She looked at Dumbledore, hoping that it actually was what she thought it was.
The flames of the fireplace turned green once more and a dark figure with shoulder-length black hair stepped out of it.
"May I introduce, for those of you who don't know him," Dumbledore paused to take a breath. Lily was holding her own breath.
"Severus Snape," he finished.
A/N: Cliffhanger! Hey guys, it's Moony. And here's another chapter in which people end up falling on the floor. I should really start counting these instances. I hope you liked the demon rubber ducks, 'cause there's more of them later in the story. If you guys have any other ideas for scary combinations for the demon rubber ducks, please drop us a message, and as always, feedback is welcome!