Authors' Notes:
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Howdy Howdy! We had so much fun writing this!
We were told that trigger warnings were absolutely necessary even if it didn't look like it to us, so here's trigger warnings! Just in case.
winks*
realizes reader can't see me when I wink*
writes down that I wink*
smiles at own cleverness*
frowns after realizing there wasn't a need to wink at all*
forgets to edit this part out*
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Prompts used:
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Beater 1 prompt: Write about receiving a gift or message from an unknown source.
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Additional prompts used:
(Object) message in a bottle.
(Setting) Astronomy Tower.
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So, after reading through the trigger warnings rules, we present this.
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Trigger warnings: violence.
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Also, I went over it and excluding the A/N (authors' notes) this story is exactly 3,030 words long.
:D
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The battle raged. Animated statues fought against werewolves and giants. Suits of armor took fatal hits before getting back up fully repaired.
Dozens of death eaters roamed the grounds, attacking anyone without a mask. The Order of the Phoenix was spread out, defending Hogwarts alongside her students and teachers.
I wish Dumbledore was here right now. McGonagall thought. She slashed her wand and sent rubble flying into two oblivious death eaters. She then commanded a small group of statues to fortify the defenses focused on the Forbidden Forest.
The spiders were swarming.
The crack of shattering stone caught her attention. Sparing a glance, McGonagall watched a group of students blast a giant, knocking it into the Astronomy Tower.
Her breath hitched.
——flashback
Minerva read the note.
Minerva McGonagall, the smartest girl
Her beauty makes my heart twirl
She has the highest grades
Talent and skill in spades
Oh McGonagall you are a shining pearl
A poem written in flowery cursive, about her!
This was her seventh year at Hogwarts and not once had she received attention of this sort. Minerva wasn't one of those girls who snogged the first boy that noticed her. She was the student with the highest grades in the school!
Minerva sniffed as she raised her wand to transfigure it into something useful, like a paperweight, when she paused.
"Well." She sighed, "I wouldn't want to waste somebody's effort even as shabby as this is. Goodness knows I would hate for somebody to just throw away something I've put work into."
She dropped the crisply folded note into her trunk where she determined it would stay for the rest of her time at school.
——
Present day.
Professor McGonagall sent a regiment of moving armor to support the students and take punishment from the giant. The armor would repair itself anyways. It didn't matter if they got a little dinged.
She sent a cluster of hexes down the length of the grounds, churning the earth to force away a group of stray death eaters flanking Flitwick.
Professor Flitwick gave a look of profound gratitude while he rolled under an enemy's legs and launched him skywards with a blast of red light.
The man screamed as he fell.
A crunch and screaming behind caused her to turn and see that a Ravenclaw's leg had become trapped underneath a fallen block of masonry. Masonry that the giant had knocked loose.
The Head of Gryffindor House transfigured the stone into a puma which leaped onto the giant's back, gouging deep claw marks in its thick skin as it climbed towards the head.
The giant roared and a Hufflepuff carried her fallen friend into the castle.
As they dodged around the giant, McGonagall smiled. It was nice that even in the darkest times, courage could be seen in any soul.
——flashback
You shine Minerva
Like a star in the sky
Please say we will meet
-The boy with a twinkle in his eye
"What a waste of parchment." Minerva muttered to herself. "These are not improving."
She was three months into her final year of Hogwarts and this was the eighth letter of complete drivel.
Coolidge Callahan, a fourth year and fellow Gryffindor turned when he heard her talking and noticed the piece of parchment.
"Oh? Found a secret admirer, eh?" He asked, waggling his eyebrows.
Minerva huffed, and shook her head. "Just some foolish boy who should be spending time focusing on learning rather than flattering a random girl to no end."
"Random? So, you know who it is then?" Coolidge inquired.
"Not even a little. I have better things to do than trying to solve the mystery of which of the hundred slackers in this school are trying to get a free ride through finals." She snapped back.
There was a pause that stretched a few minutes.
"Well, it's about time, huh?" He said. "I always figured you would have had someone interested by sixth year at the latest. Plenty of Ravenclaws are attracted to intelligence like yours."
Before Minerva could retort, another member of the study group spoke up.
"That might be true, but she's better than them." Amity Grey said. "You should know, Ravenclaws envy rather than like those who beat them at their own game."
Minerva smiled appreciatively. It was a complement to hear that, even if it was only from a third year. A third year that was failing about half of her classes at that.
"So what does it say?" Coolidge asked.
"The usual." Minerva replied. "Plus a request to meet."
"Ooh." Amity joked. "Sounds like somebody is interested!"
Minerva rolled her eyes. "Need I point out that I don't have a way of replying to it?"
Amity considered that.
"This is why you're doing so bad in classes." Coolidge said.
Amity pouted.
"You aren't doing very well yourself!" Minerva scolded him, "Now get back to studying."
——
Present day.
The enormous creature fell with a thud as a giant with a smile similar to a young Hagrid smacked its head with a chunk of stone torn from one of Hogwart's walls.
The students cheered briefly, then turned to attack the other numerous foes that dotted the battlefield.
A spider twice the size of Hagrid scrambled towards her and McGonagall sent it flying, using the earth it crawled on to launch it into the air. As it fell, whipping its legs around madly, she crushed it with an enlarged desk that she conjured above it.
Catching her breath, the transfiguration master of Hogwarts took a moment to repair the crumbling base of the Astronomy Tower. It wouldn't do to have it collapse when so many students were around, inside, and atop it.
Professor McGonagall watched the cracks vanish and the stone return to the sturdy state it held only moments before.
Almost like she was rewinding time.
——flashback
"Minerva!" A first year Hufflepuff gasped out. "A group of Slytherins…are bullying Hammett!"
She sighed, being Head Girl was the highlight of all her years of Hogwarts, but it was truly a troublesome task.
Head girl was in charge of sorting class schedules for all the girls in Hogwarts, keeping an eye on the prefects and making sure they didn't abuse their authority, and dealing out justice herself.
Following the Hufflepuff around a corner, she stopped and took in the scene.
Six Slytherin first years surrounded a skinny muggleborn, also in his first year.
"Filthy mudblood!" One of them shouted.
"You don't belong here!" Another one added. Two of them pushed him onto the ground and threatened to hex him.
Hands on her hips she shouted to grab their attention. "All of you, come here now!"
The Slytherins scowled, but obeyed. The Slytherin prefects knew to warn their first years about getting on the bad side of head boy, or girl.
"Five points from Slytherin for each of you for bullying and misconduct, and a detention on top of that! I will be informing your head of house. Ten points to Hufflepuff for grabbing me to stop this."
She dismissed them with a wave of her hand and helped the Gryffindor to his feet.
"I don't like this place." The Gryffindor boy whimpered.
"I promise that most of us here are not like that." She said stiffly. "Besides, I thought you were in the house of Godric Gryffindor, the Lion! You are brave and you belong here just as much as the rest of us."
Gary, the Hufflepuff, volunteered to take the Gryffindor boy, Harold, to the hospital wing.
Later, during her nightly patrol, as Minerva walked briskly through the halls, an intricately folded piece of parchment skimmed the floor as it flew towards her from down a side corridor.
When it got close enough to be illuminated by her Lumos spell, Minerva realized it was shaped to look like a dementor.
She shuddered, "Horrible creatures."
As Minerva looked at it, the enchanted origami spoke.
Out of the paper came a smooth, somewhat high pitched voice, obviously disguised through magic alteration.
"Minerva McGonagall, great and wonderful. You are as bright as you are powerful. If you would meet me on top of the astronomy tower, I would be oh so joyful."
Then the tiny paper dementor started hovering away, north towards the astronomy tower.
"Well I know where his strengths lie and it is NOT in verse," Minerva mused, "The Astronomy Tower is in the next part of the castle I must patrol. I might as well take some points away and give a detention to this boy for being out past curfew."
A wry smile dancing on her lips, the Head Girl strode after the paper dementor.
"And for bothering me with love letters for the past five months."
——
Present day.
Spells of varying color scorched the earth around her feet as McGonagall erected a wall of stone behind her, where a Hufflepuff was busy giving another student acromantula anti-venom.
She deflected errant curses with a shielding spell and sent a host of stunners back.
A Ravenclaw stepped up next to her, to shield a stray hex.
McGonagall nodded, she would have to give points for that.
With a twirl and jab of her wand, she sent the offending death eater into a group of his more raggedy looking comrades.
They fell like chocolate frogs down a Weasley's gullet.
She shook the image out of her head. What an unpleasant thought.
McGonagall refocused and sent her patronus to rescue two students from dementors.
Elegantly gliding in the courtyard, she engulfed the trio of death eaters with water from a wrecked fountain.
The bubble of water wasn't large enough to completely submerge them and their limbs flailed about as they tried to escape until she froze the sphere of water and launched it into the back of another giant.
She frowned. Albus could have done that leagues better than I did. She shed a silent tear in remembrance of her mentor.
The ice shattered and the giant stumbled, crushing a host of massive spiders before being hit with a massive tree, held by the single friendly.
"Good job Grawpy!" She heard Hagrid shout.
McGonagall suppressed a little smile.
——flashback
"Cowardly, time-wasting Neanderthal!" Minerva angrily muttered, as she walked down the halls towards the transfiguration classroom.
"Now I know he isn't a Gryffindor! A Gryffindor would have shown up! He could be a Ravenclaw, that charm on the parchment was very well done."
She got in right on time and the Transfiguration Professor started class.
Midway through, she felt a slip of parchment in her desk that was not there before.
Minerva's face flushed with anger and embarrassment. So, he has the cowardice to run away from his own plan to meet, yet he has the GALL to send me more of these letters!?
Not even bothering to read the paper, Minerva crumpled it up and pocketed it, so she could set fire to it later.
Preferably after dark, when everyone was in bed.
It was a typical review lesson, so Minerva had no difficulties following along.
As she hissed out the word for a particularly complex transfiguration, Professor Dumbledore stopped by her seat and asked her to stay after class to speak with her.
"Oh! Yes Professor Dumbledore!" She blushed being too distracted to notice him approaching her desk.
He hummed politely as he walked away, circling of the room.
Come on Minerva! She thought. Focus! Nobody is going to tell the school that you spent thirty minutes waiting for someone in the astronomy tower! Nobody would believe it anyways! Focus!
She went back to her transfiguration work with a new vehemence. Distracted again, she missed when the lesson ended and everyone filtered out.
"Miss McGonagall?"
Minerva looked up. The class was empty and Professor Dumbledore was standing a few feet in front of her, hands clasped gently in front of him as he waited.
"I do believe it is after class and I did not intend for me to do all of the talking." He said in his patient, fatherly voice.
Minerva bushed from embarrassment once again. "Sorry, Professor Dumbledore, I was just trying to focus more on my work."
"And that is very wise of you to do." He conceded, "But every now and then life takes precedence over learning. Sometimes in ways we would never have expected."
She nodded in reply to his words but didn't understand where the transfiguration master was going with this.
Dumbledore let the silence stretch for another minute before he spoke again. "Do you have any plans for after you graduate?"
Minerva nodded. "I will apprentice under a transfiguration master at the ministry of magic and work in Magical Maintenance for a few years. When I have obtained a solid enough understanding of higher magic and become skillful enough, I will then apply for higher and higher positions until I am the top witch in the department. I will then use my influence to help people who were greatly affected by the Grindelwald war."
Dumbledore closed his eyes and held them that way for a second before opening them and speaking, "A noble cause. Have you chosen which master you would like to apprentice under yet?"
The Head Girl froze. She had not. Her plans were much more detailed than the short summary she had given, but they had nothing specific for which witch or wizard she would be apprentice to. She needed to fix this.
"Would you like to be my apprentice?" Dumbledore continued.
——
Present day.
"There you go." McGonagall said, pulling the bandage taut and tying it off.
"Thanks Professor!" Colin McCreevey said.
He was entirely too happy for someone with a large injury on his leg.
"Now go to the Great Hall, Madame Pomfrey and a few students are set up in there."
Colin nodded and limped towards a hole in the ancient, stone wall.
Professor McGonagall turned her attention back to the battlefield, lowering the stone wall she threw up.
Hagrid was running up and down the lines, trying to keep the students safe while also protecting the spiders. She sighed. He needs to fix his priorities.
Grawpy clubbed an enemy giant in the face with a tree trunk, knocking it and some of its teeth out.
The transfiguration teacher turned a nearby death eater into a porcupine.
Human transfiguration was dangerous, but she needed the practice and the death eaters were perfect test subjects.
"Minerva! There you are!"
McGonagall turned slightly and cast a new shield.
"Yes, Filius?" She asked the pint-sized Professor of charms.
"It looks like the death eaters are letting up. I nearly got eviscerated by one of them as they ran, but I got him good, ha ha!"
She couldn't help but chuckle with the little man. His laughter was quite infectious.
"He will never use those legs again." He said darkly.
Her smile thinned.
Filius Flitwick flicked his wand at a couch-sized boulder flying towards the castle.
The boulder swerved and several death eaters screamed, diving out of the way as the boulder attacked them.
——flashback
Minerva couldn't stop smiling.
The Great Albus Dumbledore wanted her for an apprentice?
Classes finished for the day, she found herself with some time before her patrol and decided to visit the Black Lake.
It was a short walk and few people stayed there so late in the evening. Minerva would be alone and have time to think. The talk with her professor left her speechless.
She didn't think she would ever forget his words.
"Miss McGonagall, did you know that the astronomy tower was the first part of the castle that was built?"
"Really?" She had asked.
"Truly." He said. "It was the four founders' stronghold of magic. Where they researched and cast spells that nobody had before seen."
He paused for a second to let her digest what he said.
"That tower has stood for much over a thousand years." Dumbledore said reverently. "I view it as a reminder that while we people may die, our memories live on. Our magic remains. Those who are closest to us, as long as we remember them, stay with us forever."
"Why are you telling me this?" Minerva had asked.
"Because it is your fondest wish to be remembered forever. Now, now, don't give me that look. It was easy enough to discern from your after graduation plans. You don't want to be forgotten."
Minerva lowered her head and nodded. It was true.
"It's alright. Remember, we will never be forgotten. We live on in the memories of those close to us. It was once said that love is the greatest magic of all. I find that I must agree."
Minerva ruminated on that for a long time.
Her thoughts trailed back to it as she approached the lake.
She started as a bottle clinked against a rock in the shallows.
Pulling out her wand, Minerva summoned the bottle and saw that there was a letter inside.
Pulling it out, she read.
Minerva, I deeply apologize for my cowardice. If you would give me the chance, I would love to take you to the end of year ball coming up.
-Your admirer.
She scoffed. No.
She launched the bottle with a spell and it shattered against the bottom of the Astronomy tower.
McGonagall sighed and vanished the mess.
——
Present day.
It caught her by surprise.
Everyone sprinted in terror as the stone monument fell.
The earth trembled in its wake, the crash louder than a hundred bolts of lightning. Darkness covered the area.
McGonagall watch in silent horror as the stones settled. The dust that was swept up from the collapse filled the air, but that wasn't why she cried.
The Astronomy tower was gone. Too many curses had weakened it.
Dumbledore was gone.
The mysterious letters from so long ago were gone. Everything from before was gone.
The fighting stopped and the death eaters left the battlefield.
Voldemort's chilling voice poisoned the air.
So, the coward would be coming himself, would he?
Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress, Transfiguration Master, Head of Gryffindor House, Order of Merlin first class, and Member of the Order of the Phoenix clenched her wand.
He would know her fury.