QL, Kestrals, round 2, Chaser 3, Carnelian - Orange: Write about self-love. Occasional prompts: [character] Minerva McGonagall, [word] pie, [action] nodding.

Betas: Grace Clarke, Aya, Ivy. Thank you so much!

Word Count: 1036

Minerva McGonagall walked back into her office with a large slice of pumpkin pie, freshly made by the house-elves at her request. She knew it was unusual to eat pie at five in the morning, but it was one of the only times in the day she consistently had to herself without students or her fellow professors interrupting her.

As October drew to an end, students and professors alike were going to the Great Hall for breakfast later and later to avoid the watchful, beady eyes of the newest professor hovering over them. Still, she presumed the solitude of eating alone at least once a day. It was her way of taking care of her sanity and herself.

With a deep, satisfied sigh, she sat down on her chair and pressed her fork into the pie, letting the orange pumpkin pieces fall onto the plate, and relished the taste as it almost melted in her mouth.

This was bliss.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

Her eyes shot to the door, and she placed her fork down.

5:03 am.

Who on earth could be up at this time? She composed herself, begging anybody who would listen that it wasn't that wretched wanna-be teacher Dolores Umbridge.

"Enter," she called a second after the knock.

Slowly, the door squeaked open and a timid fifth-year entered her room. Her surprise at this specific fifth-year student, Neville Longbottom, being awake wasn't as shocking as him being a brighter orange than the pumpkin in her pie.

Minerva nodded for him to take a seat, placing the plate with her piece of pie over to one side before sitting back down. Situations like these, however hilarious they were, always made her want to take a spa day far away from the madness of educating children. How do they find themselves in these situations, anyway?

Managing to keep herself composed, she regarded her student.

"How may I assist you, Mr Longbottom?"

Neville looked down at his hands. "I don't know what happened, Professor!"

"It seems you have coloured your skin, somehow," she pointed out bluntly. He nodded in agreement. "Have you been in contact with any unusual plants or herbs?"

He shook his head but then hesitated before nodding. "Yes, but they're not unusual to me. I have studied them under Professor Sprout. They couldn't have turned me orange… At least, I don't think so. No, they couldn't!"

Professor McGonagall nodded along, trying to decipher his tangled verbal thought process. "Very well. Start from the beginning, Mr Longbottom. When did you discover you were orange?"

Neville shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, Professor, honest! I wasn't orange when I woke up. I got up early to check on some plants for Professor Sprout. But before I even left the Gryffindor common room, I noticed I was changing colour."

Minerva was alarmed by this; was the common room corrupted? Was this another prank? Were all of the Gryffindor students going to be orange?

But before she could ask any follow-up questions, Neville continued, "I spat out the sweet instantly and came here. But I was already orange by then!"

Suspicion grew. "A sweet?"

"Yes! Fred and George gave me some sweets last night, but I only got around to eating them this morning."

Taking a breath and eyeing up her pumpkin pie, she stood up. "It appears you have been subject to a prank by Mr Fred and George Weasley."

The fifth year's confusion quickly turned to realisation and then to embarrassment. "Oh."

She had known about the Weasley twins' adventure into prank sweets. The only reason she had animatedly stepped in and shut it down was because of Dolores Umbridge. She didn't mind a bit of mischief to keep the students' spirits up in this time of… Umbridge. If she wasn't able to help her house, then she hoped the Weasley twins could. However, she could not stand by and allow a student to remain orange, or any more students to be turned orange, or any other colour for that matter.

"Let's get this charm reserved before class," she said to Mr Longbottom, pulling out her wand and seeing if she was able to diagnose what caused the orange colour or if they needed to visit Madam Pomfrey.

"Thank you, Professor," he muttered, looking down at the ground.

"You're welcome. Now, stop moving."

It had taken only a few minutes to realise that a spell wouldn't revert Mr Longbottom's skin tone back to its natural colour; he would need a potion. Therefore, the two of them made a visit to the infirmary, where Madam Pomfrey was able to assist with the potion.

Unfortunately for Mr Longbottom, he had missed breakfast and half of his first class before he was restored to his normal skin tone. And unfortunately for Professor McGonagall, the Weasley twins served three nights of detention with her as a result of such a harmless prank.

Those three nights, and the migraine that hurt every time she nodded, were the trigger for her to book a trip away that upcoming summer. If this was how the year was starting, she could only think about how it would end.

Minerva McGonagall nodded to herself as she watched the sunset. Her eyes grew heavy while taking in the smell of freshly made pumpkin pie wafting through the air. While it wouldn't taste as nice as the pies from Hogwarts, it smelt just as good.

She let her eyes close as she sat in the swinging chair of the little cottage she had booked for the whole week. The sky above was painted a deep orange as the sun sunk into the horizon.

Day one of seven was coming to a blissful, and uninterrupted, end. While she was fully dedicated to the well-being and education of her students, she knew how important it was to take care of herself. While the early mornings have benefitted her a lot since she implemented them, a nice getaway during the holidays did wonders for her mental health.

She pulled out a book she had borrowed from the library, leant back, and read until the sun had set and her eyes were droopy. Tomorrow, she will be sleeping in.