Prologue
Minerva can barely look at the letter.
Which is ridiculous. It’s a letter. Certainly, it’s the most important letter children of their world will receive in their lives, but Minerva’s letter came decades ago, and she has handled many more since her promotion to Deputy Headmistress. A single letter shouldn’t accuse her so cruelly.
And yet it does.
Every time she looks at it, she can only remember young Annie’s hysterical screams, calling for her parents, forthat traitor, in the two weeks that she spent under Poppy’s supervision, to try and figure out what that magical circle had done to her. They hadn’t found anything, not even Albus could figure out what had been done, and so Minerva had been forced to bow to Albus’ decision to put her under the protection of her blood family in order to mitigate whatever curse was laid on her.
What kind of protection muggles could offer her that trained wizards couldn’t, Minerva still doesn’t know. Blood magic had always been too finicky and unpredictable for her to have any interest in it, so she hadn’t been able to argue with Albus about what would protect the girl best.
James is never going to forgive her for it.
But he’d have to wake up first, before he could learn what Minerva had allowed to happen to his daughter, so Minerva would take it, if it ever comes down to that. If she never has to look at him lying so unnaturally still in that hospital bed, she’ll take all the hatred and betrayal he has for her. It’ll be a fair trade.
But James is never going to wake up. Logically, she knows this. Minerva will never have the opportunity to take him under her wing and guide him through his Transfiguration Mastery, like she had promised him. James would never become the glorious Head Auror he wanted to be. He was as good as dead.
Sometimes, she thinks it would have been a mercy. He could have been with Lily, instead of mindless and stuck in a forgotten bed. But he isn’t, and despite knowing better, that’s all it takes for the hope that, maybe, maybe, he’d wake up. That, one day, Minerva would get an owl and learn that Euphemia and Fleamont’s boy had gotten out of that bloody bed.
But all there’s left of James is a little girl Minerva abandonned to Lily’s horrible muggle sister, a little girl who’se letter landed in the pile of prospective students unaware of magic. And Minerva isn’t supposed to be biaised, isn’t supposed to hold a single day of observation against the muggles, but this is James’ daughter.
Maybe they raised her as a muggle so that she didn’t try to gloat to her muggle classmates about her magic, as James would have done. Maybe they had waited for some accidental magic so not to squash her hopes if she ends up non-magical like her aunt, but, being muggles, they hadn’t noticed the signs and so hadn’t known to tell her. Maybe they had told her and she didn’t believe them. It doesn’t have to be malicious.
But days go by, Minerva sorts things out for four out of the nine ‘muggleborns’ of the year and Annie’s letter is still on her desk, a constant reminder of her failings and negligence. She hears the baby’s screams, accusing her with every sharp whistle of wind outside her office, and sees James laid in a bed in St-Mungo’s, helpless and unaware, every time she closes her eyes.
Minerva isn’t a witch to cower away from her responsabilities, however terrible they are.
So she gets up one day, puts on her best muggle suit and takes the letter before heading for breakfast. She informs the others of her decision while informing them of her schedule and consequence absense that day, and Hagrid even tears up a little. Severus isn’t around, refusing to step a foot inside the castle during the summer unless he has to, so she doesn’t hear any ill-comments about James’ daughter, and Albus merely nods and wishes her a good day.
Minerva doesn’t know why she expected him to disagree with her. To tell her to leave that extremely personnal conversation to her relatives, or something just as ridiculous. But Albus doesn’t argue, and Minerva moves on, Disapparating under a Disillusionment Charm to avoid alarming the muggles.
Privet Drive looks exactly the same as it did years ago – uniformed, uninspired and utterly unmagical. She would hate living here, where everything is just more of the same, but she’s not a pureblood to think only her way of life is worth living. She ignores the twisting in her guts as she walks up to Number 4, focusing on the comfortable weight of her wand in her hand as she casts the spell that simulates three knocks on the door.
The unpleasantness of her talk with Petunia Dursley is just as she expected. The knowledge that James’s daughter has been sleeping in a boot cupboard is… Minerva prefers not to think about it. One more thing James will hate her for. But she corrects that, pins Mrs Dursley with a look Minerva has only ever casted at the most uncorrigible of criminals, and then takes Annie Potter aside for a late but much needed conversation.
It's highly unpleasant from start to finish, and Minerva doesn’t blame the young witch for her anger and resentment for the lies she’s been told – drunkards? A car crash? What kind of hippogriff dung was that? – but it’s not even touching the core of the problem.
Minerva doesn’t mentions the war beyond the barest lines. It isn’t important. She should not burden a young witch with such unpleasantness right before what should be the most incredible moment of her life. She refuses to ruin the beginning of her Hogwarts experience anymore than is already is, filling her head with prejudice toward her fellow students because of their parents and relatives’ roles in a war that is almost ten years over.
When everything that needed to be said has been said and Annie’s interest fades into quiet contemplation, Minerva pulls her out of the silenced booth at the muggle restaurent where they had an early lunch and takes her on the second part of their trip.
James and Lily should have been the ones to take her shopping.
Minerva doesn’t treat her any different from the other muggleborns she’s guided through Diagon Alley, because she isn’t different. She follows the gold and glitter with adoring eyes, but falls in line after a single quelling look. She asks questions with awe and curiosity, and accepts the realities of goblins and broom flight with an open mind. For all of the negligence she must have endured at the Dursleys, it hadn’t smothered Lily’s kindness or James’ quick wit. There was so much of her parents in her – it burns, the knowledge that neither were in a state to know that.
Annie Potter is a normal child. Despite everything, she had emerged as James and Lily’s child, and that is the most important thing of all.
Whatever curse was casted on her… Minerva could only hope it wouldn’t take that away from her.