More McGonagalls
Minerva left Poppy’s office determined to regain her professional composure. She didn’t know what had got into her. She had been annoyed, to be sure, when she’d left the Headmaster’s office earlier that morning, but certainly nowhere nearly upset enough to have exploded as she had. It was reciting her litany of grievances against Albus that had stirred her up.
Letting out a long, weary breath, Minerva began the climb up the stairs to her rooms, waiting patiently on the third floor landing for the stairs to rotate over so that she could continue to the fourth. As she trudged up the stairs and on to her rooms, she had to tamp down the thought that she should have known when he assigned her to quarters on the fourth floor that she had been sent to Siberia. He had explained that he thought it would be convenient for her to have her quarters so close to her classroom. All it meant was that in the morning, she had to make her way from the fourth floor to the ground floor in order to take breakfast in the Great Hall, then make the return journey to reach her classroom before the students streamed in. She then had the same round trip again at noon and once more in the evening. Although she did have a few free hours during the week since she was not teaching the NEWT-level classes, she rarely took “advantage” of having her rooms so near her class. She preferred to work in her office, where she could keep all of her teaching materials organised and at hand. It was also good to be available to students during the day, Minerva felt. Her favourite teachers had always made themselves available when she was a student.
Minerva was also acutely disappointed that Albus had decided to give her a different room from the one he used on the first floor. In the months leading up to her arrival at Hogwarts, her head was filled with visions of teaching in her mentor’s classroom. She felt she would be inspired by memories of her years spent there as a student, as well as by the imprint Albus had left in its atmosphere. The classroom she had been given, on the other hand, seemed stark and cold; Minerva thought it hadn’t been used in at least thirty years, given the random bits of parchment she was still finding in odd cracks and cubbies. Its windows were north-facing; since her bedroom windows faced west, there were times during the Scottish winter when she had thought she would never really see any sunlight. Even after the house-elves had worked their magic on the classroom and her office, they still seemed stuffy and dank. Minerva felt she might as well have been given rooms in the dungeons.
To be sure, the furnishings were fine. There was plenty of room on the bookshelves in her office, and the convenient cupboards in the classroom were well stocked with all of the classroom supplies she would need. She hadn’t anticipated using a previously empty classroom, however, and the classroom walls and shelves were glaringly devoid of any interesting objects, charts, or illustrations. The first floor Transfiguration classroom, in contrast, was almost distractingly full of various devices, objects, paintings, and memorabilia that Albus had collected over the years. Even when she had been a child, it had been possessed of diverse artifacts and specimens that aroused a student’s interest and imagination. She was sure that the new Transfiguration classroom had seemed Spartan and unfriendly to students who were so used to Dumbledore’s quirky collections.
Early in February, therefore, the first Saturday she had free from duties, she arrived unannounced early in the morning at the rambling old house she had grown up in, startling the house-elves and her mother. Her father had just looked up from the large, dusty tome he was reading, saying, “Hello, Min. Staying for lunch?” then pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and returning to his book without noticing whether she answered him or not.
Minerva made a bee-line for the attic and spent the next three hours rummaging through old trunks and wardrobes, rejecting almost everything she found as totally unsuitable – either painfully prosaic or disturbingly bizarre. By the time Fwisky popped in to inform her that lunch was about to be served, Minerva was tired, itchy (what was in that dust!), and chilled to the bone. After quickly washing the smudges from her face and brushing the cobwebs from her hair, she joined her parents in the dining room. Murdoch, her older brother, and his daughter Melina were there as well.
“Melina! How wonderful to see you!” cried Minerva with genuine delight as she sat down. She hadn’t seen her niece in several months – not since Melina had moved from London to Edinburgh in June following her first two years of Healer training. She was now in a small clinic finishing her basic training. “When did you get here? How long are you staying?”
Melina smiled with equal pleasure. “We only just arrived a few minutes ago, Min- erva. Dad had a few things to do at the apothecary before we left.”
“Had to check up on the apprentices. They could ruin a dead-easy burn salve if it weren’t that they’re never sure when someone’s going to pop in on them. I think they get lazier and stupider every year. They pass their NEWTs and think they’re experts on everything to do with Potions,” grumbled Murdoch. “Didn’t want to worry you about it at the time, but right after the New Year, one of the apprentices, Turner was his name, blew up the back of the apothecary whilst making Wit-Sharpening Potion, of all things.”
“Was his name?” asked Minerva with some alarm. “Is he dead?”
“No, though he probably wished he was when I was through with him. He left hospital last week and returned to Mummy and Daddy. I wasn’t having him back.” Murdoch stabbed a potato with his fork.
Relieved, Minerva wondered aloud, “But how? I don’t remember Wit-Sharpening Potion having any volatile ingredients. Let me see, ginger, armadillo bile, umm, beetles of some kind, and a few stabilizers. Was it a bad batch of beetles?”
Murdoch snorted. “For someone who only received an ‘Exceeds Expectations’ on her Potions NEWT – and more than ten years ago, at that – you would have done better than Turner did!” Murdoch paused to eat a brussels sprout. “He used Acromantula venom instead of armadillo bile, which would have done nothing worse than create a toxic – and expensive! – goo, if he hadn’t also pulverized the scarab beetles instead of crushing them. I tell you, I’m thinking of going down to that school of yours and asking Slughorn what he thinks he’s teaching!”
“How are things at Hogwarts, Minerva?” her mother asked, finally getting a word in. “We haven’t heard much from you.”
“Fine, Mother. Of course, it’s a lot of work, especially getting to know the children and what their strengths and weaknesses are, but that will come with time. The other teachers have been very welcoming, and of course it’s wonderful to have Poppy so close.” Well, down three flights of stairs and a corridor or two . . . .
“I’m glad, dear. I had worried about you taking that job, you know. I didn’t want to say much about it, but – ” She was interrupted by simultaneous snorts from both her daughter and her son. “Well, I didn’t!” she protested. “It’s just hard for a mother sometimes. You’ll understand that someday, Minerva. And I’m still worried about you. It’s so isolated, and there are so few people your age. At least in London, you did get out some, and you met people at work. And it’s not as though Hogsmeade is a thriving metropolis, as quaint as it might be.”
“You certainly are one to talk,” replied Minerva. “It’s not as though this house is particularly close to anything – the next Muggle village is ten miles away, and your nearest wizarding neighbours are the Stoats, and that’s got to be at least – ”
“Heavens, Minerva,” her mother laughed. “Since when did you begin thinking like a Muggle? We may not be on the Floo-Network yet, but I have yet to walk to the Stoats, like some Squib. We don’t see them much, anyway. But your father and I do get into Edinburgh. It may not have Diagon Alley, but there’s plenty there for the likes of us. Why, Melina even took us to a Muggle concert two weeks ago. Chopin and Liszt. It was quite lovely.”
Her father, who had appeared to be preoccupied and not attending to the conversation, interjected, “Lovely! Whenever a man has to put on trousers and wear them for more than a few hours, there is nothing lovely about it. I swear I was getting a rash by the time we returned to Murdoch’s!”
“Oh, Dad,” laughed Minerva. “That’s what you always say! There’s never been any evidence of a rash!”
“Hmmpf. Only because of its location, lassie. I won’t even allow your mother to see it!” He winked playfully at his wife and took a sip of his tea, apparently retiring from the conversation.
Egeria laughed at that and brought the conversation back to her youngest child’s choice of jobs. “So you’re settling in well? Fitting in with the other teachers? Any of the children causing you problems? If they are, you know I know many of their mothers or grandmothers.” Although she had “retired” a few years ago, Egeria had spent sixty years as a midwife, attending new mothers and their babies all over Scotland and northern England.
“Yes, Mother, everything’s fine,” replied Minerva with an exasperated sigh. “And if I couldn’t handle the children without your intervention, I shouldn’t be there! Really!” she huffed.
“Well, then, how’s Poppy?”
Minerva, thankful for the apparent change in direction the conversation was taking, said, “Oh, she’s doing well and loves her job. I think she’s happy I decided to take the position. In fact, I have to be getting back later this afternoon since we are meeting at Madam Puddifoot’s. It’s a new tearoom in Hogsmeade she wants to try.”
Egeria ate the last of her caramel custard. “So, Poppy’s not seeing anyone?”
“What do you mean, Mother?” Minerva wished she could join the conversation between Melina and Murdoch. Discussing the finer details of proper ointment application to scrofungulus sores was not what she normally would have considered appropriate for the dinner table, but it was better than what she knew her mother was going to ask.
“I just meant that if a girl has a Saturday afternoon free, she would normally want to spend it with her young man, especially if she’s usually cloistered in a place like Hogwarts all week, that’s all.”
Minerva was used to her mother asking her about whether she had met any nice men lately. Her stock reply was always, “Yes, Mother, many. I meet many nice men.” Then she would change the topic. It wasn’t as though her mother had married young. She and Merwyn only married when it was clear that Malcolm, Minerva’s oldest brother, was going to make an appearance in the world. However, as Egeria always pointed out whenever Minerva brought up her mother’s own late marriage in her defence, the two had “courted” for over ten years before that.
Minerva sat stone-faced and clenched her teacup. “I’m sure she enjoys my company, Mother. And it’s not a cloister.”
“Minerva, love, I am only pointing out the obvious. And then I will stop, I promise. It’s not that I want you to settle down, you know that. And if you never married, it wouldn’t matter to me, truly, if I knew you were happy. But I know you, sweetness. You have some of the best traits of both your father and me, but also some of our worst. You know them yourself, I am sure, so I won’t flatter or insult you by naming them all. Please just remember to make an effort to get to know people. Get to know the ones around you better and try to meet some new people, as well. And if you start seeing someone socially – not Poppy! I mean a man; one who’s interested in you – well, that’ll be icing on the cake. Sweetness, you deserve to have some fun, some joy in life.”
“Thank you, Mother.” Minerva took a sip of her cold tea and stared at the tablecloth.
“Now, I promised Melina that I would help her find some of my books. They may be a bit out of date, but the charms are foundational.” Egeria rose. “Melina, are you and my son finished discussing oozing sores?”
“Of course, Grandmother.” Turning to Minerva, Melina asked, “Will you be here for a little while, at least? With our schedules, I don’t know when we will be able to see each other again.”
“Of course! I won’t be leaving until at least three-thirty, Melina.”
Merwyn rose from the table, put his arm around his granddaughter’s shoulders, and gave her a kiss on the forehead. “It is always good to see you, Mel. Don’t let that clinic work you to the bone, now. Make some quiet time for yourself just to read and think or to take walks through that Muggle Edinburgh you like so well.”
“I will, Grampa, I promise.”
Egeria bent and kissed her daughter’s cheek, one arm affectionately around her shoulders, and whispered, “I’m glad you’re settling in well, Minerva. And it is always good to have you home, even just for a few hours.”
Minerva smiled at her mother and stood to embrace her quickly, then turned to Melina. “Don’t forget me while you’re having fun with all those old healing charms! Come see me before you leave!”
“Dad and I will be here all afternoon, so just find me when you’re through with your mysterious project in the attic! Do you know you still have dirt above your left eyebrow?” With that, Melina followed Egeria out of the dining room, leaving Minerva with Merwyn and Murdoch.
“More tea, Minerva? Murdoch?” When they both shook their heads, Merwyn called for Fwisky, who efficiently cleared the table.
“Let’s go into my study. Those two are going to be in the library for a while.”
They settled into the study, Murdoch and Minerva gingerly clearing two spaces to sit. Minerva wasn’t even sure what she was sitting on – a bench or a wooden chest? Both her father and brother were curious about what she had been doing in the attic all morning. After Minerva had told them that she had been looking for interesting things to display in her classroom, they all trooped up the stairs to see what she had found.
“Hmm, don’t know what most of this stuff has to do with Transfiguration, M’nervy, but some of it is kind of interesting,” Murdoch said, unrolling a dusty tapestry entitled, Gwion Bach Learns Wisdom. “I think this one was in the nursery when I was a boy.”
“Have you checked everything for dormant charms, Min?” her father asked.
“No, I thought I’d do that this afternoon. I don’t want to Apparate with anything I’m not sure about, let alone bring it into a Hogwarts classroom filled with children whose spells sometimes go awry,” she replied.
“Why don’t we give you a hand, then, if you think we can trust your brother’s competence with a wand,” Merwyn teased.
“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose with you and me both here, he can’t do too much harm,” said Minerva with an amused glint in her eye.
“All right, you two. Very amusing. Just because I don’t require a lot of foolish wand-waving in my profession doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten how to cast a few simple diagnostic spells.” Murdoch feigned injury.
“‘Diagnostic spells’? Do you think we are in an infirmary, lad? Detecting and revealing spells are what we’ll be using. I’ll do the Dark detecting, I think, if you don’t mind, Min?”
“No, that’s fine, Dad. After you’re finished with an object, just pass it to me or Murdoch, and we’ll check for any other unexpected charms or transformations.” When Murdoch just stood there, Minerva elbowed him in the ribs.
“Yes, sounds like a good way to go about it,” agreed Murdoch, with little enthusiasm.
“You do have your wand with you, don’t you, Murdoch?” Minerva teased.
Murdoch just snorted and perched gingerly on a box. “Just the way I’d plan to spend my afternoon in the country, away from the smog of the city. Shut up in a dusty attic breathing in who-knows-what.” He sighed melodramatically. “The things I do for my baby sister!” Said baby sister punched him in the arm, after which the three settled down to their task.
At three o’clock, arms full, they emerged from the attic stair to find Melina coming toward them. “I was just going to look for you! I wanted to see you before you had to leave. We never have enough time!”
“I know, Melina, I’m sorry. Want to help me shrink everything and put it in a bag? We can chat while we do that.”
Agreeing, Melina followed her aunt, father, and grandfather to Minerva’s old bedroom. As they started sorting through the items, and Minerva rummaged through her wardrobe, looking for the carpet bag she knew was there, Melina said, “So, how’s Professor Dumbledore? It must be odd working for him and taking over his old job like that.”
Minerva’s reply was lost, muffled by the wardrobe and its contents.
“At the risk of sounding like your mother, Min, you know your Great-uncle Perseus was at school with Dumbledore. I’m sure that he’d be happy to – ”
Merwyn never had the opportunity to say what Perseus Parnovon would have been happy to do, because Minerva withdrew her head and shoulders from the wardrobe and whirled around.
“Father, I do not need anything from Uncle Perseus. Nor from anyone else. Not to do with Hogwarts, my career, or my personal life. And who took my carpet bag!”
Deciding that discretion would be the better part of valour, Murdoch and Melina neatly sorted, folded, shrank, and stacked, and pretended not to hear anything.
“Um, Min, I just meant that – ”
“I don’t care to discuss it! And my name, in case you had forgotten it, is ‘Minerva,’ not ‘Min,’ not ‘Minnie,’ and especially not ‘M’nervy!’” she added, shooting a withering glare at her brother.
Merwyn took off his round, rimless glasses and polished them on the edge of his sleeve. “All right, lassie. I know you can take care of yourself. Sometimes it’s nice to have another perspective on things, that’s all. Fwisky!” he called out.
There was a load crack as Fwisky Apparated into the room. “Fwisky, do you know where the carpet bag that used to be in this wardrobe is now?”
“No, Mister Merwyn. I do not. Does the young Miss Minerva be needing a carpet bag? I can fetch one.” The old elf looked up at Merwyn, wanting to be of service.
“Yes, Fwisky, that would be well. Thank you.”
Without another word, Fwisky popped away. A moment later, she was back, a large carpet bag of greens and browns floating above her. “Does this suit Miss Minerva?” she asked, turning toward Minerva.
“That’s fine, thank you, Fwisky.”
As Merwyn and Murdoch silently handed things to the two women to place in the carpet bag, shrinking them as necessary, Minerva sighed, then stretched. “I’m sorry, Dad. I guess after Mother’s speech, combined with the fact that I’m a little tired, I was a bit over-sensitive. I know you meant well. And I would like to see Uncle Perseus and Aunt Helen sometime soon – not to talk about my job! – but I probably won’t have much time between now and the summer holidays.”
“No harm done, Min. I should have known better – especially since you were in the middle of not-finding your carpet bag! By the way, do you know when you last saw it?” Merwyn asked innocently.
Minerva thought a moment, then suddenly laughed. “Of course I do! It was one of the ones I used when I moved from London in December.” She turned and embraced her father.
“Well, M’nervy, if you want to be taking tea with your friend Poppy, I’d suggest you hurry,” said Murdoch, as he cast a lightening spell on the carpet bag then handed it to her. He winked then and recited:
“Hurry, hurry, run, M’nervy!
“Come for lunch or you’ll get scurvy!
“Don’t go ’round and ’round a-whirry.
“Cabbage for dinner, cabbage for supper;
“Watch it now, she’s in a fury!
“Hurry, hurry, run, M’nervy!
“The world has gone all topsy-turvy;
“Just eat your lunch and don’t you worry!
“Hurry, hurry, my sweet M’nervy.”
Minerva laughed, good humour restored. A dozen years older than she, but still closest in age of all her brothers, Murdoch had made up that rhyme for her the summer before his final year at Hogwarts. He had teased her about her impatience to start school and told her that Hogwarts wasn’t all cream cakes and hot chocolate, but cabbages, too. When she protested that, unlike some people, she didn’t care about food; she just wanted to go to classes and the library, he laughed and told her that even lessons and the library weren’t particularly fun – you had to learn what the teachers taught you, not just what you wanted to study. The next morning, when he found her trying to read one of his old Charms textbooks, he told her to go out and play. “You don’t need to learn everything all at once, you know, M’nervy. And you don’t need to grow up so fast.” “But you all are,” she’d protested, whining. When he took the book away, Minerva spent the rest of the day sulking, wondering with whom, precisely, she was supposed to play. None of the house-elves knew the first thing about chess, and she’d outgrown having “tea parties” for her dolls and the house-elves. Late that afternoon, Murdoch found her curled up in the library with Hogwarts, A History, not reading, just holding it and looking miserable. That’s when he made up that rhyme for her, hoping to make her laugh. She just pouted the first time he recited it; the second time, she stomped off; but when they were having cabbage for lunch a few days later, he started the rhyme again and was pleased to see her trying to hide her smile behind her glass of pumpkin juice.
“All right, Murdoch, that’s enough! I don’t need your nonsense rhymes clanging in my head for the rest of the afternoon!” She smiled and shook her head fondly at him.
“Come on, Melina, walk me downstairs. Say, do you want to come with me? Poppy left St. Mungo’s to work at Hogwarts before you started your training, so I don’t think you two have ever met, but I’m sure you’d like her. Do you have the time?”
“I’d love to,” Melina replied enthusiastically. “I don’t have to be at the clinic until tomorrow afternoon, in fact. Dad, can you take my books back home with you? I’ll Floo home from the Three Broomsticks later this evening.”
After Minerva and Melina said good-bye to Egeria in the library, they walked out to the front garden.
“Meet in front of Scrivenshaft’s, shall we?” said Minerva briskly. “As you haven’t been to Madam Puddifoot’s yet.” Melina agreed, and with a pair of cracks, the two Apparated to Hogsmeade.