June Week

Chapter 8: First Mission

Congratulations. You´re an Animagus.

So Dumbledore had said -- but of course, it wasn´t as simple as all that. Minerva had done the transformation once, by accident, but there were still ages of endless, repetitive work ahead of her.

After she´d figured out how to transform at will, Dumbledore made her do it over and over, in different places and situations, until she thought she would lose her mind. The most outrageous moment came when they were standing on the dock one evening, watching the sun set in red-gold streaks over the forest, and without an instant´s warning he pushed her off the edge and yelled "Change!"

She changed in midair, splashed in, sank, and came up in human form again, spluttering. It was late April, and the water was still very cold.

"What was that all about?" she shouted, paddling wildly in place.

"Suppose you were falling and had to transform on the instant?" he asked. "Now we know you´d be able to." He pointed his wand and a rope ladder attached itself to the edge of the dock. Muttering some of her father´s choicest Gaelic curses under her breath, she climbed it (no mean feat in heavy, waterlogged robes) and sat down to dump dank lake water out of her shoes.

Dumbledore was laughing at her again, as he forever seemed to be doing.

"I´m glad you find this so amusing," she said severely. That made him laugh harder.

"They say there´s nothing madder than a wet hen," he said, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes, "but it ought to be `wet cat´ instead." With another wand-flick, she was dry again. "Change one more time, and then you´re done for the day." She obliged, and he scooped her up and held her before she could turn back again.

"I must say, Minerva my dear, you make a very pretty tabby," he said. "I think I´ll start calling you Tabby. It suits you."

Minerva let out a feline snort. Then she purred and rubbed her head against the front of his robes -- try as she might, she never could stay angry with him for long.

"Come along, then, Tabby," he said, setting her down carefully, so all her paws touched the ground at the same time. She changed back again with a popping sound. For once, she managed not to stumble, as she usually did when going from four feet to two, and allowed herself a small, private smile. The more mastery she gained over the transformation and her new shape, the more powerful and competent she felt. After a year spent slinking around the halls and jumping at shadows, getting a little of her old self-confidence back was sweet indeed.

That self-confidence had prompted her to plan her first real spying expedition for that very evening. Dumbledore had a dinner meeting with someone from the Ministry, so he wouldn´t be expecting to see her in the dining hall. Plus, he and his guest would probably be occupied with drinks and conversation for hours afterward, which eliminated the possibility of him seeking her out to discuss anything work-related. Who knew when another opportunity like this would come along?

They walked back to the castle, where Dumbledore bid her farewell and went off to get ready for his appointment. Too nervous and keyed up to eat, she shuffled some paperwork around on her desk until the dinner hour ended. Then it was time to go.

The halls were nearly empty, as most students went back to their common rooms to study after dinner. They were also very dark in the spaces between the wall-mounted torches. But nothing short of absolute blackness could blind Minerva´s cat eyes, and she ran lightly along, as sure-footed as in broad daylight, toward the Slytherins´ domain. She was filled with fierce joy and triumph at finally being on track toward her goal again, not to mention the sheer excitement of being on the hunt. From her sensitive ears to her quivering whiskers to her lean, lithe muscles, she was made to seek and find. And catch. And even kill, if it came to that, though the human part of her shied away from the idea.

I´m on my way, Tom. I don´t know what you´re up to these days, but if it´s anything I can catch you at, I will. Of that you may be sure.

She scampered down a long flight of stairs, feeling the temperature plunge farther with each step, and entered the dungeons. There were the Potions classrooms on the left, the glass panels on their doors frosted over with cold. There was the supply closet where all the herbs and roots and other magical ingredients were kept. But where were the Slytherins? She cast about for a portrait like the one that guarded the Gryffindor common room and saw nothing.

I know their dormitory is here somewhere. They always come and go in this direction, she thought irritably as she sniffed around. Everything smelt of dirt and damp and people´s shoes, but gave her no clue as to where the entrance might be. Not that she meant to actually go inside, at least not tonight. All she wanted was to watch. There was nothing to watch, though. It figured that after months of preparation, she´d chosen the dullest night of the year to make her first move.

Disheartened, she plopped down on the floor, avoiding the iron rings that were set into it to hold shackles (the Hogwarts dungeons had indeed been used for keeping prisoners at various times in their history), and swished her tail moodily from side to side.

She sat there for a very long time, waiting and waiting for something to happen, getting more sleepy and cross by the moment. The blank stone wall across from her wavered in and out of focus as her eyes began to close. Then, suddenly, she realized that there were long cracks in it. Very faint ones, but cracks all the same -- four of them, in the shape of a door.

A door. The door. Cats couldn´t smile, despite what literature would have one believe, but Minerva felt she was grinning a huge Cheshire-cat grin on the inside. Really, it was perfectly, appropriately Slytherin of them not to mark their door in any way. They were all about secrets and mysteries.

Padding across the cool stone floor, she investigated the horizontal line that was the bottom edge of the door, then reared up and stood on her hind legs with her front paws on the wall for balance so she could look at the other edges. Did it work with a password, like so many of the doors in the castle, she wondered, or was there a hidden button to open it?

Her answer arrived quickly in the persons of two Slytherin students, seventh-years by the look of them, who came rushing up and snapped out "Timere!" With a rumble, the door slid aside, releasing a draft of warmer air and a faintly greenish light. Minerva had just enough time to see that the latter came from a row of ceiling-hung lamps inside before the pair passed through and the door shut behind them. Neither student had given her a second glance, which was exactly the way she wanted it. She took a moment to congratulate herself on becoming an animal that blended so well with the scores of others of its kind within Hogwarts, and then settled down again to watch the door.

Unfortunately, as she soon discovered, not everyone thought cats were beneath notice. Over the next hour, no less than ten Slytherins came by on their way to their dormitories, and of that group, more than half came over to pet her. This was very troublesome, both because it called attention to her presence and because it set an uneasy soup of feelings bubbling in her -- while her human mind resented the caresses and wanted to shy away from them, her cat body enjoyed them a bit too much for comfort. It was hard not to purr and let her back arch up under the stroking hands.

I didn´t know Slytherins could be so nice, she thought as Alasdair Young, a first-year boy from one of her classes, knelt down and set his armload of books aside so he could scratch gently behind her ears.

But this assumption turned out to be dangerous. Curfew was fast approaching, and the trickle of passersby turned into a stream. Soon enough, it brought along a boy who was not nice at all. He spied her lurking in a corner across from the entrance and yelled "Hsssst -- you -- cat! Get out of here!" Minerva ignored him, with the supreme dignity that only cats could effectively muster, and he strode over and aimed a kick at her ribs. She dodged, but the attack had startled her, and she bolted without thinking, racing back up the stairs and running flat-out for her own room.

Just as she rounded the final corner, she collided with an unexpected pair of legs, sheered off, skidded on the slick floor, stuck all her claws out for traction and ended up sprawled in the middle of the corridor. Then she saw whom she had hit and quickly changed to human form.

"Sorry, Albus," she said.

"That´s quite all right," said Dumbledore, giving her a rather peculiar look. "What have you been up to this evening?"

"Just -- practicing my transformation," she said. Suddenly, she realized that he wasn´t alone. His dinner guest was with him. It was a woman - a very attractive woman a few years younger than Dumbledore. She had blue eyes and fair hair with a tinge of red, and she was standing very close to her companion with her arm linked through the crook of his elbow.

Up till this point, Minerva had been too distracted by the abruptness of her departure from the dungeons to think much about anything else. Now a bolt of painful jealousy lanced its way through her entire body, leaving her with icy hands and flaming hot cheeks. What right did this woman have to be hanging on Albus as if she owned him? And what sort of "meeting" had they been having, anyway? Could the two of them be --?

Before Minerva could say anything, the woman let go Dumbledore´s arm and stepped forward, holding her hand out and smiling kindly, as if Minerva were a little girl to be treated with mock dignity.

"I´m Arabella Figg," she said.

"Minerva McGonagall," said Minerva stiffly, taking the hand for the shortest possible time she could without being rude. She eyed the woman´s immaculate black robes and wished she could adjust her own clothing.

"Yes, I know. Albus has told me all about you. An Animagus at your age! Very impressive. And a cat into the bargain. I adore cats."

I´ve had enough people petting me for one evening, thanks very much, Minerva thought. Lay a hand on me, and you´ll pull back a bloody stump. Since smiling was the next best thing to baring her teeth, she forced a rather awkward one. "Delighted to meet you," she said.

Dumbledore, no one´s fool, noted the look on her face and accurately deduced what it meant. He stepped smoothly up to her side and said, in a voice that somehow managed to be light and hold a note of warning at the same time, "Minerva, Arabella is my cousin. Remember I´ve mentioned my little cousin Bella, the one who lived on my street when we were children? This is she. Figg is her married name." The emphasis he put on "married" was subtle, but unmistakable, and all at once Minerva felt very, very small and stupid.

"Your cousin?" she repeated. "Oh! Oh, I remember. I see." Flustered now, she gazed wildly at Dumbledore for help, but Arabella was already jumping in to fill the gap.

"You should call me Bella too, dear. You´re practically part of the family. Albus sent me ever so many letters about you while you were a student, and even some pictures. I didn´t realize you were so grown up now, though."

"Er -" Minerva hunted for words and finally settled on "Thank you." Looking at Bella without the fog of resentment in the way, she could see the Dumbledore family resemblance. Those blue eyes -- they were the same shade as Albus´, and the reddish highlights in Bella´s hair matched the pure auburn of his. If she hadn´t gone leaping to mad conclusions, she would have realized it on her own. She was more than a little alarmed by how instantly and mindlessly she had reacted. Even when surrounded by a pack of other teenage girls in her dormitory, she had never been inclined to jealousy, had never been the way some of them had been, so --"

So catty. I was being catty. Just like a female cat that smells another female cat in her territory. Oh, my goodness. Am I going to start acting like a cat even when I´m not one?

"Bella works for the Ministry in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement," Dumbledore was saying now. "She wanted to see you transform -- the Ministry is always very interested in Animagi, and there hasn´t been a new one in several years. But as we´ve already seen you do it, perhaps we should let you go off to bed. It´s getting late."

"Of course," Bella said. "Minerva, it was a pleasure,"

"Likewise," said Minerva, looking guiltily at Dumbledore. "Albus, do you suppose I might speak to you alone for just a moment?"

"Certainly. Bella, you remember the way back to my office? Good. The password is `licorice stick´. Go ahead and I´ll join you shortly."

Bella left in a flutter of robes, and Dumbledore turned to Minerva. "Yes?"

"I just wanted to apologize for the way I acted. I thought -"

"I know what you thought," Dumbledore said. "It´s all right. But I am a little confused by it. It wasn´t at all like you."

"It certainly wasn´t," said Minerva. "I couldn´t help it. I think the cat part of me is spilling over into the human part a bit."

"Hmmm. Something else to address in your practice sessions," Dumbledore said. He leaned over and kissed her lightly on the forehead, the kiss of a parent bidding a child goodnight. "And something that can wait until morning. Go to sleep." And he walked away, leaving her alone with her conflicting emotions. In one night, she´d been nervous, bored, triumphant, panicked, jealous, and now humiliated. She was positively worn out from it -- and to top everything off, she hadn´t caught so much as a glimpse of Tom.

She wondered briefly why Dumbledore´s cousin had come in the first place, and what she -- or the Ministry of Magic -- wanted from him, but decided to think about it later.

To hell with all of it, for tonight, anyway. I´m going to bed, she thought, and did.