Vigil

The students are asleep. I have personally scouted Gryffindor dormitory, as all House leaders have checked their respective dormitories, instructed specifically by Dumbledore to see that not even a single adventure-seeking student leaves that relatively small safety after lights are officially out.

I myself should be tucked away in my own rooms, at least pretending to care about tomorrow's lessons. How can I expect even the most studious of my charges to focus on Transfigurations when I cannot bear to think of anything but the Chamber, and what may happen if it is indeed opened? I can be many things, but I cannot be a hypocrite.

Part of me favors the hysterical vote. I'm ashamed to admit it, but on one level nothing would make me feel better than to close down Hogwarts and send all my babbies home to safety. How ignoble of me. How very un-Gryffindor. I would send them scampering to their parents, just to keep them safe from this.

I have never had children of my own. My sisters and their numerous progeny have relieved me of any familial responsibility to procreate, and I have always preferred to be a kindly but stern aunt who flies in at holidays to spoil and instigate, afterward returning to the relative quiet of Hogwarts.

But my students, my students are my precious ones. Even the Neville Longbottoms of my life are precious, fumbling as they are towards competency. What can I do, what more must I be, to protect them from...this?

I look down at the stiff body of Miss Hermione Granger. She is the pride of my second years, and will be the best of Gryffindor. Bright and ambitious and brave. A true Gryffindor, one who could become a shining star in our House's history.

That is, of course, if anyone can hear her over the din of Pottermania. I am quite fond of James and Lily's child, to be sure. He is brave and modest and clearly powerful. He is a good and honorable child, and my heart goes out to him for his suffering. I am amazed and proud that he has turned out so well, despite the numerous hardships of his childhood.

But it galls me on some level. No, on many levels. It galls and upsets me to see a young woman of Miss Granger's character reduced to supporting status at best, simply because one more famous comes along.

But no. I'm not going to fight that old fight in my head. Unlike Snape, I do not dislike the boy just because of his fame. And unlike that unbearable Mr. Lockhart, I do not wish to use him for photo opportunities. But like Minerva McGonagall, I do regret that his light shines so brightly as to dim equally deserving flames of intellect, bravery, kindness, compassion, and loyalty. The Hermione Grangers of Hogwarts.

No, whatever feminist anguish I feel at watching a competent young woman overlooked because an equally competent male happens to be at her side, well, that I can save for a night of brandy and bitching with Madame Hooch when all this is said and done.

Hermione.

She seems so unreal. The others, Norris and that poor Creevey boy, fade in the background as my would-be protégé lies solid and unblinking before me. How did this happen? Both of them, Hermione and Colin, both of them Gryffindor. I should have protected them.

Pomfrey whispers in, giving me one quick nod as she checks her petrified charges and leaves without a word. She knows what I am going through, I think. I can see the sympathy in her eyes.

She knows that my guilt is mingled with fear. I hate myself for it. I hate the thoughts I feel in my soul and my gut at the image of petrified Muggle-borns, at the bloody notes scrawling their hatred on the walls of my safe haven.

Pomfrey knows, as Albus knows and even Snape knows, that creeping in my blood is the same fear all Muggle-borns are feeling.

I curse my cowardice. I curse myself thrice as the thought creeps into my brain, Mother, mother, why did you marry for love and not sense?

I sit with the lovely bright statue of a girl, and I say a silent prayer to my father. Papa, Daidein, forgive me. Forgive me for the shame and fear in my blood, a shame you do not deserve. You, who taught us the love of languages and of learning, who fired our minds with curiosity, who tempered our hearts with kindness, who showed us that no lack of money or status could keep a girl down who had her wits about her, who was willing to work hard and honestly.

Mein lieber vati, are you hurt? Do you look down from the Muggle afterlife at your girl and shake your head as you did so often when you were alive? When Mama cried, thinking no one noticed? When the birthdays passed, the holidays, the lives and births and deaths passed with no acknowledgement from our Wizard relatives, all because of you?

I think of you, with your magical mind and Muggle body. I remember Freitag in Deutschland, when you made a game of languages, an adventure of learning. " Kein Englisch heute," you'd say in your booming brogue. No English today, pets. Today we travel to Germany, and today we speak German. It was fun, with the oompah music on the phonograph and Mama and Dita cooking schnitzel and spaetzel.

Imagination was your magic, Papa. Muggle magic, to be sure, but you made me forget the hand-me-down brooms, the robes that fit just a little too largely, the fact that my sisters and I attended Hogwarts on scholarship. You made me forget that I had grandparents somewhere whom I would never meet, simply because my blood was not pure.

In my life, I have tried to fight the prejudice. I have tried to show fairness towards Wizard- and Muggle-born students alike.

But Papa, I still feel ashamed. And tonight, I am afraid. Afraid for this bright girl before me. Afraid for the boy I barely know. Afraid for those children who may come next if these monsters that would open the Chamber of Secrets are not stopped.

And yes, Daidein, I'm afraid for myself. Afraid that the Muggle lifeforce you contributed will make me vulnerable. Afraid that, in the end, I shall not be able to protect my babbies from this horrid fate, because of you.

Afraid because I feel the same hatred in myself as I hear from those who would see only purebloods walking the halls of Hogwarts. And that hatred is directed at you. At Mama. At your selfishness. At your foolishness.

At bringing six daughters into this world. Six daughters who heard the same whispers as young Miss Granger. Six daughters who had to fight and claw and be twice as good as the nearest pureblood for half the approval.

And all the love, all the Sunday picnics and Freitag in Deutschland and secret passageways and wonderful old novels, Daddy, all that can't change the fact that I am less than. Less than the Malfoys of the world. Less than the Goyles of the world.

Those who are not fit to kiss the underside of your most tattered and work-worn boots, Papa, they will survive because their blood is pure.

I hate myself. I hate that I cannot be more. I cannot be braver, or stronger. I touch Miss Granger's face. It's so cold, Da. I'm terrified at the coldness. She reminds me so much of myself when I was in school. She can be so much. She has such potential. She cannot die.

We will find a way, Papa. I feel it like a knife at my back. We will find a way or we shall die trying. Miss Granger shall not die. She shall return to her own vibrant self, and she shall get into misadventures with Potter and young Weasley, and I shall pretend to be angry when I am chuckling on the inside at their cheek.

Oh, Papa, if there is any truth to the religion of your family, please pray to Mother Mary for me. Pray to Jesus, if he will listen to the plight of a Muggle-born witch. Clutch the Rosary for my babbies, Daidein, say a Novena.

Protect my children, Father. Save my babbies, Mama.

Albus has come into the room. I know he sees the tears on my cheeks. I know he will ignore them, as he often does, to protect this person I have created, this hard Professor McGonagall. But he knows what I am thinking. We have an unspoken language, Albus and I, and I can tell he fears the same as I do. His blood is purer than the most hidden mountain spring, yet he feels my fear the same as I do.

"Come, Minerva," he says. His hand outstretched. "It's late, and we have much to do tomorrow."

He won't let me hover. He won't let me worry myself sick. He will try to convince me it's not my fault, that I cannot protect them against every little thing.

And I will know him for the hypocrite he is, because he feels as guilty as I.

They are his babbies too, Da.

END