Confessional

Three ~ A Breakthrough

Next Thursday came with little ceremony. I spent most of that time reading through my books and doing the small bit of homework that always comes in September. In History of Magic, Olive Hornby still slept and ignored me, for which I was grateful; in Potions, Riddle still annoyed me, but I was ever-conscious of Myrtle's mooning eyes towards our table, and I gritted my teeth through this. My stomach was fluttering a little as I climbed the stairs up to the Transfiguration classroom. Again, Professor Dumbledore was there before I arrived.

"I have been thinking, Miss McGonagall," he said, as he emptied packet after packet of sugar into his tea, "that you should be allowed full access to this room if you're to be working in here often. I had a key made for you. I do not think I need to tell you to exercise discretion when you are using it."

He passed me the small silvery key, which I swiftly pocketed. "Thank you," I said, trying to sound appropriately gracious and grown-up and instead sounding like a giddy little girl; the prospect of having the Transfiguration classroom all to myself was an exciting one.

"Would you like some tea?"

"Yes, please. Er – no sugar."

He laughed at that and poured me a cup, then slid it over his desk on a saucer. "I saw the little spat in the Great Hall last week," he said casually. "You handled yourself quite expertly. I remember trying to break up a rather heated fight between Aberforth – that's my brother – and the neighbour's cat, and I did not fare nearly as well as you did. I came out with scratches all over my face."

"From the cat," I surmised, squirming in my seat. I didn't really want to talk about this, as I was still a little annoyed about the entire incident.

"No, from Aberforth." Professor Dumbledore scratched at his beard. "He always was a little off, I'd say." Sensing my anxiety, he took a sip of tea and continued, "Have you had a chance to look at those books?"

"Oh, yes, I read them all already – there's so many things I didn't know about Transfiguration. I think it'll quite help me with my ordinary class homework, too, like all those things about the foundations of Transfiguration and whatnot, that was brilliant."

He smiled. Albus Dumbledore, in spite of his age, has always smiled like a child, with his whole heart and a world of wonder. "So you've read all about the process, then."

"Yes." There were so many things I wanted to ask, the first of them being why the Ministry was allowing a fifth-year student who didn't even have a bloody Apparition licence to do this, but I held my tongue. "I am worried about the incantations. My accent always seems to mangle up the Latin." I looked down at my hands. "But I'm excited to begin."

I raised my eyes after a pause. Professor Dumbledore was watching me with a strangely guarded expression on his face, indescribable, as if he were somehow sad, or afraid.

"Sir, is there anything wrong?"

He blinked. "No, no, Miss McGonagall. You may start practicing the incantations at your leisure. I know you'll be vigilant about it. I'm afraid that, if this to count as a graded project, you'll have to write progress reports for me." He wrinkled his nose at this mention of schoolwork.

"I don't mind." I honestly didn't.

"And – remember about the secret."

"Of course," I said, slightly offended that he felt the need to remind me.

It all got to be quite monotonous after that. There was a Quidditch match the next week, and I took a bit of time to watch Gryffindor flatten Hufflepuff – Cora, Myrtle, and I all tucked into the stands with our Gryffindor scarves round our necks. Cliona was up on her broomstick, and she lodged another Bludger at Emmet, then gave a very unashamed thumbs-up to Myrtle (who hid her head in embarrassment). I grinned at her and went back to watching Niall MacDougal. I have always loved watching Quidditch; even now, I adore a good clean fast-paced game. But besides that I didn't do very much – I went to all my classes, ate all my meals, took points off of first-years running in the corridors, and spent most of my free time locked up the Transfiguration room, trying to establish that connection.

I can't know how many times I whispered that incantation, changed the cadence of the words ever-so-slightly in hopes that one correct pronunciation, even read the words over and over to find what I had wrong. I knew, of course, that the problem wasn't in how I spoke the spell. It was because I was not ready. There have been witches and wizards who have said the words for decades and felt nothing, but I still felt like a failure even after a month. Transfiguration was my best subject. I should have been better.

I tried thinking of nothing when I said the words, in that sweet, sibilant Latin, and then I tried thinking of everything and anything, of animals I'd have liked to be, of magic spells I'd half-forgotten, of how to transfigure a quill into an inkbottle. I tried saying them when sitting, when standing, when reclining; I tried whispering and speaking and shouting as much as I dared in the empty room; I tried in morning, at noon, at night. None of it worked, yet I persisted through each night as if possessed by the urge to feel something – anything – as the result of my labours.

And then – I had been sitting on the floor of the classroom sometime in the middle of October, legs crossed, books strewn all about me – my head spun and I fell back and I wasn't even aware of how my head clunked against the stone because I felt something uncoil itself within my mind, quick and eely, but harmless, as if just coming out to say hello. I gasped and it was gone as suddenly as it had come, and I was lying flat on my back in the classroom and laughing. It had been painful and incredible and wonderful at once. I couldn't move for a good five minutes, so I just stayed there, half-awed and numb from the shock of it, and then when I found my legs again I sat up and opened one of the books, finding a set of words I'd read a dozen times before:

The first successful incantation and subsequent connection with the catalogue of beasts, so to speak, is often brief, characterized by a sharp flare of intense pain. Afterwards, the attempts typically become less painful and increasingly longer over time. It is only with vigorous practice that the connection can sustain itself long enough for the recipient to be able to identify the Animagus form to which he or she is bound.

That was enough for me. With my hands pressed to my head (where most of the pain had flared up the first time), I recited the spell again. The intensity of it returned, and I felt the same sensation again, an uncoiling, then a stretching, then the sense of something languid and sinewy moving about in my head. I gaped and the connection broke. I looked at the words again – the catalogue of beasts – and abruptly realized that this was what I had felt, first something snakelike, then something like a great panther waking from sleep in the jungle, then something like a lazy, spidery monkey. The animals, for lack of better words, were coming out to assess me.

With every practice after that, it grew better, longer, and each time I could sense new animals emerging from the woodwork. The books said that one would choose me, and I was growing impatient, for all they seemed to do was lie about. I spent long hours in that classroom, and my absences from the common room were noticeable enough for Myrtle to comment on.

"Where have you been going all this time?" she asked innocently one day, watching Cora and I play chess after dinner (Cora was laughably bad at it, so I let her win about half the time because I liked to play and neither Cliona nor Myrtle ever agreed to it).

"I've been studying. Studying in the library." I tried to say this as casually as possible. She didn't get a chance to reply because Hagrid had just entered the Great Hall carrying a squabbling, irate pixie, which sent Myrtle off on an overblown screaming fit.

"Er, sorry there, Miss Myrtle, I bin tryin' to calm ‘im down. Thought maybe I could bring ‘em up and sing to him, maybe feed ‘im a bit o' bread…" Hagrid trailed off as she went flying out of the room, then shrugged and sat down at the end of the table to coo at the rather rabid-looking pixie.

"Myrtle thinks you've got a secret beau," Cora whispered after the diversion.

I had to laugh aloud at that. "Tell her she's wrong – unless she counts my running off to hidden passageways with Emmet Fawcett," I added jokingly, taking one of Cora's pawns (which squealed in protest). After the first Hogsmeade weekend, poking fun at Emmet was one of our hobbies. "I'm just worried about the OWLs is all. If I do badly, I might not be able to come back."

She raised an eyebrow. "You're worried?"

I got a letter from my mum asking if I'd be home for Christmas, and one from Kitty about all the people from the city they had staying at the farm because of the Muggle war. I never got to know much about what happened in the Muggle world, and I didn't think it was nearly so bad, but apparently there were loads of evacuees staying in the cottage and in the farmhouse's extra bedrooms. I wrote back to tell them that I would be coming and that I didn't mind sharing with Kitty, like we did when we little and the crops were big enough to house hired farmhands.

On the first of December, it snowed, and almost all of Gryffindor, as well as a big portion of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw and even a few Slytherins trekked out on the grounds to have a very large and very disorganized snowball fight. I tried to do my job as a Prefect with Cliona, though I couldn't stop laughing because it was so cold and lovely and my cheeks were red with chill and wonderful exhaustion. "You've got to stop hitting the first-years so hard!" I shouted to her.

"Sorry, Minerva, but they're far too weak to fight back! It's marvellous!" And she lobbed a snowball at Olive Hornby, who cried out with indignation, then came jogging over to me. "That better, oh hallowed Missus Prefect?"

"Much. Ten points to Gryffindor for a well-timed hit."

"I wish you were serious," she grumbled good-naturedly, and sprinted away to avoid a snowball from Hagrid, which was roughly the size of a boulder. It hit me on the leg and I stumbled backward.

"Sorry there, Miss Minerva!" Hagrid yelled anxiously. "Meant ter get back at Miss Cliona!" He pointed to a red mark on his face that could only have been made by a snowball.

I retaliated by whipping a handful of snow at him, and laughed as I had to dodge another giant-sized snowball. "You're a menace, Hagrid," I taunted, and I had to dive into the ground to avoid yet another hit. I rolled over, half-coated in sticky snow, and spotted a solitary figure over by the Herbology greenhouses. I squinted and wiped the snow from eyes. It was Riddle, with his arms folded neatly over his chest and what looked to be a very priggish expression on his face. I frowned – why didn't he just join in, or leave if he didn't like it?

There was a Hogsmeade trip the weekend before the winter exams, presumably for students to alleviate stress, and I allowed myself to be dragged along in spite of wanting to study because I wanted to buy Christmas gifts. I slipped away from the other girls long enough to buy them each a gift. I got more Exploding Notepaper for Cora, as she kept nicking Cliona's; for Cliona herself, I bought a book on famous Beater techniques and tricks. Myrtle was the most difficult, and, after an hour of searching, I turned up with a box of miscellaneous beauty potions, of which Myrtle was an avid consumer.

I met back up with them in Honeydukes and bought wizarding sweets for my family; Kitty had an endless fascination with them, so I always gave her different kinds every time I visited home. Her particular favourite were sugar quills, and she had more than once expressed her annoyance that they did not come in plain, unobtrusive pencil form for her to use in her school.

Myrtle went up to the counter with me, with boxes of things for her Muggle siblings. Cliona was looking at her selections slyly. "Myrtle, you've only got three brothers and one sister. Why've you got five boxes of Chocoballs?"

Myrtle went a brilliant shade of red. "You – er – you noticed. Er – um – one is for…" The rest of the sentence was mumbled incoherently into the sleeve of her robes.

"For who?"

Her eyes darted around, to make sure no one else was listening but Cliona and myself; Cora was off sorting through the large barrels of Fizzing Whizzbees to pick out only the bumbleberry ones. "It's for Tom Riddle. Don't you laugh at me – everyone knows he grew up in an orphanage because his mum died, he must never get Christmas presents. And I'm not going to put my name on it," she added hastily.

I cut off whatever Cliona was going to say by jabbing her in the ribs with my elbow and effectively shutting her mouth. "Myrtle," I said carefully, "I'm not sure if he is going to appreciate it as much as you think he might."

"Why wouldn't he?" she asked petulantly. "Why, I certainly would be overjoyed if I got a gift from a secret admirer, especially if there wasn't anyone else around to send me things for Christmas. He stays at Hogwarts every year, did you know that? Every holiday!"

Cliona was aghast. "Oh, no, Myrtle, you're not going to write that it's from a secret admirer, are you? That's so horribly soppy."

"It is not – it's a kind gesture."

"It's soppy," Cliona repeated.

Cora came over with a bag full of bumbleberry Whizzbees. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," I said firmly, urging Myrtle towards the counter and giving Cliona a warning look. I didn't know why, but I wanted to let the subject drop. Myrtle shot me a grateful glance; she, too, was embarrassed by the conversation.

In the next Potions class Riddle and I had a joint exam to complete – a Pepper-Up Potion, a Deflating Draught, and an Elixir of Circe all in one period. We had to work quickly, so we said nearly nothing to each other – which was not so different from any other class – but I watched him from the corner of my eye, wondering if it had been the Muggle orphanage that had given him such a vile personality. But I knew of other wizards who had grown up without the care of their magical parents, and none were so acidic; Riddle was an enigma.

"You're working slowly, McGonagall," he whispered to me.

This angered me; I was good at Potions, better than most of the class, and he knew it just as well as I did. "Would you rather I switch partners?" I hissed back, through gritted teeth. He didn't say anything back and I went back to stirring up the Deflating Draught, feeling instantly sorry for even bothering to wonder about him.

At any rate, I was glad of my mum and dad, and I was quite anxious to get home for the holidays. A part of me missed living as a Muggle, putting out biscuits for Father Christmas and listening for reindeer on the roof of the house with Kitty snuggled next to me. We never did hear them, but both of swore up and down that we had when the other had been asleep. And then waking up Christmas morning and opening gifts, us in our pajamas and Dad in his ratty old plaid robe, then going to Muggle church and singing to the hymns, then feeding the horses apples for holiday treats.

I packed up some of my clothes and the gifts for my family the night before I was to take the train home, and then I exchanged presents in the common room. All three girls were delighted with what I gave them. I'd never gotten gifts from housemates any other year, but Cliona gave me a new Gryffindor scarf to replace the one I'd had since first year ("I've got to have my fans looking sharp," she joked), and Cora gave me a book of very complicated spells ("Perhaps you could teach them to me after you learn them," she said hopefully). Myrtle presented me with a very large package of sweets (which were later annihilated by Kitty and I and two of the evacuated children).

The professors were singing carols down in the Great Hall, and we went down to join them, adding four very off-key voices to an ever-growing chorus. Hagrid was there, and, in a fit of mischievousness, I caught him under the mistletoe and kissed him on the cheek, then chuckled as he'd stuttered with embarrassment. I'd gotten to know him better over the term, since I'd been sent by my housemates more than once to ask him to keep his more violent beasts away from the other students.

Winter has always been my favourite time of year. I love snow, and how amusing everyone looks all bundled up in winter robes, and the warmth of fires while the wind rages outside. And that winter was no exception; in fact, it was probably the best winter I'd had since coming to Hogwarts. I went home feeling full and contented.

*

Four ~ Sorrow and Secrets

I came back to Hogwarts feeling frazzled and tired and hopeless.

I had expected our farm to be housing people forced out of their homes by the Muggle bombings, but I hadn't expected so many people. There must have been three dozen people stuffed into the various crevices of our slapdash house and into the lofts and stacks of the barn. There were children I didn't recognize running around everywhere, from little moppets to surly teenagers. I wasn't allowed to talk about my magic – my mum pulled me aside right away – so I spent much of the holiday explaining things away to the visitors. The wizarding sweets were from a very exclusive candy shop in Glasgow, my school itself was a private girls' academy for those entering nunneries (which was a complicated and regrettable one because one of the visitors was a theology teacher who kept quizzing me about the lives of the prophets), and the like.

Christmas Day itself was lovely; we woke up early and there were a dozen stockings up, one filled with peppermints and oranges for every child at the farm, and Kitty and I smiled knowingly and told fibs about Father Christmas knowing where they were, even in the war (it is a little-known fact, even among wizards, that the real Father Christmas, also known as Nicholas the Benevolent, was a once-kind wizard who got irritated and quit forever in 1879 when he realized that over ninety percent of the world's children were naughty). These were the days before all the restrictions against underage wizardry, so I hid in the pantry and transfigured old blocks and things into dolls and toy trains. My mum was appreciative of this and proclaimed Father Christmas a most generous gift-giver. We went to Mass and lit candles, and ate stuffed turkey and dressing and puddings until we all felt very sick.

But the worst news, the absolute worst news, came whispered to me on Christmas night, when I was already half-asleep. Kitty had crept over to my bed when everyone else was stuffed and asleep and shook me gently. "Minerva?" she'd whispered.

"Mmph," was my coherent reply.

"Minerva, wake up, I've got something to tell you."

"Kitty," I mumbled. "Kitty, did you have another nightmare?" When we were very young, Kitty would sometimes wake and crawl into bed with me, having dreamed of monsters or ghosts or of the farm burning down. I suppose I wasn't quite aware of the year because this was my first instinct; I reached up to her.

"No, wake up all the way, come on now."

I blinked and rolled over, my hand splayed in front of me on the pillow as I drifted up into consciousness. "What is it?"

Kitty's face was wide and anxious in the dim light. "Listen, Minerva, don't be mad at Mum and Dad, they wanted you to have a good Christmas and not tell you until you're back at your school, but we're leaving in summer. Mum's scared about the war – it's gone on too long with no real end in sight, she says – and all the bombings down in London and they think we ought to go to America or Canada – there are wizard schools for you over there, aren't there?"

Of course there were wizard schools other than Hogwarts, but I didn't know that then. I cannot describe the state of my mind at that moment. It was simply – frenetic. It couldn't comprehend what my ears had just heard. "What? Kitty?"

"I told Mum and Dad not to, but they wouldn't listen, and I'm sorry because I know you won't want to go and I'm sorry because you love it there." When I said nothing back – I believe I was quite dumbstruck – she curled her hand around mine in the dark and we lay together, listening to the other breathe.

She was asleep long before I was.

Truthfully, I was devising ways I could get them to stay in Scotland. It wasn't that I would miss my friends; except for Professor Dumbledore, there really wasn't anyone I would long to see – I hadn't known any of the Gryffindor girls that long, nor anyone else. It was that I could not bear the thought of being apart from Hogwarts itself. It was something I loved above all over things, like a prized possession kept in a coffer, only larger and more intricate and far more wonderful. I didn't think I could live without having the paintings shout greetings at me and dodging poltergeists in the hallways, without watching Quidditch in the brisk, clear autumn and eating every meal under an enchanted ceiling. I buried my face into my pillow and willed myself not to cry that Christmas night, and I didn't. I lay silently, until the sound of Kitty and the other children sleeping finally lulled me into rest.

By morning I had decided that, if worst came to worst, I would stay at Hogwarts and let them go. I didn't know how to say this to Mum and Dad, and especially to Kitty, so I spent the rest of the holiday mulling it over myself and saying nothing. Even to Kitty, who gave me concerned looks at least twice a day and squeezed my hand reassuringly whenever she could. I knew I was being selfish – childish, even. There were people all around whose lives had been torn to pieces, and I could not stop thinking about how I did not wish to leave my school. It was insensitive and wrong, but I couldn't help it. I played rounders with the children, visited people in the village, helped my mum do the washing (I asked to help her with magic but she was adamantly against it in case someone walked by), and all the while I felt very numb and unlike myself.

Before I left to go back to Hogwarts, Kitty took me aside at the train station. "I love you, Minerva, you ought to know that." She gave me a cheeky grin before the moment could get too serious. "You're the only sister I've got – who brings me dangerous sweets."

"I do know that," I replied, ignoring the joke. I kissed her on the cheek. "I love you, too."

The train ride was uneventful. When I stepped back into the common room, I wanting nothing more than to curl up with a large book about advanced Animagi, but I was immediately set upon by Myrtle, who had, apparently, just realized that we were to write the OWLs at the end of the year. Her books were spread all over the common room. Cora and Cliona were watching with amusement, for no one cared about exams just after Christmas. "Minerva," she howled, "you've just got to help me with Transfiguration! Oh, I'm so dreadfully behind in everything!"

"Oh, Myrtle," I said. "Of course I will. I'm a bit tired, though. Er – just let me go and grab the rest of my suitcases, all right?" I ducked out, presumably to retrieve the non-existent suitcases, and went to the Transfiguration classroom instead. Surprisingly, Professor Dumbledore was waiting for me.

"I knew you'd be here." He was sitting at the desk looking very satisfied. "Did you have a Happy Christmas, Miss McGonagall?" he asked excitedly.

"Er – yes, Professor." And it was suddenly as though some wellspring had overflowed inside of me, because I started to cry; I hadn't cried over the fact that I would have to leave yet, and I could bear it no longer. It was the worst possible time to choose for an emotional outbreak, as I hated crying in front of other people. Especially people I respected. "No," I said quietly through my tears. "That's a lie."

His brow furrowed. "What's wrong?"

The whole situation came flooding out. I was powerless to stop it. It was like I had stepped outside of myself and was watching Minerva uncharacteristically run her mouth off and allow words to fall out in unorganized, impassioned heaps. After I was finished, Professor Dumbledore only looked at for a long time, wise and impassive. He seemed to be thinking of what to say, and he let an awkward silence creep between us before he spoke. "They are your family," he said softly.

"But Hogwarts is my home," I replied, my voice small and pathetic-sounding.

I expected a lecture, but instead he rose out of his chair and hugged me loosely. "Miss McGonagall," he said kindly. "You cannot help how you feel. Admittedly, the training you are doing here would be discontinued should you go to America." He ignored my stifled cry. "Unless, of course, there is need for a young Animagus there, which I doubt. You should know this. But you should also think on your family. Think of your mother and father and sister, how you grew up, and how much you love them. I cannot make the choice for you," he finished. "It will be no object once you can Apparate home, but that is not for two and a half years. I don't know if anyone can go without family for that long."

"Can't we set up a Floo in the house in America? I mean, I know my family are Muggles, but they know all about magic; I'm certain that the Ministry would allow it if we only asked them."

He stepped back. "I do not think so, Miss McGonagall. The Ministry's policy dictates that you should go to the wizarding schools in America. The ones you will be closest to. They will not set up Floo stations in the Muggle world if it can be avoided, and I'm afraid they will not take your personal attachment to Hogwarts into account. "

I knew this was true, but to hear it aloud was painful. "I just – I just don't know what to do." I spat these words out. It has always been difficult for me to admit such things. "Bloody Muggle war – wizards can get along fine but they're always fighting each other like wild animals."

"Miss McGonagall." He paused, and then seemed to change his mind about what he was going to say. "I believe," he sighed, "that you need to allow yourself time to think. Perhaps you should continue trying to contact your true Animagus form – things might look different or easier through a foreign set of eyes."

I took this advice to heart, and didn't even notice him slip out behind me. My books weren't with me, but I knew the incantations word for word. I whispered them softly, tears still sticky and drying on my cheeks, and I felt the expected connection open up – now sweetly familiar – but it was interrupted by a high, wailing sound. I sighed, bit my lip, and tried again, but the noise persisted, and I listened harder. It was a faint keening, not unlike the howl of a banshee.

Someone besides myself, apparently, had chosen the day to cry.

I couldn't hold my concentration. It was, quite possibly, the most horrible crying I had ever heard. Thinking that I would never find my proper beast, I gathered up my senses and stepped out of the Transfiguration room, locking the door carefully behind me. I had to find the source of the weeping. It was echoing and it was hard to follow, but I tracked it down a few flights of stairs, into a dingy part of Hogwarts I had never been into before. It seemed wilder than the other bits, as if I were stepping through ruins. There was a low wooden door at the end of one corridor, and I pushed it open with all my might. It took several tries. And there, tucked into a small room I would have thought it impossible for him to fit into, was the source of the sound – Hagrid.

"Hagrid?" I ventured. He didn't seem to hear me; he was still keening and rocking like a small child. Abruptly I felt very foolish for using formalities at a moment like this. "Rubeus?" I asked again, trying to make my voice as gentle as possible. Hagrid was a curious kind of boy, extremely large yet absolutely childlike.

"M-Minerva," he gasped out. Apparently I wasn't the only one to drop politeness; he had never addressed me before without Miss as a preface. "Don' tell anyone I'm down here."

"I think the whole school might be able to hear you," I whispered kindly.

He sniffed and looked up at me, his eyes wide with horror. "D'yeh think so?"

It was only then I realized he was cradling something in his arms. An animal, but he held it as preciously as if it were his child. It was not the type of beast that he would inflict on his poor students decades later, but a relatively harmless Crup, which sort of resembled an overlarge, babyish dog, with a forked tail. It wasn't moving. "Is – is it dead? Is that why you're crying?"

"Yeah," he said brusquely, and I could tell from the unnatural glittering in his eyes that he was about to start sobbing again. "Dunno what happened, just came down ter feed ‘er and she was dead. Poor little baby."

I stared at the thing, stricken. It was admittedly an unpleasant breed of beast, but I felt awful all the same, for Hagrid must have loved it. I felt as if I were intruding on something intensely personal, and I shifted around uncomfortably. "Do you want me to go?"

He didn't seem to hear me. "Dozens of ‘em, all dead. An' this one!" He sniffled, gently set down the dead Crup, stroking one massive thumb over its still ears, and showed me what appeared to be a stone figurine of a Bluebottle, which is like a very large and furry housefly, with huge, prismatic eyes. One can find them in the Forbidden Forest. "Petrified, looks like," he said in a small voice. "How could that've happened?"

"Well," I said, "there are lots of ways something can become petrified. I don't know them all, of course – loads of Dark Magic, there – but there are hexes and such." I couldn't think of anyone who would bother using them on Hagrid's creatures – Myrtle was most vocal about it, but I couldn't see her going on a creature-slaughtering rampage – but this was not my primary concern, for behind Hagrid's prone form was a crate, and the lid of this crate was slowly being lifted off by something with very hairy legs. "And drinking a – Hagrid, what is that thing? It's escaping!" The creature in the box was dangling its long appendages over the side of its prison.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, and pushed the thing back into the box. He lifted up a lid a little and peered inside. "I told yeh a hunnerd times that yer not ter try escapin'!" Hagrid whispered ferociously. "You mighta bin seen!"

"I wanted to see your companion," came a strange, inhuman voice from inside the box. "Her voice woke me from my slumber, and I was intrigued. She sounds – delicious."

"Hagrid!" I screeched, darting towards the door.

"Ah, he's just kiddin' yeh. Harmless as anythin'." Hagrid smiled broadly for a moment, then seemed to remember the gravity of situation at hand. "Listen, Miss Minerva, I ain't s'posed to be keepin' some of these creatures down here – Headmaster Dippet thinks I oughta stick ter less dangerous ones – so could yeh keep it a secret? I might be expelled. That Slytherin says if Dippet knows, I'll—"

"What Slytherin?" I asked sharply.

He turned a faint pink. "Er – never you mind. Jus' please don' tell anyone about this. I'm gonna figure this out on m'own. Maybe one of the ghosts—"

I know now that a great deal of problems would have been solved or indeed would have never come to pass had I done what I should have done – taking my position as a Prefect seriously and going to Dippet about this violation of the rules. Yet, instead, I made a mistake. There was something about Rubeus Hagrid, even then, that made it seem reasonable to exempt him from some things. It could have been his genuine concern for beasts that most would consider frightening and vile, or the grief he was obviously feeling, or even just the quiet depth to his gigantic eyes, but, at that moment, it was impossible to refuse him. "All right, then, Hagrid," I agreed. I eyed the box with the mysterious monster inside, thinking that it was likely that very beast who had killed all the others. "But keep it contained."

He leaned forward and hugged me, a gentle third-year boy twice my size, and started to cry again. I patted him on the back – or on the shoulder, as I couldn't quite reach his back – and said, "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll find other beasts in the Forbidden Forest."

"‘T'won't be the same."

"I know, but it'll be close to the same."

Hagrid smiled again. "Thank yeh."

I was certain I'd made the right choice. "You're welcome." I gave the odd crate a final wary glare, thinking that its occupant was most likely responsible for the deaths of the other creatures. Hagrid wasn't the wisest when it came to judging a creature's viciousness. "Don't pick up anything too dangerous, understand? I don't need Myrtle Markels screaming at me even more."

He laughed. "That one's got a bit o' a problem with me, she has."

And I went. I have thought about this moment every day since Harry Potter came tumbling out of the Chamber of Secrets to tell the world about how Hagrid was innocent, and all I could think about was how I could have gotten rid of that bloody spider, right there, and everything would've been worked out properly. And the future really is axiomatic; who knows what could have happened if we knew the truth at the end of that year rather than accusing the wrong man for half a century? But it chills me to think of it, and I won't dwell on it any longer. Absolution never comes from simply sitting and blaming oneself, and I find myself speaking as an old woman again. I will return to young Minerva.

At dinner that night I saw something very strange while Cora was raving about the wizarding New Year's party she'd been to in London. Tom Riddle slunk over to the end of the Gryffindor table, and whispered into Hagrid's ear. I stared in surprise – they were the two people I would have least expected to get along – until Riddle looked up and saw me. I hastily looked away and tuned Cora back in. "Champagne that made you float in the air? Really?" I asked falsely.

"Oh yes, it was like flying, and they had the most wonderful noisemakers. They didn't just hoot and honk, they played songs and shouted and spoke to one another." She giggled. "My blasted noisemaker kept flirting with the one belonging to this cute fellow who'd been in Ravenclaw when he was here – not that I minded so much, he was rather nice. Well, he was once the noisemakers stopped making lewd suggestions to us."

Myrtle leaned forward eagerly to hear this juicy bit of the story; Cliona rolled her eyes and looked at me for support. "Big match against Slytherin tomorrow," she crowed. "My favourite thing is beating those serpents – you coming to watch?"

"Wouldn't miss it."

"I practiced some great moves over the holiday. There's this awesome one with a double fake – a feint is what the book you gave me called it, how bloody technical of them – and then a hit that ricochets from the stands and absolutely decimates the target's broom. I think I'll try it on one of their slimy old Chasers."

"I can't wait," I said dully. Normally, this would have been an exciting conversation, but I could not put my heart into it. I looked at Hagrid again, but Riddle was already gone and Hagrid was quite blithely eating a slab of fudge. Probably just some Prefect thing, I thought, but there was an icy feeling in my stomach that wouldn't go away, even as I tried to sleep that night. I had taken in so much that day, it's a wonder I slept at all.