Childhood's End

A Scottish witchling comes of age between two Muggle wars, her father a proud Highland laird, her mother a Muggle-born witch troubled by a dark past. First year Minerva McGonagall looks forward to school with no greater ambition than to make her House Quidditch team and come home for the Christmas holidays to a mother freed of her deep depression. But Minerva's first year will be marred by frustration and grief, as she struggles to help her family and find her place in the wizarding world. She will enjoy the support of friends, but her greatest ally will be the author of a book she found in a dustbin.

Shopping for school supplies holds much excitement than Minerva bargained for.

Full moon! Minerva is stranded in the mountains. She hears the blood-curdling howl of a beast she has only ever heard stories about. She must use all her talents--including one she doesn't know she has--to escape it. Escape she does, though not entirely unscathed, and eavesdrops on the ghosts of the Keep in their pictures by her bedroom door.

The three friends are out on the mountainside one sunny afternoon, just gathering knotgrass for a new goal net. Nothing could possibly go wrong, could it?

Pursued by angry spirits, Petey abandons Minerva and Gig to the darkness of the cave.

Petey goes missing, and Minerva must choose her wand for school.

Wizarding Scots do not buy their wands from a ordinary store. Rather, clan wands are interred with their owners where they await resurrection by compatible descendants in search of their own first wands. In this chapter, Minerva and her father travel to the McGonagall Crypt for the Choosing. But it is also the place where she last saw her friend Petey before he went missing.

Is Minerva a 'lykatrope'? She desperately needs to know and has a plan to find out.

Finally Minerva arrives at Hogwarts!

Minerva is not sure if she's going to fit in at Hogwarts. Everything is so different...

There's nothing our girl wants more than to play Quidditch for Gryffindor. She gets a chance to show her talent, but her youth is an automatic handicap. After all, no first year has made the team since the turn of the century.

Quidditch is the most important thing to this young witch. Well, perhaps not THE most important...

We meet Minerva's aunts, a cheerful bunch, except for Charlamaine.

Minerva's mother finally comes home.

Minerva imagines what it was like when her mother and father met.

Minerva meets some relatives who set her straight on a number of topics. Oh yes, and she participates in her very first Wizard's Duel.

Petey comes home from Durmstrang and has some scary thoughts about his new alma mater. Minerva, Gig, and Dugald go for a walk in the snow, where Minerva witnesses first hand the hold love has on her best friend.

Minerva's mother needs to know what really happened to her father. Only her own mother--Minerva's grandmother--can tell her.

Minerva overhears a serious conversation between her parents, and later, a window is left open...

Minerva finds out the source of her mother's troubles. Now everything will be wonderful, right?

A Scottish witchling comes of age between two Muggle wars, her father a proud Highland laird, her mother a Muggle-born witch troubled by a dark past. First year Minerva McGonagall looks forward to school with no greater ambition than to make her House Quidditch team and come home for the Christmas holidays to a mother freed of her deep depression. But Minerva's first year will be marred by frustration and grief, as she struggles to help her family and find her place in the wizarding world. She will enjoy the support of friends, but her greatest ally will be the author of a book she found in a dustbin.

A Scottish witchling comes of age between two Muggle wars, her father a proud Highland laird, her mother a Muggle-born witch troubled by a dark past. First year Minerva McGonagall looks forward to school with no greater ambition than to make her House Quidditch team and come home for the Christmas holidays to a mother freed of her deep depression. But Minerva's first year will be marred by frustration and grief, as she struggles to help her family and find her place in the wizarding world. She will enjoy the support of friends, but her greatest ally will be the author of a book she found in a dustbin.

A Scottish witchling comes of age between two Muggle wars, her father a proud Highland laird, her mother a Muggle-born witch troubled by a dark past. First year Minerva McGonagall looks forward to school with no greater ambition than to make her House Quidditch team and come home for the Christmas holidays to a mother freed of her deep depression. But Minerva's first year will be marred by frustration and grief, as she struggles to help her family and find her place in the wizarding world. She will enjoy the support of friends, but her greatest ally will be the author of a book she found in a dustbin.

A Scottish witchling comes of age between two Muggle wars, her father a proud Highland laird, her mother a Muggle-born witch troubled by a dark past. First year Minerva McGonagall looks forward to school with no greater ambition than to make her House Quidditch team and come home for the Christmas holidays to a mother freed of her deep depression. But Minerva's first year will be marred by frustration and grief, as she struggles to help her family and find her place in the wizarding world. She will enjoy the support of friends, but her greatest ally will be the author of a book she found in a dustbin.

A Scottish witchling comes of age between two Muggle wars, her father a proud Highland laird, her mother a Muggle-born witch troubled by a dark past. First year Minerva McGonagall looks forward to school with no greater ambition than to make her House Quidditch team and come home for the Christmas holidays to a mother freed of her deep depression. But Minerva's first year will be marred by frustration and grief, as she struggles to help her family and find her place in the wizarding world. She will enjoy the support of friends, but her greatest ally will be the author of a book she found in a dustbin.

A Scottish witchling comes of age between two Muggle wars, her father a proud Highland laird, her mother a Muggle-born witch troubled by a dark past. First year Minerva McGonagall looks forward to school with no greater ambition than to make her House Quidditch team and come home for the Christmas holidays to a mother freed of her deep depression. But Minerva's first year will be marred by frustration and grief, as she struggles to help her family and find her place in the wizarding world. She will enjoy the support of friends, but her greatest ally will be the author of a book she found in a dustbin.

A Scottish witchling comes of age between two Muggle wars, her father a proud Highland laird, her mother a Muggle-born witch troubled by a dark past. First year Minerva McGonagall looks forward to school with no greater ambition than to make her House Quidditch team and come home for the Christmas holidays to a mother freed of her deep depression. But Minerva's first year will be marred by frustration and grief, as she struggles to help her family and find her place in the wizarding world. She will enjoy the support of friends, but her greatest ally will be the author of a book she found in a dustbin.

A Scottish witchling comes of age between two Muggle wars, her father a proud Highland laird, her mother a Muggle-born witch troubled by a dark past. First year Minerva McGonagall looks forward to school with no greater ambition than to make her House Quidditch team and come home for the Christmas holidays to a mother freed of her deep depression. But Minerva's first year will be marred by frustration and grief, as she struggles to help her family and find her place in the wizarding world. She will enjoy the support of friends, but her greatest ally will be the author of a book she found in a dustbin.