Childhood's End

14. MANY LESSONS

The next morning, Minerva paced the courtyard awaiting her mother's return. She was to come by carpet, a much smoother ride than broom slings or even a carriage pulled by winged horses. When she saw the tiny black square against the gray sky, her heart went to her throat, and her hands with it, clasped tightly together, as if in prayer.

The woman who emerged from the carpet-bed, helped by Healer Kirk herself, looked much changed from Minerva's last sight of her: pale, but calm, her hair very short and flecked with gray. Minerva remembered it six months back as shoulder-length and dark brown, but matted with perspiration and spittle. She could still see her mother's lips drawn tightly back from her teeth in a rictus of desperation, her eyes wide and pleading as she was forcibly restrained from throwing herself off the balcony in Da's library. It had taken Da, and Filch and his wife Belda, who had come to tea, to subdue her.

This woman, still her mother, but so different, looked at Minerva with concentration and something like hunger, yet she did not move. She looked like a young forest animal, not sure if it was safe to out into the open. The right course in such cases, Petey had told her, was not to make any sudden movements, lest one scared the poor creature away. But months of longing had taken their toll. Minerva could not restrain herself. She flung her arms out in an impulsive gesture of welcome. Surprisingly, her mother did not flinch, but mirrored her movement, though it made her stagger a bit against the steadying hands of her attendant. Minerva ran to her and buried her face wordlessly in her mother's robe. She would not sob, nor cry, nor even sigh, but just hold on for a bit and be grateful.

They all went into the house, she and Da and Goodie and the Healer, and got Ma settled in her room, a pleasant one on the ground floor, next to the kitchen. Filch had converted it from a little-used parlor. It looked out on the courtyard. Some of the farm hands had fashioned a rockery under one window with a pretty little waterfall-- magically sustained of course--and flowers galore.

Iffie McGonagall had tea in her room that night, and her husband and daughter joined her afterwards for a short time. Da brought Ma up-to-date on Minerva's education, the aunts' doings, and his latest inventions. It felt like old times--not the best of them perhaps--but it would do for now.

"Have you seen my mother at all, Jupiter dear?" Ma asked near the end of the evening.

"I've had a letter from her," said her husband, to Minerva's surprise. "She asked after you and would like us to visit when you're feeling better...but if you'd rather not..."

"Oh, no my dear, I want to...I must see her."

"After Yule, perhaps," said Da tonelessly.

~*~

The days passed and Minerva watched avidly for signs that Ma had drawn herself up out of the well of sadness for good. They started having family over, an aunt or two at a time, except for Charlamaine who was thankfully out of town on some scheme or other. Aunt Charlamaine had never much cared for Ma. Minerva didn't know if it was because of her mother's Muggle upbringing or her long-standing illness or something else. Her aunt had always seemed uncomfortable with weakness of any kind, which she tried to cover up with a kind of forced compassion, but the uncomfortableness, and a degree of contempt, always somehow leaked through that facade. It would surely have been hard on Ma to have to endure an afternoon of sympathy from Da's oldest sister.

Minerva made special treats for her mother, the highlight of which was her first-ever haggis. Goodie opined that one could read a lass's heart in the haggis she made with her own hands. Minerva figured this must be an old hag's tale because hers turned out peppery, though with a hint of sweetness, from the currants she'd added in a last-minute burst of inspiration. Ma called it 'full-flavored' and liked that the vegetables were firm, not overcooked, with just enough meat to sustain a body through an honest day's work. It made her want to get back into the kitchen herself, and by her seventh day home, she did just that, donning her work robes and squeezing in between Minerva and Goodie at the table. They made bannocks and a soup of vegetable marrows, and played the tattie-peel game for auld lang syne, although Minerva was way too old to be fooled now.

Her school lessons came regularly by owl, and twice a week the kitchen was converted into a potions lab with Goodie helping her. Together they made, in turn, a maceration of frog's eggs and stump water to cure warts, a cleansing drink to mitigate the effects of billywig stings, drops to change eye color, a lozenge to curtail snoring, and warming powders to sprinkle over one's gloves in nippy weather. She owled samples of her work to her teacher and hoped for decent marks. Hildy Bagshot claimed that Madam Mossbane was more than a bit erratic in her evaluation of their work. The Mint-Monkeypuzzle Infusion they'd made on the first day of classes was a case in point. Everyone had been given full marks, even Raymie and Suze, whose result had not resembled in the slightest the description given in the book. In fact, Suze had confessed later that she'd misread one of the bottles in the ingredients cupboard and not used mint at all, but something called creme de menthe. Well, it had smelled like mint, said Raymie. But the homework papers they'd all handed in at the next session came back graded "Troll"--every single one! Then there was the research on leaching techniques they'd had to do the first weekend. Raymie had copied his word for word from Suze, but their teacher seemed not to have noticed--she gave Suze an "Acceptable" and Raymie an "Outstanding."

Dr. Fancourt, the astronomy teacher, had her keep a journal and draw the phases of the moon as it appeared in the sky at midnight every night for one full cycle. Minerva also had to observe the effect of its light on one plant, one animal, and one inanimate of her choice. She chose, respectively, a clump of silver moss that grew on the forked trunk of the beech tree, a huge toad that lived behind the rain barrel at the kitchen door, and an onyx ring left her by her witch grandmother Johanna Macnair McGonagall. The moss she noticed changed color in the different phases, becoming more reddish as the moon waxed, and, when it turned full, evincing tiny, sweet-smelling spore-stalks that attracted fairies. The onyx was pleasantly warm to the touch at full moon, grew colder and colder as it waned, and was positively icy by the new moon. The toad just stayed fat, grumpy, and hard to catch no matter what the phase. And it would pee or vomit spitefully in her direction whenever she tried to examine it.

~*~

"Jupiter, this experiment of Minerva's reminds me of that time we visited Greenland," said Ma at dinner one evening.

Minerva had come in dripping with toad-slime for the third night in a row, and was being Scourgified by Goodie at the kitchen sink before being allowed to join the family at table.

"How so, Iffie dear?"

"Well, not the ick, so much as the method. Do you remember? We stayed at that Healers' training facility at North Star Bay...on the advice of the twins, I think. I had to keep a journal of my reactions to the treatment to show to the mediwitch on duty every day we were there."

"Tell me about it, Mama," said Minerva as she took her seat, now looking and smelling relatively clean.

"It was one of our first attempts at curing my...disablity. It's called Auroratherapy. You know what the Northern Lights are, don't you?" Minerva nodded. "Well, their maginetic vibrations are supposed to be able to jiggle your brain cells about...dislodge residual curses...diffuse unhappy memories...to give you a fresh start, so to speak."

"We learned about the Northern Lights in Astronomy," said Minerva brightly. "Their technical name is Aurora Borealis. They have great...psychologic potential, though their...unpredictability...and remoteness...makes them less useful than moonglow as a magical...stimulus."

Iphigenia McGonagall took a long, admiring look at her daughter. "I can see school has changed you a great deal already."

"It's just that...well...Doctor Fancourt has us memorize facts from her books sometimes. I'm not always sure what they mean. But tell me about your trip. What's Greenland like?"

"Not green, that's for sure," said her father with a snort. "And cold as a yeti's hind end. But your professor's perfectly right. Those Northern Lights were a wee bit more powerful than we expected."

"What do you mean?"

"He means they cured me quite nicely," said her mother. "I felt better than I had in ages...no nightmares at all...and my appetite came back..."

"But it was their music that gave you the urge to go bobbing about on that confounded glacier."

"What music?" asked Minerva.

Her mother sighed at the memory--with pleasure, Minerva thought. "It's this heavenly sound that accompanies the aurora. The lights appear in the west at sunset and gradually rise and intensify into all the colors you can think of...rippling and flashing and flowing and folding over themselves like silk banners in a breeze. And as they rise, this sound comes out of them ..like so many silver chimes set to ringing...delicate and clear and a little bit wild. A thrill goes through you, and you find you simply must obey their cadence. You can't help but dance. It is delightful."

"Delightful! Dangerous, I'd say."

"What do you mean, Da?"

"I mean those Lights had your mother mesmerized to the point where she waltzed out onto the ice of the bay one night while she was indulging her Muse. The section she was on broke off from the main sheet. She would have been swept out to sea on an ice floe if I hadn't been keeping an eye on her."

"I don't remember that," said Ma.

"You wouldn't. You were out cold by the time I'd accio-ed you back to shore. But there was this blissful smile on your face...like you'd been rolling about in a nestful of Billywigs."

"The sensation was similar, now I come to think of it. but I didn't put that in my journal."

"Did you go anywhere else?" asked Minerva.

"Not that time," said Ma, "because I was feeling so good. Your father was...we both were sure I was cured."

"Och, I just wanted to get you home safe from that damned tingling sensation," said Da gruffly, but there was a smile on his lips.

"I think it was the next Spring that we went out again. To Tibet it was."

"Aye. I remember the brochure: Experience the relaxing herbal teas and specialized diets of the lama shamans...Traditional magic passed down through countless generations...Snow-covered mountains soar above you like castle towers... et cetera, and so forth."

"But, alas, we didn't stay long," said Ma, "I was allergic to the dragon curry you see..."

"Ah, yes, the curry. Too bad. That was the best part of the trip for me." Da patted his belly as he savored the memory

"It would be." Ma poked him, but her hand lingered on his arm in something like a caress as she continued. "So we went on to Germany, didn't we? To Max Spudmore's favorite spa."

"Aye, auld Max. Whenever he'd had a wee dram too much in the biergartens of Bavaria, he'd take a course of soaks and tonics in these subterranean sulfur baths that he swore would straighten out a donkey's hind legs."

"You never told me that," said Ma. "You said he took his aged mother there to cure her delirium."

"Delirium tremens, my dear." He winked at Minerva. "The old lady loved her whisky, she did."

"But I was not, and never have been, a pub-crawler." Ma made as if to slap his face, but Da grabbed her wrist.

"The baths are reputed to cure all kinds of mental...er...insufficiencies, Iffie dear."

"Well, they didn't...work...so well on me...did they?" Ma was struggling to wrest her hand from Da's grasp, but it didn't seem she was trying very hard.

"Why, Ma?" asked Minerva, fascinated that her parents were having an actual argument. "What happened?"

"The sulfur in the water turned my skin a wrinkly green. After two days, I looked just like a Moke."

"But a lovely Moke--with hazel eyes," offered her father, trying to keep a straight face.

"It's not funny, Jupiter!" Iffie made a motion with her other hand, which, if it had held a wand, would surely have taken his head off.

"No, of course it isn't, my dear. But at the time..."

"At the time, you whisked me off to another place." Iffie's face softened. "I can't remember which...but it was nicer..."

"And much more effective," said Jupiter. He drew her hands together and kissed them. She stopped struggling.

"Where?" asked Minerva.

"Japan," said her father, a dreamy look in his eyes. "That cure was the best ever. And the free sake didn't hurt either."

"What's sack-ey?" asked Minerva.

"Never mind, dear," said her mother. "I remember now, Jupiter. There was moon-bathing, and they rolled me in hibiscus petals and jasmine. It was quite lovely."

"You were quite lovely," corrected Da.

"Did it work?"

"Not long enough," said her mother. "Shortly after we got back I had one of my worst bouts ever."

"But we didn't go straight home," said her father. "We went to America."

"Why?" asked Minerva. "If you were feeling so good?"

"We'd never been there," said Da simply. "And your mother was curious about the Snake Dancers."

"Yes, another brochure talked about these shamans in the Ozark Mountains who capture great poisonous snakes that have rattles in their tails. And, can you imagine? They drape these snakes over their shoulders and dance with them. Sometimes they even...kiss them...right on the mouth. It sounded so impossible. I just had to see if it were true."

"Was it?" Minerva was trying to imagine the scene: a roaring bonfire perhaps, and witches and wizards gathered around it in strange feathered costumes like pictures of Red Indians in a Muggle magazine Magnus had once showed her.

"Yes," said Da dramatically. "The snakes were huge. And fanged. And noisy. And there were drummers drumming and they were very noisy. And the people bounced about in time with the drumming with the snakes coiled around their necks, hissing and rattling...that is, the snakes were hissing and...like this." He got up and started towards her, gyrating about and waggling his arms, a look of intense pain on his face. Minerva giggled. He looked like he had been blasted with a double dose of Inkhorn's Incessant Itch Powder.

"Stop that, Jupiter!" said his wife. She was trying hard to keep her mouth serious, but the dimple in her cheek gave her away. "Snakes are beautiful creatures, Minerva dear. Sinuous and graceful. And their coloration is quite remarkable. Great stripes and diamonds that look like they've been painted on. I did so enjoy watching them."

"Watching them?! You joined in the bloody dance and only just escaped being bitten yourself."

"Did I really? And did you save me that time as well?" There was a mocking note in Ma's voice and a gleam in her eye that tickled Minerva.

"No, some old crone grabbed me as I was about to get up. Told me in that awful accent of theirs that it was bad luck to interrupt the ceremony. So I had to watch and pray you wouldn't start hugging one of the slimy beasts yourself. Somehow you managed to survive until you got close enough for me to pull you down."

"So that was the reason. I thought you just wanted to snuggle. But they're not slimy at all--the snakes I mean..."

They went on this way for some moments. Half the time it seemed they forgot that she was there. Minerva was enthralled. She had never heard her parents, or any grown-ups for that matter, talk like this to each other, playful and joshing, but with a hint of something more, a mysterious relationship, more intense than mere friendly affection.

After dinner Ma didn't retreat to her room after dessert, but stayed to help Minerva with her studies for a bit, then went for a walk outside with Da.

While helping to clean the kitchen, Minerva questioned Goodie closely about Ma's 'cures.' How many more attempts had there been? Could she think why they didn't work? Goodie remembered only one other such trip, to a famous 'witch doctor'--as the Muggles called them--in Rhodesia, recommended by Lord Macnair. Minerva wondered if it was the same place his Lordship had found that Shrinking Potion she'd heard Waldon talking about.

Goodie remembered because it was the one time she'd been permitted to go along. The shaman had diagnosed the Mistress with something he called the deeping doubt and recommended that she be coated in diamond dust and purged with viper venom. She endured the first step fairly well, even reveled in the glistening of her skin as she strolled about in the African sunshine. But Jupiter himself balked at the venom therapy when Goodie heard from another patient she was trading recipes with that the chances of mortality were distressingly high, even for magical folk.

Minerva went to bed that night very glad that Da had tried so hard to help Ma, but gladder still that Ma hadn't taken the viper venom. She fell asleep lulled by the sounds of their laughter echoing up through her casement window.

~*~

Good Morning, dearie, and a happy twelfth birthday to you." Da reached across the breakfast table to hand his daughter a package. Her mother sat beside him, beaming. "Wrapped it myself. Well, your mother wrapped it first--but it was a bit too revealing for a surprise, I thought."

"Thanks, Da." She started to undo the thick twine and the rough, brown burlap.

"I got the idea from the twins. They were going on and on about how you were a Lee-bra and all, so I thought--hmm-- 'Libra' means 'scales,' so I told your mother: why don't we get you some nice new ones?"

It didn't feel like scales. Much too heavy. And the wrong shape, unless it were in a box.

"But I told him not to be so very practical," said her mother. "So we compromised. " She paused as Minerva came to an inner wrapping--a gauzy shimmering tissue, flecked with stars. It peeled away to reveal a large book. "Instead of libra, why not liber?"

Minerva read out the words on the spine of the book: Fairy Tales by Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm. They were in gold ink on red leather. She turned a page, a much thinner material than parchment, and gilt-edged as well. "It's in another language...not Gaelic..."

"Och, that is but the introduction to the original," said her father. "These Grimm brothers were German wizards and great scholars, I hear. I thought it would help with your schoolwork. You know...history of the wee folk and all."

"Minerva glanced through the Table of Contents. "Da, did you actually read any of this?"

"Aye...well...no. You see, I went to Hogsmeade, but I couldn't find anything that looked factual, but interesting too, like your mother wanted."

Ma chuckled. "I told him not to bring back another school book."

"True, but we did agree,did we not, that it should be something worthwhile...and helpful in her studies. So I Apparated to London to see what they might have in Diagon Alley. But as I was walking to the Leaky Cauldron, right next door was this Muggle bookshop. I was a bit curious...walked inside, and here was this book, big as life, right on the first shelf I came to. Luck, I call it! A wizarding manual in a Muggle shop!"

Minerva looked over at her mother. She had her hand over her mouth as if she were trying to stifle a sneeze. Minerva turned a beady eye on her father. "Da! This is no wizard's manual. It's more like a storybook."

"Is that so? Well, the shop owner assured me..."

"Stop teasing. Where did you get it?"

"No, really. It's the Jobberknoll's own truth. I did the Ministry a favor too, getting the book out of there before any of those Mundanes could get their hands on it."

"Da!"

Minerva's mother dropped her hand, revealing an ear-to-ear grin. She got up and crossed to her daughter. "You just can't fool her anymore, Jupiter." She laid a hand on Minerva's shoulder. "It is a storybook, dear, much like one I had when I was young."

"Cost a pretty sickle too. Do you know the exchange rate for Muggle money these days? Outrageous! But it'll be worth it if it helps you with your history lessons..."

But by now, Minerva and her mother had bent their heads together over the book and heard little of what he said.

"It was one of my favorite books as a child, though you might be a little old for it..."

"No, Ma," Minerva leafed through to a colored illustration of a handsome young man handing what looked like a shoe to a girl dressed in rags. "I like it. Do you think we could read it together sometime?"

~*~

After breakfast, Minerva tackled her easiest and most tiresome subject: History of Magic. Grimm's Fairy Tales couldn't help her here, no matter what Da said. She had to read a chapter at a time and report on it to Binns. The current subject was the early doings of the Wizards' Council, especially its attempts to define the differences between beasts and rational beings. Minerva wished she had Gig with her to liven up this part of study time.

She couldn't see how those medieval wizards could have been so daft, deciding that a creature was a 'being', and therefore capable of rational thought and civilized behavior, solely on the basis of whether it could talk or not. Good Grindylows! It was obvious that a beast was a creature that behaved in a beastly fashion, lawless and destructive, whether it had language or not, like Trolls and Pixies--and Erklings. But she couldn't put personal opinions in her reports. Professor Binns was not interested in independent thought. Your grade was based on the number of inches of parchment you filled, and how accurately you could paraphrase the textbook. In the real world, this would have been called plagiarism. In History of Magic, it got you an "Excellent".

~*~

Charms, Magical Defense, and Transfiguration were more challenging. She knew she would have to visit the school the last Friday before the holidays and demonstrate her spellwork for her 'Practicals' teachers. She figured she needed to master one spell a week to satisfy the minimum requirement. Da promised to help her learn them. She hoped he could keep his promise. He seemed rather preoccupied these days walking with Ma, scratching odd little sketches on the tablecloth, humming and smiling to himself. She confided her concern to Goodie Gudgeon.

"Ye needna wirrie your faither with nane o yer schuilwork the noo. He's got mair important things tae think on. I can teach ye whativer ye maun knaw."

Minerva got out her list of Spells To Be Memorized Before the Twentieth of December and presented it to her nurse.

"Och, that's a goodly number. We'd best start right awa."

Goodie was able to help her with the Accio charm as she was expert at this, and Minerva's Lumos and Nox only needed a bit of polishing. But Goodie hadn't used the others in years and didn't even recognize the Transparencia Charm.

"What guid will it do to be able to light up yer insides?"

"Perhaps you can use it to tell how much flour's left in the bin," said Minerva.

"I always knaw that. I'm the only one ever uses it."

~*~

Minerva was afraid she'd be left to learn most of the spells on her own, but one day when she was out in the courtyard, trying for the umpteenth time to levitate her broomstick higher than the fork of the beech tree, Aunt Donald came strolling around the side of the Keep.

"Hello, my girl, is your father in? Oho, practicing, are we?"

The broomstick fell to the ground. "Yes, Aunt Donald," said Minerva, "and my Wingardium Leviosa just doesn't have enough 'wing'."

"Or enough levity either."

"What do you mean?"

"The Leviosa relies on spontaneity for its lightness. You need to concentrate a little less, I think."

"Less?"

"Aye. The harder you try, the more it weighs the subject down."

Minerva tried, but the broomstick just lay there. It didn't even twitch. "It's hopeless. I just don't know how to 'not concentrate.'"

"All right. Failing that, it helps to have a purpose in mind."

"You mean a reason why I want the broomstick to rise?"

Donald nodded.

Minerva thought a moment. "That I can do. Say I want to put it away...under my bed." Her wand made a swishing noise as she brought it to bear on her subject. "Wingardium Leviosa." The broomstick rose swiftly and hovered on a level with the open window. "Oh that's top hole! But now, how do I get it to finish up?"

"That's where body English comes in. Just give it a nudge." Donald demonstrated a flicking motion with her wand in the direction of the window.

Minerva mimicked her. The broomstick shot through and she heard it hit the wall and clatter to the floor, presumably in the desired space. She turned to her aunt. "I don't suppose you'd have the time..."

"To help out my favorite niece with a few first-year spells?" She put her arm around Minerva's shoulders. "Of course I would. And by the way, since when did I stop being Aunt Donnie?"

~*~

"What are we doing today?" asked her mother as Minerva brought in yet another box to set in the window. Minerva loved the word 'we.' When Ma used it, it sounded more like 'wheeeeeeee!' to her ears, like the gasp of pleasure forced from her lungs whenever she accelerated into a grand loop out on the pitch. But she hid her feelings behind a sigh, (which was not fabricated---the seed flat with its dose of moist dragon-dung was heavy) and just said, "The last of my Herbology seedlings." She stared at the flat. Agrimony, milk vetch, bee-balm, cinquefoil, dog's mercury, heartsease and hyssop completed her mini-garden.

With her 'practicals' taken care of, she was tackling her final project: packets of seeds to grow for Mami Leek. She was to keep notes on their care and behavior and collect certain of their fruits as they matured. For this she needed a sunny window, and her mother was happy to offer her own. Minerva smiled. It would be a chance for them to be together alone.

Minerva fussed with the flats on the stone window ledge and moved them around until they were just so. How lucky that the castle walls were over three feet thick. She could fit two rows of flats in the sunny space on the sill and still have room for the appurtenances of their care: instruction sheets, extra fertilizer, mini-trowel and rake. Oh yes, and a watering can. Aguamenti was a fifth-year charm.

Her mother surveyed the tiny farm. "Hmm, let's see if I remember my Herbology. 'Leaves of three'...must be Cannabis. Your teacher is from the States, right?"

"She's from Trinidad, but she's traveled a lot. See, here's bloodroot. It's also called a puccoon. It was used by the Algonkian Indians as a dye and an afro...afro-disease-ee-ack. That means it protects against Nundu breath, doesn't it?"

"Mmm--something like that. I don't see belladonna or foxglove or sumac either. Don't they have them in the Caribbean?"

"Mami Leek doesn't believe in giving first years poisons to work with. She says it's just tempting them to try them out on their enemies"

"Oh, I'd worry more about the older children using them. Their sense of vengeance is so much better developed. And they have so much more to revenge."

"What do you mean?"

"You still have the four Houses, don't you?" Minerva nodded. "Well, I could tell you some stories about the things students do to each other in the name of House loyalty."

"Oh. Did Da tell you? I'm in Gryffindor."

"No, he didn't. He was in Ravenclaw, do you know? As I was."

"Yes." Minerva felt suddenly shy. "That's how you first met."

"Yes, in spite of all the prejudice against Muggle-borns, and your father the purest of the pure. It's a little like a fairy tale, isn't it?"

"I should hope not, Mama! Some of the Grimms' stories are--well--grim."

Yes, there is violence in them. There nearly always is when there are wrongs to be righted. But my personal favorites are those with an improbably happy ending. Like Cinderella. Poor young girl, her birthright stolen by her wicked stepmother, meets and marries the man of her dreams, the handsome prince. And they live happily ever after."

"Like with you and Da." Ma smiled at this and Minerva giggled. "Did you have a wicked stepmother?"

"No, my parents were both very good to me."

"And Da was...your prince."

"Nae, he was a great, swaggering, clumsy oaf!"

Minerva turned toward the new voice. It was her father who spoke, framed in the doorway. Ma laughed, a tinkly sound. She held out her hand. Da strode forward, took it, and gave it a lingering kiss.

"And what are my two fine ladies up to today? Talking ancient history, are we?"

Minerva giggled again.

"Catching up," said Ma. "Don't you know we 'fine ladies' have to have some time together. It's been so long..." There was a little catch in Ma's voice. She looked like she'd like to stroke her daughter's face, but the words and the look were enough for Minerva. She didn't begrudge Da the interruption. There would be plenty of time for 'girl talk'. A world of time.

~*~

In the middle of pleasant conversations, mostly trading stories about life at school, Minerva's mother would sometimes pause and stare out the window, a slight frown line creasing her brow. The pauses got longer and longer each time. Minerva always bit her tongue and waited her out, but finally after a week, she had to ask: "Ma, is something wrong?"

"Never in life, my dear, I just...there's something I want to share with you, but I wonder if you're..."

"Ready...to bear it?"

Her mother's mouth formed a small O. She blew on her tea, sipped it, drew back as if it burned her lips. "Yes, I think you are. All right." She opened the drawer of her nightstand. Her hands trembled slightly as she removed a piece of paper from it. It looked like a news clipping. "Read it," she said.

Minerva unfolded it, smoothed it out on her knee. It was a news article and had a headline:

WIZENGAMOT REJECTS CASE OF SUSPECTED PATRICIDE

Department of Magical Law Enforcement Head Joseph Longbottom announced today that although there has been speculation in the Press of foul play in the death of William Wallace of Bridge of Tilt, Perthshire, he will not bring charges against the deceased's daughter, Iphigenia "Iffie" Wallace McGonagall. Judicial experts speculate that the reasons for Longbottom's reluctance stem from the fact that William Wallace was a Muggle and his case rightly belongs in the Mundane courts, even though the chief suspect is Wallace's own daughter, who is a witch. Muggle medical officers have labelled Wallace's death heart failure, brought about in part by injuries suffered in the war. Wallace served in the British infantry in Belgium and France and suffered breathing problems from exposure to poisonous gas.

Less sympathetic observers point out that the suspect's husband is a wealthy and influential Perthshire landowner, and that she is herself a comely young witch. Moreover, she is in the family way, which is bound to generate sympathy and make it difficult to get a conviction.

A mediwitch who examined the deceased at the scene gave it as her opinion that the death was due to a Killing Spell of some sort. A Prior Incantato done on Madam McGonagall's wand, however, shows that the last spell performed was obstructed in some way and no conclusions as to its identity could be drawn.

Healer Valentine Golden, who has made a study of Muggle mental disease, agreed that a story Madam McGonagall told about seeing her father turn into a monster is consistent with a condition known as paranoid schizophrenia. She was found unconscious next to the body and has only fragmented memories of the incident. Golden said this approximates a trance-like state called catatonia which schizophrenics sometimes experience after a deeply shocking event. He went on to say that Muggle-born witches and wizards sometimes retain a susceptibility to Mundane ailments. That the body was identified positively by Gladys Wallace, the victim's wife, and the fact that there was no evidence of Transfiguration on the body, leads investigators to believe that the daughter either suffered some kind of delusion and lashed out in self-defence or that an innocuous spell she meant to cast went horribly wrong and the sense of being responsible for her father's death threw her into the catatonic state.

Madam McGonagall has been in a state of mental distress since the incident, and her husband has blocked all attempts to interview her. One close relative, who asked not to be named, gave out that "Iffie has always been a bit peculiar and stand-offish." This person went on to say that although Miss Wallace, as she was then, was warmly welcomed into the McGonagall clan, she insisted on having her wedding at her Muggle parents' home with a minimum of witnesses, citing her father's illness as an excuse. "She had something to hide even then," said the source.

Madam McGonagall has been relegated to the custody of her husband, Jupiter McGonagall, Lord of Connghaill Keep in Perthshire, while the couple awaits the birth of their first child.

Minerva reread the last words aloud. "'...their first child'...is...was that me?"

Her mother smiled wanly. "Yes, my dearie."

"Goodie said...you had a lot of trouble...when I was born."

"Oh, that...the birthing pains. They only lasted a short while. For me, you were the sun at the end of a fortnight of rain."

"This thing they say you did. Do you remember anything about what happened?"

"Very little. It's been so long, and I think the cures and nostrums I've been exposed to have dulled my memories...for better or worse. Sometimes I read those words over and I don't recognize who it is they're talking about. Who was that woman? Who am I?" She stared at her daughter with real anguish for a few seconds, then sighed and hung her head.

"You're my mother," said Minerva simply. "Nothing else but that matters."

"And that I'll never forget." And she drew her daughter to her and clasped her fiercely.

Minerva pulled back and looked at her mother. She could see no trace of the despair in the eyes, only regret. She thought it was safe to ask a difficult question. She had penetrated Ma's defenses this far, and might never have another chance. "What's it like, Ma? Your illness, I mean."

"Mostly I hear voices. In my head. One voice in particular. It's insistent, cajoling, and very logical."

"What does it say?"

"Sad things, hateful things. It makes me want to..."

"Kill yourself?"

"Only once did it bring me to that. Before, I always managed to resist."

"It must have been so hard."

Ma gave a little laugh. "Not so, my dearie. Whenever the feelings were strongest in me, I'd do one of two things: I'd watch you sleeping or playing in the yard or...I'd dance."

"Dance?"

"Yes, dancing has always given me strength, even in the lowest times."

Except for once, thought Minerva, remembering what Goodie had told her about Ma clinging to her as a baby and dancing towards the hearth fire. Sometimes, she guessed, the cures didn't work. But she didn't say this. She wanted Ma to remember only the triumphs.