A Cat's Tail: Minerva McGonagall Fan Fiction

Chapter 8

The next few months whirled by in a frenzy of crazy teachers, piles of homework and precarious wand waving. Hagrid had broken Minerva's glasses several times, with his crazy wand waving.

"I cannot believe zat it is 'alf term!" Affrodille proclaimed, packing her trunk. She was going back to France for the holiday. "It feels like we only just got 'ere!"

"I know right! My dad thinks it's taken forever!" Ria gushed. The twins nodded in agreement. 

"My mum has sent me like fifty owls reminding me that it's nearly half term!" Minerva laughed. However much she loved Hogwarts, she was yearning for a well earned break and the chance to see her family. 

"Anyone who is leaving, come now!" The prefect (who the girls had nicknamed cacti due to his prickly personality) boomed. Minerva took one last look around the dorm. 

"Minerva! You don't want to miss the train!" She ran down to join her friends.

Minerva laughed and joked the whole ride home in her compartment (that was as full as three tins worth of sardines in one) with Pomona, Hagrid, Rolanda, Ria, Ivy, Iris and Affrodille. The journey flew by, and before she could say quiditch she was squeezing all her friends goodbye (and awkwardly hugging Hagrid) and running off to join her teary eyed mother.

"Don't tell your father about this!" Isobel winked at her Minerva, and the the station began to spin around her. She felt like she was in a washing the machine, which, to her surprise, teleported her outside her door! Minerva vomited all down her mum. "Ah, in heinsight that wasn't the best idea now, was it?" She grimaced, and magically cleaned it up. Minerva raised an eyebrow.

"Why the sudden magic?" Isobel looked at Minerva and smiled, not saying a word. Minerva was more like her than she would believe. Yet again, pangs for the wizarding world she had almost entirely left behind flooded through her. Isobel, much to Minerva's surprise, enveloped her in a hug. 

Minerva was curled up on the window seat, staring out the window.. The full moon was bathing the rolling fields and distant mountains in a silvery glow. She thought she could hear a wolf's howl from the forest. The whole scene was so picturesque it made Minerva start to sing softly under her breath. In Gaelic (through books and the fact her mother knew fractions of it, she was secretly pretty much fluent). One that her mother has sung to her as a baby. It translated to:

The moon is the sun of the night,

The sun is the moon of the day,

Each give light,

One silver, one gold,

But both are there to show the way,

Light our path,

And make the monsters go away.

Despite the beautiful scenery, Minerva ached for Hogwarts with its staircases with a sense of humour, paintings with an attitude and the lessons themselves, teaching her of a world she had yet to feel initiated into, but couldn't back out of. She missed having random philosophical conversations with her dorm mates at midnight. She missed the library and poring over books with Pomona. She missed the quiditch matches and cheering, though for different teams, with Rolanda. She missed exchanging looks with Affrodille, and sharing the struggles of having an accent. She missed Ria's constant nattering and Ivy's inability to be on time. She missed having educational debates with Iris and the warmth she felt around Hagrid. But most of all, she realised, she missed the sense of self worth she felt at Hogwarts. She loved her family, but her troublesome younger brothers took most of the attention from her. 

"Minerva?" Minerva was dragged from her thoughts as her father came into the room. "Look, I just want to say that I think you are a beautiful, amazing clever girl, who I am proud to call my daughter. I'm sorry that I will never fully understand your world, but I just want you to know that I love you very much Tabby, my little kitten," Minerva cringed slightly at the use of her old nickname. She felt warm from the inside out.

"I love you too, dad," Minerva replied, hugging him. 

The rest of half term was mostly spent of Minerva getting her little bothers, I mean brothers, to behave. Sometimes she thought that they had more control over their magic than they let on. She didn't buy their lisped apologies and 'angelic' smiles. She was almost relieved when the half term was over, and she was bundled up in a carriage with her friends all over again.