Before she was Professor McGonagall, she was Minerva Macnair. After an arranged marriage forces her into an impossible situation, Minerva does what she must to survive. When she makes a new life for herself, her secrets follow and threaten everythin...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"I took a potion."
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
24 December 1962
For the first time in many years, Albus had trouble concentrating. He'd sat down at his desk directly after lunch, intending to complete the paper he was to give at the magical educators' conference in Berlin over the Easter holidays, but he gave it up as a bad job when he realised he had botched the tables on the correlation between teacher experience and N.E.W.T. scores for the third time. The parchment would only take so much Erasing.
He rose from his desk and cast a Tempus Charm.
One forty-five.
Crossing to a cabinet on the other side of the room, he withdrew a small music box. It was made of ebony with an inlaid lacquer design depicting a brilliant red-and-gold-plumed phoenix against a deep-blue background ringed with an orange sunburst pattern. The beautiful box had been a gift from Nicolas Flamel when he and Albus had completed their analysis of the chemical properties of alkahest.
Albus opened the box's top, thought for a moment, then pointed his wand at the box, saying, "Sonorus."
A moment later, the pensive, elegiac sound of Bach's eighty-second cantatafilled the air. Filius had charmed the box to play it for Albus, waxing rhapsodical about the singer, Hans Hotter, pronouncing the decade-old recording the greatest performance he'd ever heard of "Ich habe genug". After listening for about five minutes, Albus was inclined to agree with him, although he suspected Nicolas might have a different opinion. Of course, the old alchemist had heard the piece sung by the Kantor of Leipzig's Thomaskirche himself.
Albus was nearly through his second listen when Malcolm's knock came.
"Come in, Malcolm," he said, showing the young man into his office and gesturing for him to take a seat in a large, upholstered chair near the fire. He noticed how gingerly the boy sat down.
"How are you feeling today?"
"Better, sir, thank you."
"Any pain?"
Malcolm said, "Just ... you know ... where I was kicked. The potion you gave me helped, though."
