A Slant-Told Tale | Minerva McGonagall

Chapter Twenty-Two

"When I despair of all I have done, all the harm I have, however unwillingly, caused, I need only look at him to know I would do it all again."

24 December 1962

While Albus Dumbledore was discovering the truth about Malcolm Macnair's paternity, Minerva sat in the Hogwarts library trying to learn a bit more about Invisibility. Apollyon Pringle had been kind enough to let her in during Madam Pince's absence, and she sat at a corner table, several books of magical history and theory stacked next to her.

There was precious little information in any of them about invisibility, probably because it was so rare. After paging through six books that barely made mention of it, Minerva had finally found a book outlining what little was known about the phenomenon:

Idiogenic invisibility is defined as the ability to become invisible at will. Other magical methods of self-concealment are well-described-Disillusionment Charms, objects enchanted to conceal the wearer to give the impression of invisibility are the best-known-but an organic method for achieving true invisibility has eluded wizardkind, despite the efforts of a number of noted scientists to develop such spells (see pp. 245–246).

Nevertheless, the magical literature has described several cases of idiogenic invisibility, and these reports range from anecdotal and barely credible to a very few well-documented experiments by subjects reported to have the ability.