'Firs'-years! Firs'-years! This way! All right there, 'Arry?' beamed Hagrid as he gathered them all together to take them down a steep narrow path the Black Lake. They sat four to a boat and eventually glided through a tunnel under the castle itself. Hagrid then led them up a flight of stone steps and, as the group of first years crowded around the huge oak door, Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and thundered three times on the castle door.
Harry sighed in relief when Minnie answered the door and said, 'thank you, Hagrid. I will take it from here.'
He may have been familiar with the school; indeed, he probably knew it better than many of the sixth and seven years, but, like this, it was still rather formal and intimidating. He saw Minnie cast a glance over the group, her green eyes resting momentarily on Harry with a small gleam that he recognised. He beamed back, reassured.
'Follow me, children,' and she led them through an entrance hall so huge you could have fitted the entire Dursley house into it. They reached an empty chamber that Harry knew was next to the Great Hall and he glanced at Ron who looked surprisingly nervous.
'Welcome to Hogwarts,' said Professor McGonagall, the familiarity of her soft Scottish lilt calming Harry's nerves. 'The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your Houses...'
Minerva contained the urge to smile. It was, every year, a very similar situation; being faced with forty or so young students who looked so small in the vastness of the castle, more so because they always looked so intimidated in their slightly oversized robes. She was pleased to see Harry relax when they caught eyes, he did, at least, know what came next. She noticed he was stood with the latest Weasley boy and smiled to herself; it seemed Harry was drawn to the Weasleys and she was pleased, they were a good family who she knew from right back to the Order of the Phoenix days before Harry was even born. She also spotted the platinum-blond haired boy that Harry had mentioned after his trip to Diagon Alley and immediately recognised him to be Lucius Malfoy's son. Her heart sunk slightly, she hoped that there would not be trouble between the two of them, especially as she could already see young Mr Malfoy eyeing Harry and muttering to two rather beefy young men which she suspected would quickly become his cronies.
'...your Houses will be your family at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn House points, while any rule-breaking will lose points. At the end of the year, the House with the most points are awarded the House Cup. A great honour for your House. The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you wait.'
She turned away as she saw Harry try to flatten his hair; he was fighting a losing battle. The urge to laugh was intensified when she heard Mr Weasley say, 'Fred says it's a kind of test and that it hurts a lot. I think he was joking...'
'Move along now,' Minerva said. 'The Sorting is about to begin.'
It was sometime later, long after the Sorting and the Feast and the Prefects taking the new first years up to their dormitories, that there was a knock on her office door.
Harry threw himself into her arms.
'I'm in Gryffindor, mum!' he exclaimed happily.
'Happy?' she asked.
His face fell. 'The Hat wanted to put me in Slytherin...'
'But you're not... what happened?'
'I argued against it.'
'Of course you did. Why, Harry?'
'Because of Draco Malfoy...'
'...Draco Malfoy,' she repeated weakly, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. Her fears already confirmed. She seemed to remember rumours about a legendary Hogwarts feud between Abraxas Malfoy and Fleamont Potter, it appeared it ran in the family. At least, Lucius and James hadn't been at the school together; she'd never known James to back down from a fight if he felt his honour were at stake.
'He did it again, on the train. He was really mean about Ron and Hagrid. He said I'd go the same way as my parents...' Poor Harry looked very upset and Minerva was understandably angry too.
'You have to try and put it to one side. Don't let him rile you. Go and enjoy your first night in the Gryffindor dormitory with your new friends.'
'I'm going to miss my goodnight kiss,' he said in a small voice, unwilling to actually admit how much this hurt him.
Minnie smiled at him reassuringly. 'Me too,' she said softly. 'Probably more than you because you'll be too busy gossiping with your new friends. Let's see,' she looked at the slip of paper in front of her. 'Five of you: Ron Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Seamus Finnegan, and Dean Thomas. A good group I should think. You'll be just fine. Anyway, I'm sure you don't want me to come up and tuck you in in front of that lot!'
Harry giggled, 'no! Not really. I'll just have to imagine it.'
She nodded, a pink tinge to her cheeks, 'I'll do the same, Harry. Now, off you go! You'll be missing out!'
'Night, mum!' he called as he run off.
It was bittersweet, to see her boy suddenly independent from her, to be so near and yet so far from her. She wondered how she would ever be able not to favour him, she wondered if she ever be able to stop worrying about him. She'd seen him rubbing his scar at dinner as he looked at Severus. The animosity between the two of them seemed to be intensifying as the years went by.
Indeed, she was soon to hear that her own concerns about favouring Harry were being balanced by the potion master's need to pick on him. Harry had complained to her but there was nothing she could do; unless she witnessed Severus actually bullying Harry she was in a position where she couldn't interfere. Still, she did have a quiet word with Albus on the first Thursday of term after Severus had already taken two points from Harry for cheek and not helping Neville. Harry had come to her in tears, distraught that Professor Snape hated him and that he, in turn, hated potions.
She and Albus stood side-by-side at the window in the staffroom, watching the first years trudge out to the grounds of school for their first flying lesson.
Albus rubbed his hands together. 'And now we shall see what talent these youngsters present for our future Quidditch Teams. I hear the young Malfoy boy has been boasting of his skills.' Albus's eyes twinkled over the top of his half-moon glasses as he glanced at his deputy. He knew her breath was bated, despite the control she showed in not favouring her young ward.
He did see her mouth twitch in pleasure when Harry was the first to summon his broom. He couldn't deny the brief flash of delight too. He was, after all, a Gryffindor too. They both gasped when Neville Longbottom shot to high into the air uncontrollably and then suddenly fell with a WHAM and a thud back to the ground.
'Rolanda has it under control,' Dumbledore said softly as Madame Hooch obviously gave instructions for the class to stay on the ground and helped Neville off to the Infirmary.
They watched Draco Malfoy start to laugh and then swipe something up off the ground.
Minerva tutted, 'Mr Longbottom's Remembrall, I've already had to reprimand Mr Malfoy this morning for trying to take it. Oh...!'
Draco was already on his broom and sweeping up above a tree, taunting Harry with the small red ball.
'Well, he can certainly fly well,' Dumbledore muttered.
They watched Harry mount his broom and kick hard against the ground and soar through the air. Minerva's heart beat with fierce joy and pride, Harry was better, it was so natural for him. They watched him turn sharply and come to a halt facing Draco, and then shoot towards him like a javelin. Draco only just got out of the way in time as Harry made a sharp about turn and held out his hand to reclaim his friend's Remembrall. Minerva was proud of him for standing up to a bully, even if he was breaking the school rules.
They watched Draco draw back his arm and throw the small ball high into the air before flying back to the ground. And they watched Harry streak after the ball...
'Well, Minerva, I do believe we have just found our next Seeker for the Team. You had best go and introduce him to Oliver Wood.'
Minerva was almost speechless in shock and didn't know whether to be furious with Harry or hug him. He might have broken his neck...
She didn't tell him but she ordered him a new racing broom from Quality Quidditch Supplies: a Nimbus 2000. She thought that maybe she was more excited than he was despite the little niggling thought that Harry seemed to be attracting trouble. She wondered if his friendship with Ron Weasley was a good thing, they seemed to be as thick as thieves and in everything together. But then she saw the happy look on Harry's face as he joshed with his friend and they celebrated Harry's little successes together and she couldn't help being pleased. Yes, he'd had friends over the last nine years, but many of them were older and he'd never really gelled with any of the few children in the village who were his age. This was special. A friendship for life, she thought. There was a loyalty between the two of them that was a strong and underlying foundation for whatever was to come next. Indeed, she saw Ron stand up for Harry on more than one occasion. But she couldn't help thinking that Ron was a bad distraction, despite all her private tutoring of Harry and his natural practical skills, his written work was severely lacking at times.
Of course, there was the 'troll in the dungeons' incident too.
The children were all supposed to be safely back in their dormitories as the staff charged to the dungeons in search of the creature.
Albus sent her to the third floor. They knew why without saying, she needed to make sure that out-of-bounds corridor on the third floor was still guarded. She didn't make it that far, instead she was distracted by a racket of crashes and roaring coming from the girls' toilets. She burst into the room, followed surprisingly shortly after by Severus and Professor Quirrell, to find a huge monstrous troll unconscious on the floor, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger huddled close together and Harry wiping what looked like lumpy grey glue off his wand on the troll's trousers.
'What on earth were you thinking of?' she said, with fury in her voice. 'You're lucky you weren't killed. Why aren't you in your dormitory?' All she wanted to do was pull Harry into her arms and never let him go. How could he do this to her?
Miss Granger surprised Minerva. She was undoubtedly lying when she said she had come looking for the troll on her own because she'd read about how to tackle them. She guessed there was some element of the truth that Harry and Ron had recklessly saved her.
It meant the duo became a trio. Well, there are somethings you can't share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them.
Minerva hoped that Miss Granger would prove a good influence on the two boys and their work...
As the first Quidditch match came around, Minerva couldn't help noticing that Harry's nerves were starting to show and there was a new edge to the school. The House intermingling of the last few years had distinctly become a thing of the past. She heaved a worried sigh; it only took a few people to create the trouble. Mr Malfoy was not discreet in his animosity towards Harry. It bordered on obsessive between the two boys but it stirred up those around them too. Mr Malfoy's little syndicate followed his every word, which then spread to the Quidditch Team, and throughout the rest of the House. Even those who had befriended the young raven-haired boy when they'd first come to Hogwarts, now turned away from him: the Malfoys were an influential family, people knew better than to slight them. People other than Harry, it seemed. And that meant Ron and therefore the rest of the Weasleys and the stubborn Gryffindor loyalty of those who sided with their famous Seeker. And with Severus's open aggression towards Harry seeming no better than Draco Malfoy's... it meant Slytherin House seemed to be alienating themselves from the school thus creating a vicious circle in which the school turned away from them too.
The match was dirty. The staff were disappointed, to say the least.
And then there was the peculiar incident with Harry's broom which started to behave strangely, jerking and twitching and flying higher and higher out of control. Then it started to roll and eventually bucked Harry off so he was hanging on with only one hand. Minerva's heart was in her mouth. Albus was casting cushioning spells, just in case. As it was happening, there was a bizarre and inexplicable incident in the staff box as Professor Quirrell fell headfirst into the row in front of him and Severus's robes were on fire for some reason. In that time, the broom was back under control and Harry had managed to climb back on it. When Harry sped back to the ground, he hit the pitch on all fours - coughed - and the Snitch fell into his hand. Gryffindor won the game. But it was very suspicious and she couldn't get to Harry to find out if he was okay. The team were too busy celebrating.
Trouble. Minerva thought. Trouble was brewing. Especially as Harry had asked to stay in his dorm-room over Christmas as Ron's parents were going to be away in Romania visiting Charlie and Ron would be all alone.
However, she was pleasantly surprised to find the Trio often working hard in the library and then Ron took it into his head to teach Harry Wizarding Chess. She'd tried for many years, but he'd never been interested. She smiled on Christmas morning when there was a brief tap on her apartment door and she opened it to find Harry standing there in a Weasley jumper, holding a present for her. Unbeknownst to her, he'd bought the present in Quality Quidditch Supplies in the summer, it was a small model of a Witch on a Nimbus which flew around her room at her command. She absolutely loved it. She dabbed away a little tear from her eye after they'd hugged and she'd sent him packing to have breakfast.
Minerva wasn't wrong about trouble brewing but it took until the Spring when the air smelt fresh and the leaves were starting to open on the trees. It was then that an anonymous note shoved under her door. Neat cursive writing informed her that Harry was meeting someone at the top of the Astronomy Tower that evening at midnight. She wasn't stupid and immediately recognised the writing as Draco Malfoy's. Still, she went. Though she was somewhat surprised that it was Mr Malfoy she found.
Draco wrestled in her tight grip. 'You don't understand, Professor,' he whinged. 'Harry Potter's coming - he's got a dragon!'
Draco couldn't understand why the old woman was so strong as her fingers pinched his arm tightly and she escorted him down to his Godfather's office. Of course, she'd given him a detention and taken twenty House points from Slytherin. His only consolation was when he found out the following morning that Potter, Granger, and Longbottom had been discovered after all and were to be joining him in detention and they'd lost fifty points each which promptly put Gryffindor in last place for the House Cup. Potter had, at least, gone from being the most popular Golden Boy in the school to the most hated. Surprisingly, Draco didn't actually take the pleasure he would have liked from that. He put it down to not liking seeing Potter being bullied by anyone other than himself because that was his privilege.
Harry thought Malfoy looked scared when Filch took them down to Hagrid's hut late one night. He wasn't feeling so confident himself but he trusted Hagrid. He felt a shot of sympathy for Malfoy when he stuttered, 'we can't go in the Forbidden Forest, at night - there's all sort of things in there - werewolves, I heard.' There was a distinct note of panic in his voice.
When Hagrid made Harry go with Malfoy and Fang into the Forest to find the injured unicorn, his heart was thumping wildly. It was, he thought, a little frightening but not that bad. He was surprised that Malfoy walked so closely beside him, practically grasping his arm. He couldn't say he was particularly surprised that Malfoy bolted when they saw the hooded figure and pain pierced his scar so it felt like it was on fire and he was half-blinded.
Trouble, thought Minerva McGonagall as she hugged her boy tightly afterwards and checked him to make sure he was uninjured.
Trouble, she thought as she watched her first years turn a mouse into a snuff-box for their end of year exam. She knew Harry was coping with a growing stabbing pain in his forehead. She wanted to take him to St Mungo's. Harry refused, claiming he was fine, but she knew otherwise. Something was brewing...
After the exams, she was surprised to find the Trio loitering in the hallways.
'What are you three doing inside?' she asked.
'We want to see Professor Dumbledore?' Hermione Granger said with a certain determination.
'See Professor Dumbledore?' Minerva repeated, immediately suspicious. 'Why?'
She saw Harry cringe, 'it's sort of a secret...'
Her nostrils flared. Why should Harry not trust her to speak to her? 'Professor Dumbledore left ten minutes ago,' she said coldly. 'He received an urgent owl from the Ministry of Magic and flew off for London at once.'
'He's gone?' Harry looked frantic. 'Now?'
'Harry...'
'...but this is important...'
'More important than the Ministry, Harry?'
Harry gulped and she saw him make a decision, 'Professor... mum - it's about the Philosopher's Stone...'
The books she was carrying tumbled from her arms, she wasn't expecting that!
'How do you know...? she whispered.
'Mum, I think... I know that Sn- that someone's going to try to steal it. I've got to talk to Professor Dumbledore.
She pulled herself up straight, trying to recover from the shock that Harry and his friends had found out about it. 'The Professor will be back tomorrow. I don't know how you could possibly know about the Stone but rest assured, it's very well protected. Now, I suggest you all go back outside and enjoy the sunshine.'
She wouldn't take no for an answer and watched them trudge away. She summoned her books back up into her arms and rushed off to her office, wondering whether she should send a message to Albus.
She wondered how they could possibly know about the Stone and thought back to Hagrid collecting the Stone while he was in London with Harry, and Harry's request to stay over Christmas and all that time in the library, and the strange story about the Dragon and she wondered if they were all connected.
Minerva was pleased to see that the Trio had taken her advice and were sitting normally at dinner together that evening.
It was something of a shock, however, to find Professor Dumbledore rushing into her office later that night. 'The Stone!' he rasped, quite out of breath. 'The message was a ruse to get me out of the way...'
'Harry was right!' she exclaimed.
Dumbledore immediately left for the Third Floor as she went straight to the Gryffindor common room where she found Neville Longbottom held by a Petrificus Totalus spell.
The next three days were something of a nightmare as she paced the corridor outside the Infirmary or sat by Harry's bed. He looked so small and vulnerable. He was simply exhausted, explained Poppy. The fight with Quirrell had taken it out of him physically. All Minerva wanted was the feast to be over and to take him home and nurse him back to his full strength again.
When he came too, and after Dumbledore had told him what had happened, she hugged him fiercely. 'Don't ever do that to me again!' she said.
'I'm sorry, mum.'
'You brave, foolish boy, what would I do if I lost you... Why didn't you tell me properly what you knew?'
'I didn't think you'd believe me. And I was wrong anyway, it wasn't Snape.'
'Professor Snape,' she said with a small smile as she fondly brushed his soft hair away from his face.
'Mum, Quirrell said Professor Snape hates me because he hated my father. Is that true?'
'Harry, we shall talk about it over the summer, but yes, your father and Severus did rather detest each other.'
'Like me and Malfoy?' Harry said thoughtfully, not entirely sure he wanted to ever carry a grudge like that for all those years until it ate him up into so much bitterness.
'Yeess,' Minerva said slowly. Though she wasn't entirely sure it was the same. There was something different about the way that Draco Malfoy and Harry fought with each other; it was far more attentive and focused. In some ways, it was much more akin to how James used to fight for Lily's attention. And James, well, James was just loud and boisterous and although he was often very funny, he had also been generally aggravating. And, until he realised he needed to change, he was also rather self-centred and full of himself, which was why Lily always said no. Harry was different to James, he was more sensitive despite the same innate sense of righteousness, and he was also more self-sacrificing. Dumbledore had explained that Harry had only been able to retrieve the Stone from the Mirror of Erised because he didn't want to use, just find it and protect it. She wondered if Draco Malfoy was drawn to that aspect of Harry but didn't yet know how to handle those feelings. It must cause considerable conflict for the poor boy who had been brought up to believe such harsh and hateful things and see someone of his own age so very different from himself but, possibly, so very much like how he wanted to be.
***