McGonagall's Bad Day

(Special thanks to PippinIonad for the Beta and Brit Picking!)

It was quiet with the children gone, praise Merlin. After all the hubbub and fright after the basilisk was discovered— and killed— Minerva McGonagall was quite sure she’d had enough excitement as Deputy Headmistress and Head of Gryffindor house to last her the rest of her days, though something in her bones told her that she’d far from seen the last of it.

Imagine, a great scaly snake lying dormant beneath the castle these last fifty years! Did it hibernate, she wondered, or was it awake there the whole time, slinking out in the dark to hunt centaurs and who knew what else in the Dark Forest? Her flesh crawled whenever it came to mind, which was often enough, given the search for yet another new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher just beginning for the autumn term. Their list of potential candidates was growing thin, as evidenced by the ineptitude of the coward they’d just been rid of. Leaving two lads nowhere near of age to take on that great snake alone! Not that they should have gone in the first place, Minerva corrected herself automatically. But, though she’d never say it where the other professors might hear, she was singularly proud of Potter and Weasley for having the courage— and the sheer dumb luck!— to handle the thing. First a troll, then that dog of Hagrid’s and the booby traps laid between them and the Philosopher’s Stone, now a Basilisk! If she didn’t know better, Minerva humphed as she stirred sugar into her tea, those two, with some intellectual prodding from Granger, would end up routing the last of the Death Eaters by their final year!

But, best not to think about that, she decided, inhaling the fragrant steam of her Lady Grey and turning again to the letters she’d received for last minute new student admissions. She skimmed the first one absently, stopping only when she reached the line, “Of course, since young Baldrick was born three short months ago, we expect his place to be fully reserved for the class of 2010, as befits an offspring of the illustrious Black family, though if an early placement should become available…” and smeared the rest of the letter by choking on her tea. Three months old? Unless by some miracle the boy had been born with a wand in his hand, it was far too soon to tell if the child even had magical abilities! And it would well serve the poor lad’s father right if the babe were a Squib, she snorted uncharitably.

Thinking of Squibs, Minerva paused to jot a note on her blotter to remind Mr. Filch of the desks in her classroom in need of old-fashioned hands on repair. Some things damaged by magic could not be properly repaired by magic, and for that, Argus kept a supply of wood, nails, and other such Muggle tools in a cupboard somewhere in the castle. Perhaps I should mark them somehow, she thought over another sip of tea. Not that being born without magic made him stupid, but Argus Filch did have a habit of being… easily distracted. Mark them it was, then, she decided, and set aside her teacup for a quick jaunt out into the classroom that she’d paid little mind to since the day exams were finished.

Already dust had begun to settle on desktops and over the surfaces of the solid-topped enclosures around the edges of the room. Motes glistened faintly in the light from the windows, not so much drifting as gently falling, swirled now and again when her breath or the fluttering of a bird shifted the air currents in their direction. There never seemed to be time, during session, to observe and enjoy such things. Walking down the rows, she checked the cages one more time for the morning: Lemurs had biscuits and fruit, parrots as well, chameleon eyeing up a stray cricket from the branch in his enclosure— he would need clean substrate by week’s end, she realized, and added the chore to yet another of her endless mental lists— tomato frog happily buried in his moss, right across from the desk that Padme Patil had nearly splintered to kindling when the mouse she had been attempting to transform into a black board rubber turned, instead, into a black boar. Minerva took a moment to set it glowing faintly blue, and then continued on down the row. Portree the iguana bobbed his bespiked head at his reflection in the mirror across the way. Have to move that, she added to her mental list, and dropped a curtain over the side of the cage in the mean time. Another broken desk, and a third a few seats down, and looking for the fourth, something near the door caught her eye.

“Basil? What are you doing out, ye wee fuzzy rascal?” she asked, crossing quickly to the corner where a sable dutch fancy mouse huddled against the stone. A bit farther down scampered a familiar broken red mouse— Rufus— and then beneath the last desk slipped Esmerelda’s familiar Siamese backside.

“Good gracious, how did all of you get out? And where are the rest?” she asked, clucking softly for Rufus to come to her outstretched hand and cuddling them both against her chest. “Esmerelda, Luv, come this way. There’s a girl.” The little white and brown doe took up her customary place in the sleeve of Minerva’s robe as she hurried over to the great cabinet turned mouse enclosure that lined the rear section of wall opposite the classroom door.

The cupboard doors stood open, the wheels still, dishes and water bottles full, and every hide box empty.

“Ophelia? Isolde? Where are you, lovelies? Lilac? Iris?” she called, tapping her fingernails on the burnished wood of the cabinet door. “Tiger Lily? Come to mum, darlings.” After a moment with no additions to the collection, Minerva made a decision. Putting Rufus carefully onto his climbing frame, she settled Basil in the corner of his part of the cabinet, and let Esmerelda make her own way in beside him from her sleeve. After distributing a few bites of crumbled Weetabix from the box beneath the living areas, she carefully shut the cupboard doors, making sure to close both latches securely, and began the change. After all, she thought, mice must be far more easily found by a cat than a human, though perhaps it would be best to transform back before attempting to pick one up. They would likely not recognize her in her cat form.

So, down then on all fours, the small of her back feeling somehow more complete with the addition of a tail, Minerva shook free of her hat and stretched. It would have to remain where it was, though the scent would perhaps draw the prodigal mice to it and back into their habitat more easily. Many of them liked running laps around the brims of her hats, and the memory of their pattering feet tilting it first one way, then another made her smile, which of course, as a cat, looked a bit more like a grimace than anything else.

Something did not smell right. Not in the least. And the odour came from the back of the room, though it started beneath the rear window. Sure enough, a hole, one large enough to stick her whiskers through. Minerva’s tail twitched with irritation. What was that smell? Something… earthy and somewhat acrid, though not as though burned. Although her senses were heightened, her brain of course did not process scents in this state as a cat instinctually might. Her human mind could not identify the mystery her feline senses had given her, but she did possess the wit to follow the trail in through the window, along the wall to the corner, up the closet door frame a bit, then down again against the door to the mouse cupboard. Whatever had brought the smell into her classroom had quickly discovered the mice, and was therefore likely what had let them out to run amuck through the school. She could smell them going off in all directions, though of course could not tell which was which. Most of them, though, seemed to have scampered into the closet just down the wall and squeezed through the gap under the door.

The gap through which Minerva, even as a cat, could not fit. Just for curiosity’s sake, she slipped a paw through the crack and gave a few experimental swipes, thinking that perhaps she would jar something one of the mice had hidden behind, but beyond a soft rustling sound, nothing moved. Drat!

Minerva, of course, knew the wardrobe well enough to realise that she might not have to transform again to open it. The latch tended to stick open, and she might… There! As she’d suspected, a good hard pull from beneath had popped the door open and she jumped back up to peer inside. Definitely something in there, she decided, sniffing delicately. At least one mouse, probably more, but something else too, that other earthy-smelling thing. Had a wild mouse come in, seeking food? Or a Rat? Alarmed now, she trotted past the door into the closet, unaware that, as her tail wrapped around the side, it began to close behind her, until a solid THUD plunged most of the closet into darkness. The only light to be had came from beneath the door, interrupted here and there by the shadows of her feet. She crouched, listening, to see if anyone had heard the slam and come to investigate. But for more rustling sounds, though, nothing stirred. Blast! She’d have to trans— what was that? There in the corner, behind that old broom? Though there wasn’t much light, her cat eyes had adjusted quickly. Something with round red eyes was watching her from the far corner of the closet, and that something was the source of the strange earthy smell she had followed into the closet.

Minerva stepped closer, carefully, watching the eyes that never broke off watching her. She could feel air currents shifting against the tips of her fur as something, somewhere moved. Whiskers tilted forward, she watched the eyes more closely, waiting for it to bolt at any moment.

But it didn’t bolt.

It… slithered.

With a horrified screech, Minerva leapt backwards, scrabbling at the door until she realized that the door had, for once, latched itself properly, and there was no handle on the inside. She was trapped there in the closet, in cat form, with some of her darling little mice and a great scaly snake! Images of old wood cuts and snippets of lore about the basilisk crept unbidden to mind as she wheeled again, looking for the source of that now familiar rustling sound, dreading at any moment to see it slinking across the floor, tongue flailing, or worse, into some unseen crevice where one of her mice had found refuge. That was quite enough of that!

The change back hurt a bit, as it usually did, but was made worse by the solid thump to the head she took as she grew straight up into a shelf, jarring loose a small scrabbling creature that could only be one of her mice. They hadn’t all been lost, praise Merlin!

But the thing had stopped, still staring, part way out of its hiding place behind the broom, sinuous and mottled grey in the washed out window light through the crack beneath the door.

“Honestly, Minerva, pull yourself together!” she muttered, smoothing down her robes as she stared at the snake, and the snake stared at her. If Potter and Weasley could handle a basilisk, surely she could dispose of an adder in her broom cupboard. Now, she thought, how to rid herself of it?!

But in the moment she took to gather her thoughts and take a deep breath, the serpent moved, flicking left toward the shelf where whatever she had startled by banging her head had skittered.

“Wait! No!” Minerva yelped, and her jump forward startled the adder into a coil, the serpent’s deadly head pulled back in striking position.

Wand ready, but trembling, she spat several spells in quick succession “Diffindo! Vipara evanesco! Abiento!” and was that quickly left standing in a empty, and opened, broom cupboard, staring into the somewhat dull-witted, eyes of Argus Filch, his scruffy cat companion as always, at his heels.

“I ‘eard slammin’an’ shoutin’,” Filch said suspiciously. “Everythin’ a’right there, Professor?”

“Yes, yes. Fine, fine Filch. Couldn’t be better. I’ve set three damaged desks aglow that will have to be replaced, or at the very least, extensively repaired. See to it, will you?” she blustered to cover her rattled nerves.

“Yes ma’am, o’ course, but… what about the shoutin’?” Filch continued.

“Nothing for you to be concerned with, Filch,” Minerva said, turning toward the top shelf where she thought one of her mice had been hiding. “I simply startled myself when the closet shut. See to those desks, will you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Filch said, shuffling off with the cat at his side, and one by one, Minerva rounded up the mice from the closet. Of the lot, it seemed only Tiger Lily had been permanently lost, and while sad, Minerva found herself far less grieved than she could have been.

Taking her hat from the floor, she brushed the dust from the brim and settled it back on her head, tucking flyaway strands of her hair up beneath it as she went back into her office and sat gratefully down in her desk chair. Sighing with relief, she picked up her cup and sipped her tea.

Which, of course, had gone cold.

“Sod the lot.”

With another weary sigh, Minerva rose, left her hat on her chair, and locked the office for the day. Tomorrow. Tomorrow was soon enough for all of it.

A.N.:

The animals mentioned are all taken from scenes in McGonagall’s classroom in the movies as they were released in the U.S.

Portree the Iguana: Named after what was probably McGonagall’s favourite quidditch team, the Pride of Portree, based on the Isle of Skye in western Scotland. (If even her dressing gown is tartan, and we know she’s fairly rabid about quidditch, I thought it safe to assume she wasn’t a follower of the Chudley Cannons.) Team colours are royal purple with a gold star. Male iguanas, however, are generally shades of green and brown, and fairly territorial, which is why the mirror must be covered so he doesn’t try to attack his own reflection and hurt himself trying to escape.

Images of a sable dutch fancy mouse and the other markings mentioned are listed here:
http://www.miceandrats.com/standmic.htm#Marked

The snake in question is the only venomous snake found universally in the middle and southern parts of the UK. Info here: http://wildlife.visitscotland.com/species/land-animals/Adder

The spells used to get Minerva out of her predicament, with one exception, come from canon:
“Diffindo” to sever or cut (probably decapitating the poor snake, which seems to be an instinct in those frightened of them)
“Vipara evanesca” the spell used by Prof. Snape to banish the cobra loosed against Harry by Draco
and my own invention “Abiento” to open the latched (but not locked, or alohamora would have done) cupboard door, based on my own rusty knowledge of Romance languages and their roots. Directly translated, the word abiento is Spanish for “open”. I think it’s a cognate in Italian, but that’s where my knowledge ends.