Thankfully, there were no repercussions over Minerva's flight through the mountains, no Muggle witnesses to be memory-wiped, even though she had gone much further than Brobdingnag Bones intended her to. Petey Macnair took the opportunity to tease her about the possibility of being brought up before the Wizengamot for breaching the Statute of Secrecy. And Da did give her a long lecture on Magical Law, including, not only the dangers of flying over Muggle territory, but also unauthorized wand use.
"Having yer own wand will be a big responsibility, Minerva. And there are good reasons why the Ministry forbids underage mages to use one out of school."
“But Petey casts spells all the time, Da.”
“Let Petey’s parents take care of it then.”
“He says no one at the Ministry of Magic can tell who’s using magic up here anyway.”
“Aye, he would say that. But the Ministry knows, child, take my word on it.”
“Then his father does have influence…”
“I’m not saying he does or he doesn’t. The law’s the law, Minerva. We’ve always upheld the Statutes, and no daughter of mine will be the first to go against them.”
Nor would Minerva willingly disobey her father’s dictum.
Da was the youngest of seven and the only son. Her aunts all lived close by and when Da had started making the rounds of Healers with Ma, Minerva had stayed with each of his sisters in turn. Minerva knew well the feelings each had for her father, and she would rather be beaten raw with her own broomstick than give them cause to brand him a poor father and disciplinarian.
In fact, women dominated the McGonagall clan throughout its history, and their portraits held Minerva’s attention for hours on end. The gallery ran around three sides of the first floor above the Great Hall and paintings of her famous antecedents lined the walls from the Master Bedroom door around to the top step of a wide curved stairway. Minerva’s room was in the corner opposite her parents’ near the pictures of a lively group of Medieval and Renaissance relations.
Today, as she passed them on the way to breakfast, she could hear Hortensia of Argyll, muttering between her teeth. Hortensia had saved the life of one of the Bruces early in the national history, and never let anyone forget it. And she smoked a pipe--incessantly.
“And where, I ask you, is this mistress of ours? It’s been months--months!-- since she’s gone to the Healer’s and not a word about when she’ll be back. It’s wrong to leave the lord of the manor alone so long to deal with all these problems.”
“What problems, Tensie?” This from Jenny Blair, Hortensia’s nearest neighbor, who sat in a frame delicate with carved roses. She had a heart-shaped face and a sweet, soft voice, which she used sparingly. It was hard to believe she had once single-wandedly defeated a band of drunken warlocks who were trying to re-route the river Tay to flood a Muggle village. But Goodie swore it was true.
“Dry rot, Mistress Blair, dry rot. The entire place is falling to pieces around us.”
A whispery voice two frames down, charged, “And I foresaw it, did I not?”
“Eh?”
“Did I not predict ruination for this house if the Master married that Mudblood? The Keep is cursed, I tell you.”
“Oh, cork it, Meg, you haven’t been right since our King James succeeded the Tudor hussy. I was perhaps exaggerating a little. It’s dry rot, or worms, no more than that. But we need the Mistress to come back and see to it.”
Meg of Dundee bristled. She was the only known Seeress to come out of the very pragmatic McGonagall clan, and she took herself extremely seriously. She had correctly predicted the ascendancy of the Stuart line, though Minerva couldn’t remember any other prophecy of hers that came true. She certainly hoped this latest one was wrong.
“It doesn’t take a Muggle gypsy to see what’s causing your problem,” hissed Meg. “It’s your pipe! It needs a powerful anti-drying charm to protect any surface from that smokestack of yours.” And it was true. The paint at the top of Hortensia's picture was badly blistered and the entire frame coated with ash.
There came a great shout from further down the row. Minerva knew that voice well. It was Anne McCutcheon. Lady Anne was a spirited witch, who had allied herself with 'the Tudor hussy,' Elizabeth, because she felt Muggle women had little enough power in the world as it was. She was usually to be found pacing restlessly back and forth, using up all of her portrait and several others, her long auburn hair streaming behind her as if caught in a perpetual wind. She had helped to conjure the gale that defeated the Spanish Armada, and her laughter would ring out up to the battlements whenever a storm hit the Keep.
Minerva rushed over. Lady Anne was seated for a change and holding a hand of cards. The table in front of her was littered with coins, and another chair had been drawn up to it. She recognized the person in it, although his back was to her. Black curls flowed over his collar, and a strong brown hand threw playing cards into the air, then slashed at them with a dagger as they came down.
“Game to you my lady”again,” he growled.
“Oh, don’t take it so hard, Rowdie, it’s only Leprechaun gold.”
“It’s not the money, Madam, it’s the principle of the thing. I let Mistress Blair cheat because she blushes so prettily when she wins, but you, Madam, have the most irritating way of rubbing it in...”
This was Minerva’s favorite ancestor: Ralph Guthrie Flynn, whose portrait hung by the stairs. ‘Rowdie’ Flynn had, in his youth, turned his back utterly on his magical heritage to join the infamous Scots buccaneer Rory MacNeil, adventuring on the high seas. It was a favorite family boast that Rowdie had given the name ‘Galleon’ to the gold coins used by mages in honor of a particularly wealthy Spanish ship he had captured. He always swore the life of a Muggle was much more exciting than that of any wizard and described it in his journal:
‘…with naught but my Compasse and a Blud Staned Dirke, and the thinne Plankes of this oaken Vessell betwixt me and a waterie Grayve…’
He was the ultimate in courage, thought Minerva, but at this exact moment, he was whining like a child.
“…and the worst of it is, I can’t see how you’re doing it.”
“Nor will I enlighten you, you rogue. See what you’ve done to my favorite deck. The King of Cups is bleeding all over the table.”
But she waved a hand over the ragged fragments and turned them back into cards.
“Odds bodikins, woman, wandless magic? You should visit Hortensia over there and help her with her dry-rot.”
“It’s not dry-rot, it’s that pipe of hers. Filthy habit! Why you ever introduced her to it...”
They continued their argument, moving out of the frame to join the others further down. Rowdie broke into a chorus of Come Sirrah, Jack, Ho, his favorite song. Minerva knew it to be about smoking and other adult pleasures. Goodie had once caught her singing the naughty refrain, and threatened to Scourgify her mouth if she caught her at it again. She sighed. The other ghosts would welcome Rowdie and Lady Anne. They would argue, josh, gossip for hours, but they always ignored Minerva utterly.
“Why, Gudgie?” she’d asked once, in a fit of temper.
“Yer no proper witch yit, lass. Whan ye hae yer wand an learn twa-three spells, than they’ll tak notice o ye. The nou, yer naught but a Moogle tae them.”
And soon, for the first time”no, the second, counting the day of her birth”she was going to visit the tombs of these hallowed ancestors in the family Crypt that was carved out of the mountain-roots at the north end of the estate. It was a long-established custom for the clan chieftain to bring his newly born child to the Crypt, together with all the relatives he could muster, for the ancestral Blessing and Binding Charms. And although Minerva could not remember this happening to her, she knew the way to the Crypt, because her father invariably pointed it out on their walks about the estate. It was guarded by a great bronze door under a stone outcrop with markings etched through some long-forgotten craft into the smooth slate façade. Anglian they were, or perhaps Scandinavic runes. And always in his rumbling bass, Jupiter John Cadwallader McGonagall would intone direst warnings about the curses that would be inflicted on any stranger who tried to enter, the least of which had something to do with their insides being turned out and their heads set ablaze with Gubraithian fire.
And, in under a week, she’d be visiting it safely with Da to pick out her wand”or rather, to let one of her ancestors’ wands choose her to be its mistress.
~*~
But for now, she had to keep her wits about her, for no less important business was at hand. Giggie Gwynn, whose head was always full of projects and ambitions, had announced that the community Quidditch pitch needed a second goal. It seemed Petey Macnair had bragged about the advantages of the Perthshire pitch at school and now a group of students from another valley was wanting to challenge them to a match. So now, she and Gig and Petey were out on a spur of the mountain gathering knotgrass. Gig was well ahead of them, scouting out the terrain.
Suddenly her blonde head, which was bobbing about barely a foot above the heavy growth of weeds and heather, disappeared completely, accompanied by a faint surprised yelp. When Minerva, and then Petey, reached the spot where they’d last seen her, there was no sign of their friend. Thankfully there was also no steep hillside that she might have tumbled over, only random clumps of yellowing broom and whin, and a shallow uphill gully, lined with the debris of many rains. They tramped about calling her name, each pondering the possibility of fates far worse than a mere fall off a cliff.
Their fears were fed by tales they’d heard of ancient ruined necromancers banished to some lonely plane and reaching out across the ether with remnants of their magic to snag random life-forms. And abandoned Portkeys, lying about the hillsides, whose touch could send an unwary hiker to Merlin-knew-where. Or Boundary Hexes, which changed trespassers into trees or rocks or clumps of grass.
Minerva was looking despairingly at one such clump when Petey gave a yell and pointed. At the mouth of the gully, where the erosion from run-off was severe, there was a rent in the ground. The ground around it looked soft and unstable. Minerva and Petey were familiar with the perils of sink-holes from Jacko Gwynn’s stories. Minerva dropped immediately to the ground and splayed her body to distribute her weight. She inched forward and put her mouth to the hole.
“Gig! Gig, are you down there?”
A faint scrabbling sound came to her ears, followed by a curse”a very loud, very well-enunciated Celtic curse. It called down elementals and mountain trolls on whatever “ill-trickit, bastartin, daftie-bampot” put that trap in her way. Minerva breathed a sigh of relief.
“Are you all right?”
“Aye”but I canna see anything.” Minerva turned to Petey, who was lying nearby, brandishing his wand hopefully. Its tip was glowing.
“Is she hurt?” He intoned hoarsely. Minerva shook her head. “Thrust this in and see what she’s about.” He edged nearer and started pulling at the edge of the rift, to widen it. A great clump of sod came off in his hand, which dislodged a shower of stony debris into the hole and caused more curses to come out of it.
Minerva pointed the wand into what was now almost a crater, wide enough for both her and Petey to look into.
They could see Gig, dirty and glaring, about a man’s height below them, sitting on dark, smoothish ground. “Och, Fat Hair, is it you masin’ all that meck?”
“Wheesht, wench!” Petey’s voice trembled with relief. He edged closer and stretched out his arm. “Can you reach my hand?”
“Naw, naw, I canna. But if you take your great greasy self outta the hole, and sheep the kight lining I clight mime up.”
They weren’t entirely sure what she meant by that. But they wriggled back out of the way. Now Gig had light enough even without the wand to examine her surroundings. They could all see that she had not fallen, but slid down a pile of brush and stones that made a path of sorts. And they could see behind her a wall of stone.
“Wait,” said Petey, “I want to come down.” And he grabbed the wand out of Minerva’s hand and jumped feet first into the hole. He blundered down the natural ramp and knocked Gig over, which made her madder than ever.
“Why don’t you go where you’re watching, eejit?”
“Look,” was his reply.