The tabby cat prowled drowsily around the field, at a complete loss as to how she had arrived there in the first place. A butterfly flittered past, its delicate wings beating a fast tempo and the cat’s tail thumped the ground as its beady eyes watched the butterfly trace a path in the sky. Soon, the butterfly had disappeared into the woods and the cat could feel her growing discontentment. She knew she had a role to fulfill, one more important that watching the wildlife was.
Paws pattering across the grass, she could see a curious looking bag in the shrubbery a few feet away. As she grew closer to it, she sniffed it cautiously and was amazed she could identify its scent as human.
Professor Dumbledore’s words swirled into her mind, even though she only had a vague recollection to who Professor Dumbledore was. The first few times you undergo your Animagus transformation, the animal will try and take control. The reason Animagus training is dangerous is not because of the occasional difficulty of transfiguring certain body parts; the real danger lies in accidentally surrendering your mind to the whims of the animal. This makes a return to the human form extremely difficult, if not entirely impossible.
Nudging her nose around the satchel, she found a magical wand that she hazily remembered as belonging to her. Batting it with one of her front paws, she wondered what use a cat would have for a wand if it could not even pick it up.
The wand’s polished handle was covering up the title of an old, worn book. Sliding the wand aside, the cat was amazed to discover that it could read. Faded gold lettering spelt out Transfiguration Through the Ages. Poking out from between the pages was a map, showing the distribution of Animagi across the United Kingdom. Did this all mean…that she could turn into a human?
She lost herself in pensive thought for so long that a few brave birds plucked up the courage to peck at the ground only inches from where she stood. Her fur bristled suddenly and the birds took off in panicked flight. It would be easier to look through the satchel with two hands rather than four paws.
Where is my human consciousness? the cat wondered, frightened for a moment that she would not be able to find it. She soon pushed this aside with logical, sensible thought. She had studied this for years, she knew that all she had to do was concentrate on her human qualities.
Suddenly, she felt quite a bit taller. Minerva McGonagall quickly brushed the twigs off her robes and straightened her glasses. The cat’s feelings had been so intense and the lack of self-control scared her. Trying not to think about it, she shifted the tome in her satchel and found a piece of parchment underneath it, words written in careful looping script. She didn’t remember being given it.
You have everything you need for your mission, Minerva. Good luck.
--Albus Dumbledore
She reached into the bottom corners of her satchel until her paws—no—fingers curled around something small and delicate. She pulled it out into the open and watched as the hourglass glittered in the afternoon’s light.
She remembered now.
Minerva carefully fastened the chain the Time-Turner was dangling from around her neck so that she would not lose it when she transformed again. The book and map she would have to drop when she reverted to her cat form, so she resigned herself to walking to Ottery St. Catchpole on two legs.
Dumbledore had sent her back into the past to do a reconnaissance mission, but had not told her if it would be five years or a hundred. Her Animagi abilities would get her out of trouble if she ran across it, but she wouldn’t. That would break the first law of time-travel—change nothing.
She was almost about to take a short break from walking when she spotted a few squat houses on the horizon, and quickened her pace. Hopefully she would be able to make an approximation to what era she was in.
The houses’ windows were all boarded up and nothing stirred in the Muggle village of Ottery St. Catchpole. She stood still for a moment, feeling a bit stunned. What had happened to all the Muggles? Then she shook her head. It did not matter, as Dumbledore had told her to go to a wizarding house just outside the village.
A few minutes later there was a cobbled house looming in front of her and she saw a Kneazle sharpening its claws on a hollow tree stump. Then a little red-haired boy rushed out of the nearby trees, shrieking with laughter. He did not see Minerva standing there and she was too slow to get out of his way. They collided and Minerva froze for barely a second. He must not notice her. Luckily, he did not, simply rushing off in the other direction with a mumbled apology.
Looking at the boy’s retreating back and his billowing robes, she suddenly realised that her clothes were probably a bit too fancy for this era. Seeing as she was so close to the house, she relieved herself of the satchel with the book and map, leaving it inside the tree stump after applying a quick concealment charm. Then, she transformed back into the cat.
The cat could smell the nearby Kneazle and wanted to play with it. She wanted to chase it into the woods and pounce on it from a great height just to see it laugh. Slowly, she shook away all these feline thoughts. She was meant to watch and observe the residents of this house, even though Dumbledore had not told her why.
Taking a great running leap, she launched herself through the open window, hoping that there would not be anyone in the room.
However, there were two men sitting at the kitchen table who both looked at her when she landed on the floor with an ungraceful flump. She was still not used to having four legs and moving them together at the right time was still a task that proved difficult.
Heavy footsteps approached her and she looked up to see who they belonged to. She lifted her head up and found herself staring into the eyes of Tom Riddle: the very last person she wanted to see; especially somewhere he wasn’t meant to be.
“Gracious,” said the other man as he peered at Minerva inquisitively. “How did this kitten come to be here?” She looked up at him and saw his face was pale and his eyes pleading.
Tom’s eyes narrowed and for a brief fearful second Minerva thought that he would recognize her. Not that she was scared of him, of course, but if he knew who she was her entire mission could be in jeopardy. But he was right there, in flagrant breach of all the laws of time-travel. Didn’t he know how badly he could hurt the time-line? How had he ended up here in the first place?
Fortunately, he showed no signs of knowing who she really was. “I think I should take this ratty little mongrel outside.” He picked her up by the scruff of the neck and she felt the strain on her muscles. Quickly, she retracted her paws and attempted to swipe him across the face. Tom leant backwards to avoid this attack and held her further out from his body. Her legs dangled and ached from lack of support.
Tom’s grip tightened around her neck. “Now,” he hissed into her ear, “don’t try that again.” He reached the door with a few more paces and threw her almost bodily from the house. It was a good thing that cats usually landed on their feet, Minerva noted as the cat in her meowed in indignation.
If Tom thought he could get rid of her that easily, he was completely wrong. Her paws still hurt from her landing, but nevertheless, she summoned up the energy to take another jump into the kitchen.
This time she landed perfectly on the windowsill without a noise. She was becoming better at being a cat, possibly. Neither of the men paid her a second glance as they seemed to be caught up with each other. Tom circled around the red-head, his slender fingers caressing the handle of his wand. “Don’t lie to me, Weasley,” he said dangerously. “I know you have the sword.”
Weasley’s face was still pale but his eyes narrowed briefly. “Why do you think I should have the sword of Godric Gryffindor, young sir? What would be my business with it?”
“Has your family not been keeping it for generations?” Tom asked coldly.
The back of Weasley’s ears turned red as he shouted, “No we have not. Anyone with a shred of common sense would know that the sword of Godric Gryffindor has been kept at Hogwarts for generations.”
“Oh,” Tom said quietly. “It seems as if I have not gone back far enough.”
“What was that?” Weasley asked indignantly.
“Nothing,” Tom said, steepling his fingers. “I have grown to believe you have outlived your usefulness.”
Weasley’s face turned from red to white.
Minerva did not care about the implications of the time-line, did not care that she was told that she must not be seen. All that she cared about was that she would not be able to forgive herself if Tom killed an innocent man while she could do something to prevent it.
She tackled him from the window sill, transforming while she was still in the air. But she was too late. The eerie green light erupted from the end of Tom’s wand before she could have intervened.
There was a loud crashing noise as Mr Weasley ducked into a shelf filled with china. The plates broke and rained down upon him and he looked up at the incoming pieces as if he was in a daze. “No,” he moaned, “they were nearly priceless.”
This soon turned out to be the least of his worries as Tom’s spell impacted with the wall and it erupted into flame. Minerva had fallen on top of Tom, and in his surprise he had been knocked over. Not entirely sure of what she was doing, but still feeling that it was the right thing to do, Minerva’s fingers tightened around Tom’s wand and she wrestled it away from him while he was still laying on the floor.
Almost immediately, Tom grabbed Minerva’s wrist in an attempt to wrench his wand away from her. If she could only slip it into the pockets of her robe, she could transform back into the cat and escape.
Minerva had her suspicions before about the former Slytherin, but this just confirmed it. It was just like Professor Dumbledore had feared. Tom was now fully embracing the Dark side.
Finally, after minutes of silent struggle, Minerva managed to slip the wand partly into her robes—enough for her to carry it when she transformed. At the same time she turned back into her feline form, Mr Weasley seemed to regain his senses. He sent of a quick Stunner towards Tom, who Minerva believed would be able to deflect it without even blinking, if only he had his wand. Instead he was reduced to evading it, and took his chance to escape through the open back door.
Mr Weasley looked shocked for a moment, but then tried vainly to apply spells to his house to stop the spreading of the fire. Minerva wished she could help him, but there were more important things to keep in mind, like getting as far away from Tom Riddle as she could, snap his wand in two and throw it off the edge of a cliff.
Running away—no, she tried not to think of it as that—well, then, this running thing was so much easier as a cat. She almost purred as she ran into the woods, her still shaky paws stumbling over some of the trees and overgrowth. There was something so strange about this forest. She had been in plenty of them before, but there was something out of place about it. Maybe it was because she could hear no birds singing—a place where no birds dare sing was not a happy place for a cat. Or maybe it was because everything seemed dull and blurry, as if all the soul had been taken away from it?
Then out of nowhere—
Oomph.
She collided heavily with a little boy and immediately changed back into her human form to resist the cat’s urge to scratch his eyeballs out. It was the same boy who had run into her when she had been walking to Weasley’s house.
“Please forgive me,” the little boy said breathlessly. “Mother told me I should really look where I am headed.”
Minerva felt like the wind had been knocked out of her, and wanted nothing more then to continue on with her journey and leave this annoying child far behind. Raising herself to her full height, she asked, “What is your name?” her nostrils flaring.
“Oh, didn’t I introduce myself? How forgetful of me.” He offered her a small hand in an almost gentlemanly handshake and Minerva took it with reluctance. “I am Albus Dumbledore. What is your name?”
Minerva felt a small jabbing pain at the back of her head. Everything seemed clearer now, but she was just as confused as ever.
Her hand slipped in his and she took a step backwards, wondering if she should even try to make sense of everything that was happening. He stared up at her with those piercing blue eyes she had known so well as a student, and for some reason, he looked as if he was waiting for something.
There was a short silence in which Minerva tried to find a way out of the situation without turning tail and fleeing like a cat. Was this why Professor Dumbledore had sent her into the past? To meet his younger self? No. She shook her head. He had sent her to the Weasleys first.
“Your name?” the young Dumbledore asked, but even the polite tone of his voice could not mask his curiousity.
“Is not important,” Minerva told him. Maybe this had to happen, for the sake of the timeline? Should she have told him her name or not? Suddenly she became all too aware of the chain that hung around the neck and the small hourglass seemed to burn against her chest. With a gasp she shook it out and held it in her hand, but now it did not even feel the slightest bit warm.
Young Dumbledore’s eyes widened inquisitively, looking at the time-turned dangling from the delicate chain. “Why do you have that?” he asked breathlessly.
“I...” she hesitated, wondering how much to tell him again. Professor Dumbledore was a man of great power and many mysteries, but what about his younger counterpart? She thought that she knew Professor Dumbledore well now after two years of intensive Animagus training after she had finished at Hogwarts, but every single fact she learnt only stemmed from something she knew nothing about.
Was that why she was here? To learn more about her professor’s past? She thought of the carefully written curls on the note Professor Dumbledore had left her—this was just meant to test her stamina, morality and Animagus skills. But was there something more to it? Had he once met a woman who had introduced herself as Minerva McGonagall, who had told him she was doing something for a friend?
Suddenly she knelt down so she was at his eye level. She knew that she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone what she was about to tell young Dumbledore, but what happened if she changed the past because she didn’t?
Choosing her words carefully, she started, “I know you’re a very intelligent boy, so I want you to remember this: if you ever meet a girl called Minerva McGonagall, get to know her—and then, when you know she is ready, tell her that she has everything for her mission. Do you think that you will be able to remember to do that for me?”
He looked into her eyes determinedly, his face set. “I believe that I asked you a question first.”
“I…I am doing something for a dear friend.”
He paused for a moment to process this information, and then asked, “Will I know this girl when I see her?”
A small smiled passed across Minerva’s face as she remembered her eccentric Head of House visiting her when she was still a normal Muggle girl living in a village—normal, with a few strange powers. “I daresay you will recognise her—but don’t worry about knowing everything about her, as she will never know everything about you.”
Albus’s eyes seemed captivated by the Time-Turner and Minerva swore she saw his face crumple a fraction. "I will remember to tell her,” he promised.
Minvera’s fingers unconsciously wrapped around the Time-Turner. “I know that you will.”
“Are…you going on an adventure, for your friend?”
“You are always full of questions,” she told him, her voice a bit dry. “But yes.” She could feel the energy of the Time-Turner in her hand, and it was likely that Tom Riddle was looking for her or looking for a way into the past. She had to get moving—and soon. She had spent too much time here.
"Good luck," whispered Albus.
It was only when she examined the Time-Turner in the hazy late afternoon sunlight did she realise that she had no idea how she had ended up in the past in the first place. Time-Turners were only meant to go back twenty-four hours at most; had this one been altered somehow?
She felt frustrated at herself for not being able to clearly remember the jumbled events that had led to her trip into the past. Vague images swirled in her mind: fastening the clasp of the chain around her neck, the precise turnings of the hourglass by aged, wrinkled fingers, and bright blue eyes wishing her good luck as the world tumbled into a vortex around her.
Her eyes locked with Albus’s and she took this as a sign. She did feel quite a bit foolish but she tried to wave aside her logical side for now, as logic wouldn’t help her in this situation. She would have to take a bit of a risk…
“I should be going,” Albus said as he pulled his gaze away from hers. “You should be too.” He played with the cuff of his old-fashioned robes. “Mother was visiting relatives this weekend,” he told her.
Albus as a young child was still as confusing he was as an adult.
“I should be too.” Now was not the time for self-doubt. Now was the time to take action. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing, or where she was going, but she tried to tell herself that it didn’t matter. Taking in a deep breath, she turned the Time-Turner.
As she steadied herself after the accompanying dizziness, she tried to figure out where she was. But soon she discovered that it was not a matter of where, but a matter of when. She was in the same forest, but the afternoon sunlight was obscured by angry clouds that howled with the wind and battered the trees with rain.
What was she meant to do now? As thunder cracked across the skies, she found herself with nothing else to do but move on. She had no idea what she was meant to be doing next, and she couldn’t remember feeling so lost and confused in her entire life. Minerva McGonagall had always been the one who was on top of every situation—but how could someone ready themselves for something like this?
The water seemed to pass through her robes as if they were paper and they clung to her skin; their cool clammy dampness making her feel even more uncomfortable. She ran along in the darkness, praying that she would find some sort of cave—hopefully without a bear or other woodland creature inside.
It was funny, as she had never been the type of person to put much stock into prayers before, but now she depended on them.
Then, as if they had been answered, the mouth of a cave appeared right in front of her. She took a double-take, to make sure her vision was not being severely distorted from the pounding rain, but it was real—the cave was real! She walked inside, thankful to be inside and quickly applied drying charms to her soaked clothing.
Warmth seemed to be pulsating from some sort of inner sanctum and as she reached it she very quickly realised that this was no normal cave. Admittedly, she had not spent a lot of time in caves, but she was quite sure that they usually didn’t contain fallen scrolls spread all over the place. What on earth had brought her here? How was this going to bring her home?
She leaned closer to the scroll nearest her feet to see if she could read it, but was interrupted by some shuffling noises from the cave’s entrance. Alarmed, she quickly scrabbled through the pockets of the robes to try and find her wand, but could only find Tom’s. The noises grew louder and she held the wand bravely and called, “Who’s there?”
Tom Riddle leant against the sanctum’s archway, and Minerva did not know if it was just her deceptive eyesight, but his face seemed waxy and distorted.
Minerva’s grip tightened on her wand. “How did you get here?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.
“The same way you did, I suspect,” Tom replied, and Minerva caught a flash of the golden chain Tom was wearing around his own neck. He raised his wand and pointed it precisely at Minerva’s chest. Wait—wasn’t she holding Tom’s wand? She took a closer look at the wand Tom had, and immediately recognised it. Tom Riddle, for some unfathomable reason, had her wand.
“Where did you find—” She was unable to finish her question as an unknown spell erupted from the end of Tom’s wand and through her bodily against the wall. She crumpled against it and her head erupted in pain. For a few seconds she saw nothing but a haze of colours turning everything in the room either green or red.
“I’ll just have this,” Tom said, picking up his discarded wand off the floor. Then he was leaning over her, holding something else that also looked rather familiar. Her satchel. “How careless,” he whispered his voice carrying easily throughout the sanctum. “You should really have not left this behind.”
The green seemed to be mostly gone now and Minerva tried to get back onto her feet. She leant heavily on the wall for support. “Give that back,” she said in the most commanding tone possible.
Tom laughed mirthlessly. “‘Give that back?’” he mocked. “Is that the best you can come up with?”
She found herself looking deep into his eyes, surprised when a tinge of red seemed to leap up behind them. She didn’t break her gaze away until she could feel his mind brushing against the edges of her own and quickly turned her head.
“It does not matter,” Tom announced when Minerva was surprised he did not try and force the Legilimency, “as I already know everything.”
“You do, do you?” Minerva asked coldly, but not allowing herself to be goaded into looking into his eyes again.
“I know,” Tom replied in a tone frostier than hers, “that you are on a mission for Albus Dumbledore.” At these words the red flashed up in his eyes again, and Minerva almost immediately thought of a captured demon, fighting to escape. “I never expected you to become a little lap…cat, as well as being a worthless Mudblood.”
Minerva paled a few shades but then stopped, not wanting to let him know that the insult still hurt her.
“If you want to take orders from Albus Dumbledore, that is not really my concern. Dumbledore will soon be gone in a world where Lord Voldemort rules!”
“You are delusional,” Minerva said softly, the flaring of her nostrils betraying her calmness. “You will never hope to be able to stand up to Albus Dumbledore.” She tried again to stand up and almost managed it, but with a non-verbal sweep of his wand, Tom had ropes slowly twining around her ankles. “You’re still taking your orders from Grindelwald, aren’t you?”
Minerva half expected Tom to hex her, but instead he pulled a crumpled piece of parchment from his pocket and waved it in front of her face.
You have everything you need for your mission, Riddle.
“I was merely to be sent back to do reconnaissance, to look for your precious Dumbledore,” he told her, his voice mingled in with traces of disgust, “but I wasn’t going to let myself be manipulated by any substandard wizards. I have my own uses for being here.” His waxy features looked strange in the sanctum’s limited light and Minerva swore he hadn’t looked like that before.
Tom’s eyes hardened. “Immortality is nearly mine, and then, no-one will stand in my way. Not a single person will dare stand in my way when I am invincible!” He drew his wand up and placed it under Minerva’s chin. “Now, I believe we have been talking for quite long enough.”
Minerva felt her pulse race as the tip of the wand pressed into her skin. Her only chance was to transform and escape. But it almost seemed too easy; Tom certainly wouldn’t let her escape without difficulty. She had to try, however, as she had no other options available.
She closed her eyes and willed herself to transform into her feline form but was met with sharp pinpricks on pain all over her body, which quickly intensified until she let out a gasp.
“Do you take me for a fool?” Tom growled, relieving the pressure on the wand by a fraction.
She glared at him, just managing to bite a retort off the tip of her tongue. No matter how tempting it was, now was not really the best time to speak her mind.
Tom’s eyes locked with hers and she had a vague notion that she had been trying to avoid this, but try as she might it was too late to look away. She had not been properly trained in defense against Legilimency; she had only been warned not to look anyone in the eyes if she thought they may attempt it.
With a complete lack of knowledge to how the mind worked, she tried in vain to not let him see her memories. Unbidden, the memory of her meeting with young Dumbledore came to the front of her mind.
“Are…you going on an adventure, for your friend?” he had asked her, bright blue eyes bright and inquisitive.
“You are always full of questions.” Her voice had been a little dry. “But yes.”
“Good luck,” he had whispered.
She certainly wasn’t to have any good luck now, she realised as Tom Riddle’s triumphant, gloating face appeared above her. “You know more than I thought you do,” he said, his voice thoughtful. His pale white fingers tightened around the handle of his wand until his knuckles almost turned yellow. “I want you to take me to him.”
“Never,” she spat.
The wand jabbed upwards and Minerva bit her lip to avoid any gasps of pain betraying her again.
“I don’t recall telling you that you have a choice in the matter,” Tom told her. “Now get up.”
Feeling particularly stubborn and obstinate, Minerva refused to do so. She would not take Tom to Albus as she doubted that Tom would be able to find him on his own…
“This is not a time for games. You can either lead me to him, or your body can remain undiscovered here for many years to come.”
…but what if he did? She didn’t doubt Dumbledore’s magical prowess, but this was a much younger Dumbledore, and if Tom ran across him, there would be no-one around to even try and save Dumbledore. She closed her eyes briefly. She had to be there. She couldn’t leave this all up to chance. Slowly, she got up to her feet and Tom followed her with his wand.
“How do you know I won’t help him when I get there?” she asked, wondering what his thoughts on the matter would be, as it would help her plan for her escape.
“With no wand while I watch your every step? I do not think you will be able to.”
Minerva could still feel Tom’s wand trained on her, and asked, “How do I know that you won’t get rid of me before we get there?”
Tom’s eyes glittered. “You will just have to trust me. Now walk.”
Not quite sure where she was leading him, or where the path they were on was going, she nevertheless obeyed his instructions. She didn’t know how to find Albus again herself, but it seemed as though they would have to try. Maybe when they found him, everything would make sense again. She could only hope.
They walked in the dark, Minerva leading Tom over logs and stones, with no idea at all where she was going. After what seemed like hours of stumbling through thick undergrowth, Tom lost his perceived composure and asked in a soft, dangerous voice, “When are we going to get there?”
“When we do,” Minerva told him, her lips thinning, although he could not see them. She did not think that he would like the fact that Minerva had no idea where they had to go.
“If you think that taking me on a journey across the countryside will make me forget about my objectives, McGonagall, you are sadly mistaken. I will find Albus Dumbledore, and then…” His face darkened in colour for a few moments.
Tired of Tom’s behaviour, and realising that her wandering was bearing no fruit, she said, “Will it do you much ease to know that I have no idea where I am going?”
Tom fingered his wand delicately. “It would make it much easier to render yourself useless, but little else.”
What Minerva needed more than anything else was time, time that she did not have. Tom would soon tire of being walked around in circles, and as soon as it became perfectly clear she could not bring him to Dumbledore, Tom would go find him on his own, and Minerva would not be around to help Albus.
“I think,” Minerva said with a feigned look at the sky, “that we should retire for the night. We will soon be in a village, I think, by the width of this road, so there will hopefully be an inn we can stay at.”
Tom was not at all pleased by this suggestion. “I have done enough waiting around and do not wish to do so any further. So we will keep walking, and if you have any more suggestions, I might find you too annoying to put up with any further.”
Soon they reached the proposed village and Minerva looked at the door of what could only be the village pub, its doorway dark and dingy. It was now or never. There would be people in there—was it possible that Tom would kill them all? Could she risk that? Could she live with the fact that if she dragged innocent people into this, and they got hurt, it would be her fault?
She didn’t have time to think, to deliberate the positives and negatives of the situation, so in a burst of uncharacteristic rashness; she kicked Tom sharply in the shins and bolted for the door of the pub. Tom, expecting her to be docile and obedient as she had been for the previous hours had lost a little vigilance, and she did not turn around to see if he would follow her.
The dust was heavy on the walls inside, as if it hadn’t been cleaned for months. But the most obvious things she saw were such obvious traces of magic she almost sighed in relief. But then she worried again. Would they be any match for Tom Riddle? Dumbledore had told her he has travelled down paths others would never have dreamed of in the quest for immortality.
Cautiously she approached the filthy counter where the barkeeper stared at her, a suspicious look growing on his face. “Yer look like an’ adventurer,” he told her, and she did not feel inclined to disagree. It certainly felt like an adventure now, although not a pleasant one.
“I am,” she assured him, wondering what this possibly meant to the man. Did adventurers at his tavern received free drinks?
A mug of some indistinguishable form of alcohol was slid towards her, confirming her suspicions as correct. She didn’t think that this was the best time to be indulging in drink, considering Tom would burst in at any moment.
The barkeep looked at her a few seconds longer and the noted, “Yer not one of us, are yeh?”
Minerva did not know whether to confirm his suspicions and did nothing.
“I have sumthin’ special for people like yeh,” the man said, bending down underneath the counter where he retrieved a box. “An adventurer like yeh shoul’ never be afraid of time. These Time-Turners are frightfully confusing for an old feller like me. Don’ have many instructions, neither. ‘Two turns should do it,’ is all,” he said gruffly, sounding slightly miffed.
Minerva held the box in her hands. Maybe this would solve everything. Maybe this Time-Turner was different. She didn’t have long to deliberate this matter though, because the front door imploded, littering the floor with wooden fragments.
She turned to face Tom. “What do you hope to achieve?” she asked angrily, stepping over the broken splinters of wood so she could reach him in the doorway. She forgot that she had no wand, no way to defend herself, unless she could injure him the Time-Turner. She could turn into a cat as well, she supposed, but that left her more open to magical attacks.
“You know what I want,” Tom said darkly, his face covered in shadow. He took a step towards her with his wand drawn and Minerva felt her fingers tighten around the box, and carefully, she plucked the Time-Turner out.
“I don’t have time to keep playing games, McGonagall. I have things that I need to do, and your assistance has not at all been helpful up to this point.”
The barkeeper stood up, as he had fallen over at the impact of the door’s implosion. “What do yer bloody well thinkin’, stormin’ inter me pub like yer own the bloomin’ place?” he asked, drawing his own wand.
Tom smirked at the wand point directed at his face. “You cannot possibly hope to duel with me,” he scoffed, gently rubbing the handle of his wand lovingly between two long pale fingers.
“I can sure damn try,” the man said as he jumped over the bar. He did not get very far, however, as Minerva stopped his progress. This was not his fault. She should never have run so quickly into the bar. She should have taken responsibility for her own actions and if anything happened to the barkeep now, it could have tragic consequences for the future. For all she knew, this man could be a pivotal figure in her own timeline’s history, and if he died, all could be lost. She didn’t have much time to think, to plan. All she had was a Time-Turner, and her own intuition. She could not let anyone die.
How important was she, herself, to the timeline? What would happen if she died in the past?
“I won’t let you,” Minerva said firmly, crossing her arms over her chest.
“It’s my bleedin’ bar!” the man yelled. “Do yer think I’m goin’ ter let patrons die here?” he roared, trying to get past Minerva.
Then again, she thought, what purpose would her death hold? Wouldn’t Tom just step over her body and proceed to kill everyone else in the bar?
Her heart beat in frenzy as she stood in front of Tom. Blood seemed to cloud her hearing and vision as all she heard were the thumps of her own heart and all that she could think was I am going to die.
Tom looked at her and smirked. He didn’t waste any more time on words, and if he spoke the final words, Minerva didn’t hear them. All that she knew was that in a final flash of green, it was over.
***
The kitten yawned and stretched, moving its young, fragile paws gently around the overgrown meadow. She was young, and shivers of content ran up through her spine. The place was warm and welcoming; she felt as if she could spend her whole life here.
She slowly padded towards a nice sunny spot near a looming rock, kneading the ground softly with her claws. She had just woken up from the most refreshing nap she had ever had, and her mind was still filled with clouds and dreams. She wanted nothing more than to go back into that dreamlike state of inner peace.
Before she could fully welcome sleep, she heard a rustling noise from a nearby tree. She tried to ignore it, but the idea of something stumbling across her paradise and bringing danger troubled her, and she felt that she should be vigilant and protect her world at all costs.
Fur raised and tail bushy, she slowly snuck up on the other side of the tree. Where the cat expected to see some sort of malevolent force, there was no-one but a young red-haired boy with sharp blue eyes that seemed startlingly familiar.
He stared at her sharply and a thin finger traced the markings around her eyes. If any other person had done it, she would have bitten them, but she felt safe around him.
A small sturdy hand slid underneath her belly and the other carefully supported her hind legs.
Then he opened his mouth, but when he spoke it was not with the boisterous tone of an energetic eight-year-old, but with the gentility and formality of an aged man. The fingers scratched the top of her head and she felt the purrs vibrate up her spine.
Quietly, the young boy said in the old man’s voice, “No matter what you may think, Minerva, you did not fail.”
The cat stopped purring from a moment and turned to look in the direction of the voice. Who was he talking to?
The boy’s eyes closed and he took a deep breath, as thought he was about to speak, but he said nothing. Instead he seemed as if he was struggling to find the right words. “I should never have put you through that.” He lowered her down onto the ground and knelt down to her level, looking her in the eye. “But you do understand it was necessary, don’t you?” Although he phrased it with all the connotations of a question, it did not seem like one the cat should answer, even if she knew what he was talking about.
“I should let you sleep,” the boy told her. “You have had a long journey, but when you regain your health I presume you will want to return.”
The cat’s eyes were drowsy and she desperately wanted to sleep. But she managed to keep them open as she looked at the chain the boy dangled in front of her.
“You have everything you need, Minerva. Good luck.” He had almost disappeared down the same path he had come before he turned. “Two turns should do it,” he added as a whispered afterthought before disappearing into the foliage.
***
The next time she woke up, the cat wondered why she wasn’t a cat anymore. Brushing new and foreign hands across her face, she realised that she was now a human. Had she always been a human, or was she really a cat?
Then she saw the Time-Turner lying down nearby and remembered the cat watching the small boy dangling it above her. It all started coming back to her. She was both the cat and the person. Shakily, she got to her feet. There was nothing to be done here. This place was beautiful, and peaceful, but for all its peace and beauty, it was boring.
In her hands, she held the Time-Turner. She wrapped the delicate chain around her neck and whispered to herself, “Two turns should do it.” She was ready to go back now. Apparently, Dumbledore had told her that she had not failed, but she could not get rid of the thought that it was her subconscious trying to assuage her insecurities.
The time turner span around and then the world followed suit, trees and sky merging together in a haze of colour.
When she opened her eyes again, her limbs ached all over. For all the sleeping she had done, she did not feel any more rested. Someone jostled her elbow and it jolted her back into awareness. No longer was she in a serene clearing, which all felt like some far and distant daydream. She was now in a dirty dingy pub which seemed strangely familiar. Small flurries of snow littered the street outside, and after throwing furtive looks around the occupants of the pub, she walked out the door.
Her breath hung in the air in front of her as she considered her next move. There didn’t seem to be anything else to do except to go back to Hogwarts and speak with Professor Dumbledore, presuming she was back in her own time, of course. But she didn’t hold too much doubt. The surrounding area, the hum of the atmosphere, it had to be her own time.
It had to be, she repeated to herself, because she did not dare to think otherwise.
With a twist of her heel she disappeared from the front of the pub with a small pop and within moments she had reappeared in front of Hogwarts’ gates. Foot in front of foot she walked up the pathway, past the winged boars and into the castle itself.
There seemed to be music coming from the Great Hall but Minerva didn’t go in because she needed to go straight to Dumbledore. She didn’t admit it was because she was afraid that upon entering the room she might find herself in the wrong era.
The layout of the school still seemed the same, but how often did the layout of a magical school change over a millennium anyway? Her legs pounded the familiar route to the Dumbledore’s office and she soon found herself in the Transfiguration corridor. She raised her hand to knock, but before she could do so, Dumbledore’s voice enunciated clearly from the office. “Come in.”
Pushing the door aside she strode into the office and seated herself in the chair opposite the Headmaster’s desk. She wanted something to say, anything, but had no idea how to put the thoughts swirling around her head into words. Without making a sound she slowly unclasped the Time-Turner and laid it on Professor Dumbledore’s desk.
“I take it everything went well, Minerva?” Dumbledore asked, looking at her sternly over his half-moon glasses.
Flashes of green haunted her mind and she stared up at him, perplexed. “I nearly died, sir. I should have died…” Her voice trailed off and she looked at the desk, too afraid to look her mentor in the eyes.
“Ah,” said Dumbledore quietly, “but that brings us to the point. You could not have died. Everything that has passed has already been. If you had died,” he looked up to meet her eyes and she quickly turned away, “I daresay we would not be having this conversation right now.”
There were so many questions she wanted to ask, but try as she might she could not organize her thoughts in a logical order as she was so used to doing. One simple word, however, could sum them all up as easily as possible. “Why?” she asked. Taking the courage to sneak a peek into his eyes, she realised that the ever-present twinkle was present no more.
“I sent you, Minerva,” Dumbledore began gravely, “not because I wanted to, but because I had to. What has happened in the past has already happened and must continue to happen. Do you understand?”
“What would have happened if I did not go?” she asked.
“Then the time-line would have diverted, although we would not have realised it had happened.”
“Then, sir,” she asked, “how would we know the time-line has not diverted already?”
The twinkle was back in Dumbledore’s eyes and he smiled at her. “We do not.”
“Then why did I have to go back? Why did you send me to Mr Weasley’s house?”
”You ask many questions, Minerva, and I am not sure if I can answer all of—”
Minerva could feel her frustration with the Headmaster rising. She had never felt this annoyed with him before, but he had never vested a responsibility of this magnitude in her previously. “You always say that, sir. I want some answers. Please,” she added as an afterthought.
Again, Dumbledore looked at her closely. “I did not say I was not going to tell you. I will answer all of the questions that it is within my ability to. You ask why you went to Mr Weasley’s house, Minerva? Because back then, the Weasleys were a highly esteemed pure-blood family, but around the time of your journey, the Weasley household underwent some vandalism, destroying some of their most priceless belongings.”
“But, sir, how did you know that had anything to do with me?”
“Because one of the very few reports the head of the household made of that time, stated the sighting of a tabby Animagus. When you first transformed, I knew that you would have to go soon.”
Minerva stayed silent as her head struggled to make sense of all this new information. Was everything pre-determined then? Was everything already decided? Was she not allowed to make any decisions of her own?
Dumbledore seemed not to notice her confusion and continued. “You also ask why you had to go back. Apart from the implications on the world as we know it, I would never have grown to know you so well.”
Minerva’s head snapped up. Could he mean what she thought he meant?
“Quite naturally, you would still be a student at the school, but if it not for your message, I would never have kept an eye out on you from the very beginning. As you have matured over the years, I have seen you gradually turn into the woman I remember from many years ago.”
“So that was really you?”
Dumbledore nodded.
“So is everything that has happened before always going to happen? Are we not free to choose our own destinies?” she asked. “How could you know everything that was going to happen, otherwise? I…I was just so worried, that I was making the wrong decisions, or that I would rush into things too quickly. I tried to take things slow, tried to be careful as I have learnt to be, but was it all for nothing, if everything was going to happen anyway?”
“That is not correct, Minerva. You could have preserved the timeline as you have done, but you could also have destroyed it.”
“Would I have known, though, if the timeline diverted that I had done anything wrong? Would I remember?”
Dumbledore shook his head and laid his hands on the table. “Alas, those are the questions I cannot answer.”
A final thought was worrying her and she picked up on it before she had a chance to forget. “Was Tom Riddle meant to be there, sir?”
A sharp look from Dumbledore told her that Tom Riddle was certainly not meant to be there at all. “You ran into Riddle?” he asked.
Minerva clutched one side of her head, only vaguely aware of how messy her hair had become on this adventure. “He killed me,” she whispered, feeling her hands tremble as she tried to hold onto the edge of the desk. “I didn’t want him to harm anyone else…it was my fault,” she admitted.
Dumbledore still seemed slightly fazed by the idea of Riddle being somewhere he ought not to be, but Minerva knew that he was not going to be sharing any information about Riddle. They rarely talked about Riddle, but Minerva decided that this is because Dumbledore did not often share his hypotheses.
“Do you not see, Minerva?” Dumbledore asked. “That is the precise distinction between fate and choice. At that crucial moment, the timeline could have altered forever. But you were aware of the risks and you sacrificed yourself. I know you well enough that the preservation of the time-line was not the only reason you could not stand by and see other people be injured.”
Minerva nodded, unsure again as to what she should say. “That’s true,” she told him.
“And yet,” Dumbledore continued, “you took that choice—yes, that choice, Minerva, even though you were not certain of the consequences arising from it. You could have just as easily stood by as the timeline was destroyed, and we would not be anymore aware of it. Do you understand now, Minerva?”
“I think so, sir,” she responded, “Time-travel is not simple at all, is it?”
Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled behind his glasses. “Nothing is ever simple, Minerva.”
Minerva smiled as she now fully understood the full implications of the statement.
“Don’t you have somewhere to go?” Dumbledore asked, and Minerva found herself shaking her head.
“What am I to do now, sir? Do I still come back for my lesson next week?”
Dumbledore shook his head. “I believe you are now fully proficient with your Animagus form, correct? Now would be a good time to travel the world and experience the many sights that it has to offer. But I daresay you have had enough adventures for the evening,” Dumbledore said, his voice halfway between light and serious. “In a few years’ time I suspect that Hogwarts may have an open Transfiguration teaching position, and I suspect that you would to apply for it,” Dumbledore suggested.
“But what do I do today?” She still wasn’t quite certain of when, precisely, she had returned. Had any time passed in her absence?
“I believe you should visit your family,” Dumbledore told her. “You have been gone for two days.”
Two days. That certainly wasn’t enough time for her family to start missing her. She wouldn’t have been surprised at the point to hear she had disappeared for two years.
“Happy Christmas, Minerva,” Dumbledore said, and everything fell into place. The wet and cool flurries she had seen on her way to the castle…the music in the Great Hall…it was Christmas. With all the recent excitement, she had quite forgotten.
“Happy Christmas, Professor Dumbledore.”
“Good luck with the future, Minerva.”
She turned to look at him, and for the smallest moment she did not see the tall, wrinkled old man who had been her professor for many years, but an inquisitive young boy staring up at her with startling blue eyes. Did people ever really change?
“Thank you.”
With that, she left his office and walked down into the Entrance Hall. She certainly had enough adventure recently to last her a great while. For now, she was going to spend some time with her family. With that, she set off for home, walking against a backdrop of fluttering snow.