“I trust you have learned from this incident?”
He nodded again.
“Very well. I see no reason to prevent you from playing in the forthcoming Quidditch match.” A faint smile touched her lips.
“Thank you, ma’am. I was really looking forward to it.”
“I expect you to win, Mr Potter. I want that trophy.” Harry managed a small answering smile.
“Now, you may get on with some homework while I continue with these essays.”
“Um, Professor?”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Professor Flitwick mentioned that you visited my parents a few times after I was born…”
“Ah.” McGonagall sighed and leaned back in her chair.
“Yes. I saw them occasionally. Your father was one of my finest students despite his somewhat lackadaisical approach. After they went into hiding he asked me to help refine his Transfiguration for combat use. I was not able to visit often, but more than most.”
Harry smiled faintly, thinking how different everything might have been.
“Do you know why my mum changed her mind about my Aunt Petunia?”
“What do you mean?”
He drew out the runes notebook, opened it to the page containing Lily’s furious note, and handed it across.
“The date is a few months before I was born. Nothing in this notebook—or any of the others—suggests she ever forgave my aunt. Yet I ended up with the Dursleys, so I assume the will must have been changed again at some point. I was curious what happened.”
McGonagall’s frown deepened as she read and re-read the short, underlined entry.
“Damn you, Albus,” she muttered, almost too quietly for him to catch.
“I was unaware the Potters had left wills, Harry. None were ever executed after their deaths. I do not know the full circumstances. I can tell you that I was present for the incident that almost certainly prompted this note. The dates align. I am… not certain you will wish to hear it. It is unpleasant, and it does not paint your relatives in a favourable light.”
“Professor, it would be difficult to paint them any darker than I already do.” A thin edge of ice entered Harry’s voice—the same tone Ronald Weasley had once heard.
“Please tell me.”
McGonagall sagged, suddenly looking every one of her years.
“I was training with James when your mother returned from speaking with Petunia and her husband. Lily was several weeks pregnant and deeply distressed. Before I left she told us that Petunia and Vernon had… recommended, in the strongest possible language, that she terminate the pregnancy.”
Harry gave a short, humourless scoff.
“Let me guess—something like ‘we don’t need any more freaks in the world like you’?”
McGonagall’s mouth fell open.
“How could you possibly know that?”
“They say it to me often enough.”
“They—what?” “So if it was that bad,” Harry continued quietly, “Mum probably never forgave her. How the hell did I end up with the Dursleys?”
“Albus said it was the safest place for you…” McGonagall’s gaze drifted toward the cabinet where she kept her firewhisky.
“I watched the house the evening before. I knew they were not pleasant people, but surely they would never… not to a child…”
“You and Dumbledore left me there?” Harry’s voice had gone utterly cold.
The breeze through the open window suddenly strengthened, scattering papers across the desk.
“Thank you for the conversation, Professor. I think I’ll study now, as you suggested.”
“No—Harry, that is quite enough. This detention is over. You may return to your dormitory.” Harry slipped the notebook back into his bag without another word and left.
The breeze died the moment the door closed behind him.
McGonagall rose, poured herself a measure of firewhisky, and turned to close the window—only to discover it had been shut the entire time.
“Damn you, Albus.”
Harry dropped onto the common-room sofa and immediately opened the books Shiva had given him.
He buried himself in the clusters and prime runes, deliberately pushing the conversation with McGonagall to the back of his mind.
Runes had always been the surest way to steady himself.
He was so absorbed that he failed to notice Hermione settle beside him until her hand rested lightly on his arm.
“Harry? Are you all right?”
He started.
“Hermione! Bloody hell—warn a person when you sneak up like that.”
“Harry…”
“I’m fine.” He turned and managed a small smile.
“Thanks for asking, though.”
“You’re not fine,” she said, soft enough that only he could hear.
“You look the way I felt when I ran into that bathroom—only angrier.”
“Really, I’m all right.” He took in her doubtful expression and sighed.
“Professor McGonagall just said a few things that got under my skin. I’ve got these new runes from Shiva now. Give me ten minutes with them and I’ll be right as rain. Okay?” Hermione’s face flickered between curiosity, concern and a faint hurt.
At last she simply sighed and pulled him into a hug.
“All right. If you decide you want to talk about it, remember I’m here.”