Minnie [#Wattys2017]

A Year Seems Forever

A Year Seems Forever

A year seems forever when you are young, and that winter seemed especially long with biting winds that turned Minnie's nose pink when they struggled through the snow to the church, where she and her brothers attended primary classes with some of the kids from the parish. Minnie was the eldest and often elected to assist the teacher in lessons for the younger kids, and she did her very best to show them how to do their addition and subtraction and how to tell time by looking at the clock... The Reverend Robert did not mention magic nor Hogwarts to Minnie, nor to Isobel, and when asked where Minerva would be going to school the following year, he simply replied that she would be going to a boarding school, like her mum had done. This was accepted for the most part by the village as a whole.

Except for nosey Dougal McGregor.

"How am I supposed to write to you at this stupid boarding school if you don't even tell me the name of it?" he badgered Minerva one day in the spring, when the snow was melting and there were loads of mud puddles and broken tree branches to play with. They were walking along the road from the village, where they'd just come from the sweet shoppe buying bags of hard candies that they sucked on as they walked, paper bags swinging from their fists. They'd been stopped by old Mrs. Mackinnon who had asked Minerva about the boarding school and she'd been just as vague as the Reverend ever had been about it.

"You can bring your letters to my mum and she can send them to me."

"And what if I wish to say something in private to you, something she can't read?"

"She won't read your letters," Minerva replied, "And what private things would you ever wish to say anyway? Don't be stupid, Dougal."

"Dunno, but perhaps I will want to say something in private one day."

"Then you'll have to wait until I get home," she answered.

Dougal sighed.

Stubborn Minnie wasn't about to budge in her choice not to tell him.

The spring months became warmer and warmer and soon they'd made it through the winter and Minerva was getting more excited and nervous about Hogwarts everyday as the looming start of term came ever closer... In June, Isobel became restless again and they took another trip to Diagon Alley, though they didn't stay but for a few hours and when they went to Fortescue's, Florean was not there to say hullo to, which sorely disappointed Minerva. But she did get to go to a shoppe called Madam Malkin's, where she was fitted for robes and a proper Hogwarts uniform - minus her house specific items, which would be provided by the school. But she got an array of oxfords and several skirts and a pair of trousers, two sets of billowing black robes - to which her house patch would be added by house elves, her mother explained - and a pointy black hat. There was another girl there with a funny name that Minerva forgot the moment she'd been told it, but the girl had a pretty face and a button nose that she would remember and they chatted while they held out their arms for the shopgirls to measure and pin the robes in their proper places.

Minerva also got school books and quills and a cauldron and scales and a potions kit stocked with funny leaves and powders, and a trunk to put it all in.

In July, an owl came with a new letter from Hogwarts, sealed with the same wax as the last one had been, with a letter from the Deputy Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, which read:

Enclosed you will find your tickets to the Hogwarts Express, departing from King's Cross Station on the morning of 1 September, 1947. Please arrive on time with your luggage properly packed. Students may bring along one pet - a toad, a cat, or an owl. As always, a friendly reminder to parents that nifflers are not acceptable student pets. Students may bring along their broomstick, but Hogwarts is not responsible for the safekeeping of personal brooms.
Sincerely,
Albus Dumbledore
Deputy Headmaster, Gryffindor Head of House, Transfiguration Department Head