HA 5c: Headmistress

HIM AGAIN: Chapter 5: No More - Headmistress

Poppy Pomfrey’s hands were folded primly on her lap and her mouth was pursed with disapproval. Rolanda Hooch stood next to her, her face twitching with the expression of anger that was threatening to overcome it and her hands on her hips. Poppy’s eyes kept flicking to Rolanda with a look that was half warning and half sympathy before turning back to rest sternly upon their target.

A lesser woman would have quailed under the looks the pair were giving her - but Minerva McGonagall was not among the ranks of these lesser women, and so simply gazed back at them. Her face gave away nothing of the turmoil inside her at the sight of the school matron and the flying instructor united in their quest to force her - if necessary, physically frogmarch her - into enjoying herself. Evidently, the unspoken message which Minerva had been projecting to the pair for the last few years had failed to breach Poppy’s walls of concern or batter through Rolanda’s spurned mental Beaters. Neither of them understand anything, she thought sadly.

“There are guests waiting for you,” said Poppy, with a slight inflection on ‘waiting’ that nobody missed. “Rolanda organised it especially.”

“I apologise, but these forms will not sign themselves,” Minerva replied, gesturing at the papers on her desk. The office had been mercifully silent before Poppy and Rolanda had entered and now they were there, guilt was tearing at her like a mad thing. It’s not a lie, she thought a little desperately. These papers do need doing.

“Surely it is not necessary for them to be done now,” said Rolanda stiffly. “Not this minute, this hour, this very afternoon.”

“I’m falling behind. The school’s affairs are a priority, Rolanda.”

“And the party I arranged isn’t?”

There was a nasty silence. Minerva dropped her eyes to the parchment and focussed on her own signature in an attempt to blot out Rolanda’s hurt tone. Her signature embodied all that used to be, should be, Minerva McGonagall. The letters was neat and well-formed but the end of the ‘g’ was sharp and defiant.

“How very like you,” she remembered Rolanda saying once, when they were younger, closer. “All demure and perfect - and then your temper flares.”

“Is that was I’m supposed to say to the people waiting downstairs?” the present-day Rolanda snapped. “Should I go down and say, ‘I’m sorry, you are not deemed to be the Headmistress’s main priority today?’”

“Rolanda,” said Poppy, and the flying instructor’s jaw clamped shut whilst the matron assumed a professional stance. She looked Minerva up and down. “It is not healthy to shut yourself away. Your last health assessment worried me, Minerva. You are losing both weight and sleep. I would advise that you came down and got some fresh air and good company.”

“I appreciate your concern, Poppy, but we can all expect such things as health to decline with age. Today is the day I turn seventy-eight, not twenty-one. I should think it is hardly appropriate for women of my age to go frolicking about at a party.”

Rolanda gaped her and shook her head slowly, apparently half-stunned. “What’s happened to you? The old Minerva McGonagall wouldn’t have been happy to ‘decline with age!’”

Sparks of anger stirred behind the sadness. Didn’t either of them understand? She wanted to be left alone! “The old Minerva McGonagall was younger and probably more foolish.” She was tempted to say that the old Minerva McGonagall was dead, but there was no need to make a simple audience with two staff members into a display of dramatics.

“What happened to you? What’s changed?”

“Will you not confide in us anymore, Min?” asked Poppy softly.

“Where’s the Minerva McGonagall who made a laughing-stock of Umbridge? Where’s the Minerva McGonagall who took five Stunners in the chest and whose first words upon waking were to swear she’d throw the old toad off the Astronomy Tower? What happened to the Minerva McGonagall who helped bring down Grindelwald? I ask - where is she? Because she’s certainly not the woman sitting before me today.”

Minerva winced and agreed. The Minerva Rolanda was talking about sounded like a completely different person. She clenched her fists.

“I would ask certain members of staff not to behave like rowdy students.”

Poppy’s face went as rugged as a cliff-face. Rolanda gaped again and stared as the woman sitting at the desk as though she couldn’t believe her eyes. When she spoke, it was in a rather strained voice.

“When since have I been a ‘member of staff?’ Is this Professor Hooch you’re talking to?”

Minerva’s knuckles cracked. “I should hope so, unless you are suffering from some sort of personality disorder - in which case, you should consult my colleague next to you.”

Instantly, she wanted to go back in time and snatch the words out of the air. Rolanda’s eyes were moist and Poppy’s firm façade had suddenly given way. She seemed older, and suddenly diminished.

“’Colleague?’” she repeated. “’Colleague?’”

“Forgive us,” choked out Rolanda. “But we were under the impression that we were your friends - no matter how much you’ve tried to shove us away!”

The Headmistress found she had lost the ability to speak. Bile at herself crawled up her throat. She saw herself suddenly, as if from miles away: a cold, cruel woman hiding in her office, hurting whoever dared enter. Was that truly what she’d become?

She began to apologise but the flying instructor cut her off with a wave of the hand. “My apologies, Headmistess. We’ll go now.”

It was like a slap across the face - a slap which she deserved. Headmistess! No, nobody saw Minerva anymore; it was just the Headmistress, Professor McGongall, a face defined by her role. Her two ex-best friends stalked out of the room - and she realised she’d lost them. That was it. They’d finally got the message that she wanted to be left alone - and now she was. She balled her knuckles into her eyes and cried.

Meanwhile, Rolanda and Poppy waited until they had entered the relative privacy of the Hospital Wing before turning to each other with looks of dismay. Rolanda’s eyes overflowed. The sight of the wreck of her friend spurning her had cut her to the core. Again and again, the scene replayed: the skeletal woman at the desk, with shadows under her weary eyes and a gaze that would not fully meet theirs, speaking curtly - harshly, even - as if they had not grown up at Hogwarts together at all, but were mere acquaintances. She gulped as her remaining friend patted her on the back.

“I’ve had enough,” said Poppy in an uncharacteristically strident voice. “We’ve got to get to the bottom of this. I refuse to believe that she meant anything she said in that office.”

“We’ve got to bring back Minerva,” agreed Rolanda, wiping her eyes.