Chapter Text
Minerva slumped into the chair behind her desk, a throbbing headache persisting behind her eyes. She had already gulped down the pain-relieving potion that Poppy had slipped her just before she departed the Hospital Wing, and it hadn't done much for her yet. Hopefully it just needed a few more minutes to kick in. As much as she dearly wanted to just go and have a lie down, her tumultuous day was not over yet.
In all her years as a teacher, she had never quite seen chaos like she had today. Pranks and adolescent fights she could handle. She'd weathered so many classroom accidents that they barely even registered as exciting events in her day anymore. She had honestly been starting to think that no student could surprise her anymore, at least, not within the bounds of her lessons.
How laughably wrong she had been. It had just been a simple error. A lazy student had not paid close enough attention to where exactly he had been pointing his wand, and another student's possession had been hit with the spell they were supposed to be practising. Usually when this happened it only meant Minerva had to step in and stop someone's book-bag from sprouting feathers, or fix a textbook that had suddenly turned to iron. Today's incident had only been unusual in the fact that it had happened in one of her first-year classes (First-years typically only messed up in the way that resulted in nothing happening at all) and that a living creature had been the unfortunate victim of the day's accident.
"This is why it is best to leave all pets in your dormitories during lesson times," Minerva had said sternly to her class. "Do not fret Mr Weasley, your rat can be fixed easily enough."
Famous last words. It should have been a simple fix. It was hardly her fault that the whole thing had spiralled out of control from there. The rat hadn't even been that badly affected by the stray spell. He was still noticeably a rat, only his fur had taken on the texture of polished wood and his claws had become rather twig like. The creature barely seemed to notice the change.
An easy fix. Minerva snorted at the thought as she pulled a fresh sheet of parchment out and spread it across her desk. Easy fixes do not involve a classroom stampede and a floo call to the Auror office. Now there was a hysterical boy in the Hospital Wing and Minerva had to write home to his parents to try and explain what had happened.
She couldn't even put it off until her headache was gone because the boy's father worked at the Ministry, and would no doubt have already heard that there had been an incident at Hogwarts that morning. If she waited too long she risked Mr Weasley's parents finding out through gossip, and that was unacceptable. She was not only the teacher who had been present for the incident in question, she was also Mr Weasley's head of house. It was her duty to write this letter as promptly as she could.
Minerva stared down at the blank sheet of parchment. All she had managed to write so far was: Dear Mr and Mrs Weasley.
How on earth was she supposed to begin? How does one explain to a couple, exactly, that their son's pet rat was actually an illegal animagus? Worse, how was Minerva supposed to explain that this particular illegal animagus was a man previously thought murdered, and his apparent survival raised some very uncomfortable questions about tragic events that they had all tried to put behind them? Minerva barely knew herself what was going on at this point – how was she supposed to explain things to others?
Minerva's headache spiked. The potion wasn't working. She wasn't surprised. This kind of event felt big enough to transcend simple remedies. She needed something stronger. Firewhisky, maybe.
Minerva sighed and started to write.