Sea Change

Sea Change--Prologue

Minerva McGonagall returned to her office from her regular evening curfew stroll about the castle, conjured herself a cup of tea, and sank into the chair behind her desk with a sigh. She adjusted her square spectacles, sipped her tea, and reached for the stack of owl post that she finally had time to peruse. As she opened parchment after parchment from the Ministry and the Board of Governors, she pursed her lips tighter and tighter, her scowl deepening with each successive scroll.


She was reaching for the next one, one with a familiar scrawl across the front, obviously not from the Ministry or the Board, when there was a sharp rap on the office door. Sighing, she set the letter aside and flicked her wand at the door. It swung open to reveal a squinting, scowling Argus Filch, and the bowed heads of two small forms behind him.


"Mr. Filch?" Minerva queried, and the ancient caretaker creaked forward, grunting at and motioning to his two captives to follow him as he did.


"Time ter face the music, oh yes," Filch muttered at the two boys, harrumphed, and said to Minerva, "Caught 'em out after curfew, Professor, sneakin' about the castle, making their little plans to....."


"That will be enough, Mr. Filch," Minerva said crisply, adjusting her spectacles and peering at the two boys before her. One perfectly groomed blonde head, one messy and tousled black head, and she resisted a smile. She cleared her throat and the two lifted their heads. One pair of grey eyes, one pair of brilliant green eyes, both apprehensive, looked back. "Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Potter. I must confess, I am severely disappointed in you both," Minerva intoned, "No student has the right to wander the corridors of this castle at night. The fact that you are first years does not excuse you from knowing better. I know perfectly well you both are well aware of the rules of this school....."


"But Professor!" entreated one of the miscreants, "we weren't doing anything bad! Honestly! It was just....."


The plea was interrupted by his partner in crime, and Minerva pursed her lips together in an effort not to soften at the obvious distress in the grey eyes of the delicate blonde boy. She noticed how the pale hand scrabbled to clutch the tanned hand of the protestor, and how the protestor nodded reassuringly at the silent imploration. She smiled inwardly.


"Mr. Potter, unless the Slytherin dungeons or Gryffindor tower were on fire, there is no possible excuse for either of you to be out of your dormitories," Minerva admonished, taking care to keep her face stern. "I'm sure that Mr. Filch has some trophies that need polishing, or perhaps a corridor that needs scrubbing..."


"But Professor!," Albus Potter objected, "you can punish me, I was out, but it isn't Scorpius' fault he was out, it was...."


"Al," Scorpius Malfoy wailed quietly, his grey eyes going wide. He turned to Minerva and said hastily, "Punish me, M'am. I'm the reason Albus was out. I...I asked him to meet me. It was my idea, so it's not fair to punish him too."


"Scorp!" Al hissed, "don't...."


"Silence!," Minerva snapped, although she was rather touched at the loyalty to one another the boys showed. "Mr. Filch, has there been any damage or mischief that you've found, other than the flaunting of curfew, that would warrant more than one night of detention?"


"No, Professor," Filch muttered reluctantly. Too bad he thought to himself, remembering the mischief these boys' fathers had gotten up to. Still, they'd been no match for the Weasleys, and he thanked Merlin that the current contingence of Weasleys in attendence were a couple of well-behaved girls instead of the usual crop of hell-bent boys.


"Very well," Minerva said no less sternly. "You will both report to Mr. Filch tomorrow evening after dinner for detention. Mr. Filch, would you kindly see Mr. Potter back to the dungeons, and Mr. Malfoy back to the tower."


"Yes, M'am," all three of them sighed at once, the ancient caretaker chivvying the boys out of the office.


Minerva sighed and watched them go, lifting her wand to spell her tea hot once again.


"Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy seem close," she heard from behind her.


"Yes, Albus, they seem to be," Minerva said without turning around. She reached for the letter she had been about to open before being interrupted.


"It seems to run deeper than just the usual friendship," Albus Dumbledore said, a note of consternation in his voice.


Minerva, having quickly read the missive in her hand, turned around in her chair and stared up at the portrait behind her, a slightly reproving frown creasing her forehead. "James Potter, perhaps predictably, has been giving Scorpius Malfoy a rather bad time over his familial connections. Albus Potter, fortunately, does not share his brother's opinion in regard to Scorpius, nor with the animosity between their fathers, and he has gone out of his way to befriend Scorpius, to lessen the impact of James. You know as well as I do, James has inherited quite a bit of his grandfather's Slytherin prejudices. He is as antagonistic with Albus, his own brother, as he is with Scorpius Malfoy. Albus and Scorpius are rather comrades in arms, as it were. And even if it weren't, and was something more than mere friendship, surely you of all people, Albus Dumbledore, can hardly object. Having said that, they are both only 11 years old. Rather early for their relationship to be anything more than close friendship."


Dumbledore appeared to consider her words, nodded, a rather thoughtful expression on his painted face, and said nothing. After a moment more, Minerva turned back to the letter she still held in her hand and said without turning around, "Harry has accepted the Defense Against the Dark Arts position for next school year, and it will be up to him to decide whether or not his son and Scorpius Malfoy should remain friends. I am, however, certain that Harry will agree it is a good thing the boys can put their fathers' past and House differences aside for the sake of friendship."


"So, Harry will be coming home," Dumbledore said faintly. "It will be good to see him again."


"Yes, it will," Minerva agreed, scowling at the parchments and scrolls topping her desk. "Now, if I could only conjure up a solution to the problem of Horace's insistence on retiring at the end of the school year, I might actually be able to enjoy my summer holiday."


"We shall see, my dear," Dumbledore said vaguely and then was silent while Minerva attended to her paperwork. She assumed he had gone back to sleep, and was therefore somewhat startled a few hours later, when she had finished and was preparing to retire to her rooms, and he spoke again.


"Minerva, my dear, would you mind very much if I dictate a letter for you to send in my stead?"

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