Bring Them Home

The Reverend Robert McGonagall fell to his knees beside his bed and clasped his hands to his forehead, tears trembling in the corners of his eyes. "Bring them home," he begged. "Father God, bring my wife and baby girl home."

What had started as a birthday treat - an ice cream in the village down the road from the manse where they lived - had turned into a four day absence.

"Where is your wife and daughter, Reverend?" the parishioners had questioned him Sunday, when he arrived to the church with only Malcolm and Robbie in tow.

"Minerva wasn't feeling well this morning," he lied, "Isobel's stayed at home to care for her."

In the car, Malcolm had said, "Da, why did you lie to Mrs. Mackinnon about mum and Min? Don't you remember it's 'gainst the Bible to be tellin' a lie?"

"Some things are needin' to be kept private in a family, m'son," Robert had answered in a shaking voice, his fingers tight 'round the wheel of the car - so tight that his knuckles were pale from the grip. "Some things needn't be shared. And those things - those things God understands if we be lyin' about them, now and then, so long as the lie isn't hurtin' another soul."

Malcolm had said, "But I thought all lies were evil."

"You'll understand it when you're older, I s'pose, the difference," Robert had replied.

On Monday morning, on his way to school, Dougal McGregor stopped by the McGonagall house with a handful of wildflowers and couple of honey straws for Minerva. "To be makin' her feel well again, Reverend," Dougal said, "My mam heard from Mrs. Mackinnon at the fishery that you was sayin' Minnie's not feelin' so well, and I was wantin' to wish her well. May I see her very briefly?"

The Reverend had shaken his head, "She's asleep and I ain't waking her to speak with a little heathen like yourself, now skit."

But Dougal had left the flowers and honey sticks on the porch stairs nonetheless and the Reverend had collected them and put the flowers in a jar of water for Minnie to appreciate when she got home.

"When's mother coming back? I miss her!" Robbie pleaded that night, "I miss her stories before bed!"

"I can tell you stories until mother comes home," Robert had suggested.

"But mother tells better stories -" argued Robbie, "She tells me stories of flying dragons and goblins, not the same stories of Jesus and men who are swallowed by whales!"

The Reverend had bit his tongue.

Now, he knelt beside the bed in the bedroom, his knees aching on the wood floor, praying.

It wasn't the first time that Isobel had disappeared from home like this. She'd left several times over the past twelve years since they had eloped - much to the shock and despair of both his parents and hers. Ever since Minerva had been born - which had been little more than a year into their marriage - the disappearances had begun. For days at a time, Isobel would take Minerva and go and when she returned it was always with some silly excuse for where she'd been, usually claiming she'd been to see her parents in Shetland... but never a note, never a warning, simply an untraceable disappearance.

It had been when Minerva was only five that Robert had returned home from the church late one evening, after overseeing a funeral, to find his bagpipes playing of their own accord in the living room as little Minerva clapped and danced along to the tune, that Isobel, pregnant at the time with Robbie, had asked little Minerva to watch over baby Malcolm for a moment while she brought Robert upstairs and withdrew her wand from beneath the floorboards and told him what she was.

"I'm a witch," she'd whispered. "I thought I could give it up, but I - I long to be with my own kind now and again, to freely practice my magic. I must or I'll die, my love... you must understand, I must or I'll die."

And so it was divulged that Isobel had been taking Minerva to a place in London - a place called Diagonally or something to that sort - where magical folk mingled about as though it were perfectly normal to be magic! "I couldn't tell you before," she whispered, clutching his arm, "I shouldn't be telling you now... the Ministry will surely be sending someone along to check in - the Statute of Secrecy means that I cannot be tellin' muggles - that is, non-magic folks - about the wizarding world..."

Robert had taken it quite hard to swallow, thought she'd gone mad until she took out her wand from the narrow box and given it a swish to make the chair in the corner break into a softshoe dance. Robert had stared, wide-eyed and quite afraid, as it's legs came to life.

It was easier for Robert to pretend he'd never heard of any of it, to block the thoughts of it from his mind, to keep the image he'd always had of Isobel Ross preserved... He simply looked the other way when she disappeared, simply waited for her to return.

But this - four days - was longer than she'd yet gone in little more than eleven years time... and the first time she'd disappeared in several years as well.

He'd started to believe that perhaps the issue of magic was finally finished. But he knew now that he was wrong.

"Father God, I love her, my Isobel, whatever she be; and I so desperately love my daughter," the Reverend whispered. "Bring them home." He rocked himself gently, "Protect my Minnie, protect her soul... Keep her safe, guard her, guide her home. Don't let this false promise of magic depart her from you. Please... Bring them home to me."

What had been a terrible bout for the Reverend, was quite a marvelous holiday for Minerva. Each day, Isobel would show her more things at Diagon Alley, tell her more about the Wizarding World.

On Sunday, they visited a shop called Quality Quidditch Supplies and Isobel showed her the broomsticks and the beaters' bats, the quaffles and the bludgers and the golden snitch. This was a wizarding sport, Isobel had explained, and she told Minerva the rules and her voice carried a passion that Minerva had never heard in her mother before, when she'd taught her of cooking and cleaning and sewing and the like. This, this sport, this Quidditch was her mother's heart. And Isobel had been brilliant at Quidditch, too, she'd been Captain of her house team - Ravenclaw, she said. She'd been a captain and a seeker and she showed Minerva the speed of the golden snitch and told her brilliant tales of being a brilliant player...

Monday, they went to a big white building that stood at a fork in the road and there were loads and loads of magical people going in and out of the great wide doors. "This is Gringott's bank," Isobel had explained and she'd brought Minnie inside to see the goblins and to show her the funny little joins that was the wizarding world's currency - the knuts, sickles, and galleons. They were so shiny and so heavy in Minerva's palm compared to money of the regular sort - muggle money, as Isobel called it. And she'd explained how many knuts equal a sickle, how many sickles equal a galleon and what that all is in muggle money, too, to give Minerva an idea of the cost of things in the wizarding world...

On Tuesday it was a visit to Minerva's favorite stop yet - Flourish and Blott's - where they spent a day looking through wonderful books - books on shelves and in stacks and piled on tables all over this fabulous, multi-storied shop with cushions and seats and tables and benches all throughout, which served tea and biscuits and whose employees let you read as long as you like. Isobel showed Minnie the books she'd grown up reading - Wizarding classics like Quidditch Through the Ages, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and The Tales of Beedle the Bard. They found and purchased the magic books required by Hogwarts of the Year One students. Isobel also purchased Minnie the Tales of Beedle the Bard, a collection of stories for young witches and wizards with adventure and humor and a great deal of magic. It was instantly Minnie's new favorite book.

And each day, following the adventure they shared, Minnie would be given a silver sickle and allowed to go to Fortescue's to have ice cream with her new friend, Florean, who spent a good deal of time teaching Minnie how to play a wizarding game called Gobstones, which fascinated Minnie because the stones shot a smelly liquid at the loser of the game, and that was most unfortunate because Florean was quite good at it and he ever lost. Except for once, which he did on purpose, just to make Minnie feel better about her skills at it.

Florean had a grand sense of humor, Minnie found, and he told fantastic jokes that made her laugh and he had a good deal of patience, too, when Minnie didn't know about something in the wizarding world, he took the time to explain it to her, so that she understood. Mr. Fortescue was so happy to see Florean spending so much time with a friend that he never accepted the sickles Minnie tried to pay for her ice cream with and rather he added an extra scoop to her dish with a wink and a smile.

"Your da is really nice," Minnie told Florean one day.

"Yeah, he's alright," Florean replied.

Each night during their stay at the Leaky Cauldron, Minnie would sit while her mum plaited her hair after dinner and they'd go to bed and Isobel would tell Minnie stories about the castle, about her days with her friends, running about through the halls and playing in the courtyards. She told Minnie about the way the moon reflected off the black lake and the smell of the dew on the grass of the pitch, and about grand feasts and magical creatures like hippogriffs and dragons... and Minnie would fall asleep with dreams of a world she was so very quickly falling in love with.