Minerva McGonagall awoke early in the morning on 4 October. The house was still and the only sound was the bell on the collar of one of her many cats.

Quietly, she dressed and slipped out into the hall, not waking Elphinstone, and went to the kitchen. She made herself a pot of tea and waved her wand to magic one of her favorite tea cups onto the table. Another of the cats made an appearance then, stretching long and splaying his small toe beans before jumping up onto the counter and purring loudly as Minvera petted him.

"Good morning Fey," she cooed, stroking the cat, "Good morning m'dear." She smiled as the cat's head bobbed against her palm.

When her tea was made, Minerva put on her hat, wrapped a shawl about her shoulders over her robes, and carried her tea cup and a couple of breakfast biscuits out the door and into the streets of Hogsmeade.

She noticed that Dora's bedroom window glowed with the light of a lamp on, and hoped it hadn't been her that had awoken Dora from her slumber. Poor Dora had been struggling so terribly with sleep ever since leaving Charlus - Minerva worried constantly for her friend.

But for now she had to get to the castle.

Minerva walked along the road through Hogsmeade, sipping her tea and quietly munching her breakfast biscuits, quite content as she made her way along. The sun was just starting to come up, the sky stained blue and pink, stretching like a canvas ahead of her. Her buckled shoes clacked against the cobblestones.

She let herself into a small door to the side of the main gates of the castle. She had a key, and the magic recognized her and allowed her to pass through.

The grounds were peaceful, the grass still glistening with morning dew. The Whomping Willow tree shook itself free of the droplets, sending birds flying out from its branches.

"Mornin' professor!" Hagrid stood waving a way off, holding a spade over his shoulder.

"Good morning, Hagrid!" she replied, also waving.

Hagrid smiled and continued on his way with Fang and Fluffy both following along behind him.

Minerva climbed the hill to the castle, finishing her tea just as she reached the steps. She disappeared the empty cup and went inside, stepping into the Entrance Hall. There was the usual flurry of activity, students running every which way, and the smell of a delicious breakfast wafted from the Great Hall.

Minerva headed for the staircase, pausing only to snap at Wally Grant to get down off the bannister, where he was balancing precariously with a beach ball balanced on his nose like a seal. Up the stairs she climbed, nodding and wishing good mornings to the students who greeted her as she passed by. Up, up to the floor where the Transfiguration corridor was.

Her mind was on grading parchments that sat rolled on her desk. Perhaps she would have another spot of tea, she thought.

As she walked down the corridor, though, something strange began to occur.

The first suit of armor on the hall turned his head to look at her, and then cleared his throat. The result was all twenty of the suits of armor on the Transfiguration corridor lifted their left arms up to their faces - each one held a garishly colored object to the grail of their faceplate.

Minerva paused at the loud sound of all that rusty metal armor moving into position at once. She stared down the corridor, looking at the line of them all in formation, and then stepped closer to see what they had.

Kazoos.

She barely had time to register what she was looking at before they began to blow them. Loudly. 

Zzzzzzzt-zt-zzzztt-zttttt-zt-zzzzzzzt... Zzzzzzzt-zt-zzzztt-zttttt-zt-zzzzzzzt... Zzzzzzzzt-zw-zzzzttt ZZZZZT ZZZZTTTTTT ZZZZZZTTTTT - Zzzzzzzt-zt-zzzztt-zttttt-zt-zzzzzzzt! 

Minerva stared around at them as they kazooed out the Happy Birthday song. "What in the name of Merlin --" she stammered, turning about to look at the choir of kazoos that surrounded her completely. When they finished the song - they stopped. Half of them lowered their arms. Silence fell. A ringing silence. 

Then one by one, beginning from the one at the end of the hall to the left and ending with the one at the end of the hall to the right, the suits of armor sang out, "OOOOOHHHHHH" so that the note built and traveled like a continuous soundwave along the entire Transfiguration corridor. 

Students were filling the end of the hall, coming in from the stairwell, hearing the cacophony and stopping to investigate. 

There was a snapping sound that traveled right to left, coming closer to Minerva, and with each snap, a light of a different color lit up above the knights, shining and reflecting off the metal so that the whole hall soon became an absolute rainbow of color. And then, the most dramatic, operatic version of Happy Birthday that anyone had ever heard in the entire history of Happy Birthdays began, with most of the suits of armor singing the words, some echoing them and adding a harmony line, and the remaining suits blowing loudly on their kazoos. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU... HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU.... HAPPY BIRTHDAY DARLING MINNIE... HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!!!!

And as the noise died away - one of the suits at the very furthest end of the hall sang out in a high pitched voice, "Annnnnnd maaaaaany moooooooooooore!"

Silence fell over the corridor again.

Minerva stared in trepidation, fascination, appreciation, confusion -- and many other '-tions'.

Students from either end of the corridor started clapping, laughing, hooting loudly, the sounds of their cheers filling the hall and Minerva looked about at them, only just realizing they were all there. She flushed bright red. "HAPPY BIRTHDAY MINNIE!" shrieked Oliver Kent from the end of the hall. It was the first time anyone had called her 'Minnie' at Hogwarts this year. The first time in a very, very long time that anyone had called her 'Minnie' with the exception of -- 

Minerva groaned, "Sirius Black, how --??" She started walking to her office but the moment she moved, the performance started all over again. 

Zzzzzzzt-zt-zzzztt-zttttt-zt-zzzzzzzt... Zzzzzzzt-zt-zzzztt-zttttt-zt-zzzzzzzt... Zzzzzzzzt-zw-zzzzttt ZZZZZT ZZZZTTTTTT ZZZZZZTTTTT - Zzzzzzzt-zt-zzzztt-zttttt-zt-zzzzzzzt! 

Minerva could scarcely believe her ears. She hurried to her office door, grabbed onto the handle and pushed it opened and there was a loud POP! and an explosion of confetti rained all over her - the specs going every which way, streamers and balloons and went flying out of the room and into the corridor. She stepped through the door, batting away the balloons that billowed about her, and from the ceiling unfurled a huge banner and upon the banner was emblazoned a cartoon of Sirius Black hugging a struggling Minerva McGonagall, kissing her cheek in a big slobbery manner, and over their heads in curved, neon lettering that flashed brightly the banner read, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY MINNIE".

She stared at it, her jaw dropped. 

She waded through an absolute sea of confetti, streamers, and balloons to her desk, desperately wondering how he'd managed -- seeing as he wasn't even a student at the school anymore -- to not only get into the castle, but to get into her office, which had been locked with her own personal locking spell that a simple alohamora wouldn't undo. She couldn't fathom how he'd managed, and was torn between pride and annoyance. She reached the desk, half cursing, half praising the name of Sirius Black, and found there a box, wrapped in horridly shiny gold paper, a tag upon it read, FOR ONE OF MY FAVORITE PEOPLE. 

Minerva could still hear students in the corridor laughing and cheering on the on-going choir and opera of the knights, but she sank into her chair and tugged at the ribbon that held the little gold package together. There was the tartan biscuit tin, a note lay on top on a little card and she lifted it to read the card.

Have a biscuit, Minnie. xo, S.O.B.

"S.O.B. indeed," she murmured, prying open the tin and selecting a biscuit, which she bit into. They were delicious biscuits, buttery and just hard enough to crunch but soft on the inside so that they seemed to melt in her mouth. She sighed and shook her head, looking at the utter mess of her office, listening to the commotion in the corridor echoing, more and more students cramming into the transfiguration corridor to see what was happening as word spread about the castle....

"Merlin's tit," she murmured, repeating something she'd once reprimanded Sirius for shouting, "I do miss those bloody boys."