AN: Names, ages and dates are all accurate. Personalities are, of course, mostly my own creation as many of these characters have little parts in the books. However I try to keep them in character and realistic.
Apologies if this comes across as being quite similar to Twisted Biscuits story Just a Random Tuesday. That is not only my favourite story on fanfiction, but it is my inspiration and it is where my love for Minerva's character came from. I thoroughly recommend everyone to read her story, even if you don't read mine.
The apple and mint flavoured juice is something everyone in my family apart from me (evidently the sane one) drinks. XD

Once a Year
(A Dragon Tamer May Work With Dragons)

Minerva McGonagall's eyes felt rather heavy in her skull today. It may have been to do with the terrifying lack of sleep she'd received last night. In fact, it was in all likeliness nothing to do with anything BUT the extraordinarily pitiful slumber she'd suffered last night. The fact remained though, that the fearsome Transfiguration teacher was today far less fearsome than usual.

Blearily she had stumbled out of her bed that morning and shoved her aching feet into the tartan slippers. Still with her eyes firmly shut, she reached out for her cosy dressing gown and shrugged it on. Despite the gloriously warm summer, it was an exceptionally cold October.

Finally deigning to open her eyes, and admittedly wishing to give in to their heaviness and close them again, Minerva flicked her wand to open her bedroom curtains. Fully expecting a blinding sun to, well, blind her, Minerva turned her head to one side and squinted. She held this attractive expression for a few seconds and then gingerly glanced over at her window. Rain was pouring down the glass and in the distance she could see the trees of the forest swaying violently side to side, like an inebriated Sybil Trelawney, as they battled the harsh winds.

So that was why Minerva was now sitting in her room, grumbling to herself as she attempted to force a hairbrush through the wild tangles of her midnight black (oh alright, depressingly grey) hair.

"Oh enough!" she finally snapped and grabbing an unlabelled bottle, she began dousing her hair in a liquid which, however embarrassed Minerva was to own it, immediately smoothed out all the knots, conditioned the split ends and even gave it a few layers to make it a more flattering cut.

Septima Vector may be many things, but Minerva couldn't help but respect her uncanny ability to buy perfect Christmas gifts.

Those blasted 'Secret Santa's' were a menace which Minerva fully intended to stamp out this winter, Dumbledore be damned. Good gracious, she- as a well respected witch with dignity and moral integrity- should NOT be subjugated to enter premises such as 'Priscilla's Prophetic Paraphernalia' to purchase a ridiculously heavy book entitled 'Death Omens; the Dark and the Deadly' from a heavily-perfumed woman with blood-red talons the length of Minerva's little finger! It was fate she would not wish on any monster burning with Satan in the very depths of hell.
HOWEVER, it had to be said that with the exception of Sybil, and perhaps Severus, the exchange of yuletide gifts tended to be...tolerable, and if one was lucky enough to receive a gift from Albus or Septima, one was sure to have a useful albeit quirky present.

So it was this thought that danced through Minerva's head, cheering her up slightly on this cold October morning. This truly dreadful day that Minerva had been preparing herself for all week. Her, horror of all horrors, 70th birthday.

Not happy enough to actually venture downstairs to the staffroom and face any of her colleagues, Minerva was still content with the thought that when she finally forced herself to do so, she was likely to receive some wonderful gifts to keep her going until Christmas.
(What cheered her up even more though was the despicable, shameful thought that no matter how old Minerva was, she was still, and always would be, considerably younger than Albus.)

Settling down into a chair in front of her mirror, Minerva called out clearly;
"Excuse me. Could I have a house-elf up here please?"

Immediately an odd looking house-elf- odd-looking even in house-elf terms- appeared in her room. It wore an assortment of multi-coloured socks, ear-muffs, scarves and 3 hats, none of which were on his head.

"Can Dobby be of service to you, Professor?" he squeaked and Minerva bit back her annoyance because, after all, the poor elf couldn't be held responsible for the voice nature had cruelly seen fit to give him.

Minerva nodded curtly and was already turning her attention away from Dobby to the owl soaring towards her decidedly closed window. She said "I should like a mug of coffee sent up here, if you would please, Dibby. Milk, no sugar. Thank-you." Minerva finished dismissively.

"Of course." Dobby said uncomfortably, wringing his hands. "Though if Professor wouldn't mind, please, Dobby's name is Dobby. Dobby will bring up coffee right away, but Dobby likes to be called by his name, Professor."

Minerva quirked her eyebrow at the truly unusual house-elf. Bizarrely, she found herself beaming at the daring little sod.
"Of course, Dobby. My apologies." She told him, staring at his peculiar clothes, and realising they looked so strange because she had never seen a house-elf wear anything other than a tea towel.
"I will definitely remember it next time." She smiled kindly.

Dobby's face lit up when he realised he hadn't angered the Professor and squeaked happily, disappearing as quickly as he had emerged.

"Hm." Minerva shook her head in amusement as she turned to face the mirror.

CRASH.

For one horrifying moment, and a clear low point in her self-esteem, Minerva thought her reflection had caused the mirror to break. Then she realised that the stupid bird carrying her mail had smashed through the glass of the window. With an impatient flick of her wand, she summoned the newspaper.

At the angry click of the owl's beak, Minerva started and whirled around to face the bird. Realising immediately what was wrong, Minerva sighed and told it condescendingly,
"You'll find the money in the pouch right there next to you."

Appeased, the bird dipped his leg through the ties of the pouch and flew off, narrowly missing the other unbroken window.

"I wonder if it was just particularly foggy or if, like the Prophet, the owls are getting dumber too." Minerva wondered aloud. "Perhaps it is the latest Ministry scheme to fill this castle with as many idiotic creatures as possible. I bet Dolores is in on it."

"Dobby doubts it" squeaked Dobby, appearing beside Minerva's elbow suddenly, armed with a mug of peculiar looking coffee. "Owls eat toads, Professor."

He laughed once, and then suddenly howled in horror. Unsympathetic and tactless; granted, but practical as always, Minerva grabbed the mug and set it on the table before it spilt over her lovely clean floors.

"Dobby spoke ill of a teacher. Dobby should NEVER speak ill of a teacher." He babbled, crawling towards Minerva's wardrobe.

"I assure you, no-one minds." Minerva said, quickly grabbing him by his scarf as he tried to fling himself into her hefty oak wardrobe.

"Thank-you for the drink Dobby" she continued "though I can't help but notice it isn't coffee."

"I know, Professor." Dobby said delicately, his self-mutilation put on hold "But in the kitchens Dobby bumped into Professor Dumbledore, you see. He tells Dobby to make hot cocoa instead, with cinnamon because it is Professor McGonagall's birthday and Professor Dumbledore knows it is her favourite. So Dobby brings it up just like Headmaster says, Professor. And Dobby also brings up this."

He held in his hand a pair of, what Minerva assumed them to be anyway, mittens. One was bright red with gold stars. One was black and decorated with garishly orange pumpkins.

"Dobby made them a while back. One was for the Gryffindor match soon, as Dobby wanted to show his support for Mr Harry and his friends, but Dobby knows you are head of his great house. The other was for Dobby for Halloween. But Professor has two hands and Dobby wanted to give something to Professor McGonagall. Mr Harry's friend Miss Hermione speaks always very highly of you. So Dobby feels he must give something, and so looks through his collection and thinks Professor might like these best. Dobby is right, Professor?"

Minerva, quite flattered, smiled a tight smile and said in a very fake voice
"I absolutely adore them, Dobby."

The house-elf lit up and danced out of the room, clicking his fingers and fixing Minerva's window as he went.

As Minerva took a big gulp of her hot chocolate, she couldn't help but concede that Albus might have been right in ordering it for her. Sinking back into her chair and sighing as she lifted her feet onto the stool in front, Minerva held the hot mug of liquid magic in one hand and settled in to read the idiotic drivel contaminating every page of the Daily Prophet.

"Oh."
Minerva spotted an interesting headline and took a gulp of the chocolate goodness.
"Sirius Black spotted yesterday in Newcastle, eating ice-cream in muggle theme park."

It said a lot about how much faith Minerva had in the Order, or perhaps how little faith she had in the Ministry, that Minerva's instinctive reaction was not 'Oh God, they're getting closer if they're now sure Sirius is in England again' but 'Good grief! What kind of madman would eat ice-cream when it's this cold outside?'

-x-

"Good morning!" sang the ever bubbly voice of Pomona Sprout as Minerva McGonagall entered the staff-room some 45 minutes later.
"Happy Birthday!" she smiled, clapping her hands together joyfully.

"Oh, act your age." Minerva scolded half-heartedly as she walked past.

"If I did, I'd be crippled and clutching a walking stick, raving about cats and the price of peppermints these days." Pomona exclaimed loudly "And I ask you, who wants that?"

"You're only 4 years younger than me." Minerva said, turning round from the kitchen area to scowl across the room at Pomona. "So hush." She pointed her teaspoon in what she hoped was an intimidating manner.

"Careful." Septima Vector grinned wickedly. "If Minerva comes chasing after you, Pomona, you'll only have about half an hour to run away from Grandma."

Minerva switched her glare to Septima, who didn't see as she was too busy acting out a highly unflattering impression of an old lady shuffling towards Pomona with her arms out-stretched.
Aurora Sinistra collapsed into a fit of giggles besides Snape who was looking on in mild amusement, directed more at the laughing Astronomy professor though, than Vector.

Thinking that enough humour had been derived from the situation now, Minerva silently counted to 5 in her head, wand ready. Luckily, though severely disappointingly, as Minerva reached 4 and a half, Septima rolled her eyes and straightened up.

"Seriously, though" Aurora said, her lips still twitching, thus completely contradicting her 'seriously'. "Happy Birthday. You're looking wonderful for 70."

There was a murmur of assent which Minerva found herself going slightly red to. Turning away to focus on her coffee, or rather to ensure none of them saw her rosy cheeks, Minerva muttered a brief 'thank-you' and placed her spoon in the sink.

Lounging back into the comfiest armchair by the window (which she thought the staff may have left vacant for her deliberately. They were really quite darling sometimes, weren't they?) Minerva raised her mug of coffee to her lips and gulped it down in about 5 seconds.

"Thirsty, are we?" Professor Dumbledore inquired cheerfully as he and Charity Burbage entered the room, both immediately making their way to the kitchen. Charity reached for the kettle. Albus reached for a previously unnoticed jug of apple and mint flavoured juice.
"I myself find this more refreshing."

He poured a glass and offered it to Minerva who graciously declined. Shrugging, Albus looked around and saw that the very last chair had just been filled by Professor Grubby-Plank. As Severus, Minerva, Filius and Pomona all moved to get up and offer him their seat; Albus chuckled and shook his head in refusal. He flicked his wand and a gigantic pink frilly sofa appeared with matching pink cushions in the shape of kittens.

Minerva eyed it with distaste, as did everyone else in the room.

"Our new Defence against the Dark Arts Professor will be with us shortly, and I fear thus far she has not settled in well to our school. I know this to be more to her taste, having been in her office, and I can't say I particularly mind an extra sofa being added." Albus explained neutrally.

"Well I do" Minerva said cattily. "With not enough chairs, perhaps dear Dolores might stay in her own blasted office and leave us to enjoy our break times in peace!" There was a lot of nodding and laughter following this, which Dumbledore overlooked, though his eyes twinkled.

"Frankly I thought it was some rather splendid wand work on my part." He said to the room, pretending to sulk "and I'm offended no-one mentioned it!"

"Well frankly Albus, I thought your spell must have gone awry, because I have made no such grave slight against your character that you'd wilfully conjure up something to make me nauseous."
Minerva retorted.
"I'm offended by the mere sight of it. I can't think of anything in the world more likely to make me vomit."

At that moment, Dolores Umbridge appeared in the doorway, causing much sniggering amongst the less subtle staff members.
Completely straight-faced, Septima transfigured her now empty cup into a bucket and passed it over to Minerva.
"I beg to differ." She said, sitting back down, adding "Just in case."

Staring shrewdly about the room with her eyes narrowed, Dolores made her way over to the kitchen area.
"Rather busy for a Saturday." She commented in a sugary tone which instantly made every faculty member bite the inside of their lip to stop them from hissing. "Don't you all have spouses to see? Things to buy? Lives to live?"

Minerva sent her a withering look.
"Don't you?"

Mercifully, Albus interjected before any more hostility could build up between then. It would not do well for Minerva if her birthday started in Hogwarts and terminated in the darkest cell of Azkaban.

"My dear Dolores, I was just about to make a drink for myself anyway, why don't you sit down and I'll get a cup of tea for us both. Anyone else, while I'm up?"

"Please." Minerva said. "Since you deprived me of my caffeine fix this morning, Albus."

The headmaster chuckled lightly as he filled up the kettle with his wand. Why he didn't just add the boiling water to the mugs, Minerva didn't know.

"I thought you would appreciate Hot Chocolate more, especially today of all days." Albus said, though it sounded more like a question.

"Oh yes, it was just delicious" Minerva agreed "Though today of all days I figure I may need as much caffeine as possible."

"Naturally!" cried out Septima, evidently having just thought up another joke. Minerva got her scowl in place, ready. "After all, at the great age of 70, one needs all the energy boosters they can get."

Several staff members resorted to hiding their grins behind their coffee mugs.

"Ah, Septima." Albus began, his eyes sparkling merrily "I feel obliged to point out that Minerva is one of our best duellers. And also, more importantly, about 40 years my junior." He looked down at Septima through his spectacles and quirked his lips. "Though it is nice to see the enthusiasm you kids today have with your jokes."

Septima blushed slightly at the reference to her youth. With Aurora being the second youngest at twenty-nine, she still had nearly 6 years on Septima.
Childishly, Septima's only response was to stick out her tongue.

Aurora leant in and gave her a big thumbs-up.
"You sure proved him wrong."

Septima rolled her eyes and turned to strike up a conversation with Wilhelmina instead.

"Here you go Milady and Milady" Albus said courteously, dipping his head and passing Dolores and Minerva their respected drinks. Both accepted with thanks, though Minerva added a 'thanking-you kindly, Milord', mocking his archaic nature. She immediately wondered if that constituted flirting and regretted it.

Dolores stared at her tea suspiciously and, Minerva swore it, sniffed it when Albus turned away again. She glanced around the room to see Aurora and Pomona staring at the Highly Inquisitive Toad with amused disbelief.

"Did you put sugar in? I didn't see you put any in, but I know you can't possibly expect me to drink tea sugarless, tee hee, so I'm sure you must have done. Did you?" Dolores asked sweetly, and Minerva found herself wishing desperately that Albus had put poison in.

"Why don't you drink it and see?" Minerva said frostily.

"And if you're sure he must have done, there's really no need to ask." Severus added.

"And there was also no need to say you didn't seem him put any in. Of course you didn't! You had your back to him!" Aurora commented loudly.

Albus waited for them all to be done before saying lightly "I'm sure I put sugars in. If you find it unacceptable, however, I will of course learn from my mistakes and try to make better tea to your standards in future."

Minerva snorted.

Dolores sipped it and clearly to her utmost annoyance could find no fault.
"I think I shall take this to go. Things to do, you know? Tee-hee."

Minerva could have sighed in relief as the hideous waste of organs vacated the room. Over on the sofa, Septima evidently found it too hard to resist.

"Good God!" she said, closing her eyes briefly and then sitting up to look at Minerva in the eye "she even makes morning tea a trial. And who the hell actually laughs 'tee-hee'? Moronic amphibian-like Ministry hag."

Minerva smiled into her drink.

"We really do have presents for you, you know." Filius chirped up, deciding that they could have a bitch-fest about Umbridge any day of the year (and they would) but Minerva's 70th couldn't go unnoticed. "But Poppy got called in to the Hospital Wing and expressively told us not to start without her."

"Not to worry at all, Filius."
Minerva groaned slightly as she reclined further in her chair and closed her eyes.
"People who get to my age- yes Septima, other people who are as old as me do in fact exist, ha-ha, how amusing! - tend to have fine tuned the art of waiting, and appreciating the quiet times between-"

BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. Pause.

...

BANG!

"Whoa, George! That was wicked."

...

The staffroom froze and went deadly quiet, broken only by a small sob coming from where Minerva sat.

"You were saying?" Severus asked silkily "Something about quiet times..."

Minerva didn't lower herself by responding.
"I'll be right back" she told the group, ignoring their sympathetic stares.

'How dedicated she is to her work. How noble. A greater head of house there has never been!' was what Minerva assumed they were thinking.
She herself was following thoughts more along the line of 'Dear Bloody Merlin, so help me I'll tear off their legs and force them to crawl using their arms to clean up the blood! I'll give them detention every minute of every day from now until forever! Mess with me on my quiet Dolores-free time, will they? They've. Gone. Too. Far.'

"Why is it" Minerva began, not allowing the satisfaction she felt when she saw the twins jump about a foot in the air to creep into her voice "that whenever there is some form of disruption in the school it is always someone in my house."

"Because, Professor" Fred said in his easy charm "all the other houses are pansies."

"Besides" George added "think how mind-numbingly boring life would be without us."

Minerva, in her head obviously, conceded that he may have a point, but that didn't mean she shouldn't be allowed to spend her time fantasising about a quiet life. Where she could go in to teach the class and it would be full of Hermione Grangers. Students would ask polite, insightful questions and when class ended, they would quietly pack away their belongings and head off to their various destinations with a little grace and maturity. Over meals, students and teachers alike would discuss the higher questions in life – 'who are we?' 'Why are we here?' – Or else they would be doing their homework methodically and without fuss.

"Er...Professor?"

She snapped out of her reverie at once.
"Mr Weasley, Mr Weasley. I demand you give me one single reason why I shouldn't haul you off to the Headmaster right now and put an end to your trouble-making before it begins. In fact, I demand that you give me one good reason why I shouldn't take away all of your privileges for the rest of the year as an anticipatory punishment. It's Hogsmede Saturday, is it not? Poor timing for a prank, don't you agree?"

"Er...well you see Professor" Fred began, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, evidently stalling for time.

"I suggest the truth" Minerva warned sternly "They say it sets you free." She said in a sarcastically virtuous voice.

"Right before they lock you up in Azkaban and throw away the key. Ha-ha." George joked half-heartedly.

"Well. I rather hope whatever it is you two are doing doesn't merit prison, Mr Weasley."

"Alright, you want it straight, Professor? That toad Umbridge is being a right cow-" Fred started.

"Not to us particularly, you understand." Continued George "I mean, she has been pretty horrid to us, but in general, she's totally acting out against anyone who shows support for Harry-"

"-which pretty much equates to anyone in this school who wasn't raised to be a moron." Fred said darkly.

"Right. So we thought we ought to explain to her how it works in Hogwarts-"

"That she can't roam around the castle like she owns us all and not expect her come-uppance."

"So we set up our own little revenge you see-"

"-and it's no danger to anyone else, you understand, Miss. We're not prats."

"We're just annoyed."

"Really you ought to be proud of us, Professor."

"Yeah, we're standing up for something we believe in."

"We're standing up for Harry against this turning-into-dictatorship of Fudge and his inability to see reason."

"Plus there was some wicked spells we had to master to get this mother-f done, Professor! Pardon my hint of French."

"Pardon my French accent would've been better, mate. And we need the Hogsmede trip because our plan is to get this sorted out while the she-devil isn't here-"

"And then head off down to the 3 broomsticks where Lee and Angelina will already have an alibi for us-"

"So when these spells hit her at lunch, she can't blame us."

They looked up grinning evilly to see Minerva's completely neutral expression.

"You're going to stop us, Professor, aren't you?" Fred said sadly.

"Absolutely. It's awful, Mr Weasley... Lee is widely known to be your best friend and I believe by now it is common knowledge that you and Miss Johnson are romantically involved, Fred. Even to someone as oblivious as Dolores. You'd need a far better alibi established. I caught you pulling this prank and you'll be in detention all day with me in my office... And you won't be out until 11 o'clock tonight which you know very well is curfew and from now on, I expect you both to adhere to it. Understood?"

The boys looked utterly crestfallen as they muttered their dejected "understood's".

Minerva gave a curt nod.

"Then I'm going back in to the staffroom to enjoy my hopefully sans-Dolores birthday in peace" Minerva said. "I shan't be checking in on you until 11 but clearly you'll be there the whole time, despite being without my supervision. And this will be confirmed by you being in my office at precisely 10.50pm, naturally."

"Naturally" George agreed, grinning, whilst Fred stared at her in amazement. "Since we'll have spent the whole day there, Professor."

For a second the boys swore they saw her lips twitch into a mischievous smirk, but it was gone so quickly that when they next thought about it, they convinced themselves that they had probably just imagined it.
They still watched her walk back into the staff room in disbelief though, as if expecting her to suddenly whirl around in a swirl of her cloak and go "Ha-ha! Fooled you!" Though it has to be acknowledged that this would be even more out-of-character.

"Whoa" Minerva heard one twin say to the other as she was closing the door. "She must really hate Umbridge."

Minerva cast her eyes despairingly up to the heavens for a moment.
You have no idea.

-x-

ok, here's my cunning little plan. See, i have this habit of losing interest in my stories. Now this one however, is one that I not only enjoy writing but have the next 3 chapters finished already! Unfortunately, once again, my sporadic writing episodes are becoming even more sporadic. My hope if that now by putting this first chapter up, i'll have the incentive to write more often without the pressure of getting the next chapter written quickly and therefore not up to standard.

I love writing this character's style, but I recognise it could do with a lot of improvement. Constructive criticism is therefore welcome!

And, if I don't get another chapter up before, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!