Short Stories from Hogwarts of Heroism, Hardship and Dangerous Hobbies (Pottermore Presents, #1)

by J.K. Rowling

Minerva McGonagall is many things: gifted witch, stern Hogwarts professor, lifelong Quidditch enthusiast and occasional tabby cat.

Minerva drew unusual attention to herself on her very first evening, when she was revealed to be a Hatstall. After five and a half minutes, the Sorting Hat, which had been vacillating between the houses of Ravenclaw and Gryffindor, placed Minerva in the latter.

By the end of her education at Hogwarts, Minerva McGonagall had achieved an impressive record: top grades in O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s, Prefect, Head Girl, and winner of the Transfiguration Today Most Promising Newcomer award.

Minerva was the Roman goddess of warriors and wisdom. William McGonagall is celebrated as the worst poet in British history.

While in their animal form, they retain most of their ability to think as a human, their own sense of identity and their memories. They will also retain normal human life expectancy, even if they take their animal form for long periods of time. However, feelings and emotions are simplified and they will have many animal desires, feeding off whatever their animal body craves, rather than demanding human food.

The animal into which one turns, if an Animagus, seems always to be that which becomes the Patronus.

Being an Animagus is a privilege – one that requires immense skill and hard work. Being a werewolf, on the other hand, is something that happens to witches and wizards against their will.

Shortly before Remus Lupin’s fifth birthday, as he slept peacefully in his bed, Fenrir Greyback forced open the boy’s window and attacked him. Lyall reached the bedroom in time to save his son’s life,

Sorted into Gryffindor house, Remus Lupin was swiftly befriended by two cheerful, confident and rebellious boys, James Potter and Sirius Black. They were attracted by Remus’s quiet sense of humour and a kindness that they valued, even if they did not always possess it themselves.

Wolfsbane Potion. While this did not prevent a werewolf losing his human form once a month, it restricted his transformation to that of an ordinary and sleepy wolf. It had always been Remus’s worst fear that he would kill while out of his right mind. However, the Wolfsbane Potion was complex and the ingredients very expensive.

the Potions master, Severus Snape. At Hogwarts, Remus revealed himself to be a gifted teacher, with a rare flair for his own subject and a profound understanding of his pupils. He was, as ever, particularly drawn to the underdog, and both Neville Longbottom and Harry Potter benefited from his wisdom and kindness.

This time, the group included an Auror who had been too young to belong to the Order during its first incarnation. Clever, brave and funny, pink-haired Nymphadora Tonks was a protégée of Alastor ‘Mad-Eye’ Moody, the toughest and most grizzled Auror of them all.

One night when they lay in hiding outside a known Death Eater’s house, after a year of increasingly warm friendship, Tonks made an idle remark about one of their fellow Order members (‘He’s still handsome, isn’t he, even after Azkaban?’). Before he could stop himself, Remus had replied bitterly that he supposed she had fallen for his old friend (‘He always got the women.’). At this, Tonks became suddenly angry. ‘You’d know perfectly well who I’ve fallen for, if you weren’t too busy feeling sorry for yourself to notice.’

extinguished almost at once by a sense of crushing duty. He had always known that he could not marry and run the risk of passing on his painful, shameful condition.

Remus came face-to-face with both Greyback and Tonks at Hogwarts barely a year later, when the Order clashed with Death Eaters within the castle. During this battle, Remus lost yet another person he had loved: Albus Dumbledore. Dumbledore had been adored by every member of the Order of the Phoenix, but to Remus, he had represented the sort of kindness, tolerance and understanding that he had received from nobody in the world outside his parents and his three best friends, and had been the only man ever to offer him a position within normal wizarding society.

In spite of continuing misgivings that he was acting selfishly, Remus married Tonks quietly in the north of Scotland, with witnesses taken from the local wizarding tavern.

On the night of Teddy’s birth, Remus briefly left Tonks and his son in the charge of his mother-in-law, so that he could go and find Harry for the first time since their angry confrontation. Here, he asked Harry to be Teddy’s godfather, feeling nothing but forgiveness and gratitude towards the person who had sent him home to the family that gave him his greatest happiness.

killing and maiming, his reactions were too slow. Remus Lupin was posthumously awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class, the first werewolf ever to be accorded this honour.

a brave, kind man who did the best he could in very difficult circumstances and who helped many more than he ever realised.

In the late nineteenth century the great English authority on werewolves, Professor Marlowe Forfang, undertook the first comprehensive study of their habits. He found that nearly all those he managed to study and question had been wizards before being bitten.

Muggles ‘taste’ different to wizards and that they are much more likely to die of their wounds, whereas witches and wizards survive to become werewolves.

A wolf is unlikely to attack a human except under exceptional circumstances. The werewolf, however, targets humans almost exclusively and poses very little danger to any other creature.

It is in some ways fitting that I only ever had a vague idea of what had happened to the Divination teacher before she washed up at Hogwarts. I imagine that Sybill’s pre-Hogwarts existence consisted of drifting through the wizarding world, trying to trade on her ancestry to secure employment, but scorning any that did not offer what she feels is the status due to a Seer.

A certain sector of magical society, however, follows the ancient wizarding practice of consulting a Naming Seer, who (usually for a hefty payment of gold) will predict the child’s future and suggest an appropriate moniker.

Mothers and fathers have often fretted themselves silly on the way home from the Naming Seer, wishing that they had not heard the Seer’s predictions about their child’s personality or future.

Silvanus Kettleburn was the Care of Magical Creatures teacher at Hogwarts until Harry’s third year, when he was replaced by Rubeus Hagrid.

others. This fact led to no fewer than sixty-two periods of probation during his time of employment at the school (a record that still stands).

He finished his career with only one arm and half a leg.

Kettleburn retired to Hogsmeade but was unable, due to his physical infirmities, to take part in the Battle of Hogwarts. Determined to play his part, he clambered into his attic and threw his entire stock of Flobberworms out of the skylight at passing Death Eaters. While this may not have had much effect on the outcome of the battle, it was generally felt to show the right spirit.

After all, you don’t have to be a sword-wielding Gryffindor to be a hero; sometimes, all it takes is having your heart in the right place.