Title: Vigil
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: G
Length: 563 words
Content notes: set at the beginning of Philosopher's Stone.
Author notes: for the Kindness, Sleepless, and Not What It Looks Like challenges.
Summary: "A tabby cat slunk around the corner of Privet Drive, then paused."

A tabby cat slunk around the corner of Privet Drive, then paused.

What, Minerva McGonagall wondered, was she doing? Why hadn’t she just Apparated away with Dumbledore? Why was she still wandering these streets?

With an internal sigh, she returned the way she had come. She knew perfectly well why she hadn’t left. Oh, she wasn’t going to go against Dumbledore’s plans; after all these years working together, she knew when he wasn’t being entirely honest, when he was telling part of but not the whole truth. He had a reason for leaving little Harry with these Muggles, a reason different to the one he had given her earlier. She wouldn’t take Harry away, wouldn’t touch him even.

But… he was still a baby. She couldn’t just leave him alone on the doorstep until morning. She would pay for it tomorrow, with stiff limbs and aching bones, but she would guard him tonight. With all the litheness of her Animagus form, she leapt onto the low garden wall, then down into the garden. Harry seemed to be sleeping quietly, but she moved forward to make sure, then stopped dead, whiskers twitching. There was magic around him, she could feel it.

Treading as cautiously as any hunting cat, she stepped nearer. The blanket, that was it. Had Dumbledore enchanted it? She hadn’t seen him do it, but it would have been the work of a moment for him - a wand hidden by long sleeves, wordless magic, a movement camouflaged by tucking the blanket around Harry and leaving the letter in his hand.

Or… was this a simpler, more innocent spell? Minerva remembered Filius Flitwick praising Lily’s Charms work. What could be more natural than for Lily to charm her son’s blanket, so it would warm without overheating maybe, or stay wrapped around him?

Maybe it was both. Surely Dumbledore wouldn’t have left the boy unprotected? Remembering his suggestion they go and join the celebrations, she produced a rather unfeline snort. Celebrations indeed. Yes, You-Know-Who was gone, but at the cost of a chain of so many lives that ended with Lily and James, but didn’t begin there. So many young witches and wizards Minerva had taught… No, there was no feeling of celebration in her.

Was Dumbledore celebrating, in his Hogwarts office or the Order’s latest hiding place? She doubted it. A glass of wine raised in acknowledgment of the dead, certainly, but no celebration. He knew perhaps better than anyone everything the fighting had cost. Was he waiting for her to join him? Or had he guessed what she would do, even before she knew herself?

Hiding in the bushes, Minerva settled for a long vigil. She dozed, sometimes, the light doze of a cat, one eye and both ears well open. When morning came, she watched as Petunia opened the door and screamed. She watched her stoop to pick up Harry quickly and take him inside (she didn’t know it was done so quickly because Petunia was terrified a neighbour might look out and see). Only then, her self-imposed task ended, did she slip wearily out of the garden and hunt for a quiet place to transfigure and apparate.

She wouldn’t see Harry again for ten years. He would never know his stern Head of House had watched him all through that night, tears sometimes escaping to roll down her furry face.