I think it's kind of a given that a tool like Fudge is going to fuck around on the side for anyone that votes for him. It would take some serious Nazi-themed underage sex orgy with a few kittens thrown in to even start to make waves, really.

 

Wasn't it mentioned that it was a restricted potion or something? It's been a while since I've read CoS, but I'm sure Hermione mentioned that... or maybe that it was found in the Restricted Section, I'm not sure >_>.

Aekiel

 

It was in the Restricted Section, yeah. Which is odd, considering that they study it in their NEWTs and thus the potion can be found in the commonly available 6th year Potions textbook.

I suspect much backtracking on JKR's part between CoS and HBP.

 

It bothers me that we probably won't see any more of this idea. Written by a good author it could turn out pretty well.

 

Well, why on earth would she need a potion? Last time I checked she was a master of transfiguration.....If an idiot like Krum can turn his head into a shark, I'm sure she can shave off a few years with much more lasting effects that won't wear off in an hour.

About it being restricted there isn't really a problem with that. JKR states early on (first book maybe) that the restricted section is used for students studying NEWT level classes to do extra research plus in cannon there are no universities for wizards and witches so 6th and 7th years are pretty much as advanced as it gets without self study. My guess is that the textbooks for those levels would be found in the restricted section or when they study those potions they would have to get a pass to get information from the restricted section.

 

Note the gap between "dangerous and illegal" and "may be a bad idea to give free access to an 11-year-old".

 

Well, to answer Seratin's request, I doubt I will be able to write the fic as I have a fun beginning and what I think is a good ending but real and original plot to tie the two together, so instead of slapping together some schlock I will tell you the two ends and you or anyone else can provide the middle.

The story is told from McG’s POV and begins when she watches as Albus gets a letter from Harry over breakfast. Harry is being kept in isolation, just as he was after the Tri-Wiz. However, instead of getting angry, this time he seems to give up. He tells All-butt that he accepts that his role in life is to be a weapon and that the happiness of a weapon is immaterial to its usefulness. He accepts that he will remain locked away in Surrey until DD sees fit to move him. He is for all appearances simply waiting to die destroying Voldemort.

McG is incensed and although she appears to be appeased by DD’s explanation she secretly plans to give Harry at least some peace, if not happiness over the summer. She forms a plan and then goes to Privet Drive. She creates a golem from dirt and some of Harry’s blood to be Harry’s exact duplicate. She animates it to sit at his desk and appear to read a book. Occasionally, it will move, appear to write, and other simple actions to give the appearance that Harry is still in the house. Then she spirits him away to her cottage in Scotland for the summer. Her plan is to allow him to stay there and enjoy his summer before returning him to the Dursley’s at the end of August.

He does indeed appear to be enjoying himself, he flies and does his homework but McG sees that he is also lonely. She does some investigation and realizes that the Weasleys and Hermione are too tightly controlled by DD to be trusted, but Harry still needs companionship from someone his own age. She stumbles upon the idea of changing herself. Transfigurations seem too unreliable as she would have difficulty exactly duplicating her efforts every day so she acquires some polyjuice from Slughorn at Hogwarts. Deep inside her old school trunk, amid the mementos of her own time at school, is a lock of her own hair from when she had been Head Girl. She uses that. She tells Harry that she has to return to Hogwarts to begin to get things ready for the next year and then tells him that her own granddaughter will be coming to visit so that he doesn’t get lonely. She explains that her son took his family away to New Zealand during the first war and now her granddaughter is coming to visit as part of an around the world trip her parents gave her for finishing school.

McG takes the poly juice to turn into her younger self and it works well. Her hair is long and a dark chestnut with auburn highlights. What she didn’t know but quickly finds out, to simplify the whole hourly dose thing, is that polyjuice works differently when you are changing into yourself. It is designed to change you into a different person and usually lasts only an hour, but given the situation where it is merely changing the appearance of age of the same person, the potion lasts for 10 hours instead. Using the name Minnie, McG keeps Harry company. She doesn’t think Harry knows what is going on.

As the days pass, she finds that, instead of merely keeping Harry company, she is actually enjoying herself as she hasn’t in decades. This is where the storytelling of the writer really needs to come into play. McG became infatuated with Albus while she was at school and he was her professor in Transfiguration. She became a teacher in order to be near him in the hopes of starting a relationship. One Christmas, she screws up her courage and confesses her love to DD, now the Headmaster. DD is gentle but explains that he can never return her feelings since he is as queer as a two headed sickle. She remains devoted however and dedicates her life to supporting DD and being there for him however he will have her. Her self-sacrifice is as noble as any Gryffindor could hope and she feels her life has been worthwhile. That is until she starts to have feelings for Harry. She is torn between her desire for him, since her hormone levels are also being reverted to a teenagers, and her disgust at herself for being attracted to one of her students, decades younger than herself.

As Minnie, she helps Harry learn and study. She is with him as he learns to be an Animagus. She grows ever closer until the day comes when Harry actually completes the transformation and becomes an owl. He loves to fly and she loves seeing the happiness in his eyes. He is so excited that he kisses her and they are both totally embarrassed. Him for kissing her and her for wanting him to do it again.

Minnie finally just accepts the schism within herself. As McG she is Harry’s professor and he is nothing more than one of her favorite students. She admits to being biased towards him but excuses it because every teacher has their favorites. As Minnie, she allows herself to have deeper feelings for Harry, using as a shield the idea that when summer is over “Minnie” will travel on and both people will accept that the summer romance was nothing more than that.

As Minnie, she also returns to a childhood hobby, painting. Minnie makes a magical portrait of Harry that he says she can keep.

Summer ends, Minnie moves on and Harry returns to Hogwarts. The Order, pacified by DD all summer never bothered to check in on Harry and so never realized he wasn’t there. Hermione and Ron are surprised that Harry isn’t angry at their ignoring him all summer. He is even pleasantly approving of their own budding romance. Ginny tries to make him jealous with Dean but Harry just isn’t interested.

Here is where there is a lack of plot. Voldemort attacks the castle after killing DD. Harry steps up to martyr himself to destroy him (no horcruxes in this story beyond the unintentional one inside Harry). McG doesn’t know that Harry has to die to destroy V. She throws herself in front of an AK to save Harry but he does a quick flip to protect her and takes it in the back. The curse backfires and kills V along with the soul bit in Harry but it also does Harry a mortal wound. Just not immediate.

McG holds him in her arms and cries that he should have let her die. He holds a finger to her lips and tells her that he could never let anyone hurt his Minnie, he loves her too much. She seems shocked and he smiles and says, “Do you really think I wouldn’t recognize the taste of Polyjuice?” Then he dies in her arms.

McG becomes the Headmistress but more than that, she realizes how she wasted so much of her life by devoting it to a man who could never return her love. She decides that, no matter how old she is, she WILL live her life to the fullest.

Decades pass and we now see McG as a truly old woman. She is still Headmistress and she keeps Harry’s portrait, painted so many years ago, in her office. Over the years she learned to love again, marrying a Spanish count just as old as she is and then outliving him. Portrait Harry jokes with “the Countess Espanoza” as she sits painting a self-portrait. She replies that he needs to leave her alone so she can concentrate. This is the last bit of hair she has left. The reader sees that she has once again polyjuiced herself into her teenage form and is painting that image as a self-portrait. Just as she finishes, she collapses into her chair.

And as Headmistress Minerva McGonagall sighs her last breath and leaves this world, Minnie awakens in her portrait and moves over to join Harry in his.

There, as I said: I got a beginning, and a nice smaltzy ending that I like but the weak part is in the middle.

BJH