Verbs 3

“Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall.”
.
He turned to smile at the tabby, but it had gone. Instead he was smiling at a rather severe-looking woman who was wearing square glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had had around its eyes. She, too, was wearing a cloak, an emerald one. Her black hair was into a tight bun. She looked distinctly ruffled.
.
“How did you know it was me?” she asked.
.
“My dear Professor, I’ve never seen a cat sit so stiffly.”
.
“You’d be stiff if you’d been sitting on a brick wall all day,” said Professor McGonagall.
.
“All day? When you could have been celebrating? I must have a dozen feasts and parties on my way here.”
.
Professor McGonagall angrily.
.
“Oh yes, everyone’s celebrating, all right,” she said impatiently. “You’d think they’d be a bit more careful, but no — even the Muggles have something’s going on. It was on their news.” She her head back at the Dursleys’ dark living-room window. “I heard it. Flocks of owls… shooting stars…. Well, they’re not completely stupid. They were bound to something. Shooting stars down in Kent — I’ll that was Dedalus Diggle. He never had much sense.”
.
“You can’t them,” said Dumbledore gently. “We’ve had precious little to celebrate for eleven years.”
.
“I know that,” said Professor McGonagall irritably. “But that’s no reason to our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, rumours.”
.
She a sharp, sideways glance at Dumbledore here, as though he was going to tell her something, but he didn’t, so she went on. “A fine thing it would be if, on the very day YouKnow-Who seems to have at last, the Muggles found out about us all. I he really has gone, Dumbledore?”

”It certainly seems so,” said Dumbledore. “We have much to be thankful for. Would you for a lemon drop?”
.
“A what?”
.
“A lemon drop. They’re a kind of Muggle sweet I’m rather fond of”
.
“No, thank you,” said Professor McGonagall coldly, as though she didn’t think this was the moment for lemon drops. “As I say, even if You-Know-Who has gone -“

“My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call him by his name? All this ‘You- Know-Who’ nonsense — for eleven years I have been trying to people to him by his proper name: Voldemort.” Professor McGonagall , but Dumbledore, who was two lemon drops, seemed not to notice. “It all gets so confusing if we keep saying ‘You-Know-Who.’ I have never seen any reason to be of saying Voldemort’s name.
.
“I know you haven’t, said Professor McGonagall, sounding half exasperated, half admiring. “But you’re different. Everyone knows you’re the only one You-Know- oh, all right, Voldemort, was of.”
.
“You me,” said Dumbledore calmly. “Voldemort had powers I will never have.”
.
“Only because you’re too — well — noble to use them.”
.
“It’s lucky it’s dark. I haven’t so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs.”
.
Professor McGonagall a sharp look at Dumbledore and said, “The owls are nothing next to the rumours that are around. You know what everyone’s saying? About why he’s ? About what finally stopped him?”
.
It seemed that Professor McGonagall had the point she was most anxious to , the real reason she had been waiting on a cold, hard wall all day, for neither as a cat nor as a woman had she Dumbledore with such a stare as she did now. It was plain that whatever “everyone” was saying, she was not going to believe it until Dumbledore told her it was true. Dumbledore, however, was choosing another lemon drop and did not answer.
.
“What they’re saying,” she pressed on, “is that last night Voldemort in Godric’s Hollow. He went to find the Potters. The rumour is that Lily and James Potter are — are — that they’re — dead. “
.
Dumbledore his head. Professor McGonagall .
.
“Lily and James… I can’t believe it… I didn’t want to believe it… Oh, Albus…”
.
Dumbledore reached out and her on the shoulder. “I know… I know…” he said heavily.

Professor McGonagall’s voice as she went on. “That’s not all. They’re saying he tried to kill the Potter’s son, Harry. But — he couldn’t. He couldn’t kill that little boy. No one knows why, or how, but they’re saying that when he couldn’t kill Harry Potter, Voldemort’s power somehow — and that’s why he’s gone.
.
Dumbledore glumly.
.
“It’s — it’s true?” faltered Professor McGonagall. “After all he’s done… all the people he’s killed… he couldn’t kill a little boy? It’s just astounding… of all the things to stop him… but how in the name of heaven did Harry ?”
.
“We can only ,” said Dumbledore. “We may never know.”
.
Professor McGonagall out a lace handkerchief and at her eyes beneath her spectacles. Dumbledore gave a great sniff as he took a golden watch from his pocket and it. It was a very odd watch. It had twelve hands but no numbers; instead, little planets were moving around the edge. It must have made sense to Dumbledore, though, because he put it back in his pocket and said, “Hagrid’s late. I it was he who told you I’d be here, by the way?”
.
“Yes,” said Professor McGonagall. “And I don’t you’re going to tell me why you’re here, of all places?”
.
“I’ve come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle. They’re the only family he has left now.”
.
“You don’t — you can’t the people who live here?” cried Professor McGonagall, jumping to her feet and at number four. “Dumbledore — you can’t. I’ve been watching them all day. You couldn’t find two people who are less like us. And they’ve got this son — I saw him his mother all the way up the street, for sweets. Harry Potter come and live here!”
.
“It’s the best place for him,” said Dumbledore firmly. “His aunt and uncle will be able to everything to him when he’s older. I’ve written them a letter.”
.
“A letter?” repeated Professor McGonagall faintly, sitting back down on the wall. “Really, Dumbledore, you think you can all this in a letter? These people will never understand him! He’ll be famous — a legend — I wouldn’t be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter day in the future — there will be books written about Harry — every child in our world will know his name!”