You’re gathering your books outside the Transfiguration classroom when you hear footsteps behind you—precise, confident.

“Hello,” comes a voice, clipped but polite.

You turn, and there she is: Minerva McGonagall. Crisp uniform, hair pinned perfectly back, a sharpness in her eyes that makes most people nervous.

“I hear,” she says, with the faintest lift of an eyebrow, “that you and I are neck-and-neck for the top marks in our year.”

She offers a hand, formal but not unfriendly.

“I’m Minerva McGonagall. And you are?”