"Hogwarts is threatened! Man the boundaries. Protect us! Do your duty to our school!...I've always wanted to use that spell."
Minerva McGonagall was born on the outskirts of Caithness in the Scottish Highlands, on 4 October, 1935 to Robert McGonagall, a Muggle Presbyterian minister, and his wife, Isobel Ross, a witch. She was the couple's first child, and was named after her mother's grandmother, a very talented witch. Her birth proved both a joy and a crisis: Isobel had given up the use of her magic for her love of Robe
rt, and never told him about her magical abilities as she was afraid to mar the bliss of their wedding. Minerva, however, displayed small but noticeable signs of magic from her earliest hours. As an infant, Minerva had no control of her magic, and thus she inadvertently summoned toys that had been left on upper shelves to her cot, made the family cat do her bidding, and made her father's bagpipes play themselves which would cause baby Minerva to chuckle happily. Isobel knew she must confess to her husband about their daughter's wizarding abilities and so she did, explaining everything to Robert and telling him that they were bound by the International Statute of Secrecy, and that they must conceal the truth about their magical abilities. The two parents remained together despite the shocking revelation and had two other sons, Malcolm and Robert Jr. Both revealed magical ability in due course. Minerva then, as a child, helped her mother conceal from her father the accidents and embarrassments the young wizards' magic sometimes caused. On Minerva's eleventh birthday on 4 October, 1946, she received her admittance letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, at the time headed by Professor Armando Dippet. Now free to be with her kind, and to exercise her considerable talents, Minerva saw how her mother sobbed that day, not only out of pride, but also out of envy.
