Minerva McGonagall-/Dumbledore

[cubfanbudwoman]

No: HPFGUIDX 115476


SSSusan:
> > Right.  I wonder, though, how/why things changed so much in the 
> > intervening 10-11 years.  Why, for instance, he's "Albus" and 
> > she's ostensibly sharing a cuppa hot chocolate with him in the 
> > evening....
 
Geoff:
> But she's on first name terms from the beginning....
> 
> '"What they're saying," she pressed on, "is that last night 
> Voldemort turned up 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 bowed his head.Professor McGonagall gasped.
> "Lily and James... I can't believe it... I didn't want to believe 
> it... Oh, Albus..."
> Dumbledore reached out and  patted her on the shoulder.'
> 
> (PS "The Boy Who Lived" p.14 UK edition)
> 
> Interestingly, she also referred to him rather familiarly as 
> just "Dumbledore" in at least four places here. <snip> 
> Bearing in mind Dumbledore's insistence on calling fok by their 
> title, this seems to imply a measure of familiarity and informality 
> between them.
 

SSSusan:
Yep, I stand corrected [for the second time already!].  Perhaps I'm 
hanging on to very little here, but I think I'd still argue the same 
way, despite this correction.

As with the other correction I received--that she IS clearly Deputy 
Headmistress when Harry gets his letter--I asked about whether she 
*behaves* as one would expect a 2nd-in-command in SS/PS.  She 
doesn't, in *my* book.  

Similarly, while she calls him Albus the one time at PD, I don't 
think "Dumbledore" indicates much familiarity, and the remainder of 
the scene strikes me as markedly different from what we see 10 years 
later.  Again, she must directly fish for information; she's not in 
the know & DD's not automatically volunteering much.  Also, he 
doesn't give her any tasks to perform or errands to run; he seems to 
just kind of tolerate her presence.  He doesn't even say, "See you at 
dinner" or any such thing.  Instead, it's that rather stilted, "I 
shall see you soon, I expect?"--almost like two old acquaintances who 
*occasionally* run into one another, not two staff members at the 
same institution who presumably see one another many times a day.

Maybe it really is just me, but their interaction at PD didn't seem 
at all like that of close colleagues.  Perhaps it can be attributed 
to the possibility that she *wasn't* yet Deputy HM at PD, and so 
things were more formal between them at that time.

Siriusly Snapey Susan