{"id":1387719,"date":"2016-03-21T13:34:24","date_gmt":"2016-03-21T17:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.sparknotes.com\/?p=1387719"},"modified":"2016-03-21T13:34:24","modified_gmt":"2016-03-21T17:34:24","slug":"from-the-diaries-of-minerva-mcgonagall-may-2-1954","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/blog\/from-the-diaries-of-minerva-mcgonagall-may-2-1954\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Diaries of Minerva McGonagall: May 2, 1954"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/img.sparknotes.com\/content\/sparklife\/sparktalk\/minervaF_LargeWide.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"701\" height=\"394\" \/>Dear Diary,<\/p>\n<p>They say &#8220;pride goeth before a fall,&#8221; but in this case it was \u00a0<em>cheating<\/em>, a foul foul that \u00a0has confined \u00a0me, during the last weeks of my final Hogwarts term, to a hospital bed.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone else is preparing for final exams and graduation parties and I am stuck here \u00a0because those Slytherins deliberately fouled me on the Quidditch pitch. I&#8217;m going to miss out on everything\u2014the banquet for the prefects where \u00a0they should be toasting me as Head Girl; the Seventh Year Skip Day; the dinner where my friends and I planned to take Polyjuice Potion and attend as each other, to see if anybody noticed.<\/p>\n<p>Plus the Slytherins won the Quidditch Cup! It is unfair, but the rules of Quidditch can be unnervingly unfair. When Brutus fouled me he only got a time out, but I was taken out of the game permanently, with a set of broken ribs and a concussion.<\/p>\n<p>I have to assume that they did it on purpose. It&#8217;s such a Slytherin thing to do: to calculate the value of one player being temporarily removed from the game \u00a0versus an opposing player being \u00a0<em>permanently<\/em> removed from the game. It wasn&#8217;t even like Brutus was their Seeker. They played chess instead of Quidditch and sacrificed a pawn to take down a \u00a0queen!<\/p>\n<p>This is the worst thing to have ever happened to me. When I said that to Professor Dumbledore, he laughed and told me that meant I was a very fortunate person, but I don&#8217;t feel fortunate. I&#8217;ll miss the entire end of term, everything I&#8217;ve worked for, all of the fun, and we lost the Quidditch Cup! My friends are planning a camping holiday after graduation, and I might not even be well enough for that.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone&#8217;s been very kind and they&#8217;ve all come to visit me; Alina from the Gryffindor dormitory comes in every day and asks if I need anything from my trunk, and Pomona brought me a vase of flowers \u00a0that she \u00a0charmed so they would never wilt. Professor Dumbledore automatically passed me on all of my final exams, since I won&#8217;t be able to take them\u2014but even that feels a little disappointing, because now I won&#8217;t ever know whether I could have gotten perfect scores.<\/p>\n<p>When I&#8217;m out of the hospital, we&#8217;ll all be adults instead of Hogwarts students. I don&#8217;t feel like an adult. I like being a student, and I&#8217;m sad to miss my last few weeks of student-hood. So I will do a very un-adult thing and \u00a0<em>vow revenge on Slytherin<\/em>. Someday, in the future, I will ensure that they lose a Quidditch Cup, and that Gryffindor wins.<\/p>\n<p>Yours faithfully,<\/p>\n<p>Minerva<\/p>\n<p><em>Previously in <a href=\"http:\/\/community.sparknotes.com\/2016\/03\/15\/from-the-diaries-of-minerva-mcgonagall-september-17-1952\" target=\"_blank\">The Diaries of Minerva McGonagall<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Show of hands if you think young Minerva could sucker punch Draco with as much\/more force than Hermione?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Diary, They say &#8220;pride goeth before a fall,&#8221; but in this case it was \u00a0cheating, a foul foul that \u00a0has confined \u00a0me, during the last weeks of my final Hogwarts term, to a hospital   <a class=\"continue-reading\" href=\"#\"><span class=\"continue-text\">continue reading<\/span><svg class=\"continue-icon\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" alt=\"\">\n    <path fill=\"#007acd\" fill-rule=\"nonzero\" d=\"M13.442 5.558L19.885 12l-6.443 6.442-.884-.884 4.934-4.934L4 12.625v-1.25l13.492-.001-4.934-4.932.884-.884z\"><\/path>\n  <\/svg><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":333,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[8265,32,2318,19845,2578,10934,5286,21332],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387719"}],"collection":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/333"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1387719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387719\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1387719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1387719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1387719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}