it must be really weird for anyone who was taught by dumbledore and mcgonagall and the rest to become teachers and have to, like, treat them as colleagues
like, snape and lupin have one (1) thing in common and it’s a pathological inability to call dumbledore by his first name
Correct me if i’m wrong, but wasn’t McGonagall more or less in the same year as Tom Riddle?
Does that mean that Dumbledore was also her teacher?
Minerva McGonagall has called him Albus since she was eleven because she is a queen who bows to no one
The image of an 11yo Minerva McGonagall looking her new professor dead in the eye and saying “Will there be homework tonight, Albus?” is too powerful for words
I can just see it going down something like this:
Shiny new transfiguration professor Albus Dumbledore: “Now you won’t be able to turn your matchstick into a needle on the first try, of course, but—”
Tiny eleven-year-old BAMF Minerva McGonagall with a Scottish accent thicker than pea soup: “Ayy! Ye cannae know that!”
Albus Dumbledore, whose experience with the results of being patronizing to small badass children is insufficient to warn him not to: “Oh, absolutely, young lady, you might surprise us. Or any of your classmates might, it’s true.”
Tiny smoldering barrel of magical talent with “TNT” painted on the side Minerva McGonagall: “What’ll ye give us if we do surprise ye?”
Brightly-colored balloon of good-natured obliviousness Albus Dumbledore: “Why, my dear Miss McGonagall, if you can give me a needle on the first try, I shall allow you to call me by my first name.”
It’s a very fine needle, and she calls him Albus for the rest of her life.
