Author’s Notes: Written for round five of the Harry Potter Random Facts Fest on livejournal, at hp_random_facts.

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1. Minerva has fought in three wars and survived more than that, if you count the Muggle ones.

2. Minerva is technically a pureblood, but her mother is a Squib, and so she grew up half in the Muggle world and half in the wizarding one.

3. Being a Squib never stopped her mother from fighting Grindelwald—she not only hid countless people on the run but did a fair amount of espionage of her own. Both of Minerva's parents fought with whatever they had to give, and both of them died. Her father is the one that is remembered for his bravery in the wizarding records, but her mother is her hero. It takes more than courage to stand up to an armed wizard with nothing but your own determination to protect you, and Minerva no longer wonders how she ended up in Gryffindor when her father was a Ravenclaw. Her mother may never have gone to Hogwarts, but Minerva still followed in her footsteps.

4. At age fifteen, two weeks after her parents' deaths, Minerva talked her Transfiguration teacher into telling her where she could join up with other fighters to help defeat Grindelwald. Dumbledore refused to go with her, but he didn't stop her from going, either, and the information he provided meant that she fought with the protection, guidance, and support of dozens of others. Dumbledore also spent three months training her how to fight after hours in his classroom before he'd tell her any of that information, and she firmly believes that she wouldn't have lived to see age sixteen if it weren't for him.

5. Alastor Moody asked Minerva out twelve times when they were in school together, and, when she ended up fighting alongside him in the war, he tried again. She didn't have the heart to tell him that she fancied women far more than she liked him, but he figured it out eventually. His practice of 'Constant Vigilance' insured that he never really missed much.

6. After the war, Dumbledore made arrangements for Minerva, Alastor, and all the other students that had left school early to come back to Hogwarts. Minerva and Alastor went. Many of the others didn't. Minerva couldn't see herself going out into the world without a single NEWT.

7. She ended up with eight NEWTs, in the end. Divination was not one of them.

8. Eight NEWTs were more than enough to get her a decent job with the Ministry. She stayed there for years and hated every minute of it. When Dumbledore offered her the Transfiguration post, she accepted immediately.

9. When Dumbledore offered her the Deputy Headmistress position, he said it was because he needed someone trustworthy and capable for the job. It wasn't until three weeks before he died that he told her that he'd known another war was coming and that there hadn't been anyone else he'd trusted to guard the school and the students as much as he'd trusted her.

10. When he told her this, Minerva kept a straight face, but she cried when she was alone in her rooms. She knew that something was wrong with Dumbledore, could tell that he was growing weaker, and the fact that he was telling her such a thing didn't bode well for her hopes that he'd recover.

11. Minerva had a crush on Albus Dumbledore, which struck her as incredibly odd, seeing as how she was otherwise only attracted to women. She had a feeling that the crush was really more on his intelligence, power and self-confidence than anything else, and she never told him how she felt. It started when she was just fourteen, and though the crush faded, it never really went away.

12. Minerva was probably more surprised than anyone to find out that Tom Riddle, the handsome Slytherin boy just a year behind her in school, had turned out to be Voldemort. Dumbledore told her the truth just after the first war ended, and after she'd had time to think about it, she realized that it really shouldn't have surprised her at all.

13. Minerva wore Slytherin-green tartan to show that she was open to the idea of House unity. The fact that it annoyed Severus Snape to no end when he saw someone dressed in green cheering for Gryffindor during Quidditch matches was just an added benefit.

14. Minerva loved Quidditch, but despite her Gryffindor bravery, she was absolutely terrified of heights. Her fear stopped her from playing for the House team when she was young, but it didn't stop her from going to games or cheering for the Gryffindors, or from attending every Holyhead Harpies game played between 1946 and 2029.

15. It became one of her rules early on in her teaching career that she'd never date a student or former student. Minerva later regretted that when she realized that after twenty-odd years, just about everyone she came in contact with on a regular basis was one of her former students. She stuck by her rule, though, and was just thankful that she'd always preferred women closer to her own age anyway.

16. Minerva never had any children, and yet she had hundreds of children. She loved her students as if each and every one was her own son or daughter. During both the first and second Voldemort wars, every time she found out one of her current or former students had died, she could almost feel her heart breaking.

17. Minerva didn't hate, or even mistrust, Severus Snape until the day he killed Dumbledore. Albus had told her that Snape could be trusted, but with him dead and Snape letting Death Eaters rule over Hogwarts, Minerva lost faith in Albus's people-reading skills.

18. When Harry explained to her that Snape had really been on their side all along, she felt so guilty that she cried. She personally saw to his funeral arrangements and visited his grave every month for the rest of her life.

19. There was no one in the world that Minerva found more irritating than Moaning Myrtle, but she pitied the poor girl for dying so young and being stuck haunting a toilet, so she was always friendly toward Myrtle when she did encounter her (even if she did often wonder if there was any way to physically shake a ghost until she stopped whining).

20. Dolores Umbridge would have been at the top of Minerva's 'irritating' list, but she couldn't help but feel that 'irritating' didn't even begin to describe the woman. She preferred descriptions like 'psychotic,' 'as intelligent as a Blast-Ended Skrewt, and just as unattractive,' and, 'nauseatingly detestable,' when pressed to give a description of Dolores at all.