Professor McGonagall’s cameo in “Fantastic Beasts : The Crimes of Grindelwald” explained
Warning: Spoilers Ahead
We get it Rotten Tomatoes, The Crimes of Grindelwald did not appeal to you like Fantastic Beasts and Where to find them did, but for us Potterheads, it was a bliss to revisit Hogwarts and swoon in the presence of young Dumbledore.
Little angry as less of magical beasts and exactly where to find them, albeit loads about Leta Lestrange, young Dumbledore, Gellert Grindlewald and wait for it….. yes our very own Professor McGonagall. Now weren’t we all excited to see our very own bad-ass Gryffindor Head of House.
But wait, this cameo doesn’t add up.
Minerva McGonagall’s early years
In the book “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” which takes place in the year 1995, we read Professor McGonagall mention that December of 1995 will mark as her 39th year of teaching at Hogwarts, meaning she started teaching in December, 1956.
We also know through Pottermore she worked at the Ministry of Magic for two years just after graduating Hogwarts. She did not enjoy her anti-Muggle workplace for ingrained adoration of her Muggle-father and continuing love for Dougal McGregor, a Muggle son of a local farmer she had meant to marry but couldn’t, to abide by the International Statute of Secrecy.
Upon graduation from Hogwarts, Minerva returned to the manse to enjoy one last summer with her family before setting out for London, where she had been offered a position at the Ministry of Magic (Department of Magical Law Enforcement). These months were to prove some of the most difficult of Minerva’s life, for it was then, aged only eighteen, that she proved herself truly her mother’s daughter, by falling head-over-heels in love with a Muggle boy.
This clearly points that she graduated Hogwarts, which places her age as 17, in 1954. Tracing this, Minerva McGonagall couldn’t have been born before 1936–1937.
But The Crimes of Grindelwald takes place in the year 1927.
This is just six months after Newt’s blowing up half of New York (Seamus Finnigan are you taking notes?).
Minerva McGonagall is at Hogwarts and it is 1927
So Newt Scamander is AWOL, and for this we see a bunch of Aurors, Leta Lestrange and Newt’s brother gaining on Dumbledore. One scene, Dumbledore, who is in middle of teaching, asks his class to follow Professor McGonagall, present 1927, almost a decade before Minerva McGonagall is born.
Another scene, another context, Leta Lestrange has a flashback of her school years. She is enraged about her fellow classmates bad mouthing her, so she casts a spell on one of them.
We then see a Professor McGonagall chasing after Leta and other students. Leta Lestrange attended Hogwarts with Newt in the year 1908–1915. Almost two decades before Minerva McGonagall is born.
Speculated Theories
For once, I thought the cameo is a fan service. After all what is Hogwarts without Dumbledore and McGonagall.
Fiona Glascott who plays the young Professor McGonagall is credited as Minerva McGonagall in the cast.
Next, Minerva Mcgonagall is named after her great-grandmother, grandmother of Isobel Ross.
The birth of the young couple’s first child, Minerva, proved both a joy and a crisis. Missing her family, and the magical community she had given up for love, Isobel insisted on naming her newborn daughter after her own grandmother, an immensely talented witch.
It is also speculated that the Professor who made a cameo is Isobel Ross’s grandmother, about whom little is known. But, also means, the uncommon magic name or the Muggle name of McGonagall wouldn’t be present. We clearly see and hear the name Professor McGonagall being used. So we can put that theory to rest.
The only explanation
Time Turners and yes she used them to teach at Hogwarts and fight beside Albus Dumbledore against Gellert Grindlewald.
Remember it was Professor McGonagall who introduced Hermione Granger to Time Turners, for extra credit. She must be familiar with it because she used it for a similar task? For teaching Transfiguration.
to ask, why is Dumbledore teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts while it is clear that he was a Transfiguration teacher before becoming a Headmaster? Unless he already has someone competent enough teaching Transfiguration for him and he had to fill in for DADA.
Albus and Minerva are very fierce and loyal friends, who better to have on your side with Grindlewald’s danger looming over you.
Time turners, yes and Minerva traveling back moments to be beside Albus in trying times, to fight an uprising of dangerous Wizards ill-guarded against Muggles, personally symbolising her father and her ex-fiance.
