守望者

Originally published on pottermore on Aug 10th 2015

Childhood 童年

Minerva McGonagall was the first child, and only daughter, of a Scottish Presbyterian minister and a Hogwarts-educated witch. She grew up in the Highlands of Scotland, and only gradually became aware that there was something strange, both about her own abilities, and her parents’ marriage.

密涅瓦·麦格是一位苏格兰长老会牧师和一位在霍格沃茨受过教育的女巫的第一个孩子，也是唯一的女儿。 她在苏格兰高地长大，后来才逐渐意识到，她自己的能力和她父母的婚姻都有些奇怪。

Minerva’s father, the Reverend Robert McGonagall, had become captivated by the high-spirited Isobel Ross, who lived in the same village. Like his neighbours, Robert believed that Isobel attended a select ladies’ boarding school in England. In fact, when Isobel vanished from her home for months at a time, it was to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry that she went.

密涅瓦的父亲，罗伯特 · 麦格牧师，被住在同一个村子里的意气风发的伊莎贝尔 · 罗斯迷住了。 像他的邻居一样，罗伯特认为伊莎贝尔在英国上的是一所女子寄宿学校。 事实上，当伊莎贝尔一次从家里消失几个月的时候，她是去了霍格沃茨魔法学校。

Aware that her parents (a witch and wizard) would frown on a connection with the serious young Muggle, Isobel kept their burgeoning relationship a secret. By the time she was eighteen, she had fallen in love with Robert. Unfortunately, she had not found the courage to tell him what she was.

伊莎贝尔意识到她的父母(一个巫师和女巫)不会同意她和这个年轻麻瓜有任何正式的关系，所以她隐瞒了他们迅速发展的情感。 十八岁的时候，她已经爱上了罗伯特。 不幸的是，她没有勇气告诉他她的身份。

The couple eloped, to the fury of both sets of parents. Now estranged from her family, Isobel could not bring herself to mar the bliss of the honeymoon by telling her smitten new husband that she had graduated top of her class in Charms at Hogwarts, nor that she had been Captain of the school Quidditch team. Isobel and Robert moved into a manse (minister’s house) on the outskirts of Caithness, where the beautiful Isobel proved surprisingly adept at making the most of the minister’s tiny salary.

这对夫妇私奔了，惹得双方父母大发雷霆。 伊莎贝尔现在已经和家人疏远了，她不能让自己毁掉蜜月的幸福，不能告诉她迷人的新婚丈夫，她在霍格沃茨魔法学校以全班第一名的成绩毕业，也不能告诉她曾经是学校魁地奇队的队长。 伊莎贝尔和罗伯特搬进了凯斯内斯郊区的一座牧师住宅，美丽的伊莎贝尔出人意料地善于充分利用牧师微薄的薪水。

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. The outlandish name raised eyebrows in the community in which she lived, and the Reverend Robert McGonagall found it difficult to explain his wife’s choice to his parishioners. Furthermore, he was alarmed by his wife’s moodiness. Friends assured him that women were often emotional after the birth of a baby, and that Isobel would soon be herself again.

这对年轻夫妇的第一个孩子密涅瓦的出生，既是一个喜悦，也是一个危机。 伊莎贝尔想念她的家人，想念她为了爱情放弃的魔法社会，坚持用她自己的祖母——一个天赋异禀的女巫——的名字来给她刚出生的女儿命名。 这个稀奇古怪的名字在她居住的社区里引起了人们的注意，罗伯特 · 麦格牧师发现很难向他的教区教徒解释他妻子的选择。 此外，他对妻子的喜怒无常感到担忧。 朋友们向他保证，女人在孩子出生后经常会变得情绪化，伊莎贝尔很快就会恢复自我。

Isobel, however, became more and more withdrawn, often secluding herself with Minerva for days at a time. Isobel later told her daughter that she had displayed small, but unmistakable, signs of magic from her earliest hours. Toys that had been left on upper shelves were found in her cot. The family cat appeared to do her bidding before she could talk. Her father’s bagpipes were occasionally heard to play themselves from distant rooms, a phenomenon that made the infant Minerva chuckle.

然而，伊莎贝尔变得越来越孤僻，经常一连几天与密涅瓦单独待在一起。 伊莎贝尔后来告诉她的女儿，她从最初的几个小时起就表现出了小小的，但是不会弄错的魔力迹象。 在她的婴儿床里发现了放在架子上的玩具。 在她不能说话的时候，家里的猫似乎就听从了她的命令。 她父亲的风笛偶尔会从远处的房间里传来自弹自唱的声音，这种现象让幼小的密涅瓦觉得好笑。

Isobel was torn between pride and fear. She knew that she must confess the truth to Robert before he witnessed something that would alarm him. At last, in response to Robert’s patient questioning, Isobel burst into tears, retrieved her wand from the locked box under her bed and showed him what she was.

伊莎贝尔在骄傲和恐惧之间左右为难。 她知道她必须在罗伯特看到什么使他惊慌的事情之前向他坦白真相。 最后，作为对罗伯特耐心询问的回应，伊莎贝尔突然大哭起来，从床底下上锁的箱子里拿出魔杖，向他展示了她的身份。

Although Minerva was too young to remember that night, its aftermath left her with a bitter understanding of the complications of growing up with magic in a Muggle world. Although Robert McGonagall loved his wife no less upon discovering that she was a witch, he was profoundly shocked by her revelation, and by the fact that she had kept such a secret from him for so long. What was more, he, who prided himself on being an upright and honest man, was now drawn into a life of secrecy that was quite foreign to his nature. Isobel explained, through her sobs, that she (and their daughter) were bound by the International Statute of Secrecy, and that they must conceal the truth about themselves, or face the fury of the Ministry of Magic. Robert also quailed at the thought of how the locals – in the main, an austere, straight-laced and conventional breed – would feel about having a witch as their minister’s wife.

尽管密涅瓦当时还太小，不记得那天晚上发生的事情，它的后果使她痛苦地理解了在麻瓜世界中与魔法一起成长的麻烦。 尽管罗伯特 · 麦格在发现他的妻子是一个女巫之后，仍然深深地爱着她，但是他对她的发现以及她对他隐瞒了这么长时间的秘密深感震惊。 更重要的是，他以自己是一个正直诚实的人而自豪，现在却被卷入了一种与他的本性完全不同的秘密生活。 伊莎贝尔哭着解释说，她(和他们的女儿)受到《国际保密法》的约束，他们必须隐瞒自己的真相，否则就要面对魔法部的愤怒。 罗伯特也不敢想象当地人——主要是一个严肃、刻板和传统的民族——会对一个女巫作为他们牧师的妻子有什么感觉。

Love endured, but trust had been broken between her parents, and Minerva, a clever and observant child, saw this with sadness. Two more children, both sons, were born to the McGonagalls, and both, in due course, revealed magical ability. Minerva helped her mother explain to Malcolm and Robert Junior that they must not flaunt their magic, and aided her mother in concealing from their father the accidents and embarrassments their magic sometimes caused.

爱情持续了下来，但是她父母之间的信任已经破裂，而密涅瓦，一个聪明而善于观察的孩子，悲伤地看到了这一切。 麦格夫妇又生了两个孩子，都是儿子，到了适当的时候，两个孩子都显示出了不可思议的能力。 密涅瓦帮助母亲向马尔科姆和小罗伯特解释，他们不能炫耀自己的魔法，并帮助母亲向父亲隐瞒他们的魔法有时造成的事故和尴尬。

Minerva was very close to her Muggle father, whom in temperament she resembled more than her mother. She saw with pain how much he struggled with the family’s strange situation. She sensed, too, how much of a strain it was for her mother to fit in with the all-Muggle village, and how much she missed the freedom of being with her kind, and of exercising her considerable talents. Minerva never forgot how much her mother cried, when the letter of admittance into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry arrived on Minerva’s eleventh birthday; she knew that Isobel was sobbing, not only out of pride, but also out of envy.

密涅瓦和她的麻瓜父亲非常亲近，在气质上她比她的母亲更像她父亲。 她痛苦地看到他是多么挣扎于这个家庭的奇怪处境之中。 她也感觉到，对她母亲来说，融入全是麻瓜的村庄是一件多么紧张的事情，她是多么怀念和她的同类在一起的自由，以及锻炼她的才能的自由。 她知道伊莎贝尔在哭泣，不仅是出于自豪，也是出于嫉妒。

School Career学校生涯

As is often the case where the young witch or wizard comes from a family who has struggled with its magical identity, Hogwarts was, for Minerva McGonagall, a place of joyful release and freedom.

正如过去一样，对于一个来自与魔法身份抗争的家庭的年轻的女巫或巫师，霍格沃茨对密涅瓦·麦格是一个充满欢乐和自由的地方。

Minerva drew unusual attention to herself on her very first evening, when she was revealed to be a Hatstall. After five and a half minutes, the Sorting Hat, which had been vacillating between the houses of Ravenclaw and Gryffindor, placed Minerva in the latter. (In later years, this circumstance was a subject of gentle humour between Minerva and her colleague Filius Flitwick, over whom the Sorting Hat suffered the same confusion, but reached the opposite conclusion. The two Heads of house were amused to think that they might, but for those crucial moments in their youths, have exchanged positions).

密涅瓦在她的第一个晚上引起了不寻常的注意，她是一个Hatstall。 五分半钟后，在拉文克劳和格兰芬多之间摇摆不定的分院帽把密涅瓦放进了后者。 (后来，密涅瓦和她的同事菲利斯 · 弗里特维克就这个问题展开了一场幽默的探讨，分院帽对他也有同样的困惑，但最终得出了相反的结论。两位院长觉得好笑，仅仅是年轻时代的一个关键点，他们就可能交换身份。

Minerva was quickly recognised as the most outstanding student of her year, with a particular talent for Transfiguration. As she progressed through the school, she demonstrated that she had inherited both her mother’s talents and her father’s cast-iron moral sense. Minerva’s school career overlapped by two years with that of Pomona Sprout, later Head of Hufflepuff House, and the two women enjoyed an excellent relationship both then, and in later years.

密涅瓦很快被认为是同年级最优秀的学生，她在变形术方面有着特殊的天赋。 随着她在学校的进步，她证明了她继承了她母亲的才能和她父亲坚定的道德观念。 密涅瓦的学校生涯与后来的赫奇帕奇学院院长波莫娜·斯普劳特的学校生涯重叠了两年，两人在当时和后来的岁月里都享受着极好的关系。

By the end of her education at Hogwarts, Minerva McGonagall had achieved an impressive record: top grades in O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s, Prefect, Head Girl, and winner of the Transfiguration Today Most Promising Newcomer award. Under the guidance of her inspirational Transfiguration teacher, Albus Dumbledore, she had managed to become an Animagus; her animal form, with its distinctive markings (tabby cat, square spectacles markings around eyes) were duly logged in the Ministry of Magic’s Animagus Registry. Minerva was also, like her mother, a gifted Quidditch player, although a nasty fall in her final year (a foul during the Gryffindor versus Slytherin game which would decide the Cup winner) left her with concussion, several broken ribs and a lifelong desire to see Slytherin crushed on the Quidditch pitch. Though she gave up Quidditch on leaving Hogwarts, the innately competitive Professor McGonagall later took a keen interest in the fortunes of her house team, and retained a keen eye for Quidditch talent.

在霍格沃茨完成学业后，密涅瓦·麦格取得了令人印象深刻的成绩: O.W.L.s 和 N.E.W.T.s 成绩最高，级长，女主席，以及变形术今日最有前途新人奖的获得者。在她的变形老师---- 阿不思·邓不利多令人振奋的指导下，她成功地成为了一个阿尼马格斯。密涅瓦也像她的母亲一样，是一个天才的魁地奇球员，尽管在她最后一年的比赛中一次严重的摔倒(在格兰芬多对斯莱特林的比赛中的一次犯规，最终决定了杯赛的冠军)使她脑震荡，断了几根肋骨，并且一生都渴望看到斯莱特林在魁地奇球场上被击败。 虽然离开霍格沃茨后她放弃了魁地奇，但是天生好胜的麦格教授后来对她的学院队的命运产生了浓厚的兴趣，并且对魁地奇才能保持着敏锐的眼光。

Early Heartbreak 早年的心碎

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.

从霍格沃茨毕业后，密涅瓦回到庄园与家人共度了最后一个夏天，然后动身前往伦敦，在那里她得到了魔法部(魔法执法部)的一个职位。 这几个月是密涅瓦一生中最艰难的日子，因为那时她只有十八岁，但她与一个麻瓜男孩神魂颠倒地坠入爱河，证实了自己确实是她母亲的女儿。

It was the first and only time in Minerva McGonagall’s life that she might have been said to lose her head. Dougal McGregor was the handsome, clever and funny son of a local farmer. Though less beautiful than Isobel, Minerva was clever and witty. Dougal and Minerva shared a sense of humour, argued fiercely, and suspected mysterious depths in each other. Before either of them knew it, Dougal was on one knee in a ploughed field, proposing, and Minerva was accepting him.

这是密涅瓦·麦格一生中第一次也是唯一一次会被人说她失去了理智。 杜格尔 · 麦格雷戈是当地一个农民的儿子，英俊、聪明、风趣。 虽然没有伊莎贝尔漂亮，密涅瓦更聪明机智。 杜格尔和密涅瓦有着共同的幽默感，激烈地谈论着，并都怀疑对方的内心深处有所隐瞒。 但在他们还不知晓的时候，杜格尔已经单膝跪在一块耕过的田地上求婚了，密涅瓦也接受了他。

She went home, intending to tell her parents of her engagement, yet found herself unable to do so. All that night she lay awake, thinking about her future. Dougal did not know what she, Minerva, truly was, any more than her father had known the truth about Isobel before they had married. Minerva had witnessed at close quarters the kind of marriage she might have if she wed Dougal. It would be the end of all her ambitions; it would mean a wand locked away, and children taught to lie, perhaps even to their own father. She did not fool herself that Dougal McGregor would accompany her to London, while she went to work every day at the Ministry. He was looking forward to inheriting his father’s farm.

她回家了，本来打算告诉父母她订婚的事，却发现自己无法这样做。 整个晚上她都醒着，想着自己的未来。 杜格尔不知道密涅瓦到底是个什么样的人，就像她父亲在他们结婚之前不知道伊莎贝尔的真相一样。 密涅瓦近距离目睹了如果她嫁给杜格尔，她会有怎样的婚姻。 这将是她所有抱负的终结; 这将意味着一根魔杖被锁起来，孩子们被教会说谎，甚至对他们自己的父亲也是如此。 她并没有欺骗自己，当她每天去魔法部工作时，杜格尔 · 麦格雷戈会陪她去伦敦。 他盼望继承父亲的农场。

Early next morning, Minerva slipped from her parents’ house and went to tell Dougal that she had changed her mind, and could not marry him. Mindful of the fact that if she broke the International Statute of Secrecy she would lose the job at the Ministry for which she was giving him up, she could give him no good reason for her change of heart. She left him devastated, and set out for London three days later.

第二天一大早，密涅瓦从父母家里溜出来，去告诉杜格尔她改变了主意，不能嫁给他。 考虑到如果她违反了《国际保密规约》 ，她就会失去她为之放弃他的魔法部工作，她不能给他任何改变心意的好理由。 她离开时伤心欲绝，三天后动身前往伦敦。

Ministry Career 魔法部事业

Though undoubtedly her feelings for the Ministry of Magic were coloured by the fact that she had recently suffered an emotional crisis, Minerva McGonagall did not much enjoy her new home and workplace. Some of her co-workers had an engrained anti-Muggle bias which, given her adoration of her Muggle father, and her continuing love for Dougal McGregor, she deplored. Though a most efficient and gifted employee, and fond of her much older boss, Elphinstone Urquart, Minerva was unhappy in London, and found that she missed Scotland. Finally, after two years at the Ministry, she was offered a prestigious promotion, yet found herself turning it down. She sent an owl to Hogwarts, asking whether she might be considered for a teaching post. The owl returned within hours, offering her a job in the Transfiguration department, under Head of Department, Albus Dumbledore.

尽管毫无疑问她对魔法部的感情是因为她最近经历了一场情感危机而受到影响，但是密涅瓦·麦格并不喜欢她的新家和新工作场所。 她的一些同事有一种根深蒂固的反麻瓜偏见，鉴于她对麻瓜父亲的崇拜，以及她对杜格尔 · 麦格雷戈的持续爱慕，她感到痛惜。 尽管密涅瓦是最有效率和天赋的员工，并且欣赏比她年长得多的上司厄尔夸特，密涅瓦在伦敦并不开心，她发现自己很想念苏格兰。 最后，在魔法部工作了两年之后，她终于得到了一个声望很高的晋升机会，但她发现自己拒绝了。 她给霍格沃茨寄去一只猫头鹰，询问是否可以考虑让她担任教师职位。 几个小时后，猫头鹰回来了，给她提供了一份变形部门的工作，在阿不思·邓不利多的领导下。

Friendship with Albus Dumbledore 同阿不思·邓不利多的友谊

The school greeted Minerva McGonagall’s return with delight. Minerva threw herself into her work, proving herself a strict but inspirational teacher. If she kept letters from Dougal McGregor locked in a box under her bed, this was (she told herself firmly) better than keeping her wand locked there. Nevertheless, it was a shock to learn from the oblivious Isobel (in the middle of a chatty letter of local news) that Dougal had married the daughter of another farmer.

学校高兴地欢迎密涅瓦·麦格的回归。 密涅瓦全身心地投入到她的工作中，证明了自己是一个严格但鼓舞人心的老师。 要她把杜格尔 · 麦格雷戈的信锁在床底下的盒子里，(她坚定地告诉自己)总比把魔杖锁在那里要好。 尽管如此，从伊莎贝尔(在当地新闻的聊天信件中)那里得知杜格尔娶了另一个农民的女儿，还是令人震惊。

Albus Dumbledore discovered Minerva in tears in her classroom late that evening, and she confessed the whole story to him. Albus Dumbledore offered both comfort and wisdom, and told Minerva some of his own family history, previously unknown to her. The confidences exchanged that night between two intensely private and reserved characters were to form the basis of a lasting mutual esteem and friendship.

那天深夜，阿不思·邓不利多在她的教室里发现了她在哭泣，她向他坦白了整个故事。 阿不思·邓不利多提供了安慰和一些看法，并告诉密涅瓦一些她以前不知道的他自己的家族历史。 那天晚上，两个极度隐秘的保守人物之间交换的秘密，构成了持久的相互尊重和友谊的基础。

 Marriage 婚姻 

Through all her early years at Hogwarts, Minerva McGonagall remained on terms of friendship with her old boss at the Ministry, Elphinstone Urquart. He came to visit her while on holiday to Scotland, and to her great surprise and embarrassment, proposed marriage in Madam Puddifoot’s teashop. Still in love with Dougal McGregor, Minerva turned him down.

在霍格沃茨的早年生活中，密涅瓦·麦格和她在魔法部的老上司埃尔芬斯通 · 厄尔夸特一直保持着友谊。 在苏格兰度假的时候，他来看望她，让她感到非常惊讶和尴尬的是，他竟然在普迪福特夫人的茶馆里向她求婚。因为仍然爱着杜格尔 · 麦格雷戈，密涅瓦拒绝了他。

Elphinstone, however, had never ceased to love her, nor to propose every now and then, even though she continued to refuse him. The death of Dougal McGregor, however, although traumatic, seemed to free Minerva. Shortly after Voldemort’s first defeat, Elphinstone, now white-haired, proposed again during a summertime stroll around the lake in the Hogwarts grounds. This time Minerva accepted. Elphinstone, now retired, was beside himself with joy, and purchased a small cottage in Hogsmeade for the pair of them, whence Minerva could travel easily to work every day.

然而，埃尔芬斯通从来没有停止过对她的爱，也依然时不时地向她求婚，尽管她一直拒绝他。 然而，杜格尔 · 麦格雷戈的死虽然带来了创伤，却似乎使密涅瓦重获自由。 伏地魔第一次被击败后不久，白发苍苍的埃尔芬斯通在夏天的时候在霍格沃茨魔法学校的湖边漫步时再次求婚。 这次密涅瓦接受了。 现在已经退休的埃尔芬斯通欣喜若狂，为他们在霍格莫德买了一所小别墅，密涅瓦可以每天轻松地去上班。

Known to successive generations of students as ‘Professor McGonagall’, Minerva – always something of a feminist – announced that she would be keeping her own name upon marriage. Traditionalists sniffed – why was Minerva refusing to accept a pure-blood name, and keeping that of her Muggle father?

一代又一代的学生都知道她是“麦格教授” ，密涅瓦——一个女权主义者——宣布她将在婚后保留自己的名字。 纯血主义者嗤之以鼻——为什么密涅瓦拒绝接受一个纯血统的名字，而保留她麻瓜父亲的名字？

The marriage (cut tragically short, though it was destined to be) was a very happy one. Though they had no children of their own, Minerva’s nieces and nephews (children of her brothers Malcolm and Robert) were frequent visitors to their home. This was a period of great fulfillment for Minerva.

这段婚姻(虽然命中注定要结束，但结束得很悲惨短促)是一段非常幸福的婚姻。 尽管他们没有自己的孩子，密涅瓦的侄子和侄女(她的兄弟马尔科姆和罗伯特的孩子)却是他们家的常客。 对密涅瓦来说，这是一个极大满足的时期。

The accidental death of Elphinstone from a Venomous Tentacula bite, three years into their marriage, was an enormous sorrow to all who knew the couple. Minerva could not bear to remain alone in their cottage, but packed her things after Elphinstone’s funeral and returned to her sparse stone-floored bedroom in Hogwarts Castle, accessible through a concealed door in the wall of her first-floor study. Always a very brave and private person, she poured all her energies into her work, and few people – excepting perhaps Albus Dumbledore – ever realised how much she suffered.

在他们结婚三年后，埃尔芬斯通因毒触手咬伤而意外死亡，对所有认识这对夫妇的人来说都是一个巨大的悲痛。 密涅瓦无法忍受一个人呆在他们的小屋里，但在埃尔芬斯通的葬礼之后，她收拾好行李，回到了霍格沃茨城堡里她那间石头铺成的简陋卧室，通过她一楼书房墙上的一扇隐蔽门可以进去。 她总是一个非常勇敢和注重隐私的人，她把所有的精力都投入到工作中，很少有人——也许除了阿不思·邓不利多——意识到她遭受了多少痛苦。

 J.K. Rowling’s thoughts 罗琳的想法 

Minerva was the Roman goddess of warriors and wisdom. William McGonagall is celebrated as the worst poet in British history. There was something irresistible to me about his name, and the idea that such a brilliant woman might be a distant relative of the buffoonish McGonagall.

密涅瓦是罗马掌管武力和智慧的女神。 威廉 · 麦格被誉为英国历史上最糟糕的诗人。 关于他的名字，我有一种不可抗拒的感觉，一想到这样一个才华横溢的女人可能是滑稽的麦格的远亲。

A small sample of his work will give a flavour of its unintentional comedic value. The following was written as part of a poem commemorating a Victorian railway disaster:

他的作品的一小部分将给它的无意的喜剧价值的味道。 以下是一首纪念维多利亚时代铁路灾难的诗的一部分:

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.

美丽的泰河铁路桥！

唉! 我很遗憾地说

九十条生命被夺走了

在1879年的最后一个安息日

这将会被铭记很长时间。

我知道大家一般将麦格的名字译为米勒娃，但我更喜欢密涅瓦，更接近本来的寓意。 关于罗琳吃书的问题，吃书是连载作品的一部分，我只挑我喜欢的看。