Post by Virtuoso on Aug 11, 2006 9:28:58 GMT -5
Title: I don't have one, so suggestions would be appreciated.
Rating: 13+, at the very least. Some foul language and suggestive material.
Summary: From a challenge by EloquentPhoenix; I never planned on posting this, since someone else took the challenge and wrote it, but it ended up being the only ADMM fic I've finished to date... so I figured I'd post it.
I just realized that I forgot the teaser line. Sorry!
-
"You certainly seem to be in a dandy mood this morning."
Albus was humming a bit more cheerfully than usual, and Xiomara Hooch was decidedly suspicious of this new development. She cast a hopeful look at Minerva McGonagall, but she was concentrating intently on a conversation with the tiny Charms professor at her right elbow. "Albus, that's terrible for you," Madame Pomfrey observed from further down the table, watching as he lifted a crystal decanter of golden syrup and promptly began to drown his flapjacks in it, but he paid her little heed and said only, "Nonsense, Poppy."
"All right, Sunshine," Xiomara said, bringing herself nose-to-cheek with her boss as he tucked away a thick lump of syrupy mush that was sure to give his cholesterol a swift kick in the rear, "what's got you so happy that you're whistling an ode to your impending sugary death?"
Dumbledore looked at her as though just noticing the hawklike woman's presence and gave her his most winning (and subsequently infuriating) smile. "Xiomara, my dear, I have just received a most comfortable and infinitely luxurious night's sleep." Hooch's silvery eyebrows shot up in alarm and she looked at Minerva again, half furious and assuming that she had been denied a good bit of gossip by her best mate, but she still wasn't paying any attention to the two of them.
"How so?"
"Hermione Granger - dear, sweet girl that she is - was perusing the aisles of a muggle supermarket in her home town when she came across a brand of fabric softener that smells exactly like sherbet lemons! Extraordinary for a muggle product, no? I thought so, too!" he said, nodding at her nonplussed look and blindly taking it to be one of mild shock and hearty approval. "She purchased a small quantity for me to try on my bedclothes last night, and the scent was heavenly enough to lull me into the deepest and best night's sleep I've experienced in half a century! I plan to buy a sufficient amount to make the change permanent."
Hooch looked at him like he was crazy. In fact:
"You're barmy," she told him and walked away, shaking her head.
-
Minerva locked the door securely behind her and stood with her back against it for a moment, reveling in the sensation of solitude and listening intently to the silence around her. She crossed the room slowly, shedding her voluminous garments as she went; a lot less clothing passed for 'proper' these days than had been strictly allowed when she was young, but old habits die hard, and she stripped away two robes, a white cotton shift, and her heavily boned and tightlaced corset. After that came the camisole, knickers, garters, and stockings which, like everything but the corset, slid across the floor and piled themselves neatly into a clothes hamper in the corner. She stood still and raised both arms above her head in a long and rather delightful stretch, inhaling deeply. It was always nice to be able to breathe again at the end of the day.
On the subject of breathing, she exhaled with a distinct huff of displeasure and stepped into an ankle-length silk nightgown - one of the few comfortable luxuries she allowed herself - before sitting down in front of a large and ornate mirror to begin working at the numerous pins that held her long hair in a prim, elegant knot at the back of her head. She huffed again. It was bad enough that she sometimes found herself breathless in his presence, but tonight her petty, pathetic schoolgirl crush had escalated with the man's inexplicable giddiness. Their weekly chess match, usually a safe haven from the stresses of the world around them, had become a source of flaming embarrassment as Minerva's cheeks flushed more deeply with every careless brush against her rigid body, or every brilliant smile he flashed in her direction. It was much easier to deal with him when he was pensive, tired, or God forbid, angry. Tonight had felt as though it would never end, and when the clock struck eleven, she had fled his chambers like a cat from water.
Her scalp tingled pleasantly once the final pins had been pulled, and she watched with tired eyes as her long hair, glowing dimly in the candlelight, slid away and hung down towards the small of her back, surprisingly straight and smooth for having been so scrupulously maintained all day. She picked up a careworn, ivory-handled hairbrush and paused the same way she paused every night, having pulled her long hair over her left shoulder, frowning gently at the noticeable silvery sheen that almost completely encompassed what had once been a thick curtain of the purest ebony. The small frown drew Minerva's gaze to the small lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes, reminiscent of rare moments of laughter and long, seemingly endless years of sorrow.
No one could ever love her like this; especially not Dumbledore. She had been forced into maturity at an early age, and her appearance showed it. Age had never taken much of a toll on her, but being thrown headlong into this second war against darkness had frayed her body as badly as her spirit. No, she thought, as she guided the brush from crown to ends, over and over again. He would never love her, and she would never ask him to try.
Minerva blew out the candle on the vanity and sighed with relief as her reflection disappeared into the darkness. Her unnaturally keen eyesight guided her across the pitch-black room to a rather large scarlet-hung four-poster bed and she crawled beneath the heavy quilt, stretching and arching her slender back in a distinctly feline manner before removing her spectacles, dropping them onto the nightstand, and finally relaxing against the soft mattress. The silence enveloped her in a heavier embrace than the thick blankets she gathered around herself, and as she breathed deeply, her eyes fluttered shut and a faint smile flitted across her features. The scent of freshly-washed bedclothes filled her with a sense of comfort and peace that was almost startling. She wrinkled her nose and inhaled again; clean sheets had never invoked such an unusual sensation before.
Suddenly, her eyes snapped open and narrowed immediately into thin, angry slits. She sat up in bed and looked around, scanning the darkness of her chambers with alarming intensity as though she expected a grinning Xiomara to pop out at her at any moment; after all, Hooch was the only one cruel enough to ply her laundry with powder that smelled of sherbet lemons - Dumbledore's favorite sweet, constantly on his breath and always at hand on the desk in his office. It was no matter, though; she could simply charm the scent out of her sheets, or at the very worst, transfigure the sitting room sofa into a perfectly suitable substitute. Instead, however, she found herself lying back down and snuggling gently into her covers. Before sleep took her, she wondered mildly if she'd been cursed and was physically unable to resist the decidedly pleasant lemony smell... but was truly too tired to care.
-
When she woke the next morning, Minerva realized that she should have cared just a little bit more. She felt well-rested and had slept the whole night through, but the scent of sherbet lemons had caused subconscious thoughts of Albus to weasel their way into her normally dreamless sleep. Dreaming of him was not, as you may realize, any sort of inconvenience; the difficulty was that certain uncontrollable REM sequences left her in a state of insatiable arousal which, being a lady of such proper ubringing as she was, Minerva absolutely refused to satisfy by her own means.
So, she dealt with it. She survived a hot shower in which the lightest and most routine of touches had the annoying habit of leaving her shivery and breathless, driven near madness by temptation after only ten minutes beneath the steaming spray. She managed to ignore the warm little twinge that settled low in her belly as she was pulling on her knickers and accidentally brushed her thumb along the inside of one thigh, but it increased with uncontrollable fury when the self-lacing corset settled across her chest and caressed her breasts roughly, leaving her weak in the knees. The sensation was both thrilling and immensely uncomfortable, and Minerva found herself shouting, "This is ridiculous!" at the top of her lungs until the final word seemed to echo in the empty corners of her bedroom.
It helped a bit, but she was beginning to wish she hadn't left these urges, however inappropriate, pent up for so long. One could only live so many years without the intimate touch of another, and though Minerva McGonagall staunchly denied this simple fact, her reflection sagged a bit as she turned to the mirror to pin up her long, damp hair. How in Merlin's name was she going to make it through breakfast, let alone survive the entire day? Getting dressed, for goodness' sake, had been a challenge all its own, and still she felt her cheeks coloring brightly as a brilliant blue gaze tracked her progress across the Great Hall, though she ought to have expected it after so uncharacteristically fleeing his rooms the night before. She looked past Albus and fixed an icy glare of certain impending doom on Xiomara Hooch, who couldn't escape fast enough.
"Now Minnie," she began, infuriating Minerva even further in under fifteen seconds of confrontation, "don't look at me like that! It's only breakfast! I haven't even had a chance to put my life in danger taking the mick out of you yet this morning, so you can't possibly be angry already-"
"Xiomara Virola Hooch, cease your insipid chatter immediately before I hex your mouth shut," Minerva hissed.
Hooch obliged.
Thankful that none of the staff or student body had yet noticed that something might possibly be amiss just beyond the staff table, and that Albus was now deep in conversation with Rubeus Hagrid, McGonagall growled quietly, "What have you done to my laundry powder?"
Xiomara's face went red with what Minerva took to be guilt and embarrassment, but quickly learned was actually suppressed laughter. The incorrigible woman burst into a series of uncontrollable and extremely unladylike guffaws that Minerva managed to stifle with a well-aimed glare, but not before half the staff had turned on them with a mixture of curious and midly disapproving glances. "Oh, gosh," said Hooch, still grinning. "I was terrified that I'd gone off and mithered you and then completely forgotten about it! But the laundry bit's not my doing; nearly everybody's had a word with your beau this morning, 'cause the house elves buggered up and used his new washing powder on all our sheets. He's already gone down and ordered them to fix the mistake!"
Minerva stared at her. Albus's washing powder? Oh. Well, that was all right, then.
"Do not refer to him as my 'beau'," was all she said, and stalked away to eat her breakfast quickly and with what pitiful amount of dignity she could muster.
-
"This is ridiculous," Minerva said again, to no one in particular. She hadn't even left for her first class of the day, but her resolve was already nearing its reluctant breaking point. Albus had insisted upon trying again and again to draw her into conversation over breakfast, but his gaze danced across her skin with all the intensity of a white-hot flame and she had found herself watching his lips so intensely that she began squirming slightly in her seat and eventually was forced to excuse herself, abandoning the majority of what had been a meagre meal to begin with. Yet, even now, she found herself in the middle of her sitting room wishing fervently that she had a house elf at her disposal.
CRACK!
"Yes, Miss Headmistress? What can Dobby do for you?"
She tried to smile kindly down at the little creature, but the strained expression seemed to frighten him instead. "Deputy Headmistress, Dobby," she said absently. "Can you take a request pertaining to the laundry, by any chance?"
"Yes, Deputy Headmistress!" he squeaked brightly, "Dobby is at your command!"
"I would like my sheets to continue being washed with the same formula as Professor Dumbldore's, please." He looked at her strangely, and for a split second Minerva was fearfully certain that the little elf could not possibly be as unintelligent as he looked, but at that moment he beamed at her, nodded his head once, and disappeared again with another loud crack.
You'll just have to get over it, Minerva, she thought sternly, angry that her childlike infatuation had been allowed to escalate to such a degree. If lightly-scented bedsheets were as close as she would ever let herself come to admitting any sort of attachment to her friend and superior, they would simply have to do, side effects and all. She took a deep breath, straightened her robes, and set off with a quick prayer for patience in teaching a rowdy bunch of third-year Slytherins how to transfigure dull objects into sharp ones without losing her mind.
-
"A bath. Yes, a bath sounds perfect." She rounded the corner, slumped with exhaustion and, at the same time, strung about as tightly as a violin. "Nice, hot bath, with lavender bubbles and a good book... yes..." It was a sad day indeed when Minerva McGonagall was reduced to babbling inanely about a bubble bath, much less to herself in the middle of an empty hallway, and every single suffocating layer of clothing literally burst away from her skin the moment the door closed and locked behind her. Gooseflesh raised along every inch of her body as she crossed the room, tearing pins out of her hair and throwing them in all directions, but she didn't care; she was focused on reaching the bathroom a drawing a scalding hot bath to draw her thoughts away from-
"Minerva! I-"
Approximately one hundred and twenty decibels of feminine lungpower exploded from a very naked Minerva McGonagall and caused a flock of startled birds to flee the owlery at the top of the castle, to say nothing of the shocked man sitting ten feet away from her whose brain may possibly have been addled beyond repair. A thick tartan dressing gown had been conjured around her within a tenth of a second of his realizing that she was naked, but the look of absolute fury and incredulity in her expression seemed to melt his insides and he wondered whether he ought to run, or if that would be even more dangerous than sitting completely still and praying to every deity he could think of that she would forget he was there. He chanced another look at her face and saw that she was simply stunned for a moment, before a great deal of tension suddenly snapped.
"Albus Dumbledore, what the bloody fuck are you doing here?"
"I just- my dear Minerva, I- I didn't-"
"Awa' tae hell, ye damn sasunnach," she snarled, falling into a heavy accent that Albus didn't immediately recognize. So much for being one of the most powerful wizards their world had ever seen; he was petrified and nearly glued to his chair as Minerva stared at him, her face registering surprise at her own outburst and then gradually draining of its scarlet hue until the anger had almost subsided. "What in Merlin's name are you doing in my sitting room, lacking invitation?" she asked stiffly, and was actually startled to see Albus Dumbledore fiddle sheepishly with his long fingers and avoid her gaze momentarily.
"I came to ask you about something." He continued fidgeting.
"Well spit it out," she growled, losing her famous temper once more.
"It's nothing important. I can ask you tomorrow, if it's more... convenient."
"Albus."
"Why did you ask to have your sheets washed with my sherbet lemon washing powder?"
Her mouth fell open.
"That? That's what you sneaked into my chambers to ask me about, Albus? Why I'm using your stupid washing powder?" The warm, throbbing sensation had returned, and all she wanted was to get him the hell out of her rooms so she could lock herself in and never come out, but she found herself flushing and backing away as he stood up, approaching her. As far as she could recall, Minerva McGonagall had never backed down to anyone, but she was afraid that if he came close enough she might lose her self control completely.
"Yes, Minerva," he said in a gentle, quiet tone that caused her to shiver imperceptibly. Albus took another step toward her, and she retreated even further. She didn't answer. Damn the man with his long, elegant strides as he backed her silently against the most improper of obstacles and stared straight down into her soul with eyes of pure blue fire. Her legs began to shake, braced against the end of her bed, but she couldn't look away from him. He was just inches away, and Minerva might have sworn that she could hear the faint crackle of electricity leaping wildly between their bodies.
"Why?" he asked again, undemanding.
"I love you," was all she said, and found his strong arms wrapped around her willing body, his lips on top of hers. Their weight carried them backwards onto the bed where the freshly-washed sheets lightly exuded the pleasant scent of lemons, and Minerva realized that she was smiling.
Rating: 13+, at the very least. Some foul language and suggestive material.
Summary: From a challenge by EloquentPhoenix; I never planned on posting this, since someone else took the challenge and wrote it, but it ended up being the only ADMM fic I've finished to date... so I figured I'd post it.
1) Albus buys sherbet lemon washing powder and asks the house elves to use it to wash his bed sheets
2) The house elves misunderstand and use it on everyone's. Even Minerva's.
3) Albus finds out somehow and corrects the house elves
4) Minerva requests that they continue to use the powder to wash her bed sheets
5) Albus finds out and confronts her.
6) Nice fluffy ending, can be together or not at the beginning but must be at the end.
7) Teaser line... erm... 'You don't know how lovely you are.' (Which is a quote from Coldplay - The Scientist.)
2) The house elves misunderstand and use it on everyone's. Even Minerva's.
3) Albus finds out somehow and corrects the house elves
4) Minerva requests that they continue to use the powder to wash her bed sheets
5) Albus finds out and confronts her.
6) Nice fluffy ending, can be together or not at the beginning but must be at the end.
7) Teaser line... erm... 'You don't know how lovely you are.' (Which is a quote from Coldplay - The Scientist.)
I just realized that I forgot the teaser line. Sorry!
-
"You certainly seem to be in a dandy mood this morning."
Albus was humming a bit more cheerfully than usual, and Xiomara Hooch was decidedly suspicious of this new development. She cast a hopeful look at Minerva McGonagall, but she was concentrating intently on a conversation with the tiny Charms professor at her right elbow. "Albus, that's terrible for you," Madame Pomfrey observed from further down the table, watching as he lifted a crystal decanter of golden syrup and promptly began to drown his flapjacks in it, but he paid her little heed and said only, "Nonsense, Poppy."
"All right, Sunshine," Xiomara said, bringing herself nose-to-cheek with her boss as he tucked away a thick lump of syrupy mush that was sure to give his cholesterol a swift kick in the rear, "what's got you so happy that you're whistling an ode to your impending sugary death?"
Dumbledore looked at her as though just noticing the hawklike woman's presence and gave her his most winning (and subsequently infuriating) smile. "Xiomara, my dear, I have just received a most comfortable and infinitely luxurious night's sleep." Hooch's silvery eyebrows shot up in alarm and she looked at Minerva again, half furious and assuming that she had been denied a good bit of gossip by her best mate, but she still wasn't paying any attention to the two of them.
"How so?"
"Hermione Granger - dear, sweet girl that she is - was perusing the aisles of a muggle supermarket in her home town when she came across a brand of fabric softener that smells exactly like sherbet lemons! Extraordinary for a muggle product, no? I thought so, too!" he said, nodding at her nonplussed look and blindly taking it to be one of mild shock and hearty approval. "She purchased a small quantity for me to try on my bedclothes last night, and the scent was heavenly enough to lull me into the deepest and best night's sleep I've experienced in half a century! I plan to buy a sufficient amount to make the change permanent."
Hooch looked at him like he was crazy. In fact:
"You're barmy," she told him and walked away, shaking her head.
-
Minerva locked the door securely behind her and stood with her back against it for a moment, reveling in the sensation of solitude and listening intently to the silence around her. She crossed the room slowly, shedding her voluminous garments as she went; a lot less clothing passed for 'proper' these days than had been strictly allowed when she was young, but old habits die hard, and she stripped away two robes, a white cotton shift, and her heavily boned and tightlaced corset. After that came the camisole, knickers, garters, and stockings which, like everything but the corset, slid across the floor and piled themselves neatly into a clothes hamper in the corner. She stood still and raised both arms above her head in a long and rather delightful stretch, inhaling deeply. It was always nice to be able to breathe again at the end of the day.
On the subject of breathing, she exhaled with a distinct huff of displeasure and stepped into an ankle-length silk nightgown - one of the few comfortable luxuries she allowed herself - before sitting down in front of a large and ornate mirror to begin working at the numerous pins that held her long hair in a prim, elegant knot at the back of her head. She huffed again. It was bad enough that she sometimes found herself breathless in his presence, but tonight her petty, pathetic schoolgirl crush had escalated with the man's inexplicable giddiness. Their weekly chess match, usually a safe haven from the stresses of the world around them, had become a source of flaming embarrassment as Minerva's cheeks flushed more deeply with every careless brush against her rigid body, or every brilliant smile he flashed in her direction. It was much easier to deal with him when he was pensive, tired, or God forbid, angry. Tonight had felt as though it would never end, and when the clock struck eleven, she had fled his chambers like a cat from water.
Her scalp tingled pleasantly once the final pins had been pulled, and she watched with tired eyes as her long hair, glowing dimly in the candlelight, slid away and hung down towards the small of her back, surprisingly straight and smooth for having been so scrupulously maintained all day. She picked up a careworn, ivory-handled hairbrush and paused the same way she paused every night, having pulled her long hair over her left shoulder, frowning gently at the noticeable silvery sheen that almost completely encompassed what had once been a thick curtain of the purest ebony. The small frown drew Minerva's gaze to the small lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes, reminiscent of rare moments of laughter and long, seemingly endless years of sorrow.
No one could ever love her like this; especially not Dumbledore. She had been forced into maturity at an early age, and her appearance showed it. Age had never taken much of a toll on her, but being thrown headlong into this second war against darkness had frayed her body as badly as her spirit. No, she thought, as she guided the brush from crown to ends, over and over again. He would never love her, and she would never ask him to try.
Minerva blew out the candle on the vanity and sighed with relief as her reflection disappeared into the darkness. Her unnaturally keen eyesight guided her across the pitch-black room to a rather large scarlet-hung four-poster bed and she crawled beneath the heavy quilt, stretching and arching her slender back in a distinctly feline manner before removing her spectacles, dropping them onto the nightstand, and finally relaxing against the soft mattress. The silence enveloped her in a heavier embrace than the thick blankets she gathered around herself, and as she breathed deeply, her eyes fluttered shut and a faint smile flitted across her features. The scent of freshly-washed bedclothes filled her with a sense of comfort and peace that was almost startling. She wrinkled her nose and inhaled again; clean sheets had never invoked such an unusual sensation before.
Suddenly, her eyes snapped open and narrowed immediately into thin, angry slits. She sat up in bed and looked around, scanning the darkness of her chambers with alarming intensity as though she expected a grinning Xiomara to pop out at her at any moment; after all, Hooch was the only one cruel enough to ply her laundry with powder that smelled of sherbet lemons - Dumbledore's favorite sweet, constantly on his breath and always at hand on the desk in his office. It was no matter, though; she could simply charm the scent out of her sheets, or at the very worst, transfigure the sitting room sofa into a perfectly suitable substitute. Instead, however, she found herself lying back down and snuggling gently into her covers. Before sleep took her, she wondered mildly if she'd been cursed and was physically unable to resist the decidedly pleasant lemony smell... but was truly too tired to care.
-
When she woke the next morning, Minerva realized that she should have cared just a little bit more. She felt well-rested and had slept the whole night through, but the scent of sherbet lemons had caused subconscious thoughts of Albus to weasel their way into her normally dreamless sleep. Dreaming of him was not, as you may realize, any sort of inconvenience; the difficulty was that certain uncontrollable REM sequences left her in a state of insatiable arousal which, being a lady of such proper ubringing as she was, Minerva absolutely refused to satisfy by her own means.
So, she dealt with it. She survived a hot shower in which the lightest and most routine of touches had the annoying habit of leaving her shivery and breathless, driven near madness by temptation after only ten minutes beneath the steaming spray. She managed to ignore the warm little twinge that settled low in her belly as she was pulling on her knickers and accidentally brushed her thumb along the inside of one thigh, but it increased with uncontrollable fury when the self-lacing corset settled across her chest and caressed her breasts roughly, leaving her weak in the knees. The sensation was both thrilling and immensely uncomfortable, and Minerva found herself shouting, "This is ridiculous!" at the top of her lungs until the final word seemed to echo in the empty corners of her bedroom.
It helped a bit, but she was beginning to wish she hadn't left these urges, however inappropriate, pent up for so long. One could only live so many years without the intimate touch of another, and though Minerva McGonagall staunchly denied this simple fact, her reflection sagged a bit as she turned to the mirror to pin up her long, damp hair. How in Merlin's name was she going to make it through breakfast, let alone survive the entire day? Getting dressed, for goodness' sake, had been a challenge all its own, and still she felt her cheeks coloring brightly as a brilliant blue gaze tracked her progress across the Great Hall, though she ought to have expected it after so uncharacteristically fleeing his rooms the night before. She looked past Albus and fixed an icy glare of certain impending doom on Xiomara Hooch, who couldn't escape fast enough.
"Now Minnie," she began, infuriating Minerva even further in under fifteen seconds of confrontation, "don't look at me like that! It's only breakfast! I haven't even had a chance to put my life in danger taking the mick out of you yet this morning, so you can't possibly be angry already-"
"Xiomara Virola Hooch, cease your insipid chatter immediately before I hex your mouth shut," Minerva hissed.
Hooch obliged.
Thankful that none of the staff or student body had yet noticed that something might possibly be amiss just beyond the staff table, and that Albus was now deep in conversation with Rubeus Hagrid, McGonagall growled quietly, "What have you done to my laundry powder?"
Xiomara's face went red with what Minerva took to be guilt and embarrassment, but quickly learned was actually suppressed laughter. The incorrigible woman burst into a series of uncontrollable and extremely unladylike guffaws that Minerva managed to stifle with a well-aimed glare, but not before half the staff had turned on them with a mixture of curious and midly disapproving glances. "Oh, gosh," said Hooch, still grinning. "I was terrified that I'd gone off and mithered you and then completely forgotten about it! But the laundry bit's not my doing; nearly everybody's had a word with your beau this morning, 'cause the house elves buggered up and used his new washing powder on all our sheets. He's already gone down and ordered them to fix the mistake!"
Minerva stared at her. Albus's washing powder? Oh. Well, that was all right, then.
"Do not refer to him as my 'beau'," was all she said, and stalked away to eat her breakfast quickly and with what pitiful amount of dignity she could muster.
-
"This is ridiculous," Minerva said again, to no one in particular. She hadn't even left for her first class of the day, but her resolve was already nearing its reluctant breaking point. Albus had insisted upon trying again and again to draw her into conversation over breakfast, but his gaze danced across her skin with all the intensity of a white-hot flame and she had found herself watching his lips so intensely that she began squirming slightly in her seat and eventually was forced to excuse herself, abandoning the majority of what had been a meagre meal to begin with. Yet, even now, she found herself in the middle of her sitting room wishing fervently that she had a house elf at her disposal.
CRACK!
"Yes, Miss Headmistress? What can Dobby do for you?"
She tried to smile kindly down at the little creature, but the strained expression seemed to frighten him instead. "Deputy Headmistress, Dobby," she said absently. "Can you take a request pertaining to the laundry, by any chance?"
"Yes, Deputy Headmistress!" he squeaked brightly, "Dobby is at your command!"
"I would like my sheets to continue being washed with the same formula as Professor Dumbldore's, please." He looked at her strangely, and for a split second Minerva was fearfully certain that the little elf could not possibly be as unintelligent as he looked, but at that moment he beamed at her, nodded his head once, and disappeared again with another loud crack.
You'll just have to get over it, Minerva, she thought sternly, angry that her childlike infatuation had been allowed to escalate to such a degree. If lightly-scented bedsheets were as close as she would ever let herself come to admitting any sort of attachment to her friend and superior, they would simply have to do, side effects and all. She took a deep breath, straightened her robes, and set off with a quick prayer for patience in teaching a rowdy bunch of third-year Slytherins how to transfigure dull objects into sharp ones without losing her mind.
-
"A bath. Yes, a bath sounds perfect." She rounded the corner, slumped with exhaustion and, at the same time, strung about as tightly as a violin. "Nice, hot bath, with lavender bubbles and a good book... yes..." It was a sad day indeed when Minerva McGonagall was reduced to babbling inanely about a bubble bath, much less to herself in the middle of an empty hallway, and every single suffocating layer of clothing literally burst away from her skin the moment the door closed and locked behind her. Gooseflesh raised along every inch of her body as she crossed the room, tearing pins out of her hair and throwing them in all directions, but she didn't care; she was focused on reaching the bathroom a drawing a scalding hot bath to draw her thoughts away from-
"Minerva! I-"
Approximately one hundred and twenty decibels of feminine lungpower exploded from a very naked Minerva McGonagall and caused a flock of startled birds to flee the owlery at the top of the castle, to say nothing of the shocked man sitting ten feet away from her whose brain may possibly have been addled beyond repair. A thick tartan dressing gown had been conjured around her within a tenth of a second of his realizing that she was naked, but the look of absolute fury and incredulity in her expression seemed to melt his insides and he wondered whether he ought to run, or if that would be even more dangerous than sitting completely still and praying to every deity he could think of that she would forget he was there. He chanced another look at her face and saw that she was simply stunned for a moment, before a great deal of tension suddenly snapped.
"Albus Dumbledore, what the bloody fuck are you doing here?"
"I just- my dear Minerva, I- I didn't-"
"Awa' tae hell, ye damn sasunnach," she snarled, falling into a heavy accent that Albus didn't immediately recognize. So much for being one of the most powerful wizards their world had ever seen; he was petrified and nearly glued to his chair as Minerva stared at him, her face registering surprise at her own outburst and then gradually draining of its scarlet hue until the anger had almost subsided. "What in Merlin's name are you doing in my sitting room, lacking invitation?" she asked stiffly, and was actually startled to see Albus Dumbledore fiddle sheepishly with his long fingers and avoid her gaze momentarily.
"I came to ask you about something." He continued fidgeting.
"Well spit it out," she growled, losing her famous temper once more.
"It's nothing important. I can ask you tomorrow, if it's more... convenient."
"Albus."
"Why did you ask to have your sheets washed with my sherbet lemon washing powder?"
Her mouth fell open.
"That? That's what you sneaked into my chambers to ask me about, Albus? Why I'm using your stupid washing powder?" The warm, throbbing sensation had returned, and all she wanted was to get him the hell out of her rooms so she could lock herself in and never come out, but she found herself flushing and backing away as he stood up, approaching her. As far as she could recall, Minerva McGonagall had never backed down to anyone, but she was afraid that if he came close enough she might lose her self control completely.
"Yes, Minerva," he said in a gentle, quiet tone that caused her to shiver imperceptibly. Albus took another step toward her, and she retreated even further. She didn't answer. Damn the man with his long, elegant strides as he backed her silently against the most improper of obstacles and stared straight down into her soul with eyes of pure blue fire. Her legs began to shake, braced against the end of her bed, but she couldn't look away from him. He was just inches away, and Minerva might have sworn that she could hear the faint crackle of electricity leaping wildly between their bodies.
"Why?" he asked again, undemanding.
"I love you," was all she said, and found his strong arms wrapped around her willing body, his lips on top of hers. Their weight carried them backwards onto the bed where the freshly-washed sheets lightly exuded the pleasant scent of lemons, and Minerva realized that she was smiling.
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