He lay on his back, the canopy of trees mottling the sunlight falling upon his face, the warmth of the Spring air contrasting with the cool grass beneath him. Knees bent, one long leg jauntily crossed over the other, foot keeping time with the song sung by the pair of capercaillies chasing one another through the treetops. Under half-closed eyes he watched her move along the banks of the water, picking flowers, stooping low, and exposing her lovely, curving backside to him. She had slipped his shirt over her head and the hem of it fell to the tops of her thighs. She crouched low and he saw her hands working her lapful of flowers. She lifted a crown of colour to her dark hair and set it upon her head; turned and looked at him slyly. He sat up and called to her. She grinned seductively back at him. He crossed his legs and sat straighter, wanting her, watching her.

Her hands moved amongst the picked blossoms for long moments and then she stood and flowers fell around her bare feet. She walked towards him, hips swaying, and eyes bright, her hair crowned. She knelt before him and offered another crown of flowers. He inclined his head graciously and she laid the crown on one of his bare knees and with long-fingered hands reaching over his head, over his broad shoulders she caught up his bound hair and unwound the leather thong. She combed his hair out, fanning it across his strong back, and then she lifted the crown and placed it on his head.

He reached up and pulled her by the waist to him. She slipped her legs around him, bringing the soles of her feet together behind his back as  he lifted her onto his lap. He slipped his hands up under the shirt and caressed her skin. She leaned back and took the sides of his face between her palms, her thumbs rubbing at his bearded cheeks, smoothing the ends of his moustache along the firm edge of his upper lip.

"You are like Arthur. You will be a king," she said softly, looking at him.

"I am not a king, Vivian, I am a wizard."

"Yes, Albus, you are a very great and powerful wizard." She leaned in and kissed him on one eyelid, then the other. She tilted his face up to hers and caught his lips firmly beneath hers. She pulled back, "Perhaps the most powerful wizard in the world."

He smiled and reached up with his mouth, to kiss her again. "Perhaps." He tugged the shirt over her head and dropped it. She rose up, letting him nuzzle at first one breast, then the other. She arched her back.

"But first you will be King," she whispered down into the woven flowers crowning his shining hair. She lowered herself into his masculine lap, pressed her breasts against him, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him again.

~***~

Headmaster Dumbledore was seated behind his desk, his elbows planted firmly on the deep dark mahogany desktop. His hands cradled his head, the elegantly squared fingertips massaging at his skull. He had not looked up at either one once since ushering them both into his office and indicating the chairs and tea. The minutes had begun to stretch out thinly.

Minerva cast a sideways glance over at Severus seated beside her. With an imperceptible shrug of his shoulders and small lift of one eyebrow he telegraphed his own confusion back to his colleague. They looked across the desk at Dumbledore's bent head. Suddenly, the older man raised his head and looked from Severus to Minerva and then brought both hands to his face. He smoothed his long moustaches away from his upper lip and combed down through the impossibly white, incredibly long beard. He was staring above their heads, into space.

"Thank you. Thank you both for coming and waiting to hear what I have to say."

"Well, of course, Albus," Minerva crooned softly. Snape nodded.

"What I am about to tell you, the things I'm about to say, are going to be shocking things. I know this and I warn you of it beforehand, although, there really is no way for me to prepare you completely." He sighed and stood slowly.

He walked to the tall, narrow window and stood, seemingly gazing out at the grounds of the school, far out into the Forbidden Forest. "I am going to tell you why I've never married. Why I have never left Hogwarts and why, even though it was I who defeated Grindelwald, why I understand that Voldemort will be slain by another and my role in his destruction is to be," he chewed on the inside of his cheek, "something else." His voice had grown softer and he remained standing at the glass. "Many years ago, decades, nearly a century." He sighed, "Another lifetime." He was quiet, then continued, "When I was a younger man, I, I had an experience with a young woman that changed my life. Forever changed it, altered the course, perhaps, of my destiny. I do not know."

He turned now and walked back to face his two confessors, leaned a long thigh against the edge of the desk and crossed his arms. "She came to me…you see this is a sort of fairy tale, she rose up nude out of the green depths of the small pond that feeds off the lake, just inside the Forbidden Forest. With no hesitation on my part, I took her, there on the banks, took her virginity which she offered to me like a precious gift."

Snape started, moved forward and uncrossed his legs. Minerva's teacup rattled in the saucer she held aloft. Dumbledore nodded slightly.

"We spent two days together, never venturing forth, eating handfuls of berries, drinking water off one another's skin. And I became completely ensnared. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, physically flawless and she shone from within a beacon that seemed to call to me, me alone. I felt as though I was matched to her and she to me. I know it is cliché, but I felt complete, this woman completed me."

"She disappeared late the second day. Like that, gone," he waved the fingers of one hand. "I watched her dissolve before my very eyes. And I knew then that there was some magic afoot, that the encounter bode of something bigger than I, bigger than she, bigger than both of us. I searched for her. I searched for her for years." He closed his pale blue eyes in pain. "Years. And I longed for her. Dreamt of her."

Minerva gasped. "Oh, Albus."

Snape spoke, "And you stayed here at Hogwarts in hopes of finding her. Having her resurface from that lake."

Dumbledore nodded slowly, looking carefully at his Potions Master, raising his eyebrows slightly and frowning, "Or perhaps I have been trapped here…" he trailed off.

Minerva began to her feet, but Albus waved her back to a seating position, she asked softly, "You never saw her again?"

He smiled ruefully, his eyes dark with a bitterness, "Yes, I did see her again. Seven years ago."

Snape put his teacup on the tea table and sat back stiffly.

Minerva smiled, her face hopeful. "Yes?"

"At the Sorting Ceremony. She was eleven years old."