A/N: If this is terrible… I didn't write it! Blame the plot bunnies!
The wait was pain-staking. Worse than childbirth. She began to fidget - a terrible habit which she reprimanded many students for having (though Minerva McGonagall would never be called a hypocrite). She could feel her lips trembling.
Three left.
He could feel the sweat rising to his forehead. His knuckles cracked as he forced his hands into fists. Albus Dumbledore, the man who had defeated one of the darkest wizards who ever lived, was reduced to a terrified child in the presence of fate.
Only two remaining.
Minerva raised an unsteady hand towards the velvet-covered black box that rested precariously on the edge of the table. She could feel the eyes of the entire staff on her back and it burned more than a Cruciatus curse. There was a fifty percent chance that she would win, of course; that was what she repeated over in her mind. But odds had never been a comfort to her, not when there was so much at stake.
She picked up the thinnest reed from the left side of the box, its full length obscured by a piece of black velvet. Immediately after, Albus picked the final straw from the other end of the box.
The entire staff waited with bated breath, collectively staring, not moving an inch. With a theatrical flourish, as was his wont, Dumbledore revealed to his staff the entire length of the straw he had chosen. Minerva's heart sank through her stomach. She held hers up to his and allowed the staff to decide who had chosen the short straw.
She had lost by less than a centimetre.
Albus turned on her with an uncharacteristically smug smile and that damned twinkling eye of his. "Well, Minerva, I suppose this means that it is your turn to go first."
"For Merlin's sake somebody just ask the question," she sighed. This was a stupid idea after all.
"Truth or dare?"