A/N this is the first in the series of one shot fics to practise my writing. The Prompt word is SECRETS. Not DH compliant. Set during the trio's final year at Hogwarts and of course in my mind Severus Snape did not die and Voldemort is already defeated. Pure fluff warning!
Tea With A Shot Of Firewhiskey
Professor McGonagall sat, quietly drinking from her bone china cup, on her chintz covered armchair in the staffroom of possibly the greatest Wizarding School in the world. She had started to wonder if Professor Sprout would ever leave, but finally she was alone. It was with a sigh of satisfaction and some trepidation that she sat back against the cushions. The generous shot of Firewhiskey added to her tea, spread through her limbs with a warm glow and eased her nerves. She contemplated her the day and the impending interview. With the departure of Pomona, all the other professors had now retired to their quarters for the night, all except her and one other. Severus Snape, the deputy Headmaster. She looked to the clock ticking away on the mantelpiece. Not long now.
Soon, she was rewarded or punished, however one might look at it, with the sound of impatient footsteps echoing on the flagstones outside the entrance. moments later the latch was lifted on the oak door and it opened on to the room. She looked up from her cup of tea to see the darkly scowling face of the Potions Master. She knew why he was here, but she wasn't going to make it easy for him. An anxious energy hung about him tonight. She rarely missed a trick and she had seen enough of lovesick students pass through the halls to recognise the signs. Severus with all his hauteur was no different from any other male...suffering the pangs of love. At least that was what she hoped it was.
"Sit down Severus, before you turn the milk sour with that expression." Minerva waved a hand towards an armchair situated next to hers.
Severus hovered for a few seconds longer before complying and gliding over to the chair in a trail of billowing black robes. "You know why I am here?" He asked.
"I do." She replied, putting her own cup down, playing mother with the teapot and pouring him a drink. He made no protest when she added a measure of Ogden's finest to the cup.
Severus took a generous swallow and sat back, some of his tension evaporating. "I wish to hand in my resignation as your Deputy Head, and my position as the Potions Master."
"Very well." She said calmly as she took another sip.
The cup and saucer in Severus's hand, slammed down on the table. "Is that all you have to say?"
The Witch hid her smile behind her cup. "If you want to leave Severus, there is nothing I can do stop you."
Severus glared at Minerva. He angrily detected a twinkle of amusement in her watery eyes which was only second to her predecessor, Albus Dumbledore. Had she done something to her hair, it didn't look so grey...his mind returned to the problem at hand.
"Don't you even want to know why? Why after teaching here for almost twenty years, I wish to leave?" He demanded.
"Only if you want to tell me." She replied infuriatingly.
Severus got up from his chair and paced the room, his hands behind his back as he walked back and forth on the richly patterned Aubusson rug. He had to tell someone, Minerva was as good as anyone and he trusted her completely. "I can't stay..." He took a breath. "because of...her."
There, he had said it out loud.
Looking away, to conceal the huge smile that was spreading across her thin lips. She made a little coughing noise, composed her face and looked back at him. "Her who? Severus, there are a lot of females in this school."
Severus stopped pacing, looked out of the window and across the grounds. "There are, but there is only one maddening, intolerable, know it all in this school." He finished tersely.
"Ah, Miss Granger." She replied innocently. "Has she behaved improperly, not turned in her homework, blown up a cauldron?"
"Nothing so simple. You see I have to leave the school before I do something improper." He looked at Minerva desperately. He was leaving anyway, so he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. "I find myself giving her detentions at every possible excuse, just so I can spend time with her...alone."
"I see and what do these detentions entail Severus?" She enquired.
"I make her sit next to me at my desk and mark the first year's homework." He admitted.
She raised an eyebrow. "Scandalous behaviour indeed."
He was too far immersed in his own torment to notice the mocking tone of her voice, which somehow sounded slightly higher pitched than usual. Perhaps she was coming down with a cold? He dismissed the errant thought. "Last week was the final straw, my favourite quill broke, she fixed it for me and our hands touched."
Minerva took a slow breath, trying to stop a giggle from escaping her throat. "This is very serious to be sure and how did Miss Granger react?"
"She kissed me." He said bluntly.
She put on what she hoped was her sternest expression. "I do not encourage teacher/student relationships Severus, but Miss Granger is an adult, a nineteen year old young woman."
"I am her teacher, no matter what her age." He replied stubbornly.
She put her cup on the tray and folded her arms across her chest. "I am no expert in the history of Hogwarts, but there was a case of a teacher/student relationship back in the eighteen eighties. Professor Alicia Van Grooberhorn, the Herbology Mistress married a student. He was of a similar age as Miss Granger. The student was nineteen and she was twenty-one..."
"And there's the rub..." He interrupted her. "I am thirty-eight, old enough to be her father."
"Well, it is obvious she does not regard you in a fatherly light."
"That is neither here nor there." Snape, snapped, losing the final threads of his temper.
She sucked in a breath, going for broke. "Do you love her?"
The room filled with a heavy silence that stretched out with each passing second. Finally he spoke. "I thought after Lily that that part of me was dead..."
"Answer the question, Severus." She demanded.
He pushed his hands through his untidy hair. "Yes, Merlin help me, I love her. I love that ridiculously messy hair of hers, the bright intelligence of her eyes, the way she can rouse me to anger and...other things, with just the sound of her voice. I want her so badly that it is almost inhumanly impossible to resist taking her on my desk with every detention she serves."
Bright spots of colour flagged his pale cheeks as he glanced at the Headmistress, giving away much more than he had intended with the passion of his outburst, but once he had started giving up the secrets of his soul, they had continued to rise like bubbles of air on a calm surface, rippling through him, refusing to be subdued.
She rose from her chair, slowly. She took out her wand and pointed it at the staffroom door, locking it and casting a silent Muffliato Spell over the room. Snape's head whipped round and his eyes narrowed suspiciously, he knew his own spells when they were cast, the Muffliato being one of them.
"Minerva, what are you doing?"
She glanced at the clock again, counting down the seconds in her head, smiling at him all the while and advancing on him. Severus felt a rising alarm. What had he unleashed with his impassioned outburst? Surely Minerva had never had these feelings for him; he regarded her as a vague mother figure. He looked urgently about the room for a means of escape. The jar of Floo Powder by the fire was conspicuously empty.
He got out his wand; Petrificus Totalus might be his only option. Minerva had him backed up against the window sill. Severus frowned as the clock chimed on the mantelpiece and he looked into her eyes, which were strangely turning from blue to brown before him. The lines of age were disappearing and her hair was turning a rich honey brown, curling wildly like...Hermione's!
The transformation ended and Hermione looked up at him with hope, and dare he imagine...love...shining in her eyes. She smiled at him tremulously. He didn't know what to feel first, anger at her deception or the release of having admitted the deepest secrets of his heart to the young witch. The relief that Minerva McGonagall was not going through some post menopausal crisis after all, also swept through him. He lifted his hands to her shoulders, the need to kiss her and punish her at the same time, strong within him. She really was a cunning little Witch.
Severus lowered his head and kissed her, gratified by the soft intake of breath as he devoured her lips with his own. Hermione's hands crept round the back of his neck, exposing her throat as his mouth travelled downwards.
"Scheming...beautiful...deceitful...resourceful..." he punctuated each insult and accolade with a kiss.
"I love you...you stubborn...dour...wonderful...wizard..." She replied in kind.
Snape lifted his head to look at her, his eyes, hooded, warm and catlike as he regarded her. "Good." He manoeuvred her to his side so he could walk past her. He used his wand to unlock the door.
"Where are you going?" She asked.
"To my quarters of course." Severus drew his robes about himself and folded his arms.
"Oh." Hermione felt ridiculously on the verge of tears.
"And Miss Granger, fifty points from Gryffindor for obviously stealing Boomslang skin from my private stores...again."
"Actually, it was..."
He cut her off. He had no doubts as to who the true architect was, the real Minerva McGonagall. Her head bowed as if she had won the battle, but lost the war. She loved him...him! The need to punish dissolved within him completely.
"And present yourself at my quarters in half an hour." He said more softly, a slight smile gracing his face.
"For another detention?" She asked brokenly.
"It depends on how you view a lifelong commitment. Bring a toothbrush, and you might want to pack a bag."
Hermione frowned. "Why?"
Severus shook his head. "And they call you the brightest Witch of your age...because Miss Granger we are going to Hogsmeade to dig out a Wizard or Witch able to marry us. Then I am going to make you spend the night counting ceiling beams of The Three Broomsticks finest room."
"Oh, Professor." She blushed.
Severus came back towards her, lowering his head and kissing her thoroughly. "And fifty points to Gryffindor for having the tenacity to deceive me."
He exited swiftly and left her standing in the staffroom, swamped by Professor McGonagall's long dress with a ridiculous grin on her face and tears of happiness running down her cheeks. The door opened again.
"Severus?"
"No, I just passed him on his way out. How did it go?" Minerva McGonagall stood in the doorway.
"We are going to be married...tonight!"
Minerva beamed at her. "Stubborn man, I knew a shove in the right direction would move him to action." She briefly touched her tightly wound bun. The few strands of hair she had sacrificed for the final stages of the Polyjuice Potion had been worth it.
Hermione ran to Professor McGonagall and hugged her awkwardly. "Thank you!"
"Away with you." Minerva dismissed her, tears misting her own eyes. "And Miss Granger..." Minerva paused. "Soon to be Madam Snape! Tell your future husband there will be no more talking of resignation!"
"How did you know?"
"I didn't for sure, but I know Severus." She replied.
Hermione grinned and almost ran from the room in her haste to prepare. Minerva sat down in her armchair, previously occupied by her pretender. She reached for a clean cup, ignoring the teapot; she poured herself an ample dash of Firewhiskey and drank to the new couple. Finally, the months of watching the two of them torturing themselves with the thought of unrequited love were over. She gave a deep sigh of satisfaction. Hmm, Minerva would be a nice name for their first born, she mused as she settled back in the chair for a well deserved nap.
THE END