Minerva walked down the corridor to go find that retched woman. She had ruined yet another project of her Transfiguration classes, and she wasn't about to stand for anymore of this. Her hair, surprisingly, was down, which was noted by a lot of the students. It swayed along with her flowing robes as she stalked down the hallways. She just couldn't believe the gusto of that woman!
She shuddered as she walked. When Minerva got angry, it was apparent. You could see in the face of the students she passed; they got to the farthest side of the hallways, and when she did go by, they would scurry off to their classes without another word.
She reached the hidden area where the entrance to the headmaster's office was supposed to be. "Lemon drops," Minerva spat at the wall, and surprisingly, it opened. She stalked up the stairs, still as mad as ever. What right did that toad-looking woman have to take away the knowledge opportunities of her students? And in a time when they needed it the most? After all... he could come at any moment. What Dumbledore hadn't told Harry or any of the other students frankly, was that the magical borders of the school were getting weaker and weaker by the minute. Of course, he didn't want to scare Harry, or make him do anything irrational. It was probably better of him to keep it to the teachers' attention only.
Minerva knocked angrily on the door.
"One moment!" came an annoyingly sweet voice from behind the door. Minerva cringed at the sound of it and tapped her foot impatiently, waiting for Delores to open the door. Finally, the heavy oak door swung open and Minerva stalked into the room. She was disgusted at the sight of the headmaster's office, which was now practically smothered in the color pink. Everything from the chairs to the desk to the doilies underneath the plants was a disgusting bright pink. At this moment, Minerva realized that she hadn't been in the headmaster's office until this moment. Frankly, she was glad she hadn't been.
"Oh, Minerva, what is it now?" she asked, sounding kind of tired but just as annoying as ever.
"What right do you think you have to keep me from teaching my students?" Minerva practically screamed in Umbridge's face. Umbridge, however, seemed exceedingly and annoyingly calm. This, obviously, only made Minerva even angrier. She couldn't stand the fact that this putrid woman had the gusto to tell her what she could and couldn't tell her students.
An evil smile of sorts spread across Umbridge's face. Not only was it evil, it looked... knowledgeable. Like Umbridge knew something that Minerva didn't. If her temper wasn't flared, it sure was now. Minerva was practically fuming, and she couldn't explain why. All she knew was that this woman got underneath her skin and stayed there like a parasite clad in pink. Umbridge stood and sauntered over to Minerva. Once she got over to her, Umbridge took a piece of Minerva's loose hair and twirled it through her fingers.
"Oh Minerva, you're such a wild woman sometimes," she said with a breathy giggle. Minerva jerked backwards and felt like her lunch was going to come back up. What in the world was going on here?
"You disgust me," Minerva spat at Umbridge. Instead of being insulted like she normally would have been, Umbridge laughed. More of a schoolgirlish kind of sound than anything, it still had an evil undertone to it. Minerva could now feel her curiosity overpowering her rage and stopped for a moment. Umbridge sauntered back over to the headmaster's desk and plopped down in the chair.
"Minerva, don't you remember any of what happened last week?" Minerva's face contorted with a look of anger mixed with confusion. What in the world was this woman talking about?
Minerva stuck her finger out and towards Umbridge's chest.
"I don't have a clue what you're talking about, but I do know one thing. I believe that you are a crazy woman who never should have been able to become headmaster in the first place."
Umbridge smiled again, apparently refusing to become angry.
"You really don't remember, do you?" She giggled and waved Minerva over. "Come on, I'll show you."
Minerva's curiosity got the better of her and walked over to Umbridge to see what she was doing. Seeing the sieve come into sight, Minerva became even more curious. What was Umbridge trying to show her? She looked up at her with a quizzical look and Umbridge just smiled.
"Come here. I'll show you what happened," she said mischievously. Umbridge put her wand up to her temple and waited. What looked like a string of mist came out of her head and blew into the sieve. Minerva was well aware that this was a memory from Umbridge, but... Umbridge took Minerva's hand (much to her disgust) and pulled her into the sieve. Suddenly, everything was spinning around her.
Both of the women landed in what looked like Hog's Head. Minerva did remember going to the tavern last week. She had been having a rough week, so she decided to go down and have a drink. In fact, she could see herself at that very moment, sitting in the corner, hand on a glass. As she could recall, Minerva was having a particularly bad day, so she decided to drown her worries.
She had a nasty habit of doing that. Thinking of how ashamed she was of herself, a slight blush creeped across her face. No matter how much she despised the woman, Minerva didn't want Umbridge watching her drink so heavily.
As if seeming to read her mind, Umbridge said to Minerva, "Don't worry about it. We've all had our off days."
Minerva said nothing as she sat and watched herself drink into oblivion. She saw something out of the corner of her eye and turned her head. Minerva watched Delores Umbridge walk in through the heavy oak doors into the dark musty room. Why in the world would a woman that peppy and... upbeat, for lack of a better word, be doing in a bar like the Hog's Head?
Minerva watched herself fall on her face at the bar with her glass beside her, obviously inebriated beyond reason. She felt ashamed of herself, so she looked back over at Umbridge, who was meandering around the bar. She looked as if she were looking for something or someone. Minerva watched with a hint of confusion and disgust at herself, but mostly curiosity.
The look on Umbridge's face suddenly changed from questioning to realization as her gaze passed across the drunken Minerva. Her pace quickened as she walked over to Minerva, as if she had a purpose of being there. This made Minerva feel odd in the pit of her stomach; it was sort of like she should remember something about this night, but she just couldn't. She looked over at the Umbridge that fell into this memory with her and put on her best questioning face. Umbridge only grinned evilly at her and motioned for her to watch. Minerva complied, now overcome with curiosity of the situation.
Her gaze turned back to her drunken self as Umbridge finally got over to Minerva's side. She listened in on the conversation and become more scared of what was going to happen as time went by.
"Minerva?" she heard Umbridge say timidly as she tapped drunken Minerva on the shoulder.
"Hmm... wha..?" she said as she slowly raised her head off of the bar table to look at Umbridge.
"Minerva, you're needed back at Hogwarts. Albus has some... business to discuss with you," Umbridge said, almost nervously. Minerva didn't really understand why she would sound like that. What would Umbridge have to worry about? People were mad at her, that was inevitable, but most were kind of scared of the power she had. Why would she sound almost... scared?
"You know what Delores?" Minerva sat up and slurred. "I think... I think, that you're a wonderful woman. And you should never EVER let anyone tell you any different."
Through the dimness in the room, you could see a blush creeping onto Umbridge's face. That confused Minerva the most. Why in the world would... it finally dawned on Minerva why this was all happening, and she felt like her lunch was threatening to come back up the way it went down. Was this really happening? There was no way she could even attempt to voice the thought that was running through her head.
She looked over at her drunken past self, wanting to scream at herself to stop and walk out of the bar with some of her dignity left. She knew she couldn't, however, and sat there motionless, shocked at what she knew she was going to do. She saw herself stand up, wobbling a little, but eventually straightening out. The drunken Minerva wrapped her arms around Umbridge's neck and fell onto her shoulder. She could see herself giggling from a distance and felt ashamed of herself. How could Minerva show that much weakness to a woman she was disgusted by?
Wait a second.
Minerva could feel something changing inside her. She felt something more different than she had ever felt before, at least towards Umbridge. It felt like...
Giddiness.
The mere thought of it made Minerva sick to her stomach. Yet, she couldn't shake the feeling that she wanted Umbridge's attention. She was having an emotional battle with herself looking at the memory from the retched yet somewhat appealing woman. She saw herself look up and whisper something in Umbridge's ear that made Delores's face turn even redder. Umbridge supported Minerva on her shoulder and walked her out of the Hog's Head. The present-day Minerva and Umbridge followed them out the door and watched the past two stumble down the streets of Hogsmeade. They followed themselves all the way back to the Hogwarts entrance, which was quite a long way for a drunken woman to stumble.
Oddly, the two women stopped before they were in sight of any of the students. It was probably a good thing too, because what Minerva did was amazing and disgusting, at least in her opinion.
"You know what?" drunken Minerva slurred while leaning heavily on Umbridge.
"What's that, Minerva?" she asked in that annoyingly sweet voice.
"I've liked you for a really, REALLY long time now... you know that?" Minerva managed to get out. Any person within 50 yards of Delores could see her face turning extremely red.
"I...Is that true, Minerva?" she asked quietly.
"Of course! Always has been! You've been stupid not to notice it earlier, really."
"Hey, what's tha-" Umbridge started off, but was cut short. Minerva had forced her lips down on Delores's with a strength that was surprising, as inebriated as she was. Delores looked a little shocked at first, but wrapped her arms around Minerva's waist and pulled her in tighter. By this time, present Minerva had a whole slew of emotions going through her head. She was getting a massive headache from everything and wanted to leave, but couldn't because she was so shocked. Past Minerva leaned into Delores, putting a lot of passion into the kiss. They stayed like that for a while until Umbridge parted for air.
It was barely audible, but Minerva heard herself whisper into Delores's ear, "Want to continue this somewhere else?"
Her face was flushed red, but she nodded almost imperceptively and followed Minerva up to the castle. Present-day Minerva turned to present-day Umbridge and asked,
"Can we get out of here? My head hurts."
She nodded and grabbed hold of Minerva, pulling them out of the memory. They landed back in the headmaster's office, rather flustered but in one piece. Minerva immediately headed for the door to go back down to her room.
"Where are you going?" Umbridge asked with her overly sweet yet lovely voice.
"I need to think things through," Minerva said after a pause. Her head hurt so bad she couldn't tell what she did and didn't want to say. She just went with the safest possible answer at the time so she wouldn't have to sort things through.
"I'm always here if you want to talk to me. You know that," Umbridge said in what Minerva thought was Delores's interpretation of a seductive tone. She shuddered, for about five different reasons. There was just no way of knowing exactly what was going on. How had this even happened? And more importantly, how was she going to explain this to Dumbledore? He knew everything that went on in her life, so why not this?
How much could she handle? As of right now, Minerva had no idea.