What's Gotten Your Wand in a Knot?

A busy day for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, final exams are coming up and meetings with the staff and the ministry keep popping in Albus Dumbledore's schedule. The students hustle and buzzle around the musky corridors of the castle to arrive on exact time of their classes, the moving staircases and the poltergeist Peeves who constantly interchange schedule postings on the wall definitely isn't helping. Albus sat quietly in his table high up on the highest tower in Hogwarts, reading and reviewing the term ender programs and faculty adjustments made by the ever loyal and hardworking deputy headmistress none other than the stern Minerva McGonagall. Albus half sighed and half smiled as he shook his head as he remembered Minerva. He rarely see's her smile and last night with their nightly night caps in her sitting room just a floor below his room, yet again, he was graced by her rare but beautiful smile.

Now that he's thinking about it, he realized he isn't even sure what made her smile specifically.

Flashback….

Minerva: I need the revisions of the faculty adjustments ASAP Albus.

Minerva sat warmly across Albus, her left leg tucked under her as she leaned comfortably in her emerald green oversized sofa. The fireplace lending them the crackling of a burning log and the warmth of an evening fire, the glow from the embers illuminating her eyes and making them a shade lighter than the lush emerald that they really are. With her tea cup in her right hand she tucked a stray hair behind her ear, watching Albus from above the brim of her cup. His cheeks are ever so slightly pink, maybe caused by the warmth of the fire; his eyes are dancing with their usual spark.

Albus: You just gave them to me Minerva, you don't expect me to work here and now don't you?

Minerva: Not unless I want to hex you in the middle of my sitting room right into the next century, no.

Albus: And why pray tell, would you hex me?

Minerva: because, headmaster, my ways and your ways with "working" doesn't really coincides.

Albus gave out a hearty laugh and nodded towards Minerva, raising hi mug, containing the ever famous hot chocolate just slightly and said,

Albus: Touche'

Some nights they'd be playing chess, and no those chess games aren't really quick sessions. They tried 5-7 hours each game and it proved to be short. Minerva, almost always wins. Albus knew that she was the better player but not in his 126 years would he ever admit it to her, he couldn't stand her smug face and provoking grins every time she'd won, so, no, conceding is not an option. Other nights are quiet dinners alone in his or her sitting rooms. Those are the nights that they both look forward to. And not on Merlin's bloody beard would either of them admit that these intimate dinners are being looked forward to. Both are acting nonchalant and casual about it.

A soft knock on the heavy wooden door, pulled Albus out of his reverie. Hir face relatively lit up and fell when the potions, Slytherin headmaster came through the door.

Snape: Not Minerva eh?

Albus smiled jovially at Snape.

Albus: Ah, Severus my boy. What jolly wind brought you up here?

Snape sniggered his usual sarcastic grins.

Snape: The deputy headmistress is about to blow off a certain madam undersecretary aka pink toad's head or transform her into something I'd be glad to laugh see like a pink bat in the middle of the faculty office.

The whole affair seems to amuse Albus as he rubbed his long silvery beard and chuckled.

Albus: And what is the argument about, if I may ask.

Without any hint of moving from his seat, he prodded the potions master to tell him more. He knew Minerva would never loose her temper over a silly misunderstanding, though he can vow that even death eaters can turn to their heels and walk away with cold feet if ever confronted with a very angry deputy headmistress.

Snape: Apparently, about you headmaster. Umbridge made a nasty remark about how an old coot or something to that effect could be ever so needed by Fudge. I suppose Minerva didn't like what she heard, well, actually all the faculty didn't like it but only the headmistress can send Umbridge on her bottom.

The headmaster nodded with understanding, he knew how loyal of a friend Minerva and he knows, she'd stop at nothing to defend his honor, as much as hed stop at nothing to defend hers. He stood up and brushed the gingernewts crumb on his robe.
Albus: well then, shall we go and save the madam undersecretary Severus?

####TBC####