A/n: inspired by an episode of "The Secret Life of Us" called The Butterfly Effect.
Albus was attending a Ministry function, boring and totally useless in the grand scheme of things, but one he was nevertheless required to attend. In order to sufficiently be able to stand a whole night with Fudge on a social level, Albus had reverted to the last great equaliser; alcohol. Albus was continually amazed at the way fire whisky seemed to make everything Cornelius said sound remotely intelligent and could even sometimes pass for good sense. Albus was not normally a heavy drinker, he preferred his sweet hot chocolate rather than the hot bitter bite of the spirit, and as such has quite a low tolerance for the stuff. It was a fair assessment to say that Albus, the fine upstanding headmaster of Hogwarts, was very, very drunk.
Minerva was at a different party. All of her old school friends had decided to get together, get sloshed and fondly remember the old times. There were not many occasions when the deputy headmistress let her hair down, but here she was among friends. These women had known her for all of her life, and while she only kept in god contact with a few, these were the people with whom she had shared her wild years. It seemed only fitting that she should be wild to relive them. All in all, it was a fairly accurate description to say that the prim and proper Minerva was well and truly under the weather.
At some point during the night, when each party was reduced to a collection of drunken wizards spouting how much they loved each other, and then firing random hexes into the crowd, the two parties mixed. Both spilled into the leaky cauldron, where the firewhisky, butterbeer and other miscellaneous spirits would run well into the morning.
Albus, staggering around looking for someone new to talk to, practically tripped over Minerva, who turned around rather unsteadily to see who was causing such a disturbance. On recognising Albus a light flared in her eyes and she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him into a tight embrace.
"Oh Albusss, whatever are you doing here?" she asked slurring slightly.
"Admiring all the love-ly women, you do have some wonderfully pretty friends Minerva" he shot back, casually glancing around the room.
"Oh Albuss, you terrible tease, most of them wouldn't look at you in a pink fit!"
"Well that leaves a few left over then doesn't it? Care to introduce me to a few of the less discerning ones?"
"You really are terrible! I'm going to get you out of here before you embarrass yourself any further," and with that she took his hand and dragged him out onto the streets of Muggle London. The leaky cauldron is situated not far from an area known for its lively night scene, and in the corner of one establishment that they visited Minerva spied a instant photo booth.
"Albus, lets get our photo taken!"
"Oh no, Minerva, not in this condition"
"Oh yes," she answered pulling him inside and shutting the curtain. Albus must have had more to drink that he had imagined, because he found himself pulling absurd faces and laughing hysterically at the ones Minerva pulled in return.
When the photos popped out, Albus drew Minerva close to him, their heads cocked and peering intently at the photos. Albus was lost in silent contemplation and then slurred "see that one there! The middle one! I'm going to blow that up when we get back to Hogwarts, make it hhuge and hang it one the wall of my office, and I'll look at it every time I go to write something. Its just such a perfect picture of our relationship.
"What? We're both pulling faces and trying not to laugh at each other"
"Exactly," he explained, turning to her so that their noses her touching "trying not to laugh at each other..." his voice faded to a whisper, "...beautiful"
"Beautiful" she agreed, looking deeply into his eyes, intimately aware that their breaths were mingling.
Suddenly he was aware that her lips were on his, sweet and soft against his own. In a moment she was in his arms and he was running his hands all over her body, wanting, needing to feel as much of her as possible, she was like a drug inside his system and he kept needing more. Minerva opened her mouth and flicked her tongue seductively against his bottom lip, asking, seeking. He didn't even think, here she was cradled in his arms and it felt like the most natural thing to do, to give himself over to the sensation. After a minute of intense passion, their blood pumping loudly in their ears and the elusive spark of intimate connection raging into a fire, Minerva suddenly tensed, backed away and before he could say anything, had transformed into her cat form and had disappeared.
It was days before Albus would see her again, and when he did she seemed full of excuses to get out of his presence. Albus, feeling dejected and confused went to talk to his brother, the only real confidante he had other than Minerva.
"Maybe she loves you Albus?"
"How do you figure that?"
"Intuition"
"Ha"
"No really, maybe she's been in love wit you for so long that she doesn't know how to react when its not a fantasy. Do you remember the first time you met her after she's got her teaching degree?"
"Oh yes," he smiled fondly "how could I forget"
"It was in the leaky cauldron and you'd asked her to hold your drink while you 'went to find a real woman!' ha!"
"Oh, did I really say that?"
"Yes, and then you proceeded to flirt with every eligible female in the joint, and a few that were otherwise engaged, if I remember rightly. Through it all Minerva held your drink, and her eyes didn't leave you all night. And yours rarely left hers either. There's something in that, no matter what you say."
"So what should I do?"
"Ask her if she loves you"
"I can't ask her that!"
"Then ask her something else"
Later in the week Albus rapped vigorously on the door to Minerva's study. Upon entering she looked at him questioningly and he merely replied that he had come to check how she was going, seeing as she had been writing the first' year's letters all day. When the conversation ran out, Albus turned to leave, then thought better of it. Framed in the doorway he turned back to Minerva and said, "can you think about something for me? Aside from the fact that you were pissed as a newt, why did you kiss me the other night?"
When Albus returned from the ministry later that night, it was to see Minerva sitting in his favourite armchair by the fire with an intense look on her face, "Can we talk"
"Of course. Tea?"
"No thankyou, but don't let me stop you"
"Thanks."
Minerva was never one to beat around the bush, and as soon as Albus was seated launched into conversation. "If I hadn't have been drunk I wouldn't have done it. At the time you were there, and we were so close and having such a good time that it just felt natural so I went with it."
"Did you feel anything?"
"Albus, the real question you're asking is, am I in love with you?" looking at her hands clasped in her lap she said quietly, "I did love you, right from the first moment I saw you after I gained my teaching diploma. You were no longer the fearsome teacher, but a man, and a very attractive one. I was in love with you for so long."
"Even when you took the job here?"
"Of course, it was one of the main reasons I took it. But that was a long time ago Albus, and somewhere along the way I realised it was hopeless and moved on. You have to do that, move on."
"So you don't love me any more?"
"No Albus, I'm sorry for the other night, it was a beautiful completion of something that had died in me a long time ago, and I thank you for that." Minerva got up to leave, squeezed Albus' shoulder as she passed and walked purposefully out into the dark corridor.
When she was out of sight, bitter salty tears fell from Minerva's eyes. The truth was she had never stopped loving Albus, but if she ever told him that then they would be over. Friendship was better than bitterness and heartache, she would survive.
A/n: I don't normally end stories with angst but this is where the episode ended, and seeing as it was really not my story, just me transferring different characters into it, I cant really see the way forward. So I'm passing the story onto someone else (anyone who wants it really! Hehe) and I'd love to see what you do with the next chapter. There has to be a next chapter, they need to be happy! Yep yep yep!