A/N: This was written for the 2010 edition of the Minerva Fest on Livejournal. My infinite thanks go to The Real Snape and Featherxquill for being such patient and helpful and downright fantastic betas, and to the Grande Doyenne of Old-Lady Fic, Kelly Chambliss, for a truly spellbinding prompt.
Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling and licensees.
The Thermodynamics of the Moka Pot
by Tetley
/\/\/\
-Hogwarts-
Minerva McGonagall has the most eloquent nostrils in the world.
They can scold and praise, flirt and reprimand. They can express love and disdain, fear and anxiety. Sometimes they speak of desire.
The one thing they cannot do is lie.
So when Rolanda asks her the question, the one that has been burning inside her and that she's tried so hard not to ask, she doesn't need to wait for an answer.
She picks up her clothes, grabs her broom, and silently closes the bedroom door behind herself.
/\/\/\
Minerva pulls her knees close to her chest as she sits up in the four-poster, running a hand over the crumpled sheet that still bears the warmth of Rolanda.
It does nothing to comfort her.
'Are you with me or with her?'
She knows that she would have given herself away sooner or later. She isn't a natural-born liar and deceiver; there simply is no way Rolanda would not have noticed at some point the sharp increase in Ministry appointments, or in evenings Minerva spends alone in her study, answering correspondence. Rolanda has an eye for birds; it cannot have escaped her that it is always the same tawny owl that delivers the letters, and that it always leaves with an answer. Perhaps, hopefully, she has never heard the bolt of the study door quietly slide shut on occasions, the silencing charm that sometimes seals the cracks of the door. But even then, she cannot possibly have missed the withdrawal, the rising impatience, the small squabbles that seemed to appear out of the blue more and more often of late, just in time whenever intimacy loomed on the horizon.
Except tonight.
Tonight, after that letter, that letter in the small, no-nonsense handwriting in deep purple ink that once again unfolded an utterly infuriating argument in exquisite prose and perfect syntax. Damn the Head of Magical Law Enforcement for being the living proof that grammar can be sexy.
And damn herself for letting Rolanda touch her in the state in which the letter had left her.
It was as good as a confession, only crueller.
/\/\/\
Up and up Rolanda zooms, past the clock of the Astronomy Tower, across the expanse of the lake, not slowing until she hits a height where the night air is chilly enough to provide relief against her searing cheeks.
She's known for a while, really.
She can't pinpoint the beginning, not exactly. Minerva has been more withdrawn ever since that day in May, when Potter stumbled out of that maze with Cedric Diggory's dead body in his arms. Rolanda hasn't taken it personally, needed time for herself, in fact. After all, hardly any teacher had known the Diggory boy as she had.
Yes, Rolanda gave Minerva her space just as she took her own; she forgave a few biting remarks, didn't attach great importance to a decline in their sex life that was perhaps only natural, with the stress and the general situation and the fluctuations that come with any relationship.
But then, one day in early August around tea-time, a small tawny owl brought Amelia Bones back into their lives.
It announced itself with an irritated flutter, followed by the brisk, no-nonsense knock of a ridiculously small beak. Rolanda could have sworn that it even gave a curt nod as it stalked in across the table by the window. The owl coolly extended its foot to deliver its message, selected two and a half treats out of a bowl that Minerva held out to it (an officially-approved Ministry rate, it seemed) and took off with a swish.
So did Minerva.
There was another owl, followed by another sudden takeoff soon after that. Something about Potter and some hearing, Minerva was to tell her afterwards. Then one about new NEWT requirements for aspiring Auror trainees. After that, Rolanda lost count. Anyway, there is no way of keeping track, with Minerva being on Order duty in London nearly every day, and some nights, too. But of one thing Rolanda is sure: it isn't for Alastor Moody that that bloody old-fashioned Muggle dress with the flower print has suddenly reappeared from the depths of some trunk in the back of the wardrobe.
The one with the thin fabric that plays so perfectly around Minerva's legs when the wind is right, and that makes for gorgeous cleavage whatever the conditions.
Rolanda tried not to think much of it at first. After all, Minerva has exchanged smiles with more than two or three sturdy, short-haired witches in the past eighteen years. If anything, Rolanda always found that strangely exciting, all the more so when the smiles were reciprocated. Who doesn't take pride in an attractive lover? And it isn't as if she's never let her own gaze wander, down Gwenog Jones's athletic back, and up Clara Ivanova's mile-long legs. It's never been more than a little game of thoughts, a memory of wilder times. A look outside the box that doesn't do any harm, may even freshen up a relationship. And their relationship can do with some freshening up. Or at least Minerva seems to think so, judging by the withdrawal, the distance, the sudden lack of desire for the long-time lover's touch.
It was therefore with some timidity that Rolanda let her hand wander over tonight as Minerva quietly slipped between the sheets on her side of the bed, long past midnight. It was risky, but damn it, she is a woman, not a marble statue, and she'd gone without it for too long not to try.
She took care to move gently, trying hard neither to beg nor impose, trying even harder to resolve not to be offended if the advance was yet again unwelcome. But for once in those busy, stressed-out weeks, it wasn't.
Quite the opposite, really.
The sheets rustled lightly as Minerva rolled onto her back, supple and relaxed, and as she arched into the hand that felt for her breast, she did so with the soft, throaty moan that Rolanda had missed for so long.
Encouraged by the nipples that spoke as clear a language as the parting thighs, Rolanda trailed kisses along the swell of small breasts and down the stomach, where a sweet hint of soft flesh had begun to appear of late. She ran the tips of her fingers through the triangle of black curls, and when she moved down between the pale legs that had fully opened for her at last, she found her lover ready. Ready to embrace, smooth, musky and creamy, hard and soft and pulsating.
Not at all like the Minerva who has just called it a day.
More like the Minerva in the wee hours of a long night of lovemaking, who, warm and heavy-voiced with the first slumber, rolls over and murmurs: 'I want you again.'
/\/\/\
Minerva stands by the open French window, vainly willing the night air to clear her mind.
Not a breeze deigns to make its presence felt. The gentle slopes of the grounds, usually a healthy green, lie jaundiced under the waxing moon. There isn't a cloud in the sky, nor a bird flapping its wings above the silent crowns of the trees. The rocks rise dark and ragged from the low waters of the lake, and even Pomona's well-tended flowerbeds look exhausted in the fallow moonlight. There hasn't been any rain in weeks.
It's as if Scotland has forgotten who she is.
Stifling a yawn, Minerva crosses the room and opens a small cabinet. She takes out a tin and a tarnished, silver moka pot, and scoops a few teaspoons of finely-ground espresso powder into the metal basket. Sleep won't come anyway; she might as well give it a reason to stay away.
The top of the moka creaks as she screws it on, as always, and she winces at the noise. As always.
They bought it on their first holiday together, Rolanda and she. In a dim Muggle shop in a quaint place somewhere in the mountains of Tuscany. A heap of creamy ochre buildings nesting near the top of a hill with dark green slopes and a cypress-studded silhouette, enveloped in the whitish haze of Italian summer. Or is that the Gaussian blur of her memory?
Their love was fresh back then, the quiet in-love-ness of two middle-aged witches who have seen too much of the rough days. She remembers long walks along wine fields and through olive groves, the air heavy with dust and late afternoon sun, and crickets chirping at a distance. Remembers the feeling of tanned arms brushing each other as if casually, of lips salty from the heat touching when nobody was near. Hours of watching the late summer sun set over the sea, and of slowly falling asleep in each other's arms after endless caresses that blended into careful, tender lovemaking.
An impatient splutter from the moka pot jerks Minerva out of her musings, like a visitor clearing her throat at a distracted hostess. She pulls it from the fire quickly, before the coffee spoils – too quickly, judging by the small black jet that spurts from the spout and narrowly misses her dressing gown. She mutters a sharp curse, in Gaelic because nothing soothes the nerves as promptly as a few good guttural sounds, and places the pot safely on the back burner. Letting her hands trail along the cups on the shelf – Rolanda's green Harpies beaker, the porcelain mug with the literary reference from last year's Women's Day – Minerva settles on a plain, white cup and pours herself three inches of strong, thick espresso.
She leans against the frame of the French window and takes a sip. It tastes burnt; she should have paid more attention.
She circles the rim of the mug with her finger.
Funny how just when you think you have enough practice, your lack of attention can be trusted to get back at you.
And you'd think that routine makes things easier.
When perhaps it just makes you careless.
Routine, a word that brings up thoughts. Of fixed sides of the bed. Kisses every morning, every night, every time you leave and every time you come in, because that is the way you do it. Sex that's consistently good, more so with each year you spend learning more about the body of the other, how it responds, what it craves, what makes it twitch and melt and buck. But as much as she relishes Rolanda's slow, undemanding touch, as often as she's come at no more than a well-timed pinch of a nipple, or a teasing kiss on the inside of a thigh – there is something in her that longs for the hit-and-miss of the earlier days. And even though this, theirs, is the dependable love she's always wanted, especially since the train wreck that was her relationship with Amelia Bones (mostly miss, but when it hit, oh, did they hit it hard), she somehow finds herself thinking more and more often of the days of percolated coffee and perpetual argument.
/\/\/\
-Godric's Hollow-
'Now what?'
Holly Brown flips an auburn curl out of her face as she props herself up on her elbow. There's a distinct frown on her face as she looks down at the middle-aged woman in her bed who just laid a hand upon hers and now gently shakes her head. Dead end, it seems.
Again.
In the six weeks or so that their affair has lasted, Holly has learned that giving this one a good time is harder than anything she's experienced in the fifteen years of her active love life. So far she's willingly arranged herself, because, boy, does Amelia Bones have a way of seeing to it that Holly never gets the shorter end of the stick, the proverbial or literal one.
Yet today isn't just slow going. Today is no going.
'I'm sorry.'
Holly reaches for the cigarettes on her nightstand. 'Had your mind somewhere else, eh?' she asks as a small light flares up from the tip of her wand. And not for the first time, she adds in her thoughts. Amelia is distracted of late, not too distracted to give Holly what she wants and then some, but more distracted than when they began this thing after they'd met in some Muggle club and discovered that they had a few abilities and predilections in common. If not much else.
'Yes. Sorry.'
'Just Holly not enough for you today?' Holly quips, still frowning. 'What is it, want the whip?'
Amelia flinches. 'Please ... no.'
'Then what? Got your mind on your work, is it that?' Holly snips her fingers, and an ashtray lands in her hand. 'Perhaps the work that likes to keep you in your office till midnight these days?'
'I'm sorry, Holly.'
Third apology in a row. That's as good as a confession. Unsurprising, really. Granted, Amelia has always worked late, well, always to the extent that Holly can tell. But it's been getting ridiculous. And why exactly is it that so often on those late night shifts, the Head doesn't take Floo calls? Not from her, anyway.
'So, tell me. She suit your special needs better than I do?'
'It's not like that ...'
'Oh, it isn't. Just a meeting of the minds then, is it? Who is she, anyway? Some brainy, semi-frigid – sorry, alternatively-stimulated – Ministry crone who writes dirty memos and likes her tits poked? Or is there a limit to how many of those they hire?'
'I think I should go ...'
'You bet you should.' Holly stubs out her cigarette and throws Amelia her bag and robes. The underwear hasn't even come off yet.
/\/\/\
Outside the rented upper floor of old Mrs Satterthwaite's house, Amelia draws in a deep breath.
It does little to cool her down.
Perhaps this whole thing has been a mistake. She could kick herself for having given in to the illusion that this might be an affair without regrets. Wishful thinking of an ageing bat, blinded by Holly's youth, her straightforwardness in all things sexual, and the confident way of playing her assets that made up for a few harsh features and a bit of common language. And still Amelia wonders how this girl could possibly want more than a bit of light fun and a few discoveries from the square-jawed harridan who could be her mother's older sister.
Perhaps she didn't. Perhaps Amelia has just been wrong to think that an affair without love could be an affair without claims.
And perhaps it might even have ended as it should have, with Holly losing interest, or finding someone more suitable. Perhaps they would have discussed parting as pragmatically as they talked ropes or needles, front or back, tongue or toy – if it hadn't been for that toad of a colleague on whose account Amelia Bones sent good old Miss Agnis to deliver a letter to Minerva McGonagall, for the first time in more than a decade.
Three weeks ago.
Nothing has happened with Minerva, of course. Well, at least not in each other's presence, though that was never verbalised. More than the nightly owls and a bit of between-the-line reading has never been an issue. Not just because Minerva is with another woman now. That does come into it, even though Amelia hardly feels an obligation towards the woman whose arms were wide open when Minerva packed that irritating tartan bag and moved out, eighteen years ago.
No, it isn't so much a sense of propriety and decorum that has made her hold back so far.
Fairness sounds more like it.
Amelia Bones and Minerva McGonagall needed years to realise that they weren't made for forever, years to end the long war of secession between the two most stubborn deputy heads of wizarding Britain. There had always been arguments, political ones, theoretical ones, arguments on priorities and lack of time and general philosophy. They'd been the spice of their relationship for some time, and not a few of them had ended on some desk or carpet, or in a bed when they could be bothered to move there.
But there was a point – and Amelia still can't put a finger on it – when the arguments began to turn into quarrels, and when terms like 'lapdog of a self-righteous old coot' and 'compulsive law-thumper' somehow wriggled their ways between 'democratic legitimation' and 'concerned citizenship'. With increasing practice, helped by natural wit and a talent for acerbic remarks, they'd rapidly gained proficiency in infuriating, then hurting each other, and not just once did they break up forever, only to spend so much time shouting, slamming doors, and shagging each other numb that they might as well admit that they were still a couple.
It took a tall, long-nosed sports girl to end it.
A tall, long-nosed sports girl of seventy years, politely introduced to Amelia as her replacement, one sunny afternoon in May after an untimely return from the ICW conference in Budapest.
The encounter ended with a liberal helping of scathing remarks and several doors being slammed, but in the end, all fell into place. And that, Amelia tells herself, is good. She never would be the domestic type, never could be the partner, the shoulder, the dependable rock in the surf that Minerva McGonagall needed then and still needs now. No. Minerva is better off with the Harpy with the prize-winning deltoids.
It wouldn't do to allow her to lose that for a fleeting folly.
Or a lone woman's craving for some of the old familiarity.
/\/\/\
-Above-
Rolanda has left the lake long behind. She's crossed the first chain of mountains and let the wind and her fancy take her across plains and pastures. She doesn't really care where she is going, as long as she is going.
Damn this feeling.
It's not as if she's never imagined the situation, in a theoretical way. It isn't as if she hasn't made her share of high-minded resolutions, either. Be non-possessive. Don't chase the lover away by suffocating her with jealousy. What is it some wise person once said? If you catch a butterfly, set it free. If it comes back, it's yours. If it doesn't, it never was.
She likes the imagery.
Yet it all sounds so easy when one is up here among the birds.
Damn.
She thought she was done with the wild days. She's had her share of them, and has enjoyed them, mostly, but enough is enough. A witch's lifespan gives one ample opportunity for one-night-stands, fifteen-minute-stands, fifteen-minutes-under-the-stands, you name it. She's loved where she shouldn't have, cheated and been cheated on. Had quiet relationships that ended peacefully, and a rocky one that didn't. Her heart has ached over married women who so often seemed to get the best end of the deal; her legs have shaken from Harpies with quick tongues and a shared sense of fun.
And she doesn't regret a thing.
But all she wanted when she hit seventy was the fond love of a spirit kindred enough to understand her quirks and her passions, yet sufficiently dissimilar to keep a little bit of healthy tension up.
Perhaps she has to re-think.
/\/\/\
... to be continued ...