'You've got another lesson tonight? That's the second one this week!' Maureen sighed, mixing her mashed potato, green beans and leftover pie into an unappetizing sludge on her dinner plate. Ever since Minerva had decided to become an Animagus she had seen less and less of her and although she missed the society of one of her best friends, she had to admit her grades were also suffering for lack of someone to check her work over for her.

Minerva cast her an apologetic look. 'I need all the help I can get if I'm going to pull this off. With N.E.W.T.s coming up I won't have time to study for both soon. I just want to get as much done as possible now.' She sighed at the look on her friend's face, 'How about we go out for a drink tomorrow night?' She knew it was poor recompense for the endless nights she'd been 'studying' with Albus but what was the point being a seventh year if they couldn't abuse their right to go into Hogsmeade whenever they wanted?

Maureen shrugged mulishly. 'You sure you can fit me into your busy schedule?'

Minerva ignored the sulky edge to her voice, 'Always,' she assured her. 'I'll even buy you a glass of fire whiskey.'

'A glass?' she cast her a sly smile from behind a drift of blonde hair. 'I'm afraid forgiveness costs a bottle these days…'

Minerva rolled her eyes, giving Maureen a gentle shove. 'You drive a hard bargain, Mo, but you've got yourself a deal.'

'Deal? What? Did I miss something?' Persephone Maldoran sat down on the bench opposite, filling a bowl with strawberry trifle and answering Minerva's disapproving shake of the head with 'It's got fruit in the bottom!'

'I was just blackmailing Min into buying the first round at the Three Broomsticks tomorrow night,' Maureen smirked.

Sephy raised her eyebrows under her deep red fringe. 'And what would you have on little miss perfect?' she asked.

'This face,' she said, sticking out her bottom lip and making puppy-dog eyes.

Minerva flicked her wand furtively under the table, addressing Persephone, 'She's making me feel guilty for taking extra lessons.'

'It's only one night a week, Mo, that still leaves – what?- two for her to fix your homework.' She frowned at Maureens still protruding bottom lip, 'I think you can stop making 'the face' now.'

'No I can't,' she said with some difficulty. 'It's stuck!'

Minerva stifled a giggle, 'Maybe the wind changed…'

Mo would have frowned had she been able to move her face. 'Minerva!'

'Yes?' she asked innocently, finishing the last of her roast.

'Fix my face!'

'I think that might be beyond the realms of magic,' said Persephone through fits of laughter as Minerva flicked her wand again, lifting the spell.

'Ow - Thanks,' she said, massaging her chin. 'Anyway, it isn't just one lesson a week, she's got another one tonight.'

'That only gives you one night to do your homework,' Sephy cried in horror. As captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team she was overseeing three training sessions a week and struggling herself to do all the schoolwork they were being set. 'You've already got your Head Girl meetings on Monday and Quidditch practices on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Dumbledore can't expect you to do this much extra work. It's ridiculous. You'll just have to tell him you can't do it.'

'Professor Dumbledore isn't making me do anything!' Minerva snapped, a little more sharply than she'd intended. She avoided their eyes as she admitted, 'I asked him for extra lessons.'

'Only you would ask for more work. You work too hard as it is,' Persephone moaned, secretly worried that her Seeker was going to succumb to the nervous exhaustion currently sweeping the seventh years.

'Don't you start with me too,' Minerva warned, steely determination glinting in her green eyes. 'What I choose to do with my time is my choice and no one else's.'

'Whoa, hey! No need to bite my head off,' she held her hands up, looking reproachful. 'I just worry you're going to run yourself into the ground one of these days… but you're absolutely right; it's your funeral.'

Minerva rolled her eyes. 'Don't you think you're being a tad overdramatic?'

Mo shook her head, 'I don't know how you're doing it as it is. I was up until three o'clock this morning finishing those astronomy charts for Madeira!' she complained, pulling the chocolate pudding towards her.

'You wouldn't have if you'd done it when I told you to instead of sneaking off with Blake Johnson,' reprimanded the Scot, cutting herself a thin slice of Battenburg cake.

'You wanna watch it, Min, you'll lose that dainty figure of yours pigging out like that.'

'We were studying!' Mo argued.

'Yeah,' Minerva snorted, 'each others tonsils!'

'And don't try denying it cuz Rolanda Torence saw you at it at the back of the library.'

'Someone should tell her it's rude to spy.'

'So's talking with your mouth full.'

Mo opened her mouth wide, sticking her tongue out, to reveal a mouthful of mushed up chocolate pudding, making Minerva and Persephone shake their heads in disgust. 'You're sick,' said Sephy, wrinkling her nose and dropping her spoon into her bowl with a clatter apparently having lost her appetite.

Mo raised a satisfied eyebrow, 'Blake doesn't seem to think so…' she said smugly.

Albus ran a long hand over the smooth expanse of Minerva's bare back and was rewarded when his ministrations elicited a shiver. She turned to smile at him over her shoulder, slightly exasperated, 'I'm trying to read.'

'Am I disturbing you?' he asked airily, running a light finger down her side.

She bit her lip, toes curling under the sheets. 'A little, yes.'

'Oh, I'm sorry … please continue,' he nodded, barely concealing a smile as she shook her head and turned back to the book on her pillow. He had quickly learned that she had not become top of the year on raw talent alone. She spent endless hours poring over her schoolbooks, scratching away until the early hours of the morning almost every night.

He watched her for a moment, eyes sliding rapidly down each page as she wound a length of hair around her fingers. She was so unaware of herself sometimes; something he could never be. She shifted as he played with the hair on the back of her neck, shoulders flexing. 'Albus…' she warned, shivering again.

He leaned over, kissing her throat. 'Oh, don't mind me…' he told her. She closed her eyes, tilting her head to expose several more inches of lily-white neck for him to take advantage of.

'I didn't say I minded,' she mumbled, 'but you could have waited until I finished the chapter.'

'By all means, finish what you're doing,' he seemed to concede, but his hand curled around her hip, dragging her towards him.

She laughed, rolling onto her side to face him, barely an inch between them. 'You're making it a little difficult.'

He looked hurt, 'Just a little?' he asked. 'I must not be trying hard enough.'

She pressed a hand over his mouth as he leaned in to kiss her, slipping out of his arms while she still could. 'Just a few more pages,' she promised, fighting an incredible urge to bite that pouty bottom lip.

'I'm growing rather jealous of this book,' he said, picking it up and reading the cover – "A Short Biography of Rembrant the Redundant". It was at least three-hundred pages despite its proclamation of being 'short'.

'You needn't be, it's as dull Professor Binns' classes,' she assured him.

'And yet it's had your undivided attention for the better part of an hour.'

Her attention had been very divided in her opinion; the man had persistently wandering hands. 'I'm almost finished. Patience is a virtue,' she reminded him, finding her page again.

'I seem to be fresh out of it tonight – must be the company I'm keeping.'

'Why, professor, I do believe I'm having a bad influence on you,' she said, turning back to the book, hair falling over her shoulders.

He resigned himself to quiet observation. Far be it for him to interfere with her studies; he'd sworn to himself at the beginning that he would never get in the way of her education – no matter how sorely he might be tempted. Even if she was reading the worst book ever written, a book that wasn't worth the consideration of her brilliant mind…the attention of those vivid green eyes … he could surely withstand temptation for a measly ten minutes … even when she was bringing home the meaning of the word irresistible to Dumbledore as one slender calf slipped out from under the sheet to weave backwards and forwards like an inverted pendulum.

He propped himself up on an elbow, a small smile playing on his lips. He was supposed to be the greatest wizard of his generation and yet, at this moment, his brain was utterly incapable of coming up with anything to distract him from the witch stretched out in front of him. He'd already established that picturing the Headmaster in his underwear was no help… and then it struck him. The perfect turn-off.

Minerva was finding it extremely difficult to concentrate with his gaze so steadily fastened on her. She turned to him in exasperation, 'What is so fascinating?'

'You need to ask?' he smiled, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. She blushed slightly. 'I was just thinking (while I was enjoying your many attributes) that you don't look an ounce like your father,' he said, with the image of a short, portly man with sandy hair and blue eyes in his mind. There was nothing like the disapproval of a parent to ruin your libido – for a short while at least. 'I met him a few times in Diagon Alley – he works in Flourish and Blotts, does he not?'

She nodded. 'I seem to have inherited my mother's looks and my fathers brains.'

'In that case I am eager to meet your mother,' he said roguishly.

Her smile faded a little, 'I hope that day's a long time in coming – she died when I was two.'

He sobered immediately. 'I am sorry,' he apologised, kicking himself.

'Don't be. I can't even remember her,' she shrugged, 'I suppose, if anything, I miss the idea of having a mother more than anything else. Dad never remarried.'

'He must have loved her very much,' he said, squeezing her hand. How was it that he'd never taken the time to ask even the simplest of questions about her family?

'I think so: he doesn't like to talk about her much.' She dropped her gaze, 'I'm sorry, I don't want to bore you with the dreary details of my childhood. I should finish this.'

He raised her hand to his lips, kissing her fingers, 'I want to know everything about you.'

'Books and Quidditch,' she summarized with a wayward smile. 'I'm really not that complicated.'

She attempted to go back to the book but he was fixing her with those damned blue eyes again, that maddeningly piercing gaze, not saying a word, until she couldn't stand it anymore. She snapped the history book shut, tossed it onto the bedside table and, picking up her wand, plunged the room into darkness. She felt her way towards him, hand coming up against his chest. 'You weren't going to let me finish it anyway, were you?' she reasoned.

The moon was high and shining brightly through the windows of Gryffindor common room where a student with long, curly red hair had fallen asleep beside the fire. Persephone was woken when the cat, a sleek black feline, barely more than a kitten, which had been creeping noiselessly across the polished wooden floor, leapt onto the potions essay in her lap. She blinked blearily, squinting down at the animal. She frowned as the cat looked up at her with large yellow eyes, meowing. 'Maverick?' she asked as though he would answer, looking over at the grandfather clock that stood in the corner of the room: half past two. 'What are you doing down here?'

She scooped him up in one hand, dumping her homework on the table as she stood. Maverick dug his claws into the front of her robes, apparently not trusting her not to drop him; he'd never been the friendliest of cats. In fact Persephone hadn't so much as stroked the beast since the day he'd staggered out of the Dark Forest and promptly bitten her. Minerva loved him though, had nursed him back to health and posted notices all over the school looking for his owner. When nobody came forward to claim him she decided to keep him herself, which was just as well since she was the only one he didn't try to claw to pieces.

Persephone found it odd that the little fur-ball would suddenly seek her company when he was usually to be found curled up on Minerva's bed, hissing at anyone who dared to disturb his mistress's sleep. She climbed the spiral staircase into their shared dormitory, tripping over someone's robes – probably Mo's – and causing Maverick to claw his way over her shoulder, landing with a soft thud on the floor behind her. 'Ow, son of a bitch!' she whispered vehemently, pressing a hand over the claw-marks across her neck. She pulled back the velvet curtains around Minerva's bed, resisting the urge to give the cat a bloody good kick, and was surprised to find it empty.

Maverick meowed again, springing up on the tartan quilt. 'Min, shut that stupid thing up,' came a sleepy voice from the next bed.

'She's not here.'

The curtains twitched aside to reveal a messy blonde head. 'Whaddya mean she's not there?' Maureen said irritably. 'What time is it?'

Sephy frowned, 'Half-two.'

Mo rubbed her eyes, 'Where is she then?'

'No idea,' she answered, perplexed.

'Checked the common room?'

'Just came from there.'

'Maybe she fell asleep in the library again,' she suggested, flopping back down on her pillows. 'You go look, I'll stay here in case she comes back.'

'I'm not going on my own!'

'I'm not dressed.'

'So get dressed,' she hissed, picking up the robes she'd fallen over and throwing them at Mo. Mo pulled them off her face, giving Persephone a disgruntled look. 'You know Min would do it for you.'

'Only so she could shout at me for being out after hours,' she groaned, sitting up.

Five minutes later they were creeping out through the portrait hole, casting furtive looks up and down the corridor. 'You realise how much trouble we'll be in if we get caught?'

'Relax, Mo, we're not going to get caught – ow, that was my foot!'

'Sorry! It's dark.'

'That's what happens when the sun goes down,' she muttered, wondering, not for the first time, just how deep the blonde went in her friend.

'Ha ha.'

'Shh, we're here.' Persephone tried to push the door open but it was locked. She took out her wand, muttering, 'Alohomora.' There was a soft click and they tip-toed in.

The library was almost as dark as the corridor outside but there was enough moonlight filtering in through the high windows to ascertain that Minerva was not there. 'Great,' whispered Maureen. 'What now?'

'Kitchens?'

'When have you ever known Min to sneak out for food?'

'Well I don't hear you coming up with anything better!' Persephone retorted heatedly.

'Okay, keep your knickers on.'

Half an hour and much bickering later they'd tried not only the kitchens but the infirmary (being careful not to wake the crabby old nurse, Healer Hopkins), the Astronomy tower, the owlery, the Transfiguration classroom (where Minerva sometimes liked to practice) and the Great Hall – Maureen's suggestion – and still had not found the errant Head Girl.

'Maybe she went back to the tower.'

'Maybe…' agreed Sephy though she didn't look convinced.

'We'll go back and check and if she isn't there – I hate to even suggest it but – we might have to, you know, tell someone.'

'What and get her in trouble?' said the quidditch captain, looking appalled at the thought.

'What if she's already in trouble?' whispered Mo, biting her lip anxiously.

She sighed, tucking her hair behind her ears. 'I suppose – but I'm telling Min it was your idea.'

'Chickenshit – what was that!' she gasped, grabbing Persephone's arm. They backed into an alcove, looking around for the source of the noise. All was answered when Peeves glided by, not two metres from where they were hiding, juggling what looked like helmets from two of the many suits of armour around the castle. 'That was close.' Mo breathed a sigh of relief. 'Let's get out of here.'

They ran as fast as they dared back up the seven flights of stairs to Gryfindor tower, hoping against hope that Minerva was there. Maverick hissed at them from her still empty bed.

'Well that's it then – we'll have to wake up one of the teachers.' They looked uneasily at each other. Had it been anyone else they wouldn't have bothered but Minerva McGonagall was infamous for dishing out severe punishment to those foolish enough to be caught out of bed, out of hours. In all the years they'd known her she'd only done it herself once and that was because she'd fallen asleep in the library with her History of Magic book for a pillow revising for her O.W.L.

'Okay – who?'

'Dumbledore I suppose. He's head of house.'

'And he thinks the sun shines out of her arse,' added Mo confidently. 'He probably won't even give her detention.'

Someone was knocking on the door. Albus looked at the clock on the bedside table and turned to see Minerva's terrified face, white in the darkness, looking up at him. 'Who is it?' she hissed, hand frozen on his chest. To be caught here would be the end of them both, though how anyone could have found out was beyond her.

He shook his head with a small, helpless shrug. 'Get dressed,' he whispered, pulling away from her and climbing out of bed. He opened his wardrobe and took out a pair of pyjamas, thrusting his arms into the sleeves as Minerva leapt out of bed, retrieving her robes from the floor and tugging them over her head. As he sat on the bed pulling on the bottoms, she pulled on her socks, looking around frantically for her underwear. 'Come on …' she whispered desperately, they had to be here somewhere.

Finally she spotted them, lying in the shadow of the chest of drawers. She hurried towards them, tripping over one of her shoes in her haste. She threw out her arms, eyes wide as she flew through the air. Albus saw her fall in slow motion, stretching out his arm as if to catch her though he was on the other side of the room. He winced as though struck himself when her head bounced off the edge of the drawers and she landed with a thud on the wooden floor, out cold.

He hurried to her side even as there was another, louder knock. He pressed a gentle hand to her throat, closing his eyes with relief when he felt a strong pulse against his fingers. His hand moved to her cheek, 'Minerva?' he whispered urgently. 'Minerva!'

She remained stubbornly unconscious, breathing slow and even. He had to get help for her, she needed medical attention, but if they found her here, in his bedroom at three o'clock in the morning (and without her underwear no less) it wouldn't be rocket science putting the pieces together. He swore under his breath, aware that there was still someone seeking his presence at the front door. He lifted her as gently as he could, laying her on the bed. 'I'll be right back,' he promised her, kissing her forehead and summoning his glasses.

He hurried through the living room, hastily tying his dressing gown as he went. 'Sorry to wake you, Professor.'

'Not at all, Miss Maldoran,' he said, trying to smile. 'Is there something I can help you with?'

The girls exchanged worried looks. 'It's Minerva, sir. We can't find her anywhere.'

His mouth was suddenly very dry. 'She isn't in bed?' he asked, in a voice slightly higher than usual.

'No, sir. Or the library, infirmary, Great Hall-'

'Owlery, Astronomy Tower or the Transfiguration classroom,' finished Maureen, looking up at him with wide blue eyes. 'And we thought something might be wrong cuz it's not like her, sir.'

Albus nodded understandingly. 'You did the right thing coming to me,' he reassured them. 'I'll look for her at once. You two get back to bed, I'll let you know when there's news.'

They nodded, turning away and he shut the door, half running back to the bedroom, panic rising in his chest. Perfect. Not only was Minerva almost definitely concussed but her absence had been noticed too. He lit the lamps about the room, bending close to examine the livid lump already rising on her forehead. 'You never do things by halves, do you?' he muttered desperately, wracking his considerable brains for a plan, any plan. He wasn't a Healer and it would be foolishly risky of him to attempt to heal a head injury, too many things could go wrong, but neither could he summon Madam Hopkins to his rooms...

How the hell was he to get out of this one?