Author's Note: Just a warning: the end of this chapter contains references to house-elf abuse.


1 July 1944

Gerald Findlach Macnair was feeling just fine.

The anti-hangover potion he had taken after the previous night's revels had worked well enough, and now he was about to marry a girl quite as pretty and well bred as he could have hoped. "A good catch," his father had said, but Gerald tended to think of her as "a fine filly". Anyway, she was far better than that Yaxley girl his father had approached the previous year. That girl actually looked like a horse.

The match was a good one, he thought. Good for the family and good for him. An association with the pedigreed but land-poor McGonagall clan would improve the Macnairs' standing in their social circles—circles in which bloodlines and pedigrees took on almost mythical importance—and the practical and intelligent Minerva McGonagall would be a grounding influence on the eldest Macnair son. Gerald tended to be a bit dissipated—he knew it about himself— and thought his father's selection of bride for him a good choice. He hoped she could help keep his mind directed, and maybe she could help keep his more troubling thoughts at bay too.

The only drawback, Gerald thought, was her insistence on this apprenticeship. Why any young woman would want to spend two years studying, and studying something as boring and as difficult as Transfiguration, was quite beyond him. "Let it be," his father had said when they discussed her absolute refusal to consider the match without the apprenticeship stipulation. "She'll forget about it soon enough when you fill her belly with sons to worry over."

The thought of filling Minerva's belly and the steps he'd need to take to do so made it hard to button the trousers he would wear beneath the traditional red-and-black dress robes he would don for the wedding. Yes, she was lovely. He would enjoy her, but he would treat her with respect on their wedding night and beyond, introducing her to her conjugal duties without exercising the special, secret desires he discharged in Knockturn Alley's whorehouses. He promised himself that.

His father had assured him that the binding magic of the marriage contract did not extend to the husband's extra-curricular activities. The anti-adultery clause applied only to the woman—a secret-but-traditional benefit secured by the equally traditional Galleons slipped, with a wink and a nudge, into the pocket of the MLE Charms master in charge of the Trace. Gerald was relieved. He had his needs, but his wife-to-be was a lady, and there were certain things a lady shouldn't have to do, even for her husband.

/***/

At the wedding, everyone remarked on how calm Minerva McGonagall—then Minerva Macnair—seemed.

She spoke her vows clearly and submitted to her newly minted husband's kiss without hesitation. Her hand, as it signed the magical marriage register, was steady. With a pleasant smile cemented on her features, she endured kisses on the cheek from well-wishers and dances with distant relatives who trod on her toes.

When the last guest had finally been ushered through the Floo with the assistance of the Macnair house-elves—few people were foolish enough to attempt Apparition after all the toasts that had been drunk to the young couple's happiness—and the bride and bridegroom were left alone in their new suite, Minerva betrayed no nerves or shyness. She was, however, exhausted and irritable, and the prospect of enduring Gerald's efforts to consummate their marriage was more than she wanted to think about.

Yet there he was, grinning shyly at her.

Her husband.

Just standing there.

We'll be standing here all night unless I take the Bicorn by the horns.

She almost giggled at the aptness of her own metaphor, but she stifled it just in time. She was sure it wouldn't help if her new husband thought she was laughing at him.

"Shall I change now?" she asked a somewhat surprised Gerald.

"Yes," he replied. "Why don't you use the dressing room? I'll just change out here."

She nodded and disappeared into the dressing room, emerging five minutes later in the ecru-silk Point d'Angleterre-lace nightdress and matching dressing gown her mother had given her for her wedding night.

Gerald, who was now wearing a set of light-blue silk pyjamas, seemed at a loss for words for a few moments.

When he found his tongue, he said, "Merlin, Minerva, you look beautiful!"

"Thank you."

He approached her, took her gently by the upper arms, and kissed her. When he thrust his tongue into her mouth, she couldn't help making a quick mental comparison with the way Professor Dumbledore had kissed her; his lips and tongue had been gentle and teasing rather than randomly probing.

She tentatively brought her hands up to rest on Gerald's waist as he continued his foray into her mouth. When he broke the kiss, he took one of her hands and moved it to his crotch where she could feel his erection under the thin silk of his pyjama bottoms.

"Do you know what that is, Minerva?" he asked softly.

She said nothing, for fear of laughing, but left her hand where he had put it.

"It's how I feel about you," he said.

Oh, for Merlin's sake.

She began to rub his erection and was gratified by the look of surprise in his eyes.

"Do you like the way it feels?" he asked her.

Her nanny's words rang in her head: "Begin as you mean to go on."

"Yes," she lied. She didn't care one way or the other about his stupid cock, but it was just as well to start things off on as pleasant a note as possible.

"Let's lie down," he said hoarsely.

He went to the bed and turned down the heavy brocade bedclothes, grinning at her like a little boy at Christmas, which quelled her annoyance a bit. He could be rather sweet, she thought.

She removed her dressing gown and got in, Gerald sliding in next to her.

"Would you like the candles out?" he asked.

"Whichever you prefer, Gerald," she answered.

"Lit, then."

He turned to her and began to move his hands over her body, murmuring, "So beautiful, Minerva . . ." She resisted the strong urge to bat his hands away and do it herself when he began to tug at her nightdress.

Once he had worked it up above her waist, he rolled over on top of her, whispering, "Open your legs, darling," and kissing her neck.

She did so, and felt him reach down to wrestle with the drawstring to his pyjama bottoms. When he had freed his member, he looked into her eyes and said, "Just relax, Minerva. I'll be gentle."

She couldn't help wincing as he prodded around with his penis, trying to find the right spot. Gerald noticed her discomfort, repeating, "Just relax." When he found his purchase and thrust into her, she gasped. She had deliberately neglected to use the charm Professor Dumbledore had given her—Gerald might have noticed and thought it odd if she were too wet during her "deflowering"—and his penetration was painful.

"Sorry, darling," he grunted as he started to pump into her. "It will only hurt for a minute."

And how would you know? thought Minerva. As a matter of fact, it hurt quite a bit, and she decided she would try to slow him down a little, both to allow her some relief from his wild thrusting and in the hope that it might inform their future encounters.

"Gerald, just wait a minute . . ."

"Just relax . . . be done in a minute," he panted.

"No, it's just—"

"Shhh," he said. "Relax."

So she gave up and just gritted her teeth, hoping he would be as quick as promised.

When tears threatened to breach her composure, she exercised her rudimentary Occlumency skills to keep them at bay. As Gerald puffed heavily above and inside her, she focused her mind on reciting to herself verbatim the five principal exceptions to Gamp's Law. This exercise would prove quite useful over the nights and years to come.

When he finally finished two minutes later, he rolled off her, kissed her cheek, and sighed happily. "Now you're really mine," he said, pulling her stiff form close to him and kissing her ear.

A few minutes later, she heard his breathing become heavy and regular, so she gently disengaged herself from his arm. Silently Summoning her wand, she used a lancing spell to employ one of the oldest tricks on record, Muggle or magical: she opened a small cut on her thumb and allowed a few drops of blood to stain the white sheets between her legs. She then sealed the wound, doused the candles, placed her wand on the nightstand, and tried to sleep.

2 July 1944

Stirling had just Apparated to the laundry from Young Master Gerald and the New Young Mistress's suite when he felt a violent tug on his ear that sent him and the sheets he had been carrying flying through the air to land in a heap on the stone floor.

He looked up to see Master advancing on him, and he had to work hard to prevent the trembling he knew would earn him even worse than whatever Master had planned for him at the moment.

Relief washed over him when, instead of kicking him, Master simply whipped the sheets off the floor where they were tangled around the elf, upending and depositing him once again on the floor with a hard crack to his head.

"Oaf," Master said. Then he delivered the expected kick, though not as hard as Stirling would have expected, thanks be to Völundr.

Master wrestled with the large sheets, looking for something, and when he found it, the look on his face rendered all Stirling's efforts to prevent trembling moot.

Looking at his prize for a few moments, Master then raised the dirty sheet to his nose and inhaled deeply. When Master's hand found its way to his fly and began to unbutton it, Stirling knew it was time to go. It was disloyal, and he would devise some punishment for himself later, he thought, but just now, he would be happy to let another luckless elf happen across the scene in the laundry. Stirling had done his service on enough occasions; let someone else spend his morning gagging on the taste of the Master for a change.

Once he was safely back in the kitchens, Stirling headed to the storage cupboard to find some healing herbs. He would ask Pixar to mix up some of her special tinctures that was so soothing for bumps and bruises. If experience was any guide, Stirling thought, poor Mistress would be needing them today.