Chapter 7: The Past Revealed

Minerva McGonagall and Severus Snape were officially lovers. There was no other way to describe the first two months of the school term. They spent a few nights a week together, usually after one of them had evening patrol of the corridors where it was easy to slip in or out of one another's rooms.

Some nights they made love and some nights they just spent talking. Most nights, it was a combination of both. Severus showed more and more interest in her past and Minerva found it easy to open up to him. One day while sitting on her couch discussing her brief marriage he asked "How come you never choose to have children?"

Minerva made a sound like a "Hmph" and took a few minutes before answering. Severus was worried he pushed too far into her private world but she finally responded. "I always wanted children but I always had an excuse for why I wasn't ready."

She paused for a moment and when Severus stayed silent she explained further "I spent my twenties and thirties putting my career first, whether it was the Ministry and then Hogwarts. But mostly, to be honest, I spend my youth constantly fighting my guilt"

Severus looked up at her confused, when she didn't elaborate he asked "What were you feeling guilty for?"

She straightened her back to sit up tall. Almost as if she was making herself strong before battle. "I choose magic over love"

Severus turned his head slightly with a look of bewilderment on his face. Minerva knew she would have to explain further, it was yet another story she had confessed to no other person. She got up from the couch and walked over to stare at the fire. She drew strength from the flames.

"When I was 18 I returned to my home town and fell madly in love with a neighbor. He was a muggle but that mattered little, at least at first. We had a summer of passion and fun and I was beside myself when he proposed. I said yes in a heartbeat! I would have loved to have had children with him. After the excitement of our engagement wore off, I started remembering the despair of my mother. She kept her magic under wraps to live in a muggle world. The oppression of her magic filled her with grief. Her love of my father was not enough to overcome her depression. She married her true love and yet she was sad and lonely her whole life trying to be something that she was not. "

She turned to face Severus to see his reaction, she knew he grew up in a mixed household as well but his circumstances were much more dire, she was afraid he would think her petty and silly for complained about a mom that didn't smile enough.

To her surprise, he showed concern and he walked to her and grabbed her hands in both of his. "what did you do?" he asked. He was looking into her eyes but she needed to look away, still not at peace with her actions from her youth, she stared at the fire as she said "I broke his heart…and mine…and I ran back to London. Got a job at the Ministry, and put up a wall around my heart. I led myself to believe that I didn't deserve to love again. I wasted my youth on my guilt and I never allowed myself a second chance at love and thus, to have a family."

The emotion hit home for Severus, after loving Lily for so long and then being responsible for her death it had left him a broken man, full of guilt, and with walls around his heart that he thought were impenetrable. Minerva, he realized, was challenging that wall around his heart.

"What about your marriage?" he asked.

She hadn't shared this much about herself with anyone, even Pomona, but she really wanted Severus to understand, it was important to her. "I loved my husband, but not the way a woman should love a man. He was a wonderful companion and friend. He adored me from the moment we met and he had tried to marry me for years." She smiled when she said that, thinking of all his attempts to persuade her.

"After the fall of he-who-must-not-be named, I had seen and experienced so much pain and sadness that when he asked again, it was an attractive thought to spend a lifetime with someone who made me happy. He was intelligent and kind, he made me laugh, and he was madly in love with me. I was in my forties when we married so kids were still an option but he wasn't so keen on the idea. Then he died three years into our marriage so I was alone again and had to find a new way to fill the void."

"And how did you fill that void?" he asked

"Simply" she said with a smirk. "I entered into a highly physical and erotic relationship with a much younger man" she said as she placed her hand on his chest.

Severus felt his body react simply to the word erotic passing her lips and her hand making his way across his chest. He traced her lips with his fingers. "And did this…erotic…relationship fill the void" he asked. In response, she took his finger in too her mouth and sucked hard on it while nodding her head yes.

Severus brought his lips to her neck and sucked lightly. He then trailed kisses up to her ear and whispered in his deep hypnotic voice between kisses "I have some…erotic… suggestions… that might…help…even more" as he kissed her all the way into the bedroom.