Dolores apparated back home and immediately picked all the presents she had thought Lonely Soul had sent her and put them together on the kitchen table. She tried to arrange them in different ways: by colour, by size, by date of arrival... but nothing gave her a clue as to who could be the person sending them. Who could know her so well? The presents had been always things she liked a lot, so that meant the person who sent them knew her. Dolores changed into her favourite pyjama -one with red dragons flying around and breezing fire- and her cow patterned slippers, she made herself some tea, took parchment and quill, and started making a list of the people she knew. She didn't dare leave women or married men out, especially not after her frustrating experience with Skeeter. Then she proceeded to strike out the names that she thought were absolutely out of the question and to write the reason why between brackets:

Albus Dumbledore (no comment)

Arthur Weasley (too stupid to notice me)

Remus Lupin (werewolf, would never dare approach me)

Edvard Bergen (werewolf, same reason as above)

Lucius Malfoy (in prison)

Minerva McGonagall (would sooner hex me than send me a present)

Rubeus Hagrid (not clever enough to fool me for so long)

Sybill Trelawny (couldn't afford the presents)

That left a small list. She didn't have many acquaintances to speak of.

Cordelius Fudge (we've known each other for a very long time)

Narcissa Malfoy (beats me why, but maybe she is bored)

Severus Snape (certainly has the money and is clever enough, might have fallen in love with me while I was at Hogwarts)

Dolores shuddered at the possibility of being courted by Narcissa Malfoy. Even Minister Fudge was a bit revolting, although being the wife of the Minister wouldn't be a bad thing. As for Severus Snape... Well, the man hadn't been as cooperative as she had expected him to be while she stayed at Hogwarts, and it was rumoured that he was a Death Eater, although it hadn't been proofed. Snape had certainly had a chance to study her while she was at Hogwarts, and Dolores thought he was the most probable candidate. The man didn't look half-bad himself, and after he had showered ten or twelve times... maybe he would look even attractive.

Dolores rubbed her eyes tiredly and looked at her watch. It was already past midnight and she was getting nowhere. She'd better get into bed and wait until morning.

*****

The following morning, Sunday, Dolores was awakened by the big grey owl with the white belly. She jumped out of her bed and untied the package from its leg. She unwrapped it... More flowers. She smelled them with her eyes closed and her sleepy brain offered her a sudden solution: track the owl!

She took her wand and, pointing it at the unsuspecting bird, put a tracking spell on it before sending it out of the window. The owl had always been the same, so it probably belonged to the person sending the presents and would go back to its owner. She run to her office and searched between her papers for a map of London. Pointing her wand at the map, she conjured up the tracking spell once more. A red line started moving from the street where she lived. It seemed the owl was flying North.

Dolores started biting her nails without noticing it. When she realised what she was doing, she decided it was time to stop staring at the map. She had a shower, went to the kitchen, made herself some tea and a couple of toasts, and took them to the office. The owl had left London. She searched for a map of England and conjured up the tracking spell once more. The owl was still flying North and had almost reached Scotland. Two cups of tea afterwards and after repeating the mapping spell on two other maps, Dolores knew where the owl was now: Hogwarts!

The old castle was protected and she couldn't follow the owl inside its territory, but there weren't other buildings in the area, so whoever was sending her the presents must be living in the castle. Dolores thought again in all the possibilities, but again only Severus Snape seemed to match. It was Sunday after all, so Dolores thought she might as well pay a visit to the Potions Master and confront him about his presents. She was sure he would be astounded that she had been clever enough to find him out, and would probably ask her to marry him right there.

With a superior smile on her face, Dolores put on her new red dress, scratched herself, took it off, threw it into the fire and put on an old and simple dress she wasn't allergic to.

A couple of hours later, Severus Snape stood gaping at Dolores Umbridge as she explained the reason of her visit. He didn't know when the indisposition had begun -when the mad woman sitting in front of him had accused him of sending her presents, when she had stated flatly that she would gladly marry him, or when she had winked at him-, but he knew that he needed to run to the bathroom and throw up. It wasn't repulsion, it wasn't disgust, it was simply fear. Severus Snape was a brave man, but he'd rather face ten Dark Lords or ten annoying Grangers than be the love interest of Dolores Umbridge. He swallowed with difficulty, took a sip of his water, cleared his throat, and spoke for the first time since the woman had come unexpectedly into his office.

"Madam, let me assure you that I have no idea what you are talking about. I've never ever sent you any presents and I'm certainly not interested in marriage nor in any other kind of love affair."

Dolores Umbridge had thought about the possibility of Snape being shy and denying at first what he felt for her, so she wasn't disappointed in the least.

"I can understand your shock at being discovered, Severrrrus," Dolores purred. "I'm a patient woman, and I can wait. I just wanted you to know that you've been discovered, and that your feelings are very welcomed." She winked once more, and Snape thought he would throw up for sure this time, but someone saved him.

Dolores Umbridge didn't know it, but she had interrupted a very secret meeting of the Order of the Phoenix. Severus Snape had developed a potion that might help them block the Cruciatus curse for a while, and they were all in his lab, waiting to test it, when the unexpected visitor had knocked on the office's door. Not wanting to be discovered by Umbridge, as she was sure to give them trouble, they decided to wait in silence in Snape's lab while the Professor and spy received his unwanted guest and tried to get rid of her as fast as possible. They wondered what the Ministry officer could want from Snape, and on a Sunday too!, but they didn't have to wait long to know, since they could hear her voice clearly from where they stood. By the time Umbridge had finished speaking, Dumbledore had had to put a silencing charm on all of them, himself included, and had even had to stun Sirius, who was in danger of suffocating from laughing so hard.

Nevertheless Dumbledore knew his best spy was in trouble, and he knew the Order had to act. With his wand, he wrote some letters in mid-air. They were difficult to read, because his hand was still shaking with laughter, but the members of the Order nodded in understanding. The chosen ones took deep breaths and prepared themselves. Dumbledore lifted three fingers one by one, and when he lifted the third one, he pointed his wand at Tonks, Lupin and Sprout.

Just when Severus Snape thought things couldn't get worse, he saw the door to his lab open and Tonks come out of it, very scantily dressed.

"Sevy, dear, aren't you coming back to bed?"

It was lucky that Umbridge was too busy staring daggers at the girl to see Snape rubbing the bridge of his nose and swearing silently to take revenge on Dumbledore for this.

And things got even worse: Tonks started walking up to him and sat on his lap. She then turned to Umbridge and asked in a sweet voice:

"Oh! Are you joining the party, dear?"

Umbridge looked at her nonplussed and only stopped staring at the girl when another person entered her field of vision: Professor Sprout, clad in a very frilly négligé. The old woman went over to Snape and started running her hands through his oily hair while saying:

"Dear, it's getting cold in bed without you, what is taking you so long?"

Sprout looked then at Umbridge as if she hadn't noticed her before and said:

"Oh, hi! Are you joining us?"

"You are bigamous!" Dolores shouted incredulously.

And then came the last straw. Lupin came into the room shirtless, yawning and stretching as if he had just woken up.

"Good morning!" He joked cheerfully, and planted a sonorous kiss in Snape's lips.

Dolores covered her eyes in horror, and thus didn't see Snape spitting like a mad cat and cleaning his lips in disgust.

"Bigamous and... and... sleeping with half-breeds!" Umbridge shouted when she couldn't stand it any longer. "And all this is happening in a school! For Merlin's sake! You are as well as fired, Snape! All of you! I'll see to it, believe me!"

With those last words, Dolores took her bag and left Snape's office with a resounding bang of the door. Inside the room, the members of the Order where laughing as they had never laughed before while Severus Snape, Hogwarts Professor and spy, threw up as if he had been hit by the most powerful Cruciatus curse.

"What... what are we... going to... do... now..., Al-Albus?" A shaking-from-laughter Professor McGonagall asked.

"We'll have to... obliviate her... or something..., Mi-Minerva," Dumbledore tried to answer.

They went on laughing for a very long time.

*****

Umbridge was mad with anger, thinking in how to best ruin Snape's career forever as she stormed down the Hogwarts grounds, but her bad mood didn't prevent her from seeing a big grey owl with a white belly resting on a tree branch at the entrance of the Forbidden Forest. Dolores froze in her tracks. What if Snape wasn't her mysterious admirer after all?

Dolores approached the owl cautiously, and when she was very close, the owl looked at her and then took fly, as if wanting her to follow it. Dolores hesitated. She had been in the Forbidden Forest before, and she didn't enjoy the experience much. But her curiosity was stronger, and so she started walking into the forest.

It was already dusk when Dolores finally reached a clearing. Her mouth fell open at once when she saw something unexpected in the middle of it: a big table laid for two, with red candles and a bunch of flowers like the ones she had been receiving during the past days. She approached the table slowly, very slowly, looking around, but there was no one. The table was laid with a big variety of dishes, all of them steaming, and Dolores saw amongst them some of her own favourites. A bottle of French red wine suddenly lifted itself from the table and poured itself on one of the cups, which then flew to Dolores' hand.

With a trembling voice filled with emotion, Dolores muttered a quiet 'Cheers' and then took a sip of the delicious wine.

"It took you long enough," a familiar voice said to her right. Dolores turned a bit to face the speaker, but he was hidden in the shadows and she couldn't see him clearly.

"Who are you? Why are you sending me presents?" She asked, hoping to recognise his voice if he spoke again.

"It doesn't really matter who I am, all that matters is that I love you," the voice said, and Dolores' started to cry with joy. "I've been in love with you since the moment I saw you," the voice went on saying. "I know our love would be against many people's morals, mine included, but I just can't fight against my feelings, I have to fight for them."

Dolores took the bottle of wine, poured herself some more and then filled the other cup on the table. Then she took both cups and started walking to the voice, wanting to see him and, at the same time, dreading it.

As she came closer, she could see his face more clearly, and she almost fainted when she saw his manly lips, his bright eyes... How could a man like this be in love with her? What had she done to deserve him? Was it her integrity? her dashing smile? her sensuous body?

She was standing now almost touching him. Dolores couldn't take her eyes of his, she was hypnotised by their power. She felt two strong arms embrace her and let the cups fall to the ground and shatter to put her hands, now free, around the man's neck while he kissed her like nobody had ever kissed her before. Such passion, such fire Dolores had never experienced in her life.

Little by little their kiss deepened and their hands started travelling down each other's bodies, getting to know their respective curves. Dolores' hands reached her lover's hips and then... then... where were the legs? A little bit shocked, she broke the kiss and looked down for the first time, and where her lover's feet should have been, she could see... hoofs! Dolores took several steps backwards to her lover's obvious surprise.

"What is it, my love?" He asked, and Dolores finally recognised the voice: it belonged to one of the centaurs that had kidnapped her all those weeks ago. Vein or Bane, or something like that.

"You are, you are..."

"Yes," the centaur Bane said with a condescending smile, "I know you must be surprised to see that I, a superior being, am humble enough to notice a human, but while you were our captive, I couldn't help but fall in love with you, and now all I want is to spend my life with you."

Before Dolores could react, he approached her, coming out of the shadows and letting Dolores see his horse body for the first time. He paraded proudly for her, and when Dolores still didn't react, he took her hands in his and said:

"Come, my dear, let me show you your new home."

With that, he took Dolores with his strong arms and sat her on his back. She gripped his human chest in a reflexive movement to avoid falling, and then Bane started galloping into the deep forest.

The moon and the stars in the sky where the only ones to ever see the loving couple, the only ones to bear testimony to their lifelong happiness.

THE END