"…Really very irresponsible..."

Minerva wasn't really listening, because she knew it was futile. It was much more interesting to watch Albus try and be angry with her and try not to laugh at the same time.

"…Memories had to be modified, Minerva…"

It was a strange role reversal. Usually it was she who lectured him on responsibility and duty. Usually she who lectured many others on those subjects.

"…Minerva, are you even listening?"

She blinked, glanced up into his eyes, and a smile twitched at the corners of her lips. "Actually, no."

Albus sighed, pursed his lips in the most unusual manner, then seemed to falter, and broke out into a grin. "Merlin damn it, Minerva, why can I not be angry with you?"

She chuckled, and stepped closer to him. "Because you are impressed. All the time."

He arched a brow. "I am, am I? Well…" he looked about, as if to find evidence to refute her claim; then screwed up his face like a petulant school boy. "Well, it did take me quite a while to get rid of the tree. You transfigured it all wandlessly, and then you apparated me across the United Kingdom. Has no one ever told you not to accept anything to eat or drink from a hippy?"

She rolled her shoulders in a shrug. "I was stuck in an elevator with Sybill Trelawney. What is that muggle saying about desperate times and desperate measures?" She arched a brow at him "Has Sybill come out of her trance, yet?"

"Last night. She shared a few of her visions with me. Frightening, heartening. I'm not sure whether or not to hope they are true."

She wasn't quite sure what to reply. It seemed that the hallucinogen, whatever it had been, had brought their wild magic to the surface. Dangerous, possibly, but rather exhilarating.

"I found out what was in it, by the way." He spoke as if he had been reading her mind, and his eyes twinkled. He smiled like a child with a secret.

Minerva searched him with her eyes. "How?"

"Severus analysed the contents of the bottle." The smile grew wider then. He lobed to bait her, and she was just like a fish, or perhaps a cat.

"Severus! You didn't… tell him…?"

He chuckled with obvious mirth. "Of course I did. Everyone needs a good laugh once in a while, even Severus Snape!"

She smiled at him, mock sweetly. "Did his villa in Hogsmeade appear comfortable?"

For a moment, Albus looked disconcerted, but he hid it well. "I suppose so. Why?"

"Because you'd best hurry and ask him for asylum before it gets too late – you're certainly not sharing my bed tonight!" And with a small smile, she turned; arms folded, and sat herself resolutely down on one of the lounges, back to him, so she didn't have to see the look on his face.

"Oh, come on Minerva…" His voice was like the wine of a puppy, pathetic but sweet. Minerva steeled herself. She didn't like dogs. "…Don't be like that." She felt his weight press against the lounge behind her, and he began to pluck at the pins that held her hair in its tight bun.

"Albus…" There was warning in her tone.

"Oh, come, Minerva, don't be like that. Don't you want to know what was in the stuff?" His fingers played lightly against the back of her neck, but she refused to be manipulated by him again.

"Not particularly." She did; oh Merlin, she did – curiosity and the cat, of course – but she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.

Slowly but surely, her bun was giving way to a single, thick curl of twisted hair. He traced fingers from the top of her head down the back of her neck, pulling the thick strands apart as he did. "Mmm, Minerva, I love your hair."

She could not help the smile that crept into her voice then. "I know."

"You smell good enough to eat, as always." She wore vanilla. She was rather fond of it, and she knew how much Albus loved sweets.

His hands cupped her shoulders and kneaded the muscles that tied themselves in knots at the base of her neck. Even when she wasn't teaching, she was a very pensive person. She could feel his breath against her cheek and his words were almost inaudible in her ear.

"Tea, laced with LSD and mescaline. More of the former than the latter. No wonder the effects were so strong. No wonder I ended up in London in my pyjamas through no will of my own. No wonder you turned those men into monkeys."

Minerva was vaguely impressed by the sheer carelessness of what she had done; it was really very out of character for her, really very reckless. Drinking an unknown substance supplied by muggles of questionable beliefs. Alastor Moody was going to thoroughly lecture her when he found out. It was something she would have chastised members of her house for severely, something that would have resulted in loss of house points and very long detentions. Something that showed a complete lack of common sense.

And yet…

It had been fun. Losing control had been fun. Doing something unexpected; fun. There was precious little that she didn't do by many years of formula, practice and routine, and a simple disruption to normality had been rather welcome.

Even if it did involve Sybill Trelawney.

She turned, then, twisted in Albus' grasp and turned on the lounge to face him. It was a movement quite out of the ordinary for a woman her age, or of any age, really, but twisting herself about using her back was something Minerva was good at. One did not spend time as a cat without learning such things. Her hands locked over Albus', and she eyed him with a predatory, feline gaze.

He smiled at her wickedly, blinked his eyes, and the lounge she was kneeling upon morphed into a bed of ridiculous proportions.

"Show off." She smirked.

He winked at her. "Not at all."

She could remember the feeling of what had occurred during the trip, could remember it well, the rising of wild magic within her, untamed by wand, using her as its vessel and exploding rather than imploding, as it did when she transformed. She wondered if she could recreate it.

It felt like an elastic band breaking, when she did it this time, and, as she watched, the simple robes she wore morphed into a long sapphire chemise, and his into a bathrobe. She smiled at him indulgently, and he arched a brow.

"Well… I'm impressed. But not impressed enough."

He came down on top of her, then, and his kisses ravished her. Curtains fell around the bed to shield them from the bright light of the room, and in an artificial twilight he moulded her with his hands and turned her to liquid beneath him.

Then she was atop him, pinning him to the bed and gazing down upon him with hungry eyes. Reaching one hand out behind her, she whispered "Accio" and felt something cool and hard land in her palm.

She grinned. She hadn't known where they had come from, at first, when she had pulled them from her jeans, but thinking back she remembered lifting them from one of the muggle security guards, while in delirium. She hadn't known they were real, at the time.

But they were.

She dangled them before Albus, and something bestial lit his eyes. A pair of muggle handcuffs, in all their simplistic glory.

"Now I am impressed, Minerva. You've always been an animal, but where did this come from?"

Her eyes twinkled. "Let's just say the kitten has found her inner tiger." They were not hard to figure out. Within moments she had cuffed him to the wrought iron headboard. Smiling, she pulled the cord of his robe out from beneath him as if extracting a snake from a bush. Kissing his nose, she tied it about his eyes, so he could neither see nor touch her.

She leaned close to him. "You know, Albus, I actually didn't realise how manipulative you were until you convinced me to go with Sybill. That was really very mean of you. You could have saved me the whole experience by going with her yourself."

She trailed her fingers down his chest. "I just thought you might like a demonstration of just how manipulative I can be in return."

He chuckled, deep in his throat. "Oh, I'm sure I will."

She grinned, although he could not see it, and slid off his body.

"Minerva…" There was a note of question in his voice.

Padding to the wardrobe and sliding her own bathrobe about her slim figure, she did not try to keep the glee out of her voice. "Yes, dear?"

"What are you doing?"

"Oh, don't you fret about that. You just hang in there."

He laughed, then. "Oh, Minerva, you are a wench." There was a noise, then, as if he had tried to transfigure the handcuffs into something else, but it was a sound of failure.

The chuckle was gone from his voice, then. "Minerva…"

"They're iron, dear."

"Minerva…"

"Like I said, you just hang in there. I promise I shall be appeased my desire for revenge within… let's say, within the hour."

"Minerva…"

But his only answer was melodic laughter drifting down the hall as Minerva went to make herself a nice hot cup of tea.