A/n: I am sorry it's taken what seems like ages for me to update, I have been trying to figure out where I want this story to go. It has changed slightly from what I had envisaged when I started it so please bare with me. Many thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, I really appreciate it and now on to the next chapter, enjoy!

Chapter Nine: Insufferable

Grace Windmill stared out of the cottage window; she was looking down the pebbled path that led from the gate to the cottage front door. She had been waiting by the window for the last half an hour and she was beginning to worry; her best friend and housemate should have been back from Hogsmeade an hour ago. It was so unlike Minerva to be late for anything, it wasn't in her nature to be late and with all the recent attacks, Grace was sick with worry.

They had dinner reservations at the local restaurant, Grace had arranged this because she needed to tell Minerva that she had decided to go back to Ireland next year and would be selling the cottage they shared. Grace had known Minerva since her days at Hogwarts; they had gone straight into Auror training after graduating but Grace had found it difficult to keep up with Minerva and her fellow classmates so she had left Auror training. Grace now had a job at St Mungo's as the receptionist but she wasn't finding it very fulfilling, a job had come up in Ireland and Grace had jumped at the chance to return home and see more of her family as well as a new job.

Grace looked over at the mantle clock and tapped her foot impatiently; they were going to miss their dinner reservations if Minerva didn't appear in the next few minutes. Though deep down Grace didn't give two hoots about the reservations, she was worried about her friend's safety. Minerva was well known in the wizarding world for her skills as an auror and that had made her target on several times, she could hold her own in battle but if she had been caught of guard, Graced dreaded to think what might happen. Grace knew that Minerva was rather sensible and was always on the look out, Grace assumed this was down to the fact that Alastor Moody had made them recite constant vigilance over and over again till it was imprinted on their brains.

Grace glanced out the window once more, the sky was grey and it looked like rain was on the way. A flash of green caught Grace's observant eye and she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw her best friend watching up the path with a thoughtful expression on her face. Grace hurried to the front door and opened it; she looked at her friend and crossed her arms.

"Where have you been?" asked Grace sternly, though she was over the moon to see that her friend was alive and well.

"Hogsmeade," answered Minerva "you knew that!"

"Have you forgotten about dinner?" questioned Grace as she watched Minerva walk past her and into the warm kitchen.

"Dinner!" said Minerva absent mindedly as she placed her shopping on the large, dark oak kitchen table.

Grace looked at her friend with surprise; she had never known Minerva to be forgetful. She looked closely and noticed that her friend had a glazed expression on her face, the type of look that Grace always got when she had just met the man of her dreams. Grace knew that a man couldn't be the reason for her friend's vacant expression because Minerva had always told her that she had no time for men when she was busy fighting a war.

"Yes dinner," said Grace "we had reservations!"

"Oh Merlin," replied Minerva as the sudden realisation hit her "I am so sorry Gracie, I ran into a few hiccups in town and that held me up!"

Grace looked at Minerva expectantly and was dismayed when Minerva decided to unpack her shopping instead of telling her what had happened in town. Grace had known that Minerva had arranged to meet up with Alastor Moody in town to discuss something and that Minerva was looking for a certain book, she could not fathom out what could have gone wrong.

"Do you think we have missed our reservation?" asked Minerva

"Yes!" answered Grace with a sigh "They have the policy that if you are more than ten minutes late, they give your table away!"

"Oh blast," cursed Minerva "I am so sorry Gracie, let me make it up to you. I'll cook us up a right treat tonight."

Minerva began to dash around the kitchen, opening all the cupboards and pulling items out and placing them on the kitchen table. Grace watched with amusement as he friend hurried around the kitchen with her out door cloak on.

"Minerva," said Grace "why don't you take your cloak off and sit down. I will make us a cup of tea and you can tell me why we missed our dinner reservations."

Minerva smiled at her friend and did as she was told; she slipped off her cloak and levitated it over the muggle coat and hat stand before sitting down and sighing to herself. Grace set about making tea for the both of them and found some ginger newts for them to dunk into their tea as they talked.

"Men are insufferable!" began Minerva

"What Moody do this time?" asked Grace, it was known that Alastor at times could drive people up the wall with his goings on.

"Surprisingly," replied Minerva with a grin "I am not talking about him!"

Grace looked over her shoulder at Minerva and wondered whom she was talking about.

"Oh you didn't bump into Claus did you," she asked, Claus Montague had taken a shine to Minerva a few months and had been sending flowers ever since as well as trying to fix up a date with her.

Minerva shuddered at the mere mention for Claus' name, she couldn't stand the man and they way he thought that money could buy him anything, including her affections. She had got Grace to answer the door when ever he knocked and tell him that she was at the ministry working late, he had fallen for it a few times but then Minerva had sneezed once and her cover had been blown.

"No, thank Merlin," said Minerva with a smile "but I was knocked to the floor by a childish pillar of society, then his brother began following me and when I finally thought I had some peace and quiet, there he was in the bookshop!"

"The brother? Grace asked as she poured the hot water into the two cups, she liked to make tea the muggle way because it tasted better.

"Not the brother," snapped Minerva "aren't you listening?"

"Calm down lioness," replied Grace as she set the cup down in front of Minerva and handed her the plate of ginger newts "I am confused. Slow down and tell me again!"

Grace was one of the only people who could get away with reprimanding Minerva, if it was anyone else, they would have been hexed severely. Grace reached for a ginger newt and dunked it in her tea before eating it while Minerva looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Albus I am the saviour Dumbledore was coming out of Honeydukes with bags of sweets and knocked me to the floor because he wasn't looking where he was going," began Minerva again as she wrapped her hands around her cup of tea.

"Oh I would have been so happy to have him do that to me!" Grace answered with a dreamy expression.

"You would, you go all unnecessary for anything with a pulse" said Minerva with a smile "Getting back to my story, I found him to be arrogant and rude. I didn't want to spend any more time in his company so I walked away and then I see someone following me, it looked like him except for different robes. I lost my temper with and warned him to stop however, I am in the bookshop and he only walks in!"

Grace looked at her friend, she was still confused and she was sure that Minerva had mentioned a brother somewhere along the lines at first. She had left her biscuit in her tea for too long and as she went to bite into it, it dropped off and landed in her tea.

"So where does the brother thing come into it?" asked Grace as she banished her tea to the nearby sink.

"Well it turns out that it wasn't him who had been following me but his brother!" explained Minerva.

"Why was he doing that?" asked Grace.

"How in the name of Merlin, do I know?" replied Minerva irritably.

"Oh," said Grace with a shrug "what happened in the bookshop?"

"He wanted the book I had," explained Minerva before sipping her tea "so I gave it to him."

Grace eyed her friend curiously; she hadn't expected that from how she had been ranting about him before. Usually Minerva would have kept the book out of spite if someone had upset her. She was beginning to think that there was something more, something she wasn't being told. She watched as Minerva got up from her chair and made her way over to the sink, something silver caught her eye.

"Is that a new dress?" asked Grace

"Pardon?" questioned Minerva as she turned around.

"Was that the dress you were wearing when you left this morning?" asked Grace, she was sure that Minerva had been wearing a plain black dress when she had left that morning and now there were silver swirls just to the side, above the knee.

"Of course it is Gracie!" replied Minerva with confusion.

"Those swirls weren't there this morning" pointed out Grace.

"Oh," said Minerva with a blush and coy smile "Albus did that for me, quite a good job isn't it!"

"Oh is Albus now," teased Grace "I knew there was more to this story!"

"Shut up Grace," warned Minerva "I am going to take a bath and then start on dinner!"

Grace smiled to herself as she was watched Minerva sweep away, she had obviously hit on something to make Minerva blush as she had and she couldn't wait to find out some more from her friend.

TO BE CONTINUED!