Well everybody, I find great humor in this chapter! I hope you see it too! And yup, there are gonna be one or two "aws" in there!


Chapter Eleven: A Visit

He held her tightly, wrapping both of his arms around her waist while her arms were draped about his neck as they moved to the enchanted piano's concerto whilst the dark swarmed in around them from the wonderful day. What a wonderful day it had been, indeed: walking along the shore, talking, laughing, the odd kiss here and there—absolutely wonderful. Minerva found herself wishing for the first time in such a very long time that the day would not end and she could find herself in perpetual happiness; she wished with all of her heart that the evening would be good to her for once in her life; no nightmares, no screaming, no Edwin, nothing that would make her mind be changed with Albus.

Perhaps, Minerva reasoned with herself, she did love him. Maybe her wish that his arms would never leave her or that he'd whisper something soft into her ear meant something; maybe she had finally found happiness in someone; maybe life could be easier if she felt the way she did in those moments all of the time of the rest of her existence; maybe she could finally say "love" and mean it; maybe she was fooling herself just like she had with Edwin—or perhaps not.

Love's definition, she had been told, was the need for a person so great, that without them, life would not be worth living. It was such a simple meaning, lacking any gray areas when all around it was black and white, that it gave way to the fact that love should be easy to distinguish, but it was not. There were so many factors, so many fears, that she was unable to separate into what mattered and what did not. All she did know, all she could possibly know, was that things felt so incredibly right when he held her close; so close that she was nearly a part of him, breathing and feeling as he did.

The woman looked up at him, not for the first time or the last, and suspected him of having the very same glimmer in his eyes as she felt herself to have. She wanted to call it love, but never trusting herself to speak such a word, referred to it as happiness; people always had those shimmering eyes when all in the world seemed to be right.

But maybe he saw more than just happiness when she dared to stare upon him, for he whispered ever so gently, almost heartbreakingly slow, "I love you."

There was a fear deep down inside the woman as she said the words, but they didn't feel so close to a lie as they once had, "I love you too."

And he kissed her; nothing elaborate or hardly even sexual, but just a simple kiss that left her lips tingling, aching for another touch to stop the shaking. She didn't ask for, nor even imply that she wanted him to make contact with the woman again (despite her urge to do so), but rather stood in awe for a fair few seconds before drawing her head to his chest and began whispering tenderly.

"You're much too good to me."

Being the giant he was, the man moved closer to her by placing his head on top of hers, and then spoke back to her, "I don't believe you've ever been treated well to begin with."

She blinked, unknown to him, and had a quick, sad thought of the last three years before responding to the man, who had not asked a question but who she knew was very desperate for the truth. "I haven't been," she sighed. "I've never had anyone love me." The truth hurt sometimes, and with those words there was no exception, for she felt a strong pain in her throat that she'd never been able to eradicate.

All at once, the darkness from the outside seemed to invade the man's home and the piano's music seemed to fade, though it had not been told to stop, and Albus stopped moving also, though he continued to hold her. There seemed to be a long, deafening silence before the man spoke, but it was in a voice that she did not believe she had ever heard, drawing a sad, almost lonely sort of tone, "But you have been in love before?"

Certainly, she had been in love, but she did not respond with such a sure voice when the nerve to speak was finally brought up after countless moments. "Yes," her voice shook.

"Minerva," he ran a hand through her long hair, "please tell me what happened to him—to you, because of him. I've heard you cry in your sleep these last two nights and I feel so helpless, watching you toss and turn and cry—you cried last night by the fire. I know you turned to keep me from realizing it, but I did, and it made me feel all the more sad that you couldn't tell me why or what or who."

She had not told anyone, not ever, what had happened; even her mother had been in the dark with certain events. No one but Minerva ever knew the "why" of it all, other than perhaps the fact that alcohol had gotten the better of him. While it was true that she earned the promotion which the man resented at that time, she had to forego it in order to become well, and even so, Edwin had heard the news long before it was meant to be announced to anyone. No one but Minerva would ever know that her lover had taken on a drunken rage after learning that his younger, perhaps a wee bit less experienced fiancée, had earned a position that he had been waiting to take.

Minerva could never tell him it all, even if she was able to muster some of it; she wouldn't wish it upon anyone, let alone herself, to see or think about what she saw in or out of her dreams.

"It isn't quite that simple," she whispered, "the what and why and who are complicated."

"And the when and where and how?"

Despite herself, a bittersweet smile crossed her face. He was a compassionate person, but he was rather like a child some days; an inquisitive child, at that. Albus wanted to know far too much far too soon; he wasn't ready for the story of her heartbreak anymore than she was ready to tell it—well, perhaps that was her fear speaking, but he couldn't handle the truth, even if he wanted. "It's all complicated," she sighed, "all…all I know is that he never loved me like you love me."

There was a silence, suddenly quite thoughtful, where Minerva could only think of her last few words which she realized she meant with everything inside of her; Albus loved her. She could not dispute it, though she sometimes wished she could for her own want of staying well out of heartbreak's way, but that was impossible. He loved her like no one ever had, and she knew for one, and only one, reason: he wanted to listen; the man wanted inside her head, inside her being; Albus…Albus saw that she would only be happy with the person who would, in a manner of speaking, break her down and then build her up.

His arms pulled her as near to him as possible, so close that she could hear his quickening heartbeat, and then she thought he was going to speak, but nothing came. The man, it seemed, was quite suddenly unable to say a word.

The woman lifted her head away from Albus's chest and looked up at him. She could barely see his eyes in the darkness, but she could feel them upon her, staring deep, deep, deep down and she felt the most sudden urge to cry; he loved her like no other had ever even dreamed of loving her and that struck her not as odd, but as amazing. She loved him and he loved her, and he never wanted to leave her side; he wanted them to be happy forever and ever; Minerva found herself wanting, wishing, praying that she could be blessed with such a wonderful future.

Her fingers gently ran over his coarse chin and then lips, soon followed by the back of his neck; she pulled him to her and their lips met. His hand weaved through her long hair while the other cradled her back and she pushed for him, wanting to see him and only him, to feel him and only him on her skin, to taste his kiss and nothing more. She loved him.


There was darkness as there always was in the evening, but it didn't feel like it, not to Albus. The world suddenly seemed bright and cheerful and exhilarating as he had always hoped it would be.

She was in his grasp, resting her head upon his arm, twiddling her fingers with the stray hair on his chest while a contented smile hung on her lips. Minerva had not said a word in what seemed like forever, but he didn't care; he knew by her expression that she was happier than she had been in so very long and it was all his doing: his kiss, his touch, his love.

He ran a hand along the smooth skin of her back in sweet unconsciousness, trembling on the line between sleep and wake. Albus was suddenly living in a perfect world, in a perfect dream that he prayed would never end for he had the love of Minerva; he could see it in her eyes, her smile, her actions and her words—Merlin, he loved it when she spoke to him in that soft, caring, almost ignorant-to-the-world manner; she simply made everything better. But he didn't want to hear her voice that second, for he knew quite well that she was lost in the exact same thoughts as he was, and he would never dream of interrupting such an engaging oblivion.

The woman's moving hand grew weaker as the next few seconds fell upon them and Albus knew well as she knew that the both of them were very well on the brink of slumber. Very gently, he ran his fingers through the crevices of her hand and held it there on his chest to quell their bodies' need to move.

Minerva, however, appeared to have no wish at all to give in to the agony that was sleep, for her soft, somnolent voice crept through the airy darkness. "Albus?"

Against his better judgment as a man slowly entering sleep, he replied back throatily, "Hmmm?"

"What do you dream about when you dream?"

His nearly shut eyes opened ever so slightly, against his body's wishes at this question. It was certainly in her nature to be inquisitive, but the woman often kept clear of the subject of sleeping, if only because she knew well that she often gave way her nightmarish dreams in the evenings. Certainly, if she brought of the subject, Minerva would be willing to tell him about whatever horrors haunted her in slumber?

The man blinked, not only out of thought, but to stay awake. "I dream of many things," he yawned, "mostly things like students and work—and you, more recently."

She gave a soft sigh. "And what about me, is it that you dream?"

His mouth opened and then closed at the thought of saying something hardly appropriate—a crude joke was not fit at all for the moment and he would have been severely reprimanded for it. "Well," he yawned again, "just…you. Your smile and laughter and yes, unhappiness; mostly I've been dreaming about just being with you; doing little things that make couples a couple."

"Mmm," she squeezed his hand gently, "that sounds absolutely wonderful. Maybe tonight you can give me a happy dream and I won't," she yawned slowly, teetering on the edge of sleep, "I won't wake up and have tears on my face or you looking at me like I'm a…" she stopped, not for sleep, but to avoid finishing that painful sentence.

Albus did not know what she was going to say, but he had a vague idea and he had no need to hear the word either. Thus, he spoke to her in ignorance of her low self-esteem, unwilling to hear the woman he loved be brought down to such a sad level, "I don't believe I've ever looked at you as anything less than a human being and I never shall."

There was a short silence, though it felt like an eternity, where neither of them spoke, but they were very much awake. To his surprise, his lover was the one to break the silence, not him; she spoke remorsefully, "Why weren't you in my life after school?"

Slightly caught off guard by the question, he didn't know how to respond; it certainly would not have turned out the same if he met her earlier instead of later in a romantic setting. They may have disliked each other…she may have thought him a pervert; it wouldn't have worked and both of them, perhaps, saw that, but Minerva chose to avoid that thought. The woman was convinced that she was meant for Albus, and he, though he dare not say it at the time, felt the exact same way.

Taking his silence as a sign to continue, or perhaps simply to keep from reaching a point of absolute dreariness, she continued, her voice growing slightly strained as the words fell from her mouth; "I would have been spared so much pain. I would have fallen in love with you and you would have fallen in love with me and we could have been happy…and had children by now; one, maybe two of them. We'd have named one of them after you," her voice cracked depressingly, "and the other after someone close to both of us…you'd have met my mother. She'd have loved you, you know." She stopped rather abruptly after that, for no discernible reason other than the fact that she just brought up her mother who had not died long beforehand.

He ran a thumb along her wrist with a bittersweet smile on his face. "I'm sure she was a wonderful woman. She must have been, if she raised you." The man lifted his head ever so slightly to catch a glimpse of Minerva, who had a soft arch to her lips in some sort of relief. Then he put his head back down on the pillow as the darkness surrounded him.

The man blinked slowly to himself and recovered what Minerva had just said: they would have been in love and named their children after people who were important to them. Then he blinked some more as a red light flashed through his brain. Children? She didn't want children; she'd said so herself. He squeezed the woman's hand again, prepping himself for a most probable difficult conversation, and spoke with an obvious air of confusion, "I thought you didn't want children?"

When there was no answer, he lifted his head up again, only to see Minerva with her eyes shut and a constant breathing pattern. He fell back to his pillow and blinked to himself, suddenly aware of three very important facts: Minerva was asleep, she no longer wanted children, and that he badly wanted to shut his eyes for the evening. In the end, he let all of his thoughts leave his mind to give way to slumber.


Aberforth woke up bright and early for no reason at all; hell, he'd been up until three cleaning up the mucus from a band of bottle-dwelling dingerworms that one of his customers had brought. He wouldn't have allowed the creatures to come in, except for the fact that their owner bought half the pub out, buying rounds for everyone until two in the morning; it seemed the muggle carnival thing he'd been working at, finally got a big break and decided to cover another country (to make a total of three). So, in respect for good business, he let the dingerworms occupy his pub (and empty bottles) until their owner left, which at that exact time the whole of them seemed to decide to trail mucus in order to follow their master—damned carnie freaks.

He was among the oddest of them, Aberforth could do more outrageous stuff than any of them, but he decided to be normal and run a pub in the middle of Hogsmeade. He had no respect for those who flaunted their magical talents to muggles; it took away pride. After all, what pride was there after a few days of making your beard grow? For Merlin's sake, at least be original and make it polka-dotted! Or green! If he were really ingenious, the bloke who decided to be in a carnival would make their beard grow in twigs and then make a bird pop out. Oh, that would get the muggles talking!

However, the man had much more devious things to do in the early morning besides create new ensembles for himself or any other man who wished to humiliate himself in front of muggles—though he bore no discretion against them, besides the fact that they were unbelievably boring. Aberforth had a brother to see.

Blinking sadly to himself, he imagined how tedious it would be, spending the next day or two with his brother, and immediately grew downcast. Albus was such a bore when he was near; books and the ministry were not interesting subjects to the man, and he feared very much the lectures from the eldest on staying on task and when certain events were that he cared nothing for. Merlin, of all the uninteresting, stupid, mind-numbing things to talk about! He rolled his eyes. No, he'd keep Albus interested for once; take him out for a night! Hell, both of them deserved it.

With a pop, he landed in front of his brother's summer home and opened the door. He was rather surprised to see now Albus anywhere, due in part to the fact that his brother was always up early, but then he figured maybe the man had finally gotten some sense into his system and was out cold from an evening of drinking. Now there was a lovely thought…

A smirk crossed his face as he tiptoed up the stairs to his brother's room. How wonderful it would be to just come barreling in there with something extremely loud; preferably something that bangs, not whistles. Oh, how Aberforth would have liked to wake him as he had been woken time and time again. He already had a line prepared for Albus, who claimed he did not believe in excessive drinking, but who had been caught on one or two occasions drinking a wee bit too much and waking with a rather malicious headache.

Still smiling evilly, he walked swiftly to the door, but stopped dead outside first, to transfigure himself a loud drum out of a rug that lined the corridor. When all was ready, he threw the door open, wand at hand to start the banging.

"Morning sunshine," he said rather loudly with a smile as he sent the banging drum over to the bed. Thump. Thump. Thump. It flew over by where the two pillows met and stopped there.

Immediately, he very, very, very much regretted his decision; not only had Albus been awake but he had been er…God, was that a…woman? He heard a loud shriek. Yes, definitely a woman. His brother looked up at him with a death glare wearing absolutely nothing, from on top of what he could only guess was a girl of twenty.

While he was rather amused by what he walked in on, he was much more afraid of the expression on his brother's face; Aberforth turned his back quickly and ran.

All he was aware of was the echo through the house, "Aaaaaaaberfoooorth!"


Short, I know, but to the point. Next chapter is gonna be nothing but giggles…and perhaps a few more "aws"….I hope.

Thank you everyone who has been supporting me and if it isn't too much trouble, do you think you could leave me a review and tell me how I'm doing? Reviews always prompt me to write quicker and harder (hint, hint)

-minni