"Oh for Melin's sake!" Severus growled irritated as he rounded the corner and laid eyes on an unassuming grey tabby cat sitting at the front gate to his home watching him stride up the path. It was bad enough he had to go and extend the olive branch of friendship out to Potter, but he didn't want to have to put up with Minerva right now.
He just wanted to go inside and hide again from the world for a little while before he had to deal with anyone else, it was much too peopley outside for his liking and he had filled his quota for giving a damn today.
The grey tabby sauntered up to him and began rubbing its tiny head on his legs, sashaying in and out of his legs almost as if it were dancing with him.
"Pull your bloody self together, Minerva," he grumbled, tentatively trying to push the tabby away from him with his boot gently, but she was relentless, she kept approaching him and rubbing all over him.
"I swear to fucking Merlin, Minerva if you don't cut the bullshit you will have a size eleven boot up your ass and you won't need a time turner to send you back in time because the force in which I do it will break the space and time continuum as we know it and you will be hurled from here to last week."
The cat stopped intertwining itself around his legs and looked up him innocently as if understanding every word he had said, it blinked intently a few times before sauntering a few footsteps away and sitting with its back towards him on the pathway, overgrown with weeds and licked a front paw gently.
"Thank you," He said gruffly before turning and taking a few steps closer to his front door when the grey tabby came bolting up behind him, slipped in front of him almost tripping him over and clambering up his leg, each footfall on his leg punctuated with the sting of its claws through his thick robes straight into his pale, soft flesh.
An angered yelp was the only sound he made as the sting of the claws dug effortlessly into his skin and without a second thought he instinctively grabbed the cat around the neck and held it at arm's length. It began to hiss and flail its legs around in an attempt to scratch him in a bid to be free but he held steadfastly and wouldn't give in.
"Just what the fuck are you playing at, Minerva!" He almost yelled in the cats face, anger beating around his body with every flutter of his heart and he couldn't help but stiffen and turn slowly when a thick, stern Scottish brogue sounded from behind him.
"I'm not playing at anything honestly," tone was almost a false innocence.
He turned on the spot, cat still outstretched in his hands as he looked between Minerva standing in front of him and the small tabby cat in his hands. The little colour that graced his cheeks fell by the wayside and vanished and his mouth opened and closed rapidly like a fish out of water before the colour returned ten-fold, colouring his cheeks beet-red.
"So this isn't you?" He asked in disbelief as if he had just seen Voldemort himself walk up the path.
"Obviously."
"Err,… Right so then who is it?"
"It appears to be a cat, Severus." She smiled pitifully at him, gently tapped his shoulder a few times before taking the cat from his grasp, setting it on the ground and watched as it scurried off without a glance back towards him.
They both stood awkwardly, shrouded in silence for a few moments, Severus not knowing what to say and felt rather put on the spot.
"Can we go inside?" The elder witch asked politely.
"We can," he confirmed but still stood stock still.
"Well, shall we head that way."
"You asked if we could go inside and I gave you an answer, anyone can get inside via the front door, or a window, the house is not impossible to enter. Perhaps you should have asked the question a little differently."
She took a calming deep breath, even now as an adult he was still as much as a sarcastic annoying shit as he was as a child.
"Shall we go inside? Let's go inside." She tried to cover as many bases as she could to by-pass his sarcastic mind.
"And if I don't feel like dealing with you today?" He questioned darkly.
She pursed her lips together and looked down at him with bitterness swirling behind her spectacles.
"Then I shall camp outside until you see fit, so it's better to talk to me now and deal with it than slowly peel the proverbial band-aid off and prolong the pain."
Dark eyes looked as if they resigned to the fact he wasn't getting out of this, fabric-clad shoulders slumping forward in resignation and he slowly walked towards the door with trepidation in his step.
Leading her through the quaint shithole of a house, he stepped through to the kitchen, stepping back and allowing her to enter eyes scanned the room quickly. It certainly had seen better days, from the water-stained countertops to the peeling wallpaper as well as the outdated linoleum and she wondered if the easiest option here would be fuel and a match and start over again.
Gruffly he inclined his head hard towards the table. She pulled out a chair and sat on it primly, knitting her fingers together and placing them on the old wooden table that had seen better days and she almost feigned a guess that it might have been as old as she was.
"To what do I owe the displeasure of your company?" His tone prickly and cold.
"Well, Potter informed me that you visited him and had a little chat and I thought while you were in such a jovial and generous mood that I would visit you to chat."
"My mood was jovial until you showed up," his voice dark and menacing. "And how the fuck did you know I visited the golden child?" He spat.
"Well you see," She began, a small smile tugged at the corners of her thin pink lips. "I and Potter had a wager. I bet that you would be the first to cave and contact one of us, he laid his galleons on Hermione." She tapped the pocket of her robes, smiling. "You made me a pretty penny today."
"You bet on Hermione and I! Where do you people honestly get off, is nothing off limits?"
"So now wouldn't be a good time to tell you we have an even bigger wager on when you will impregnate the girl? I said within a year, Harry says within two. Weasley thinks you will never do it because you are and I quote, an old git who is probably past getting an erection and is shooting blanks."
"I can assure you I have no trouble in that department at all. Satisfaction is totally guaranteed."
"Thank you for sharing, Severus." She smiled meekly.
"Now, what do you want?" He snarled.
"That's a bit rude." She eyed him sideways disapprovingly.
"I'm a rude person. Now, what do you want?" He snapped coldly.
"I think you know what I want," She said primly, straightening her shoulders and sitting back just a touch.
"Not the foggiest idea, honestly," tone impassive, face stoic.
She exhaled hard out of her nose. "Cut the crap, Severus. You are a smart man."
"Smart enough not to engaged in conversation where you will beg and you will plead and then you will offer my an ultimatum to come back to Hogwarts to teach just for the rest of the year and before I know it another twenty years will have passed in the blink of an eye and I will still be shackled to that cesspool of misery." Folding his arms tight across his chest he conveyed the message loud and clear that he was not interested in the least.
"Just till they all finish their NEWTS, they need you," her voice strained, pleading.
He snorted hard. "None of them need me, in fact, I am sure most of them celebrated the moment I walked out of there."
"Well… Yes but that's beside the point. Please, Severus. Just till the end of the term, when they all head home for the holidays you can mull over whether you want to continue teaching or if you wish to explore other avenues."
Wiping the palms of his hands over his eyes roughly he sighed haughtily. He hated being so easily presided.
"Find someone else."
"There is no one at such short notice." Worry swam behind her eyes if she couldn't recruit him soon for the end of the term, she didn't know what would happen. No one at Hogwarts was at the caliber he was to even think about teaching potions.
"Horace," He counter offered.
"I tried him. He flatly refuses to come back. He told me no amount of galleons could sway him. You are all we have. Please," Desperation laced her tone in the last bid to sway him to her side.
"What happened to the board of directors wanting to fire me once they found out I was fornicating with a student."
"You honestly think they would have cared about you sleeping with a twenty-year-old. A girl old enough to consent? It was I who didn't want it to happen. The two of you are totally wrong for one another. Incompatible on paper but you work so well together in practicality. I thought she deserved more, someone else who wasn't as angry, as dour, and as miserable as you but now I can see you two are perfect for one another. You bring out the best and worst in one another and that alone tells me the two of you are meant to be."
"I made a total fool or myself, purchased a store, have started plans to open my own business and left my job all because you had some ideology in your head that Hermione and I weren't meant to be together? Because you didn't want her with me?!" He shook his head with vigor, black inky hair following the movement of his head.
"You have to realize, Severus, I see the girl as a daughter I never had. I didn't want her talents to go waste."
"I'm the one person who would encourage her talents not hinder them. For fuck sake Minerva, you ruin my life and then come back and ask me to come back and drop this shit on me." He slammed his open palms on the table hard; causing Minerva to jump high in the air at the sudden and harsh assault on her eardrums.
"I know you will do the right thing, Severus and I am sure you can understand my thoughts and views." She elegantly rose to her feet in one fluid movement and nodded curtly.
"I will just be taking my leave now. I know you will choose to do the right thing, Severus, you usually always do. I will see you on Monday, and ensure you bring Miss Granger along. She deserves to finish her schooling."
"And have the entire school body hounding and harassing her because she is sleeping with me? You are out of your fucking mind," He snarled with the ferocity of a rabid dog.
"We will make provisions, Severus. I will see the two of you on Monday, bright and early. Just till after NEWTS and then you are free to pursue other avenues." She turned on her heel and saw herself out.
He laid his head on the table, despondent. He was forever going to be shackled to that castle, that place of shattered dreams and that place of heartache. Fuck Minerva and her ability to play mind games.
A/N: Thank you all for the reviews. I am so humbled.
To Guest: Yeah, I guess I kind of did overuse 'and' in the last chapter. I hope I didn't do it in this one. Sometimes I just don't even think what I am writing.
Not sure how many more chapters there will be… Two chapters ago I said there would only be two but err… It's kind of taking on a life of its own and keeps expanding.
-Aliasmel1