"You can't keep going on like this, Min," Muriel whispered as she and Minerva studied together in the library. "You're most invested in your relationship with Professor Dumbledore than in your relationship with Malcolm. Mal adores you. You can't just keep string him along like this."

Minerva wanted to open her mouth and tell Muriel that she was not stringing Malcolm along. She liked Malcolm.

But was that really right?

She had to admit that she was even spending more time with Al—Professor Dumbledore than with Malcolm. She thought about him more. She . . .

Wasn't that the definition of stringing somebody along? Shouldn't she just break up with him like Muriel kept saying she should?

"I can't break up with him, Muriel."

"Right," she snorted. "Because that would be giving in to the fact that you're so in love with Professor Dumbledore and that would be losing."

"I am not in love with him!" Minerva hissed at Muriel through her teeth. "And this isn't about winning or losing."

"That is exactly my point, Min. You have to break up with him. For his own sake. You're not as invested in that relationship as even you want to be. That's not a good thing."

Minerva put her head in her hands. "I can't help but feel like that's a mistake. All it would mean would be that I let him down. That I couldn't be loyal enough to him to keep my eyes in my head and stay away from Professor Dumbledore."

"No," Muriel told her firmly. "If I've said it once I've said it a million times. You letting him down is you not going and breaking up with him right now. It's the only decent thing to do."

/E/E/E/E/E/

"Hey, Minerva, how did lessons go?" asked Hermes as Minerva entered the Gryffindor common room through the portrait hole.

"I did it. I transformed for the first time."

The Gryffindor common room, which was usually buzzing with talk at this hour, suddenly fell into silence. Then, all at once, the noise started back up again at twice its original volume. It was common knowledge around the school that Minerva was working on becoming an animagus and that that was why she spent so many hours a week with Professor Dumbledore—not that that stopped the Slytherins from making crude jokes—and everybody was eager to find out what kind of animagus Minerva was. Hermes, who at age sixteen was now (thankfully) the average height of most girls, was practically hopping up and down with excitement.

Malcolm stood nearby, a proud, somewhat gloating smile on his face. This was the girl he was dating and not only was she something quite an impressive person without all this animagus stuff (she was a Prefect now and everyone was very certain she would go on to be Head Girl) but she'd just now accomplished something very amazing. He would love Minerva if she were the biggest slacker in school, but right now he was more than pleased to call her his.

"So what are you?"

"A cat."

"Goddammit!" Hermes roared. Minerva shot him a look that was both piercing and questioning. "I made a bet with Dan before he graduated last year about what you would be. I thought you'd be something fiercer, so I just lost ten galleons," he said by way of explanation.

"Just don't tell him," someone said, and Minerva was very surprised to see that it was Dan's own girlfriend, that red-head that he'd been too enchanted by to approach for simply years, who'd suggested it.

"Wait a minute," said Hermes warily. "You mean you wouldn't tell him?"

"Of course not," she said with a light, airy laugh. "If I did I would have to listen to him brag about being right."

The entire common room joined loudly into her laughter and Minerva, who was not the type who liked to be the center off attention like this, began to hope they'd forgotten about her transformation. What she really wanted right now was to be left alone and go to bed. Transforming into a cat for the first time had been exhausting, and she was going to have to do it many more times before she became integrated with it and able to transform at will—in other words before she became a true animagus.

Her hopes of getting quickly to bed without being pelted by the curiosities of her fellow Gryffindors were dashed when someone yelled out a request for a transformation.

It was a long while before Minerva was able to adequately explain to them exactly how exhausting the entire process was and that she was in desperate need of sleep right then. The crowd around her broke apart, with some people breaking into conversations with their friends and others that were more prone to procrastination beginning their homework. Hermes gave her a rather energetic congratulations and wished her a good night, before beginning his Muggle Studies homework.

Only Malcolm followed her to the stairs of her dormitory.

"Good night," he told her, wrapping his arms comfortably about her and placing a kiss on her forehead. "I know your tired and want to sleep, but I just wanted to tell you that I'm very pleased that you accomplished your first transformation tonight. Hopefully you'll be a registered animagus soon and then we can make up for all that time you've had to devote to becoming one."

The meaning behind his words swam about her head. Her guilt pounded at her from all sides. She wished he hadn't missed her. She wished that he cared less about her. She wished that she cared more about him. Either one. It didn't matter. She just wanted something to make this easier.

"Malcolm, I . . ." She stopped. She didn't know what to say. Was she going to break up with him? Right here and right now, when she was so tired and they were here within sight of the majority of Gryffindor?

No, she couldn't do that.

"What is it?" he asked her, his eyebrows—darker than his golden hair but still very light in color—knitted together in an expression of worry.

"Nothing," she answered him and wondered vaguely whether he had any idea what was going on in her head. "Good night, Mal."

She graced him with a short kiss, then slipped out of his welcoming arms and up to her dormitory. She changed into her tartan dressing gown and slipped herself under the covers for some much needed sleep.

She was very grateful for her exhaustion and the subsequent result that sleep was not at all long in coming.

/E/E/E/E/E/

"Checkmate, Professor," said Minerva, with what was undoubtably the largest, most triumphant smile she had worn in simply years.

It had suddenly dawned on her tonight, when they'd played their game of chess after her animagus lesson—which now that she had made her transformation a few times were far less exhausting than they had been—why it was that it had always appeared to her before that she was about to win and then he'd always managed to pull himself out of it. He was an easily distracted person. He would become preoccupied with either beating her instead of defending himself or with one of the many thoughts that flowed in and out his head and he would simply not notice her putting herself in a position to win. The only reason she'd not beaten him before was that she'd allowed her moves and body language to become aggressive enough to tip him off to her intentions while he still had a chance.

Having suddenly figured out why she had never won before, Minerva had been careful to not only not give away what she was doing in regards to his king, but to distract him from it. She won magnificently as well as quite efficiently.

He smiled broadly back at her, the familiar twinkle in his lovely blue eyes. "Did I not promise you that you would beat me, Minerva?"

She nodded at him. "You did indeed, Professor."

And she could see why. He was not great strategist. Neither was she, but she was not bad and she only kept getting better. She seemed to have inherited some of her father's better strategic abilities—and he was widely regarded as the best military commander of their world. It was her father who, as the cloud of Grindelwald grew darker and darker, everyone expected to be the one to defeat Grindelwald and save them.

Albus, no, Professor Dumbledore, was quite aware that he was no McGonagall as far strategy went. He knew his weaknesses in the most amazing way. The more Minerva was around him, the more she saw that and the more she admired him.

"My mind is often occupied by a variety of things. It was only a matter of time."

They began to clear away the chess pieces, which were stationary again now that they were through playing with them, and Minerva found herself allowing her hand to brush with his far more than was necessary. It was with no small amount of effort that there was not a trace of a blush on her fair cheeks at the impurity of her thoughts when this occurred.

"Would you like some hot chocolate?" asked Dumbledore as he placed the last of the chess pieces, a rook, into its case and snapped it shut. "We could celebrate your victory."

Amusement bubbled up in Minerva at his words. Albus had an awful sweet tooth. He would often munch on candies as they played chess together. He had a particular favorite, but it was some strange thing that she did not know the name of and had never bothered to ask about. She wasn't terribly fond of most candies and did not see the point.

"Any excuse for something sweet," she commented.

His deep laugh filled the air. "You know me too well, my dear."

Oh, how intimate that sounded to her ears. She knew him better than any of his other students and even some of his fellow staff members because of the sheer amount of time she spent with him. It was something they were both well aware of, but only he ever mentioned it. It did not have the connotations to him that it did to her. She was quite certain he was completely unaware of how she felt.

A fact that I am eternally grateful for, she thought. There would be nothing worse than him finding out. He'd probably start avoiding me completely in order to keep from encouraging me. It would be the right thing to do. It's what I should do. I should go straight back to Gryffindor tower. The last thing I should do is go enjoy something warm and sweet with him.

She wanted to blush at the wording of her own thoughts. It sounded completely inappropriate. It was a bad sign, she knew. At least early on her little infatuation had been completely innocent.

I should go straight back to Gryffindor tower, she told herself again.

But she did not want to. She wanted to have hot chocolate with him and talk and laugh and have fun with him. After all, there was nothing wrong with going and having an innocent cup of hot chocolate with him. Nothing would ever happen between them. He, thankfully, had no idea how she felt and even if she did, she knew that he would have more sense than to ever do anything. Not only was it wrong—and she knew it was, she was not even of age yet and she would not be for over a year—but he would be put in a potential to lose his job, as well as him excellent reputation in the magical world over it. He would never allow it, and that made all of her time spent with him okay.

"I shouldn't indulge you," she told him, "but I suppose I will. I'm such a softy."

He laughed again. "Indeed you are, my dear, despite your quite valiant efforts to be otherwise."

She followed him down to the kitchens so they could inform the house elves there of their need for an evening drink. Even as she walked beside him, discussing nothing of great importance, for such silly things were Albus' favorite topics of conversation, she knew that her decision to go with him, one based on the idea that there was nothing wrong with how she felt as long as she did not act on her feelings, was the final nail in the coffin of her romance with poor Malcolm.