"Let us drink to a Slytherin victory, shall we?"

There was a soft chinking sound as two teacups hit one another and Professors Slughorn and Miggs both took a drink.

"Only with you do I ever make a toast with tea," Horace commented idly, taking another sip from the steaming cup.

"You know very well there are no champagne or wine or brandy leaves to use to decipher the future."

"That's why we have teas," Horace grinned. Sylvia Miggs had, like Horace, been a Slytherin back in her Hogwarts days and was terribly interested in seeing Slytherin win both the House and Quidditch Cups. So before every Slytherin quidditch match they would have tea together and she would read the leaves to see if she could glean any information about the upcoming match. She was usually right, though not through any actual ability to see the future. Sylvia was simply, in true Slytherin style, exceptionally good at playing the odds and had used that ability to gain herself quite a reputation as a seer. It was that reason that Horace had become acquainted with her.

"What are you thinking of?"

"Hmm?" asked Horace, looking up from his cup.

"Your face became thoughtful and I became curious. A look such as that one on you normally means you have either a brilliant plan to be set in motion or gossip to discuss."

"Ah."

"Well?"

"I was thinking of social gatherings between teachers."

"Like large ones, or ones this size?" asked Sylvia, dropping her normally airy manner to speak normally. She wasn't sure where Horace was going with this but she hoped it was something good.

"Ones this size."

"Okay. What about them?"

"I was just thinking, male and female staff members meeting together socially, it can give people some rather interesting ideas, can't it?"

"What?" she sputtered. "What are you talking about? You don't mean—"

"The Headmaster and his Deputy play chess together quite a bit, don't they?"

The frown on Sylvia's face quickly changed to a look of confusion as she realized he had not been implying what it had first sounded like. She'd kill those bratty students if she ever heard them talking about her in that manner. Any staff members would be even worse off (she was fond of children).

"Of course they do," she answered. "They've done that for years. Since she was a third year attending here. We both remember that."

Horace nodded. "I remember her begging off on a couple of Slug Club meetings over the years to place chess with him."

"Where exactly are you going with this, Horace? I'm not interested in making small talk about the Headmaster and his little pet."

Sylvia had never liked Minerva McGonagall. She still remembered back when she and that old boyfriend of hers, that Michael or Malcolm or Mitchell Kincaid boy would have loud discussions outside of her classroom about the 'woolliness' as they called it, of divination. Sylvia quite agreed, of course, she'd never met any real seers—including herself—but she made a very good living based on the fact that other people believed it. Arrogant people like those two were the bane of her very fine existence.

"Too bad. I've heard some people say some very interesting things about the two of them."

"Really?" she asked, not at all convinced.

"Some of the students are beginning to accuse them of being lovers."

Sylvia's reaction to this was not at all what Horace had expected. He'd not really expected anything in particular, but the divination teacher throwing her head back and laughing uproariously was not at all what he'd expected.

"What's so funny?" he asked, looking confused and perhaps a little angry.

"The idea of Albus Dumbledore having sex with Minerva McGonagall. It's the funniest thing I've heard all year."

"I don't get it," he said. "She's a very attractive girl and he defeated Grindelwald. You think either one of them wouldn't jump at the chance."

"You're making this way too simple," said Sylvia, still laughing a little bit. "I'm quite certain they're attracted to each other. She is, I hate to say it, a very attractive girl. He'd have to be blind not to notice. As for her . . . Well, I've noticed her aura has been changing over the past month or two. It has not completed its change, and I can't tell you exactly what it means until it does, but it definitely means something."

Horace nodded, reading between the lines of what Sylvia was saying. He was quite aware that she was not a true seer and knew this was her was of saying she'd noticed a change about Professor McGonagall but she was not quite certain what it was.

"You never told me why the idea is so funny," he stated calmly. He thought it quite a likely union. It would be an incredible consolidation of power and intelligence and it was unlikely either of the two could find either of those traits in such large quantities in other people. There were few people better matched for either and it wasn't as though it was a relationship that would be mismatched in any other respects.

"I'd think that would be obvious," she said, and the laugh was back, tinging her voice. "Dumbledore is far too noble for it."

"Not as noble as you might think," Horace countered. "I've known him for years. He may have spent a lot of time amongst Victorian era Muggles, but I promise he's not nearly as chaste as they are. I can think of plenty of women he's slept with over the years."

Sylvia took another sip from her tea cup. "That's not what I meant."

"Then what do you mean?"

Sylvia set down her cup. "He may not have Victorian values, but can you even imagine a man like him sleeping with his former student? He's about eighty years older than he is and the friendship they share is began to form was she was twelve years old. I don't think he could do it and live with himself. He'd feel too guilty—like he'd taken advantage of her."

"I hadn't thought of that," he said, obviously surprised. "I've done it before."

"You and Dumbledore are very different men," Sylvia pointed out. "He's the type of man who leads the world with nobility and dignity, steering it toward doing what's right. You're more of a sidekick type, and far less concerned with things like nobility."

It was Horace's turn to laugh. "You are very right. Perhaps you're right about Albus too."

Sylvia was one of the most perceptive people he knew, other than Albus himself. It was one of the reasons she managed to pass herself off as a seer. She might be right. He would have to consider it.

"Of course I am," she stated, confidence evident in her voice as the airiness began to return to it. "I promise you, there's nothing going on between the Headmaster and his Deputy—despite the number of chess games they play together."

/E/E/E/E/E/

Minerva had been stuck in bed for about two days now, brought down by the flu that had been easing its way through the school since the beginning of the month. She hated it. She'd done her very best to avoid getting stuck in bed, but it had happened anyway. She'd come to breakfast one morning, looking, she had to admit, rather tired, pale and sickly, then Albus, as well as Amanda Chantry, Tyr Farron and Pomona Sprout, had sent her back to her rooms to recoup. She'd been in bed ever since.

It had been a trying past couple of days. She'd felt frustrated, and she'd rather have been teaching. She filled three positions at Hogwarts and that meant she had a lot of work to do. She didn't want to be lying around in bed, sick. She didn't feel she had the time to do it. She'd been secretly summoning work from her office the entire time.

She couldn't always be working or summoning work to do, however. The fact was that both were draining and at times she needed to sleep or rest. Albus and a few of her other colleagues had dropped by more than once to check on her, as well. On occasion she'd had to scramble to get what she was working on out of sight when she'd heard a knock on her door. She'd yet to be caught, however, and the visits had meant a lot to her—more than she would ever have admitted. Especially Albus' visits.

She'd had a lot of time to think over the past two days, and she'd come to a very important conclusion while doing that. In regards to Albus, she was back in the same place she'd been when she was sixteen years old. After only three and a half months, shed managed to fall in love with him again.

It wasn't surprising, really. She'd always been drawn to him. Even before she developed feelings when she'd started at Hogwarts a couple months before her twelfth birthday, she'd been drawn to him. He'd always had an amazing energy about him and she'd never been able to help but admire him. It hadn't hurt that he'd taught her best subject, either.

What was surprising, however, was how calm she was about her revelation. After she'd fought so hard against this, she'd failed spectacularly. Yet she was okay with that. She'd been here before, and she was comfortable with it. She'd lived with unrequited love for this man before, and she could continue to do so now. She was quite content to love him from a distance, and maybe someday she would be able to move past it. Today was certainly not that day.

A sigh escaped Minerva's pale lips. She should be working right now, not sitting around and thinking. She was feeling about as well as she had been over the past few days right now. She shouldn't waste that by just sitting around. She'd summoned some essays from her office earlier and stashed them when Amanda had come in to check on her. She should continue grading those.

"Now where did I put those essays?" she muttered to herself, getting up sitting up further in her bed and beginning to search for the wayward essays.

She found them poking out from where she'd neatly stuffed them under her coverlet.

"Here we go," she whispered to herself. Then getting out her quill and ink she set to work again.

She was not to be working for long, however.

"I thought so," she heard a very familiar voice say.

She looked to her right and saw Albus standing in her room, watching her with what she thought looked suspiciously like disapproval.

"I didn't hear you come in," she said in a voice so calm and precise it was quite nearly biting. "Shouldn't you have knocked."

"You have reflexes like a cat, my dear. If I was to catch you, you could not know I was here."

"You were simply watching me inside my rooms, invisible?" Minerva asked, and she could not keep all of the anger out of her voice.

"I assure you, had you begun to change or anything of the sort I would have left immediately."

There was a thin smile on Minerva's pale and tired face. "I appreciate that Albus—but I am absolutely appalled by you disrespect for the privacy of my personal chambers. What the bloody hell were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that you were working when you should not be, and that you should be stopped," he answered calmly, seemingly unaffected by her anger.

"Whether or not I am working in here is none of your business," she spat. "I respect your right to confine me to my rooms while I'm contagious but you have no right to spy on me!"

"You're overworking yourself, Minerva," he told her, and there was a small note of pleading in his voice that Minerva did not notice. "Have you looked at yourself in the mirror? You're looking sicker and sicker every time I come in here."

Minerva wasn't sure whether or not Albus had known exactly what to say there, or had simply stumbled on it, but the fact of the matter was that he had in fact said the exact right thing. She'd felt her temper rising, ready to explode in a yelling fit that sick people should never be able to muster but his words had made her anger begin to fade. She was still mad, no mistake, but she was less mad than she had been. A sigh escaped her lips.

"I understand that you were worried about me, Albus, but you had no right to do this. I'm not fourteen years old and trying to sneak into your transfiguration class anymore. It's not your job to take care of me anymore. I assure you, I can do that myself."

Albus wanted very badly at that moment to confess his deep and abiding desire to gain back his old job of taking care of her. He wanted to tell her that he loved her desperately and that he was scared for her well being. The thought of actually doing it, however, never crossed his mind. He knew she felt the same way he did for her. He could see it when she looked at him, but there was simply no way they could engage in such a relationship. He was her employer and her old teacher. It simply was not an appropriate relationship. Confessing feelings like that would only make things harder for the both of them.

Instead he said simply, "I'm sorry, Minerva. You're right, of course."

"Well, good," she said. "Apology accepted. Now I would like it if you left."

Albus nodded and turned towards the door. He took a couple of steps, then stopped and turned back around. He couldn't leave like this, knowing she would go back to work and not allow herself to recover.

"Minerva, please, promise me you won't work when I leave."

Minerva raised an eyebrow at his words, clearly surprised. He continued anyway.

"If you're bored, then read or listen to music, but don't work. It's not good for you and it worries me to know that you're hurting your health by doing too much. I'm not the only one, either."

Minerva's residual anger was pushed to the back of her mind as an amusing thought reached her mind. "No doubt Mr. Farron predicted this was happening."

Albus smiled at her for the first time since he'd revealed himself to be in her room. "It's hard for any of us to forget the kind of patient you are after you so adequately demonstrated it after your quidditch accident."

She nodded silently, staring off into space, thinking about what he'd said. He was only worried about her after all. If not working would ease his mind, then perhaps it was not too big of a sacrifice. It did make her heart sing to hear him expressing such concern for her.

"All right," she agreed. "I won't."

The smile on Albus face was breathtaking. She did not allow it to distract her, though. There was more to it than this.

"But I want you to promise me something, too."

"What is that?"

"That you will never pull a stunt like this again," she told him calmly, a small from permeating her features. She was still quite upset about what had just occurred.

"I promise," he told her in a serious tone that she rarely heard. "You're right, Minerva. I was out of line. Now I'll leave you to rest."

He turned to leave.

"If you ever break this promise, Albus, I'll quit. I meant that."

His head turned. "I know, my dear. Rest well."

/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/E/

Author's Note:

Well, I've now officially been torturing all of you for 25 chapters, as there has not been so much as one kiss. This is my ironclad promise, however, that within the next three chapters, you all will get your kiss. Just don't expect happily ever after quite yet.