Chapter II
Day-Saturday afternoon
Location- The small resort town of Chartle
"Here we are! The loveliest place for a picnic." Albus called out. Minerva, who had been slowly following him, nodded and sat on the picnic blanket he had spread out. He watched as she tiredly pulled the picnic basket over to her and opened it.
"We should have stayed at the hotel, my dear." He said softly, taking the basket from her. "You should be in bed." His tone of voice left no room for argument, but Minerva said nothing.
Instead she smiled and pointed to the basket.
"If you won't open it, I will." Albus sighed, but began to spread out the meal that the house elves at Hogwarts had packed for him.
"When I am trying to be serious, you make it into a joke. When you are being serious, the whole world shudders. Why is that?" He asked, smiling.
"You are simply to kind to make people shudder. And I am…" She trailed off and bit her lip.
"You're what, dear?" Albus encouraged, knowing it was probably not a good remark she would make about herself, but desiring to hear it any way.
"I'm cold and fairly heartless." She took the plate he offered her and set it next to her.
"Cold, huh?" Albus said, gently. "Minerva, you are not cold. And as for being heartless…well, you love me."
Minerva smiled. She knew that the conversation was far from over, but Albus would continue it as he chose.
"Touché."
"Now, you insisted that we have a picnic and here we are. Now lets enjoy it and then we will go back to the hotel and rest." Minerva nodded.
"That'll be fine, Albus.
Later on that day—
A certain recently married couple lay, awake, on a large king sized bed. Outside their second floor room a beautiful day had unfurled its lovely banner. Birds were singing softly and a golden sun shone down on the well-mowed lawns. Albus had chosen the muggle town due to its popular muggle entertainments and scenery and also for its location. Few death eaters would ever look for Headmaster Albus Dumbledore in a small American town in the center of Florida.
"Would you like to play a game?" Albus asked, slightly bored with doing nothing.
"Such as?" Minerva responded, eyes closed and her mind deeply involved with a homework paper a young Ravenclaw had written. So far she had found nineteen errors in spelling alone.
"What about a muggle game called Twenty Questions?" He sat up on his elbow.
"Never heard of it." Minerva yawned.
"I think of something and you try to guess it in twenty guesses. If you get it then you get to take a turn." Minerva opened her eyes and sighed.
"Very well. Is it an animal?"
"One down. No." His eyes twinkled.
"Is it a object?"
"Two down. Yes."
"Is it a broom?" Minerva sounded bored.
Albus' mouth dropped open.
"How do you do that? Yes it is a broom." He gave her a wary glance. "Your turn."
"I have it."
"Is it a person?"
"No. As of now you have nineteen questions left."
"Thank you. Is it an animal?
"Yes."
20 minutes later-
"You are out of questions, Albus." Minerva sat up as Albus sighed.
"Fine, I give up. What is it?"
"A cat." He could have sworn seeing a spark of delight in her eyes.
"You won, my dear."
A long drawn out purr escaped the person next to Albus and he turned his head to see a little gray tabby cat reclining on the pillow.
"How silly of me." Albus murmured pulling the cat gently into his embrace.