DISCLAIMER: Je ne m'appelle pas J.K. Rowling et "Harry Potter" n'est pas le mien. Malhereusement, je ne gange pas de l'argent par écrire cette histiore.
A/N: Hey y'all! There were like two months between when I wrote chapter 2 and when I wrote this chapter, so if you see any inconsistencies, please let me know!
When Minerva emerged from Professor Dumbledore's office several hours later (she had enlisted an unoccupied teacher to cover her classes for the morning), she was considerably more happy than she had been earlier that morning. As the Transfiguration Professor made her way to the Great Hall for lunch, her joyful mood, warm greetings, and springing step drew lots of confused and curious glances from staff and student alike. Everyone, it seemed to Minerva, seemed to be looking at her as though they weren't sure whether they ought to laugh or be scared.
On her way into the Great Hall, Minerva passed the same group of giggling first-year Gryffindor girls she had passed on her way out of breakfast. The sight of their Transfiguration professor in her current state of giddiness seemed to be too much for them to handle. They steered away from the Gryffindor table and ran right back out the door, apparently laughing to much to notice that they had nearly plowed over poor Professor Flitwick, who flattened himself against the wall just in time to avoid the path of the stampede of violently giggling eleven-year-old girls.
Filius, finally catching up to Minerva, panted, "Minerva, I do believe that you have set a personal record!"
"I beg your pardon?" McGonagall looked a bit shocked at this statement, and the tiniest hint of her normal self flashed in her brown eyes.
"Twice in the same day have I seen you giggling and carrying on as if you were an eleven-year-old student, rather than the formidable Deputy Headmistress of this school. This sudden change in attitude wouldn't have anything to do with a certain wizened, old Headmaster, would it?" Flitwick gave Minerva a sly wink and chuckle before continuing on his way to the staff table, leaving Minerva rooted to the spot, mouthing wordlessly like a fish out of water.
"Cat got your tongue?" said an amused voice from behind her, snapping her out of her daydreaming.
"Hmm?" Minerva replied absentmindedly while trying to hang on to the wonderful dreams that had been filling her head and were now slipping quickly away.
"You look exceedingly giddy. Even more so than you did this morning." Poppy Pomfrey observed. "Has something extraordinary occurred between then and now, or – " But her sly inquiry was cut short when Minerva suddenly turned and walked away. Quite unlike her to do a thing like that, she thought to herself. After following her colleague with her gaze, however, she discovered what had distracted her, and her earlier question seemed altogether unnecessary.
Through the doors to the Entrance Hall, Albus Dumbledore had just walked. Upon seeing him, Minerva had abandoned her conversation with her best friend. The nurse could tell at once that something had transpired between the two professors in the hours between breakfast and lunch. She was not alone in noticing several details of their interactions that supported this theory.
Meat pie and mashed potatoes, McGonagall and Dumbledore were conversing quite intently with each other. Filius, who sat on Dumbledore's left side, saw how the two sat slightly closer than usual, how they leaned in closer to each other when they spoke, and how their hands touched the entire time.
Filius leaned to his left and whispered to Severus, "Have you noticed anything peculiar about Minerva today?"
"Nothing in particular," the Potions Master answered uninterestedly before turning back to his meat pie.
"Well, have a look at her now," Filius urged.
"Is she sprouting tentacles from her head? Because otherwise, I don't see a point in partaking in your, um, little game."
"You great prat, just look at her, will you?" Filius whispered more urgently than ever, paying no notice to Severus' play on words.
"Oh, all right," Snape spat, dropping his knife in fork in frustration, "if it'll make you shu-" But Snape stopped dead when he had followed his tiny colleague's gaze onto the Headmaster and Deputy. "Well, I'll be damned," he said in awe. Filius noticed that he had a very odd look on his face. "I'll be damned," he said again.
The rest of the day passed in a blur for Severus Snape. In his class immediately after lunch (Double Potions with the Gryffindors and the Slytherins), he nearly blew up the dungeon from lack of concentration. He was brought briefly to earth when Hermione Granger screamed at him not to add boomslang skin to his example to the class of the Pepper-Up Potion that he was brewing.
"Professor, stop!" she had shrieked, jumping to her feet and knocking her chair backwards, "You'll blow up the dungeon!"
Although he hated to admit it, the girl had been right. Severus knew that the girl had, indeed, stopped him from making a disastrous mistake, but he was not going to let her know that, and he was most certainly not going to take orders from a mudblood. He retorted, "Stupid girl, do you actually think that I am foolish enough to add boomslang skin to this solution? I was merely testing the class to see if anyone had done last night's assignment properly. Why isn't anyone writing that down? Especially you, Longbottom! Fifty points from Gryffindor for your cheek, Granger."
The girl returned to her chair and looked very downcast for the rest of the lesson. In retrospect, Severus knew that fifty points had been a bit much, especially since Granger had had a very valid point, but why not? He got to embarrass the girl and take fifty points from Gryffindor (which was in a very big lead) in one fell swoop.
Sitting on the sofa in front of the fireplace in his private rooms that evening, the Potions Master was contemplating the day. He was still shaken up from seeing Minerva and the Headmaster at lunch. He supposed he should have known that there was something between those two. The stupid old git, he thought, he's way too old for her. Severus mentally slapped himself for his stupidity. She can do what she wants, said a more resolute voice in the back of his head. That was eight years ago. Severus sighed, looked into the fire, and decided to resign to the weight of the day and retire for the night. He resolved to stop brooding over the past. It had, after all, been his fault.
As he paced around his office that evening, reflecting on the day and barely daring to believe that it had gone so well, Albus Dumbledore was interrupted from his thoughts by the tapping of an owl on the window. He walked across the room, admitted the owl, which he did not recognize, and took the letter from its ankle. Horrified by what he read, Dumbledore quickly pocketed the letter and ran from his office to Minerva's rooms. The letter, which was being crushed under the old man's anxious grip, appeared to have been assembled entirely by letters clipped from various newspapers and/or magazines on blood-red parchment, had read:
"You are a stupid, selfish old man. If you really love her, why didn't you protect her?"
A/N: Bum, bum, buuuuum! Sorry about that, but I just had to leave y'all hanging! There's more of this story and some more of my stories over on where I have the same penname. PLEASE leave a review!