Been over a year since I wrote the first part of this sequel to "Roses in December", but after rereading it this morning I was inspired to continue. Hope you enjoy.

A week passed and Minerva was no closer to figuring out what to do regarding Neville. A large part of her wanted to just run to him, kiss him in front of everyone by way of answer, and damn the consequences. Another part of her felt like she ought to stay far away from the young man, and not put him in a position to be potentially ridiculed for years to come. Another factor to consider was her current position as Head of Hogwarts. She'd worked for years to get to this point, and taken the post gladly, and it was a bit disturbing to her now that her lifelong ambition to have the prestigious position seemed to be the least of her worries regarding potential consequences to recoupling with Neville.

She wondered what he saw in her - a woman decades his elder and commonly associated with a stern nature. Of course, she had a softer side as every woman did no matter their profession, but she couldn't figure out how Neville could have seen that in such a short time. Those weeks in the Room of Requirement had surely not begun with an effort on either of their parts to woo the other. Prior to last December, she'd been nothing more than a teacher to him, and she hadn't seen him as anything more than a student.

It crossed her mind that Neville had only taken her subject to OWL levels, and as such his journey into manhood had been only distantly observed. He had never been the sort of student to seek out his Head of House to solve his problems, and so outside of classes past his fifth year, they'd had very little in the way of interaction. "Would I have become attracted to him had he continued on in my classes?" she asked her bathroom mirror.

"He's a handsome lad," her mirror replied in it's feminine voice. "Your observational skills would never have missed that fact had you seen him every day."

It was silly, Minerva knew, that at the present the closest thing she had to a confidant in this situation was her magically animated bathroom mirror. It had listened to her rant and rave for the first two days, finally snapping at her on day three and telling her that if Minerva was going to continue on the subject, she'd be giving her own two cents on the subject. At the moment, Minerva had been furious at the sheer audacity, though four days later she found herself grudgingly grateful for the outlet.

"I may have noticed he'd grown physically attractive, but this is about more than that. It's deeper, more emotional. It's…" her voice trailed off.

"Love?" the mirror asked.

"Yes," she whispered in reply. "Though I'll be damned if I can figure out how that happened."

"Those are questions only your young beau would know the answers to. You may not have shared with him, then, your reasons for agreeing to get involved with him," the mirror said. "However he did witness the version of yourself that he grew to care for. As I suspect with no memory of your life and the wars you've fought and the losses you've suffered, you were much more relaxed, and open… more innocent, even."

"Innocent enough in mindset to throw caution to the wind and bed my then seventeen year old student?" Minerva demanded skeptically.

"Innocent enough to not care about adverse consequences, or innocent enough to believe that love really is the solve all," the mirror countered. "Innocent enough to be open to a feeling you've not let yourself feel since you were only a bit older than he is."

"Since Dougal," Minerva said with a sigh. "No memory of how much loving and losing hurts could certainly account for my openness to the emotion regarding Neville."

"All of that aside - as it really doesn't matter how it happened so much as it matters that it did - what are you going to do about it now?" the mirror asked. "It was a unique situation that allowed you to be open to something you've not been open to in forty years. He obviously wants a chance to continue the relationship, so setting aside perceptions of the right thing to do in your mind, what do you want?"

"Him."

Minerva really wouldn't go as far as to say she'd made her decision about if or not to resume her affair with Neville - or allow it to become something more, for that matter - but at least she'd come as far as recognizing she needed to talk to him about things. Before making any conclusions about what she could see in him, she needed to know what he saw in her. Of course, only he could answer those questions.

So, she sought him out.

Or would, after lunch.

No, after dinner.

Wait, no, after breakfast tomorrow.

Maybe after they were done with the rebuilding of the castle…

Fate, it seemed, was having none of her cowardice. When she opened the door to leave her office to head for lunch, she found herself suddenly in a familiar cottage which had been left to her by her grandmother, many years ago. The very cottage, in fact, that had been her hideaway for the better part of December.

Before she'd even had the chance to try and turn back into her office, the door she'd entered via closed and sealed behind her. With a sigh of resignation, she moved toward the kitchen, and took a seat at the table. No sooner had she done that when she was met with blinding pain in her head, causing her to cry out and slip off the chair and into a heap on the floor.

Her mind was filled with images:

Walking arm in arm with Neville along the Moor. Kneeling on this very floor and leaning into Neville's kiss. Asking him to leave, but knowing he'd be back. Standing on the back porch and realizing that she'd come to love the young man acting as her caregiver. Knowing they each had lives to go back to when her memory returned, and his warning that they may both be dead by the end of the year. Deciding that regret was more heartbreaking than any consequence to her actions, and knowing she'd regret if she didn't let him love her… if she didn't let herself love him.

Further back, the memory of the Carrows' attack on her.

She was still gasping at the influx of memories flooding into her psyche, offering residual physical manifestations when she registered the sound of a door opening through the pain now flooding her entire body, and then she heard hurried footsteps.

"Minerva," Neville's voice called desperately, worry obvious in his tone. "Minerva, love, are you alright?"

She sank into him as he pulled her still shaking form close, grasping his t-shirt and inhaling his familiar scent as she struggled to get her breathing under control. "I... I remember," she rasped out after a minute. "Oh, gods, Neville I remember everything!"

"Oh, Merlin," he whispered. Without another word he scooped her into his arms and stood, standing before the fireplace only long enough to state the Hospital Wing as his intended destination. Apparently, the Room of Requirement did not need Floo powder to connect to another place, as a moment later they were stepping out of the Hospital Wing's fireplace and Minerva heard Neville calling out for Poppy.

"What happened this time?" Poppy asked as Neville laid her on a bed.

"I found her in the Room of Requirement… the cottage," Neville explained. "She said she's remembered. By the way her body is shaking, I'm guessing the memory of her attack came with some of the pain from the Cruciatus."

"Oh, bother," Poppy grumbled.

Minerva could only guess that Poppy had begun casting some spells to ease her suffering, as the pain slowly but surely began to ebb away. "Thank you, Poppy," she whispered a minute later upon finding the strength to speak.

"There should be no actual damage," the Matron reported. "Though I'd urge to you rest for the remainder of today, as well as tomorrow."

"I have a school to fix!" Minerva responded, outraged.

"I'll keep the troops working," Neville offered. "She's right, Minerva. You need to rest."

"But…"

Neville silenced her objections with a kiss. Gentle but not in the least chaste, and she found herself responding readily in light of her recently returned memories. Her fingers ran through his hair as she pulled him close, and his hand reverently cradled the right side of her jaw, taking care not to pull her away from the soft pillow. "I'll be back to check on you later," he whispered, pulling away. If you'd like, we can talk then."

Too much in a passion induced haze to process much of anything, she just nodded, and a moment later he was gone. The sound of a snickering mediwitch brought her out of her stupor and she turned to offer her traditional glare to her friend. "What's so blood funny."

"Neville bloody Longbottom just managed what not even Albus Dumbledore ever did!" Poppy laughed. "He shut you up! Oh, and for the record, if that was half as good a kiss as it looked like, you're a damned idiot if you don't keep that young man around."

"I think I may, Poppy," she replied with a soft smile. "I think I just may."

As promised, Neville returned just later that evening, just in time to save her from the slop Poppy was attempting to feed her. "How about you go ahead down to the Great Hall for dinner," he suggested to the mediwitch. "I'll make sure she eats something."

"Nothing too heavy," Poppy instructed skeptically.

He smiled at her, and the minute she was gone he pulled a miniaturized basket out of his pocket and returned it to it's proper size. "Want some real food?" he asked, holding up the fixings for hearty sandwiches.

"Please!" she exclaimed gratefully.

If the memories of their time together hadn't already eased her mind regarding the potential of a real relationship between she and Neville, the kindness he had shown her in the last few hours alone would have had her seeing the man he'd become above the boy she'd known and taught for seven years. She wasn't sure who to credit for how much of a gentleman he was - certainly not the always brash Augusta - but she liked to imagine that, much like his father Frank, he'd come by that personality naturally.

Neville filled her in on the status of repairs while they ate, which she certainly appreciated , though by the end of their meal that conversation had dwindled into discussions of what still needed done, and when the first pause in conversation came along, Neville reached out and took her hand.

"I think I'm about done talking to the Headmistress," he said with a upward quirk of his lips. "Any chance that Minerva's up for a chat?"

"A long overdue one," she agreed with a smile. "I have some questions, before we start talking about any sort of… future."

He nodded - a cue for her to continue.

"What were you thinking, in December, pursuing me?" she asked. "Our considerable age difference aside, I was your Professor. You'd known me long enough and well enough to know that I'd have never have considered anything between us, beyond teacher and student relationship, had I been myself."

Neville sighed. "When I realized I was attracted to you, I grappled with that question a great deal. A part of me, as you pointed out, knew that before you were attacked, you'd never have gotten involved with me, and a part me felt guilty for even thinking about it, let alone acting on it. For a little while, I'd even talked myself into ignoring what I was feeling."

"What changed your mind?"

"You said that you were not yourself a minute ago," he began to explain. "Minerva, that couldn't be further from the truth. That month in the cottage, I saw who you really are for the first time. I saw the Minerva without the duty to uphold, the rules to follow, or the pain in your past. I saw the woman you were behind the professionalism. You have to understand that I had no way of knowing that when your memory returned, the price would be the memory of what happened between us, so don't think for a second that I imagined I'd be able to get off scot free. I was, and am prepared to face the consequences of us being together."

Minerva nodded, seeing sense in what he was saying. He was right, she admitted to herself. A part of her was beginning to wonder if the chemistry between them had always been inevitable, just waiting for a situation in which her walls could be brought down, and for her to be able to see past the little boy he'd been seven years ago.

"Why didn't you tell me what had happened between us?" she posed her next question without comment to his previous answer. "After you found out my memory of it was gone."

"There's no one good reason for that," he replied. "Part of it was seeing Professor McGonagall again, that day in your office, and hating how it covered up the woman I'd grown to care for. I was afraid of the Professor. I've always known you and my Gran were friends, and Merlin knows I'm bloody terrified of her. I love her dearly, don't get me wrong, but she is a scary woman, who I'm never thrilled to cross. I viewed you in much the same way, and I feared if I told you, you'd be angry, and I wasn't prepared to face that. Further, I knew that even if you did not hex me out the door in the face of such an admission… frankly, we had a war to fight. It was not a time for romance."

"Of that, I agree," Minerva replied. "During the rebuilding is also not an ideal time for romance, but I feel putting off discussing what's already happened between us would do more damage than good at this point."

He nodded.

"You're a damned good kisser," she commened with a small grin, remembering the kiss that had left her breathless just this morning.

"Like that, did you?" he chuckled. "I wasn't trying to rush you into anything… I just… needed to."

"The only complaint I had was the fact that you did so in front of Poppy… who spent the next twenty minutes laughing. She's tickled to death at the prospect of… us," Minerva admitted.

"Perhaps the world won't react to us as a couple as bad as we imagine," the young man at her side mused as he moved from his chair to sit on the edge of her bed. "Perhaps…"

His fingers reached out and ghosted across her cheek as his voice trailed off and, much like this morning, arousal flooded through her. "Neville…" she whispered.

I'm falling in love with you… she thought.

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