Every now and then, he needs her. But she doesn't need him. Does she?
An encounter on a cold night in a tent during World War II leads to a lifetime of occasional dalliances between Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall.
✔ COMPLETE
🥇2 HP Fanfic...
I've drowned and dreamt this moment ~ Adele Adkins & Paul Epworth
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Even hours later, she could feel the brush of his skin against hers.
She hadn't just imagined it.
Had she?
The way her nipples had hardened when it happened—she hadn't imagined that.
Surely, he meant nothing by it. It was just an accidental touch as he released her after their dance. He wouldn't have done anything inappropriate with the entire school and Headmaster Dippet watching. She was the Head Girl, and he was her teacher, and there had never been anything more between them than that.
Had there?
Years later, she'd think of it—just the lightest feathering of his fingertips against the back of her neck—as their secret handshake.
~oOo~
She didn't look at him as she slipped off the Muggle dress.
They didn't dare use a Warming Charm—any magic so close to Grindelwald's stronghold might give them away—so they huddled together for warmth under the blanket in the Muggle tent, she in her slip and he in a pair of Muggle boxers and a vest.
The clothes wouldn't fool any of Grindelwald's henchmen, but the area they'd come through had been crawling with Muggles after the Soviet army had swept through, spreading both jubilation and terror in their wake. In the event, by the time they'd been travelling for six weeks, they had blended in perfectly with the ragged and blank-faced refugees that poured both ways across the Byelorussian border.
With the aid of a bit of Arithmancy and a distinctly non-magical Enigma machine to break the Knights' code, they had traced Gellert Grindelwald to this sliver of poor, ravished Poland. And now that they were closing in on him, the danger was palpable. The excitement of being part of the adventure had been replaced, first by gnawing hunger, and then by an acid fear that spoiled her appetite for what little food they could scrounge up.
She wondered how the others were faring. It had been three weeks since they'd seen another member of the hit team. How many of them had made it here to the Białowieża Forest? Or were she and Albus the only ones?
She was both surprised and not when he pressed up against her and put an arm around her waist.
"It's the best way to stay warm," he said.
"Yes."
She tried to sleep, but her awareness of his body against hers made her heart thud dully in her chest and her thoughts careen from place to place. Gradually, she became aware of a nudging sensation against her buttocks. As it grew firmer and more insistent, she realised what it was.
In years to come, she'd try to decide if he would have done it anyway it had she not pressed her bottom back against him, but she never came to a conclusion.
