Betrayal and the Art of Salvation | Harry Potter for Grown-Ups

Chapter Two

24 December 1994

"May I have this dance, Professor McGonagall?" the Headmaster asked. Assuming the answer would be in the affirmative, he had already taken her hand and led her onto the dance floor, where the young people were already swirling, awkwardly but gamely, around in pairs.

After the traditional waltz, the two elders retired once again to the sidelines to observe as their young charges—and some of their colleagues, Minerva noted with a shudder as she watched Hagrid trampling the hard-to-avoid toes of Madam Maxime's dress slippers—went looking for love. She and Poppy had already discussed the necessity of laying in an extra supply of Calming Draughts in anticipation of a sudden influx to the infirmary of broken-hearted girls and the occasional boy with vague complaints of sleeplessness or stomach aches in the aftermath of the Yule Ball.

Minerva thought, with uncharacteristic wistfulness, of the days in which heartache could be mended by the passage of a few weeks and the sudden realisation of an undying passion for a previously unnoticed pair of eyes.

She glanced over at Albus, deep in conversation with Igor Karkaroff, and wondered whether he had lately found a sympathetic pair of eyes in which to drown his recent cares.

A pert pair of breasts, more likely, she mused.

She shook off the thought and didn't revisit it again until the dance seemed to be winding down, with only a few dozen students hanging languidly off of one another on the dance floor. She had almost given in to fatigue and allowed her eyelids to flutter closed when her ears perked up at the strains of a familiar tune.

Then he was at her side, asking once again, "May I have this dance, Minerva?" This time, it was not the courtly public voice, but a familiar and seductive whisper in her ear, a voice she had once believed was reserved only for her.

"You may," she answered, and they took the floor, to the astonished looks of the young couples around them, most of whom had looked up at the sudden change of musical direction, shrugged, and gone back to their swaying.

The longing strains of Gershwin's "Where or When" washed over the room. As Peggy Lee continued to sing about familiar clothes and smiles, Minerva looked up at Albus and said, "You put Filius up to this."

"You are correct in this, as in most things, my dearest Minerva."

"Why?"

He gave her a wicked smile and leant down to whisper into her ear, "I suppose I was hoping I might—how do the children put it?—'get lucky' this evening."

Well, that answered her earlier question, she supposed. She snorted, causing the couples next to them to look over briefly.

"Still enjoying your state of protracted adolescence, I see."

"It must be the constant exposure to all these teenaged hormones."

"I should have thought you'd be impervious to them by now."

"But not to your considerable charms."

"Oh, give over, you old fool."

He laughed, then she did, too.

When the song ended, the abrupt change of music to some contemporary drivel prompted Minerva to begin to pull away from him, but he held her fast by the waist.

"You are intent on giving the children something to talk about, aren't you?" she said.

"Do they talk about us?

"You know they do. "

"And here I thought they had you and Severus shagging in every room in the castle."