Chapter Text
“This is really the best part of our job,” Severus stated as a cloud that looked like a Hungarian Horntail passed by.
“Do you mean teaching or parenting?” Minerva asked. They were both lying in the grass between the greenhouses and the lake, shoes off, her head on his stomach, and watching the clouds. It was the second to last week of the summer holidays. Liz and Draco were lingering near the lake, laughing and chatting about the works.
“Both.”
“Mmh.” There was a splash when Draco pushed Liz into the lake, and another one when she pulled him into the water as well. They both climbed out again with some efforts, their wet clothes sticking to their bodies unfavourably, and collapsed on the ground with laughter. Minerva flicked her wand lazily and sent them a quick drying charm before she closed her eyes. “Tell me when they’re about to break the law.”
“They won’t.”
“Draco won’t, you mean.”
“And Liz doesn’t usually ditch him to do something illegal.” Severus reached out for Minerva’s wand and laid it aside. Last year’s events had finally resulted in an incredible amount of tears and a jealousy drama with Aurora, who had felt ignored, but they were all over it now. Lucius and Narcissa were on a short trip to Italy, Aurora was visiting her family and Minerva was home with him. Zero potential for any kind of conflict. Well, Minerva had been out on her own a few times, but at least she didn’t spend her days with another short-lived affair.
“What the – ” She opened her eyes and sat up. “Something hit me in the face.”
“Rude.” Severus looked around himself and spotted an owl taking wing in the opposite direction.
Minerva took the envelope that had landed on the ground next to her and sliced it open with her wand instead of a knife. “Would you please come to my office,” she read out loud. “Now. Signed A. D.”
“Anno Domini?” he joked. “Do we have to go?”
“We should.” She was already about to take her shoes on. Liz and Draco where nowhere to be found, which was not much of a surprise. It was possible that they even left the country during the day, but they would always be punctual for dinner.
Dumbledore checked his watch for the hundredth time in the last seven minutes. “I don’t know what’s taking her so long,” he said apologetically.
“Oh, that’s alright.” Remus made a dismissive gesture. “I’ve got time.” He could, in fact, imagine worse places to wait a few minutes at than the headmaster’s office. Even just standing in front of the desk, there were so many books and instruments to see that seven minutes were actually too short to have a closer look at them all.
As the old wizard checked his watch for the hundred-and-first time, they could hear someone running up the stairs. Precisely, it had to be several pairs of feet. “Hey, wait!” a man exclaimed. A woman laughed. Then, there was a tantalised “Meow!” and the sound of a piece of furniture being knocked over. “Sorry, not sorry!”
For a moment, Remus thought Minerva must be with James and Sirius. A hopeless medley of messy hair and bad jokes they had been, detention every weekend, every single one convinced he or she was the best. The best Quidditch player, the best at stealing things from Filch’s office, the best-looking of the Marauders. Minerva insisting that she was better than Lily and James telling her that awesome hair was not what he was looking for. Sirius asking why the hell he liked a redhead, then. The thought hurt.
“You can’t run up spiral stairs when they’re moving, Min!”
“Years of practice,” came the answer. “You know, I’ve been there a little more often than you.”
“Always on the verge of being expelled, I know.”
A few seconds later, Minerva appeared on the doorstep, directly followed by no one else than… Severus Snape. Well, that was going to get interesting.
One step into the office, she stopped abruptly. “What – ”
“Hello, Minerva,” Remus said friendly.
She stared at him. “Uh…”
“What’s biting you, won’t you at least give me a hug?” Not waiting for her reaction, he stepped forward and embraced her. And slowly, she was warming up.
“Yeah, hey… sorry I’m acting like an idiot, but – I wasn’t aware you still exist, why didn’t you write me in all those years?”
“I’m telling you in a minute,” he promised. “Severus, I didn’t expect I would say that, but it’s nice to meet you again.”
“Can’t return the compliment,” Severus grumbled.
Dumbledore sighed.
“Now, the minute’s over!” Minerva urged. “Why didn’t you send me a single letter in over a decade, not even a bloody Christmas card, just to let us know you’re alive and maybe tell us your new address? You knew where to find me!”
“You could as well have called me,” Remus replied calmly.
“Excuse me? I didn’t even know if you had a phone!”
“But you did know there is such a thing as telephone books, yes? If I had been so important to you, I trust you would have managed to look up my name and check if it’s listed.”
“And you seriously think I have nothing better to do than look up your name in a phone book under dozens of towns because I don’t even know where you live?”
“Minerva, this has not been an easy time for any of us. You weren’t the only one who was just barely getting by.”
“But as far as I am concerned, you were a bachelor who took no responsibility except for himself,” Severus intervened. “You never had to divide your way too short 24 hours a day between several children, two of them chronically ill, your girlfriend and a wizarding school.”
“Oh, don’t you play the chronically-ill-card.” Remus took a muggle photo from his wallet that showed Liz, Miri and a horse. “First, I’m ill myself, and second, those girls don’t look too pitiable.”
Minerva’s eyes widened. “Where’d you get that?”
“Well, one of your daughters,” he said slowly and enjoyed her shocked expression as he spoke, “sent it to me after I casually mentioned in one of my letters that I had absolutely no clue how she looked now. She first wrote me to ask for advice on bubotuber pus.”
“Liz.”
He nodded. “She also told me that you never talked about me, and further that she was forbidden to ask. I told her I understood.”
“So, do you?”
“Not really.”
Severus shook his head. “Don’t ask and you’ll do yourself and everyone else a huge favour.”
“Severus,” Dumbledore intervened. “I expect you to brew enough Wolfsbane for three persons from now on. And your broken calculator is not an excuse, Septima can adapt the recipe for you.”
“You never tried to ask her for a favour, did you?”
Minerva snickered. “Tima, can you please open the door for me? – Depends, do you have twenty Galleons? She’ll totally rip you off.”
“
Minerva must have noticed Remus’s confused face, because she said in her dictionary voice: “Septima Vector, Arithmancy. Socially incompetent Princeton graduate from Alabama, you’ll get to know her soon enough.”
“Sounds interesting,” Remus claimed.
Severus sent him a thoughtful gaze that he didn’t quite know how to interpret. “I mean, Miri still owes me a favour,” he then considered, going back to the topic of adapting the recipe. “She would love to do the job.”
Minerva snickered. “Sure, and Liz takes her medicine reliably.”
“Do you know what Liz does with the Wolfsbane she doesn’t drink?”
Dumbledore had meanwhile given up trying to lead them back to the agenda.
She looked at her shoes. “I’m not sure if I even want to know.”
“She gives it to Trelawney and says it’s coffee.”
Minerva exploded with laughter. “That’s honestly the best thing you can do with leftover Wolfsbane!”
Severus cleared his throat. “Leftover?”
When the meeting was over, Minerva was surprised to see that only twenty minutes had passed. But even more surprised was she when she stopped in an alcove to tie her shoelaces and found both Remus and Severus waiting for her. “Did I forget something?“
Remus raised his hands to a somewhat sheepish gesture, something along the lines ‘I don’t know, I’m new’. “I just wanted to ask if you would have dinner with me tonight? We really have a lot to talk about.”
“Unfortunately, she’s already going out with me tonight,” Severus claimed before Minerva could answer.
“No!” she protested. “Guys, I'm not going out with either of you, I'm just going to – do what I planned to do.” She got up and walked along the corridor towards the Great Hall. (It was difficult to say if Remus knew where she was heading, as she had to make a huge detour due to an inaccessible staircase.)
“Alone?” he asked.
Minerva grinned. “All bi my own, so to speak.”
Severus raised his eyebrows. “Louise?”
“Went on holidays.”
“Where?”
“Does it matter? Probably at the Amalfi Coast or somewhere else where common folk like us couldn’t afford to stay.”
“Louise who?” Remus asked desperately.
“Evanesco.”
“From Zonko’s?”
“Yes, how do you know?”
“I went there when I arrived last week and saw her name tag.”
Severus slowly blinked. “Would you believe it,” he said to Minerva. “That man comes back to Hogsmeade for the first time in at least five years, and the first thing he does is going to Zonko’s Joke Shop.”
“I was pretty surprised to hear such an accent in the middle of the Highlands,” Remus went on unperturbed. “She’s Irish, right?”
“One would think so, yes,” Minerva agreed. “I think she’s even related to one of our scholars, Seamus Finnigan, but I’m not absolutely sure. Her family’s nauseously rich, she could simply buy Zonko’s if she wanted to.”
After Remus had taken his leave to arrange his things in the new office, Severus asked: “If it’s not Louise, who are you seeing?”
“I didn't say I’m seeing anyone at the moment.”
“Oh, come on! Do I know them?”
She ignored the question. “Do you already know what you’re going to cook with Liz and Draco tonight?” With all the house elves working somewhere else over the summer, it was a lot easier to set foot into the kitchen without getting absurd amounts of food forced on you. It did mean, however, that people like Minerva were in a fix because they couldn't really cook beyond rice and fried eggs.
“Cook with them?” he sneered. “Rather let them cook, we’re at a point where they think they know better than me. I’ll figure something out. Don’t you think it’s a little mean to assume from the outset that I’m not going out tonight?"
She laughed. “When you were going on dates for the last time, I was in my twenties.”
“Hey, that’s not so long gone! I don’t get why they can’t simply stay at Malfoy Manor unsupervised for a few days anyway. We’re talking about teenagers, after all.”
“That’s exactly what I’m worried about.”
Severus took the way to the kitchen, while Minerva crossed the Great Hall from a side door – and stopped. “Are you fucking kidding me?!” At the main entrance stood Liz and Draco, their clothes looking battered, sand and dirt in their hair and all over them. On top of that, Liz had a bruised knee beneath her torn jeans.
“But we’re back before dawn,” she pleaded tentatively.
“I don’t care when you’re back! Why, why on earth can’t you just take off your good clothes when you know it’s going to get, I don’t know, heady?”
“We didn’t know it would get heady until it actually was.” Draco picked at his sleeve that was ripped open from the elbow to the wrist.
Minerva groaned out loud. “And that’s exactly how teenage pregnancies happen. How am I supposed to explain this to your father?”
Draco gave her a sceptical look. “That I ripped my shirt or that you hate everything because you’d rather be at Rome with his wife now?”
“Liz, remind me of killing you after dinner.” She sighed. “Where the hell did you go today, the Dark Ages?”
Draco shrugged. “Somewhere in East Sussex, don’t ask me. I don’t really know myself.”
“And what did you do there, that you couldn’t possibly do here?”
The two of them exchanged a look. “Play hide-and-seek?” Liz suggested sheepishly.
Minerva rubbed her forehead. “You’re about to become prissier than your own parents.Please tell me that’s not the whole story.”
“Well, no, but – “
“Good,” she cut her off. “You go to your dorms, take a shower, and then we’re going to see what we can do about your clothes.”
Liz folded her hands sheepishly. “And, Min?”
Minerva’s expression softened. She guessed her facial muscles were just tired of looking furious. “Yes?”
“How do you make a Patronus?”
“You think of a happy experience and say Expecto Patronum, that’s basically all. I’ll show it to you when I have time.”
“As in ‘I expect a patron’?” Liz asked.
“Yes.”
“Does that mean you don’t ask for one, you just say you expect it to come because you’re a major authority like King Artus and when you enjoin something, it’s self-evident that it happens? Because it doesn’t work if you don’t believe in your own authority?”
Minerva facepalmed. “I can see why you would take King Artus as an example, but can we please discuss this topic somewhen else?” The teenagers nodded and walked away. “This is not the way to your dormitory, Draco!”