Harry Potter - "Venus & Adonis" - Part 2 - Oliver/McGonagall - NC-17
Title: Venus & Adonis
Author: marseverlasting
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Oliver/McGonagall
Word Count: 14,320 words
Summary: Minerva McGonagall comes to England to care for her ailing sister, and finds something so much more. A lesson in growth for one, and pleasure for the other.
Warnings: Age disparity like whoa. Oliver is jailbait, and McGonagall is a total cougar. Includes sex! And boyishness! And excessively long paragraphs!
Author's notes: Written for reallycorking for smutty_claus.
Part 1
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Witches, bitches, and britches.
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Victoria awakes late the next morning - what fortune! - emerging just as Minerva finishes making their breakfast of crepe and tea (enough to feed a small army.) They eat it, indulgently, with frequent smiles; whipped cream and strawberry jam on this one, and lemon and sugar on that.
“So,” Victoria proposes with a hint of laughter to her sad voice, “who was that lad you dined with last night?”
Minerva flourishes a deep red and she nearly chokes on her food: “What? - What are you talking about?”
“Oh come now, I wasn’t asleep all evening. I saw you with that neighbourhood boy. Who is he?”
“A -” truth and fiction whirl about her head like kite tails, “- student. From Hogwarts. He plays captain for the Gryffindor Quidditch team.”
“My word, what luck.” Victoria gives a coy smile; it’s so nice to see such life in her face again, the fresh batteries of sleep and sisterhood revving her to gentility once more. “So you just discussed Quidditch, then?”
“Yes - and school, the beginning of term; he’s one of my best pupils.” The excuses fold and overlap and coalesce beautifully, though still without a shred of believability.
“He’s very attractive,” Victoria induces, weariness creeping back into her voice as the flush of excitement drains.
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“Oh, please,” Victoria says, putting her hand over Minerva’s and smiling widely, “you noticed. I dare say you more than noticed.”
“I don’t know what you’re getting it,” Minerva says with irritation, withdrawing from her sister and giving the whole world the sternest of looks. Silence for a moment; oh, fine, it’s her sister, after all: “Okay,” (dismissive), “perhaps I - tested the theory. It was inappropriate and I would appreciate if you didn’t mention it again.”
“He seemed quite smitten with you,” Victoria continues.
“That’s unfortunate for him, then.” Hell was creeping upon her in inches. “I must say, it’s all over now.”
“Why?”
Minerva gives her a sharp look: “What do you mean, why?”
“I mean - why should you finish it?”
“He’s a student! It’s wholly inappropriate.”
“It’s summer. He’s just a boy now, no studenthood to be seen. And he’s hardly a boy at that. Almost a man. Got his growth on from what I’ve seen. Really, what harm is there in playing with him a bit longer?”
Minerva closes her lips into a thin line, and regards her sister severely. “He’s sixteen.”
“You’re doing him a favour, Minerva. He has so many hormones clouding that little head of his, he’s probably going to go mad if he doesn’t get at least a little release once in a while. And what a shame if he does it all through masturbation. Really, if he doesn’t learn to please a lady now, he’ll be going through life thinking foreplay is some mystical tradition of times long past.” Victoria smiles at her sister’s discomfort. “And it’s good for you, too. When’s the last time you had a little something fawning for your attention? It will make you feel young. The water of life and all that.”
“It’s still inappropriate, no matter how much good - questionable good - it will do.”
“Who is he going to tell?”
Minerva replies with silence.
“He’s not going to tell anyone, so what is the harm? It’ll be good - trust me, much more entertaining than taking care of me. Besides, I could use a little excitement, live vicariously through you and such. Get my blood flowing a bit more.”
“It’s out of the question.”
A bit of silence, enough to fit a comfortable sip of tea or two.
And then, Victoria: “I think I shall invite him to our party tonight.”
“You will do no such thing.”
“Oh, come on, Minerva. It will be wonderful!” Victoria seems suddenly energetic, and it’s wonderful to see. “Look at me, I haven’t been this active in years - we simply must invite him. It will do us all a world of good to have such a boy about us at dinner - all my friends will be just bursting with jealousy. Yes, I think I shall invite him.”
“I forbid it.” Minerva gets up from the table with their plates and glares scathingly at her sister. “It cannot happen. Don’t you even think of it, don’t you even dare.”
*
The garden party is a smashing event. The backyard, stunning now in its overgrowth, plays host to a long tent, not made of canvas but rather long stretches of white gauze and lace. Bulbed lights flower on the poles of the canopy like little buds, all of their light getting tossed and tangled in the cloth and curtains, illuminating the place in the warmest of glows.
Victoria’s friends - all widowed, elderly ladies (there but for the grace of God go I, Minerva contemplates sadly) - are smiling creatures, bent and hooked baba yagas with mouths full of kindness. They sit by the table, occasional flickers of youthful brilliance piercing the conquering veil of lethargy, and talk slowly amongst themselves (of, naturally, the weather.) Minerva stands like a spot of youth among them, still sharp and fierce, black-haired and unrelenting in her fight for everything. She’s like a teenage daughter in their midst, and though depressing to contemplate, it does make her feel a bit happier.
Dinner (magicked; Minerva has neither the patience or the skill to make dinner for twelve) is prepared in the dining room, on silver trays steaming and beading and waiting for mouths. After a glass or two of white wine, and a glass or two of mindless talk, Minerva announces that it will now be served:
“I think I shall fetch dinner now,” Minerva says with a smile.
“Oh, no need,” Victoria says broadly. “My nephew will serve it.”
Oh, dear reader, you know the game now, don’t you?
“I don’t have any sons -” Minerva says, wary of her sister’s tricks (she hasn’t been the subject of one for years, but she remembers her youth vividly, and now forebodingly.)
“Oh, no, my nephew on Hector’s side. I still keep in touch with his family though he is with us no more.”
And then, sure enough, out comes Oliver, silver tray in hand, coy smirk on his mouth. Minerva blanches, and turns back to her sister angrily. The circumstances stay her from comment, but if looks could kill England would now be underwater.
Oliver is stunning, dressed in imitation of a waiter, white shirt and black suit - have you ever seen a boy his age dressed finely? Awkward youth transforms easily into beauty; a suit can change even the strangest looking child into an object of wealth and admiration. The lines of the tailoring, the cut of it hugging his sides and slimming him into a figure of power - he’s like a little baron, or prince, or infante or some kind. His ears are scrubbed clean and blushing and his hair is parted to the side and shines in the pale light. He plays the game well, and he rather seems to slide towards them, drifting above the air, than walk like a boy - the very image of submission and servitude.
He holds out the tray - roast beef, sliced thin and fanned into wide circles. He returns with pots of gravy, a tureen of rosemary-potatoes, and then a bowl of roasted chicken in a warm wine sauce; more - white asparagus served with dill and butter, cucumbers sliced with vinegar and pepper, mashed pumpkin with a dollop of cream in the center. The food is piled high on the table, and despite the smells of food and comfort, it is the boy who is the true centerpiece. Victoria regards him with joy, like a proud mother, while there exists a kind of subtle pleasure in the looks of the other ladies. Young chap, young lad, beautiful and broad, with the kind of face that promises innocence, and the kind of look that promises anything but. Again, that sexuality - ever present, held generously in his hands, gifted in the sway of his body, the touch as he deposits the food on the table. He’s the dessert, the gift, the coffee and the cigarette. They spend every moment touching his shoulder and thanking him, sincerely. All but Minerva who, glaring, makes naught but the faintest of connections to him (at least acknowledging that he is in the room, but little beyond this.)
Dinner continues as you might expect; eating, talking - mostly about how wonderful this dish is, or that, how pleasant the wine is, the weather is, the evening is, the summer is - and more unhidden glances to the now reclining boy (sitting by the kitchen door, watching his mistresses attentively.)
After a period of half an hour, Oliver withdraws into the house only to return with a record player (old, ancient; Oliver engages a fantasy that it exists as a relic of the Great War.) He selects a record at random (what misfortune, a dragging piece by Handel, which, while pleasing furniture music, exists somewhere beyond his interest, Oliver hoping instead for something like Billie Holiday or Cole Porter, to make this F.-Scott-Fitzgerald portrait complete.)
The dinner ends somewhere near midnight; Victoria begins to drift to familiar sleep, and her lady-friends feel useless to help her. They part with hugs and kisses (also reserved for Oliver, who puts a pleasing cap on the experience by shedding his over coat to expose his white shirt beneath [of course, being Oliver, top three notches unbuttoned and sleeves rolled up to his elbows] which is far more saccharine than the soft chocolate cake previously enjoyed.)
At last, Victoria gives the two remaining party-goers (an impossibly withdrawn Minerva and an awkwardly shuffling Oliver) a nod and a “goodnight” and goes to bed.
At last, our scene comes down to two - even the lights seem to dim, and the whole stage is immersed in shadow save for the round spotlight the boy and the woman occupy. Silence, naturally, rules the night.
Minerva begins the inevitable: “Perhaps you didn’t hear me the first time -”
She is interrupted as Oliver pulls towards her and plants the most tender of kisses to her mouth, a feat long thought impossible to emerge from the body of a boy. “Please,” he whispers, “it’s just a summer thing. Don’t worry about it.”
It bends, it breaks; the center cannot hold. The pure energy rippling from the boy; like radiation, or mercury, or something equally as noxious, bad for the body but ignored by the mind. Minerva, possessed by herself, thoughts of students and teaching - the critical mind accusing her of rape, of hate, of dishonesty and pain - but Oliver, ever-charming, is shirtless now, and het with summer fire and the taste of Minerva (wine and spices, a familiar mix.)
She wants to worry about it, wants to break away and deny him and banish him! but Oliver begins to kiss at her neck, to plant the smooth length of his tongue in the hollows of her throat; and when he kisses her mouth she can taste the sweetness of dessert hidden under his tongue. The sensation of his teeth (the two sharp ones; canines, perhaps, tingle as they scratch her tongue) is near overwhelming, and it’s all she can do to breathe in his smell - pine and boys’ deodorant and sweet milk and the dust of the house.
He drops to his knees; he paws at the waist of her skirt and manages to release the clutch. He hides, tents himself under her, and slides off her undergarments (black intricate things; deliberate?) A tongue reaches to action, rolling and licking, teasing and entering her, gently, to release and commence its hieroglyphic pattern about her waist. Oh, the sensation of it cuts breath from the woman, draws it into her lungs to disperse through her body - each breath bringing with it the sting of pleasure to spread it like venom through her blood. The tattoo of her heart reaches heights, fluttering, hating in her chest as his tongue flips and enters her, patterns her waist with kisses and nips. Her hips buck, easing into him, soft thighs nudging against his cheek as he goes on and on; furthering, deepening.
Her fingers clutch the edges of the table as she comes, and she bites her lip to blood to stop from crying out (she owes that much to herself.) Like being struck, or slapped, and red heat sparks vividly in her cheeks and at the top of her chest. This isn’t the orgasm, she realizes, this isn’t the tongue or her body or the cold brush of night. This is Oliver, this is all Oliver, this is the boy and his charm - that’s what fires her; any other man, any boring old man could not revive this beast like boy-Oliver did. Oh God, it is the boy and that’s why her hips push to the sky and her back arches near painfully and her teeth bite down; it’s all Oliver, it is that sweet face and small pink tongue and naked body and their past relationship, burned and corrupted into this heavenly shambles of a summer tryst.
She slows, her mind calms, her hips fall and Oliver arises, smiling and grinning and wiping his lips with the back of his hand. He leans into her and kisses her lips with the lazy happiness of those in pleasure - a silly puckered lip-to-lip.
Minerva relaxes herself against the table and lets her heart fall to calm beats, and then - oh, how she hates herself for it, how she detests herself - she smiles, and says:
“Oh - oh my heavens - that’s -” so sly, so wicked and grinning, “I must say, fifty points to Gryffindor.”
He laughs, and she laughs; they laugh until they cry and the night turns black and they sleep, together, in her bed, until morning through.
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Who shall measure the heat and violence of the poet's
heart when caught and tangled in a woman's body?
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To describe every moment of intimacy, every moment of finger-curling, hip-bucking sex would be impossible. The details of each moment could only be summarized in novels, not paragraphs. As such, only the highlights will be described, and they are as follows.
*
The boy, by now a regular and welcome fixture of the house, lies on the grass of Victoria’s backyard, scarcely dressed (baggy camouflage shorts, going appropriately “commando” underneath - Minerva doesn’t understand the term, so Oliver has to explain; both subjects laugh.) Minerva sits in her familiar chair and reads; she’s an odd lady like that, one of those people you always seem to see sitting - she looks nearly unnatural in any other position, and Oliver tries to remember if she ever taught class standing up - surely, surely.
In any case, she is reading that damnable novel again (Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds, a thick unknowable thing Minerva tries to explain and Oliver can never, ever understand) and she has that slightly sour look to her face. Oliver contents himself with braiding long piece of grass, tickling the round of his nipples, and watching Minerva read.
“You know,” he begins, his voice adopting the sound that prophesizes rambling, “everyone asks why the sky is blue, right? It’s one of those typical questions kids ask their parents. But, you know, no one ever seems to be able to explain it. It’s such a - a pop culture thing, isn’t it? But when does anyone ever give an answer?”
Minerva glances over her book at the boy (on his stomach now, leaning up; what beautiful shoulder blades, pyramids of bone and -) and gives a little frown.
“I mean, why is the sky blue?”
Minerva cocks an eyebrow and settles her glasses to the bridge of her nose before she speaks: “It has something to do with the angle of the sunlight entering the atmosphere.”
“Hm,” Oliver sounds, flipping to his back (cross-hatched grass pattern etched on that flat, white tummy), “that’s kind of boring. You sure it’s not the reflection of the water in the sky?”
“I hardly think so.”
“Maybe that’s why no one asks these questions. The answers are so boring.”
They are silent once more, punctured only occasionally by the turning of a page, or the sigh of a boy.
Wood: “Let’s go to Austria.”
McGonagall: “Pardon?”
Wood: “Let’s go to Austria.”
McGonagall: “I heard you, I meant, Pardon me what in Merlin’s name do you mean?”
Wood: “I mean let’s leave here, buy two tickets to Austria and go to Vienna.”
McGonagall: “That’s absurd.”
A few moments of silence. Then Oliver turns to face Minerva and smiles.
“Think about it, we could go to France by bus, get a train in Paris and ride it to Vienna. Get a hotel somewhere in the old district, a nice big marble place with gold designs everywhere and candlelight and servant boys who wait on your hand and foot. We could get room service champagne and watch Austrian television. Then, at night, we could go to the opera and talk all though it and make all the old stodgy people there really angry. We could talk over whatserface’s aria - whatserface, you know the one -”
“Carmen?”
“Yeah, Carmen, sure. And we could sneeze at really important parts, and cough and throw popcorn and then get thrown out, and we could hit all the cafes in town and drink absinthe and get really stoned and try and swim in the river - whatsit, the river -”
“The Danube.” (bemused reply)
“Yeah, the Danube. Yeah. That’s what we should do.”
It’s nice getting caught in his stories, belonging as one star to the constellation of his fantasies. It’s far too easy, far too romantic to imagine, strolling the river-walk with him and drinking and smoking and being a generally terrible person. Minerva smiles and replies: “You wouldn’t want to swim in the Danube.”
“Then, in the hot tub.” That glance, oh you know that glance if ever you’ve met a boy who knows he’s going to come. That’s the looks he gives.
“We can’t go to Vienna,” Minerva replies succinctly, looking at him over her glasses. She affirms this with a nod of her head.
“I know.” Oliver deflates a bit. “Oh well.”
Minerva returns to reading, and Oliver tries to touch his tongue to his nose.
*
Minerva watches him doze in the grass, and her mind fantasizes situations for him. Here he is, now, young, lying in the ferns by the edge of a stream. His wrists arch elegantly over his head, and he’s as pale as whey; drowned, in the river, and now abandoned on the shore, foot still dragging in the cold stream, dirt ringing the cuffs of his pants and creasing his bare feet with mud. Or else raped, broken by a group of men, deposited in the forest for fresh-faced joggers to happen upon; number-one story on the six o’clock news - local boy (cue reminiscent picture, arm slung around the shoulders of boys, laughing! and cheer) raped and killed, left in countryside; more gory details to come (i.e.: amount of men, size of them, current location, relation to the boy, how they picked him up; how sexual the news becomes - and they have the gall to call others deviant!) Oh, and now, from some Belgian warfield, blood weeping from the hole in his stomach, lying destroyed in this forgotten glade, having crawled there for miles, away from the fighting -
She shakes her head, too engrossed with the macabre, and sees him there, just sleeping, in the grass.
*
“Do you ever think this is wrong?”
Oliver is naked. His cock lies sleeping between his legs, nested in the short curl of hair. He leans on his elbow at the end of Minerva’s bed, leaning into a magazine he barely reads. Minerva attends to herself at the vanity, putting on make-up for their evening out (dinner and then a bar; daring the world, to be honest.)
“I know it is.”
“Then why do you do it - do I,” a lazy pitch in his hips, and he touches himself lightly, fingering the head of his cock thoughtlessly, “make you feel young?”
“Oh, if anything you make me feel old.”
“Is it because you just love jailbait?”
“No.”
“I don’t get it, then.”
Minerva has thought about this; has many calculated responses, ranging from defensive to sheer lunacy. She questions every moment she touches Oliver, wrestling herself over each fragment of affection she doles to the boy. A teacher! for God’s sake, a teacher! - but Oliver, desired and deserved and God, he wants it and he loves it - it’s not like they’re blackmailing, or forced into it - and she loves the curl of his fingers and the touch of his lips - and her importance in his eyes, the affection with which he looks at her, all the games he plays - she loves the respect; a respect neither teaching nor prowess nor anything but sexual vigor can create - yes, the respect -
She replies: “Because I want to.”
And it feels good.
*
They get really, really stoned.
*
Oliver takes ill near the middle of August. A fever, red-blowing and sweaty. He succumbs overnight, with McGonagall, and takes to her bed - so now Minerva has two ailing people to tend for.
He’s quite beautiful - tragically beautiful - when he’s ill. Oh, all red, naked under his sheets, sweat peeling off every section of skin, slick to the touch and salty to the kiss. He exists as a bundle of blankets, coiled under them like a sleeping snake, spending his days with rough tongue (impatient, very often, snapping and moaning gently.) His hair is oily from having been bed-ridden for days, and it sticks up at odd angles, tangled about his ears and face - he really shouldn’t be appealing at all, but to touch, just slightly the hot angle of his hip, or finger his feathered ribs - then you know his beauty, and why he is attractive so.
His cock grows red and swollen on occasion, and Minerva strokes it sometimes, sitting at the edge of his bed. He never reaches completion, though, for when she exercises him (slowly, fingers just lazy over the length of it) he is quickly lulled to sleep, and his cock softens to warmth again.
She prepares him meals; serving him boiled chicken with its skin, and cranberries, things to keep his strength up; carrot soup and cream of broccoli. Tea with lemon and sugar. Warm wine, too, and lots of it at night, which seems to temper his fever and please him greatly.
He sleeps fitfully, but she loves the touch of his skin as he does so; warm, so warm, like pieces of fresh bread, just total and utter heat coursing from his body; radiating from his cock and his armpits, sweat building at the small of his back and the top of his chest (her hand glides over it, around, and then up along his spine.) Like something surreal, a mythological boy; Apollo riding the chariot of the sun (coursing warmth) or just Helios himself. Little bundle, little incandescent boy; she touches his forehead and the curve of his belly button, kissing him sometimes on the lips (Oedipus.)
He regains health in a few days, and assumes his usual vigorous glow; ahh, the invincibility of youth.
*
At night, in our familiar garden, Minerva and Oliver lounge again. Minerva is reading (a new one now, bare-covered - she said it was something like, oh, Dublin? The Dubliner? Something like that, he can’t remember) and Oliver contents himself with his little brother’s Game Boy (ringing and dinging like every videogame stereotype you could imagine.)
You know how in those dark places, when the sky is heavy with stars, your attentions stirs from the ordinary - and the book or the poem or the game you’re enjoying suddenly pops and you lose interest, no matter the previous joy. Distraction embodies you and it’s near impossible to concentrate on anything but that growing heat in your belly, and the proximity - her hand, her leg, the arch of her calf and the red of her lips, her skirt, her shirt, her breasts, her feet, her hands, her -
Oliver takes off his shirt; resistant to the fabric, annoying and cloying; he takes off his shorts, and remains in his boxers (a comfortable median between real life and sex, which he enjoys immensely.) He does that tilt, that arch in his back and fold in his stomach, bending the muscle and sucking on his lower lip - the kind of look that makes Minerva’s eyes freeze on the page and cross her legs.
He doesn’t know why he does it - okay, okay, he does, but he doesn’t like to admit that he likes the attention (which he does; there’s a reason why he took the Quidditch captain position) - but he’s soon enticing himself, teasing his cock, hand slid under the hem of his boxers; theatrical and pornographic at once. Minerva watches, pretends not to; but Oliver knows her eyes have stopped scanning the page as he teases the collar of his boxers sliding them down just enough to show a dark curl of hair, or the soft root of his cock. It’s mystifying, the conjunction of his hand and his hip, the connection between his shifting hand and the rocking of his waist.
God, can she ever stop admiring his beauty? He’s like true boyhood, shifting more into a symbol than a person now, but every so often he’ll say something (“I was thinking about changing our starting lines next year” - “Who’s in your NEWT Transfiguration class next semester? Don’t tell me Flint’s in it -”) and then her whole self-contained boyhood-fantasy comes crashing about her ankles and she just sees Oliver, plain Oliver, and there is never better sex than that. Like now, all roguish, strung deeply in his web of sex, a place boys seem to live naturally - yes, where they look their most normal, their most common, in the throes of passion (you’ll never see a gent more sweet, more open, more happy than when his cock is worked over.) He’s like a colt; irresponsible, energetic, ready to bolt, ready to fly - explosive and fast-burning, a sky-walking firework, leaping and jumping only to the things he likes.
He jerks himself off now, and she watches. How perverted, how thick and dirty, which is maybe why she watches. Never has she done anything out of the norm, never has she indulged in drugs or trickery or lies or deceit. But now - well, she could blame the coming war, or loneliness, or Victoria’s impending death (another source of guilt, but Victoria insists she spend as much time with Oliver as she can) but really it comes down to that fact that Minerva just wants it, and that she’s always wanted it, since Ewing came those years ago requesting Oliver be made the new keeper.
It’s still hidden in the cloth, his hand, but the real attraction comes from his face, all clenched and tight, biting his lower lips, nostrils flaring. That’s where the real sex happens; dark under the eyes, shadows masking and unmasking, trapped in his hair and thick on his eyelashes.
He frees himself from his boxers, and rolls to his back, leaning up on one hand while the other pumps at his swollen cock with the other. It’s like something from a pornographic film, something vivid and real but distinctly separated from true sex. It does away with reality and replaces it with false-shined fake-fruit, like she’s watching a set action rather than the spontaneous Oliver she’s felt before. He really has become a symbol of boyishness, and in this he’s stepped into the realm of pure fantasy, isolating himself in his constellation once more, just another star in a series of elaborate make-believes.
But when he comes (oh, she squirms, half of out of guilt and half out of knowing it will be the last time she sees him coming, so vulnerable, beautiful) it all seems to fade, and all that exists are his red lips, pressed and parted and gasping anew; her name, on the wind, and the sudden ecstatic shock in his eyes as the come lands in strings about his chest and stomach; he looks like he’s seeing God.
He cleans himself off and stands, before her, naked. One last look; now imperfect form only visible after he’s came (scars on the back of his shoulders, a birthmark on the small of his back,) They touch hands, and he kisses her palm gently, and then the back of her hand.
“I’ll see you later, then,” Oliver says.
“Mm, yes,” comes the lady’s reply.
It’s the last day of summer; and that was the wax seal, the final recognition of just what he is and just what he means (to Minerva; for Oliver this was just a bit of fun, something to fill the days and to fill his mind, a new game, a new play.) He doesn’t ask silly questions - we can keep doing this, or maybe next year, or would you like to stay together tonight; he knows all the answers now and he doesn’t have to ask a thing. So he kisses her palm once more and gathers up his clothes. He slips into his boxers, flannel that rides up to those wonderful thighs, and he turns to the back garden wall. The hollows of his knees, as deep as eggs, itch, and he scratches them, and that movement is the last she sees of his body; the bend to scratch, the rippling of muscle and moving shadow, like the flight of birds, winged ribs sliding and folding like clockwork under his skin. And then, without looking back, he tosses his things over the wall, and with a flying jump, vaults the thistle and crawls up the stone border. He straddles this boundary for a moment, glances over his shoulder, once, at Minerva and then swings over to the other side.
Fin.
Author: marseverlasting
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Oliver/McGonagall
Word Count: 14,320 words
Summary: Minerva McGonagall comes to England to care for her ailing sister, and finds something so much more. A lesson in growth for one, and pleasure for the other.
Warnings: Age disparity like whoa. Oliver is jailbait, and McGonagall is a total cougar. Includes sex! And boyishness! And excessively long paragraphs!
Author's notes: Written for reallycorking for smutty_claus.
Part 1
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Witches, bitches, and britches.
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Victoria awakes late the next morning - what fortune! - emerging just as Minerva finishes making their breakfast of crepe and tea (enough to feed a small army.) They eat it, indulgently, with frequent smiles; whipped cream and strawberry jam on this one, and lemon and sugar on that.
“So,” Victoria proposes with a hint of laughter to her sad voice, “who was that lad you dined with last night?”
Minerva flourishes a deep red and she nearly chokes on her food: “What? - What are you talking about?”
“Oh come now, I wasn’t asleep all evening. I saw you with that neighbourhood boy. Who is he?”
“A -” truth and fiction whirl about her head like kite tails, “- student. From Hogwarts. He plays captain for the Gryffindor Quidditch team.”
“My word, what luck.” Victoria gives a coy smile; it’s so nice to see such life in her face again, the fresh batteries of sleep and sisterhood revving her to gentility once more. “So you just discussed Quidditch, then?”
“Yes - and school, the beginning of term; he’s one of my best pupils.” The excuses fold and overlap and coalesce beautifully, though still without a shred of believability.
“He’s very attractive,” Victoria induces, weariness creeping back into her voice as the flush of excitement drains.
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“Oh, please,” Victoria says, putting her hand over Minerva’s and smiling widely, “you noticed. I dare say you more than noticed.”
“I don’t know what you’re getting it,” Minerva says with irritation, withdrawing from her sister and giving the whole world the sternest of looks. Silence for a moment; oh, fine, it’s her sister, after all: “Okay,” (dismissive), “perhaps I - tested the theory. It was inappropriate and I would appreciate if you didn’t mention it again.”
“He seemed quite smitten with you,” Victoria continues.
“That’s unfortunate for him, then.” Hell was creeping upon her in inches. “I must say, it’s all over now.”
“Why?”
Minerva gives her a sharp look: “What do you mean, why?”
“I mean - why should you finish it?”
“He’s a student! It’s wholly inappropriate.”
“It’s summer. He’s just a boy now, no studenthood to be seen. And he’s hardly a boy at that. Almost a man. Got his growth on from what I’ve seen. Really, what harm is there in playing with him a bit longer?”
Minerva closes her lips into a thin line, and regards her sister severely. “He’s sixteen.”
“You’re doing him a favour, Minerva. He has so many hormones clouding that little head of his, he’s probably going to go mad if he doesn’t get at least a little release once in a while. And what a shame if he does it all through masturbation. Really, if he doesn’t learn to please a lady now, he’ll be going through life thinking foreplay is some mystical tradition of times long past.” Victoria smiles at her sister’s discomfort. “And it’s good for you, too. When’s the last time you had a little something fawning for your attention? It will make you feel young. The water of life and all that.”
“It’s still inappropriate, no matter how much good - questionable good - it will do.”
“Who is he going to tell?”
Minerva replies with silence.
“He’s not going to tell anyone, so what is the harm? It’ll be good - trust me, much more entertaining than taking care of me. Besides, I could use a little excitement, live vicariously through you and such. Get my blood flowing a bit more.”
“It’s out of the question.”
A bit of silence, enough to fit a comfortable sip of tea or two.
And then, Victoria: “I think I shall invite him to our party tonight.”
“You will do no such thing.”
“Oh, come on, Minerva. It will be wonderful!” Victoria seems suddenly energetic, and it’s wonderful to see. “Look at me, I haven’t been this active in years - we simply must invite him. It will do us all a world of good to have such a boy about us at dinner - all my friends will be just bursting with jealousy. Yes, I think I shall invite him.”
“I forbid it.” Minerva gets up from the table with their plates and glares scathingly at her sister. “It cannot happen. Don’t you even think of it, don’t you even dare.”
*
The garden party is a smashing event. The backyard, stunning now in its overgrowth, plays host to a long tent, not made of canvas but rather long stretches of white gauze and lace. Bulbed lights flower on the poles of the canopy like little buds, all of their light getting tossed and tangled in the cloth and curtains, illuminating the place in the warmest of glows.
Victoria’s friends - all widowed, elderly ladies (there but for the grace of God go I, Minerva contemplates sadly) - are smiling creatures, bent and hooked baba yagas with mouths full of kindness. They sit by the table, occasional flickers of youthful brilliance piercing the conquering veil of lethargy, and talk slowly amongst themselves (of, naturally, the weather.) Minerva stands like a spot of youth among them, still sharp and fierce, black-haired and unrelenting in her fight for everything. She’s like a teenage daughter in their midst, and though depressing to contemplate, it does make her feel a bit happier.
Dinner (magicked; Minerva has neither the patience or the skill to make dinner for twelve) is prepared in the dining room, on silver trays steaming and beading and waiting for mouths. After a glass or two of white wine, and a glass or two of mindless talk, Minerva announces that it will now be served:
“I think I shall fetch dinner now,” Minerva says with a smile.
“Oh, no need,” Victoria says broadly. “My nephew will serve it.”
Oh, dear reader, you know the game now, don’t you?
“I don’t have any sons -” Minerva says, wary of her sister’s tricks (she hasn’t been the subject of one for years, but she remembers her youth vividly, and now forebodingly.)
“Oh, no, my nephew on Hector’s side. I still keep in touch with his family though he is with us no more.”
And then, sure enough, out comes Oliver, silver tray in hand, coy smirk on his mouth. Minerva blanches, and turns back to her sister angrily. The circumstances stay her from comment, but if looks could kill England would now be underwater.
Oliver is stunning, dressed in imitation of a waiter, white shirt and black suit - have you ever seen a boy his age dressed finely? Awkward youth transforms easily into beauty; a suit can change even the strangest looking child into an object of wealth and admiration. The lines of the tailoring, the cut of it hugging his sides and slimming him into a figure of power - he’s like a little baron, or prince, or infante or some kind. His ears are scrubbed clean and blushing and his hair is parted to the side and shines in the pale light. He plays the game well, and he rather seems to slide towards them, drifting above the air, than walk like a boy - the very image of submission and servitude.
He holds out the tray - roast beef, sliced thin and fanned into wide circles. He returns with pots of gravy, a tureen of rosemary-potatoes, and then a bowl of roasted chicken in a warm wine sauce; more - white asparagus served with dill and butter, cucumbers sliced with vinegar and pepper, mashed pumpkin with a dollop of cream in the center. The food is piled high on the table, and despite the smells of food and comfort, it is the boy who is the true centerpiece. Victoria regards him with joy, like a proud mother, while there exists a kind of subtle pleasure in the looks of the other ladies. Young chap, young lad, beautiful and broad, with the kind of face that promises innocence, and the kind of look that promises anything but. Again, that sexuality - ever present, held generously in his hands, gifted in the sway of his body, the touch as he deposits the food on the table. He’s the dessert, the gift, the coffee and the cigarette. They spend every moment touching his shoulder and thanking him, sincerely. All but Minerva who, glaring, makes naught but the faintest of connections to him (at least acknowledging that he is in the room, but little beyond this.)
Dinner continues as you might expect; eating, talking - mostly about how wonderful this dish is, or that, how pleasant the wine is, the weather is, the evening is, the summer is - and more unhidden glances to the now reclining boy (sitting by the kitchen door, watching his mistresses attentively.)
After a period of half an hour, Oliver withdraws into the house only to return with a record player (old, ancient; Oliver engages a fantasy that it exists as a relic of the Great War.) He selects a record at random (what misfortune, a dragging piece by Handel, which, while pleasing furniture music, exists somewhere beyond his interest, Oliver hoping instead for something like Billie Holiday or Cole Porter, to make this F.-Scott-Fitzgerald portrait complete.)
The dinner ends somewhere near midnight; Victoria begins to drift to familiar sleep, and her lady-friends feel useless to help her. They part with hugs and kisses (also reserved for Oliver, who puts a pleasing cap on the experience by shedding his over coat to expose his white shirt beneath [of course, being Oliver, top three notches unbuttoned and sleeves rolled up to his elbows] which is far more saccharine than the soft chocolate cake previously enjoyed.)
At last, Victoria gives the two remaining party-goers (an impossibly withdrawn Minerva and an awkwardly shuffling Oliver) a nod and a “goodnight” and goes to bed.
At last, our scene comes down to two - even the lights seem to dim, and the whole stage is immersed in shadow save for the round spotlight the boy and the woman occupy. Silence, naturally, rules the night.
Minerva begins the inevitable: “Perhaps you didn’t hear me the first time -”
She is interrupted as Oliver pulls towards her and plants the most tender of kisses to her mouth, a feat long thought impossible to emerge from the body of a boy. “Please,” he whispers, “it’s just a summer thing. Don’t worry about it.”
It bends, it breaks; the center cannot hold. The pure energy rippling from the boy; like radiation, or mercury, or something equally as noxious, bad for the body but ignored by the mind. Minerva, possessed by herself, thoughts of students and teaching - the critical mind accusing her of rape, of hate, of dishonesty and pain - but Oliver, ever-charming, is shirtless now, and het with summer fire and the taste of Minerva (wine and spices, a familiar mix.)
She wants to worry about it, wants to break away and deny him and banish him! but Oliver begins to kiss at her neck, to plant the smooth length of his tongue in the hollows of her throat; and when he kisses her mouth she can taste the sweetness of dessert hidden under his tongue. The sensation of his teeth (the two sharp ones; canines, perhaps, tingle as they scratch her tongue) is near overwhelming, and it’s all she can do to breathe in his smell - pine and boys’ deodorant and sweet milk and the dust of the house.
He drops to his knees; he paws at the waist of her skirt and manages to release the clutch. He hides, tents himself under her, and slides off her undergarments (black intricate things; deliberate?) A tongue reaches to action, rolling and licking, teasing and entering her, gently, to release and commence its hieroglyphic pattern about her waist. Oh, the sensation of it cuts breath from the woman, draws it into her lungs to disperse through her body - each breath bringing with it the sting of pleasure to spread it like venom through her blood. The tattoo of her heart reaches heights, fluttering, hating in her chest as his tongue flips and enters her, patterns her waist with kisses and nips. Her hips buck, easing into him, soft thighs nudging against his cheek as he goes on and on; furthering, deepening.
Her fingers clutch the edges of the table as she comes, and she bites her lip to blood to stop from crying out (she owes that much to herself.) Like being struck, or slapped, and red heat sparks vividly in her cheeks and at the top of her chest. This isn’t the orgasm, she realizes, this isn’t the tongue or her body or the cold brush of night. This is Oliver, this is all Oliver, this is the boy and his charm - that’s what fires her; any other man, any boring old man could not revive this beast like boy-Oliver did. Oh God, it is the boy and that’s why her hips push to the sky and her back arches near painfully and her teeth bite down; it’s all Oliver, it is that sweet face and small pink tongue and naked body and their past relationship, burned and corrupted into this heavenly shambles of a summer tryst.
She slows, her mind calms, her hips fall and Oliver arises, smiling and grinning and wiping his lips with the back of his hand. He leans into her and kisses her lips with the lazy happiness of those in pleasure - a silly puckered lip-to-lip.
Minerva relaxes herself against the table and lets her heart fall to calm beats, and then - oh, how she hates herself for it, how she detests herself - she smiles, and says:
“Oh - oh my heavens - that’s -” so sly, so wicked and grinning, “I must say, fifty points to Gryffindor.”
He laughs, and she laughs; they laugh until they cry and the night turns black and they sleep, together, in her bed, until morning through.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Who shall measure the heat and violence of the poet's
heart when caught and tangled in a woman's body?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
To describe every moment of intimacy, every moment of finger-curling, hip-bucking sex would be impossible. The details of each moment could only be summarized in novels, not paragraphs. As such, only the highlights will be described, and they are as follows.
*
The boy, by now a regular and welcome fixture of the house, lies on the grass of Victoria’s backyard, scarcely dressed (baggy camouflage shorts, going appropriately “commando” underneath - Minerva doesn’t understand the term, so Oliver has to explain; both subjects laugh.) Minerva sits in her familiar chair and reads; she’s an odd lady like that, one of those people you always seem to see sitting - she looks nearly unnatural in any other position, and Oliver tries to remember if she ever taught class standing up - surely, surely.
In any case, she is reading that damnable novel again (Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds, a thick unknowable thing Minerva tries to explain and Oliver can never, ever understand) and she has that slightly sour look to her face. Oliver contents himself with braiding long piece of grass, tickling the round of his nipples, and watching Minerva read.
“You know,” he begins, his voice adopting the sound that prophesizes rambling, “everyone asks why the sky is blue, right? It’s one of those typical questions kids ask their parents. But, you know, no one ever seems to be able to explain it. It’s such a - a pop culture thing, isn’t it? But when does anyone ever give an answer?”
Minerva glances over her book at the boy (on his stomach now, leaning up; what beautiful shoulder blades, pyramids of bone and -) and gives a little frown.
“I mean, why is the sky blue?”
Minerva cocks an eyebrow and settles her glasses to the bridge of her nose before she speaks: “It has something to do with the angle of the sunlight entering the atmosphere.”
“Hm,” Oliver sounds, flipping to his back (cross-hatched grass pattern etched on that flat, white tummy), “that’s kind of boring. You sure it’s not the reflection of the water in the sky?”
“I hardly think so.”
“Maybe that’s why no one asks these questions. The answers are so boring.”
They are silent once more, punctured only occasionally by the turning of a page, or the sigh of a boy.
Wood: “Let’s go to Austria.”
McGonagall: “Pardon?”
Wood: “Let’s go to Austria.”
McGonagall: “I heard you, I meant, Pardon me what in Merlin’s name do you mean?”
Wood: “I mean let’s leave here, buy two tickets to Austria and go to Vienna.”
McGonagall: “That’s absurd.”
A few moments of silence. Then Oliver turns to face Minerva and smiles.
“Think about it, we could go to France by bus, get a train in Paris and ride it to Vienna. Get a hotel somewhere in the old district, a nice big marble place with gold designs everywhere and candlelight and servant boys who wait on your hand and foot. We could get room service champagne and watch Austrian television. Then, at night, we could go to the opera and talk all though it and make all the old stodgy people there really angry. We could talk over whatserface’s aria - whatserface, you know the one -”
“Carmen?”
“Yeah, Carmen, sure. And we could sneeze at really important parts, and cough and throw popcorn and then get thrown out, and we could hit all the cafes in town and drink absinthe and get really stoned and try and swim in the river - whatsit, the river -”
“The Danube.” (bemused reply)
“Yeah, the Danube. Yeah. That’s what we should do.”
It’s nice getting caught in his stories, belonging as one star to the constellation of his fantasies. It’s far too easy, far too romantic to imagine, strolling the river-walk with him and drinking and smoking and being a generally terrible person. Minerva smiles and replies: “You wouldn’t want to swim in the Danube.”
“Then, in the hot tub.” That glance, oh you know that glance if ever you’ve met a boy who knows he’s going to come. That’s the looks he gives.
“We can’t go to Vienna,” Minerva replies succinctly, looking at him over her glasses. She affirms this with a nod of her head.
“I know.” Oliver deflates a bit. “Oh well.”
Minerva returns to reading, and Oliver tries to touch his tongue to his nose.
*
Minerva watches him doze in the grass, and her mind fantasizes situations for him. Here he is, now, young, lying in the ferns by the edge of a stream. His wrists arch elegantly over his head, and he’s as pale as whey; drowned, in the river, and now abandoned on the shore, foot still dragging in the cold stream, dirt ringing the cuffs of his pants and creasing his bare feet with mud. Or else raped, broken by a group of men, deposited in the forest for fresh-faced joggers to happen upon; number-one story on the six o’clock news - local boy (cue reminiscent picture, arm slung around the shoulders of boys, laughing! and cheer) raped and killed, left in countryside; more gory details to come (i.e.: amount of men, size of them, current location, relation to the boy, how they picked him up; how sexual the news becomes - and they have the gall to call others deviant!) Oh, and now, from some Belgian warfield, blood weeping from the hole in his stomach, lying destroyed in this forgotten glade, having crawled there for miles, away from the fighting -
She shakes her head, too engrossed with the macabre, and sees him there, just sleeping, in the grass.
*
“Do you ever think this is wrong?”
Oliver is naked. His cock lies sleeping between his legs, nested in the short curl of hair. He leans on his elbow at the end of Minerva’s bed, leaning into a magazine he barely reads. Minerva attends to herself at the vanity, putting on make-up for their evening out (dinner and then a bar; daring the world, to be honest.)
“I know it is.”
“Then why do you do it - do I,” a lazy pitch in his hips, and he touches himself lightly, fingering the head of his cock thoughtlessly, “make you feel young?”
“Oh, if anything you make me feel old.”
“Is it because you just love jailbait?”
“No.”
“I don’t get it, then.”
Minerva has thought about this; has many calculated responses, ranging from defensive to sheer lunacy. She questions every moment she touches Oliver, wrestling herself over each fragment of affection she doles to the boy. A teacher! for God’s sake, a teacher! - but Oliver, desired and deserved and God, he wants it and he loves it - it’s not like they’re blackmailing, or forced into it - and she loves the curl of his fingers and the touch of his lips - and her importance in his eyes, the affection with which he looks at her, all the games he plays - she loves the respect; a respect neither teaching nor prowess nor anything but sexual vigor can create - yes, the respect -
She replies: “Because I want to.”
And it feels good.
*
They get really, really stoned.
*
Oliver takes ill near the middle of August. A fever, red-blowing and sweaty. He succumbs overnight, with McGonagall, and takes to her bed - so now Minerva has two ailing people to tend for.
He’s quite beautiful - tragically beautiful - when he’s ill. Oh, all red, naked under his sheets, sweat peeling off every section of skin, slick to the touch and salty to the kiss. He exists as a bundle of blankets, coiled under them like a sleeping snake, spending his days with rough tongue (impatient, very often, snapping and moaning gently.) His hair is oily from having been bed-ridden for days, and it sticks up at odd angles, tangled about his ears and face - he really shouldn’t be appealing at all, but to touch, just slightly the hot angle of his hip, or finger his feathered ribs - then you know his beauty, and why he is attractive so.
His cock grows red and swollen on occasion, and Minerva strokes it sometimes, sitting at the edge of his bed. He never reaches completion, though, for when she exercises him (slowly, fingers just lazy over the length of it) he is quickly lulled to sleep, and his cock softens to warmth again.
She prepares him meals; serving him boiled chicken with its skin, and cranberries, things to keep his strength up; carrot soup and cream of broccoli. Tea with lemon and sugar. Warm wine, too, and lots of it at night, which seems to temper his fever and please him greatly.
He sleeps fitfully, but she loves the touch of his skin as he does so; warm, so warm, like pieces of fresh bread, just total and utter heat coursing from his body; radiating from his cock and his armpits, sweat building at the small of his back and the top of his chest (her hand glides over it, around, and then up along his spine.) Like something surreal, a mythological boy; Apollo riding the chariot of the sun (coursing warmth) or just Helios himself. Little bundle, little incandescent boy; she touches his forehead and the curve of his belly button, kissing him sometimes on the lips (Oedipus.)
He regains health in a few days, and assumes his usual vigorous glow; ahh, the invincibility of youth.
*
At night, in our familiar garden, Minerva and Oliver lounge again. Minerva is reading (a new one now, bare-covered - she said it was something like, oh, Dublin? The Dubliner? Something like that, he can’t remember) and Oliver contents himself with his little brother’s Game Boy (ringing and dinging like every videogame stereotype you could imagine.)
You know how in those dark places, when the sky is heavy with stars, your attentions stirs from the ordinary - and the book or the poem or the game you’re enjoying suddenly pops and you lose interest, no matter the previous joy. Distraction embodies you and it’s near impossible to concentrate on anything but that growing heat in your belly, and the proximity - her hand, her leg, the arch of her calf and the red of her lips, her skirt, her shirt, her breasts, her feet, her hands, her -
Oliver takes off his shirt; resistant to the fabric, annoying and cloying; he takes off his shorts, and remains in his boxers (a comfortable median between real life and sex, which he enjoys immensely.) He does that tilt, that arch in his back and fold in his stomach, bending the muscle and sucking on his lower lip - the kind of look that makes Minerva’s eyes freeze on the page and cross her legs.
He doesn’t know why he does it - okay, okay, he does, but he doesn’t like to admit that he likes the attention (which he does; there’s a reason why he took the Quidditch captain position) - but he’s soon enticing himself, teasing his cock, hand slid under the hem of his boxers; theatrical and pornographic at once. Minerva watches, pretends not to; but Oliver knows her eyes have stopped scanning the page as he teases the collar of his boxers sliding them down just enough to show a dark curl of hair, or the soft root of his cock. It’s mystifying, the conjunction of his hand and his hip, the connection between his shifting hand and the rocking of his waist.
God, can she ever stop admiring his beauty? He’s like true boyhood, shifting more into a symbol than a person now, but every so often he’ll say something (“I was thinking about changing our starting lines next year” - “Who’s in your NEWT Transfiguration class next semester? Don’t tell me Flint’s in it -”) and then her whole self-contained boyhood-fantasy comes crashing about her ankles and she just sees Oliver, plain Oliver, and there is never better sex than that. Like now, all roguish, strung deeply in his web of sex, a place boys seem to live naturally - yes, where they look their most normal, their most common, in the throes of passion (you’ll never see a gent more sweet, more open, more happy than when his cock is worked over.) He’s like a colt; irresponsible, energetic, ready to bolt, ready to fly - explosive and fast-burning, a sky-walking firework, leaping and jumping only to the things he likes.
He jerks himself off now, and she watches. How perverted, how thick and dirty, which is maybe why she watches. Never has she done anything out of the norm, never has she indulged in drugs or trickery or lies or deceit. But now - well, she could blame the coming war, or loneliness, or Victoria’s impending death (another source of guilt, but Victoria insists she spend as much time with Oliver as she can) but really it comes down to that fact that Minerva just wants it, and that she’s always wanted it, since Ewing came those years ago requesting Oliver be made the new keeper.
It’s still hidden in the cloth, his hand, but the real attraction comes from his face, all clenched and tight, biting his lower lips, nostrils flaring. That’s where the real sex happens; dark under the eyes, shadows masking and unmasking, trapped in his hair and thick on his eyelashes.
He frees himself from his boxers, and rolls to his back, leaning up on one hand while the other pumps at his swollen cock with the other. It’s like something from a pornographic film, something vivid and real but distinctly separated from true sex. It does away with reality and replaces it with false-shined fake-fruit, like she’s watching a set action rather than the spontaneous Oliver she’s felt before. He really has become a symbol of boyishness, and in this he’s stepped into the realm of pure fantasy, isolating himself in his constellation once more, just another star in a series of elaborate make-believes.
But when he comes (oh, she squirms, half of out of guilt and half out of knowing it will be the last time she sees him coming, so vulnerable, beautiful) it all seems to fade, and all that exists are his red lips, pressed and parted and gasping anew; her name, on the wind, and the sudden ecstatic shock in his eyes as the come lands in strings about his chest and stomach; he looks like he’s seeing God.
He cleans himself off and stands, before her, naked. One last look; now imperfect form only visible after he’s came (scars on the back of his shoulders, a birthmark on the small of his back,) They touch hands, and he kisses her palm gently, and then the back of her hand.
“I’ll see you later, then,” Oliver says.
“Mm, yes,” comes the lady’s reply.
It’s the last day of summer; and that was the wax seal, the final recognition of just what he is and just what he means (to Minerva; for Oliver this was just a bit of fun, something to fill the days and to fill his mind, a new game, a new play.) He doesn’t ask silly questions - we can keep doing this, or maybe next year, or would you like to stay together tonight; he knows all the answers now and he doesn’t have to ask a thing. So he kisses her palm once more and gathers up his clothes. He slips into his boxers, flannel that rides up to those wonderful thighs, and he turns to the back garden wall. The hollows of his knees, as deep as eggs, itch, and he scratches them, and that movement is the last she sees of his body; the bend to scratch, the rippling of muscle and moving shadow, like the flight of birds, winged ribs sliding and folding like clockwork under his skin. And then, without looking back, he tosses his things over the wall, and with a flying jump, vaults the thistle and crawls up the stone border. He straddles this boundary for a moment, glances over his shoulder, once, at Minerva and then swings over to the other side.
Fin.