Fic: The Promise of Sausage for Huldrejenta
Title: The Promise of Sausage
Author/Artist: Brighty18
Recipient: Huldrejenta
Rating: PG-13/R for swearing and sexual references
Contents or warnings (highlight to view): This story will NOT work well in plain text; in fact it might make no sense whatsoever.* Swearing, culinary references to the male anatomy, and deliberately bad fanfiction.*
Word count: About 3,000
Summary: Not every evening goes as planned - especially when it's hijacked by forces out of one's control.
Notes: Happy Holidays to one of my favorite people, Huldrejenta! I tried to get in some of the the things you like, but I also very deliberately included some of the things you don't. I hope that's okay, but I wanted to poke some gentle fun at fandom foibles.
The crystal icicles and intricately engraved sterling globs globes of the Christmas tree reflected the myriad white candles hovering above the white-clothed table. Across the room, a glimmering, snow-white fire crackled merrily in the marble fireplace, providing the entire room, a frosty glow. Ice-bright pixies flitted to and fro amongst the tall, twinkling tapers, their radiance shimmering in Sirius’ long hair. Remus looked at his partner and sighed at the beauty before him.
“Are you enjoying your dinner, my love?” he asked in with a slightly worried tone frown. He’d spent all day preparing their romantic evening. The heavy, ornate silver was polished to a mirror-like finish, the French champagne thoughtfully selected, the potatoes browned to perfection. But the pièce de résistance was the entrée, and Remus hoped against hope that his lover, the tall dark man, whose black red scarlet crimson velvet dress robes lay open to reveal a smooth, muscular chest, would be pleased enough to properly reward him later.
Sirius looked down at his heart-shaped filet mignon and said…
Knock. Knock. Knock.
“What in bloody hell do they want now?” grumbled Minerva, quickly throwing her cloak over the magicked Muggle typewriter she’d secretly bought off Hagrid. No use in students seeing her secret hobby; she had a reputation to protect, after all. In their eyes, she was Professor McGonagall, tall, grey, and stern. Known for her fairness and devotion to Quidditch, rather than for her somewhat scandalous (not to mention utterly uncharacteristic) romantic pastime. “What do you need?” she called out as she made her way to the door of her office.
“Professor McGonagall! Professor McGonagall!” squeaked the tinny little voice of Celbert Creevey. "Ulrich Appletree placed an engorgement hex on Rita Rumblebum’s buttocks and now she’s trapped in the doorway.”
Minerva shook her head and grabbed her hat. “Why on earth did he find THAT necessary?” she snapped, silently cursing Albus Dumbledore for coming down with the Niffler Flu. He was the one meant to be on duty tonight. She was the one meant to be pursuing the one thing she truly enjoyed, the one thing that made each night off special, the one thing that she could do to break free of the stifling burden of her no-nonsense reputation.
“Hurry!” called Celbert, “It’s growing bigger by the second, and I don’t know if the architecture can take it!”
“The architecture can take it just fine. It’s over 1,000 years old and has seen its share of dragons and trolls. I hardly think some Fourth-year’s backside has the power to defeat it.” She hurried toward the door. The sooner she shrunk Rita’s bum, the sooner she could return and write about some far more enticing backsides.
*** ** *** ** ***
Sirius looked down at his heart-shaped filet mignon and said, “What is bloody hell is this, Moony?” He poked tentatively at his steak with an unfamiliar fork. “I thought it was Bangers and Mash By The Fireplace Night, anyway.”
Remus sighed and shook his head. “I might just as well ask you what the hell you’re wearing,” he smirked.
Sirius’ hands flew to his exposed chest. “Buggering bowtruckles! I look like one of those blokes on the cover of those horrid romance novels your mum loves so much! Flavio? Fabian? Floovia?”
“Fabio,” corrected Remus without thinking.
“And what’s with the tree, all of a sudden,” continued Sirius, “You know how I hate a monochromatic palette.”
“Yes, yes, you’re all about color, are you not? Like those fashionably understated dress robes you’re currently sporting for no reason at all on a Tuesday night.”
“A Bangers and Mash Tuesday night,” Sirius added. “Really look forward to bangers and mash. It’s the one ruddy thing you cook well, and I like eating it in front of the fireplace rather than at this prissy table.”
Remus chuckled. “I’ll ignore the dig, Sirius, but I really must point out that you really ‘look forward’ to nearly anything regarding sausage.”
“Fair point.”
“Seriously, though, Sirius,” said Remus, swatting at a particularly persistent pixie fluttering far too near to his face, “we need to face that fact that this is happening again.”
And it most certainly was. In fact, it had been happening sporadically for the past eighteen months, starting soon after graduation. Life would be chugging along as normal, then, suddenly, everything would change. Time would pass - time that neither wizard could remember - and they would suddenly find themselves in the most preposterous of situations: skipping through a field of poppies or making love on an alarmingly white sandy beach. Muggles who believed in UFOs would call this “missing time,” but neither Remus nor Sirius believed in UFOs. Instead, they believed that someone was pranking them. But who?
“Whoever is behind this, clearly knows very little about us,” observed Sirius.
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, for one thing, they have absolutely no clue about sex. The ‘throbbing manhoods’? The high heels? You on bottom? That awful scissoring thing with the fingers?”
“Good point,” agreed Remus. He popped a potato into his mouth, silently noting that, indeed, there was no way on earth he could have prepared them so perfectly.
A pixie darted at Sirius’ chest, viciously tugging the nipple before pulling out a hair. “Die, you little shit,” Sirius spat, though he merely flicked it away. No use pissing off those things, really. You kill one and the next thing you know, the whole herd was after you.
“Well,” laughed Remus, “we’d better get to it before it all goes away.”
“Get to what before all what goes away?”
“Dinner. You know full well I can’t really cook like this - not to mention the fact that we could never afford such a cut of meat.”
“I’d still rather have sausage.”
“You would.” Remus smirked. Then, after a moment, “I would, too, I suppose.”
“Of course you would.”
*** ** *** ** ***
“Of course you would take the time to prepare such a lovely evening, my darling,” whispered Sirius. He reached across the table and took his boyfriend’s soft, white hand in his own, running his fingers gently over their scarred surface. “The dinner is as charming lovely delicious as you are, the silver candles the same shade as your eyes.”
Remus blushed a deep scarlet. He adored Sirius, but fear lurked in his heart as well. How could someone like him, a shy, penniless, scarred werewolf ever find a lover as devastatingly handsome as Sirius Black? He was as quiet and bookish as Sirius was daring and cocky. What could Sirius ever see in someone like him?
“Let’s dance,” purred Sirius. He snapped his fingers and music began to pour flow from every corner of the room. Strauss’s “Blue Danube Waltz.” Remus’s favorite. He grabbed his lover and whirled him smoothly around the room, pixies dodging and flying to escape the enthusiastic dance steps of the two men.
“I wish this would never end,” Remus sighed, pulling his boyfriend close. Through the volumptous velvet folds of his lover’s dress-robes he could feel the throbbing eagerness of Sirius’s desire. “Take me NOW!” he whispered hoarsely, desire leaking from every breath.
Sirius leaned down and kissed his boyfriend gently, his passion increased as his eager tongue explored the far recesses of the blonde man’s mouth. Remus’s mind went utterly blank but for the faint words tiny voice screaming out in the back of his brain…
“Minerva! Are you there, dear? It seems I am entirely out of lozenges.”
Damn. The unmistakable voice of Albus Dumbledore. For the love of Merlin, would she ever get any peace? “Coming,” she called out.
“Oh, bless you!” cried Dumbledore, pushing his way past her and heading toward her desk. He helped himself to a large handful of the hard sweets she always kept there. “Mmmmm, lemon drops! So much better than those nasty catmint-flavored atrocities Pomfrey gave me... though I fear you’d better not repeat that to her.”
“I shan’t repeat a thing,” Minerva promised solemnly. She raised her right hand and attempted a smile, but, behind such pleasantries lay nothing but an intense wish to be alone.
Predictably, Dumbledore would have none of it. Rather than turning to leave, he began to poke aimlessly about her desk, lifting lids of jars, peering at this and that. He picked up a small, clay statue of a tabby cat and sniffed it dubiously. “Catmint,” he sighed, wrinkling his nose.
Minerva opened her mouth to say something, but quickly snapped it shut. It was quite useless, really. Once Albus set his mind to staying, no spell, no curse, no force of nature, would deter him. Rather, the best course of action was often to simply give in. “Tea?” she offered with a sigh of resignation.
“Oh, dear, no,” Dumbledore replied. “I really must get back to my knitting.”
Knitting? Really? Minerva could not bring herself to ask. To each his (or her) own hobbies, she finally decided.
A few beats of silence passed. From somewhere, deep in a far off hallway, came the muffled pops of wet-start fireworks followed by shrieks of what Minerva rather hopefully presumed to be laughter.
“Rather makes you miss those boys, doesn’t it?” asked Dumbledore with a bemused smile.
“Which boys would those be, exactly?” Minerva inquired, knowing full well what his answer would be. Damn, that Dumbledore was perceptive.
“Oh… Potter and Pettigrew… and Black and Lupin. They were a delightful bundle of masculine energy, were they not?”
“Quite,” huffed Minerva.
Dumbledore leaned against the mantle and laughed. “And you had quite the soft spot for them, I suspect,” he said, a twinkle of something quite distressing in his eye.
Minerva said nothing. Clearly, there was no acceptable reply in such a situation.
“And, of course,” continued Dumbledore, “There was more to them than met the eye.”
He fixed her with a curious stare. “There’s more to most of us than one might expect,” he said after a brief silence. “I can only imagine what lies beneath your staid and stoic exterior… staid… stoic… exterior! Oh! Alliteration! Quite unintentional, but still rather delightful, I assure you.”
Minerva, who had no time for ill-advised literary devices, merely cleared her throat. “Well, Albus…” she began, glancing hopefully at the door.
“Well, then,” said Dumbledore, gathering another large handful of lemon drops. He tipped his hat and headed for the door. Slipping past her, he leaned in and whispered, “Blonde without the “e” is more common in reference to a man.”
Minerva grimaced as she watched the tall, white-haired wizard retreat down the hallway. “Self-correcting typewriter, my arse,” she muttered under her breath.
*** ** *** ** ***
“Mmmmrrrrnnnth,” grunted Remus, gently pushing back at Sirius. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? It’s like your tongue is a bloody niffler and my throat is coated with gold!”
“Erm… sorry,” Sirius apologized. “As you’ve probably surmised, it was ‘that thing’ again.”
Remus shrugged and gestured toward the glistening tree, the flitting fairies, the hovering candles, the roaring white fire, the over-set dinner table, and absurdly-shaped entree. “This is getting out of hand,” he said firmly. “I would love to know who is behind this and disembowel them with one of these hideous spoons.”
“A little harsh, perhaps?” laughed Sirius. “I was thinking more of a nice, hard spanking.”
“Are you not always thinking of a nice, hard spanking?” countered Remus.
“Well, not always.” Sirius grinned. “Sometimes I think about hippopotamuses and sometimes I think about flying carpets and sometimes I think about heart-shaped chunks of meat and…”
“Enough!” cried Remus, moving in to tickle Sirius. “What do I have to do to get you to shut up?”
“Oh, I can think of at least one thing.” Sirius raised a jaunty eyebrow.
“I can think of far too many,” muttered Remus in a failed attempt to be stern.
“So, seriously,” said Sirius, utterly aware of the pun on his name. “Who do you think is behind this?”
“I’ve no idea.”
With a wave of his wand, Sirius pulled back a couple of chairs and both men plunked themselves down at the table. Without hesitation, Sirius dug into his steak. “So who likes steak?” he asked.
“Everyone likes steak, Sirius… Even those who prefer sausage.”
“Who the hell would decorate an entire tree in just silver and white?”
“Well, your family to start, but I hardly see your mum behind this.”
“True.” Sirius paused mid-chew and looked about the room. “The candles are a nice touch, though,” he conceded. “It rather reminds me of school… Hey, who charmed the candles at Hogwarts?”
“McGonagall, I believe.”
Sirius laughed so hard he spit a potato across the room, barely missing a thoroughly annoyed pixie who dodged just in time. “Minerva McGonagall!” he choked out between laughs, “Could you even imagine?”
“Hardly,” replied Remus.
“Well, can you think of anyone else?” Sirius asked, failing once again to be serious.
Remus shook his head. “Frankly, I can think of hundreds.”
*** ** *** ** ***
“I can think of hundreds of reasons for him not to love me,” worried the tiny voice in Remus’s brain. But the strong arms of his lover wrapped more tightly around him, reassuring him greatly. “Maybe,” whispered to himself, “Just maybe.”
“Maybe what, darling, Remus?” Sirius singsonged, “Maybe I should sweep you off your feet, take you up to the boudoir, and ravish you?”
Remus giggled as Sirius swept him up in his strong, muscular masculine, Quidditch-toned arms. He whirled Remus around in a circle, glossy hair flying out in a radiant halo. “Wheeeeeeee!” cried Remus.
“Shit!” said Sirius.
“Shit,” growled McGonagall. “This isn’t working at all.” And why should it, really? Who was she to create romance? She, the practical girl, who’d spent her childhood reading nothing but textbooks, Quidditch journals, Muggle mythology, and medieval stories. As a child her fantasies had centered around riding into battle with ribald men, spitting and killing and laughing at bawdy tales. Sure she’d wanted a knight in shining armor - but only if she could be one, too.
In fact, she’d only discovered romance books as a Fifth-year. Grizelda Greenpod - who’d previously mocked her for being such a tomboy - had one day shoved a tattered Muggle paperback in her face. On the cover was a long-haired Muggle wearing a tight, white shirt that barely covered his chest. “This is what men are really like,” Grizelda had chided. “And you can learn how to be more ladylike, too,” she’d added. “Merlin knows you could use to be more feminine!”
Minerva had devoured that book - and the seven that came after it - page after page of throbbing manhoods and heaving bosoms. No death. No laughter. No bawdy tales. Looking back on it, Minerva could see how much she’d hated the idea. Years later, when she discovered a cheap, tawdry, stapled together booklet about two men in space named Kirk and Spock, Minerva’s world was rocked yet again. Men could be with men! Sadly, though, it was never as joyfully lewd as she’d wanted it to be.
“Perhaps I don’t have it in me!” she muttered sadly, tearing the parchment from the typewriter with a frustrated jerk. She crumpled it into an angry ball and tossed it into the fire. “I don’t even belong in their world! I know nothing about Christmas decorations or romantic dinners or expensive flatware! I’m Scottish, for Merlin’s sake! And I love Quidditch!” She banged her fist against the mantle in despair. “I should face it,” she sadly told the fire, “I’m probably more like one of the boys than I am a real slash writer.”
"Probably so," the fire answered. She shot it a dirty-look before shuffling off to bed.
*** ** *** ** ***
“Shit!” grunted Sirius. “You’re heavier than you look, you know?” He gingerly set Remus back down on the carpet.
“Are you calling me fat?” Remus asked with a laugh.
“No, I’m calling you heavy, to be precise. There’s quite a difference.”
“Then I’m calling you weak and girly.”
“Weak and girly? Me?” Sirius barked out a laugh and poked Remus playfully in the belly. “As I recall, you’re the one who made me a dinner of heart-shaped beef, Mr. Girly Man.”
Remus rolled his eyes. “That was not me, precisely. You know that as well as I do! Were it my dinner, it would have been all about sausage.”
“I’m always all about sausage,” purred Sirius with a wanton leer, “Especially your sausage!” He pulled Remus in close and bit gently down on his neck. “And you know who else is all about your sausage?” he whispered seductively.
“Who?”
“MINERVA MCGONAGALL!!!” Sirius gave Remus another poke to the belly and shot up the stairs laughing.
“Damn, you,” grunted Remus, but deep, down he thought it was funny, too. Imagine, McGonagall getting her jollies out of creating bad romance between two of her least favorite students! As if that could ever happen!
“Are you coming up?” called Sirius from what the bedroom. “I’ve lit a real fire and I've got a sudden craving for bangers! Oh, and bring something good to drink.”
Remus paused briefly over the chilled, French champagne, then ran to the kitchen for a bottle of mulled wine. Champagne was for pansies - and too rich for his blood.
“Well… are you coming or not?” called Sirius. “Fire’s ablazing!"
Remus could never resist a fire - a real one, properly orange and all, not that bloody white mess still daintily burning downstairs. Nor, to be fair, could he resist the promise of sausage.
“Be right there,” he called, bounding up the stairs.
*** ** *** ** ***
Many snowy miles away, Minerva McGonagall slept soundly. In her dreams, four bold wizarding knights rode into battle telling tall tales and laughing at bawdy jokes. Their swords glinted in the sunlight, their wands holstered at their sides. They passed between them a pitted, brown bottle of strong mulled wine.
And, once in awhile, they passed it to Minerva.
Author/Artist: Brighty18
Recipient: Huldrejenta
Rating: PG-13/R for swearing and sexual references
Contents or warnings (highlight to view): This story will NOT work well in plain text; in fact it might make no sense whatsoever.* Swearing, culinary references to the male anatomy, and deliberately bad fanfiction.*
Word count: About 3,000
Summary: Not every evening goes as planned - especially when it's hijacked by forces out of one's control.
Notes: Happy Holidays to one of my favorite people, Huldrejenta! I tried to get in some of the the things you like, but I also very deliberately included some of the things you don't. I hope that's okay, but I wanted to poke some gentle fun at fandom foibles.
The crystal icicles and intricately engraved sterling globs globes of the Christmas tree reflected the myriad white candles hovering above the white-clothed table. Across the room, a glimmering, snow-white fire crackled merrily in the marble fireplace, providing the entire room, a frosty glow. Ice-bright pixies flitted to and fro amongst the tall, twinkling tapers, their radiance shimmering in Sirius’ long hair. Remus looked at his partner and sighed at the beauty before him.
“Are you enjoying your dinner, my love?” he asked in with a slightly worried tone frown. He’d spent all day preparing their romantic evening. The heavy, ornate silver was polished to a mirror-like finish, the French champagne thoughtfully selected, the potatoes browned to perfection. But the pièce de résistance was the entrée, and Remus hoped against hope that his lover, the tall dark man, whose black red scarlet crimson velvet dress robes lay open to reveal a smooth, muscular chest, would be pleased enough to properly reward him later.
Sirius looked down at his heart-shaped filet mignon and said…
Knock. Knock. Knock.
“What in bloody hell do they want now?” grumbled Minerva, quickly throwing her cloak over the magicked Muggle typewriter she’d secretly bought off Hagrid. No use in students seeing her secret hobby; she had a reputation to protect, after all. In their eyes, she was Professor McGonagall, tall, grey, and stern. Known for her fairness and devotion to Quidditch, rather than for her somewhat scandalous (not to mention utterly uncharacteristic) romantic pastime. “What do you need?” she called out as she made her way to the door of her office.
“Professor McGonagall! Professor McGonagall!” squeaked the tinny little voice of Celbert Creevey. "Ulrich Appletree placed an engorgement hex on Rita Rumblebum’s buttocks and now she’s trapped in the doorway.”
Minerva shook her head and grabbed her hat. “Why on earth did he find THAT necessary?” she snapped, silently cursing Albus Dumbledore for coming down with the Niffler Flu. He was the one meant to be on duty tonight. She was the one meant to be pursuing the one thing she truly enjoyed, the one thing that made each night off special, the one thing that she could do to break free of the stifling burden of her no-nonsense reputation.
“Hurry!” called Celbert, “It’s growing bigger by the second, and I don’t know if the architecture can take it!”
“The architecture can take it just fine. It’s over 1,000 years old and has seen its share of dragons and trolls. I hardly think some Fourth-year’s backside has the power to defeat it.” She hurried toward the door. The sooner she shrunk Rita’s bum, the sooner she could return and write about some far more enticing backsides.
*** ** *** ** ***
Sirius looked down at his heart-shaped filet mignon and said, “What is bloody hell is this, Moony?” He poked tentatively at his steak with an unfamiliar fork. “I thought it was Bangers and Mash By The Fireplace Night, anyway.”
Remus sighed and shook his head. “I might just as well ask you what the hell you’re wearing,” he smirked.
Sirius’ hands flew to his exposed chest. “Buggering bowtruckles! I look like one of those blokes on the cover of those horrid romance novels your mum loves so much! Flavio? Fabian? Floovia?”
“Fabio,” corrected Remus without thinking.
“And what’s with the tree, all of a sudden,” continued Sirius, “You know how I hate a monochromatic palette.”
“Yes, yes, you’re all about color, are you not? Like those fashionably understated dress robes you’re currently sporting for no reason at all on a Tuesday night.”
“A Bangers and Mash Tuesday night,” Sirius added. “Really look forward to bangers and mash. It’s the one ruddy thing you cook well, and I like eating it in front of the fireplace rather than at this prissy table.”
Remus chuckled. “I’ll ignore the dig, Sirius, but I really must point out that you really ‘look forward’ to nearly anything regarding sausage.”
“Fair point.”
“Seriously, though, Sirius,” said Remus, swatting at a particularly persistent pixie fluttering far too near to his face, “we need to face that fact that this is happening again.”
And it most certainly was. In fact, it had been happening sporadically for the past eighteen months, starting soon after graduation. Life would be chugging along as normal, then, suddenly, everything would change. Time would pass - time that neither wizard could remember - and they would suddenly find themselves in the most preposterous of situations: skipping through a field of poppies or making love on an alarmingly white sandy beach. Muggles who believed in UFOs would call this “missing time,” but neither Remus nor Sirius believed in UFOs. Instead, they believed that someone was pranking them. But who?
“Whoever is behind this, clearly knows very little about us,” observed Sirius.
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, for one thing, they have absolutely no clue about sex. The ‘throbbing manhoods’? The high heels? You on bottom? That awful scissoring thing with the fingers?”
“Good point,” agreed Remus. He popped a potato into his mouth, silently noting that, indeed, there was no way on earth he could have prepared them so perfectly.
A pixie darted at Sirius’ chest, viciously tugging the nipple before pulling out a hair. “Die, you little shit,” Sirius spat, though he merely flicked it away. No use pissing off those things, really. You kill one and the next thing you know, the whole herd was after you.
“Well,” laughed Remus, “we’d better get to it before it all goes away.”
“Get to what before all what goes away?”
“Dinner. You know full well I can’t really cook like this - not to mention the fact that we could never afford such a cut of meat.”
“I’d still rather have sausage.”
“You would.” Remus smirked. Then, after a moment, “I would, too, I suppose.”
“Of course you would.”
*** ** *** ** ***
“Of course you would take the time to prepare such a lovely evening, my darling,” whispered Sirius. He reached across the table and took his boyfriend’s soft, white hand in his own, running his fingers gently over their scarred surface. “The dinner is as charming lovely delicious as you are, the silver candles the same shade as your eyes.”
Remus blushed a deep scarlet. He adored Sirius, but fear lurked in his heart as well. How could someone like him, a shy, penniless, scarred werewolf ever find a lover as devastatingly handsome as Sirius Black? He was as quiet and bookish as Sirius was daring and cocky. What could Sirius ever see in someone like him?
“Let’s dance,” purred Sirius. He snapped his fingers and music began to pour flow from every corner of the room. Strauss’s “Blue Danube Waltz.” Remus’s favorite. He grabbed his lover and whirled him smoothly around the room, pixies dodging and flying to escape the enthusiastic dance steps of the two men.
“I wish this would never end,” Remus sighed, pulling his boyfriend close. Through the volumptous velvet folds of his lover’s dress-robes he could feel the throbbing eagerness of Sirius’s desire. “Take me NOW!” he whispered hoarsely, desire leaking from every breath.
Sirius leaned down and kissed his boyfriend gently, his passion increased as his eager tongue explored the far recesses of the blonde man’s mouth. Remus’s mind went utterly blank but for the faint words tiny voice screaming out in the back of his brain…
“Minerva! Are you there, dear? It seems I am entirely out of lozenges.”
Damn. The unmistakable voice of Albus Dumbledore. For the love of Merlin, would she ever get any peace? “Coming,” she called out.
“Oh, bless you!” cried Dumbledore, pushing his way past her and heading toward her desk. He helped himself to a large handful of the hard sweets she always kept there. “Mmmmm, lemon drops! So much better than those nasty catmint-flavored atrocities Pomfrey gave me... though I fear you’d better not repeat that to her.”
“I shan’t repeat a thing,” Minerva promised solemnly. She raised her right hand and attempted a smile, but, behind such pleasantries lay nothing but an intense wish to be alone.
Predictably, Dumbledore would have none of it. Rather than turning to leave, he began to poke aimlessly about her desk, lifting lids of jars, peering at this and that. He picked up a small, clay statue of a tabby cat and sniffed it dubiously. “Catmint,” he sighed, wrinkling his nose.
Minerva opened her mouth to say something, but quickly snapped it shut. It was quite useless, really. Once Albus set his mind to staying, no spell, no curse, no force of nature, would deter him. Rather, the best course of action was often to simply give in. “Tea?” she offered with a sigh of resignation.
“Oh, dear, no,” Dumbledore replied. “I really must get back to my knitting.”
Knitting? Really? Minerva could not bring herself to ask. To each his (or her) own hobbies, she finally decided.
A few beats of silence passed. From somewhere, deep in a far off hallway, came the muffled pops of wet-start fireworks followed by shrieks of what Minerva rather hopefully presumed to be laughter.
“Rather makes you miss those boys, doesn’t it?” asked Dumbledore with a bemused smile.
“Which boys would those be, exactly?” Minerva inquired, knowing full well what his answer would be. Damn, that Dumbledore was perceptive.
“Oh… Potter and Pettigrew… and Black and Lupin. They were a delightful bundle of masculine energy, were they not?”
“Quite,” huffed Minerva.
Dumbledore leaned against the mantle and laughed. “And you had quite the soft spot for them, I suspect,” he said, a twinkle of something quite distressing in his eye.
Minerva said nothing. Clearly, there was no acceptable reply in such a situation.
“And, of course,” continued Dumbledore, “There was more to them than met the eye.”
He fixed her with a curious stare. “There’s more to most of us than one might expect,” he said after a brief silence. “I can only imagine what lies beneath your staid and stoic exterior… staid… stoic… exterior! Oh! Alliteration! Quite unintentional, but still rather delightful, I assure you.”
Minerva, who had no time for ill-advised literary devices, merely cleared her throat. “Well, Albus…” she began, glancing hopefully at the door.
“Well, then,” said Dumbledore, gathering another large handful of lemon drops. He tipped his hat and headed for the door. Slipping past her, he leaned in and whispered, “Blonde without the “e” is more common in reference to a man.”
Minerva grimaced as she watched the tall, white-haired wizard retreat down the hallway. “Self-correcting typewriter, my arse,” she muttered under her breath.
*** ** *** ** ***
“Mmmmrrrrnnnth,” grunted Remus, gently pushing back at Sirius. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? It’s like your tongue is a bloody niffler and my throat is coated with gold!”
“Erm… sorry,” Sirius apologized. “As you’ve probably surmised, it was ‘that thing’ again.”
Remus shrugged and gestured toward the glistening tree, the flitting fairies, the hovering candles, the roaring white fire, the over-set dinner table, and absurdly-shaped entree. “This is getting out of hand,” he said firmly. “I would love to know who is behind this and disembowel them with one of these hideous spoons.”
“A little harsh, perhaps?” laughed Sirius. “I was thinking more of a nice, hard spanking.”
“Are you not always thinking of a nice, hard spanking?” countered Remus.
“Well, not always.” Sirius grinned. “Sometimes I think about hippopotamuses and sometimes I think about flying carpets and sometimes I think about heart-shaped chunks of meat and…”
“Enough!” cried Remus, moving in to tickle Sirius. “What do I have to do to get you to shut up?”
“Oh, I can think of at least one thing.” Sirius raised a jaunty eyebrow.
“I can think of far too many,” muttered Remus in a failed attempt to be stern.
“So, seriously,” said Sirius, utterly aware of the pun on his name. “Who do you think is behind this?”
“I’ve no idea.”
With a wave of his wand, Sirius pulled back a couple of chairs and both men plunked themselves down at the table. Without hesitation, Sirius dug into his steak. “So who likes steak?” he asked.
“Everyone likes steak, Sirius… Even those who prefer sausage.”
“Who the hell would decorate an entire tree in just silver and white?”
“Well, your family to start, but I hardly see your mum behind this.”
“True.” Sirius paused mid-chew and looked about the room. “The candles are a nice touch, though,” he conceded. “It rather reminds me of school… Hey, who charmed the candles at Hogwarts?”
“McGonagall, I believe.”
Sirius laughed so hard he spit a potato across the room, barely missing a thoroughly annoyed pixie who dodged just in time. “Minerva McGonagall!” he choked out between laughs, “Could you even imagine?”
“Hardly,” replied Remus.
“Well, can you think of anyone else?” Sirius asked, failing once again to be serious.
Remus shook his head. “Frankly, I can think of hundreds.”
*** ** *** ** ***
“I can think of hundreds of reasons for him not to love me,” worried the tiny voice in Remus’s brain. But the strong arms of his lover wrapped more tightly around him, reassuring him greatly. “Maybe,” whispered to himself, “Just maybe.”
“Maybe what, darling, Remus?” Sirius singsonged, “Maybe I should sweep you off your feet, take you up to the boudoir, and ravish you?”
Remus giggled as Sirius swept him up in his strong, muscular masculine, Quidditch-toned arms. He whirled Remus around in a circle, glossy hair flying out in a radiant halo. “Wheeeeeeee!” cried Remus.
“Shit!” said Sirius.
“Shit,” growled McGonagall. “This isn’t working at all.” And why should it, really? Who was she to create romance? She, the practical girl, who’d spent her childhood reading nothing but textbooks, Quidditch journals, Muggle mythology, and medieval stories. As a child her fantasies had centered around riding into battle with ribald men, spitting and killing and laughing at bawdy tales. Sure she’d wanted a knight in shining armor - but only if she could be one, too.
In fact, she’d only discovered romance books as a Fifth-year. Grizelda Greenpod - who’d previously mocked her for being such a tomboy - had one day shoved a tattered Muggle paperback in her face. On the cover was a long-haired Muggle wearing a tight, white shirt that barely covered his chest. “This is what men are really like,” Grizelda had chided. “And you can learn how to be more ladylike, too,” she’d added. “Merlin knows you could use to be more feminine!”
Minerva had devoured that book - and the seven that came after it - page after page of throbbing manhoods and heaving bosoms. No death. No laughter. No bawdy tales. Looking back on it, Minerva could see how much she’d hated the idea. Years later, when she discovered a cheap, tawdry, stapled together booklet about two men in space named Kirk and Spock, Minerva’s world was rocked yet again. Men could be with men! Sadly, though, it was never as joyfully lewd as she’d wanted it to be.
“Perhaps I don’t have it in me!” she muttered sadly, tearing the parchment from the typewriter with a frustrated jerk. She crumpled it into an angry ball and tossed it into the fire. “I don’t even belong in their world! I know nothing about Christmas decorations or romantic dinners or expensive flatware! I’m Scottish, for Merlin’s sake! And I love Quidditch!” She banged her fist against the mantle in despair. “I should face it,” she sadly told the fire, “I’m probably more like one of the boys than I am a real slash writer.”
"Probably so," the fire answered. She shot it a dirty-look before shuffling off to bed.
*** ** *** ** ***
“Shit!” grunted Sirius. “You’re heavier than you look, you know?” He gingerly set Remus back down on the carpet.
“Are you calling me fat?” Remus asked with a laugh.
“No, I’m calling you heavy, to be precise. There’s quite a difference.”
“Then I’m calling you weak and girly.”
“Weak and girly? Me?” Sirius barked out a laugh and poked Remus playfully in the belly. “As I recall, you’re the one who made me a dinner of heart-shaped beef, Mr. Girly Man.”
Remus rolled his eyes. “That was not me, precisely. You know that as well as I do! Were it my dinner, it would have been all about sausage.”
“I’m always all about sausage,” purred Sirius with a wanton leer, “Especially your sausage!” He pulled Remus in close and bit gently down on his neck. “And you know who else is all about your sausage?” he whispered seductively.
“Who?”
“MINERVA MCGONAGALL!!!” Sirius gave Remus another poke to the belly and shot up the stairs laughing.
“Damn, you,” grunted Remus, but deep, down he thought it was funny, too. Imagine, McGonagall getting her jollies out of creating bad romance between two of her least favorite students! As if that could ever happen!
“Are you coming up?” called Sirius from what the bedroom. “I’ve lit a real fire and I've got a sudden craving for bangers! Oh, and bring something good to drink.”
Remus paused briefly over the chilled, French champagne, then ran to the kitchen for a bottle of mulled wine. Champagne was for pansies - and too rich for his blood.
“Well… are you coming or not?” called Sirius. “Fire’s ablazing!"
Remus could never resist a fire - a real one, properly orange and all, not that bloody white mess still daintily burning downstairs. Nor, to be fair, could he resist the promise of sausage.
“Be right there,” he called, bounding up the stairs.
*** ** *** ** ***
Many snowy miles away, Minerva McGonagall slept soundly. In her dreams, four bold wizarding knights rode into battle telling tall tales and laughing at bawdy jokes. Their swords glinted in the sunlight, their wands holstered at their sides. They passed between them a pitted, brown bottle of strong mulled wine.
And, once in awhile, they passed it to Minerva.