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The first clue was the music.
She couldn’t quite make out what it was, but as she arrived at the top of the stairs, the unmistakable sound of music from a gramophone—her gramophone, to be precise, which Minerva always tried to be—swelled to fill the corridor.
She frowned.
Hurrying past the Gryffindor portrait hole, she sped towards her quarters, the sharp clicks of her heels on the stone a warning to any students who might be canoodling in the dark corners of Gryffindor Tower. When she gave the password and her door swung open, the tune clarified itself into the familiar strains of an old favourite, accompanied by the soft patter of rain against the windows.
Slowly, dramatically, soft light arose from a candelabra that sat on a small dining table, filling out the shadows in her sitting room.
Hands coming to her hips, she surveyed the scene in front of her. The table was laid with her mother’s Royal Scotland china and a set of crystal glasses. A silver bucket holding a bottle that she strongly suspected contained champagne sat at the side. The centre of the table held a small cake that explained the sweet scent of chocolate that perfumed the air.
Now, Minerva had no objection to Gershwin, nor to chocolate cake, and certainly not to champagne, but the three in combination skirted the borders of good taste and what’s more, they weren’t the only suspect thing in the room.
Her nose detected another scent above the chocolate. She used her wand to light the wall sconces, revealing its source. An abomination of flowers decorated nearly every flat surface—roses in every hue, including several she knew couldn’t be natural and whose gaudiness could only be attributed to one person.
She withheld the groan that had risen behind her lips and called out, “Albus?”
A large set of hands enveloped her waist and warm breath tickled the hairs at the back of her neck.
“Yes, my love?”
She turned in his arms as he shimmered back into visibility.
“What in the name of Merlin is all this?” she asked.
“It’s a little surprise for you.”
She pulled out of his embrace and glared at him.
“Albus, it’s been an exhausting day. I’ve spent it trying to get dozens of lovesick adolescents to pay bloody attention to their lessons rather than mooning around and sending badly written love notes to one another under their desks. Between Pomona, Horace, Filius, and myself, we’ve foiled seven attempts at surreptitious love-potion poisoning and missed one, requiring me to forcefully restrain Miss Chattergee and Mr Fleming from a completing a highly inappropriate and possibly illegal act on the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall during dinner. Why would you bring all this”—she gestured at the atrocity around her—“madness to my living quarters?”
“It’s a celebration, my dear.” He kissed her nose, and it was only her excellent control of her magic that kept her from transfiguring his lips into a pair of giant slugs.
With a patience that, in a just world, would have earned her at least an Order of Merlin, Third Class, she said, “You know I hate all this St Valentine’s Day nonsense. Really, Albus! Roses?” She huffed in indignation at the idea that he thought her a woman who wanted flowers and the like on what really should have been an ordinary Tuesday in February. They’d only just recovered from Christmas, after all.
He pulled his wand and waved it haphazardly around the room. The roses changed to pots of purple thistles.
“Perhaps this will please my spiky bride a bit better,” he said.
“Hmph.”
“Anyway, we aren’t celebrating St Valentine’s Day.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“Exactly what are we celebrating, then?”
“It is the six hundred and twenty-third anniversary of the Battle of—” he scratched his hairy chin—“something or other.”
“The what?”
“I can’t recall the name, but it was one of many important battles between our respective countries. If I recall correctly, Scotland put up a valiant resistance, but England prevailed in the end.”
“Why would I ever want to celebrate such a thing?”
“Academic purposes. You enjoy history. I thought we could have dessert, some champagne, and then we could reenact England’s invasion of Scotland.”
She couldn’t help the snort of laughter that escaped her at his leer. It really wasn’t his strong suit.
Flowers? Wine? Foolish attempts at double entendre? This was not their sort of foreplay. If he wanted her in the mood for romance, he’d have to do much better.
His grin faltered at her smile.
The next moment found him looking up at her, slobber dripping in stringy stalactites from his overly pronounced jaw.
He barked as she went to the table and poured herself a glass of champagne.
“While you work out how you’re going to reverse the transfiguration without a wand and opposable thumbs, I’ll just enjoy some of this.” She took a sip of the wine and sat at the table. “Mmm. Wonderful vintage.”
If a bark could ever be said to sound plaintive, his was. He stared over at her, making puppy eyes and emitting pathetic whines.
She ignored him and bent over the table inhaling deeply. The cake really did smell delicious. It would be a shame for it to go to waste. She hoped he’d work out the spell soon. But not too soon. He really did make an adorable bulldog.