Liars

Winter, 1958

Minerva was furious at herself every time, but that didn’t keep her from showing up on the same doorstep, month after month. Alastor, she told herself every time she apparated away from his home, was rude, uncouth, disrespectful, unorthodox, and careless to boot. If what she wanted was just sex, there were much easier ways to go about getting it, she was certain.

But she still returned, again and again, to Alastor Moody’s disappointing home, each time angrier at herself. She was angry as she walked out of the Hogwarts grounds to free herself from the anti-Apparition jinxes on the school. She was angry as she stepped through sickening, constricting blackness to arrive right on the man’s doorstep every time. She was angry as she rang the doorbell or knocked on the door.

But she was never more angry than when she saw the slow, knowing grin spread across the young Auror’s face. At first she had tried putting on her most reproving glare, but he only grinned wider. She thought he liked it when she tried to regain some semblance of control over the proceedings. She knew he liked it when she failed to do so, just as she always failed to keep herself away.

The worst was that he never let her forget the true reason she was there. He would draw her in, roughly strip her (or tell her to strip if he was feeling lazy), run his rough hands over her skin and she would shudder and melt into the touches. Sometimes she would let him kiss her, but usually not.

But before long, before he took her (always on the table, which he had refused to transfigure back to its original height), he would always start talking. “What did he do this time?” he rasped in that voice she didn’t like at all, not at all.

“Nothing,” she insisted, and the touches grew softer, less insistent, causing her to cry out. “Don’t!” she ordered. She hated it when he was soft with her.

“Don’t lie,” he countered. “I hate liars. Tell me the truth and I’ll give you what you want.”

She hated this part, she insisted to herself. She ignored the shudder that rippled through her as she gasped out, “Kissed my hand after walking me to my chambers.” The memory was seared into her mind. Every time she shut her eyes, she could see the Headmaster bending low over her hand, twinkling eyes meeting hers for the briefest of seconds, as if....

“Got wet, did you?”

That was what she hated the most about Alastor, the way he reduced everything she was feeling to the basest of instincts. “The sensation was a bit higher than that,” she tried to reprimand, but the words carried less force when her legs were spread wide for the man in front of her as she leaned back on his table.

“Ah,” he said in a hushed voice that carried a hint of a growl as he positioned himself at her entrance, and against her will she felt her pulse quicken. “He made your heart flutter. Nothing base or physical about that at all.”

She nodded, then cried out as he penetrated her, as forcefully as he did everything else in life.

“That’s why you showed up on my doorstep to spread your pretty legs for me, huh?” He was grinning at her, and she wanted to hit him or curse him--or maybe just relax, because it felt so good, and at least she was getting what she needed when all was said and done.

She gritted her teeth to hold back a moan, hissing, “This has nothing to do with you.” Her voice broke on the last word, and her hands clutched at the table upon which she was sitting as he rode her hard, taking her just as he always did, driving the very breath from her body with the force of his own on top of her.

“You’re welcome to leave any time,” he growled in her ear, then bit down hard.

Minerva damned him in her mind for being able to form coherent sentences when he was thrusting into her so perfectly, almost brutally, his fingers digging into her hips hard enough that she knew they would leave marks, and she was just hanging on and hoping that she was damaging his table, as it would serve him right, and-- “Merlin!” she half-choked, half-sobbed as he leaned up just-so, probably on accident, probably to find better purchase, but he rubbed against her so perfectly that she gasped, trembled, and threw her head back. “More,” she pleaded, not recognizing her own voice when it was so harsh with passion.

Fortunately, Moody seemed to have run out of awful things to say, and she told herself firmly that she was glad, that she wanted to feel good like this, that she would never return after this last time.

Moody grunted as he buried himself deep within her, his thrusts growing erratic in the way that she knew signaled his climax, and she felt a slight panic arising in her chest. “Don’t finish yet,” she pleaded, not wanting to leave without giving him that last capitulation of total surrender.

It was too late, though, and his eyes were dark as they met hers as she felt the hot liquid spill from the place their bodies were joined. He looked completely unapologetic, and in that moment, Minerva hated him. She blinked back the angriest tears that had ever sprung to her eyes and pushed him away from her with force. “Cretin!” she spat at him, and “Lowlife! Amateur!”

He still looked supremely unconcerned, and knelt at the edge of the table, his strong hands forcing her legs apart again.

“No,” she whispered, as the look in his eyes told her that yes, he was in fact intending to finish her off in a quite different way than usual. “Alastor, don’t!”

He didn’t listen, as she had known he wouldn’t. Her wand was within her reach--she could easily hex him, stun him, send him flying back to hit the wall hard....and then his tongue ran up her slit, ending with an almost-bite to her clit, and she let her hand fall. “Oh,” she murmured weakly.

His tongue was diving into her now, mimicking what his cock had just been doing, and she knew he would be tasting himself. The idea made her moan, as did the roughened pad of his thumb that was now digging just a little too hard into the sensitive nub. Everything he did was just a hint too much, just a little over the top, just a toe out of line, and it drove her mad.

Minerva McGonagall loved rules, and order, and numbers, and the softly twinkling eyes of Albus Dumbledore. She loved absolutes and black-and-white and knowing who was wrong. She despised people who uttered the phrase, “Rules are meant to be broken” and tried every day to mean every word that she said.

Because of all these things, Minerva McGonagall hated the idea that she wanted more, while telling him to stop; wanted her gentle Headmaster while submitting herself to the brash young Auror; wanted to be stroked and softly touched while the harsh words and harsher touches of Alastor Moody brought her closer, yes, closer, closer, to, and finally over the edge with a sob of relief.

At least he wasn’t smirking, was her first thought once she was capable of thought once again. He was studying her quizzically, as if she were a challenging puzzle. “Why do you come to me, Minerva?” he asked in his gravelly voice.

She turned her head away. It was not a question she wanted to answer. “Hand me my robe,” she said instead, retrieving her wand from the counter.

“Tell me. Why me?” When still she didn’t answer, he asked persistently, “Is it because Albus is a friend of--”

“It isn’t that,” she said sharply. “And don’t mention him.” She wondered briefly if Moody knew why Albus was so uninterested, thought for just a second of asking him, but stifled the urge.

“Then why?”

“Usually,” she responded with as much dignity as she could muster, gathering her robe from his outstretched hand, “because you don’t ask. If I wanted to answer impertinent questions, I could have stayed at Hogwarts for the night and given extra lessons. Goodbye, Alastor.”

She moved to gather up her traveling cloak for the brisk winter passageway, but he caught her wrist in his hand. “You’re going to answer me one of these days,” he informed her, “Or I’ll figure it out myself. I like solving mysteries. It comes with being an Auror.”

Minerva didn’t deign to respond to this, but pulled her wrist out of his grasp. “It’s a pity that manners and chivalry don’t also come with being an Auror.”

“Haven’t turned you away yet, have I?” he asked, the smirk she loathed back on his decidedly unhandsome face.

She donned her cloak with a swish of her wrists. “If that’s what passed for chivalry when you were sorted, I fear the hat may have made the wrong choice at last.”

“Come now, Minerva!” she heard him call, the good humor back in his voice as she opened the door. “One Gryffindor to another--tell me why you come here!”

The door shut with a snap as Minerva flicked her wand at the knob.

Given the chill of the night, Minerva decided to apparate directly into Hogsmeade and grab a gillywater at the Three Broomsticks. When she arrived outside the pub, however, there was a decided air of welcoming cheer inside. Of course, she thought to herself in dismay, it’s nearly Christmas.

She wavered for a moment, then decided that she was most certainly not in the mood to sit on an uncomfortable bar stool listening to Gamekeeper Og singing Christmas Carols while Alastor Moody’s sperm trickled down her thighs. She turned to stride back up to the castle, only to bump gently into none other than the Headmaster of Hogwarts.

“Oh, Professor!” she gasped in surprise, and he smiled.

“You are quite within your rights to call me Albus, my dear girl. Although I suppose I must get used to calling you Professor McGonagall now? I profess myself to be somewhat challenged in that respect. It is so difficult for one to see one’s students making their own way in the world.”

Minerva swallowed hard, not so much listening to what he was saying as noticing that the candlelight in the window was catching the red and slight gold tones in Albus’s beard and hair--A Gryffindor if I ever saw one, she thought to herself. “No, Profe--I mean, Albus,” she said, coloring slightly and hoping he wouldn’t notice in the darkness. “You can still call me Minerva. I don’t mind at all.” Could he see her pulse, beating quickly in her neck? She pulled her green and red plaid muffler up to her chin.

“Very well, my dear Minerva,” he agreed genially. “Are you headed back to the castle, or would you care to join me in a drink?”

About to say that she was headed back to the castle, she found herself instead nodding enthusiastically. “A drink would be lovely, Professor Dumbledore. Oh! I mean Albus,” she finished a little guiltily.

He waved an elegant hand as if to say the mistake was nothing, would resolve itself in time, and she followed him into the warm and inviting atmosphere that was clearly better than being outside in the snow.

Ten minutes of conversation with Albus had thoroughly reminded Minerva why exactly it was this wizard that she had fallen for. He was kind, articulate, precise in his words and actions, gentle, and just the slightest bit mischievous. She stacked all these virtues against the awful things she could think of about Alastor Moody, feeling more and more righteous every time she made a favorable comparison for the older wizard. They had been chatting amiably for nearly an hour, about everything from the exact composition of a gillywater to the ways in which wizard and Muggle politics frequently mirrored each other, when Minerva made the mistake of bringing up Gellert Grindelwald.

“Albus,” she asked in a low tone, not wanting the other patrons to overhear in case it was a sensitive subject, “what was it like to duel the most evil wizard of all time?”

A shadow crossed Dumbledore’s face then, and Minerva realized she had said something that ought to have remained unspoken. “Forgive me,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean...”

“Didn’t mean what, Professor?” he asked, his face still the picture of attentiveness and polite conversation. “You are quite within your rights to ask. It was, after all, one of the great battles of our time. Alas, I doubt we have enough time for me to regale you with the tale tonight. Another time, perhaps?”

“Of course,” she assured him quickly, though both of them knew she wouldn’t bring up the subject again. “Would you like to have another...”

“My apologies, Minerva,” he said with what seemed genuine regret, “but I have an appointment early tomorrow morning with Alastor Moody--did you know him? He was a few years above you in school, if I remember correctly.”

Something of Minerva’s surprise and displeasure must have shown on her face, because Albus looked slightly taken-aback. “Did you two not get on? I confess a certain ignorance to the matter.”

“We did not get on,” Minerva assured Albus, trying to subtly adjust her seat on the stool. She was still rather sore from earlier that evening. “What do you have to meet with him about?”

Dumbledore flipped a hand idly as if to say that the matter was of little consequence. “Alastor is merely keeping an eye on a certain matter for me. It is to be hoped that my concerns are entirely baseless, in which case I may never mention this again.”

Minerva frowned. “But sir, Alastor Moody is an Auror. Isn’t it inappropriate for you to be interfering in the Auror’s office if you’re not part of the Ministry itself?” Sometimes, she really wished she could still her tongue, but her love of structure remained her downfall in that department.

There was a mysterious glint in Albus’s eyes as he merely said, “Not interfering, my dear Minerva, just checking in. Think of it as a favor between friends.” With that, he gave her a quick bow and was gone, long strides cutting through the snowbanks.

That sort of healthy disrespect for the rules was exactly the sort of thing that made Minerva loathe Alastor Moody so much, she thought bitterly. Though Moody had certainly not been Head Boy in his time, or even a Prefect, he had certainly been rumored to be one of the Transfiguration Professor’s favorite students, before Dumbledore had ascended to Headmaster and she had been hired to replace him. She, Minerva, had been both a Prefect and Head Girl, and had enjoyed the position of Dumbledore’s favorite student, she believed, after Moody had graduated three years ahead of her.

A man at the bar was looking at her with something like longing. With a start, she realized that he had been a classmate of hers years earlier. He had mocked her then, her eagerness to please the teachers and her strictness as Head Girl, in the same way that Alastor now mocked her for the way she felt about Albus. That was what set the boys apart from men, she decided, and walked into the night, hurrying along through the cold in the fading wake of Headmaster Dumbledore.