5. Venice: Gallerie dell’Accademia

The next morning found La Serenissima's skies churning with storm clouds. When Albus got up to use the lavatory, Minerva rose and peeked out the window. The rain that had soaked them on their way back to the hotel the previous evening had turned to sleet sometime in the night.

She hurried back to bed and burrowed under the bedclothes. Albus returned from the bathroom and retrieved his wand from the nightstand to cast a Warming Charm on the chilly room.

"We'd best get moving if we don't want to miss breakfast," he said.

"But it's so nice right here," Minerva protested. "And the weather is dreadful."

"Why don't I go downstairs and get us something to eat? You can stay snug in bed."

"You don't mind?"

"Not at all."

Albus dressed quickly and went to the hotel's breakfast room. He returned with a tray bearing a plate with toast, a small pot of coffee, and a jar of jam.

He kicked off his shoes, and they had their breakfast in bed. When they'd finished, Minerva Banished the crumbs with her wand and Albus moved the empty tray to the nightstand.

"You've got a bit of jam here," Minerva said, touching a finger to his moustache. Before he could wipe it off, she kissed him, licking away the jam with a dart of her tongue.

As she had hoped, he deepened the kiss and pulled her down, rolling on top of her.

"Again?" she said when he released her mouth.

"Always."

~oOo~

They stayed in bed most of the morning, making a lazy sort of love, dozing, and talking, and ventured out of the room only when Albus's belly began to gurgle with hunger. Bundled in their warmest clothes, they huddled under a large umbrella that Albus had Conjured, and hurried down several small streets and through the fish market until they found the restaurant the concierge had recommended for their lunch.

The Antica Trattoria Poste Vecie, she had told them, was the oldest restaurant in Venice, housed in a former post office from the 16th century. A small bridge led directly to the entryway, and, despite the awful weather, the restaurant's main salon bustled with diners and crisp-jacketed waiters ferrying plates to tables full of both tourists and locals.

After a twenty-minute wait, a table became available, and Minerva and Albus took the time to enjoy a leisurely lunch, sharing an appetizer of sarde in saor...fried sardines in a sweet-and-sour sauce of pickled onions, raisins, and pinenuts. Albus followed with a dish of sliced veal in cream sauce served with polenta, while Minerva ordered the eel in a tuna-and-lemon sauce and a side of braised fennel. A bottle of mild, floral Soave complemented their meals and kept the conversation animated.

"Have you given any more thought to that research project you told me about?" Albus asked as he broke a piece of bread from the hunk the waiter had provided for the table.

"Which one?"

"The... I've forgotten the name ... the something-or-other cycle and the differences between Transfigured beings and natural beings?"

"The Krebs cycle?" she asked, amused.

"That's it."

"As a matter of fact, I was going to talk to you about it when term started again. I'd like to use an empty classroom to conduct the experiments, if you approve."

"That would be fine. Do you need any special materials or equipment? I might be able to massage the budget if it's something we could use in the curriculum."

She speared a bit of eel on her fork and brought it to her mouth. The flavour was rich and pungently marine, the hint of lemon pleasantly tart on her tongue.

"I don't suppose the governors could see their way clear to funding an electron microscope?" she said.

"I rather doubt it, but I could try."

"No, I'm only teasing. I'll make do with my phase contrast microscope. I'm still trying to decide what type of bacteria I want to use. Nothing pathogenic, of course, I wouldn't feel comfortable with that at the school."

He sopped up some of his cream sauce with the bread. "I'm sure we could put adequate precautions in place."

"No need. I'm leaning towards cyanobacteria, and they aren't dangerous unless you put them in the drinking water. I like them for this project because they produce oxygen, but the problem is that they don't have a complete TCA cycle. I have to think about how that might affect the experimental design."

"I'm afraid you've lost me, my dear."

The rare feeling of knowing something Albus didn't washed comfortably over Minerva. She'd always been interested in basic bench science, while his academic reputation had been built on high-profile discoveries and spell development. He liked to know what magic did, while she strove to understand what it was at its core.

"I want to look at how Transfiguration affects metabolism, and that will be easiest to sort out in single-celled organisms," she told him. "The oxygen production is a benefit because there are probably more practical applications for Transfiguration in oxygen-producing organisms. But the incomplete Krebs cycle could be an issue if we later want to apply any findings to other organisms."

He said nothing, cutting a slice of veal and popping it into his mouth, and she wondered if she was boring him.

"I'd be grateful for your advice in putting together the experiments," she said.

He chewed his meat, a pensive look on his face, then swallowed.

"Cellular Transfiguration was never my field, and I'm afraid I've fallen behind the latest theories and discoveries," he said. "This Krebs cycle business is new to me."

"The science was only established about 20 years ago by Muggles, so it didn't bubble up into the magical sciences until the mid-forties."

Neither of them mentioned the reason Albus's scientific studies had waned during that time. While the subject of Gellert Grindelwald wasn't precisely taboo, Minerva knew Albus didn't like to talk about it, so she avoided bringing it up, even obliquely.

After the end of the war, Albus had done some academic work, but less than he'd done in the past. Minerva had been surprised...and a little disappointed...not to run into him at one or another of the conferences she'd attended during her years at Oxford, but he'd told her later that, after his return from Germany, his long-neglected duties to the school had taken most of his time. She wondered if he missed research.

"I'd like your help," she said, surprising herself. She normally preferred to work alone.

He was brilliant, of course, and his observations could only improve the research, even if he was less familiar with some of the elements than she was. Besides, it would be fun to work together.

"I would be honoured to work with you," he said, and she thought how odd it was for him to say such a thing. She was certainly well known and respected in the small world of academic Transfiguration, but he was the great Albus Dumbledore, polymath and co-discoverer of alkahest, developer of 12 uses for dragon's blood, inventor of many important spells, and famous the wizarding world over as the defeater of Grindelwald.

It crossed her mind fleetingly that involving him in her research could backfire...his contributions, even if small, could overshadow hers, given his celebrity, but she pushed the thought away.

She said, "I'd like to get to work on it soon, at least before spring, what with N.E.W.T.s coming up in June."

"Why don't you use the old Alchemy classroom?" Albus said. "Once you've sketched out the parameters for the experiment, I'll be glad to have a look."

"Thank you."

Minerva sipped her wine, happy to have found something academic they could do together.

"And how are your N.E.W.T. classes coming along?" he asked. "Anyone interesting?"

"It depends on what you mean by interesting," Minerva said. "I don't think there are any budding scientists in the lot, but there are some talented spellcasters. The Prewett brothers could be good recruits for the Auror programme in another year."

"Ah, yes. They both did very well on their O.W.L.s, if I recall."

"Gideon is a little more level-headed than Fabian, I think, but Professor Baumert says Fabian has better duelling instincts."

"Well, they have another year and a half to polish things up a bit. I'm sure you'll have them ready for Amelia by the time they take their exams," Albus said.

"I hope so."

"By the way, would you mind refereeing this year's Inter-House Duelling Championship? We need a Gryffindor representative, and Diophantus isn't really interested in duelling. Filius is the Ravenclaw, rep, of course, and Perpetua and Horace for Hufflepuff and Slytherin."

"I'd love to, thank you for asking me."

"Filius says there's a Ravenclaw who might end up breaking your record for wins."

She nodded as she swallowed a bit of fennel. "Kingsley Shacklebolt. Filius told me about him."

She didn't think second-years should be allowed in the Duelling Club...too immature, too inexperienced for safety, she thought...but the decision was down to the Defence teacher, and the new hire, Terence Baumert, was keen on taking all interested students.

She had to admit that young Mr Shacklebolt was unlikely to have any difficulties in the club. He was easily her best student in second year, and Filius had apparently given him some private coaching. Another thing Minerva wasn't entirely comfortable with, but she knew the boy had no father, and she supposed it was just as well that Filius had taken him under his comforting wing.

It must be difficult for a boy to be fatherless, Minerva thought. Like herself, Kingsley had lost one of his parents at a young age, but she had had her grandmother to fill the hole left by her mother's death. Her gran had provided a motherly sort of love and, Minerva thought, had served as a good complement to her father, each providing the young McGonagall children with different sorts of affection, attention, and, when necessary, discipline.

Could she herself, Minerva mused, provide a motherly influence should any of her students need it? She'd never felt especially maternal, but she did care about the children she taught, and a few of them seemed quite lost.

The thin, sallow face of Walden Macnair flitted through her mind. He was not very bright, nor did he possess much magical skill; those facts, she had to admit, would likely have biased her against him even if he had not fallen in with the awful Rabastan Lestrange and his crowd.

Walden's Head of House, Horace Slughorn, for all his finer points, was not the sort of man to provide the help a boy like Macnair could use.

Minerva resolved to be more patient with him and to do what she could to help him at least improve his Transfiguration skills, which, at his current rate, were certainly not going to earn him a passing O.W.L.

She finished the last of her fennel.

"Shall we have pudding?" Albus asked hopefully.

"If you like."

They had a dense, sweet cake flavoured with blood-orange-and-Campari syrup. A pair of creamy, bitter espressos rounded out the meal nicely.

When they stepped outside, the sleet had stopped, but it was still bitter cold. Despite the crowd in the street, Albus insisted on casting a Warming Charm, and they decided to visit the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice's great collection of pre-19th-century painting.

They took the vaporetto along the Grand Canal to the museum. Inside, they encountered wall after wall of huge canvasses depicting Venetian life in the Renaissance which could have been painted that very afternoon. The big cities of her regular life, London, Edinburgh, and Inverness, had less in common with Venice than Hogsmeade did, Minerva thought. The tiny wizarding village near Hogwarts had the same preserved-in-time feeling that pervaded Venice, albeit without the crowds and the pre-Carnival atmosphere.

Like most galleries of European art, the Accademia housed many paintings of religious subjects, from Bosch's morbidly colourful Crucifixion of St Julia to Pittone's dreamlike Penitent Magdalene, not to mention a seemingly endless parade of Madonnas and Christs. Minerva marvelled at how different artists could give the same few subjects such varied feeling.

A group of students were crowded around Veronese's Annunciation, sketchbooks in hand, charcoal sticks quivering busily as they drew. Minerva noticed an angelic-looking boy with a dark smudge on his otherwise perfect cheek and had to check the impulse to Conjure a handkerchief and wipe it off.

One of the students finished his sketch and moved away, allowing Albus and Minerva a better view of the painting.

As they looked at the Virgin accosted by a manic-looking angel Gabriel and a Holy Spirit in the form of a positively detonative dove, Albus whispered, "She looks rather startled, doesn't she?"

"I should think so. And I doubt very much whether the flowers will make up for the news she's about to get."

The low rumble of his chuckle made one of the students look up, frowning, from his drawing, and Minerva and Albus decided to move on.

They stopped in front of a painting depicting a young man with his face pressed against an almost-nude woman, their noses nearly touching and his eyes peering insistently into hers, which were focused elsewhere.

"Armida e Rinaldo," Albus read.

"Armida the sorceress?"

"I believe so. You're familiar with the story, I take it?"

"The one from the Muggle poem, or the actual historical one?" she asked quietly.

"I should have known you'd know both."

"My father showed me the painting when we were here before. He told me Armida's story, and I read the poem afterwards."

"And what do you make of it?"

"That it's a cautionary tale about the dangers of love potions," Minerva said. "She tried to enchant a Muggle, and she ended up the enslaved one."

"She was in love."

"Perhaps. But history is entirely too full of powerful witches who did foolish things because they fell for the wrong people."

"Mmm" he said. After a few moments of silence, he added, "And do you think you've avoided that fate?"

She glanced at him, worried that her remark had hurt him somehow, but his eyes held their familiar twinkle and his mouth curved in a half-smile.

"I know I have." She took his arm and squeezed it, keeping hold of it as they strolled through the galleries, stopping to take in some of the works at greater length.

Minerva found herself strangely disquieted by Tintoretto's Lamentation over the Dead Christ While the body of Jesus deposed from the cross occupied the centre of the frame, what drew Minerva's eye was the swooning Madonna, her face half in shadow, half in light.

She cocked her head as she studied it.

The Madonna's face appeared dead and hollow, her eyes empty. The other figures' faces were emotive and lively, and even the deceased Christ's countenance seemed to have greater animation, as if he were simply in a deep slumber. It struck Minerva that his face resembled Albus's as he slept.

She shivered.

Was there anything worse than having one's child die before one? she wondered. She thought back to her discussion with Albus on the subject of children and his worry that they made one too vulnerable.

Here was the stark truth of it, in oils, hanging in front of her.

Albus's voice pulled her from her thoughts.

"What are you thinking, my love?"

"Just how macabre a subject this is for a painting," she said.

"Indeed. Although this one is less so than the Ten Thousand Martyrs we saw earlier."

"True." The Carpaccio painting of the condemned Roman converts had seemed to her to have a luxuriant, almost sexual quality. The bodies of the martyrs had appeared as if they were lounging in a seraglio rather than engaging in any actual suffering.

In the next gallery, Albus and Minerva took in the museum's collection of drawings, including some of Da Vinci's anatomical works, and when they finished their tour, rain was coming down in frigid sheets. They decided to call it a day and head back to the refuge of the hotel.

After a freezing vaparetto ride and a quick dash to the hotel, they went directly to their room. Minerva cast Drying Charms on their dripping clothes, while Albus warmed the air with his wand.

"I think I'm finished with sightseeing for the day," Minerva said, pulling off her gloves and rubbing her frozen hands together.

"Agreed."

He took her hands in his, brought them to his lips, and blew over them, heating her fingers with the Warming Charm on his breath.

"You still haven't taught me how to do that," she said.

"That would deprive me of the pleasure of doing it for you," he said, kissing her knuckles.

They decided to spend what remained of the day reading and got under the duvet on the bed, each with a book in hand, a pair of half-moon glasses perched on Albus's nose. Minerva made a mental note to see a Healer once she got home to have her own eyes checked; the print in her book seemed suspiciously tiny, and she had to squint to keep the words in focus.

Nevertheless, she was soon lost in her novel, and as they read, the only sounds in the room were the constant patter of the rain and the occasional echo of a door closing somewhere down the hall.

After about an hour, Albus rested his book on his chest, stretched, removed his spectacles, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Minerva looked up from her reading and gave him a small smile.

He cocked his neck to read the cover of her book. "The Comforters. What is that?"

"It's the Muggle novel Einar gave me. He said it was one of the best things he's read in ages. Of course, his opinion is coloured by the fact that the writer is a Scot."

"And how is it?"

"Very good, I think. But I can't decide whether the author is mad, brilliant, or both."

"Oh?"

"The narrative is a bit strange. One of the protagonists believes herself to be a character in the book she's meant to be writing, only she isn't writing it. She hears a typewriter that isn't there and disembodied voices dictating things she's only just thought."

"How odd."

"Einar is convinced the author is a witch. The story has a good deal of magic that's depicted quite matter-of-factly."

"Do you think she's a witch?"

"Unlikely. I think she's simply a very observant Muggle who doesn't dismiss the possibility of magic in the world."

"Clever of her."

Minerva nodded at the plain, green-covered book he'd put down. "And how is Lolita?"

"Excellent, as it happens. You may have meant it as a joke, but it's really an extraordinary bit of writing."

"You told me you try to read everything that's been banned," she said with a smirk.

"So I do. But giving me a novel about a middle-aged professor trying to seduce a young girl...that was very naughty of you, Minerva."

The playful smile that she might have expected was absent. His gaze on her was steady, and the blue of his eyes seemed to have deepened to from their normal sea-blue to azure. She couldn't quite read his mood. Perhaps he had been more shocked by her Christmas present than she had anticipated. It would be an amusing gift, she'd thought, but she wondered now if it had been a mistake.

She'd believed he'd got mostly past his guilt over their first affair, that it was a secret they could privately share and even joke about. The events of her seventh year were shocking, yes, when viewed through the lens of her current position as a teacher, but to her, their bond seemed closer for the knowledge of a shared transgression.

He was still looking at her, his face unreadable.

Instead of answering, she put her book on the nightstand and moved closer to him. Her hand slipped beneath the duvet and rested on his belly for a moment before moving downwards.

"I suppose I'm just a naughty witch," she said, tracing the outline of his penis with one finger. It twitched enticingly under his trousers.

She glanced up at him and was relieved to find that his expression had softened. His eyes no longer seemed so unfathomable, and his lips were parted.

He leant in to her neck, murmuring, "Very naughty."

She let him kiss and nip at her as she teased him to stiffness, then she rose from the bed and pulled the curtains closed.

"We don't want any peeping Toms," she said. She took her wand from the nightstand and cast a Colloportus for good measure.

She perched a foot on the chair that sat in the corner and rolled off her stocking.

Albus's eyes never left her as he stood and pulled off his socks and she removed the second stocking.

When he started to unbutton his shirt, she went to him and put her hand on his, shaking her head.

"Sit in the chair," she instructed.

He abandoned his buttons and did as he was told, and she was relieved to see a smile playing about the corners of his mouth.

She knelt in front of him, running her hands up his legs to his thighs, kneading the muscles there. She unbuckled his belt and slid it from the loops, discarding it on the floor. Her fingers worked at the buttons to his fly, and when she'd undone them, she reached into his shorts to withdraw his cock.

She took it in her hand and looked up at him. He was watching her, his face flushed with arousal, and the sight made her pulse gallop. Leaning down, she took him in her mouth.

The sounds he made and the little jerks of his hips as she licked and sucked sent a moist heat to her centre, and when his knees began to tremble and shake, she released him and stood. His eyes were dark and intense as he watched her reach under her skirt to remove her knickers. She gathered up her skirt and straddled his legs. She grasped him in one hand, and his eyes squeezed closed as she sank down slowly, impaling herself on him.

With her hands on his shoulders, she began to move up and down on the balls of her feet, delight tickling its way up her spine at the sensation of him sliding deep within her.

His hands came to rest at her hips, and he opened his eyes.

She traced his lower lip with her thumb and leant down to kiss him.

He tried to buck up into her, but she stilled him with her weight, relishing the feeling of having him in her control. She ground her hips in a circle, clockwise then anticlockwise, and he panted his approval.

She looked down. Her skirt covered them, but she felt the dampness between her legs, and the thought of the mess they were making of his pants stoked her heat.

She kissed his ear, nipping at his earlobe. "Do you like this? Having a secret fuck under my skirts?" she whispered.

He clutched at her hips, trying to force her down on him, and she knew his fingers pressing into her flesh would leave marks, but she resisted his unspoken command.

"Do you?" she asked.

"Yes," he hissed. "I like it."

She rewarded him by lowering herself and continuing her up-and-down motion.

His legs were shaking again, and he was clearly on the brink of orgasm, but she wasn't ready for their coupling to be over quite yet. She decided a distraction was in order.

She paused her movements, and he released a frustrated groan.

"Tell me what you like, Professor Dumbledore, and maybe I'll finish you off."

His breath caught. "I like fucking you. I like it when I have my cock in your mouth and you're sucking me, and when I have it in your quim like this."

She lifted herself off him, and he emitted a small whine of disappointment.

"You think about it all the time, don't you?" she said, letting herself slide down just far enough to tease him. "Fucking me?"

"All the time," he agreed hoarsely.

"When do you think about it?"

"When I see you in the corridors or in the Great Hall."

"When else?" she said, enveloping him very slowly, inch by inch.

"I think about it when we're in a staff meeting. It's all I can do not to ravish you on the table in front of everyone," he said.

"And how would you do that?"

"Like this."

He slid his hands under her buttocks and stood, lifting her with him. His pants and shorts dropped to his ankles, and he stepped out of them. Still inside her, he carried her to the bed, and she tightened her legs around him so he wouldn't slip out.

He whispered a spell, and she heard a creaking behind her.

Without pulling out of her, he set her on the edge of the bed, which was now higher that it had been. He took a moment to catch his breath, then said, "I'd put you on the table like this and take you until you came screaming. And everyone would know how much you love it when I fuck you."

"You think you could make me scream right there in the staff room, do you?"

"Oh, yes."

"I don't think so."

"I know so."

He grasped her legs under the knees and began to thrust. Without meaning to, she cried out. He smiled in satisfaction and leant over, positioning himself to rub against her as he moved, varying his pace, watching her as she bit her lips, refusing to let any sound escape. But it felt very good, so she closed her eyes and thought about cyanobacteria to keep from climaxing.

After a few minutes, his gasps grew louder and his rhythm more erratic. She heard him murmur the spell he'd used on a few occasions when he didn't want to finish too fast, and it sent a frisson of pleasure through her to know that his normally good control was in danger of slipping. The spell had apparently done its job, because his breath became more even and his thrusts less wild.

We'll see about that.

She unbuttoned her blouse. The final two buttons were stubborn, so she simply tore it open and pushed her bra up to bare her breasts. His eyes widened as she began to stroke and fondle them, and he groaned when she ran her thumbs across her nipples.

"Gods, Minerva! You ... you ..."

He gave up trying to speak, and sped up, intent upon making good on his threat to draw a scream from her.

For his benefit, she pinched her nipples and moaned, and his gaze alternated between the place where they were joined and what her hands were doing.

After a few moments, he squeezed his eyes shut, his face taking on an almost-pained expression, and she knew he was once again trying to hold off his orgasm.

Her concentration had switched from chasing her own pleasure to the challenge of making him climax before he intended, spell be damned.

"I want you to come for me, Professor," she said.

"Not yet ... want to ... want to ... you first ..."

She tightened around him, and his eyes snapped open.

"I sucked your cock, and now I'm letting you fuck me, and I want you to come ... come now ... now, Professor."

He gave a whimper that sounded half of pleasure, half despair as he lost the battle, stiffened, and spilled into her. He collapsed forwards, dropping her legs to support himself on the bed as his knees buckled and his breath heaved.

She let her legs hang down off the bed and waited for him to come back to himself, enjoying her victory.

When he did, she propped herself up on her elbows and grinned at him.

"Well done, Professor."

He reached out to tweak one of her nipples. "You are a very naughty witch, Minerva McGonagall." he said. He gave a gentle tug to one of the many strands of hair that had escaped from her chignon and were hanging about her face.

She sat up, removed her blouse and bra, and deposited them in a heap next to the bed.

"And you are a very randy wizard," she said. "So ready again after all the fun we had this morning."

"I'm just a dirty old man trying to keep up with his young wife."

"And you're doing admirably."

She scooted up the bed and got under the covers. He joined her after removing his shirt and vest, tossing them carelessly to the floor.

She settled into his arms.

"This is lovely," she sighed.

"Are you satisfied?"

"Perfectly."

"But you didn't come."

Sometimes, she told herself, he overthought things.

"No, but it isn't always about that," she said. "Hush, now, and let's enjoy this time."

He said no more, and she could feel his heart slowing under her warm palm. His breathing soon became deep and regular.

Her eyes fluttered closed.

I am perfectly happy, she thought just before sleep claimed her.