“Yes, yes it is. And, conversely, one of the things that makes life so enjoyable. Don’t forget that. You said yourself, when we were at the concert a few days ago, that . . .” Minerva closed her eyes, trying to remember his exact words. “You said that love and compassion are alive and stronger than dark deeds, cold indifference, and selfish desires, and that there is room in the universe for the human soul to create something sublime. You said this gives meaning to sacrifice.” Minerva blushed as she opened her eyes to see Albus looking at her intently. “Something like that, anyway.”*snip*That's just beautiful... pure Albus and pure beauty.

“I will try, but it is something of a habit, I am afraid. Please don’t take offense if I forget occasionally – it’s what happens when you become an old codger!” Albus laughed and Minerva threw a small pillow at him. *snip*Only Dumbledore could be infuriating and adorable at the same time.

Glad you like Minerva's bit of boldness there. She does keep stepping a bit over the lines she draws for herself! Sadly, Albus does keep missing their meaning!I'm glad that you liked the bit of Dumbledore philosophy there. I do try to slip in some of the more serious sides of Albus, and not just his "eccentric" sides -- or his sexy ones! Yes, infuriating, but adorable!

Do I perceive a wee bit of an identity crisis going on here? Yes, he should definitely stop being ridiculous! But you know that will take more than just getting dragged across his desk and out for the evening! Threats sometimes work!

*snicker* Identitiy crises, or more like wishful thinking - what ever you want to tall it.. *chuckles*Good, maybe a few threats from Minerva will work - or wand work, or... anything, to wake him UP!

Minerva . . . hmm, interesting notion, her threatening Albus, but . . . .

I just love this chapter so far, you write cats very, very well - obviously you have known a few in your lifetime - this is soooo puuuurfect - yeah, bad pun intended. *winks*

Yes, I have known more than a few, and they all had such different personalities, but all taught me a lot about "being feline"! lol! I like to think that Minerva can let herself experience a different aspect of her personality, and sometimes "let go" in ways she otherwise wouldn't, when she's in her cat form.Glad you're enjoying it!

I especially loved her reaction to Albus naming her Morag - in her kitty form - that was hysterical! As was her determination not to let Albus see her disheveled self in natural form and all the theatrics of her having to take a shower in his "loo" - haha! Wilspy is, as always, charming and quite the instigator!

I thought that was the perfect feline response to that "insult"! lol!Glad you enjoyed Wilspy again!

Thank you. It was a sad chapter to write, too. I'm glad you found that it hit the mark.

Poor lady, indeed! She has friends who are too well-meaning!

Minerva & Albus sure did!

Symbiosis - my bad.

I'm very glad that you liked it and saw the analogy with Minerva & Albus. And I'm sure you'll find all kinds of wonderful things for your characters to say or to think! Johannes doesn't appear much in this fic, but he's really quite a full character, and this sort of philosophical, poetical, and yet still somewhat scientific view was perfect for him to express.  And yes, those Ys can be tricky little letters! I read it as you meant it, though.

You've got to be sick of me reviewing everything by now! HA, I'll give ya a break and just read another chapter before bed.

No, not at all sick of it! Occasionally challenged to type anything coherent (I'm up too late, myself!), but always happy to read the reviews. I'll be turning off the light shortly, myself -- as I tried to do 2 hours ago, to be gotten up, and then couldn't sleep again! So I've been reading.

Well, I'm glad that gave you a laugh! Reading it again & your reaction gave me a bit of a chuckle, too! LOL!

I am STILL laughing.... over 5 minutes worth... so funny, and the next line - where she raises her eyebrows and mumbles - "if you say so, Albus" and he starts grinning, declaring it so - soooooo priceless.

Thanks!

Blampa thinks that Wilspy is the perfect model of a house-elf, and she has been spending quite a bit of time with her. And they do chat! So I don't think this is a sign that you're going mad!

Their wands was one of the crucial reasons for me to keep the story as I'd planned it, rather than trying to change it to comply with DH. I don't think I'd have finished it if I'd tried to do that.It's great fun trying to imagine how magic works, and how various objects in the HP universe fit in, particularly wands with their cores. The brother wands concept was quite stimulating to the imagination!

Oh yeah! I love playing around with wood qualities myself. And cores are quite amazing, even those that Olivander does not use, so much variety.

I have a few witches and wizards in my fics who carry wands that aren't Ollivander wands -- Malcolm's, for example, is one he picked up after he'd lost his other one, and it's of olive wood with a Jobberknoll feather, and Siofre Tyree's is ivy with Thestral tail hair. I have a whole list of wands for the various characters so that when/if I have need of it, I have it available. I don't know whether Snape ever had a canon wand described, but I have him with a wand of hemlock w/ unicorn hair. They really are fun to play with.I also created "cored broomsticks," which are special broomsticks made with a core like a wand, and which aren't allowed in regulation Quidditch matches, but which are often used in racing. So that was a fun concept to play with -- especially the kinds of cores they might have (ones with Harpy feathers would often not carry wizards! lol!) and what having a core would do for the broom.

OMG that is so brilliant! Of course Harpy (do they have feathers? In D&D they had bat-like wings) would never carry a wizard! That is soooo awesome!Hemlock? Wow... I always thought Hemlock was a large bush but I guess you could make a wand out of it... toxic though it would be - well, mostly the leaves and berries are toxic... but Snape is a bit toxic, and Unicorn hair! WOW - something TOXIC with something PURE - that is peeeeeerfect!I love woods - all kinds and the smells and their pliability and what not. Soooooooo much fun! Cored broomsticks - sheesh woman... by the time I get back to writing my fic, I won't have any original ideas! *winks* Just pokin' ya of course.

Harpies have feathers. In traditional classical mythology and medieval bestiaries (which is where I know them from), they are feathered birds with the heads of women and terrible talons.Sure, you can make a wand out of anything that grows thick enough around, I would think. I thought that was a rather potent combination, too, and perfect for Severus, especially with the hemlock's associations.

If I ever write about Snape, I guess I'll have to think up some strange herbal teas he mixes with his potions fetish - Night Shade Delight! HAHA.

LOL! The trick being to add just the right potion to counter the effect before actually imbibing it. Very funny!

Night shade - not sure where you live, but I live in Florida and we have several wild varieties that grow around here, and I often find it growing in my yard - odd that birds eat the berries - thus distributing the plants all over - and apparntly don't suffer from it.

Aw, I'm glad you like the characters and their world! I must admit to occasionally being somewhat taken aback by the sheer size of the story . . . but not put off by it.

Once they do recognize and confess their affection for each other, as you put it, there will be at least a few more chapters of the story, since I hate the thought of bringing everyone through all of these months of writing and weeks (or years, actually) of Minerva's and Albus's lives and then have it end just where they finally "see the light," so to speak. And that dreaded "s" word . . . I am actually considering a sequel, and even have a few notes for it. If it starts where I think it will, it will be set primarily at a point several years (7 or 8) after RaM ends. I think I'll likely write a couple different stories before I get to the sequel, though -- there are a few other pre-HP stories that have begun to spring up in my mind, and it might do me some good to get away from this little universe for a while once I've finished the story. There is still a lot left, however, so you won't be saying good-bye to the story anytime soon!

Thank you very much for reviewing, and I'm more pleased than I can express that you enjoy the story so much!

Good luck on the GRE! 

Oh, horrors! Don't you know that the real Albus Dumbledore would never be caught wearing peculiar things in his beard? LOL! He might, however, wear them festively dangling from his hat! Or from other articles of clothing! I'd defintely require a lot of cuddles from Albus. A lot. And I'd probably be very reluctant to transform back if that was the only way I'd get those cuddles!

*nods* Beard bells, runestones, braidstones.... being a D&D dwarf lover that I am, I am knowledgable of all things to do with beard-fu - gotta love a thick, braided, plaited, adorned beard.And, as was done in the movies since Michael Gambon took over the roll, he did wear beard bells. *nods* I just loved that!

Well, considering how much I disliked his performance overall, and his general creepiness, I'd say that my loathing for the changes to the beard aren't as great as some of my other negative feelings toward MG as AD. I also thought the costumes took a turn for the worse, though I could have lived with that. I really was pulling for Peter O'Toole to take over the role. He would have been great. (Before the movies were made, I always saw Albus as a kind of combination of Richard Harris and Peter O'Toole in my head, but with the massively long beard and the long, flowing white hair -- like RH had in the first two movies.)Dwarves (or "dwarfs," if you prefer) may freely wear whatever they like in their beards, however! They can be kinda cute, in a rough sorta way.

You had it right the first time, "dwarves" - are the sexiest things ever... you can't possibly talk me out of that, in kilts, no less - but I'm a bit of a fanatic for D&D dwarves.Isn't that odd? I've always loved Michael Gambon and always found Peter O'Toole to be super creepy - but one of the first movies I ever saw him in was Caligula - so... probably ruined me. I really did like Richard Harris as Albus - and like you, loved his costumes better - though I think that MG's costumes were a tiny bit more J.K. style, at least they were purple - but... *shrugs*I do think Gambon was much better at portraying a fierce and dangerous Dumbledore - not sure Harris could have pulled that off. Hard to say. But Dumbledore will always be Dumbledore and I will always love him. *winks* Just like another Muggle lass I know of!

I always thought that MG came off as being more crazy than angry -- I mean, that scene toward the beginning of GoF where he flips his lid about Harry's name coming out of the goblet? Absolutely so non-canon, it made me cringe -- it was completely out of character for Albus. And I think he's very much just a two or three note actor.Yeah, seeing O'Toole in Caligula as the first movie you see him in could defintely turn you off! But he's got great range, and he has enormous presence, too.

The Director of GoF wanted Albus, in that scene, to be fairly gruff and nasty, forcing him to physically shake Daniel - I remember. *it was really out of canon - director's fault though*I still really like Gambon. I think his best performance as Albus was in OoP and HBP but that's of course, just my opinion.

OotP was my favorite book and my least favorite movie -- possibly because it was my favorite book and so I had read it a lot & high expectations for the movie. I actually rather liked PoA, of the later movies. There were a lot of scenes in there that I liked, and a number of movie scenes that were a bit different from the book, tweaked a bit, but in a way that I actually liked. Basically, there's very, very little that I borrow from the movies, anyway, and I see them as being a different sort of Harry Potter story. Usually anything that I consciously use that is in the movies but not the books is either fanon (like the way Snape dresses in RaMverse with trousers and all, though in "Heat," which is a separate non-RaMverse one-shot, I have him dress as he does in the books) or else is just a fun detail that is somehow a part of the setting, or a visual detail that wasn't in the books, but which is not contradictory to what's in the books, either. So I get only a tiny bit of inspiration from the movies, and the rest of it comes from the books and from who-knows-where-else! LOL! Fiction writing is a really mysterious thing! 

Ain't it though? I can't be entirely sure which is my favorite book - PoA was my favorite from the first three books - Hermione in that book was amazing and she is my favorite of the golden trio - and all the twists and turns in that book were fantastic.OoP contains my absolute favorite part of both the books and the movies - of course, you won't be surprised - when Albus and Tom duel - obviously the book is much better, but considering how much the movies hacked the books to shreds, I think they did a fair job depicting the duel - though they left out some of the most important bits - like explaining what Riddle was trying to do when he posessed Harry's body - in the movie you couldn't possibly understand that Riddle was trying to get Dumbledore to kill Harry - though its clear in the books.Truly, writing fiction in someone else' world - like we're doing borrowing Rowling's, is quite fun. Its a bit more strict than writing in one of the D&D campaigns - say the Forgotten Realms - which I dabble in with my own personal characters I've played over the years - but its so enjoyable - as you know! I am still loving this story regardless if Albus wears beard bells or not! HAHA!

Writing any kind of fiction is pretty amazing -- whether it's trying to be strictly canon fanfic with no original characters (though that would be impossibly limiting for me, I think), fanfic that tries to expand the universe yet remain true to the original in spirit, or original fiction with entirely original characters, it's just plain mysterious where the characters and events and fictional consciousnesses come from. I can easily understand why the Greeks believed in the Muses!

I find my muse is most influenced by Pepsi and Hershey's chocolate bars.

It's Dove dark chocolate for me! lol!

Ooooh, Dove chocolate is yummmies! I also find *don't slap me* fish dip to be inspirational, especially the smelly smoked stuff. Yumms... Not good for the keyboard, however. *winks*

You'll have to just wait and see! (Not to be taunting, but . . . )

Bloody tease... Oh wait, I know how to get back at you....Cheers for posting! 

Aaaaaaaaaa! *runs off, frightened!*

LOL! Yep, she practically spelled it out for the poor dope!But there is a reason that Albus is more than just ordinarily obtuse about this, and you'll eventually learn it when Minerva does. And then I think that your anger will be directed toward another character entirely!

 Has someone been messing with my Albus? *sharpens axe* I may just have to take action.... *snorts*

Oh, somebody did mess with him -- big time! But Minerva fixes it for him!

*snorts* Good, I can always count on Minerva to take care of Albus... she always has and always will... I hope she blasts that wicked *insert worst imaginable noun for a living person here* into the beyond.

Yes, Poppy's been trying from the beginning! She's not entirely sure that they're both interested in each other that way, but she has a feeling her friend "Min" is interested in Albus romantically! She figures she can give them a bit of a nudge toward each other, anyway!It will take a very special person to make the nudge that works. Um, more than a nudge, though, really! lol!Glad you liked that bit!

To help me with my anxiety, can you tell me, roughly, how many more chapters until either of them GETS IT? I've bitten my fingernails down to nubs.... its driving me mad!

Well, once Minerva gets her "confidante," it moves a bit faster! I will tell you, though, that there are a good number of chapters at the end of the story in which they explore the new dimension to their relationship -- so it doesn't just end with the ah-ha! moment! (There's a chapter with "confidante" in the title, so that will help you figure out where Minerva starts . . . moving ahead more, so to speak.)

Promise I'm not asking just so I can skip ahead.... I never was very patient. Forgive me, I are just a hopeless romantic, who also happens to drool over a certain, bearded wizard.

I genuinely would have to figure out how many chapters there are left for you, but I can assure you that you have well over a dozen chapters at the end of the story in which they are together -- almost two dozen, if I remember correctly. So you won't be on tenterhooks for the next gazillion chapters!

No, just a bazillion... *winks* Sorry, I couldn't resist, and thankfully you're writing is enjoyable enough that I think its worth all the nail biting. Trust is hard to come by, but you do seem to love these two quite a lot... so I think I'll extend that trust a bit and push forward.Oh yeah - CHEERS FOR POSTING! *smirks*

Well, you've read A Holiday for the Headmaster, and that takes place some time during the 130s (chapter-wise).You'll also see some of Minerva's other relationships develop, particularly with Gertrude, so that will hopefully be somewhat satisfying, too!And thanks for the "CHEERS FOR POSTING!" I have been soooooooo missing seeing that! lol

But of course! Always a "cheers for posting" for you!Ahh good, glad we'll get to know Gertie better. I really enjoy her.

Yes, Minerva finds everything about him yummy, as well. I don't think she'll share, but she might let you admire! I've always seen Minerva as being very protective of anyone in her care, or of her friends. And, of course, in OotP, we saw her run out and try to stop them from taking Hagrid away, which had bad consequences for her, but which gave him time to make an escape.

Not only Hagrid, but she tried to fight Umbridge and the aurors when they came to take Albus to Azkaban... yes, protective she is... fiercly, as are most lionesses.

Yup! She sure is!

Oh, she does! She's workin' up to it!

Boggles the mind!

Oh yeah, and Gertie's comment to Slughorn about him not being a gentleman was hilarious. Thank God Albus has Gertie, she doesn't miss a trick... while Albus seems to miss the hurricane outsite the window.

Yes, Gertrude set that all up. She's doing her best to nudge them toward each other!haha! Yeah, she and Slughorn go way back, and she can needle him a bit in a teasing way.

Thank you! They are becoming emotionally very close, and they do care for each other very much.

Tea is a great meal, agreed.LOL! Yes, a lot of it does take place during meals, and in this particular story, I often describe the food. In fact, a couple people asked me for a "RaM cookbook." I couldn't manage that, but I did give them a RaM menu list! Still have it somewhere.

Yes, Minerva to the rescue!

Minerva didn't know about it -- she only just learns about it from her Uncle Perseus that day when she goes to see them for the afternoon, and then she mentions to Albus that she hadn't known that he'd been married & that his wife's death sounded sad, so Albus tells her about his marriage & his wife's death, and then a few of the ensuing events.So I think you need to go back over the chapter. That bit starts here:“Yes, he’d mentioned the same thing. He said you’d been fairly close at one time—you, Collum, Perseus, a few others.”Albus nodded.“I hadn’t known that you’d been married, Albus,” Minerva said softly.“It was a very long time ago, my dear.” Albus sighed. He was as old as he was, and there was no escaping it. “You may find it difficult to understand how it could be so, but I rarely even think of it anymore. No disrespect meant to Dervilia. But it has been a very long time.”That's from the copy on my computer, so there may be a slight difference between that & the one on the archive -- still catching typos and other glitches years later! LOL!

I did re-read it, it just didn't flow as well as most of your other work does - no worries!And aye... you will NEVER get rid of all typos, I have found. After working for a newspaper for ever, and having 14 editors pour over your work, not only do you keep some of your own typos, but end up with a few of theirs as well!*winks*Despite my complete exhaustion between these two, I'm still READING! Patience is begining to wear... pray for me.

Thank you! Merwyn and Minerva are quite close, really, and he does want her to be happy.Remember, too -- I'm pretty sure it's already been mentioned in the story, but maybe not in detail -- Merwyn was the one who taught Minerva before she went to school, so she spent a lot of time with him. She did accompany her mother on her "rounds" sometimes, but she actually spent more time with him than with her mother, so she knows him well. He was a scholar who was home all day, even when he was working, so they had an opportunity to become close.He's also a Ravenclaw. Hard to get much past him!

Funny you mention that. In my MMAD fic, Minerva's father is a Muggle - thus, never was sorted, though her mother was also, Ravenclaw. Funny again, that in my fic, Minerva and her father are closer than she and her mother - at least in some ways, though her dad ended up being the only non-magic member of the family.Ravenclaws are usually pretty astute.