Supper with McGonagall turned out to involve more liquid than Hermione had been really anticipating. After the usual hasty lunch in the dungeons, she had worked all afternoon and then cried off early - earning a baleful glare from Snape in the process, that left her in no doubt that Gryffindor would have been several tens of housepoints lighter had he only been able to work out how to make it so - in order to freshen up and arrive promptly for an evening catching up with her old head of house. it would make a pleasant change from nearly two days of sulking Snape.

Minerva McGonagall's rooms were comfortably appointed and somewhat less Scottish than Hermione had expected. No to mention tidy. She had never had occasion to visit the private rooms of any of the teachers whilst she was a student - except Snape's, her treacherous mind whispered. All private conversations and most detentions had taken place in the Professors' offices or classrooms. So she was surprised to find a room that owed more to the Albus Dumbledore School of Interior Design than the offices of Scotland the Gryffindor. Mismatched armchairs jostled with small tables, the pattern on the rug was worn to indecipherability, and the whole was ringed with overflowing bookshelves.

As she made herself at home, Minerva hastily threw a thick cover over a deep glass tank in the corner.

"The aftermath of sixth-year Transfiguration this afternoon," she confessed. "I would have dealt with them immediately after class, but I wanted to get back here and tidy up a little before you came."

Looking at the general chaos of the room, Hermione was glad that she hadn't seen it when it was untidy. It was a revelation to find that Minerva, fastidious and exacting in the classroom was quite this disorganised in her personal life. Not that it should have been, of course. After all, think of Snape's rooms ....

To distract from this very activity, Hermione began to examine the paintings. One stood out, mostly for the fact that it was completely two-dimensional and almost aggressively stationary. She looked a little closer. It was a picture of a large bridge set against a mournful Scottish backdrop of bleak mountains and lowering skies.

"Ah," said Minerva. "I see you've noticed the Tay Bridge." Hermione jumped and took a step back."

"I'm sorry," she began, "I was just - um."

Minerva waved a hand.

"Don't worry about it," she said. "It was a present from my cousin William." She sighed. "A dear sweet boy, but a dreadful poet. I blame his mother for encouraging him."

Hermione blinked and made no coment.

"Now," continued Minerva, "how about a drink before the hosue elves fetch supper."

She was brandishing what was clearly a large bottle of whisky, something that Hermione had developed a taste for over the years. It seemed to go with the coffee habit. She accepted happily.

"Excellent," said Minerva, retrieving two large glasses from beneath a pile of what Hermione could have sworn were third-year essays. Looking round and finding a nearly clear table, she put the glasses down, filled them two-thirds full and handed one to Hermione.

"Slainte." she said taking a generous sip. "Homeopathy has no place in a distillery."

Hermione supposed not, and took a large swig of her drink.

**********

Sometime later it occurred to Hermione that the bottle contained significantly less liquid than it had when Minerva had first opened it. However, she wasn't particularly troubled by this, as Minerva had clearly given her a self-filling glass which was working very nicely, thank you. She thought that the house-elves had brought supper - at least, she thought she remembered eating something - but she didn't think that she would have been prepared to swear to it under Veritaserum.

Not that any of that mattered. She was curled up in a chair, lulled by the warmth of the fire and feeling absolutely no pain. It took her a while to register that Minerva had asked her a question.

"I'm sorry," she said vaguely, "I was miles away."

Minerva smirked.

"I could see that. The question is, who were you miles away with?"

Hermione tried to work that one out.

"What do you mean, who?" she said eventually.

"I mean who is it that has you staring into the fire like you want to toss in a pinch of Floo and call his name?"

Hermione suddenly understood, and, to her horror, felt herself redden.

"No, no, it was nothing like that. I'm just a little tired and the fire is warm and this is very good whisky."

"Nonsense," said Minerva briskly. "When a young woman drifts off like that it's either a man or scotch. And as you haven't had nearly enough to drink, it must be a man." She gave Hermione a conspiratorial smile. "And I think I can guess who it is."

Hermione felt a lurch of horror that nearly sobered her up. Oh, please God, no.

Minerva sat back smugly.

"It's Peregrine Queroz isn't it?"

As Hermione's brain was still thinking in terms of sibilants, she didn't immediately react.

"Uh," she said concisely.

"Peregrine Queroz? The Defence teacher." Hermione struggled for words as Minerva continued, "Come on now dear, we've all seen the way he looks at you, how he looks after you at dinner. And he has invited you up to see his etchings."

The last words finally registered properly. Good grief, not her as well. That was all she needed after yesterday's lecture from Snape.

"No. Oh no, it's nothing like that. He's just, well, he has some etchings and, well, he's asked me up to see them."

"Precisely," said Minerva triumphantly.

"No, not those sort of etchings, Real etchings. From the Alchimal of Alderney." She frowned. "No that's not right. Anyway, they are real etchings."

She stared at Minerva, willing her to believe, willing Snape to be wrong.

Minerva gave her a strange look.

"Hermione, the man is besotted with you. It's obvious to everyone. I'm surprised you haven't been getting hate mail from every girl with a crush above the second year."

"Oh." There wasn't a lot else she could have said. If both Snape and Minerva thought so then it was probably true.

Minerva made a clicking sound of exasperation.

"For an intelligent girl, you really can be extremely dense at times." She even sounded like a fond version of Snape, thought Hermione. "Queroz has been virtually falling over his tongue whenever you're in the room. What does he have to do? Hit you over the head with a broomstick and drag you off by your hair?"

Oh God, I've messed up again, thought Hermione, in a dizzying spirits-induced downwards mood swing.

"Probably," she said miserably. "I'm not very good at this sort of thing. You know, relationships. Dating. Subtext." She tried to make a gesture with the hand still holding her glass and stopped just before she threw whisky in Minerva's face.

Damn, how come she was having this conversation for the second time in as many days.

Although Minerva didn't appear to be handling it with a fit of petulance. On the contrary, she had become almost maternal.

"Is there someone else?" said Minerva gently.

"No, not really."

Minerva raised an eyebrow.

"'Not really' sounds like 'yes' to me. Is it someone from university?"

"No, not at all." The conversation was underway, now and the alcohol had not so much loosened her tongue, and loosened some of the strict controls over her mind. "There were a couple of blokes. Nice guys, really. I'm not quite certain what really went wrong. One day we were going out, and the next day we weren't and I never really worked out what happened in the meantime."

"Someone from school, then?"

Oh dear, was her brain that loose?

"I - um -"

"Mr Weasley? Or perhaps Mr Potter?"

If Hermione had been able to coordinate the reflexes she would have laughed. She knew entirely too much about both her childhood friends to ever consider them as partners of any description.

"No," she said eventually, "not Harry or Ron." She took a deep breath. "Look, if you don't mind, I'd rather not talk about it."

Minerva nodded, and took another drink.

"Ah, I see." She paused, and then added, "The lure of the forbidden can be very strong and very difficult to shake off, you know. But unless you do it will never leave you in peace."

Hermione hoped that her alcohol dulled muscles would fail to respond to her brain's slightly incoherent desire to freeze in horror.

Minerva had no idea. She really didn't.

Hermione took another sip of her whisky for want of something better to do and told herself again that her old Head of House had no clue. Snape was - well, he wasn't - and even if he was, he wouldn't be -and she certainly wasn't about to - and anyway it was all old history and Minerva really just didn't know.