A Wish for Peace

The fire crackled pleasantly and Minerva burrowed herself further into her thick, comfortable arm chair. Everything was quiet in her husband's round, comfortable study, and Minerva smiled gently, because that's exactly how she liked it. She let out a sigh and stroked Fawkes, her husband's pet phoenix. Suddenly, Fawkes let out a long, loud screech and lit from the arm of her chair, where he had been dozing. Minerva dropped her book -immediately losing her place- and jumped from her chair in alarm. She rushed to where Fawkes was sitting, perched on the window sill, and making throaty, almost growling sounds in his throat.

"For heaven's sake, Fawkes! What in the name of Merlin is it?" she asked exasperatedly.

As a teacher and Deputy Headmistress of a school like Hogwarts, one is always kept on their toes. Actually, as a teacher at any school where you deal with students between the ages of eleven and eighteen, you'd need to be on your toes. Her position was just made more difficult (and indeed, dangerous) because the students she happened to teach were witches and wizards. Needless to say, her recreational time was very limited, important, and also very valuable to her, as was the book she'd been forced to drop on the floor. Ergo, she was extremely irritated at this moment.

She leaned forward and followed the phoenix's gaze out the window and down to the edge of the forest, where a squirrel, a perfectly harmless squirrel, was sitting and munching on something. She stepped back and rolled her eyes.

"Fawkes, you are supposed to be intelligent. Here you are acting like a brainless terrier," she muttered, coaxing Fawkes onto her outstretched arm and back onto his perch by the door.

She bent over and picked up the book she'd been forced to drop. Settling herself once again in the large, squashy chair by the fire, she flipped through the many pages of her book, searching for her place. When she failed to find it, she made a very irritated noise and pulled out her wand. She muttered a simple, locating spell and the book flopped open to the exact page where she had been. Minerva sighed in a satisfied way, and began to read again.

But, not a moment later, there was a faint 'pop', and the head of Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic was blinking at her from the fire place. She looked up, and startled, jumped about a foot in the air, once again, unavoidably dropping her book.

"Hello, Minister Fudge. What brings you here this evening?" she asked with stiff politeness, trying to calm her rapidly beating heart.

"Terribly sorry to disturb you, Minerva. It's urgent, I'm afraid. There's been a slight mix up at the Department for Experimental Charms, and we need Dumbledore down here immediately." Minerva stiffened at his use of her first name and forced calm into her voice.

"Albus isn't here, at the moment. He had some unavoidable business in London and had to leave, but he should be back soon. Would you like me to tell him that you needed him?"

"No, no. I'll find him on my own. I daresay I know where he is. Good Evening," said Fudge, waving his hand in what he thought was an airy way. He disappeared with another faint 'pop' and left Minerva staring into the fire with a very disapproving scowl.

"You 'daresay you know where he is' do you?" she scoffed. "I'd like to see you try to find Grimmauld Place."

So, yet again, she snatched her book up off the floor and located her place. She settled into the chair and prepared herself for some nice, relaxing reading; what she had intended to do before all of the interruptions. A minute passed...and then two... no interruptions. 'Maybe I can finally relax,' she thought. Wrong. Two minutes later, a loud, urgent knock on the door startled her out of her book. It sounded important, and fairly professional, so she tightened her shawl around her and zapped her hair into a bun. She placed her book down gently on the chair and settled her glasses on her nose as she approached the door, and pulled it open.

"Yes?" she asked stiffly.

Severus Snape barged in the room, a deep scowl on his face. Minerva shut the door behind him and immediately he started to rant.

"We have to do something about her! She can't go around charming people when their backs are turned! I demand that she is put somewhere far, far away!" he continued like this in vain for a long time until Minerva held up her hand to stop him from speaking anymore. She was thoroughly confused.

"Severus! Are you finished? Thank you. Two things. One, please tell me who 'she' is, and what in God's name you are doing here!"

Severus scowled even harder, a vein throbbing in his head.

"She, professor McGonagall, is Xiomara Hooch! And I believe," he said angrily. "That I am here to ask you to please do something to control her."

Minerva suppressed a sigh. She could only imagine the trouble her friend had caused.

"What is it this time?" she asked with a sigh.

"This time," he said, his voice rising. "She charmed me -when my back was turned- to skip down the corridors and sing 'Yankee Doodle' every time I hear the word 'skip'. Which," he added, "is used more frequently than you may think. The charm is still on me and I can't seem to remove it!"

Minerva resisted the urge to say 'skip' over and over again. Instead, she took out her wand. And muttered a few incantations.

"Finite Incantatem!" she muttered. Nothing.

"Wait a moment..." she said. "How will I know if it's worked or not?"

Snape looked as if he'd rather have eaten Flesh Eating Slug Repellent than answer this question. He sighed heavily and scowled, if possible, deeper than ever before.

"Because," he said through gritted teeth, "she's charmed..." He took a deep breath. "She's charmed my underwear pink to go along with it. I'll know. Just...try again."

Minerva looked as if she'd rather have not known. Forcing herself to rid her mind of that terrible image, she shook her head and tried all the incantations that she knew, all to no avail. Severus had long since sat down in a stiff backed wooden chair and was slouched over with his head in his hands. Suddenly, the door burst open, and a hysterically laughing Xiomara Hooch entered the room. She was falling all over the furniture, her face was nearly purple and there were tears of laughter in her eyes.

"Xiomara! For Merlin's sake control yourself!" Minerva said exasperatedly.

Xiomara attempted many times to stop laughing, and indeed, to breath. Finally, she forced it down to a slight giggle and began the task of speaking through her titters.

"I...*gasp* needed to find *gasp* Severus, but I heard his...*giggle* singing down the corridor!" With that, she burst into hysterical laughter again, eventually falling on the floor on her back, kicking her legs at the memory of Severus Snape singing Yankee Doodle.

Minerva sighed in an annoyed way, and waited with her hands on her hips for her friend to finish laughing. Finally, Xiomara sat up and wiped tears of laughter from her golden, hawk-like eyes.

"So?" said Minerva.

"So what?" Xiomara said, trying -and failing- to keep a straight face.

"So, hurry up and fix this...this...problem, so I can relax!" Minerva shouted.

Xiomara looked positively gleeful at what she had to say.

"Well...I've actually charmed the underwear, not Severus. Charming Severus would not have been a smart move, because -knowing me- I probably wouldn't be able to reverse it, and that would be terrible, because Sevvie here is an awful singer." She fought back another tide of giggles.

"Well, how do you reverse it?"

"He has to take off the underwear, of course!" said Xiomara, a mischievous glint in her eye.

Minerva, for one didn't really wish to witness that, so she waved her wand, and on the opposite wall a door appeared, swinging open and revealing a large bathroom. Unfortunately, because Minerva was so annoyed, the door swung open a little too forcefully, and hit the wall with a loud bang, which, of course, caused her book to tumble off the chair, and, for the third time, lose her page. By now, Minerva was quite accustomed to having to find her place again, so she paid it no mind. For now she was more worried about ever getting to sit down and open the book, never mind read it.

"There, go er, fix your problem in there." Minerva flicked her wand in the direction of the bathroom.

She had suspected for a long time, not without reason, however, that Severus and Xiomara fancied each other, but were:

A) Too shy to admit their true feelings, or:

B) Too thick to notice.

Whatever the reason, Minerva found herself, -subconsciously, of course- trying to hook the two up, and now seemed as good a time as any to give it a try again. Plus, she had the sneaking suspicion that Xiomara was itching to go in with him and 'help'.

"Alright. I'll, er, be out in a moment." He swept over to the bathroom, slammed the door and locked it with a click.

Xiomara, however, made no move to assist him, and again, Minerva based this upon two factors. She was either:

Struggling sounds were now coming from behind the locked bathroom door, as were very loud thumping noises.

"What in the name of Merlin is he doing in there?" Minerva asked.

Xiomara's eyes lit up with mischief.

"Oh, I think I have a clue."

"What did you do now?" Minerva sighed exasperatedly.

It took several minutes -punctuated by Severus' cursing and banging about- to pry it from her, but eventually, Minerva found out that she'd not only charmed them, but had put a Sticking Charm on them. Severus exited the bathroom scowling deeply and getting ready to hex Xiomara into oblivion.

"What the bloody hell did you do to me, Hooch?" he said through gritted teeth.

"I fixed your charmed pink knickers with a Sticking Charm!" she said happily.

Before he could explode -which he looked as if he were more than capable of doing at the moment- Minerva cut in, desperately trying to save the situation as well as her would-be peaceful evening.

"Severus, why don't you go to your quarters and see if you can't fix the problem there?"

He seemed to contemplate this for a moment, and then agreed. He left the room, nodding sharply. But before he could leave the room, Xiomara called his name.

"Hey Sevvie?" He whipped around irritably. "Skip!"

~*~