Burning Snow

The halls throughout Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry were silent. The only sound was the flickering of the dying flames in the torches along the corridors and the padding of four small paws. A small creature walked quickly, yet timidly down the many passages and through secret entrances that only the best knew of. Her eyes darted around in an almost paranoid way, and she began to sprint, finally breaking into an all out run, for fear of being caught. For, what she was doing was against so many morals that she had lost count. Not that she had been counting, that is. She passed a window and slowed down a bit, admiring the way the beams of silver moonlight shone on her tabby fur. Silver was so beautiful, and so pure. But it was so devastating. It was the piercing blade of a knife, it was the glint of a sword ... and it was the flash of a silver bullet. She walked on, stopping every now and then to listen for the sound of footsteps, or the cackling of the poltergeis t. She stopped in her tracks, her small kitty heart pounding in her chest. A loud sound echoed down the hall. Was that a suit of armor rattling? Was it someone coming down the hall? Either way, she quickened her pace. Suddenly, she came to a halt in front of a portrait. The woman in the portrait's plump form was donning a soft pink dress that rustled slightly as she asked,

"Password?"

The tabby cat just looked up at her, and if she had been human, it would surely have been a piercing glare. The woman in the portrait appeared to lean forward, apparently examining the rectangular markings around the tabby cat's eyes. With a small smile and a nod, the portrait swung open, revealing an opening in the solid stone wall beneath it. The cat seemed to nod its thanks and leapt nimbly through the hole. Next, the cat came upon a large comfortable room, filled wall to wall with squashy arm chairs and rickety end tables. The embers of the dying fire were still glowing, allowing her enough light to locate her destination, a large wooden door at the top of a flight of stairs and to the end. The cat nudged it open with her nose and peeked cautiously around it. The coast appeared to be clear, so she leapt into the room and sniffed around each large bed. Her keen cat senses able to pick out the one that she wanted. The bed on the far right. The heavy draperies hanging off ea ch four-poster bed were a thick, rich velvet dyed a deep, comforting scarlet. She clawed her way up them carefully, finally, making her way onto the bed. It was dark and cozy inside, and she felt the overwhelming urge to curl into a ball and nap forever, but she didn't. She tiptoed up to the bed's sleeping occupant and nudged him carefully wither her nose. The boy in the bed, who looked about seventeen, made a snuffling sort of noise and rolled over, opening his eyes slowly. Suddenly, looking into the wide golden eyes of the cat next to him, he sat bolt upright and gasped,

"Minerva!"

Where the tabby cat used to be, there now sat a tall, lean young woman, with the darkest ebony hair, and piercing green eyes behind thin, rectangular shaped spectacles.

"You shouldn't have come," the boy said. "What if someone had seen you?"

The woman looked into his eyes and smiled.

"But no one did," she said slyly, "And I needed to see you, Remus."

Remus moved over on the bed so that Minerva could lie down beside him. He began to caress her soft, fair cheek with his finger.

"I needed to see you too, Minerva."

They lay there in silence for the longest time. Remus broke the silence, by saying,

"Is this right? I don't know. It feels so right, but everyone would tell me that it's wrong! I-I'm so confused."

Minerva sat up on her elbows and looked deep into his concerned, brown eyes. She wiped a stray strand of brown hair from his face, and said, "My mother always told me, to follow my heart. To listen to what it tells me, and do what I feel is right. If you and I feel that this is right, then it is. To hell with whatever they think. I know that I'm your teacher, and I know that some people think of this as being wrong, but I don't! The question is, do you?"

He sat and looked into her serious face. She seemed so different from the stern, tall woman who graded his homework and berated him for blotching his Transfiguration essays. With the moonlight streaming in through an opening in the hangings, her long ebony locks hanging loosely down her back, and her thin white nightdress, she looked so much more ... human. Remus licked his lips and smiled.

"If it has to do with you, then it must be right."

He locked her in a passionate, searing kiss, one that Minerva would come to remember in the many lonely years to come. Then, they made gentle, passionate love. They explored each other in ways that were unimaginable, and they were no longer two torn souls. They were one, and they were whole. The next morning, when the sun shone through the slits in the curtains, they wouldn't care. It would feel so right, that it couldn't be, wasn't wrong.