Lionhearted (Lions in Winter remix)
Remix Author: Penknife
Original Story: Lionhearted by Aldalindil
Summary: This isn't where they thought they'd end up.
Rating: PG
Fandom: Harry Potter
Spoilers: through OotP
When Alastor Moody was seventeen, the one thing that had given him hope that he could fall in love with Minerva McGonagall was her hair. It strayed out of the knot she tried to catch it up in, and made him want to brush it away with his fingertips. By the time they left school, she'd learned to keep it properly knotted, and he'd given up on having more than a companionable interest in girls.
It bothered him to see strands of her hair falling down from an untidy bun as she sat up in her hospital bed, looking past him out the window at the gray courtyard. He wanted to do it up for her, not that she'd let him or that his hands would be any good at such work. "You look cold," he said.
"I'm fine," she said. "You're the one who's been out in all weather tramping down here when I plainly said 'no visitors.'"
"Ridiculous."
"I'm told I'll be residing here for some time," Minerva said. "I don't need to be watched over the whole time, and I won't have anyone wasting their time doing it."
"I'll run the rest of them off," Alastor said. "If that's what you want."
"Please," Minerva said. "I'm not in the mood to be cheered up."
"No. You're in the mood to feel sorry for yourself."
Minerva turned her head away and smiled faintly. "That I am."
The light was gray and unforgiving, throwing shadows across her face. He was sure it didn't make him look any better. A fire would have warmed the room with a softer light, and might have made it smell less like bitter herbs and liniment.
"You are cold," he said.
She pulled the wool blanket up over her shoulder. "Yes, Alastor, I'm cold."
He dropped down to sit on the edge of the bed, ignoring the fact that it would be damned hard to get up again without reaching awkwardly past her to grasp the iron headrail. "I'll warm you up," he said.
"Alastor Moody, are you trying to take advantage of me?"
"You'd soon know it if I were." He stretched out on the bed, not without some difficulty. "Come here, wench."
"You're so arrogant," Minerva said, but she shifted position so that he could put an arm around her shoulders. Hospital beds were just as uncomfortable as he remembered.
"Just trying to ruin your reputation," he said.
"My reputation? As though I were sixteen."
"Aren't you?"
"I wish I were," Minerva said. She frowned down at her hands clutching the blankets. Alastor thought they looked a good sight better than his own.
"Not feeling old?"
"A bit," she said. "And ..." She moved her hands if trying to grasp something that slipped through her fingers.
"And what?"
"And never you mind," she said distantly.
"There's no point in coming over shy with me," Alastor said. "Don't forget I've seen you in your knickers."
"I was all of thirteen," Minerva said. "And you were trying to help me take a hex off --"
"Wasn't a hex."
"Oh, no, I'd forgotten ..."
"You'd tried that charm out of the back of Witch Weekly," Alastor said. "Wound up with a chest so big you couldn't button your robes."
"We were children. This is different."
"You watched me walk on this damned leg for the first time, and you didn't laugh when I fell on my arse," Alastor said. "Is that different?"
"Well, it was you, not me."
"That's what I thought."
"I'm ashamed of myself," she said. "I spent all year twiddling my thumbs and making conversation with that creature at the breakfast table. And then finally I had the chance to do something, and now I'm here with nothing to do but think about what I did wrong."
"And what did you do wrong?"
"I should have gone for help."
"No time," Alastor said.
"I should have drawn on them first."
"They'd have done worse than Stun you if you had."
"I shouldn't have taken them on at all."
"You were trying to help," Alastor said. "All Gryffindors are stupid that way."
"I was trying to help," Minerva said. "I've done my best all year, and I was doing my best that night. And my best simply isn't good enough."
Alastor rested the back of his hand on the blanket so that she could see the tracery of scars on his palm. He tapped the puckered skin under his eye. "Do you think I meant for this to happen?"
"No, but --"
"Do you think I've forgotten what I used to see when I looked in the mirror?"
"No," she said. She laid her hand over his. "I don't think you have."
"My best wasn't good enough, either." After a moment Minerva rested her head on his shoulder. He cupped one broad hand over her hair. "But eventually I stopped hating myself for it and started learning from it. I got better."
"And what if you used to be better? What if the problem is that you're too slow? Or just plain too old?"
"Figure out the secret of eternal youth, and you can support me in my old age."
"I used to have the fastest draw in my class."
"Fastest witch at Hogwarts. In a duel, too."
"Get out of my bed," she said, although she didn't seem eager for him to move.
"Pity I can't speak from personal experience."
"Only because you were too busy chasing after the lads."
"I could run faster in those days."
"I hope it's not schoolboys you're after now."
"You're the one with a school full of pretty young things," Alastor said, trying to keep his tone light. "I don't get in the way of temptation much."
"Isn't there anyone you fancy these days?"
"To look at, maybe. Mainly lads half my age or married men with a bunch of brats."
He cleared his throat. "Besides, you've room to talk. I hear you and Severus Snape got very friendly a few years ago over the holidays."
"Over a bottle of brandy is more like," Minerva said. "Dare I ask who?"
"Rather you didn't," Alastor said. "Some things are best put right out of your mind, you know?" Twenty years ago he'd been an old lion among young ones, throwing an arm around the shoulders of young heroes and getting the occasional flashing smile in return, like a ray of sunshine. Now he thought even the most hardened of them would shrink away.
"Maybe so," she said quietly.
He shifted position painfully, shrugging at her questioning glance. "Weather."
She opened and closed her hands on the blanket. "I know."
"Anyway, none of them's as good as you."
"Hmph. You never showed the slightest interest in me, not even when I was throwing myself at you."
"You never were," Alastor lied.
"That just shows how much you know. Constant vigilance, indeed."
"Wish I'd been more of a mind to catch."
"Do you?" she asked, in an unfamiliar, bitter voice. "I'm not much of a catch."
"Nonsense. A Cheering Charm would put you right."
"Please don't."
"As you like."
"And don't humor me."
"Fine. You're feeling sorry for yourself again."
"I can if I want to," she said.
"Didn't say you couldn't."
"Well."
"Well."
"Well, what now?" she asked, with a touch of her usual acerbity. "We seem to have exhausted all avenues of conversation."
"Where are you going after they spring you?"
"Hogwarts, where else? I'm sure the place is a shambles."
"Why don't you come stay with me for a while first?"
"That's very kind of you, Alastor, but I --"
"We could get married."
"What?"
"You know. Married. Man and wife. You must have heard of it."
"You're mad."
"Makes perfect sense," he said. "Except for the sex part, but it's not like either of us is getting any anyway."
"Alastor," Minerva said in a tone somewhere between shock and amusement.
"Just give me a few days to teach the house that you're not dangerous --"
"It's out of the question," she said, no humor in her voice.
"I suppose so."
"Not because --"
"Don't humor me," he said.
Minerva struggled to sit up, and he shifted position to help her. Instead he found himself being kissed, rather firmly. It felt damn strange, and after a minute he disentangled himself.
"You see," Minerva said, looking sad.
"See what?"
"Don't be deliberately obtuse."
"You ... want me," he ventured after a moment's awkward silence.
"Want you? That's the least of my problems. I'm in love with you, in case you've really never noticed."
"I thought you'd gotten over that," Alastor said slowly.
"So did I."
"Well, if you want me to have sex with you --"
"Alastor, that is the single worst proposition I have ever received. And that's counting Severus drunk."
"I could try."
"Only if I Transfigure myself into something with a prick."
"Damn it, Minerva --"
"What, women aren't supposed to know what they're called?"
"I don't talk about sex much with women."
"I can tell." The sparkle faded from Minerva's eyes, and she shook her head. "You have to see how it would be for me, knowing you were only coming near me as a kindness. You've never had much taste for that yourself."
"You're the only one I can trust to be honest with me," Alastor said after a minute. "Even when I don't much like it."
Minerva patted his hand. "It's not exactly a reason to get married."
"I don't know. There are worse."
"Why are you doing this?"
He shrugged. "Why do you think? I'm tired of making my own breakfasts and talking to the furniture. I don't want to die alone."
"If you think I'm going to make your breakfasts --"
"I don't care about the damn breakfast."
"I distinctly heard you say --"
"Now who's being deliberately obtuse?"
"It won't work."
"Well," Moody said. "Let me try this again."
"Let you try what --"
He kissed her. When he felt he'd done it properly, he pulled away. "Well? Is that any better?"
Minerva shook her head. "You've entirely missed the point, haven't you?"
"No. Just wondered if practice would help."
"Time doesn't cure everything," Minerva said. She settled down on his shoulder, curling his fingers around her own. "Although perhaps it has made us both able to deal with a little disappointment."
"Both?"
"Well, you'll have to live with waking up next to me."
He wrapped his arm around her shoulders. He wished the bones in them didn't stand out so sharply, and that doing it didn't make his own shoulder ache, and that this was closer to what either of them had wanted at seventeen.
"I can live with that," he said.
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