“A Passion For Quidditch”
by shadowycat


The door to the staff lounge flew open abruptly and Severus Snape and Minerva McGonagall entered together barely fitting through the door frame at the same time, but obviously neither was going to give way to the other either in physical space or intellectual opinion absorbed as they both were in a bitter argument of the utmost importance.

“That move was clearly illegal, Severus! The referee should have called the game right then. Slytherin should have been disqualified for its use of such nasty underhanded tactics.” A slightly red faced McGonagall raged angrily at the smug Potions Master.

Unruffled by her argument, Snape coolly raised an eyebrow and smirked at her. “Nonsense. Madam Hooch called a very fair game. If she saw nothing wrong with the play then there was nothing to see. Admit it, Minerva, you’re just annoyed because you owe me five Galleons, that’s what all this bluster is really about.”

Minerva straightened up sharply and her cheeks reddened even more. “This has nothing to do with money!” she snapped.

Snape’s smirk deepened into a full sarcastic smile, and he crossed his arms and leaned casually against the back of an armchair as he drawled, “Oh no…of course not. How silly of me. I forgot for a moment that with you Gryffindors its always about honor and fairness, isn’t it…money is so beneath you. Cheapens the thrill somehow doesn’t it? Or are you so adamant because you haven’t got five Galleons at the moment?”

Minerva’s eyes snapped and crackled and stray strands of her dark hair had come loose from their confining bun and were curling wildly around her face. “You’ll get your money, Severus. Gryffindors also always pay their debts.”

Snape laid a hand on his chest and assumed a shocked expression. “Did I imply otherwise?” His black eyes snapped with amusement and his pulse quickened slightly with the anticipation of another full-blown argument with Minerva. Damn, but he enjoyed arguing with her. She was one of the few people he’d come across in his life whom he was almost never able to intimidate.

“Stop changing the subject. Complaining about money doesn’t change the fact that the Slytherin Beater made an illegal move when he knocked the Gryffindor Seeker into the stands. Gryffindor should have won that game easily.” Her breath was coming hard and fast now as she pursued her case with single-minded fervor.

Snape dropped his hand from his chest and leaned closer to McGonagall, narrowing his eyes, which had attained a deep fire of their own and lowering his voice to its most deadly timbre. “You can argue should have…might have…would have, forever. The only thing that counts in the end is…did, and Slytherin did win. Give up this fruitless argument, Minerva. I’ve won that, too.”

Unbidden her hand came up and a trembling finger poked the Potions Master firmly in the chest as she exclaimed furiously, “The only reason Slytherin won that game is because they cheated…and Hooch has gone deaf and blind in her old age!”

Automatically Snape reached up and captured her hand in his to stop her from further drilling her fingernail into his chest. The charged atmosphere between them was beginning to raise the color in his cheeks as well. “The bet was on who won the game…not on who you think should’ve won the game. This posturing is irrelevant. Are you going to pay up or not?”

Minerva was trembling visibly now as she leaned in so close that they stood nose to nose, and she could see the flecks of deepest brown that gave his eyes that velvety darkness that always seemed so impenetrable. “I told you that Gryffindors always pay their debts, Severus. Have I ever not paid up on a bet? Have I? There’s no need to worry…you’ll get your money!”

Snape found that he’d momentarily lost the thread of the argument in the swirled depths of her eyes and the slender hand that he still held tightly in his own was trembling even more violently than before.

His low voice rasped as he found himself saying, “What if I don’t want money in payment? What if I want something else?” His heart was pulsing blood through his body at a rapid pace now and his breath was coming in quick short bursts.

Minerva licked her lips as her mouth went suddenly dry. “Well…we could talk about an alternative, I suppose,” she whispered raggedly. “What do you want instead?”

The two of them stood there frozen for a moment staring deeply into each other’s excited eyes, and then Snape whispered back hoarsely, “This….”

Without another word or thought their mouths were suddenly pressed hungrily together. Their arms came up around each other fiercely clasping their bodies together as tightly as possible. For the next endless span of time, argument, logical reasoning, and quibbling over money gave way to intense passion…as all items of clothing were quickly and carelessly removed and smooth expanses of damp excited skin met eagerly. The two had become so anxious to satisfy their sudden intense desire for each other that they were quite lucky that no one had business in the staff lounge during this rather lengthy interval of time. Since, locked in the arms of passion as they were, neither of them retained the presence of mind to lock the door.

Of course that doesn’t mean that their little interlude went entirely unremarked upon. Poor Flitwick struggled to make himself as small and quiet as possible in a chair in the far corner of the room where he’d suddenly found himself trapped by the intensity of the passionate desire unfolding in front of the fireplace across the chamber. At the height of their involvement, he was pretty sure that he could’ve made an escape without having been noticed, but he was far too intimidated to try.

For the next two months every time he came into contact with either Snape or McGonagall, he turned beet red and stammered nonsense until he could escape their company to the utter puzzlement and consternation of his completely clueless colleagues.