Trelawney: "Sixteen years I've lived and taught here. Hogwarts is my home. You can't do this."

Umbridge: "Actually, I can… Something you'd like to say, dear?"

McGonagall: "Oh, there are several things I'd like to say… There… Shh... Shh..."

Dumbledore: "Professor McGonagall, might I ask you to escort Sybill back inside?"

McGonagall: "Sybill, dear. This way."

Trelawney: "Thank you."

Professor McGonagall made sure to take only very small strides so that Sybill would not have difficulties to keep up. She was practically waltzing back and forth on her legs due to the amount of cooking sherry she had been drinking after Umbridge had requested that she leave Hogwarts at once for she would no longer teach there.

Thank goodness for McGonagall being there, Sybill thought. Both women certainly had more disagreements than concords, but whenever anyone should find themselves in need, Minerva McGonagall would be there for support in any way if ever anyone should need it.

The pair of them eventually managed to reach the top of the spiral staircase towards the North Tower where Sybill's chambers were situated. Minerva McGonagall supply flung her wand towards the door to open it with a creaky noise. A very strong smell immediately penetrated Minerva's nostrils. She assumed it to be a nauseating mix of candles, incense and sherry. She couldn't quite distinguish every little component, but the dense and heavy smolder coming over her was anything but tolerable. She briefly directed her seventeen-inched wand towards the clouds of malodor, making them disperse before dissolving. Sybill didn't seem to notice the change.

Minerva slowly lead the other professor to one of the many purplish red seats. Sybill shivered, looking up at the older Transfiguration teacher with watery eyes. Minerva looked back at her in concern. "Why would you drink your sorrows away, Sybill?" she asked, signs of her usual strict and rational character sounding through, even though she really tried to be only friendly.

"N-numb," Sybill uttered, never looking away from the other woman. And then suddenly Professor Trelawney leaned forward, holding onto McGonagall's robes, burying her head in the soft velvet emerald and black material of them.

Professor McGonagall just remained motionless looking wearily at the other woman, before patting her shoulder, trying to shush her. "Everything's going to be alright, Sybill dear."

That didn't appear to have been such a very good thing to say, for Trelawney's howling became only louder, even though muffled by Minerva's robes.

Professor McGonagall sighed deeply. She calmly untangled Sybill's fingers from her attires and easily flicked her wand, sending off a Patronus to the kitchens, and before long a cup of warm, sweet tea appeared in her left hand. She kindly offered it to her colleague, who took it thankfully. McGonagall didn't take any herself. "I assure you, Sybill, that Dumbledore won't allow her to do just anything she desires."

Sybill Trelawney didn't reply, but just tried to drink her cup of herbal tea quietly. The Seer's hands were shaking terribly, though.

McGonagall's look became even more concerned, for she couldn't quite tell whether Sybill's shaking could be effect of the amount of alcohol she had consumed, or still because of the shock of being fired and expelled from Hogwarts, her home. One thing seemed connected to the other. Trelawney smelling strongly after sherry, wouldn't be surprising to anyone. However, it had never before occurred to anyone who knew Sybill that she would get herself so drunk that she could hardly keep herself upright and hold a small cup of tea without spilling. Professor McGonagall couldn't blame her, though. Umbridge was simply such a sadistic… too pink… bitch, with that poisoned honey voice, which made McGonagall want to use any curse on her. It didn't happen often that McGonagall called someone a bitch... even in her thoughts.

Minerva's hands helpfully took the cup from the ice cold, shaking hands, and helped the other Hogwarts professor to drink. By the time Sybill greedily emptied her cup, she had already become much calmer than before. McGonagall allowed herself a little smile. "Good," she whispered, using no magical help to push the now empty cup on one of the numerous round, low tables close to her.

"I love you," Sybill blurted, reaching forward to hide herself in Minerva McGonagall's robes again. The Head of Gryffindor's greenish blue eyes widened in shock at what she had just heard. She suddenly felt the need to pry Trelawney's fingers from her clothes and put as much distance as possible between them. Apparently, Sybill was even more drunk than she would have guessed.

"Well… I- I..." Professor McGonagall started incoherently, then breathed heavily before deciding, "We all appreciate your presence as well, Sybill."

And then the howling started again. Maybe I should just keep quiet for a moment, Minerva thought. Nothing she had said thus far seemed to help her colleague to gain calm. Again, Professor McGonagall briefly patted the other woman's shoulder in an attempt to make her feel better. "You should get yourself some rest, dear," Minerva's voice sounded, unusually soft. Maybe she should just give her some time alone... after removing some hidden sherry bottles that were most likely around somewhere.

Sybill nodded against her, slowly pulling back and taking her extremely thick glasses from her nose to wipe at her tears. McGonagall could now look straight into the deep ocean blue of the Seer's eyes that were so like her own. Professor Trelawney soon found the other professor's eyes gazing back in hers.

Oddly enough, Sybill wasn't shaking anymore when she leaned up further to touch lips with Professor McGonagall. She slowly raised herself from her seat, looking into Minerva's eyes again to try find the unspoken reply to her impulsive actions. Within Minerva's eyes confusion was visible, but at the same time, some sort of determination that one might compare with the look before a match of Quidditch between Slytherin and her House: to win. And Minerva McGonagall had nothing to lose here, had she?

She didn't protest as Professor Trelawney leaned forward again to repeat her previous actions, this time however eliciting response from the older Transfiguration teacher. Minerva's lips started moving against Sybill's hesitantly. She couldn't quite figure whether she did or didn't want all of this; these firm walls that she had built up around her deepest feelings over the past years unwilling to break or bend.

Sybill's movements became more demanding, and needier; hands starting to yank at the other woman's attires while she continued to capture her thin reddish lips profoundly. Professor Trelawney's hands had started shaking again, though.

McGonagall still wondered whether it could be a result of the still large amount of alcohol in her veins, or Umbridge, or perhaps because of the intensity and excitement that had come washing over them invisibly and that the Animagus could feel very evidently within herself as well. Something in the air around them seemed to have changed.

Professor McGonagall's hands reached to cover Trelawney's like before, and she didn't say a single word until she was looking into her eyes. Minerva's blue eyes tried to see through the other woman's. "I love you, too," she said, hoping to find any response to that in Sybill's eyes, but she had already thrown herself at McGonagall's feet ever since the words she had so desired to hear had escaped Minerva's throat.

She had started howling for the third time that day. "No one has ever said that to me before…" it sounded like between heavy-hearted sobs.

Minerva calmly lowered herself next to Sybill, since it appeared unlikely that she would calm down enough soon to get up again. Minerva would never step down to someone under normal circumstances, though.

Trelawney threw herself in McGonagall's arms, searching for her mouth with her own in the darkness of the North Tower, mainly created by the shards of purplish red fabric draped over the windows to prevent the daylight from intruding and clouding her Inner Eye. Everything seemed to be purplish red there, actually – at least since Trelawney had been hired.

Trelawney slowly maneuvered Professor McGonagall beneath her. Hands were no longer shaking after hearing these warm, delicious words, released by the usually severe tone coming from the subtly swollen, otherwise thin, lips. With each garment discarded, Professor Trelawney would peel away at the strong barricade that had prevented anyone else before her from seeing Professor Minerva Gaia McGonagall for what she really was. Gentle. Kind. Caring. Loving. McGonagall couldn't do anything else but allow her.

Dolores Umbridge could try seeding hate, but succeeded in the most unlikely persons to find unbreakable bonds between each other, held together by the strong, shared hatred of the High Inquisitor herself and by very apparent or underlying feelings of honesty and purity in friendship or love. Dolores Jane Umbridge would only elicit the opposite of what she wanted. She wasn't going to win, for she, just like Lord Voldemort, would go down under blindness for these feelings. Because at the end of the day, it's not love making the world go around, but it's love that makes it all worth it; that makes us experience magnificent things that we wouldn't otherwise. It gives us some strong but very rare kind of magic.