Minerva McGonagall's newfound affection apparently confused her colleagues as much as it did Albus. As they strolled into the hall, she oblivious to all, he as dazed as the most powerful wizard of the century could be, the professors and students gawked in unison. Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall had always been close, but not explicitly close. At least not hand-in-hand close. The mass of purple robes was dragged along by an emerald blur as Minerva approached the table. Her uncharacteristic smile was an uncommon, dazzling sight.

"Armando," Albus nodded in his haste as he fell into his chair, his mind still trying to catch up with the circumstances.

Minerva slipped into the chair beside him, her eyes gleaming affectionately at the older man. "Hello, Headmaster. I'm terribly sorry I couldn't make it to breakfast this morning, as you've heard I've had a bit of a mishap in my chambers. But I fully intend to make it up to you in the rest of the semester." Never had Minerva spoken so fast and cheerily. Her words became a slightly slurry string of syllables and the visible movements of her tongue as she pronounced each sound with the new overlay was entrancing.

At her expectant gaze, the Headmaster nodded back, eyes wide with surprise. When she turned away, Armando leaned in to whisper to his Deputy. "I see that for the first time in the century, the Bloody Baron may have spoken the truth. The Defence Mistress has indeed had quite the morning."

"You have no idea," Albus mumbled. He had neither confirmed nor denied the Bloody Baron's assumptions, preferring to let Minerva do the explaining as he himself was quite muddled over the circumstances. All he remembered was seeing Minerva crash into him on her bed, and then seeing her drenched from head to toe in a inappropriately revealing nightgown. It was like his strangest and most erotic dreams rolled into one, and from eight till noon he found himself trying to put the pieces together to no avail.

Without much thought, his hand traveled to his cheek where Minerva's soft lips had lingered for a fleeting moment. As much as Albus revelled in her touch and her brand new clinginess, it struck him as odd. He had dismissed Minerva's attraction to him as an impossibility for six years, that the notion of her openly flirting with him was beyond absurd. He batted the thought away with more force than he intended.

Armando nudged Albus with his elbow to draw him out of his deeper thoughts. He commented, "Miss McGonagall has always acted quite serene during her time here. While I appreciate staff who take their jobs seriously, an occasional laugh makes everyone happy." He smiled reassuringly, "Perhaps this is a change for the better."

Albus agreed up to the last statement until an unusual high-pitched giggle reached his ears, now erupting from the unusually carefree looking professor. He realized that while he had gotten the bulk of her attention for mere minutes, she was now turning to the general male audience.

Beautiful and unapproachable as she were, the male professors seemed almost grateful that she was now showering them with attention. She giggled again as Filius talked of an uncharacteristically naughty Ravenclaw who charmed a third-year Slytherin to grow waist-long eyelashes. Minerva's voice was musical, and it took every nerve in Albus to resist a grunt.

"Albus?" The Headmaster looked up to see his Deputy standing, looking very much disturbed. "Where are you going?"

"I just remembered I've left a boggart unchained in my office," he lied, avoiding what he thought to be Minerva's questioning gaze from afar.

Thankfully, it was absurd enough a reason that Armando seemed to have believed it. Only the absurd was worth believing in a place like Hogwarts. "Why, go lock it up, lad, what if it slips into a classroom?"

"I will," he nodded reassuringly and pulled his chair back. Minerva was definitely following him with her eyes now, even with his back he could tell. There was an unusually fierce gaze in his direction and for some reason, he didn't want to address it.

"I can get the house elves to send your lunch to your office, when you've done away with that creature." The Headmaster offered with concern.

"That will not be necessary," Albus answered promptly. As he strolled down the hallway, he heard Minerva's merry giggles ring across the Great Hall, no doubt in response to some other crude joke his male colleagues have made. Without conscious thought, he grunted and slammed the door behind him. Armando watched the angry wizard disappear with amusement.

There was no boggart in his office, however. Albus sat in his own fluffy purple armchair and rubbed his temples in an attempt to rid himself of a growing headache. First the morning incident, then she approached him flirtatiously mere minutes before noon, suggesting a night of very private, even passionate nature. And now, there she was, sitting among his other colleagues, flirting with all of them like he never existed. Was she playing with his feelings?

He responded to the knock on his door while he was still dazed and not thinking coherently. "Come in."

"Albus?" The voice shook his world once again as the woman that filled his mind entered his office. "Did you get rid of the boggart?" She looked around cautiously as if waiting for the creature to present itself, but something about the way she walked, carelessly warding herself, told him that her mind was onto something else entirely.

"Yes, it's locked away. I've levitated it to the unused classroom at the far end of the third floor corridor. You can use it for your classes if you want." He smiled, standing from his chair. The boggart had been there for as long as he remembered, so it wouldn't be an issue if she went searching for it. He walked to his desk to put some distance between them.

"Ah, thank you," she said gratefully. "It's arranged in the curriculum for the third years, but I can't seem to find the teaching material, so to speak. I was going to approach Armando for a boggart's whereabouts, but I was preoccupied with something else and forgot about it entirely."

"So what brings you here, Minerva? Last I saw you were having a lovely chat with Filius, Horace, and the others." That did not come out right, he inwardly reprimanded himself.

"Armando sent me here. He thought you looked a little distressed when you left, so he wanted me to find out what's going on in that brilliant mind of yours," she said, coming a little too close for his comfort. She was standing right across him and the only thing that separated them was his working desk. With her leaning closer and over the table, it might as well not exist.

"Nothing," he denied, a little too fast to be convincing. "I just had, well, it's embarrassing I guess; I've had too many Sherbet Lemons and am now experiencing a stomachache." He clutched his stomach for extra effect.

"My, a stomachache?" Minerva eyed him worriedly. Albus had managed to conjure an extra layer of sweat on his forehead and for a moment he looked like he was genuinely in pain. It was confusing why he did not appear that much in pain when she first came in, but the problem would have to be fixed no matter what. She clucked her tongue. "I'll take you to Poppy."

"That's really not necessary." Albus made another conscious attempt to slow his sweating. "Ah, it comes and goes." He rubbed his belly and patted it thrice to prove he was fine, but the raised eyebrow on his colleague's face spoke of determination.

"Albus, I'm taking you to Poppy. What if you've had an infection?" She snapped.

"An infection? From what?"

"I don't know, that last time you pricked your finger at The Three Broomsticks, or maybe that afternoon when you were out in Diagon Alley, when you tripped and fell face flat on the ground, who knows? The important thing is that we get you checked up."

"No one gets an infection from tripping and falling," he cried, "How did you even know about that? Weren't you walking in the front with Filius?"

"Bacteria gets into you when you're not looking," she said sternly, dragging the man by his collar as she spoke. She shushed him when he opened his mouth defensively. "Uh-uh. Better safe than sorry."

It was one o'clock by the time Minerva had successfully dragged an unwilling Albus to the Hospital Wing. Poppy greeted them both with surprise. Minerva flung Albus into the ward and said, "I'll wait here. You better not run."

"Madam Pomfrey," Albus whispered as soon as Poppy lowered the screen and Minerva's shadow faded into the distance, "I don't actually have a stomachache."

Poppy looked visibly annoyed. "What? Then what are you doing here?"

"I faked a stomachache," he tried to explain, noticing the Mediwitch's eyebrows rising high enough to align with her hairline. "I apologize - and yes it was rather underhanded - I was just trying to avoid Minerva."

"I am very disappointed in you, Albus Dumbledore," she concealed the thick needle she had produced from the cupboard and heard the Deputy Headmaster sigh in relief. "Faking a disease is the behavior of a first year student! I'm hard pressed not to take fifty points from Gryffindor. You couldn't at least have downed a stomachache potion?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"A stomachache potion." Poppy glared at him disdainfully as though he was dumber than her first years, who had the common sense to frequent Zonko's Joke Shop before ending up at her wing, "It gives you terrible symptoms and I'd at least have a good time poking you around with a needle."

Albus grimaced. "That's precisely why I decided to reveal the truth."

"So what about Minerva?" Poppy turned around and stared at him squarely with her hands on her hips. "You said you were avoiding her, what for?"

Albus sighed, trying to clear his mind as he explained tentatively, "I don't know. She's behaving strangely. Just before lunch, she gave me a peck on the cheek. I don't know if what she said could be considered flirtatious, but it wasn't entirely innocent in my book. Then suddenly she turned to all the men in the Great Hall as if I'm invisible. I don't know what to make out of her behavior."

Poppy placed her hands on her hips and tapped her foot impatiently. "Are you in love with her, Professor?"

The bewilderment on Albus's face was unmistakable. "Of course not, how absurd!" His shoulders dropped slightly, "I admire her… I think her an attractive woman. Maybe I've had one or two thoughts about her lately, but they were never overly explicit. It makes me a perverted old man, that's all it is."

"You're in love with her, that's that. There's nothing perverted about it, and besides we've all known for quite some time. It gets frustrating when there's intense want in the air during our meals and no one's bold enough to make a move," Poppy concluded, ignoring the aghast expression plastered on Albus's face. "Now bring Minerva in so I can do a second check-up on her. There's something going on that my first diagnosis wasn't able to detect but as her symptoms surface, it'll be easier."

"There is absolutely nothing wrong with me, Poppy Pomfrey."

"Yes, yes, I know." Poppy shook her head and waved her wand, "I don't get paid for healing an extra person during working hours, so spare me the headache from hearing your incessant ranting."

"Did you get Albus medicine for his stomachache?" Minerva asked worriedly as she watched the lights dance around Poppy's wand again. The pen seemed to be writing a little more frantically than she remembered, and the parchment lengthened at an alarming rate.

"No," Poppy said, while concentrating on her spell, "Merlin knows why but he's been faking it. He confessed to me as much, before I managed to poke him with my favorite needle."

"Faking it?" Minerva responded with a slightly agape mouth.

"Yes, those who don't need attention are often sent my way for no particular reason and those who do are always trying to escape my ward," she eyed Minerva warily. "I've suggested to Armando more than once to have him set up a diagnosis gate right at my door but he thinks the school budget is better spent entertaining Quidditch fanatics with brand new brooms on the market. All the more casualties."

The lights dimmed and the quill ceased scribbling. The mediwitch seized the parchment from the air and frowned at the words.

"So there really is something wrong with me," Minerva interjected quietly, noting the furrowed brows of the other woman.

"Yes, but I can assure you that whatever catastrophic fatal disease you have in mind, that is not the case," Poppy's hands worked feverishly down to the end of the parchment. When she was done reading, she looked up at a very apprehensive Minerva. "You should be made aware nonetheless. Thankfully, it is documented throughout history and all sorts of cures are listed here." She waved the parchment and Minerva's eyes darted to the sheet covered in mosquito-sized lettering.

"Can you… summarize?" Minerva asked hesitantly, already dreading to read that parchment.

"Well, in medical terms, you - a cat animagus - is entering your estrus cycle, which will last anywhere from five days to three weeks. Since all aspects of the animagi are heavily influenced by their magical abilities, it is safe to say the stronger the animagus, the stronger the effects." Minerva blanched at the explanation. Poppy continued nonetheless, "In other words, you're in heat. A nice long one at that, so please have a look at the list of cures."

Poppy handed the parchment to a metaphorically petrified Minerva and winked, "If all else fails, you know where to find Albus."

Author's Note: Thank you Queen Regent Of The North and uma ramrup for your lovely reviews!

To readers and followers, this is generally a PWP story and I don't have a plot mapped out, so my updates will be quite irregular. Also I'll be spending most of my time on Monotone of the Rain, my other multi-chapter fic (it's rather plot-heavy so I want to get it done before I lose my drive). I welcome suggestions on what you want to see happen in the coming chapters, or even what cures Poppy has presented to Minerva. I hope you've enjoyed my fic thus far!