Oh, I enjoyed this! I'm not normally a fan of stories about Minerva in cat form, but I like them when she's treated as you've treated her here: you've both a) connected the "catness" to character and b) offered interesting speculations about the nature of the catness.
Your prose is lovely, too -- you give us words and sound and rhythm to wallow in, to stroke with the mind the way Severus strokes the fur. I'm thinking of phrases like "blessed trespass" and many others.
As for the Severus/Minerva interaction -- lucious. Just the way I like it -- based on competition, similar personalities, and the ability to say much with very few words (another element of catness for Minerva, I suppose).
Some lines I like:
vocabulary so large he erected it about himself like castle battlements
Minerva, however, was no stranger to the defences of the reserved. Exactly -- I can see this.
Loved this whole paragraph: quirky, slightly askew, the essence of elegant justification: Of course, Minerva would never dream of wandering into other people's quarters when in human form; it would be quite against her ideas of proper behaviour. But that was the wonderful thing about being an Animagus - that hypnotic, hypocritical blend of her own mind with the animal mores. It was an escape from propriety; not wrong, not deviant, but an elegant, exclusive way to step away from the stresses of the world. Only the elite could manage it, after all, and if there was one thing that Albus had taught her in all these years, it was that the elite were entitled to the odd privilege.
She was surprised; it was not her habit to lust after young men. Yet Severus - so hardened, so vulnerable - still burned her body with his unwitting touch. Mmmm, yes. I like Minerva's matter-of-factness about her own desires.
that the poor boy who had been deprived of magic, and money and indulgences - and then, when such things had been available they had come from a poisoned source - should now crave such things so privately for himself: the slide of silk, the whisper of velvet, the caress of fur.
I like the balance you build between reason and passion throughout (and how she uses/twists reason to justify the passion). The thematic structure of the story is similar to Minerva's thoughts here: she found herself transfixed; the hint of such languor, such vigour, beneath the steel control was tantalizing, indeed (And also throghout, Minerva's diction is so precisely her.)
for what a fabulous old-young, innocent-grumpy man he truly was Yes, indeed! And what a fabulous old-young, prim-passionate woman she is, too.
Your prose is lovely, too -- you give us words and sound and rhythm to wallow in, to stroke with the mind the way Severus strokes the fur. I'm thinking of phrases like "blessed trespass" and many others.
As for the Severus/Minerva interaction -- lucious. Just the way I like it -- based on competition, similar personalities, and the ability to say much with very few words (another element of catness for Minerva, I suppose).
Some lines I like:
vocabulary so large he erected it about himself like castle battlements
Minerva, however, was no stranger to the defences of the reserved.
Exactly -- I can see this.
Loved this whole paragraph: quirky, slightly askew, the essence of elegant justification:
Of course, Minerva would never dream of wandering into other people's quarters when in human form; it would be quite against her ideas of proper behaviour. But that was the wonderful thing about being an Animagus - that hypnotic, hypocritical blend of her own mind with the animal mores. It was an escape from propriety; not wrong, not deviant, but an elegant, exclusive way to step away from the stresses of the world. Only the elite could manage it, after all, and if there was one thing that Albus had taught her in all these years, it was that the elite were entitled to the odd privilege.
She was surprised; it was not her habit to lust after young men. Yet Severus - so hardened, so vulnerable - still burned her body with his unwitting touch.
Mmmm, yes. I like Minerva's matter-of-factness about her own desires.
that the poor boy who had been deprived of magic, and money and indulgences - and then, when such things had been available they had come from a poisoned source - should now crave such things so privately for himself: the slide of silk, the whisper of velvet, the caress of fur.
I like the balance you build between reason and passion throughout (and how she uses/twists reason to justify the passion). The thematic structure of the story is similar to Minerva's thoughts here: she found herself transfixed; the hint of such languor, such vigour, beneath the steel control was tantalizing, indeed (And also throghout, Minerva's diction is so precisely her.)
for what a fabulous old-young, innocent-grumpy man he truly was
Yes, indeed! And what a fabulous old-young, prim-passionate woman she is, too.
A fine read.