Title: Penance
Author: centaury_squill
Required Character and Prompt: Minerva, chocolate/candy/sweets
Characters/Pairings: Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall/Severus Snape
Rating: NC-17
Content/Warnings: D/s, whipping
Word Count: approx 1080
Summary/Description: Dumbledore prides himself on his concern for his professors' welfare.
Author's Notes: Although I went for the character/prompt option rather than basing my fic on a piece of art, I did take some inspiration from the talented akatnamedeaster's Challenge Accepted [NWS Art] (although my Minerva is fully clothed throughout).

Happy sixth birthday, daily_deviant!


Minerva sighed with relief as she closed her office door behind her. A free period – lovely. The first years had been even more obstreperous than usual this term. She was looking forward to putting her feet up for half an hour and relaxing with a nice cup of tea and a couple of Ginger Newts.

Then she saw it.

"That's all I need," she sighed resignedly, and pointed her wand at the gaily-wrapped little parcel on her desk.

The glossy purple paper spangled with sparkly stars and crescent moons fell apart to reveal a handful of sherbet lemons. There was no note to say who it was from, but then, there was no need for one. Grumbling to herself, Minerva left her office, and a few minutes later she was standing in front of the gargoyle guarding the entrance to the Headmaster's office.

"Sherbet lemons!" she snapped at it.

The gargoyle obediently moved aside, the wall split, and Minerva stepped onto the spiral staircase. What is it this time, she thought sourly as she was borne swiftly upwards. She'd learned over the years to be suspicious of a summons from the Headmaster. While some of his requests had been harmless enough, others had been downright bizarre.

Shaking her head at the memory of one of the more bizarre ones, Minerva stepped off the moving staircase. She frowned as she noticed that the Headmaster's door was slightly ajar, with the sound of voices coming from his office. Minerva hesitated, her hand lifting slowly towards the griffon-shaped knocker. Then she heard the sound of her own name, and her hand froze.

"You can't have the Defence job, Severus, and that's final. Do you want to become one of Minerva McGonagall's little pets for a year?" Dumbledore was saying.

Minerva went red, and her still-raised hand trembled slightly. How dare Dumbledore? It had been bad enough, all these years, enduring his attempts to make light of the curse which seemed to dog the Defence Against the Dark Arts position; his dubious jokes that the reason each successive DADA professor left after only one year was that he (or, occasionally, she) was sexually exhausted by Minerva's demands. But at least he hadn't – or she'd thought he hadn't – shared these sordid fantasies of his with anyone but herself. Now here he was speaking of them to young Severus Snape, latest addition to the staff. Why, he'd been a pupil of hers only a few years ago!

Minerva was about to storm in and give Dumbledore a piece of her mind when the door was flung abruptly open and Severus Snape stalked out. A strange expression came to his face as he caught sight of her, in which fury and a kind of sly hunger warred with another emotion Minerva couldn't quite put a name to, but which prompted her to touch him gently on the shoulder. He shrugged off her hand, his face turning mask-like, and swept onto the spiral staircase, to be carried away from her reach.

"Is that you, Minerva?" called Dumbledore. "Come in, my dear."

Minerva took a deep breath and marched into the office. It took all her self control to refrain from slamming the door shut behind her; instead, she closed it slowly, with exaggerated patience, then turned to face the Headmaster.

"Albus, how could you?"

He raised his hand for silence and regarded her solemnly over his half-moon spectacles.

"I need your help with Severus, my dear. He is deeply troubled, poor boy."

Remembering the look on Severus' face, Minerva bit back the pithy remark she'd been about to make. Her expression turned thoughtful. The door, left slightly ajar. Dumbledore's raised voice. Dumbledore, who never did anything without considering the consequences.

"You meant me to overhear that, didn't you?"

Dumbledore just looked at her.

"All right, Albus, what's the matter with him?"

Dumbledore frowned. "I'm afraid I can't tell you the full details, Minerva – but, put briefly, Severus was the cause – a cause – of the death of someone very dear to him. He feels loss, guilt – and a deep need to be punished."

Severus' expression came back to her again. She sighed.

"What do you want me to do?"

*
Severus knelt, naked and shivering slightly, on the floor of Minerva's office. She tugged on the leash attached to the collar encircling his thin neck, forcing him to lift his head.

"Twenty lashes, Severus."

Long eyelashes dipped over haunted black eyes. He swallowed convulsively, his Adam's apple straining against the stiff leather collar. He nodded.

Minerva walked slowly around him, appraising the thin, scarred body, the half-hard, expectant cock. Stifling her pity with some difficulty, she brought the whip slashing down across his back.

Severus gave a deep groan.

By the tenth stroke, his cock was fully erect; by the twelfth, its tip was glistening with precome. Minerva paused for a moment to admire it. In contrast to the sallowness of the rest of his body, his cock was a delicate flushed pink, bending slightly to the left, and crowned with a rosy head. She found it quite beautiful.

Severus' moan recalled Minerva to her task. She brought the whip down again.

By the eighteenth stroke he was pitched forward, embracing her legs, moaning and sobbing.

On the twentieth he came, spattering her glossy high boots with his come.

Without being asked, he licked her boots clean. When he had finished Minerva stooped and raised him to his feet. He hung his head, his curtains of hair falling forward to hide his face, as she deftly unbuckled the collar and removed it from his neck.

She busied herself with Transfiguring her whip back into a quill pen, carefully avoiding looking at him as he scrambled into his professor's robes.

At the door he turned to her, his face again mask-like, and raised an eyebrow.

"Same time next week," Minerva commanded, giving him a brisk, approving nod.

The look of gratitude he shot at her wrenched her heart.

*
The next morning, Minerva found another little parcel on her desk. Her lips compressed to a thin line, she opened it to reveal a handful of Cockroach Clusters. Repressing the urge to Incendio them, she Transfigured them into a swarm of bees and opened her office window to let them out.

Standing by the window watching them fly off over the grounds, she murmured, "Just for once, Albus, you can mind your own damn business."

- fin -