Title: Remind Me of Home
Author: mindabbles
Characters/Pairings:Minerva/Rosmerta
Rating:NC-17
Kinks/Themes Chosen: bottoms: the receptive or passive partners in sex
Other Warnings:dildos
Word Count: about 3K
Summary/Description: No one wants to be in charge all the time.
Author's Notes:This became a little more sentimental than kinky. Perhaps that's reasonable for Valentine's Day weekend.



Minerva measured her growth by the door between the cottage and the pub. It was built when life was a bit harsher and the people of this island were a bit closer to the ground. As a child, Minerva had looked to the day when she could touch the top. The door is in the kitchen, always the warmest room in the place. It's twice the size that one would expect for a cottage this size. The walls in this part of the cottage are built of stone pulled up from the island centuries ago and painted white with lime every spring. Mum and Aunt Elsbeth start cooking before dawn and by noon soups, stews, pies, and dark barley bread fill the kitchen with delicious smells.

Minerva was eight, and able to push open the heavy pub door by herself, before she realised that other families sat down together at set times to eat a meal. From when she was big enough to reach the counter, Minerva lived on the mutton pies and tomato sandwiches waiting for pub lunches, listening to her mum and aunt chat about who'd had a good year for sheep and who'd run off to the mainland.

When she was four, Minerva tried to follow her dad when he pushed open the heavy door. It was a portal to a world of men. Her mum would hand him plates of food in response to "Davey Dunn wants cheese and tomatoes, extra pickled onion."

"Now, Ducky, it's no place for a wee girl," her dad said, patting her on the head and scooting her back into the kitchen with Mum and Aunt Elsbeth.

Aunt Elsbeth runs the little shop that sells sweets, parchment and quills, buttons and thread, and tea sets. There's a tea room with just four tables where ladies of the village gather for tea, chats, and more often than not, a sherry. It's through the door that is sometimes the pantry and sometimes the tea room, depending on the charm Aunt Elsbeth recites as she opens it.

When Minerva was eleven, she loved to take her mutton pie into the shop and sit at the little table in the corner. She always preferred the company of adults. Something she sometimes heard her dad lament. "It's not natural spending all her time with grown folk as she does," he'd say.

"Och, let her alone. She's a step ahead of herself, isn't she," Mum's answer always came.

When Minerva was 16, she had to duck—just like Dad—to carry bowls of soup and bread in to the men talking endlessly about the weather. She'd linger and listen, comforted that, despite how she was changing away at school, what was important here was what had always been important here.

The summer she is 18, she's not any taller, but a fully qualified witch, she feels it. So much so that she marches through the door to the pub without the excuse of a tray of food, wearing the trousers she'd taken to wearing under her school robes. She leans on the end of the bar and bids Uncle Watt a good afternoon.

"Wearing trousers doesna make you a bloke, lass." Uncle Watt's good natured face wears a teasing smile.

Minerva turns to go, jaw clenched with irritation, that nothing really does change here. But there's a familiar face smiling prettily at her. She searches her mind for the name of the girl with the lovely eyes who now has a rag in her hand, wiping the already shining bar.

"Rosmerta," she says. She stares. Rosmerta's smile broadens. Minerva sees her in the Quidditch stands, in the Great Hall, making the effort to nod in the hallways between lessons, and realises she's seen her nearly everyday for the past year.

"Reckoned you girls would know each other," Dad says.

Minerva starts. She'd forgotten anyone else was there.

So, this is the girl Dad's hired on for the summer. Wonders never cease—two girls in the pub after 5 o'clock. Minerva reaches for a bottle of Ogden's and her dad makes a disapproving noise.

"Let the lassie have a drink," Uncle Watt says, always the modernist.

"Make it a sherry at least," puts in dad, clinging to tradition at all cost.

Minerva pours a small dram of whisky nonetheless and downs it to the tune of her dad's muttering. Rosmerta laughs and the sound warms her more than the drink.

"Rosmerta," Uncle Watt says suddenly. "You'd better be off before you mum has my hide, keeping you out 'til all hours."

"I'll walk her home," Minerva says, quickly adding, "I've finished school," at the look on her dad's face.

"There's no reason the girls won't be fine," Uncle Watt says.

The night is cool now that the wind is coming in off of the sea. There's still a bit of light lingering, making the stars seem pale and cool.

"I didn't know you had people here," Minerva says. She knows everyone on this island. There's never anyone new, except people on holiday and they certainly don't take up positions in her family's pub.

"My Aunt," Rosmerta says. "Mum and Dad sent me to stay."

"Too bad for you," Minerva says.

"It's not so bad." Rosmerta looks at her and something in the smile seems a bit dangerous. "Especially now."

Her fingers curl around Minerva's wrist. Minerva stops and turns. She looks at Rosmerta's face, searching for confirmation that she hasn't misunderstood.

She finds it when Rosmerta tugs her by the wrist into a path between two houses.

"I'd like to kiss you," Rosmerta says and Minerva suddenly feels as if she is the younger of the two.

It would never, not in a thousand years, occur to her to say so plainly what she wants, and being the object of such determination makes her weak in the knees. She nods dumbly.

Rosmerta backs her against the wall. The same lime washed stone as her own cottage is hard against Minerva's back and Rosmerta's lips are soft against hers. The kiss deepens and Minerva feels as swept by a current as she did in the tiny skiff on the way to the island. Rosmerta's hands are everywhere—on her breast, teasing a nipple to a peak, splaying out on her stomach, and sliding into her trousers. Minerva gasps and lets the wall hold her up, delightfully helpless as Rosmerta's tongue touches hers. She moans when Rosmerta's finger slips between her legs, spreading warmth and wetness. She can't help but rock against the onslaught of Rosmerta's hand and her finger making tight circles around that firm nub. It's too much and Minerva gasps, flooded with pleasure so intense, she thinks she'll slide the ground. Rosmerta holds her, kissing her through it.

"I—I should," Minerva says, reaching for the waistband of Rosmerta's skirt.

"I rather fancy the thought of you owing me one. I'll expect to collect when you walk me home tomorrow night."

Rosmerta presses her against the wall once more, kissing her deeply. She pulls back and grabs Minerva's wrist just as she had before, pulling Minerva back out onto the pavement.

"Who's supposed to be walking who home," Minerva asks, certain that this is going to be quite a summer.

*

Minerva grips the side of the small boat. It doesn't seem big enough to be seaworthy but here it is. Old Mr. Incholm looks as if he's been ferrying islanders to home for more than 100 years, and he may well have. He calls out a greeting in Gaelic to the two seals sunning themselves on the rocks as they pass. The seals aren't impressed if the bored stare they give them is any indication. It's after 10 at night and the summer sun skirts the horizon. The island holds onto light this time of year and Minerva feels the air of home fill her lungs.

When her feet touch ground, the feel of the island, its magic, moves through her.
The shutters on the low buildings lining the high street are painted cheerful colours. If the window boxes are to be believed, the villagers are in fierce competition for the most riotous colours in their boxes.

She hasn't been back for years—not since her mother's funeral. Staying away hasn't been intentional so much as the time has slipped by, with teaching and then the rising tension of the coming war. It's been years since she's been in the place where no one looks to her to make the decisions, where she can just breathe.

Home sits right in the middle. The cottage door is to one side and the pub to the other of the white building with bright green shutters. She hesitates. All these years and she still expects to find her mother rolling pastry in the kitchen.

She does not expect to see Rosmerta, neat skirt clinging to her full hips and dark hair cascading down her back in waves, stirring a pot on the cooker.

When Minerva wrote to Dad to say she was coming home for a holiday, he wrote back that he'd be away when she arrived. Minerva relishes the thought of having the cottage to herself for a few days until he returns. It never occurred to her that, of course, Uncle Watt at his age, wouldn't be running the pub on his own. Minerva pauses and finds she doesn’t feel the least bit put out that he's obviously asked Rosmerta to help rather than her. She always showed more interest in being a patron of the pub than working in it.

"Are you planning to stand and stare or will you sit and have some tea?" Rosmerta asks without turning around.

"I won't say no to tea. What are you doing here?"

"Of course you won't say no to tea. You're sensible that way. As to what I'm doing here, what did you think they'd do? Close up? Can't do that. How would the men get their news and you can't expect Watt to manage alone."

Rosmerta pours tea from a pot that belonged to Minerva's grandmother. She stops when she sees Minerva watching.

"You don't mind?"

"No," Minerva says. "Of course I don't." And she finds that she really doesn't. "It's doing what it's meant to."

Minerva sits at the small table and sips the tea. Rosmerta is kept busy, back and forth between the kitchen and the pub. Minerva falls into her old role—pulling together trays of food and popping in now and again to say hello to Uncle Watt—and they catch up on the summer in between. The evening speeds by and at some pont they've moved from tea to Firewhisky and it's nearly two in the morning.

"That's them all out, then," Rosmerta says, coming back through that heavy door with a tray of empty dishes. "Come and help me tidy up."

Minerva ducks her head and steps through the door. The familiar smell of the pub takes her over. They go about tidying up in companionable silence. The goblets and tankards are stacked on the shelves and the floor is swept when Rosmerta turns and looks at Minerva thoughtfully.

"I think I'm going to buy the pub in Hogsmeade," says Rosmerta.

"Are you?"

"I've been working there for years and your dad's helped me learn about the business end. He thinks I can make a go of it."

"Well, then." The thought of her dad helping a woman to buy a pub is so incongruous that Minerva finds herself thinking anything can happen.

"That all you have to say?" Rosmerta says. She has her hands on her hips. "Well, I'm all in for risks at the moment. Seems the time."

"Does it? I suppose that's one reaction to what's going on in the world." Minerva can't help but smile at her.

"Do you think it's the wrong one?" Rosmerta asks. The smile she gives Minerva is different from the one she offers every week at the Three Broomsticks, where—most of the time—they both seem to pretend that there's never been anything between them other than friendship. "Because I have another risk I'd like to take."

Rosmerta steps close and presses her lips to Minerva's. Minerva doesn't think, doesn't even react at first. It's the first time in ages that she's let herself make no decision, let herself yield without considering the consequences. Rosmerta wraps her arms around Minerva and Minerva mirrors her movements, smoothing hands down her back and following the curve of her hips. Rosmerta is in complete control of the kiss, just as she was all those years ago. Minerva feels the edge of the bar against her back as Romerta presses their bodies together. Rosmerta's breasts are soft against Minerva's. Rosmerta parts Minerva's lips with a touch of her tongue and it feels as if sands shift beneath her feet.

"Not here," Minerva says before she even knows she's going to speak. As much as she hates to stop anything Rosmerta has in mind, she cannot do this here. And she needs this. She needs not to think.

Rosmerta wraps her arms around Minerva and Minerva feels the swoop of Apparition. She lands on her childhood bed. Minerva lies back and Rosmerta strips her of her clothing with a charm.

"So lovely," Rosmerta says, bending to trail a hand down Minerva's body, making Minerva shiver with each pass of her fingers over a sensitive spot.

She moves next to Minerva on the bed and follows the path her fingers took with her lips. She places hot, open-mouthed kisses across Minerva's chest. Minerva groans and arches into her when she sucks a nipple into her mouth. Rosmerta swirls her tongue around it and every soft, velvety touch makes Minerva pulse with desire. Rosmerta leans to pull the other nipple between her lips at the same time as she slips her finger between Minerva's legs.

"Oh," Minerva moans as Rosmerta's fingers move slickly over her folds and tease her clitoris, only to pull away.

Rosmerta laughs softly and pushes herself up and off the bed. She leans to kiss Minerva at Minerva's soft noise of protest at the loss of contact, before turning to take off her own clothes. Rosmerta moves to pull open a drawer in the dressing table and reaches her hand inside.

"Look what I've found," she says. Minerva can feel her cheeks burning when she sees what drawer Rosmerta's in and she knows what will be in Rosmerta's hand. It's pearlescent, purple, thick, and long, and, until this moment, Minerva had completely forgotten that she left it here two summers ago. "You've been holding out on me."

It's been years since they've done this. That summer has always seemed to Minerva to be a treasure that had no place in the real world. They see each other, yes. They've even kissed and touched a few times, but little else. Nothing like the brash, daring, abandon of those nights all those years ago.

Rosmerta comes back to the bed and straddles her, one knee on each side of Minerva's thighs. She presses the heavy dildo against the inside of Minerva's thighs. She moves it on the skin. It's not until she feels it with her hand and smiles that Minerva realises she's warming it to Minerva's body temperature. Rosmerta drags it up her thighs and presses the head between her legs. She sinks down a little, widening her stance.

"Watch," she says and she moves it along her folds. Minerva can see by its easy slide how wet she is. She couldn't possibly do anything but watch.

"Go on," Minerva says. She has never watched someone else do this. This is something she has never shared and she knows just how Rosmerta's body feels. The thick, firm head is pressing against her. Her body clenching, aching to be filled, desperate to have everything but pleasure melt away.

"Watch," Rosmerta says again and she pushes it inside her.

Minerva watches the shimmering purple disappear between her legs. Rosmerta gasps and Minerva's hand drifts between her legs. She presses her finger to her clit and she is slick and wet. Minerva's sighs with the need to have Rosmerta fuck her and at the same time, she doesn't want to ever stop watching what's before her.

Rosmerta's chest is flushed and her hips are moving, seemingly on their own volition.

"Want me to do it harder?" Rosmerta asks.

Minerva nods and then shakes her head. What she really, really wants is to not have to make any decisions.

Rosmerta laughs. "I remember now what you like."

"It's, it's so much more," Minerva says, hoping Rosmerta will understand that as much as she enjoyed Rosmerta taking charge back then—she needs it now.

Rosmerta pulls the dildo from her and slides it between Minerva's legs. It's wet and hot from being inside her and Minerva groans the second it touches her skin.

"Come on," Minerva hears herself say. "Come on."

Rosmerta slips it back and forth over Minerva's folds, mixing their wetness and dragging over Minerva's clit again and again. She spreads her legs as far as she can with Rosmerta still straddling her. Finally, Rosmerta pushes just the tip inside Minerva's body. A rush of sensation floods her. Rosmerta pushes it in deeper and Minerva can't stop from moving, urging her on.

"That's it," Rosmerta says, her burning eyes encouraging Minerva to let go. She pulls the dildo out and pushes it back in. Minerva feels taken and pinned and she lets her mind go blank. She feels her body stretch around the urgent movements of Rosmerta's hand. "You want more," Rosmerta says, confident and sure. Minerva's eyes are closed and she is nothing but sensation. Rosmerta's finger touches her clit, gentle pressure, and she continues to slide the dildo in and out. "I've got you," Rosmerta says and Minerva's every muscle tenses, every nerve sings, and her orgasm washes through her like the tide over the rocks.

She can't owe her one this time. She doesn't know anymore what tomorrow will bring. Rosmerta still straddles her, smiling down with flushed cheeks and bright eyes. Minerva reaches to drag a thumb over her nipple. She slides her fingers into Rosmerta's soft, warm folds. She is impossibly wet and Minerva feels another flush of desire as she moves her fingers over and inside Rosmerta until Rosmerta falls forward, lips pressed against Minerva's neck as she comes. Rosmerta melts into Minerva and Minerva wraps her arms around her as they breathe together.

"Thank you," Minerva says. She can't make the words she wants to say come out of her mouth—that she is herself with Rosmerta, the self almost no one knows, the self who doesn't always know what to do.

"I'm the same person in Hogsmeade as I am here, you know." Rosmerta kisses around the shell of Minerva's ear.

"I'm not certain that I am," Minerva says.

"Well, you know where I'll be," Rosmerta says, with only a kind smile. "I'm there whenever you need reminding."

"I'll remember this time," Minerva says. "We could all do with a little reminding of home."