Yes, Minerva never did things by halves and Gryffindor courage (or Gryffindor recklessness as Severus would have put it had he been born then and able to observe her behaviour) could have easily led to far worse consequences than a lost maidenhood the second time they met to make out in the field behind the old shack on his father's farm. Minerva sometimes wonders what her life would have turned out to be had she become pregnant but these are fleeting thoughts these days. Their sex that afternoon was beautiful if quickly over and Minerva cannot remember what came over her to do what she did or why exactly she did what she did afterwards. Maybe she considered her virginity of which her snood was a symbol as a present that bound them together or maybe, in the afterglow of her first sexual encounter with another person than herself she thought of the fantasy life she had lead only so recently. What she remembers is his reaction of utter humiliation, anger and disgust when he woke up and found that she had taken off her red satin ribbon and bound it around his hair. “Are you thinking I'm a bampot to mock me so? Have I not proven my manhood to ye? I'm no lassie.” He had torn the ribbon off his head and thrown it far away as if it was a dangerous snake, and stormed off. She had apologized the next time she saw him. He had accepted her apology and even spent an hour looking for her snood in his father's field. He could not know that she had already accio'ed it because it had been given to her by her granny and she wanted to keep it. After he gave up looking they had had sex again. For her this meant that after learning the joy of being with someone and learning that one person's fantasy could be another person's nightmare she also learned that sex was a great means to make up after a quarrel. Their second time had been even better than their first for her but again she had been somewhat too forward. What she thought of as the normal expression of her love upset her young beau's perception of what girls were and did. He had been distinctly perturbed if also highly excited by her willingness not only to rub his manhood into an erection but also to put her sweet lips around its tip and move her tongue down and up his shaft in the most stimulating manner, like a cat licking a bowl of milk. When she tried to straddle him he would not allow it but gently pushed her on her back and lifted her legs to once more lose himself in her. She assumes that had she been less obviously innocent in other ways and just another country lass instead of the minister's daughter and had he not thought himself in love with her also, he would not have done what he did when they were about to go to their respective homes, which was fall on his knees and propose.

Minerva knows that she did not even consider the sex they had had when, after a night of agony, she decided to give Dougal up in favour of the career in the city she was dreaming of. When she thinks of how much the binding of ribbons around her body has continued to arouse her and how many of her lovers have playfully joined in her ribbon games she knows, however, that even had she not wished for a career her marriage to her first love would have been a mistake even though she remained stubbornly in love with the boy for so many years and had so dreadfully minded his marriage. Over the years she has discovered many new uses for her beloved ribbons, from asking her lover to tickle and stimulate her in sensitive places or to tease her as if she was in her cat shape to more advanced sex magic involving various transfiguration and other spells. Even now, as she has learnt to deeply enjoy simple and straightforward forms of sex, she would miss her ribbons if she had to give them up altogether. Thank Merlin she doesn't.