They play chess every Thursday night. Sometimes they talk about students. Mostly they talk about tea.
They argue like old cats. Dry. Petty. Deeply affectionate. She’s the only one who can make him listen.
Snape knows Minerva’s favorite tea. She knows which potion he takes when his hands ache.
McGonagall secretly enjoys his biting humor, though she rarely lets it show. But she does call him out on his drama. “You’re not brooding, Severus, you’re sulking.”
When she falls ill once, Snape delivers a perfectly brewed restorative tonic and leaves it on her desk with a curt note. She keeps the note.
They judge the student pumpkin-carving contest together. He grumbles the whole time, but she makes him give Gryffindor points for creativity.
Every Halloween, she gives him a tin of homemade shortbread in a bat-shaped tin. It’s tacky and sweet and he pretends to hate it. He never shares.
He hexes her chair to heat itself in winter. She pretends not to notice.
Minerva insists on observing old magical traditions, and invites Snape to join in candle lighting and protective ward blessings. He pretends to scoff but attends every year.
They share a private toast in her office on the longest night of the year, remembering those they’ve lost without saying a word.
Snape once bought her a tartan scarf. “It looked… Gryffindor,” he muttered. She wears it every Christmas.
She’s one of the only people who ever saw through his bitterness to the exhausted man beneath.
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