The fire crackled mockingly from the flames, watching the scene at hand. The portraits gazed curiously on in total silence for once, apathetic to the situation at hand yet rather entertained by the obvious frustration.

There were only two people in this particular office: an aging witch and a bumbling fool.

Now, Minerva McGonagall had known that stepping into the rule of Headmistress would be a necessary evil. But even she did not understand how much her patience would be tested.

Not even a day had past before hell broke loose in the form of the Ministry badgering, letters of confusion from several families (namely, the Weasleys), and Slughorn.

Slughorn, who was still yammering on and on about anything and everything he could.

Let's just say that her hand twitched for her wand on more than one occasion in the last twenty-four hours. And if there was not some sort of academic obligation, or any sort of obligation, that soon required her attention she would not be responsible for her actions in the next few minutes.

"As I was saying, Headmistress," How did Albus even manage listening to this sort of drivel? He either had far more patience than even I gave him credit for… or just tuned out the lot of us. That particular train of thought soon lead to a, slightly more entertaining, mental conversation: did the the previous Headmaster actually listened to the complaints and queries of his staff?

"Don't you agree, Headmistress?" Ah, bugger.

She froze for a moment, trying to remember whatever it was he was inquiring about. Yet, in typical Slughorn fashion, he took her silence as approval and permission to continue.

She merely blinked in response. Apparently the days were catching up to her if she couldn't even manage to feign attention.

So, when a familiar, disdainful knock sounded at the door, it took all of her famous willpower not to sigh in relief.

"I'm quite sorry, Horace," No, she really wasn't. "However, I must to attend to a matter of great urgency." Even though there was no such thing, and she had absolutely no reason why he was currently paying her a visit.

"Thank you for your time, Headmistress."

"Please, call me Minerva." She was still in denial about her current administrative position, after all. And any comparison, indirect or not, to her previous employer made her skin crawl.

"Well, thank you, Minerva. Your hour of counsel," More like five "is most appreciated." Her eye twitched, hoping that didn't mean he'd be coming back tomorrow. She chose to reply with a faint smile that didn't reach her eyes, but he was already out the door by the time she managed that.

As Horace barged out of the office, shadows began to form from the doorway and her latest visitor slinked forward. The door was closed with barely a whisper of movement, and she looked into the cold eyes of Professor Severus Snape. He took to Horace's previously occupied in one fluid movement while she forced herself not to roll her eyes at the dramatic entrance.

They held each other's gaze for a solid moment, studying one another. The toll of his latest assignments were beginning to line his skin. And she knew he could probably see through her shoddy attempt at a Glamour to see the weary bags under her eyes and paler-than-normal skin.

It didn't help one bit that it still hurt to properly breathe. But, no matter, she was a Gryffindor. And Gryffindors do not admit-

"Poppy wanted to make sure our esteemed Headmistress had actually consumed her medicine for the day."

"Oh, shut up." Laughter erupted in frosty black eyes while a smirk etched itself onto his skin. Well, if he could get away with that, she could finally allow an exasperated eye-roll to escape.

But if he even dared to slip in one snarky remark about how this was all for the Greater Good, she would smack him.

Professionalism and Gryffindor Pride be dammed.

…

Hope you enjoyed this little piece. For now, this is a one-shot, but that will probably change with time.

Nonetheless, to give a little background:

This is totally AU, even though it takes some plot points from canon. By this point, Dumbledore is out of the picture via "retirement". It's the summer of Harry going from his fifth to his sixth year (aka, McG has just taken on Headmistresses I'd say about a month or so after getting slammed by those Stunners). And, as the prompt suggests, she needs to figure out who she trusts.

She definitely has at least one ally, but the real question is who does she trust?