Minerva McGonagall, naturally, said everything that the portraits in the headmaster's office had left unspoken. Had it not been his own life on the line, Severus would have been amused at just how easily everyone fell into their appointed roles.
Take dinner, for instance.
"You!" Minerva spat as he joined the small group gathered at the head table for dinner, her voice echoing in the cavernous room. Severus glanced from Pomona to Horace to Filius to that fraud Sybill, seeing hatred and ill-disguised fear in their faces. It appeared that Minerva spoke for the group.
"Welcome back to Hogwarts, Minerva," Severus said, attempting a sour smile. "It looks as if we shall...enjoy...another academic year together, if that's the word you'd like to use."
"Murderer!" she replied.
"I thought Gyffindors respected the tradition of a trial," Severus said. "You always seem to be talking about justice."
"That was a farce, not a trial," Minerva said. "You probably orchestrated it."
"Do you really give me that much credit?" he asked, genuinely curious.
Minerva stared at him, eyes narrowed, her thin lips set. The others watched him silently. Out of the corner of his eye, Severus noticed that Filius had his hand on his wand. When had he gained so much power in their eyes? One death, and he was a different man? Sybill was a fool, naturally, and Pomona a Hufflepuff, and Horace a coward of the first rank, but Minerva and Filius? They had killed in the last war, he knew as much. He was astounded at their naivete.
"Why did you save his life?" Minerva asked. "Just to take it, nine months later?"
"That was the plan," Severus said lightly. Minerva stood and left.
Severus glanced around at the faces at the table. "Minerva will join us again tomorrow night, after she gets her famous Gryffindor temper under control. Professors will continue to eat together at the head table, as they have always done. In a few days we will be joined by Amycus and Alecto Carrow, who are filling the positions of Defense Against the Dark Arts and Muggle Studies professors. Charity Burbage will not return this year."
Next to him, he heard Filius take a sharp breath, but he had his wand pointed at his throat before he could speak.
"Not a word," Severus said. "Not one."
Filius stared at the end of his wand, mouth trembling. Severus' mouth twisted almost involuntarily into a smile. Filius could not have made this easier for him.
"My word is law," Severus said quietly. "You know that as well as I do."
He put his wand away when he was fairly sure the point had been made. "I dislike killing colleagues," he said, turning to each professor at the table, one by one. Sybill, then Horace, then, Pomona, then Filius refused to meet his eyes.
He raised his glass and took a sip. "It makes things awkward in the staff room for a few days."
Severus had expected better of them. This was the kind of power children exercised, brutal, desperate, uncontrollable. One couldn't acknowledge it, or it gained legitimacy. Dumbledore had been gone for a matter of weeks, and Hogwarts' legendary staff was acting like the very people they despised.
Severus was the only one who ate his dinner that night. Everyone else watched him as he moved slowly through his meal, savoring each bite. When he had finally finished, he rose.
"Dismissed," he said, and he turned to leave before he could see the relief on their faces.
Cowards.