This drabble is for the Slytherin House, prompt being Torn out pages - 668 words
Minerva pursed her lips as she shooed her seventh-year students from the Transfiguration classroom. She had never witnessed classes with so few students before, not even during the height of the first war with You-Know- Voldemort, she forced herself to mentally say. Still, a small shiver went through her. Albus could say whatever he wanted about the fear of the name, the monster had made his name so known no one really needed to speak it out loud.
What hurt her more than the empty classrooms and dorms, however, was the constant fear and distrust inside Hogwarts. Slytherin House lazed around, enjoying the fact they were the ones who dictated the rules for once, while Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs kept their heads down out of fear and her own House could simply not keep their mouths shut. She winced as she banished the small pile of homework to her office, remembering the deep cut on Neville's face. She loved her Gryffindors, she really did, but she couldn't keep them safe if they insisted on throwing themselves head first into danger!
Thinking of her lions led her thoughts to trio of students she honestly did not expect to see this year, but could not stop herself from worrying about. Harry Potter was somewhere in the wind, dragging Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley with him on the journey. That boy… she couldn't help but smile. Death and danger trailed him like lovers, whether he flirted with them or not.
Speaking of flirting, though…
She ruffled around her pocket before she found them - three pages that looked like they had been torn out of a Muggle spiral notebook. She often took them out of her pocket these days, and it showed: the fold lines were worn and paper was starting to yellow.
She had found them two years ago under one of the desks in her classroom after her Gryffindor/Slytherin fifth year class. The handwriting on those written by quill was easily identifiable as Draco Malfoy's; the other, written in ballpoint pen, Minerva could not pin down. But the identity of writers was of less import to the old Deputy; what was written was what made those scraps of papers invaluable. The papers were filled to the brim with quotations, questions pertaining Theory of Magic, little snippets of wisdom, and poems.
There can be only one moment
When I will say goodbye,
And believe me darling
It won't come before
I say "I love you"
Out loud.
She read that poem so many times, and it never failed to bring tears to her eyes. But today she sought hope and strength, not heartbreak, from the writers. Picking out the right paper, she turned it over and found the only piece of writing that had both a title and a post scriptum scribbled underneath it.
Death
You asked me once what do I think about death. A wise man once told me that the death is the next great adventure. A young boy once told me there is nothing worse than death. I think you can guess who I am referring to. But me? I never really thought about it before. Now I think it rather strange, considering just how present death is in my life. Anyway. Death, for me, is a final rest I can only get after I am sure I did all I could in my life. And trust me, I've still got a lot of things to do. I'm not dying that easily.
P.S. I'm horrible with poetry - I leave that entirely to you - but I'm very good with quotes.
"Do not pity the dead. Pity the living, and above all, pity those who live without love."
Minerva sighed, dabbing away the tears, and turned to the doors of the classroom with new resolve. She only wished for the war to finish quickly, so she could thank Mr. Malfoy and the other author, which she heavily suspected to be Harry, for giving her hope to go on.