Disclaimer - I own nothing you recognise and yada, yada, yada.
Written for the general slew of competitions and challenges.
The Disney Character Competition - Archimedes
The Hunger Games Competition - Plutarch Heavensbee
The Birthday Competition - October - Character
The Wand Wood Competition - Pear
Prompts: Elimination Style - Truth
19000 Prompts, one week Challenge - Stone
Word Count Without A/N - 933
She Stayed
She stayed.
For the students.
For Dumbledore.
But she hated them.
Hogwarts had been her home for many a year, longer than anywhere else, certainly, yet as she waited for the Hogwarts Express, she felt like a stranger. Everything was different now. Oh, Pomona and Filius and even Poppy were still there with her, seated around her like a protective blanket, but Dumbledore wasn't there. And she wasn't the deputy any more.
Alecto Carrow would be greeting the new First Years.
The very thought made Minerva shudder. Snape, because she could no longer think of him as Severus, sat in Dumbledore's seat. Minerva could feel the smugness radiating from him from the end of the table where she sat, and it disgusted her. That, him sitting there, that disgusted her more than anything else.
She watched as students poured in, more sedate and wary than any other year. She watched them sit down in clusters, hoping for safety in numbers she thought, though she knew they wouldn't be safe for long. She looked for three familiar faces she knew wouldn't be there, knew it would be atrociously stupid of them to be here, but it was still like a kick in the gut when she didn't see them.
She watched threw narrowed eyes as the Death Eater led her first year students into the hall. They were shaking with fear, some of them crying, all of them wanting to go back home to their parent's where it was safe. Or at least, safer.
She wondered how many of them would make it to the end of the year. Then she hated herself for even wondering.
The thought still remained.
xxxx
It started slowly. Snape was often missing from meals, not that she cared to see him anyway, but in his stead, at least one of the Carrow's was always around. A staff meeting shortly after the beginning of term took away the teachers rights to punish the students. They were to be sent to the Carrow's to deal with as they saw fit.
Slytherin students were to be revered and left to their own devices. No longer was anyone allowed to punish them, because no matter the issue, the Slytherin students had the Headmaster on their side.
Minerva was shaking with anger, but she bit her tongue. It would do the student's no good if she was to be fired, or killed for that matter. They needed her to be a buffer. She wouldn't send them to the Carrows for punishment. She would leave them be, and protect them, and teach them as much as she could for as long as she could.
She would be surprised to last until the end of the year but she would try her hardest. For the students. For Dumbledore.
xxxx
Students were disappearing left and right, and she could do nothing to help them. She knew they were safe. A message, from Neville Longbottom of all people, told her that they were keeping themselves safe and to not worry about them. Like that was ever going to happen.
They were her lions, her children, of course she worried about them.
She was very proud of them, she knew it was them protecting the younger years wherever they could, and for all that she tried, they were doing a better job than she, and the other teachers, could have.
It was hard not to sink to their level. The temptation of dark magic, of hexes and curses so evil she would never have considered them before, was hard to resist, and she often itched to take her wand out and make them feel the terror and pain they inflicted on the students time and time again.
She often dreamed of turning them to stone, and blasting them to pieces. She dreamed of using hexes to turn them inside out. Things that would have been nightmares were not wishes unfulfilled. Dreams. She hated them for that.
She hated them for a lot of things.
xxxx
As the end of the year approached, Minerva wondered if Hogwarts would have any students next year. She certainly wouldn't blame them if they didn't come, in fact, she would rather they didn't. Not while Snape was Headmaster. Not while the Carrows were there.
When Harry appeared in the Ravenclaw common room, she almost collapsed from sheer relief that he was safe. He was safe and alive, and if he was here, it meant that things would finally come to a head.
She was tired of holding back, of behaving, of taking the treatment of the students like it was nothing. She was tired of bowing her head and biting her tongue.
She would die tonight, or she would live in a world without fear. It was all or nothing, because if Voldemort won, if Snape won, and the Carrows won, she knew she wouldn't back down.
She would fight until the end. For the students. For Dumbledore. For Harry.
xxxx
When it was over, when Voldemort was dead, when she learned the truth about Severus, he could be called Severus again, she was tired. But she was happy. She would stay at Hogwarts for a few years, she would help the students get themselves back on track, and then she would hand the reigns down to someone younger, someone who had the energy to deal with the Ministry and the cranky parents.
She would step down, and she would rest. Something she believed she had earned.