Disclaimer: See previous chapters!

A/N: I'm very sorry for the delay, but the repairs took quite a lot longer than would be expected...

More Sitting and even more Waiting

Dumbledore sat down in the, by now well-known, chair after having reached his destination in record time.

He shifted a little in his chair to get as comfortable as possible in a chair, took Minerva's hand in his and was asleep within seconds. Not having acknowledged how tired this horrible day had left him.

After what felt like only minutes had passed he was awoken by a hand on his shoulder softly shaking him and a voice calling his name. In his still dreamy state it was Minerva waking him up softly after a wonderful night with her in his arms. To his disappointment he realized, all to soon for his liking, that it was Poppy waking him.

"What time is it?" he asked while yawning.

"A little past six. But the more interesting question is what are you already doing here? I didn't count on you till the official visiting hours. I thought we had made an agreement yesterday?"

"Yes, of course we had an agreement and I was very much consented with this regulation. Yet I didn't depart from my word as I indeed only came back when it was officially tomorrow as we didn't specify the exact time."

"You're a quite hopeless case. I hope you know that.", Poppy told him with the ghost of a smile showing on her face, "You know as well as I do that a specific time was implied."

"Maybe I do, but I took it quite literal. As there wasn't an explicit time agreed upon I didn't break my word." Albus eyes twinkled just a little bit as he argued with Poppy.

"I will leave it at that, but next time I'll be more careful. It's for your own good as well." Poppy clarified before going to check on her other patients.

When it was slowly turning darker outside Severus approached Albus with a task he hadn't even thought of yet. To be frank Albus had not thought about much at all since everything started.

"I'm sorry to disturb headmaster, but the students began to wonder what had happened to Professor McGonagall and their classes. I think you should look for a substitute."

"You're right Severus. I guess Minerva wouldn't really like it if we left her students uneducated for the time being. I will look for someone to take over her classes."

"What about the other problem? The students are too nosy and they are inventing rumours as to what happened. Some say she left just like that or she got ill or even died. And some of the little brats believe she ran off together with you. Absurd! But maybe something has to be told."

"Seems like you are right again. Maybe you could tell them tonight at dinner that Minerva is indeed ill, but will recover so that they don't have to worry?" Albus suggested.

"I will do that. Good evening headmaster!"

"Good evening Severus and thank you."

After visiting hours had come to an end Poppy convinced Albus to leave, but didn't strike another agreement with him. So Albus returned when the turret clock sounded midnight he was on his way again and Poppy found him asleep just like the morning before.

The days passed in this way. After three days the teachers decided to teach Transfiguration together and developed a scheme fitting in their normal lesson plans. That was a hard piece of work, but eventually they managed to squeeze everything in the week and announced at dinner that Transfiguration would be taught again and that everyone would get a new plan with his or her lessons.

Most of the students were not very happy about that change as they had had a lot of free time the past few days. As they saw their class schedule the following morning very nearly everyone groaned because now they had to work even longer than usual. As the days passed the students acclimatised to the new situation.

Meanwhile in the Hospital Wing nothing had changed except for the fact that by now more beds were occupied by students being petrified. Albus was still very much living next to Minerva's bed waiting for the time to pass and thinking about what to do about the attacks. But the staff had taken most of his work off him so he could spend his time by Minerva instead of his office. If he had to sign something important it would be brought down to him and otherwise he wasn't much disturbed.

In this way time went by.

TBC

A/N 2: Sorry again! For the shortness of this chapter as well! But I needed it to push the story forward. Otherwise time would have gone by very slowly and I didn't suppose you'd have liked that very much.