THIRTY-FIVE

There was a strange quiet hanging over the Great Hall at breakfast on Tuesday. The Heads of House were gone, meeting with the Board of Governors in a dusty conference room near the headmaster's office.

Hermione sat between Harry and Ron, both of them reading her copy of the Prophet over her shoulders. There were more articles memorializing Dumbledore, a large spread wondering at the future of Hogwarts School, and a sidebar with a photo of each Head of House contrasting the various pros and cons of each as Head of Hogwarts.

"Won't it be McGonagall?" Harry asked, as she had. She shrugged.

"It'll be Snape, I bet," Ron said when she didn't speak up. "Otherwise the Governors wouldn't be here, would they? It'd just be announced and there you have it. And you know who controls the Governors."

"Malfoy," Harry said, then shook his head. "But he was in Azkaban, they won't—"

"Not Malfoy," Ron said, rolling his eyes. "You Know Who."

"Voldemort?" Harry asked. "How?"

"How does he control anything?" Hermione said, wanting to shake him a little bit. He chose the most remarkable times to act dense.

"The school governors are all Death Eaters?"

"No, Harry," Hermione said, striving for patience. "He blackmails them or holds their families hostage—"

"Or they're Death Eaters," Ron put in. Harry smirked, and Hermione rolled her eyes.

"—or their finances," Hermione finished.

"Dad said he'd heard about that at work," Ron said, nodding. "You Know Who had cut off funding to projects and stopped paying a few people altogether."

"Not your dad!" Hermione said, trying to keep her voice down. It worried her, though. She hadn't thought of it even when she'd been thinking about a Ministry take-over for so long. What would happen to people who were known to be friends of Dumbledore, who were known to be members of the Order, when Voldemort was in charge? The Weasleys weren't the only ones who couldn't afford a missed paycheck, or even a pay cut.

"No. Says he's not important enough to be a target, even if he's been outspoken against You Know Who and all. Tonks and a couple other Aurors on our side, though. Moody said his pension check has been 'lost' a few times in the last year."

"That's horrible," she said. Harry nodded.

Before they could discuss any further, Professor Slughorn rose and reminded them all that classes would be continuing as usual. Hermione folded away her newspaper, stuffing it in her bookbag for later, and headed to Herbology, curious to see who would be proctoring for the Head of Hufflepuff.

\\

MASTER WISHES TO SPEAK WITH YOU.

Hermione rose from the Gryffindor table, taking one last swig of pumpkin juice as she went.

"Hermione?" Neville asked, moving his own goblet of juice to one side, presumably to keep it safe from her rush.

"Sorry. Just remembered something!" she said brightly.

"Library, probably," she heard Ron mutter as she rushed out one of the side doors.

Castle shortened her trip; she arrived at the door to Severus's office mere seconds after leaving the Great Hall.

"Thank you," she murmured, patting the nearest bit of stonework absentmindedly. She had the vague impression that she'd made Castle blush.

"Well?" she asked as she strode into the room.

"They've named me headmaster," he said without looking up. He had scrolls all over his desk, and he looked like he was attempting to make sense of them.

"As you expected they would," she said, watching him spell stacks of scrolls so that they wouldn't roll around.

"They'll make the announcement tomorrow morning."

"You don't seem insane."

He looked up from the scrolls to shoot her a glare, and she smiled.

I WOULD NOT LET HIM GO MAD, Castle said, almost sounding offended. Hermione smirked.

It was the Warden's function to protect the Master for the sake of the castle, and it seemed that Castle didn't like the implication that she thought it might do something to put the Master in danger. She patted the stone wall, mollifying Castle's proverbial ruffled feathers.

Severus raised his eyebrow at her, but she just shrugged.

"So what are you going to do?" she asked him, settling into one of the guest chairs.

"No fucking clue," he said, and scratched at the inside of his left arm where the Dark Mark used to be. He sat as well, glaring at the stacks he'd made.

"What's all this, then?"

"Curricula. Syllabi. Course requirements." He looked up at her, and she could see the dread in his eyes. "The Dark Lord expects me to make… changes."

"You could still leave, Severus," she said even though she knew he wouldn't go. He shook his head, unrolling a scroll and sorting it onto one of the stacks.

"I think I'm going to have to cut Muggle Studies completely."

"Professor Burbage has been submitting articles to the Prophet. They published another one yesterday."

"Pomona will have to make her disappear before she's killed," Severus said, rubbing at one of his eyebrows.

"What other sorts of changes are you looking at?"

"About what you'd expect. More Dark Arts, less Defense. And restricting what can be taught to whom, of course. Muggleborns just aren't cut out for the N.E.W.T.-level courses, you know."

"Naturally," she said, bitter.

"You should be prepared to flee," he said, looking up from his scrolls. His eyes pierced her with their intensity.

"Professor Sprout and Mr. Weasley have both given me Portkeys."

"Take Potter with you."

"He has a Portkey, too."

"But take him with you, don't let him run off by himself. He'll be killed."

"Killed before he needs to be, you mean."

A/N: Apologies! I said "more soon," didn't update for almost exactly a month, and now I have this tiny little wisp of a chapter...