The week is long and trying, tensions running high in each common room as everyone grows restless.
Food and post are delivered straight to their dorm rooms, worried parents unable to reach their children flooding them with worry. The newspapers still don't believe them, spreading lies about madness and contaminated water.
Their professors manage to keep the peace relatively well, communicating with each other through glowing white animals which calm students as they pass.
Hufflepuff is the most depleted by far, most of the students turned into zombies. Professor Sprout has to resort to stunning the students who try to get back into their common rooms to get at remaining few.
They all tell the same story of a lack of response from Dumbledore who had disappeared before any of this had started.
The occasional student leaves the common rooms only to return a few hours hours later praising their History teacher and scrabbling at the entrance and requiring a stunning spell. That number dwindles as the days pass, first years crying and friends going pale whenever they hear the scratch of fingers against the wall, knowing that it might be their friend outside, witless and wilted.
Then- like magic- on the seventh evening of their apocalypse the Headmaster returns.
The castle itself reacts to his presence and he cuts harmless swathes through the zombified pupils who fall around him, collapsing against walls and their brethren gently, as if lifted by the wind.
Finally the man dressed in sweeping purple robes with a frilled yellow trim reaches his destination.
"Professor Tim." He says with a smile, knocking on the door to his classroom, "I would like a word with you." He calls out, stepping back from the door as he hears footsteps approach behind it.
The door opens and all the students in the room are blown over, toppling onto desks and into chairs as softly as the others had fallen.
In the middle of the students stands the confused professor.
"It's regarding your employment." Says Dumbledore calmly, stepping inside, "I'm afraid I'll have to be terminating it."
The strange man's face contorts in fury.
"You cannot defeat Tim." He roars, lashing out with his abnormally long tongue.
The Headmaster deflects it with a wordless, wandless charm and the tongue hits an invisible barrier, bouncing back at its owner and hitting him in the face.
"This will be effective immediately. I will ask you to return the students to their previous states and to leave the premises before I have to use force." The old man says, drawing his wand in warning, his half-moon glasses glinting in the light of the torches.
"Never." Shouts the professor, eyes narrowing, "Everybody will praise Tim!" He cries, attempting to attack again.
It is as futile as the last time.
Dumbledore sighs.
"Very well. I suppose we will have to hope that whatever you have done requires proximity or can be cured by St. Mungos." Says the Headmaster, raising his wand.
Tim disappears in a flash of light, appearing again in the middle of a desert. He looks around in confusion, black robes already heating in the sun.
"Where is Tim? Tim was in the castle." He says confusedly.
As soon as the History Professor disappears the students begin to wake, many crying in fear of their last memories, more crying in happiness at being able to think again (the ravenclaws mainly).
Dinner that evening is a celebration, all students cheering and laughing at their tables. Even Draco manages a smile which makes his classmates look at him proudly, patting him on the back and going back to their food without a fuss.
The teachers meanwhile look at the Headmaster stony faced as he mixes up a strange concoction in his goblet.
"Where were you?" Asks McGonagall, lips pursed, "This whole week we have been going out of our minds trying to look after half a school of hysterical teenagers." She says. Dumbledore is about to answer when Snape opens his mouth.
"I too would like to know what you were thinking by not replying to our Patronuses." He says, voice cold.
The mad-man's drink fizzes, the smell of artificial lemons wafting from it.
"I took a holiday." The Headmaster says, sipping the bright yellow concoction without a care in the world.
"You what?" Asks every teacher in unison except for Trelawney (who is staring dazedly at the charmed ceiling) and Hagrid (who is just glad that Dumbledore is back and there aren't any zombie students scaring off the wildlife of the Forbidden Forest anymore).
"Holiday." Replies Dumbledore smiling, "This year has been quite stressful so I went to France." There's silence as the teachers (except for aforementioned exceptions) stare at him. He takes their shocked silence as a cue to continue.
"It was very nice- a bit warm for my liking but everyone must try new things and it's nothing a cooling charm can't sort. I even got new robes. Speaking of new things; you should try this drink- I learned how to make it from a bartender in Brittany. It's very quiet there but there are a few geniuses living in comparative isolation. Anyway- it tastes of lemon sherbets." He finishes, taking another sip.
"But our messages-" Begins the Potions teacher, angry.
"Oh I presumed that for you and Minerva to be agreeing it meant that the whole faculty was playing an admittedly brilliant joke on me." He says, "Did I mention that this drink is fairly alcoholic?" He asks curiously.
Said drink fizzes and the glares not fixed on the Headmaster fall upon his fizzing goblet.
"In fact I think it's illegal in several countries." He says, raising the drink to his lips again.