As the year progressed further towards Christmas the Headmaster had seemed to allow Severus to take over more and more of his duties, and when they met Severus thought the Headmaster seemed tired and drawn. Suddenly one day in late November, Severus had just been to the hospital wing to check on a student admitted there as he heard someone screaming for help. Severus hurried to reach the location that the screams came from, and as he closed in he saw Professor Dinkley holding the headmaster while screaming loudly.

Severus in an instant got the professor to release her grip, and levitated the Headmaster running hurriedly to get him delivered to the hospital wing. "Poppy" he yelled "come quick, the Headmaster seems to have been taken ill".

Instantly Poppy appeared and took charge, "thank you Severus, do you know what happened?"

"No I don`t" he admitted "I just heard Professor Dinkley screaming, and found her holding him. I would have thought that she would have followed us to explain what had happened."

As he suspected Poppy could handle things better without him present, Severus went to see if he could find that dratted defence professor. Maybe what she witnessed would be helpful in Poppy`s diagnose. After searching for some time he finally found the woman busily packing her stuff "I`m not staying here another minute" she cried as she saw him. Severus tried in vain to make her calm down and behave rationally, but in the end the woman tore out of the castle bags in tow.

Severus spent the rest of the day in the hospital wing; Poppy seemed to have to keep all her concentration on the headmaster so she called in Jen to take care of any other patients and Severus stayed as close as he dared in case anyone needed him. Finally Poppy called out to him "I have him stable for now, could you stay with him while I contact St. Mungo`s. This is beyond my capabilities, and I need an expert.

Some hours later all the teachers had gathered together for an emergency meeting "the headmaster has had a massive coronary" Poppy said sadly. "We had him transferred to St. Mungo`s, but I don`t think he`ll be able to come back as Headmaster of this school anytime soon or maybe not at all." The teachers all became very sad at hearing that, and there was several minutes' silence.

"If Professor McGonnagall would agree to help me, I think we between us two can have the School running mostly as normal" Severus said. "There is one slight complication though; Professor Dinkley left us this morning. This puts an additional strain on all of us, as we now will have to cover her classes between us."

All the teachers winced when hearing this; their duties were full as it was. No one would be happy to add even more to their full workload.

"Professor Prince, if I may speak freely?" Jen said from her corner.

"Yes Professor Reiks?"

"If by any chance you could contact the potions master that Headmaster Dumbledore mentioned to me as probably available, then I could probably cover defence?"

Severus sighed "good idea, the Headmaster probably meant Professor Slughorn who has retired; but maybe he can be persuaded to fill in the rest of the year at least. I will see if he`s amenable, and in the meantime we will all cover what we can of the defence lessons.

As soon as the meeting concluded Severus and Minerva contacted Slughorn, luckily the man was pleased at being asked to come out of retirement and promised to appear at Hogwarts as soon as he could manage. Happy to have this at least go their way the they shared a congratulatory smile. "He wasn`t too bad as a potions teacher, we will just have to curb his tendency to collect people" Minerva said tiredly.

"Agreed2 said Severus "are you OK Minerva"? He then asked. "I am worried about Albus, I just hope he will survive this" she answered sadly. Severus patted her on the arm in a consoling manner but admitted to himself that he too was worried.