He intended to leave the office exactly as he'd found it, but the familiarity of it made things difficult. There was even a little bowl of those damn lemon drops sitting on the blotter.
After Hermione left, it was much more difficult to be amused by it. The idea of the professors walking in and seeing it, the looks that would surely cross their faces… It wasn't funny; it hurt.
Dumbledore hadn't paused his lecture about the dangers of his marriage since Hermione had gone. As a portrait, he didn't need to stop to breathe. He called him 'boy' quite a bit, and there wasn't any trace of that trademark twinkle.
"Headmaster," Severus finally interrupted, "it is done and there is nothing you can do to change it."
Severus left the office before Dumbledore could finish spluttering indignantly and begin the lecture again. He walked the castle instead, making his usual circuit of it. As he did, he carefully set a few extra wards here and there.
This corridor would be outside Alecto Carrow's office; he wanted to know whenever there were students in that office. The same for Amycus's office. Their classrooms, too. And he added new wards to the staff lounge that would keep the professors from killing each other, and a subtle calming influence on the door frame so that anybody who walked through would have their temper dissipate a bit. That would be useful for staff meetings.
Staff meetings.
Damn.
Severus swept back to his office, ignoring the portraits completely. There were lists he needed in the desk. They'd have to send out student letters soon, and he'd have to give Minerva the names of the first years. She would probably try to get out of it, give up her position as deputy or something just to make his life difficult, but that couldn't happen. He'd have to threaten her. Brilliant.
\\
The staff slowly made their return to the castle. The wards told him when each professor arrived, making the walk up the long path from the gates and entering the school. A few stopped by their private rooms before they went to the staff lounge.
Minerva, Pomona and Filius arrived first, striding up the path together. He watched them from the office sitting room window. They each stood tall, shoulders squared, faces hard. They were braced for the coming school year. It made his chest ache, but he was glad to see it.
Sinistra and Vector arrived next, appearing at the gates within a few seconds of each other and walking up. Then Slughorn alone. Trelawney arrived just after Hagrid, catching the half-giant up and regaling him with some tale it was all too clear the man didn't want to hear. Poppy arrived and made her way into the castle with hunched shoulders.
Severus turned away after that. He returned to his office proper, shuffling through his papers again, rehearsing his agenda in his head. When he noted the Carrows on their way to the lounge, he left his office. It wouldn't do for the Carrows to be on their own with the rest of staff for more than a moment.
"Really," he said upon entering the room. The siblings Carrow were just inside the door, wands drawn and pointed at Minerva. The Head of Gryffindor faced them with her own wand out, looking imperiously down her nose. It reminded Severus of his time as a student; she had been the professor he most dreaded coming across in the halls after hours. "I had thought I wouldn't have to lecture about wandwork outside of classrooms until the students arrived."
He looked around the room. Everybody was tense, but Minerva and Filius were the only ones who had stood upon the Carrows' entrance.
Hooch was seated in her usual chair by the fire, arms and legs crossed, tense. Hagrid sat at one of the many tables good for marking, hands knotted together on the table, face murderous. Binns floated near a chair at the same table as Hagrid, looking bemused at the display. Poppy sat in her usual chair (if she had a usual chair; she didn't usually have time to sit in the lounge), a comfortable thing in the midst of other comfortable chairs, a good arrangement for conversation; she was slouched, defeated, staring at the floor. Vector and Sinistra shared a couch, glaring at him, posture stiff. Trelawney was in her usual place at the far end of the main table, looking unsure and slightly afraid. Slughorn sat with Pince, of all people, at the nearer end of the main table, eyes roving over him, trying to get a read on him. Pince wore a pinched expression usually reserved for students caught reading library books at the supper table. Filch stood in the corner of the room, holding his cat too tightly.
Severus looked at each person in turn, strengthening his Occlumency with each face. These weren't his friends. He was friendly with—or had been friendly with—most of them for a number of years. He'd hated Slughorn as a student, so that was no loss. But he'd had a decent relationship with Pince since he was thirteen or so. Hagrid had been a friend, and Minerva. He played chess with Filius regularly. Hooch flirted with him.
Poppy was the worst. He'd always resisted her, always tried not to need her, but even when he was a student she had been the one who had comforted him, who had soothed his injuries and tucked him into bed. She looked so utterly betrayed that it was all he could do not to walk over and take her in his arms, assure her that it was all a lie. He was still the little boy she'd told to keep his chin up.
"Wands away," he instructed, pitching his voice as he did when he was lecturing. Poppy flinched. Minerva glared, stuck out her chin, and retook her seat. Her wand was hidden in her lap beneath the table, but he knew she still had it in hand. The Carrows thought they'd won, the idiots; they tucked their wands away and sauntered into the room, seating themselves on the couch by the fire across from Hooch. "Now," he said, glaring at Flitwick. The Charms professor looked like he was going to cast a spell, but then thought better of it. He stuck his wand into the sheath in his sleeve and sat a few chairs down from Minerva, giving both of them room to move and a good view of the room.
I'm going to die. One of them will kill me before Christmas.
"Where's Charity?" Sprout asked just as Severus opened his mouth to begin the meeting. He glared at her. The Carrows laughed quietly, jostling each other with their elbows.
"Professor Burbage is no longer with us."
There was a murmur through the room. Eyes met and sprang apart, darted to the Carrows, settled on him.
"Now," he said, looking them all over again. "I will make this brief. The new term will bring change. Changes have been made to the syllabi of all classes. While most of the changes are minimal—" He had to raise his voice to be heard over the whispers and cries of protest. "—others are more affected. Muggle Studies and Defense have both undergone radical changes, for instance.
"Luckily, the new staff members taking over these classes are already familiar with the new material." He raised a hand to indicate the Carrows. "Amycus Carrow will be our Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, and his sister Alecto will teach Muggle Studies." He dropped his hand to his side, tasting ashes at the pleased looks plastered on the Carrows' faces. "I expect you will all be resources for our newest additions to staff as we welcome them to the castle."
Or, more likely, I expect you to leave them to hang and make their lives as difficult as possible in the coming months.
"Next on the agenda is student discipline." The focus on him intensified. He fortified his mental shields. "You will refer students to the Carrows for discipline. They are well-versed in disciplinary techniques, and I believe their knowledge will well be able to keep the students in line during this time of change."
"Are you suggesting," Minerva bit out between clenched teeth, "that the newest staff members, who have never taught before, are to be allowed free rein over student punishments?"
"Of course not," he sneered. "Infractions are to be referred to Amycus and Alecto, who will propose a method of discipline which I must approve before they are carried out."
The Carrows would have protested if they had brains in their heads, but instead they sat there looking pleased while the rest of the staff spluttered. Poppy was giving him a shrewd look, but a moment's eye contact had her staring at her lap again.
He had far from rendered the Carrows impotent in the way of harsh punishments. It would still happen. It was inevitable, at this point. Hopefully Hogwarts wouldn't see the use of the Cruciatus Curse on a student before Halloween, though. That was a worthy goal.
He had also just created a painful amount of paperwork for himself. He could see it in their faces. The professors were planning to bury him with minor infractions, refer the smallest things to the Carrows. Good. It could be so much worse. He desperately wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose to relieve the headache building behind his eyes, but he couldn't do it in front of the staff.
It didn't get better in the next hour. He passed out schedules for rounds—he'd been careful that the Carrows were never on rounds together, though they'd probably accompany each other anyway—and explained his requirements for office hours. He gave Minerva the student lists and, when she threatened to quit as he'd expected, reminded her that her position could be filled just as easily as the Defense and Muggle Studies posts had been—with Death Eaters as teachers being the implication. She had gotten it, and taken the lists.
It was an interminable meeting. The professors who had once been his friends didn't seem to know how to feel about any of it. They were unhappy, obviously, but they were here to protect the children from him and they planned to do what they could. He suspected there had been several meetings without him since the end of term. That was a good thing.
Pomona and Sinistra spent a lot of the meeting looking like they might cry. Minerva was stony-faced, her fingers clenched around her wand under the table. Filius had his hands on the table in front of him, and glared through the meeting, not even flinching when Severus made a jibe about expecting everybody to keep up with the requirements of a castle full of dunderheads directed not only at his non-dunderheaded Ravenclaws but how easy it had been to Stun him the night he'd killed Dumbledore.
Finally, finally, it was done.
"If there are no further questions—" He let the not-question hang for a moment, but nobody spoke. "Then this meeting is over. Do not forget your new syllabi."
He turned and left, realizing as he did that he'd never entered the room properly. He'd held the whole meeting standing in the doorway.
\\
Severus forced himself to eat a sandwich for dinner. The elves had provided a full spread, of course, but he hadn't had any appetite for it. The fragrant steam rising from the soup turned his stomach. The tidy cubes of fruit in the dish were oversweet.
He left the tray on the edge of the desk when his Mark burned, almost gratefully Summoning his robes. He leaned back against the edge of his desk and waited, then. The Carrows would be coming to him for Side-Along Apparition out of the castle.
I should just leave them here. Or maybe I could splinch them. That would be fun.
At last, the siblings arrived. He glared at them and told them off for wearing their robes through the school, reminding them that, until the Ministry fell, they had to play a part. The "professors" didn't look chastened in the least.
They met at Malfoy Manor only briefly. The Dark Lord spoke, somehow threatening them and riling them up for the attack all at once. By the end of his short speech, the Death Eaters were chomping at the bit for some action—kill the Order, kill the Aurors, bring the Potter boy to their master.
They took to the skies, flying above the clouds. Then they waited. They waited for a very long time.
Severus had just cast his fifth Warming Charm on his cloak when Sirius Black's sodding motorbike flew through the clouds directly under him. He wheeled away on his broomstick, flying a large arc around the thing as the curses began to fly.
Severus watched the motorbike long enough to see that Hagrid was the one flying it and that Harry Potter was sitting in the sidecar with an owl cage between his knees, then turned away. There were other Order members paired with Harry Potters all around. A particularly sick-looking Harry shared a broom with a roaring Moody. Bill Weasley and a Harry on a thestral were spiraling lower, the thestral's neck stretched forward, its wings beating the air in great heaves. Arthur, Remus and Tonks all had Harrys on broomsticks. Kingsley was on a thestral with another Harry.
Good God, one of those Harrys is Hermione. The realization hit him like a brick, and he suddenly wanted to attack every last Death Eater who even came close to landing a curse on one of the Harrys. It was insane. He'd known they'd be in danger, that they might even face each other in a battle like this… but it was too real. She was in the sky with him, and she might die. He might kill her. He might cast a spell, miss a Death Eater, and she would fall to her death.
He felt sick.
Maybe she's not here, he thought. Maybe she's at a safe house somewhere waiting for them to bring her the wounded. That would make sense. She's the Order's only proper Healer, after all.
He didn't believe it, though. Not for a moment.
He didn't have time to think anymore after that. The Order scattered, and he picked a pair at random—Remus Lupin and a Harry on a broomstick. If the Dark Lord looked, though he probably wouldn't, he could pass off the choice as based mostly on the childhood vendetta against the Marauders.
Carefully, Severus cut down the others chasing Lupin and Potter. He wasn't sure who they were since everybody was cloaked and masked, but it didn't matter. He used Sectumsempra, cutting them from the sky.
Then he missed, and he almost fell off his broom.
The Potter on the broom—OhgodOhgodOhgod—screamed. Blood splattered across his face, splashed back on Lupin. Potter slumped forward, almost fell off. Lupin searched the sky, spotted him, but then had to put his wand away to grab Potter with one arm. The boy had a hand pressed to the side of his head, eyes wide with panic.
Hermione! Please, oh please. God. Holy mother of shit don't let it be Hermione.
And then he felt guilty because even if it wasn't Hermione it was still somebody who he should consider a friend that he'd just hurt. Possibly killed.
But Hermione mattered so much more than the rest of them.
Severus sped away as soon as he was sure that the Potter wasn't going to fall off the broom and die. He was vaguely aware that his mask and hood had been lost in the fight, probably early on when he'd swerved to avoid the stupid motorbike.
He was relieved when he saw the fire.
Four Death Eaters were bearing down on the thestral carrying Shacklebolt and a different Potter. Shacklebolt was focused on driving the beast toward their goal, and Potter was covering their retreat. With Fiendfyre.
Hermione. Thank the stars. Holy fuck.
Severus swerved away in time to see the Fiendfyre flicker into the shape of a dragon, growing larger with each second. It opened its fiery jaws and swallowed a Death Eater, surging toward the next. The coward—smart coward—Disapparated midair. The third jerked his broom into a dive, screaming when the fire caught his back anyway. The last swerved away as well, shooting off spells in the general direction of the thestral, all of which flew wide.
The dragon flapped its wings and dissipated into a dark cloud. The thestral surged off into the night, and Severus turned his broom again. Panic flooded him when he saw fire flare in the distance, huge and bright. More Fiendfyre.
Oh, gods.