A/N: Poor Andrael. She isn't going to find out if she has an ally anytime time soon. TW: arranged marriage related trauma.
...
April 16, 1998 - On the Run
Spring arrived in half-measures at Hogwarts. The sun lingered longer in the evenings, coaxing the grass into greening, but the castle remained steeped in shadows that no amount of light could dispel. Even in April, the air felt stale, as though the very stones of the castle resented the season's arrival.
Andrael loathed it all.
The new leaves and budding flowers mocked her. They did not belong in a world like this—where students vanished without explanation, where pain and punishment had become a daily certainty. She escaped frequently to the willow, needing to be out of the castle and away from the ever-present war.
The Carrows did not bother with subtlety anymore. Those sent to the dungeons after classes were either never spoken of again or returned as empty husks, their spirits broken, their eyes glassy. The unlucky ones reappeared just long enough to be made examples of before vanishing again. No one dared to ask when they would be coming back.
She had spent the past months walking the razor's edge, feeding the Carrows just enough obedience to keep their trust without ever truly bending to them. They had stopped trying to beat her into submission. They thought they were past that stage now.
The threats had shifted into something else—thinly veiled flattery, dripping with the promise of power. You're strong, Andrael. You could be something greater. Alecto wasn't clever enough to feign admiration for a filthy halfblood, but she knew usefulness when she saw it.
As if she wanted to be anything like them.
But she let Alecto believe she was considering it, because it kept her out of the dungeons. It let her move more freely. It let her get closer to her fellow Slytherins. That was the key, wasn't it? The ones who could be salvaged—the ones who might be swayed before they tied themselves to this regime forever. They already had too much power in this twisted new world. If she wanted to save lives, she needed to plant seeds now, even if it turned her stomach to smile at them.
Her own house had already made its choice. The boys in her year had turned into good little Death Eaters. Two brilliant minds and two brutal forces flanked Scion Malfoy, the five of them stalking the halls and patrolling on the Professors' behalf.
Gryffindor was fire and steel, all but at war with the Carrows now. Neville had disappeared two weeks ago. Just vanished. One day he was at breakfast, dark circles under his eyes, laughing quietly with Luna Lovegood and Susan Bones. By dinner, he was gone.
The castle had erupted. The Carrows lost what little composure they had, snapping orders, sending students to their dorms early while Snape loomed over it all, saying little but watching everything. Alecto's shrill voice echoed through the halls that night, screaming at anyone she suspected might know something. By morning, the manhunt had begun.
DA members were dragged from their beds, interrogated with Veritaserum, but he had covered his tracks well. Luna Lovegood, Zacharius Smith, Padma and Parvati Patil, Susan Bones, and Ernie Macmillian disappeared within the next twenty-four hours.
The wards still listed them as being inside the school, the Stolen Seven hiding in plain sight. Every common room was searched, every secret passage was blocked off.
Then came the threats. The Great Hall became a stage for fear. Alecto and Amycus made speech after speech, their faces flushed with rage. Harboring traitors makes you one. If you know something, speak now, or suffer when we find out you were hiding it. The first years shrank in their seats. Some students, the smarter ones, kept their expressions blank. The Slytherin table, well-versed in this sort of performance, barely reacted at all.
But the castle itself refused to forget Neville Longbottom.
Every morning, new graffiti appeared—walls scrawled with messages in charmed ink that no amount of scrubbing could remove: Longbottom Lives. Dumbledore's Army Fights On. You Are Not Alone.
The Carrows would vanish the words by lunch, but by the time classes started, another phrase would have taken its place. Even in lessons, rebellion whispered through the cracks. Artefacts in Muggle Studies exploded at the worst moments. Desks in Dark Arts turned to stone and wouldn't budge. The Great Hall ceiling flickered between a starry night sky and a giant, flashing LONGBOTTOM LAUGHS AT YOU.
Andrael wasn't stupid enough to join in. She had spent too long surviving to throw herself onto the Carrows' pyre now. But even she had to admire it—the quiet, endless defiance that refused to die.
She had her own reasons to be on edge. She was nearly certain she knew where they were hiding Neville, or at least where the DA had taken refuge.
The Room of Requirement had always been more than just a curiosity. This year, it was something else entirely. There was a space inside it now—hidden, unseen, where the rebels could breathe. If she knew, then others would figure it out too. The Carrows were not as stupid as they seemed. Andrael wasn't sure what scared her more: that she might be right about the hiding place, or that she might be wrong and put people in danger by assuming.
She had less than two months left.
Less than two months before she was gone. But the closer she got, the less she could stomach the thought of leaving them behind. Neville, the younger students, even the Slytherins who weren't beyond reach yet. She could make a difference now, but when she was gone? Who would fill the space she left? Snape?
Andrael exhaled sharply, resisting the urge to laugh. He was a question she couldn't answer, a riddle that sat heavy in her chest. Sometimes she thought he might still be on their side. Sometimes she thought he was just another coward, another piece in the Dark Lord's machine.
Sometimes she thought he didn't even know himself.
If he would just act, if he would do something—if she could be certain of what he was… But Snape remained behind his desk, behind his mask, and did nothing.
The walls of Hogwarts had never felt so divided. Not in the way the Carrows wanted, not in the way they ranted about in their speeches, pitting pureblood against half-blood, Slytherin against the rest. No, the fractures ran deeper than that now.
There were the fighters, the ones who scrawled their defiance on the walls, who sabotaged lessons, who disappeared in the night and reemerged with bruises and split lips. There were the true believers—the ones who revelled in this new Hogwarts, who laughed when students screamed, who clung to the Carrows like leeches, hoping for favor. But then there was everyone else.
The neutrals.
The ones who weren't fighters. The ones who weren't monsters. The ones who just wanted it to stop.
At first, they had been quiet, too scared to take a side. But as the weeks dragged on, as the punishments grew worse, as the Carrows' rage burned hotter, their fear turned to frustration. Andrael saw it in the hunched shoulders of Hufflepuffs as they trudged to class, in the tight expressions of Ravenclaws who had stopped arguing and started enduring. Even in the Slytherins who weren't eager recruits—those who had kept their heads down all year, unwilling to be swept into the madness, pretending they didn't see the worst of it.
More and more, their whispers turned to blame.
"I hate to say it, but if Longbottom and the DA would just stop, none of this would be happening."
"If they gave themselves up, if they swore loyalty, the Carrows would stop punishing us."
"Maybe Hogwarts could go back to normal."
As if that were even possible.
And yet, their hopes weren't entirely misplaced. If the DA fell, if they swore fealty, if Neville walked into the Great Hall tomorrow and bent the knee, the Carrows would ease up. Not forever, not entirely, but enough. Enough to make Hogwarts bearable again.
Andrael couldn't say they were wrong to wish for that.
She wasn't stupid. She had no interest in fighting, in throwing herself into a cause that would only get her killed. For her, resistance was never worth it. But for the DA? She wasn't sure. She wasn't sure it ever had been.
Harry Potter was dead. There was no herald. What did they even think was going to happen in the future? Who could stand against the Dark Lord and win?
(Her. If no one else, than her.)
Andrael's fingers drummed against the desk, her quill scratching out half a sentence before she sighed and slumped back in her chair. Her thoughts weren't on the essay in front of her. They were on him.
Severus Snape.
His lack of aura continued to bother her. But even an occlumency grandmaster like him had to actively use magic sometimes.
The problem with needing to see him cast a spell was that he hardly ever did. Not where she could see. Not where anyone could see.
That was the first issue—Snape almost never left his office. He appeared at meals and in class, but beyond that, he was a shadow, tucked away behind thick wooden doors, emerging only when necessary. And she knew better than to try sneaking into his office. Not even the Carrows did that, and they were the only ones he tolerated in his presence for longer than a few minutes. Tolerated was a generous word, too.
The second problem was that even if she did see him cast, it was unlikely he would speak the incantation. Snape preferred silent magic—fluid, effortless, precise. That was going to make things difficult. She wasn't sure if her ritual sight could pick up on wandless magic the same way, and she wasn't about to risk everything only to find out it didn't work.
And then there was the most obvious problem.
Snape didn't like her. He tolerated her, at best. Hell, the Carrows probably liked her more than he did by now, and that wasn't exactly a point in her favor. If she gave him even the slightest reason to suspect she was up to something, she'd be dismissed with one cold glare, and that would be the end of it.
So she couldn't ask. She had to see.
She closed her eyes, running through the possibilities.
She could wait. Maybe, eventually, he would cast something in some class. But she wasn't stupid enough to rely on eventually.
She could set something up—something that forced him to react, to cast a spell in response. A fight? No, he would send the Carrows. A staged accident? Possible. But what accident would warrant him dealing with it?
Maybe if she got herself injured in a way Madam Pomfrey couldn't handle, something so precise and delicate that Snape himself had to heal it—no, too dangerous. If she failed, she wouldn't get another chance. And the only forces that would be able to injure her so badly would be the Carrows themselves. Betting on them to do something like that would assuredly result in her death. Finality.
A duel? No, no, no. Stupid. A waste of time. Snape didn't duel students. She could try to mention something to Amycus about getting him to a Defence Class? No, her influence only went so far.
A threat to him? Something he had to deal with personally? Something that would force his hand?
Slowly, she opened her eyes.
That could work. It had to be subtle. Not an attack, but something disruptive enough that he had no choice but to act.
Something small. Something controlled.
Andrael tapped her quill against her lip, already running through possibilities.
It was quite a pity he never taught anymore. The classroom was the perfect place for subversion.
If something inside Snape's office went wrong, if, say, a curse triggered or an object became unstable, he would have to handle it himself. The question was how to get anything past his wards without setting them off too soon.
Andrael quickly dismissed this. Her best vantage point would then become the Astronomy Tower and that was a tenuous view at best. Too many things could go wrong.
What if a section of the castle—the dungeons, perhaps—suddenly had a… complication? A loose section of ceiling? A creeping bit of magical instability? If she tampered with just the right corridor, Snape would have to cast something to repair or reinforce the structure before it got worse. The risk, of course, was that Filch or another professor might handle it instead. It would have to be serious enough to warrant Snape's attention but not so serious that it got traced back to her.
That could… work. The chaos of the DA subversion would allow her to pin the blame on one of them. Which was dangerous for a whole different set of reasons.
It wasn't until later at dinner that the idea came to her, coalescing into a fully formed plan.
The Headmaster alone may alter Hogwarts' deepest enchantments.
It was a passing remark, something Fake-Moody had mentioned in her fourth year while lecturing about warding magic. The idea had interested her at the time. Hogwarts was a fortress of layered protections, constantly shifting and adjusting to its occupants. But there were some wards that not even the professors could tamper with. Some enchantments that, by design, only the Headmaster could influence.
Her heart began to pound faster.
If she could find one of those wards, something small, something unassuming, she might be able to trigger a failure that required Snape's intervention. Nothing catastrophic. Just… noticeable. A sudden inconsistency. A protective charm failing, a minor section of the castle needing attention. If she chose the right place, at the right time, with the right method—
She needed more information.
If her research had taught anything, the best jumping off point was Hogwarts: A History. At the very least, the anecdotes in the narrative could help her pin down the location of one such ward. A bit of Arithmancy and her sight could take care of the rest.
Andrael stood, pushing back her plate. No one noticed her leave. No one cared.
The library was quieter than usual, the dim candlelight casting elongated shadows over the towering shelves. Most students were either still eating or had retreated to their common rooms, wary of lingering too long in places where the Carrows' eyes might find them.
Andrael scanned the shelves, her fingers brushing along the spines of dusty tomes as she moved through the rows. It was messier than usual in this maze. Hogwarts: A History should have been easy to find, but tonight, her luck was already proving fickle.
A low voice broke her focus.
"You lost, Cassowary?"
She turned to see Millicent Bulstrode leaning against a nearby shelf, arms crossed.
They had fallen into a strange sort of understanding over the past few months. Not quite friends, but something close. Something fragile. Andrael was careful with her; Millicent was careful right back.
"Not lost," Andrael said, tilting her head toward the shelves. "Just looking for a book."
"Reeeally. Groundbreaking stuff, coming to the library for a book."
Andrael snorted. "I'm looking for a copy of Hogwarts: A History."
Millicent made a noise in the back of her throat, something between amusement and exasperation. "That book? No one actually reads that except Granger, and she's—" She stopped, clearing her throat.
Hermione Granger, who was gone. Who hadn't been alive in months.
Andrael let the silence settle before she answered. "I need it."
Millicent studied her, then sighed, pushing off the shelf. "It should be in this section. Come on."
Andrael followed as Millicent moved with practiced ease through the stacks. Despite her gruff demeanor, she was methodical—scanning the labels, running her fingers along the bindings until—
"Here." Millicent tugged a thick, well-worn book from the shelf and handed it over.
Andrael took it, the weight of it settling into her hands. "Thanks."
Millicent shrugged. "Better than watching you wander around like a lost first-year."
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The silence stretched.
Andrael turned the book over in her hands before carefully saying, "Your… arrangement. How's it going?"
She watched Millicent's reaction—how her shoulders tensed, how her fingers twitched against the fabric of her sleeve.
"It's going," Millicent said shortly.
Andrael hesitated. Then, softly: "And Amycus?"
Millicent exhaled sharply, looking away. "A bundle of joy. What do you expect me to say, Cassowary? It's all sunshine and rainbows."
"Do you remember what you said on the train?" Andrael asked.
Millicent laughed harshly. "The girl that said that was naive. It's wishful thinking, perhaps. Contract law says I have to last two years or be with child when a woman becomes a widow. If not… Well, the process starts all over again."
Andrael looked at the floor.
"I'm trapped," she said finally. "That's how it feels. Like I'm running out of time, and there's nowhere to go." She huffed a humorless laugh. "Graduation used to mean freedom. Now it just means… something else."
Andrael closed her fingers around the cover of the book. She understood that feeling all too well.
"You still have time," she offered, even though she wasn't sure it was true.
Millicent gave her a skeptical look but didn't argue.
"There are other places besides Britain. If you want to start preparations… you have two months."
Millicent didn't respond, her blank expression making her wonder if the girl had even heard her. But Andrael decided not to press the issue now.
"Are you headed back to the common room? I'm walking in that direction."
"I- yes." Millicent glanced at the book in Andrael's hands and smirked. "You actually are going to read that, aren't you?"
Andrael smirked back. "Wouldn't have asked for it otherwise."
It was like she was back to normal, a bit of her sarcastic, light-hearted self returning.
Andrael checked out the book, and the two headed back towards the dungeons.
As Andrael and Millicent stepped inside the dorm, they found Pansy and Daphne huddled together near her bed, speaking in hushed, urgent tones. The moment the door clicked shut behind them, both girls glanced up—Pansy's expression pinched with irritation, Daphne's unreadable as always.
"You're back," Pansy said, as though their absence had personally offended her.
Andrael arched an eyebrow. "In the flesh."
Millicent ignored the jab and shrugged off her cloak, draping it over the arm of a nearby chair. "What's going on?"
Pansy rolled her eyes and leaned back against the armrest, arms crossed. "The Carrows left dinner in a rush—stormed out, actually." She sighed, sounding deeply put-upon. "Apparently, they got tipped off that Longbottom was planning to sneak around outside their offices to graffiti the doors again."
Andrael sighed, exasperatedly.
"He wouldn't be that reckless," she said before she could stop herself.
Daphne lifted an elegant shoulder. "Reckless or not, someone was up there. Spellfire was heard on the third floor not long after the Carrows left." She paused, gaze flicking between them. "No one knows if it was actually Longbottom or some poor fool caught in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Millicent exhaled slowly, her jaw tight. "And do they know what happened after?"
Daphne shook her head. "Not yet. But it won't be long before they start making examples of people again."
Pansy groaned, throwing her head back against the chair with a dramatic sigh. "It also means we'd better get our homework done now, because you know we'll be woken up for patrols in the middle of the night again."
Andrael swallowed the urge to snap at her.
They all knew the cost of the Carrows' patrols. The forced marches through the corridors, the 'lessons' they were made delivered with wands and fists. The way students, especially the younger ones, flinched at the sight of them in their emerald robes.
Pansy, of course, framed it as an inconvenience.
Millicent crossed her arms. "You sound real broken up about it."
Pansy shot her a glare. "Forgive me for not weeping over Gryffindor theatrics when I'd rather be sleeping. I don't want to be mucking about the eighth floor by torchlight for the seventh time looking for bloody Dumbledore's Army members."
"If we haven't found them by now, we're not going to find them," Daphne said flippantly. "Salazar knows where they're holed up, but one way or another this is going to get worse before it gets better."
"Maybe we'll catch a lucky break, and they've already got Longbottom…" Pansy muttered wishfully, flouncing down onto her bed.
Millicent dropped into a chair with a heavy sigh. "Guess we'd better start on that bloody essay, then."
Andrael lingered near the doorway, the weight of Hogwarts: A History pressing against her palms. "I should probably go speak to Professors Vector about Arithmancy before it gets too late."
Millicent shot her a dry look. "Since when do you need a personal audience with the Vectors to do your homework?"
"Since they assigned that ridiculous theorem proof last week," Andrael said smoothly, already moving toward the exit. "If we're going to be dragged out of bed for patrols again, I'd rather not have them breathing down my neck over missed work, too… I had a really cool idea for it and-"
Just as she predicted, Millicent cut her off.
"Okay, swot. We get it."
Daphne smirked as Millicent continued.
"I don't know why anyone needs an N.E.W.T. in that crap. It's bloody impossible."
"It's for curse breaking. I know you hate numbers, but Arithmancy is quite useful," she said with a smile.
Pansy barely glanced up from her parchment. "Fine, but don't expect sympathy when you get caught out after curfew. I am not covering for you."
Andrael didn't dignify that with a response, slipping through the door before anyone could question her further.
The dungeons swallowed sound, the air thick with the scent of damp stone and lingering potion fumes. She kept her steps even, head bent over the book as if she were merely a distracted student on an errand, rather than someone with no business being out alone.
The wards. She needed to find the wards.
According to Hogwarts: A History, there was a passage during the tenure of Headmaster Nigellus that described one such ward malfunctioning. It led to a series of magical cauldron accidents, particularly within the vicinity. The original potions classroom had been located on the second floor, not in the dungeons. It had only been moved underground in the late 1800s for 'safety' after a series of unfortunate student accidents.
That meant the ward she was looking for had to be somewhere near that location. Find it, analyze it, and then disrupt it somehow without using too advanced magic.
She turned a page, scanning quickly. The wards placed by the Headmaster in this era ensured access was restricted to faculty, with enchantments woven to—
A sound echoed down the corridor.
Andrael snapped the book shut and pressed herself against the wall, breath shallow.
A moment passed. Then another.
Nothing.
She exhaled slowly, forcing her heartbeat to steady.
Andrael disillusioned herself and resumed her progress. She crept down the hallway, peering into the walls with her sight. A glittering tapestry cocooned the stone, veins of magic and entangled wards pulsing with light and life.
In the weeks since she first started training, Andrael had learned to control the surge of magic that pulsed around her like an electric current. At first, the flood of colour and energy had overwhelmed her, leaving her disoriented, as if the world itself was constantly shifting under her feet. But now, with careful practice in the dead zone, she could sort of turn it on and off at will.
The magic never fully disappeared, it always hummed beneath the surface, a constant low thrum in her mind, but she could dull the intensity, dull the brilliance that threatened to drown her in sensory overload. Her senses had become sharper, more focused, and now she could pick out the specific threads of magic woven through the air, the ripples of spells cast and uncast.
With a thought, the world around her could be drowned in the overwhelming brightness of raw magic, or softened into a muted landscape, where the glow of enchantments and curses was little more than a faint pulse. She could hone in on certain spells and runes, slowly having learned to recognize basic colours and shapes. It wasn't perfect, but it was control, a delicate balance between letting the magic flow through her and knowing when to pull back.
As she trailed her hand against the stone, she could see the magic converging to a nexus point, the red of the wards mixing with strong blue structural charms keeping the castle standing. At the overlap, she could see faint purple wisps of the master wards. Most of them stemmed from the Hogwarts cornerstone deep underneath the castle, but they popped up in various places.
Using her wand, she poked and prodded about the point, trying to find a weak spot in the pattern. If she could destabilize the hallway and reveal the wards, a blasting curse could disrupt them enough to at least require some diagnostic work…
She could feel the thrum of magic beneath her fingers as she picked her target point. Andrael looked over shoulder in the direction of the stone gargoyle not two hundred metres away. She desperately hoped this wouldn't backfire.
She forced magical energy into her fingers, charging the attack, so to speak. It was as if she could see her skeleton, her own power rushing into her wand through her nerves, a warm tingle of concentrated intent. She needed to be in close proximity for this to work.
"Bombarda!"
All it took was a simple word, and the wall exploded into pieces.
Andrael scrambled back as the ceiling caved in.
Stone bricks shattered on the floor of the hall, dust billowing outwards as the pile of rubble grew higher. She narrowly missed being caught in the
The ward flickered once, but it was enough. She knew at that moment that she could blast this castle for hours and hardly destabilize the cornerstone wards, but the fluctuation was enough to make the Headmaster do his duty and check.
She ducked behind a column and waited. (It was only when she was in position that she realised how long this could take. It was a small possibility for the meticulous man, but Snape might not come out of his office for hours.)
Yet Andrael lingered in the shadows of the hallway, hardly having caught her breath, when the Headmaster descended from his office. The soft scrape of his boots echoed in the silence, his robes billowing slightly as he moved with the quiet precision of a predator. As he reached the collapsed section of the ceiling, he swished his wand elegantly, the motion practised and casual. The jagged pieces of stone seemed to shudder in response before knitting themselves back together, the magic flowing like water, seamlessly binding the damage as though it had never been.
He muttered something in Latin, his voice low and cold, a language she'd heard many times in her studies but never so softly, as though he were speaking only to the walls.
Suddenly, a shimmering array of numbers and geometric patterns unfolded around him, like an intricate spider web of Arithmancy, precise and layered. Magic swirled around him in visible threads, each one a different colour, twisting and converging with an unsettling harmony. The air crackled with power as the array stabilized, hovering in the space around him, a brilliant display of control.
Snape's fingers flicked again, and the array vanished as if it had never been, leaving only the faintest echo of its presence. He glanced down at the now-mended ceiling, his sharp eyes narrowing, satisfied with the result.
Andrael thought she was safe, hidden in the quiet corner of the corridor. But then Snape's steps halted, and his head tilted slightly, as if sensing something. Andrael's heart froze in her chest. His eyes, dark and calculating, flicked toward her hiding spot with uncanny precision. She could have sworn his gaze lingered on her for a heartbeat, the air around her thick with the sensation of being exposed.
Her disillusionment spell was perfect, she was certain of it, it had to be. But the piercing intensity of his stare seemed to strip the shadows away. She held her breath, every muscle tensed, ready to bolt at the slightest sound. Snape's eyes narrowed just slightly, as though he were piecing something together, and for a moment Andrael thought he might step forward, his sharp mind perhaps sensing her presence in a way words couldn't explain.
Andrael would rather deal with a dragon on her own than be found out right now, and she was terrified of the beasts. She prayed to Salazar Slytherin, to Merlin, to anybody. I'll literally take on a dragon, just don't let him see me.
But then, almost imperceptibly, his gaze shifted, and he turned away. His footsteps resumed, this time more deliberate, as though he'd seen enough. And just like that, Snape disappeared into the darkness, leaving the corridor eerily still once again.
Andrael didn't exhale until she was sure he was gone. Her body sagged slightly, the adrenaline beginning to ebb, but her mind remained sharp. Snape had been closer than she'd ever imagined.
She couldn't see if he had returned to his office from this angle, but decided to take an alternate route back to the common room rather than chance it. Climbing up to the fourth floor, she found a familiar tapestry of an augury.
"Subvertunt," she whispered, stepping through the silk that had turned temporarily incorporeal. A narrow, spiral staircase with an ornate metal railing disappeared into darkness. The passage was covered with dust, but would let her out on the first floor in the main wing. Taking the steps two at a time, her light strides put her at the bottom in no time.
Pushing open a false wall, she emerged in an old broom cupboard in the Entrance Hall that Filch used to store his moldy mops. Wrinkling her nose, she listened to check if the coast was clear, but a sudden burst of angry voices froze her in her tracks. She pressed herself against the door, her pulse quickening as she listened.
"You have no right!" McGonagall's voice rang out, harsh and unmistakable. "For all you know, this was just another false lead—"
"You're wasting our time, McGonagall. That boy's a menace. No one else in this castle would do something like that—"
"Enough of your lies," McGonagall snapped, but her voice was strained, just barely holding onto the dignified fire she was known for. "Again, there's no proof he was ever involved in any of this—"
"No proof?" Amycus cut in, his voice dripping with mockery. "What more proof do we need, eh? His filthy little friends have been running circles around us, laughing behind our backs. You protect them, McGonagall. You've always been too weak to do anything, haven't you? Too soft, too bloody soft for this world, just like your precious Dumbledore."
McGonagall's retort was lost beneath the bile spewing from the Carrows. Alecto's voice rose, almost a hiss, filled with sickening contempt. "You've let this place become a sanctuary for scum! Blood traitors and half-breeds everywhere, sitting pretty while they laugh at the real power, the only power that matters." Her words twisted the air between them, sharp as knives. "You're as much a part of the problem as they are. Weak. Incompetent."
Amycus chuckled darkly, low and cruel. "You should've sided with us, McGonagall. Should've known where your loyalty lies, instead of being a fucking traitor to your own kind."
"Always too weak—"
But before Alecto could finish, a cold, sharp voice cut through the argument like a blade.
"That's enough," Snape's voice, low and biting, echoed through the hall. Andrael narrowed her eyes as his gaze swept across the scene with a chilling indifference, as though none of this concerned him at all. His eyes locked with McGonagall's for a brief, heavy moment.
"Minerva, spare us the righteous indignation," Snape said, his tone dripping with disdain. "The Carrows speak the truth. Longbottom and his merry band of imbeciles have caused enough damage. Ideology aside, they have broken hundreds of school rules this past month. And we will deal with them accordingly."
He didn't wait for her to respond, turning his cold gaze to the Carrows, his expression narrowing. "As for you two," Snape muttered, his voice laced with mockery, "keep your vile rhetoric to yourselves. I have far more important matters to attend to than listening to your puerile whining."
Alecto and Amycus recoiled slightly, their expressions twisted with confusion and frustration. Snape wasn't even looking at them as he addressed them, his attention clearly focused on the larger picture.
"Your bluster is beneath me," Snape continued, turning his back on them as he flicked his wand absently, repairing the damage to the ceiling. "The Dark Lord will have his due. Now, go about your business and leave the real work to those of us who understand the stakes."
He barely glanced at McGonagall as he spoke to her, his voice sharp. "And you, Minerva, would do well to remember that I am the Headmaster here. The next time you waste my time with this useless bickering, I'll be forced to consider your future in this school."
The finality in his tone sent a chill through the air, but McGonagall said nothing. She stood still, her jaw clenched, though she said nothing more. The Carrows glared at her but said nothing, their anger seething just beneath the surface.
With a final, dismissive glance at the three of them, he turned on his heel and started back toward his office without a word, leaving a stunned silence in his wake.
As the echo of his footsteps faded, the Carrows, muttering curses under their breath, finally shuffled away. McGonagall remained silent, her eyes narrowed, but she said nothing.
In this school, Snape was untouchable. Everyone knew it.
Peering through the keyhole, Andrael willed her to go away. She needed to make a break for the dungeons and get back safely to the dorm.
Finally, after clenching and unclenching her fists a few more times, the woman stalked off towards her office. Andrael counted to twenty, and then slowly opened the door. She slipped out, shutting it behind her.
She stole across the Entrance Hall to the Dungeon stair, dodging patches of moonlight. Her disillusioned form would still cast a ghostly shadow to any discerning observers.
Skittering through the Dungeons, she finally reached the entrance to Slytherin Commons. Clutching her book close, she paused to catch her breath.
"Sapiens serpentis," she whispered, and the door slid open. She certainly felt like a wise serpent at that moment.
Snape's magic was white.