At Any Moment

Albus III

Just after lunch...

I'm getting too old for this.

Slytherin genealogy, interconnections and intrigues are beyond me. Oh, how I wish Severus could have been hiding in the meeting with his students this morning. He would have known what to say.

I'm being unfair. He would have been just as lost as me.

Unlike the bereaved students of other houses, I felt as though Riddle was manipulating me by proxy. The final indignity to my students, for they are all mine to look after, was that they already knew far more that I did.

By proxy, Riddle trapped me into unwittingly prolonging their suffering.

The goading, toadying and more blatant elements of Slytherin had already begun the torture of students too young to realise that outright war had been declared on decency.

The demarcation of the battleline for the most suspicious of houses has already begun and without endangering Severus' position, I can do nothing to cull certain elements.

Sylvian, Malvern and Zal, all old names within the circle of Slytherin and but for the three students I tried to comfort, eradicated.

I am faced now with the prospect of having to protect students from the worst excesses of greed and power and in doing so, ensure that the fear of such power does not force any more students to cross the lines of allegiance.

I lack Severus' subtlety and I'm faced with the inevitable fate of trying to think like a Slytherin.

I feel as though I'm going to have to compromise my principles for the greater good and it does not sit well.

I'm not even sure who or what the greater good is anymore. The lines seem irreparably blurred.

An hour later...

Minerva and I have broken our one cardinal rule. We promised ourselves that those precious few moments away from the spotlight of school business would be spent discussing other more enjoyable pursuits. Politics and intrigue would hold no place during those times.

How could we not discuss the emotions of the day?

Harry's not altogether unexpected vitriol directed at Severus at lunch was not something I would have thought Mr Potter would indulge in, but I was wrong. The fact that the other houses, under the relative cover of anonymity joined in the baiting is reprehensible.

That display was not our most pressing concern.

Minerva is worried about Miss Granger. She feels Mr Thomas will have expended his grief fairly quickly, as his reaction was the one she was also hoping to see in Miss Granger.

Minerva cannot understand the numb lack of emotion. It seems contrived to her and though I tried to explain that Miss Granger would grieve in her own way and in her own time, this did little to ease her mind.

I find it too strange to analyse at the moment, but Miss Granger's reaction was all too similar to Minerva's reaction to a similar treachery in another lifetime.

There is other history afoot guiding Minerva...it's almost instinctual for her to try and see the same patterns in others.

She must forgive herself the follies of other times...

Yes, old friend, she must.