Mather's Treaty

He frowned at the potions master, who was ignoring him.

"Severus," he admonished. "Did you sleep at all this morning?" Snape shook his head but said nothing, frowning intensely at whatever it was he was reading. "Have you eaten?" There was an absent nod but again no speech. "Well, that's something at least," Dumbledore said in a disgruntled tone.

"Who - what? I'm sorry, Headmaster," Snape said distractedly bringing his crooked nose up from the musty pages. "Did you say something?"

Dumbledore heaved a heavy sigh and shook his head, the white hair ruffling over his shoulders. "No, Severus, pray continue your reading." Snape snorted and did as he was bid without much effort. Dumbledore eyed him curiously as he buttered toast.

One by one the other Hogwarts instructors entered the Great Hall in various states of wakefulness and dress. House elves appeared, looking slightly worse for wear themselves. It was a sign of how tired the occupants of Hogwarts were when the house elves showed themselves when serving, but then they had always been less formal when it was just the teachers in residence.

Utensils had been clinking on plates for several minutes before Dumbledore began paying any attention to his companions.

"Where's Minerva?" he asked a tiny female house elf pouring him some more pumpkin juice. "Still in bed?"

"We not seen Professor McGonagall this morning, Headmaster," squeaked the house elf in a high soprano.

The humans in the room froze and even Snape's eyes stopped moving over the page. Those black orbs lifted to meet Dumbledore's widened blue ones. In one smooth motion, the potions master closed the book and stood up. Without saying a word, he strode from the hall and out the door. There was no doubt where he was going.

The rest of the room turned to stare at the stricken headmaster, whose head began to sag until it tilted back in dejection. Dumbledore doubted he'd forgive himself if he'd sent Minerva to her death.

Severus stood quivering on the edge of forest. He was spooked already from reading the passages in the Malleus Maleficarum dealing with the forcing of confessions from witches. Standing by the forest that housed the thing that they had spent the entire night fighting didn't help his already frayed nerves any. Yet McGonagall was out there somewhere, possibly injured. Severus admired the stalwart woman and was determined to bring her back safely.

One foot in front of the other he forced himself down the path that wound through the trees. Birds twittered and a slight breeze whistled through the leafy branches. All seemed normal and peaceful, belying the disturbing stillness of the last evening. Severus wasn't sure if he was looking for a black and grey tabby cat or a woman a several decades older than he, but he kept his eyes open and his hearing keen for any sound remotely human or feline.

He had no idea how long he'd been walking through the forest, straying off the path in areas he was acquainted with from previous trips for potions ingredients. His uneasiness grew the deeper he went and just when Snape was beginning to despair of finding her, he heard a sound distinctly McGonagall.

"Oh, bother!" The exclamation was filled with self-disgust and a slight trace of anxiety.

"Minerva?" he called out.

There was a pregnant pause.

"Severus? Severus, is that you?"

Snape turned to his left where McGonagall's voice came to him. "Follow my voice to the path."

"I'm that close?" She sounded disgruntled. She stepped from behind several trees a slight distance away and walked briskly to him. "For the love of…" Her voice trailed off and her lips pursed. "I want to go home." Her voice had a distinct whiny quality to it.

Severus agreed with a comforting murmur, taking in her battered appearance. Dirt and grass hung from the long strands of unkempt dark hair normally in a tight bun. Her robes were torn and shredded. Her hands and other exposed skin areas were abraded and bruised.

"Looks like you've had an adventure," he commented blandly.

"You have no idea," she growled felinely.

"I might have a small idea," he told her and began relating their battle at Hogsmeade. Her eyes grew round as he talked and they walked. When he finished, she began explaining the wind and her fight to stay on the ground.

"He spoke to me, Severus," Minerva said with a shudder.

He stared at her. "What?" he gasped, stunned.

"He called me a witch," she began.

"Which you are," Snape pointed out with a grin.

"Then he called me a demoness!" Minerva looked outraged. Snape refrained from comment on that point. "Then he said something about I would pay for my…my heresy."

Severus looked thoughtful. "Hmmm. Heresy. Yes…" Snape's black eyes widened as if he'd just discovered a revelation. "Of course!" He smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. "Come." He grabbed her hand and pulled her into a run out of the forest, speeding past a bleary-eyed Hagrid, who had just exited his small cabin.

"Glad yer alright, Professor McGonagall!" called out Hagrid.

"Hagrid, to the castle," barked Snape without even pausing to stop or call over his shoulder. Hagrid's heavy footsteps mingled with those of his boarhound Fang as they pelted behind the two professors.

Snape burst through the castle doors, still dragging a panting McGonagall behind him.

"Headmaster!" he shouted. Dumbledore came shooting out of the Great Hall, the other teachers hot on his heels. "I have it!"

"Severus?" queried the headmaster. "Minerva! Are you alright?" He hurried over to the deputy headmistress and began examining her. Madam Pomfrey brushed him aside and sat Minerva down on a small bench in the foyer, quickly giving the injured witch a once over.

"I know how we can get rid of this blasted haunt." Snape's eyes were glittering with triumph.

"How?" asked Flitwick.

"The ghosts had the right of it. The haunt told Minerva last night that she would pay for her heresy. If we consecrate his grave, he cannot haunt us anymore. Witch hunters believed we were heretics, disbelievers of the one true God." He managed to keep a sneer from his words as he did so, but it was a just barely thing. "We need to find a wizard or witch who is a member of the clergy, any clergy."

"And?" prompted McGonagall in confusion. She frowned and flinched when Pomfrey found a particularly sore spot in her ministrations.

"He seems to be able to sense people with magical ability," pointed out Snape. "If he senses a member of a Christian order consecrating his grave that has magical ability -" Snape shrugged. "Well, let's just say, it would put me in a twist if I were him."

Dumbledore looked thoughtful. "Did you find his grave, Minerva?"

She shook her head and related to the others what had happened to her the night before. "I am more than willing to try again," she informed him with squared shoulders and a resolute expression.

"Severus, get to that book. Find me passages that I can use against Mather's spirit. I haven't been before a pulpit in many years but I may need to brush up on my oratory skills in that sense." Dumbledore turned around quickly and strode toward his office. "Minerva, you will indeed go back again tonight but with a few more defenses on you. We'll charm you to practical imperviousness and send you in earlier than usual, from the other end of the forest. I have a feeling that he sensed you on his way to Hogsmeade. Perhaps if you come from another direction and catch him on the way back you'll stand a better chance."

McGonagall heaved a sigh but nodded her agreement. "Very well, I'm going to get some breakfast and go to bed."

"An excellent idea, but you'll do it after I've seen to these abrasion, Minerva," Madam Pomfrey informed her. Minerva looked to where Snape had been standing and found him gone.

No doubt he'd gone back to his studies.

Snape had never been so happy his father had forced him to learn Latin as if it were his native language. While this didn’t help often if the scheme of things, on rare occasions, like trying to read the Malleus Maleficarum, it came in useful. There were three parts to the Maleficarum and Snape was struggling to get through it all to find what Dumbledore needed to fight fire with fire, so to speak. He had a general idea now of what to look for but that didn't make things any easier.

"Something that will pose as a distraction," Snape murmured as he flipped page after page. "Something preferably that will cause some anguish as well, just for extra measure."

The entire day the potions master sat ensconced in his quiet corner of the library, his quill scribbling, making notations of pages and paragraphs that would help the headmaster in his forthcoming battle.