Rest with Your Dream in My Dream

Done a Bunk

1 May 1998; 23:45

She had no more time to think about Severus. He was no longer one of her problems, and there were quite enough of them to be getting on with.

After mustering the other staff, challenging Horace to pick a side at last, animating the castle's suits of armour, giving Argus something to do to get him out of the way, sending Potter and Lovegood to fetch the students marooned in the Room of Requirement, rousing the sleeping Gryffindors, planning the evacuation of hundreds of children, and battle-strategising with the Order members who had finally turned up, Minerva found herself in the Great Hall staring out at an ocean of faces, scared, excited, or just confused, looking up at her, expecting her to tell them what to do.

From the dais, Minerva could almost make herself believe it was a normal evening. Stars winked down at them from the enchanted ceiling, and the four House tables sat in their usual places, banners waving proudly above them, students milling about as if about to settle in for a meal.

Some of them wouldn't survive the night. Maybe most of them. Maybe all of them.

"I am sorry to tell you that our school is about to come under attack," she said.

A panicked roar rose from the crowd, and from the group of staff lined up behind her, gasps came from those who were not yet aware that their place of employment was about to become a battlefield and they soldiers.

Minerva waved her hands to quiet them and calmly outlined the evacuation plan. Her heart seized when one of the Hufflepuffs asked, "And what if we want to stay and fight?"

A mixture of pride and terrible sadness filled her at the notion of these children wanting to fight for the Light. Her eyes skittered to the Slytherin table. Some of them would likely join the other side. Not many, though, she thought. Few of them had shown any enthusiasm for the current regime, and several had endured the Carrows' harshest punishments when they'd stood up for other students. Only Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, easily the most thuggish of the group to begin with, had been active participants in the cruelties inflicted on their fellow students. Even Theo Nott, whose father was known to be higher in the Death Eater ranks than either Crabbe's or Goyle's, had been reluctant to engage in the Carrows' games.

How many others would have parents among the castle's attackers that evening?

She silently counted in her head: there were eleven Slytherin students who were seventeen or older. Tonight, they would have to make their choice as to which path they would follow.

"If you are of age, you may stay," she said.

One of the third-years — remarkably thick for a Ravenclaw, Minerva thought — asked about their trunks, and when Minerva replied that there was no time to collect belongings, no one else objected.

Another question came from the Slytherin table.

"Where's Professor Snape?"

An image of him sailing through the air over the Black Lake passed through Minerva's mind.

Where indeed?

Was he now with his master? Planning the invasion of the castle he had just left? The murder of his students and colleagues?

Something deep within her resisted the idea, despite the past months' evidence that Severus Snape was a traitor and a murderer.

A voice in her head spoke. This isn't his destiny.

It wasn't still or small, the voice, but she had no doubt it spoke the truth.

She told the assembly, "He has, to use the common phrase, done a bunk."