𝐔𝐧𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥

Get a grip

After many years full of incidents, Minerva had grown to value routine. Every morning, she completed a series of innocent rituals that got her ready to start her day at peace. Every day, she'd wake up at 5 a.m., and not a minute late, to enjoy the quiet time before the castle revived; and, before choosing her garments for the day, she'd open her door to find a copy of The Daily Prophet promptly delivered at her doorstep.

This morning wasn't objectively different from countless others, but it felt so: Minerva had a bad feeling about that Wednesday, and it was soon demonstrated correct by the note she found attached to the newspaper.

"Dear Minerva,

my apologies for the late delivery. The Barrier will be implemented by the end of the day."

The message lacked a signature, but she would have recognized that unnecessarily formal tone and that minute, pointy handwriting amongst a thousand: after all, during the many years they'd known each other, Severus had left her hundreds of notes. Minerva couldn't recall when they had both stopped signing them, but at some point in time, they had. His messages tended to appear in the most bizarre places, but always where he knew she'd find them; and each time a new one materialized, she felt a little spark of joy.

That note, however, was different. It was worrying, to be precise.

She had kept a lot of her perplexities to herself, since they pertained more to personal judgments than to objective evaluation; however, she had been wondering for a while if she had done the right thing, in that regard.

The Barrier's structure was concerning, to say the least.

Only after Severus and Blanche had defined their project she had realized her mistake: she had grossly miscalculated the results of that combination, unusually so.

Even Filius had tried to warn her, but she had dismissed his observations despite her knowing of his infallible intuition. His words had been bothering her for a while, now: "Severus alone is fine, but those two together... Minerva, do you want us dead?"

On paper, they were the perfect team. In reality, they were a match made in hell, and entrusting them with that project had been a gross mistake. Minerva was frustrated with herself, but most of all, she was worried for everyone involved.

Meanwhile, she wasn't alone in her preoccupation: at the same time, Blanche was awake and almost too tense to function. After tossing and turning in her bed for hours, she couldn't bear it anymore and, as soon as the first light of day showed up, she got up. Her room felt suffocating, and the utter chaos ruling it wasn't of any help. Her books were scattered everywhere, where she had piled or thrown them in frustration; that sight alone was asphyxiating enough to make her bolt out of the door. She couldn't stand to be in there a second more.

The lack of sleep was taking its toll on her as much as the overwhelming stress, altering her into a person she didn't recognize nor like: an impulsive, deranged, unhappy shell of herself.

Her first class would start at 8 a.m., meaning she had nothing to do for at least two more hours. Going down the stairs, she absent-mindedly greeted the magic portraits. One of them, the old man in the brown robe, waved at her with a friendly grin. He was apparently in a chatty mood.

"'Morning, Professor! Weary, are we?"

Blanche gave him a bleak smile. "A bit, Mister..."

"Oh, my! Manners! It's Solomon. No Mister, thank you, it makes me feel old."

"Nice to officially meet you, Solomon." Blanche tried to maintain her replies as short as possible, since she was too tired to trust herself with her words. "Nice to meet you, Professor. On a more serious note," he replied, "Be careful." His last words took an unexpected, grave turn that took Blanche by surprise. "Excuse me?"