FIC: "Riddle Me This" for xylodemon
Title: Riddle Me This
Author/Artist: ???
Recipient's name: xylodemon
Character: Minerva
Rating: G
Summary: By the time you have reached an informed decision it is too late to do anything anyway.
Warnings: (Mild) hetty subtext?
Notes: Thank you to M for beta-reading :-)
The first time somebody is attacked, it comes as a huge shock. The school sits in the Great Hall in horrified silence as the teachers investigate; afterwards, everyone begs the prefects for information that they refuse to give. You exchange scared looks with everybody, but nobody moves, and you are left alone in your little corner of the room until Tom comes and sits down beside you.
You look him in the eyes, and ask him if he knows what's going on. He doesn't say, which is unsurprising, but his pursed lips and wrung hands and "Um, er, well," suggest that nobody quite knows.
But later, when one of the teachers shakily tells you all that Catherine Green of Ravenclaw has been Petrified but doesn't say how or by what, you look at Tom in fear. He reaches for your hand, but checks himself before he touches it, and tells you that you'll be fine; nothing is going to hurt you, honestly.
It isn't until he walks away that it occurs to you to wonder how he can be so sure.
+++
When a fourth year is killed, the attacks have become so routine that it shouldn't really come as so much of a shock; more just something that everybody knew would have to happen eventually. That doesn't mean that it doesn't.
It is awkward in the common room; everybody sits around in devastated confusion, not quite sure whether they should break the silence, although they have no idea what they would say even if they did.
The head girl gives up and goes to bed at eight o'clock and most of the others follow her example. You wait behind and sit for an hour or two chewing your lip and thinking before you go in search of Tom. You wander towards the Slytherin dungeons, but you stop when you hear raised voices near the Potions classroom. One of them is undoubtedly Tom's. The other is deeper, yet it sounds somehow vulnerable and fearful, and you wonder whose it is.
"It wasn' him! He wouldn'! He never!"
You press yourself into the wall so that you are obscured by the shadows, and listen. Tom's voice is harsh when he says, "Stand aside," and you fearfully reach for your wand as you know he is reaching for his, ready to intervene if it seems necessary, although not sure what you would do if it actually came to it.
You see the flash of light from a spell he doesn't say, and hear a crash from an impact you don't see, and you back further against the wall as something approaches the door, bursts out of it and escapes along the corridor in the other direction. You are vaguely aware that it has too many eyes and too many legs and pincers, and you know instantly that this must be the monster behind the attacks. You realise almost simultaneously that Tom must have saved everybody and that he seems to have accidentally set the monster free, and you wonder whether or not you should tell him, but by the time you have reached an informed decision it is too late to do anything anyway, so you just listen.
Tom says something. The words should be comforting, but his tone makes them a mocking threat, and you shiver. He says that he doesn't have any choice, somebody died, the school has to come first, and then he says something about going to tell Professor Dippet. The other boy doesn't respond, but he doesn't need to.
The next morning, an excited first year, Molly Something (Price? Hewitt?) tells you that the head boy caught the culprit in the middle of the night, and everybody is safe now, and isn't Tom Riddle a hero? She doesn't tell you who did it, and you don't ask, but you smile at her and pretend that you are merely relieved, rather than curious about something that really shouldn't raise any questions, but that somehow doesn't seem quite right.
You wonder if anybody caught the monster that ran away, and whether you are really safe at all, but Tom saw it too, and he looks calm enough, so they must have done.
You try and concentrate on homework and tell yourself that it will be all right now that Hagrid has gone; that it's all sorted out.
You struggle to explain why it doesn't quite feel as though it is.
+++
When you leave Hogwarts, you spend a few years working for the Ministry. Supposedly you're working as part of 'a multidisciplinary team monitoring the use of Transfiguration and Charms, in order to protect the wizarding world'; in reality, you spend it trying to acquire information and failing to work out what you believe, yet alone forming any kind of an opinion. The only thing you do know for definite is that you haven't heard the full story, and that something isn't quite right at Hogwarts.
When Dippet retires, Dumbledore becomes Headmaster and you apply for - and get - his old job. Teaching is much as you expected - repetitive, tiring, sometimes rewarding, more often not. But it does give you a vantage point from which you can keep an eye on Hagrid and Professor Dumbledore, and try and reach a conclusion as to what is actually going on, and what you actually think.
You vaguely approach the subject years later, when you have become Head of Gryffindor House and Dumbledore's confidante on the odd occasions when he wants someone other than his phoenix. By then, you have been colleagues for long enough that 'Professor McGonagall' and 'Professor Dumbledore' have become 'Minerva' and 'Albus', but not so long that it doesn't still feel slightly awkward.
He never likes to discuss Hagrid, although you have heard Tom's name come up a time or two. Albus usually stops talking about him when he notices you eavesdropping, but he did once ask you if the two of you still went out dancing, and seemed rather relieved when you told him in no uncertain terms that you had never once 'been out dancing' with Tom Riddle, nor did you intend to.
This time, though, he looks up at you the moment you enter the staff room, and looks relieved to see you on your own. You can tell that he wants somebody to bounce ideas off until he has reached some kind of a conclusion, although you doubt that he will ever actually tell you even half of what is bothering him.
"Tom Riddle came to see me today."
You nod with put-on unconcern, because you don't want someone as nosy as Albus to know that you have any kind of interest in anybody, let alone Tom Riddle, even if it is only to find out what an old friend has been doing lately. "And…?"
"He wanted me to consider him for the Defence Against the Dark Arts job."
Something about the sentence grates. The Tom Riddle you remember from school doesn't do 'wanting to be considered'; he generally just wants. "Did you give it to him?"
Albus shakes his head. "I didn't."
"I don't suppose you're going to tell me why?"
"I've known Tom Riddle a long time. He's a good wizard - best I've ever taught, no question. But I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him - and I doubt that would be particularly far, even if I used magic to do it."
"Why?"
He looks at you for a second, hard enough that you almost try to block him from entering your mind before you realise that he isn't using Legilimency against you after all. "Do you?"
You think about it for a while, not completely sure of the answer. "I used to. Now… I don't know. I have no reason not to." (As far as I know.)
He sits back and picks up a pile of parchment, and you look at him in annoyance. The conversation is clearly over before it really began, but before you get up to go to bed, you turn to look at him. "Should I trust him?"
Albus doesn't reply.
+++
The next time you see Tom, he is staring at you hard and unblinkingly, and pointing his wand at your chest. It vaguely occurs to you to wonder why he hasn't gone ahead and killed you yet, but you take advantage of it to hex him first. He calmly deflects it - you knew he would - but it is something of a surprise that somebody else takes advantage of his distraction to hex him, even if it is only Petrificus Totalus.
Albus doesn't say anything about it later. He seems more anxious about the fact that both of you combined didn't seem to be enough to kill Tom, and you can rather see his point.
Poppy makes you stay in the hospital wing that night 'for observation', which means that you miss the Order meeting Albus calls that evening, but from what you see of his face when he comes to visit you afterwards, they didn't come to much of a conclusion.
+++
"You think it - wise - to trust Hagrid with something as important as this?"
You know that Albus is right - at least you hope he is - but it is difficult, to say the least, to shake off five years of thinking Hagrid a murderer, then ten of not being quite sure that he could be trusted with anything, even if they were followed by a few more years of hoping that Albus was right.
"I would trust Hagrid with my life."
"I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place, but you can't pretend he's not careless. He does tend to…"
Does tend to what? Kill people? Set Acromantulas running around Hogwarts?
Get picked out as the innocent victim of some crazy mass-murdering ex-school friend of yours?
You shudder at the thought, the way you always do every time you let yourself think about it, but you are distracted by a noise that you pass off as a Muggle aeroplane until you realise that it is coming directly towards you. "What was that?"
Your eyes travel upwards in horror which turns to relief when you spot Hagrid, although you can't stop your eyes from narrowing in disapproval when you notice that he is riding a huge motorbike. They soften when they focus on the bundle of blankets in his arms.
Dumbledore breaks the silence after a moment; he sounds relieved, although a little unnerved. "Hagrid! At last. And where did you get that motorbike?"
It's a very good question, but you only half listen to the answer, because you are too busy gazing unseeingly at Harry, and trying to process the gossip you have been hearing all day. When you finally focus on Harry's face - the rest of him is hidden by blankets - your eyes are drawn to his forehead. There is a scar there, a thin lightning bolt that makes you wince to look at it, although it is closed and clean, so you let yourself hope for a second that Harry just fell into something a few months ago, and that it isn't a fresh curse scar at all.
"Is that where…?" you ask, dreading the answer even though you know perfectly well what it will be.
"Yes." Albus looks at it thoughtfully as he says, "He'll have that scar for ever."
+++
"All students to return to their house dormitories at once. All teachers return to the staff room. Immediately, please."
You sigh, trying to compose yourself but not sure whether you will ever really be able to. You should be relieved, you suppose, that you let yourself believe that Albus was right, but it isn't the time for plus sides. You knew Molly as a first year; you've known Ginny all her life, and now…. You smooth your hair back, grasping at normality that is slipping away from you far too fast for you to be able to recover it, and then stand, trying to think clearly.
Staff room. Explain. Don't panic. Send owl to Molly and Arthur. Get in touch with Albus. (Somehow.)
Calm.
You are the last person to reach the staff room, so that by the time you arrive, the others are exchanging puzzled glances and gossip, swapping brief ideas of what might have occurred and looking terrified. You want to comfort them, but the news is about as bad as it could be, so you just come out with it. "It has happened," you say to a silent audience, relieved that your voice is steady, because it really shouldn't be. "A student has been taken by the monster. Right into the Chamber itself."
There is a squeal from Filius' direction, and Pomona claps her hands over her mouth in shock. Sybill goes paler than usual and mutters something about having seen this coming. You don't have the energy to tell her to be quiet, and who are you to doubt her anyway?
Severus stares at you, knuckles white from gripping his chair. It's further proof that his past decisions, like yours, were the right ones. Like you, he doesn't seem to find this much comfort. "How can you be sure?"
You look at him - your face is probably as pale as his. "The heir of Slytherin left another message. Right underneath the first one. Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever."
Filius bursts into tears, and you carefully don't look in his direction so as not to do the same thing. All around you, people are exchanging terrified looks. You all dreaded this; you all convinced yourselves that it would never happen.
"Who is it?" asks Rolanda, although her face suggests that she doesn't want to know. "Which student?"
"Ginny Weasley."
Her name somehow makes everything much more true, much more impossible to escape, and you want nothing more than to leave the room and take the Floo to The Burrow. Albus wouldn't have run away, though, and you can't either. The school comes first.
It always did.
"We shall have to send the students home tomorrow. This is the end of Hogwarts. Dumbledore always said…"
You are cut off by Gilderoy, grinning and looking as smug as ever. "So sorry - dozed off - what have I missed?"
Severus saves you from having to kill him, stepping forward with the glint in his eye of a predator that has just picked out its prey. Severus carefully enunciates every word when he speaks, letting Gilderoy know that he is deadly serious. The rest of the room watches, and Filius nods in silent support. You let the banter go over your head, trying to stay calm and not really succeeding, until you hear Hagrid's name.
"I…I really never… You may have misunderstood…" Gilderoy stammers.
You glare at him. So do the rest of the staff. "We'll leave it to you then, Gilderoy. Tonight will be an excellent time to do it. We'll make sure everyone's out of your way. You'll be able to tackle the monster all by yourself. A free rein at last." Your voice is almost friendly, but there is an edge to it that warns him that you are not messing about.
He backs away, suitably scared. "V-very well. I'll - I'll be in my office, getting - getting ready."
When he leaves, you give a sigh that isn't really relief. "Right," you say, turning to the others. "That got him out from under our feet. The Heads of Houses should go and inform their students what has happened. Tell them the Hogwarts Express will take them home first thing tomorrow. Will the rest of you please make sure no students have been left outside their dormitories?"
Severus and Rolanda stand immediately, faces not giving away any emotion, clearly wanting to return to business. Poppy, too, gets up quickly. The others linger for a while, letting the news sink in, although it doesn't, and they are still pale as they leave the room. You and Sybill are the last to leave. You follow her out, wondering how to break the news to Ginny's family.
+++
You draft several letters to Molly, which all sound too awkward and too informal and too businesslike for the purpose. She's been a friend for years, and Arthur is a fellow ex-Order member, so you feel that you must be the right person to break the news, yet it is all too clear that you aren't going to do a decent job of it. You almost wish that Albus were there to help, but you stop yourself thinking it just in time.
Finally you manage to string together the closest you are going to get to the right words, and you fold up the parchment before you can back out of sending it.
Letter sent, you should really go and talk to the Gryffindors, but the Weasley children need to be told first, separately, and you aren't quite sure how you should go about that. Instead, you waste time drinking tea and thinking hard about what you should say, so that when you finally tell them, Percy looks impatient that he didn't hear sooner. The twins don't waste emotion on impatience: George turns away, shoulders hunched, head bowed; Fred just stares at you in disbelieving horror.
You aren't sure how exactly you should behave. As a family friend, you should stay with them. As Molly's friend, you should be trying to do anything you can to help Ginny. As their Head of House, you should be comforting them, but as Headmistress, you are expected to keep everybody else calm and make sure that they're doing what they should be doing, and you don't have time to spare for doing anything yourself. The school has to come first, after all.
You look Fred in the eyes before you leave them alone, trying to convey sympathy and apology for leaving them this soon. The eyes that meet yours are blank, and that isn't right, although you aren't sure whether they should be full of grief or fear or accusation, or just Ginny.
+++
Albus returns in time to help you comfort Arthur and Molly, which is a relief, since he has a vague idea of what to say to them, whereas you have none at all. For most of their visit, you sit in silence, Molly and Arthur in the chairs in front of your desk holding hands, Albus standing by the fireplace. You move between them, and get the impression that you are getting in the way more than you are helping. You stand still for a while, watching the Weasleys, trying to imagine yourself in their position and failing completely, until a knock at the door breaks your concentration. It annoys you, and it takes you a moment to realise that you should probably answer it, by which time the visitors have let themselves in anyway. You give Arthur an apologetic smile that he probably doesn't notice as you look up, to find Potter staring back at you. You struggle to read his emotions; his eyes seem to be a mix of feelings that run together so that you can't make sense of them, but are something along the lines of pridefearrelief that makes you glance from him to his companions, and then stare at them.
Molly rouses herself to look at the group by the door, and then she screams in disbelieving relief, and she and Arthur get up and leap on their daughter before you have quite processed the fact that Ginny Weasley is standing in front of you, apparently in perfect health, if filthy.
You glance at Albus, who is looking over the children, checking for lasting damage. Moments later he smiles at you in relief that you know isn't just because they all seem to be all right.
+++
You sit together in the staff room later on, and neither of you says anything beyond, "It's good to be back" and "Pass the biscuits" and "What time is it?" because there doesn't seem to be any need to. But when Albus looks up and attaches his letter to Fawkes's leg, you say that it will be nice to see Hagrid again. He smiles at you, looking so smug that you want to throw something at him even though you are pleased to see him back. At least now you don't have to be Acting Headmistress any more.
The school comes first, after all.
It always does.
Author/Artist: ???
Recipient's name: xylodemon
Character: Minerva
Rating: G
Summary: By the time you have reached an informed decision it is too late to do anything anyway.
Warnings: (Mild) hetty subtext?
Notes: Thank you to M for beta-reading :-)
The first time somebody is attacked, it comes as a huge shock. The school sits in the Great Hall in horrified silence as the teachers investigate; afterwards, everyone begs the prefects for information that they refuse to give. You exchange scared looks with everybody, but nobody moves, and you are left alone in your little corner of the room until Tom comes and sits down beside you.
You look him in the eyes, and ask him if he knows what's going on. He doesn't say, which is unsurprising, but his pursed lips and wrung hands and "Um, er, well," suggest that nobody quite knows.
But later, when one of the teachers shakily tells you all that Catherine Green of Ravenclaw has been Petrified but doesn't say how or by what, you look at Tom in fear. He reaches for your hand, but checks himself before he touches it, and tells you that you'll be fine; nothing is going to hurt you, honestly.
It isn't until he walks away that it occurs to you to wonder how he can be so sure.
+++
When a fourth year is killed, the attacks have become so routine that it shouldn't really come as so much of a shock; more just something that everybody knew would have to happen eventually. That doesn't mean that it doesn't.
It is awkward in the common room; everybody sits around in devastated confusion, not quite sure whether they should break the silence, although they have no idea what they would say even if they did.
The head girl gives up and goes to bed at eight o'clock and most of the others follow her example. You wait behind and sit for an hour or two chewing your lip and thinking before you go in search of Tom. You wander towards the Slytherin dungeons, but you stop when you hear raised voices near the Potions classroom. One of them is undoubtedly Tom's. The other is deeper, yet it sounds somehow vulnerable and fearful, and you wonder whose it is.
"It wasn' him! He wouldn'! He never!"
You press yourself into the wall so that you are obscured by the shadows, and listen. Tom's voice is harsh when he says, "Stand aside," and you fearfully reach for your wand as you know he is reaching for his, ready to intervene if it seems necessary, although not sure what you would do if it actually came to it.
You see the flash of light from a spell he doesn't say, and hear a crash from an impact you don't see, and you back further against the wall as something approaches the door, bursts out of it and escapes along the corridor in the other direction. You are vaguely aware that it has too many eyes and too many legs and pincers, and you know instantly that this must be the monster behind the attacks. You realise almost simultaneously that Tom must have saved everybody and that he seems to have accidentally set the monster free, and you wonder whether or not you should tell him, but by the time you have reached an informed decision it is too late to do anything anyway, so you just listen.
Tom says something. The words should be comforting, but his tone makes them a mocking threat, and you shiver. He says that he doesn't have any choice, somebody died, the school has to come first, and then he says something about going to tell Professor Dippet. The other boy doesn't respond, but he doesn't need to.
The next morning, an excited first year, Molly Something (Price? Hewitt?) tells you that the head boy caught the culprit in the middle of the night, and everybody is safe now, and isn't Tom Riddle a hero? She doesn't tell you who did it, and you don't ask, but you smile at her and pretend that you are merely relieved, rather than curious about something that really shouldn't raise any questions, but that somehow doesn't seem quite right.
You wonder if anybody caught the monster that ran away, and whether you are really safe at all, but Tom saw it too, and he looks calm enough, so they must have done.
You try and concentrate on homework and tell yourself that it will be all right now that Hagrid has gone; that it's all sorted out.
You struggle to explain why it doesn't quite feel as though it is.
+++
When you leave Hogwarts, you spend a few years working for the Ministry. Supposedly you're working as part of 'a multidisciplinary team monitoring the use of Transfiguration and Charms, in order to protect the wizarding world'; in reality, you spend it trying to acquire information and failing to work out what you believe, yet alone forming any kind of an opinion. The only thing you do know for definite is that you haven't heard the full story, and that something isn't quite right at Hogwarts.
When Dippet retires, Dumbledore becomes Headmaster and you apply for - and get - his old job. Teaching is much as you expected - repetitive, tiring, sometimes rewarding, more often not. But it does give you a vantage point from which you can keep an eye on Hagrid and Professor Dumbledore, and try and reach a conclusion as to what is actually going on, and what you actually think.
You vaguely approach the subject years later, when you have become Head of Gryffindor House and Dumbledore's confidante on the odd occasions when he wants someone other than his phoenix. By then, you have been colleagues for long enough that 'Professor McGonagall' and 'Professor Dumbledore' have become 'Minerva' and 'Albus', but not so long that it doesn't still feel slightly awkward.
He never likes to discuss Hagrid, although you have heard Tom's name come up a time or two. Albus usually stops talking about him when he notices you eavesdropping, but he did once ask you if the two of you still went out dancing, and seemed rather relieved when you told him in no uncertain terms that you had never once 'been out dancing' with Tom Riddle, nor did you intend to.
This time, though, he looks up at you the moment you enter the staff room, and looks relieved to see you on your own. You can tell that he wants somebody to bounce ideas off until he has reached some kind of a conclusion, although you doubt that he will ever actually tell you even half of what is bothering him.
"Tom Riddle came to see me today."
You nod with put-on unconcern, because you don't want someone as nosy as Albus to know that you have any kind of interest in anybody, let alone Tom Riddle, even if it is only to find out what an old friend has been doing lately. "And…?"
"He wanted me to consider him for the Defence Against the Dark Arts job."
Something about the sentence grates. The Tom Riddle you remember from school doesn't do 'wanting to be considered'; he generally just wants. "Did you give it to him?"
Albus shakes his head. "I didn't."
"I don't suppose you're going to tell me why?"
"I've known Tom Riddle a long time. He's a good wizard - best I've ever taught, no question. But I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him - and I doubt that would be particularly far, even if I used magic to do it."
"Why?"
He looks at you for a second, hard enough that you almost try to block him from entering your mind before you realise that he isn't using Legilimency against you after all. "Do you?"
You think about it for a while, not completely sure of the answer. "I used to. Now… I don't know. I have no reason not to." (As far as I know.)
He sits back and picks up a pile of parchment, and you look at him in annoyance. The conversation is clearly over before it really began, but before you get up to go to bed, you turn to look at him. "Should I trust him?"
Albus doesn't reply.
+++
The next time you see Tom, he is staring at you hard and unblinkingly, and pointing his wand at your chest. It vaguely occurs to you to wonder why he hasn't gone ahead and killed you yet, but you take advantage of it to hex him first. He calmly deflects it - you knew he would - but it is something of a surprise that somebody else takes advantage of his distraction to hex him, even if it is only Petrificus Totalus.
Albus doesn't say anything about it later. He seems more anxious about the fact that both of you combined didn't seem to be enough to kill Tom, and you can rather see his point.
Poppy makes you stay in the hospital wing that night 'for observation', which means that you miss the Order meeting Albus calls that evening, but from what you see of his face when he comes to visit you afterwards, they didn't come to much of a conclusion.
+++
"You think it - wise - to trust Hagrid with something as important as this?"
You know that Albus is right - at least you hope he is - but it is difficult, to say the least, to shake off five years of thinking Hagrid a murderer, then ten of not being quite sure that he could be trusted with anything, even if they were followed by a few more years of hoping that Albus was right.
"I would trust Hagrid with my life."
"I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place, but you can't pretend he's not careless. He does tend to…"
Does tend to what? Kill people? Set Acromantulas running around Hogwarts?
Get picked out as the innocent victim of some crazy mass-murdering ex-school friend of yours?
You shudder at the thought, the way you always do every time you let yourself think about it, but you are distracted by a noise that you pass off as a Muggle aeroplane until you realise that it is coming directly towards you. "What was that?"
Your eyes travel upwards in horror which turns to relief when you spot Hagrid, although you can't stop your eyes from narrowing in disapproval when you notice that he is riding a huge motorbike. They soften when they focus on the bundle of blankets in his arms.
Dumbledore breaks the silence after a moment; he sounds relieved, although a little unnerved. "Hagrid! At last. And where did you get that motorbike?"
It's a very good question, but you only half listen to the answer, because you are too busy gazing unseeingly at Harry, and trying to process the gossip you have been hearing all day. When you finally focus on Harry's face - the rest of him is hidden by blankets - your eyes are drawn to his forehead. There is a scar there, a thin lightning bolt that makes you wince to look at it, although it is closed and clean, so you let yourself hope for a second that Harry just fell into something a few months ago, and that it isn't a fresh curse scar at all.
"Is that where…?" you ask, dreading the answer even though you know perfectly well what it will be.
"Yes." Albus looks at it thoughtfully as he says, "He'll have that scar for ever."
+++
"All students to return to their house dormitories at once. All teachers return to the staff room. Immediately, please."
You sigh, trying to compose yourself but not sure whether you will ever really be able to. You should be relieved, you suppose, that you let yourself believe that Albus was right, but it isn't the time for plus sides. You knew Molly as a first year; you've known Ginny all her life, and now…. You smooth your hair back, grasping at normality that is slipping away from you far too fast for you to be able to recover it, and then stand, trying to think clearly.
Staff room. Explain. Don't panic. Send owl to Molly and Arthur. Get in touch with Albus. (Somehow.)
Calm.
You are the last person to reach the staff room, so that by the time you arrive, the others are exchanging puzzled glances and gossip, swapping brief ideas of what might have occurred and looking terrified. You want to comfort them, but the news is about as bad as it could be, so you just come out with it. "It has happened," you say to a silent audience, relieved that your voice is steady, because it really shouldn't be. "A student has been taken by the monster. Right into the Chamber itself."
There is a squeal from Filius' direction, and Pomona claps her hands over her mouth in shock. Sybill goes paler than usual and mutters something about having seen this coming. You don't have the energy to tell her to be quiet, and who are you to doubt her anyway?
Severus stares at you, knuckles white from gripping his chair. It's further proof that his past decisions, like yours, were the right ones. Like you, he doesn't seem to find this much comfort. "How can you be sure?"
You look at him - your face is probably as pale as his. "The heir of Slytherin left another message. Right underneath the first one. Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever."
Filius bursts into tears, and you carefully don't look in his direction so as not to do the same thing. All around you, people are exchanging terrified looks. You all dreaded this; you all convinced yourselves that it would never happen.
"Who is it?" asks Rolanda, although her face suggests that she doesn't want to know. "Which student?"
"Ginny Weasley."
Her name somehow makes everything much more true, much more impossible to escape, and you want nothing more than to leave the room and take the Floo to The Burrow. Albus wouldn't have run away, though, and you can't either. The school comes first.
It always did.
"We shall have to send the students home tomorrow. This is the end of Hogwarts. Dumbledore always said…"
You are cut off by Gilderoy, grinning and looking as smug as ever. "So sorry - dozed off - what have I missed?"
Severus saves you from having to kill him, stepping forward with the glint in his eye of a predator that has just picked out its prey. Severus carefully enunciates every word when he speaks, letting Gilderoy know that he is deadly serious. The rest of the room watches, and Filius nods in silent support. You let the banter go over your head, trying to stay calm and not really succeeding, until you hear Hagrid's name.
"I…I really never… You may have misunderstood…" Gilderoy stammers.
You glare at him. So do the rest of the staff. "We'll leave it to you then, Gilderoy. Tonight will be an excellent time to do it. We'll make sure everyone's out of your way. You'll be able to tackle the monster all by yourself. A free rein at last." Your voice is almost friendly, but there is an edge to it that warns him that you are not messing about.
He backs away, suitably scared. "V-very well. I'll - I'll be in my office, getting - getting ready."
When he leaves, you give a sigh that isn't really relief. "Right," you say, turning to the others. "That got him out from under our feet. The Heads of Houses should go and inform their students what has happened. Tell them the Hogwarts Express will take them home first thing tomorrow. Will the rest of you please make sure no students have been left outside their dormitories?"
Severus and Rolanda stand immediately, faces not giving away any emotion, clearly wanting to return to business. Poppy, too, gets up quickly. The others linger for a while, letting the news sink in, although it doesn't, and they are still pale as they leave the room. You and Sybill are the last to leave. You follow her out, wondering how to break the news to Ginny's family.
+++
You draft several letters to Molly, which all sound too awkward and too informal and too businesslike for the purpose. She's been a friend for years, and Arthur is a fellow ex-Order member, so you feel that you must be the right person to break the news, yet it is all too clear that you aren't going to do a decent job of it. You almost wish that Albus were there to help, but you stop yourself thinking it just in time.
Finally you manage to string together the closest you are going to get to the right words, and you fold up the parchment before you can back out of sending it.
Letter sent, you should really go and talk to the Gryffindors, but the Weasley children need to be told first, separately, and you aren't quite sure how you should go about that. Instead, you waste time drinking tea and thinking hard about what you should say, so that when you finally tell them, Percy looks impatient that he didn't hear sooner. The twins don't waste emotion on impatience: George turns away, shoulders hunched, head bowed; Fred just stares at you in disbelieving horror.
You aren't sure how exactly you should behave. As a family friend, you should stay with them. As Molly's friend, you should be trying to do anything you can to help Ginny. As their Head of House, you should be comforting them, but as Headmistress, you are expected to keep everybody else calm and make sure that they're doing what they should be doing, and you don't have time to spare for doing anything yourself. The school has to come first, after all.
You look Fred in the eyes before you leave them alone, trying to convey sympathy and apology for leaving them this soon. The eyes that meet yours are blank, and that isn't right, although you aren't sure whether they should be full of grief or fear or accusation, or just Ginny.
+++
Albus returns in time to help you comfort Arthur and Molly, which is a relief, since he has a vague idea of what to say to them, whereas you have none at all. For most of their visit, you sit in silence, Molly and Arthur in the chairs in front of your desk holding hands, Albus standing by the fireplace. You move between them, and get the impression that you are getting in the way more than you are helping. You stand still for a while, watching the Weasleys, trying to imagine yourself in their position and failing completely, until a knock at the door breaks your concentration. It annoys you, and it takes you a moment to realise that you should probably answer it, by which time the visitors have let themselves in anyway. You give Arthur an apologetic smile that he probably doesn't notice as you look up, to find Potter staring back at you. You struggle to read his emotions; his eyes seem to be a mix of feelings that run together so that you can't make sense of them, but are something along the lines of pridefearrelief that makes you glance from him to his companions, and then stare at them.
Molly rouses herself to look at the group by the door, and then she screams in disbelieving relief, and she and Arthur get up and leap on their daughter before you have quite processed the fact that Ginny Weasley is standing in front of you, apparently in perfect health, if filthy.
You glance at Albus, who is looking over the children, checking for lasting damage. Moments later he smiles at you in relief that you know isn't just because they all seem to be all right.
+++
You sit together in the staff room later on, and neither of you says anything beyond, "It's good to be back" and "Pass the biscuits" and "What time is it?" because there doesn't seem to be any need to. But when Albus looks up and attaches his letter to Fawkes's leg, you say that it will be nice to see Hagrid again. He smiles at you, looking so smug that you want to throw something at him even though you are pleased to see him back. At least now you don't have to be Acting Headmistress any more.
The school comes first, after all.
It always does.