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He cannot suppress the pang of guilt when they start. He never liked those young upstarts, but they don’t deserve this. Not even Longbottom, who has sworn to be the eternal thorn in his side along with Weasley and Lovegood, deserves such a fate. It is little consolation that their screams are downright musical compared to how they would have been if he hadn’t succeeded. They are pathetic compared to the screams of the Dark Lord’s victims and of the screams tormenting him day and night. Yet still, they are screams.
He wanders the corridor, unable to find, not peace, no, he doesn’t know peace, but some deep feeling that gnaws at the pit of whatever he has left of a soul. He is so lost in his own musings that he does not notice her. Too late, he hears a most familiar clicking of heels come his way, “Minerva.”
Before he can say anything more, her wand is at his heart. “If you try to stop me, Severus, don’t think I’ll allow it,” she threatens as he hears the screams draw louder.
“Might I remind you that I am the Headmaster now?” he says. He doesn’t quite like holding his authority over his former colleagues, especially not her, but he ruefully admits to himself that it is necessary. The look on her face, piercing and accusatory, clearly conveys her ire at the reminder that she no longer has power over him. She doesn’t seem to care for her own life as she tries to barge past him, and he notes that his body makes a poor barrier between her and her students. Still, he manages to obstruct her way. For now.
“You’re an usurper, Severus, nothing more,” she replies with a steely whisper that evokes the image of the goddess for whom she was named.
“So you’ve said,” he sighs wearily. It’s true. This isn’t the first or even fifth time she has led him down the thorn filled path of accusations and aspersions and condemnation.
“Move aside, Severus, or I’ll kill you where you stand,” Minerva threatens. Little can surprise him anymore, but he is still taken aback. She’s never had qualms about threatening him, but never so blatantly has she laid her anger at his feet, not even bothering with a veneer of respect.
Despite the menace, the anger, the conviction in her voice, Severus answers, “And how would the Dark Lord killing you allow you to do your duty? Careful, Minerva. Someone might doubt your loyalties.”
He can feel the hatred emanating from her person as she clenches her teeth. Her voice is soft yet sharp like tempered glass, “I will not be lectured about my duty to Hogwarts by the man who cast away his obligation as soon as he could run back to his master. I will not be lectured about where my loyalties lie by the traitor who played with the loyalty given to him.”
She glares at him over her jewel encrusted spectacles. She too knows how many times she has confronted him with this specific speech. She wants it to stay fresh in his mind and haunt his waking hours. He cannot tell her that it does. Minerva speaks again, “He considered you a friend, and you betrayed him. The night you murdered him, he told us that he had put the school in your hands.” Her voice gets louder, “He wouldn’t hear anything from us against you when we all thought you defected. And you murdered him.”
His previous wounds from her words do not dull the pain when she strikes again, and Severus feels secure that she hates him too much to know the truth. As she should. That thought gives him the courage not to scream that he didn’t want all this, that he doesn’t relish being thought of as the monster he might as well be. Yet still, despite everything, her voice, reduced from authoritative censure to pleading whisper, as if she is trying to convince herself, even after all he’s done, that he has been lost forever, breezes past his ears, “I thought we were friends, Severus. What a fool I was.” And the wounds grow deeper.
She manages to step past him, finally turning her back on him.
He walks away.
Behind him, the screams continue.