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“Albus– the boys–”
The silvery cat that materialised in the middle of the night inside the Headmaster’s private quarters was not unprecedented. It was Minerva’s duty to stay alert to all things concerning the students’ safety, and it was Albus’s duty to be ready to respond to any crisis that would arise.
In general, Albus Dumbledore was the kind of person to anticipate everything. But he wasn’t prepared for what he saw when he entered Hogwarts’ infirmary that night.
Draco Malfoy, sliced open with a vengeance, was carried over by Severus Snape, who looked as if suddenly he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Harry Potter trailed after them, the Boy-who-lived-to-cut-Draco-in-pieces. He was looking at his hands as if they were capable of the worst.
And, judging by the extent of Draco’s wounds, maybe they were.
“Merlin help us–” Madam Pomfrey muttered, immediately springing into action. The infirmary matron carefully urged Severus to step away from the situation. She then leaned over the injured boy, slicing his shirt with a wandless flick of her index.
The lacerations that painted Draco's crisp school shirt red were ugly. Deep. An ominous warning that his life was dangerously close to ending too soon.
Minerva, next to Albus, let out a choked sob in the face of violence, but Albus was looking at Severus instead, who had walked closer to Harry in the meantime.
The Potions Master, in turn, was looking at young Harry as if trying to ascertain whether the boy truly understood how he almost murdered his nemesis in cold blood. Harry himself looked every bit like a ghost. His gaze was focused on the bed where Draco lay, not really seeing the movement in the room.
“Severus,” Minerva began, trying to peel her gaze away from the morbid sight of Draco's torn body. Her whole body stance screamed the intrusive thoughts running rampant in her head. Her gaze fell on the shirt that Pomfrey had carefully taken off the boy. “What happened? Were you there?”
“Ask him,” Severus said. His voice sounded deceitfully calm, and upon hearing it, Harry turned to his Potions Professor as if it were the first time he saw him. “He decided confronting Malfoy in the bathroom in the middle of the night was a good way to take revenge. Isn’t it so, Potter?”
“Sir,” Harry began, but then paused, too choked up to respond. The elders, besides Severus, looked at the boy with sympathy. “I…I didn’t want to hurt him–”
“You used Sectumsempra, Potter,” Severus snapped. Madam Pomfrey let out a gasp that betrayed how familiar she was with that curse. “A dark curse that slices flesh with intent. You wanted to take revenge on Malfoy for what? For antagonising you? You tore him apart, Potter, look at him!”
No words slipped out of the boy’s lips. Harry looked devastated, his eyes flitting quickly from Severus to Albus and then back to Draco's unconscious body.
That made the Potions Master even more furious.
“Are you that confident in your understanding of magic, Potter?” the man drawled, his taunting tone making the boy flinch. “Did you mean to enjoy a moment of revenge? To get retribution for all the times Malfoy made you feel small?”
Albus lifted a hand, as if intending to stop the words being exchanged at that moment. Harry, his face riddled with guilt, didn’t notice the gesture.
“I found you on time because that ghost, Myrtle, was screaming about a murder happening in the boys’ bathrooms,” Severus pushed. “And you mean to tell me you didn’t want to hurt Malfoy when you’re unscathed, and he’s–” he continued, gesturing vaguely at the infirmary bed, “–like this?”
“He tried to use Crucio on me!” Harry snapped then. His arms, still caked with dried blood, wrapped around himself, and in that moment, he was but a frightened boy, overcome by the significance of this night. “I was trying to confront him, and then he- he-”
This explanation just made time stop altogether. Madam Pomfrey covered her mouth with her hand, and Minerva reached out to seek Albus’s hand, a gesture she hadn't done for at least a decade.
“I just tried to defend myself…I wasn't seeking revenge,” the boy eventually stammered. “I didn't mean to hurt Draco like that! I just didn't think–”
“That's the problem, Potter, that you never think about your actions! Had I not been there to use Vulnera Sanentur, who knows what you’d be facing now?”
The silence that followed the statement was heavy, stifling, and everyone in the room felt its implications. Everyone, perhaps, but the shocked boy who still stood shaking by the door, falling back into that charged silence.
Minerva was the one to find the courage to speak first.
“Severus– ”
“Not here,” Albus cut her off, turning to glance at Harry before nodding at Pomfrey to keep an eye on him, too. Letting Severus step out of the infirmary first, he followed, supporting his rattled Deputy Headmistress.
***
The Headmaster's office had never felt so cold.
The portraits of past leaders stirred to life, prompted by the sudden noise in the middle of the night, as the three figures stepped into the office, one after the other. Even Fawkes, from his perch, stirred awake with a quiet sound, as if able to follow the conversation.
How much better it would be if no one else were there; for the moment the heavy door closed behind them, Minerva immediately turned to Severus with an expression full of grief and fury.
“That's your doing,” she snapped immediately. Her voice was angry, shaky, and she was this close to jumping on the Potions master’s throat.
“That spell—that's yours, Severus. I remember it! How did you name it… Sectumsempra! That's dark magic, how could you let Harry—”
Severus looked at her quietly for a moment, as if wordlessly admitting his own part in this sordid affair. He stood silent and unmoving, listening to Minerva shout words she hadn’t thought through yet, and he didn’t engage until Potter’s name came up on her lips.
The name seemed to stir Severus out of his guilt.
“Your protégé is going around, seeking trouble,” Severus lashed out in response, making one of the past Headmasters mumble something incomprehensible from his frame.
“You’ve let him go completely unchecked, going around Hogwarts as if he owns it, and you're accusing me of his murderous inclinations?”
“Murderous inclinations?” The portraits seemed to echo, each previous Headmaster repeating the words, making the devastation in the room even greater with their whispers.
The Potions Master paused, taking a deep breath. When he lifted a hand to his face, it was trembling slightly.
“Slughorn has been singing his praises this year, even though I’ve been telling you he was useless in Potions! Didn’t you think to see the reason why? He got his hands on my book and was reckless enough to cast spells he had no experience with. And that’s on you, for letting him strut around without consequences!”
Minerva, who had been seething up to this point, paused abruptly, her hands curling into fists on either side of her body. Severus’ words seemed to find their mark on her: she opened her mouth to retort, then closed it again. Instead, she took a step back and paced to the other side of the spacious office, her back turned on the men.
Severus’ gaze flitted from Minerva to Albus, and he took a step towards the Headmaster’s desk before addressing the Gryffindor Head of House again.
“You love enabling that boy so much!” he spat, his voice growing louder. His hand struck hard atop the heavy oak desk, making Minerva flinch visibly before turning to look at him again.
“Harry Potter breaks the rules again and again, acts recklessly, and not once have you tried holding him accountable for his idiocy, Minerva!” Severus continued, his tall frame hunched over the desk. The Headmaster, across the desk, looked attentively at the Potion Master, perhaps recognising his reaction for what it was: a cry for justice.
“You and Albus. Always finding a good excuse for him! But that’s what you’ve always been doing, haven’t you? As long as there’s a Potter involved, you both bend over backwards!”
To both men’s —and perhaps a few portraits’— surprise, Minerva laughed, a bitter, derisive sound that none of them remembered the proud witch ever making.
“Are you accusing a mere boy now, Severus?” she hissed, before taking a step towards the Potions Master. “Did you even look at him? He didn’t know it would get that far! Poor boy, so shaken, so broken…”
Minerva paused for a moment, taking a shaky breath before delivering the words that would make Severus even more tense. “And he will now carry the stain of violence that you came up with, you vindictive—”
The air seemed to crackle with remorse. Minerva stopped before she said too much, and yet, she didn’t stop soon enough. Her hand flew to her mouth, as if that could stop what was set in motion. The men in the portraits sat abruptly, now more invested in this exchange than their eternal sleep.
Severus himself didn’t reply for a few agonising moments. He only glanced at Albus for a moment, but the Headmaster preferred to look away at the portraits on the far side of the wall.
“By all means, Minerva,” Severus drawled, “Please finish your thought. What did you mean to say? That I’m a vindictive bastard, perhaps? That I gave your precious Potter ammunition? Was I the one who forced the boy’s hand? Did I urge him to cut Draco to shreds?”
The Deputy Headmistress didn’t speak for a while, just looked at Severus with a horrified expression. Albus remained silent, watching them engage in a battle of ethics none of them could win.
Yet, he chose not to speak. Not yet.
Minerva did instead, and her words just shattered whatever fragile balance hung between them.
“You created a spell for revenge, Severus,” she said, her voice growing more agitated as she uttered the last word. “You wanted to make James pay for being young and foolish. The revenge turned into generational violence because you didn’t care enough to hide that bit of knowledge, do you understand that?”
The Potions Master looked at the witch as if she had struck him across the face. His expression shifted rapidly, from surprise to anger. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he looked at her with contempt.
Both of them shifted their attention to the Headmaster, who lifted himself from his chair, making the wood scrape on the stone floor as he did.
“Generational violence is too heavy an accusation, Minerva.”
Albus’ calm voice finally settled amidst the chaos of the moment, and both Severus and Minerva turned to look at him. He seemed collected as always, as if he wasn’t shaken by the image of Draco almost dying, of Harry getting this close to carrying the name of a murderer.
“Severus had always been a prodigy in spell making,” Albus continued. The Headmaster avoided looking at both of them; instead, he walked towards Fawkes’ perch and reached up to give the phoenix a gentle caress on its head. The phoenix responded with a quiet chirp that did little to ease the moment.
“Some dire circumstances led Severus to create this spell. It was unfortunate that Harry found it and used it. What we should focus on is remedying this situation before the students find out tomorrow what happened.”
“Of course,” Severus exclaimed. “No Potter should ever be punished in this school, Merlin forbid! Dire circumstances? Is that what you call the things I’ve been through, Albus? I didn’t create this blasted spell for revenge, but for my protection!”
For a man who usually didn’t allow any emotions to bleed through, he was visibly enraged now. “What am I going to tell the Slytherins come morning, Albus? That as long as your precious Gryffindors walk those halls, they will never be fully safe? That I can’t protect them?”
Albus, on his part, stopped caressing Fawkes. His hand stilled on the soft plumage before he retracted it altogether.
“You are being unfair now, Severus,” Albus said quietly, but his tone carried a clear warning.
“Save it, Albus–” Minerva interrupted him sharply. “Severus made a spell to take revenge on Potter and his friends, and it was a spell with a killing intent. It’s not about protecting yourself when you create something so destructive.”
Then she addressed Severus, her face conveying her disapproval and her fury. “You knew what you were doing when you made it. You knew what you were doing when you wrote it down. And you let that knowledge go unchecked instead of keeping it close to yourself.”
No one responded.
No one contradicted her.
Until–
“You are all wrong.”
The response came from the portrait of Dilys Derwent, who was following the tense conversation just as most of the portraits in the room did. The former Headmistress and Healer stood up in her frame, while the portraits around her hummed in agreement.
All three of the living in the room paused and turned to look at her in tandem.
“You all stand here,” Dilys continued cooly, “arguing whether tonight’s events were an act of revenge or an accident. None of you understands that what happened tonight… is that you all failed the children you were supposed to protect.”
“Dilys, that is not—” Albus began in what seemed to be his first clear reaction during that night. But the portrait would not have it.
“That is exactly what it is, Albus,” she contradicted him. “You were supposed to have learned from our mistakes; yet you’re here, hurling insults while your children are bleeding. Instead of blaming it all on revenge, try to heal them before it is too late.”
As Dilys sat down again and closed her eyes, the three of them looked at each other, all signs of aggressiveness dissipating under guilt.
“I’ll speak to Narcissa,” Severus spoke first. “Someone has to tell her that her only son is sliced and in the infirmary,” he clarified, before he exited briskly. Minerva followed wordlessly, leaving Albus alone to ponder on all the ways this night would change them.