SACRIFICED TO THE SWORD

Disclaimer: Any body, thing or place you recognise does not belong to me and I make nothing from my use out of them except a strange satisfaction.

Summery: It had been a long week. A long week in a series of long weeks, Minerva self-corrected as she sorted through the untidy stack of homework her students had just handed in. Along with nigh on 300 essays to mark, her usual administrative duties to fulfil, her classes had been interrupted on no less than three separate occasions by abrupt messages from the Headmaster.

Chapter 1

Severus Snape was no fool. His requests were not born out of ignorance or lack of aptitude, he was merely reasserting the fact that if he snapped his fingers she really had very little choice but to ask how high. Sometimes there was validity to the tasks, they were reports that really did need to be completed or accounts that needed to be balanced but equally they were sometimes so farcical that she struggled not to incinerate them upon reading. That however, would only have provided momentary satisfaction followed by hours of frustration as she tried to remember exactly what the Headmaster's exacting and specific instructions had been.

With only half an hour before dinner, she was hugely tempted to take the time to simple rest her eyes but knew that she would only regret the decision later. Balancing her papers carefully she, negotiating her way down the corridor to her office, once more hit by the lack of noise and students visible in the hallways.

There was a very different air to Hogwarts this year, different even from when the Chamber had been re-opened and the students under a direct threat. It was almost like a segregated community with certain students allowed free reign to do what they wished and the rest downtrodden and oppressed. However, if there was one thing she had learnt or at least had re-iterated to her in the last month, was that there were some things that it just didn't pay to dwell on.

Her plan to get on with her marking fell apart completely as soon as she saw the pair of first years waiting outside her door. Ostensibly, the reason for the visit was a question about homework, one that was answered quickly, though Minerva did remind them that she had specifically allocated office hours if they needed to ask anything else. But once settled down with a ginger newt apiece, it became rapidly obvious that what they were really looking for was a little mothering.

By the time the bell sounded for dinner, Minerva felt she had offered at least a little reassurance and their moods seemed to have buoyed somewhat. Lifting the second year essays from the top of the pile, she chose a self-inking quill from her desk and turned to follow them towards the great hall.

Focus was rarely a problem for the Head of Gryffindor, she had perfected the art of tuning out commotion around her as a student and supposed she fell back on old skills at times like these as worked away more or less oblivious to those dining around her

"Minerva?"

She heard the query but finished the paragraph she was on before she looking up.

"Yes, Poppy?" she asked in her most pleasant tone, turning to look at the Healer. "What can I do for you?"

"I was just curious as to whether you were intending on participating in the more traditional aspects of dinner." She replied, gesturing to the dishes of food sitting on the table.

"I've eaten." She pointed out.

"You had a bowl of soup and two lettuce leaves." The other woman countered.

"Firstly that's just not true and secondly I'd thank you not to treat me as though I were a child."

"Well said." The Headmaster's voice came from the other side of her, obviously having finished his conversation with Filius. "Professor McGonagall has obviously fallen behind in her work, so perhaps you should refrain from distracting her further."

Poppy scowled forcibly but thankfully kept her mouth shut. When the deserts arrived on the table however, she did push a chocolate sponge into Minerva's line of vision. The last thing she felt like eating was cake but in a conciliatory move she did reach for the fruit bowl and selected a banana.

"You did get my note?" Snape asked, as the students began to dissipate out of the hall. Minerva restrained herself from asking which not it was he was referring to.

"Of course Headmaster. I'll have the breakdown of the figures for you by tomorrow lunchtime if that's acceptable?"

"I'll need them for when I get back tonight." And with that he stood and swept out of the hall. There was obviously to be no discussion of how ridiculous a demand that was and how completely unnecessary it was given the fact that the meeting wasn't until the following evening.

She was just about to go and start creating the dossier when a knot of senior students caught her attention. You couldn't teach successfully for as long as Minerva had without developing some form of intuition and every fibre in her body was telling Minerva that there was something going on. Watching them for a moment she realised that the last thing she wanted to do was get drawn in by whatever was going on.

She knew that Ginny Weasley and Neville Longbottom, as well as several other students had been meeting secretly but having pulled them both aside at the very start of term to warn them that she had very little control over what would happen to them should they step outside the rules and to try and convince them that they would do everyone more good by staying in the school, she had had to take a step back. The more she knew, the more likely that Snape would get it out of her.

Miss Weasley looked up, as if sensing her gaze and she held the younger woman's for a moment before turning and leaving the hall. Whatever it was that they had planned, she hoped that it worked and more importantly that they got away with it.

Three hours later, the figures were dancing in front of Minerva's eyes. There was a reason she had only just scraped her O in NEWT level Arithmancy and there was also a reason why the Governors paid a specialist to manage the Schools investments. The detail in the calculations being used was far more complex than she had worked with in years and the fact that she hadn't slept for more than five hours a night in weeks certainly wasn't helping her concentration.

When the Headmaster's voice called to her from the fireplace her first reaction was that she must have fallen asleep as she was certain it wasn't yet midnight and Snape had said specifically that he wouldn't be back in the castle before then. Glancing at the clock above the mantle though, she saw it was just the back of ten.

"Headmaster?" she responded, standing and coming around from behind her desk.

"I've just returned to the castle to find several of your students have broken into my office and were attempting to get away with a particularly valuable relic."

Minerva tried to formulate some form of coherent sentence but thankfully he continued before her lapse in eloquence became too obvious.

"If you would be kind enough to join us…"

"Of course, Headmaster." She replied, turning to leave immediately.

She was already halfway to the Head's office when she realised that she hadn't even paused to put on her usual teaching robe. Thoughts of her students drove her on against this small breach in her own personal protocol though, telling herself that given that her high necked, long sleeved blouse and full skirts were more than decent enough to pass by most standards.

Climbing the stairs two at a time, Minerva wished, not for the first time, that the original moving of the stairs to meet her needs after the transferral of the wards had not been a one off.

It was with more than a little trepidation that she paused momentarily before the stone gargoyle, not knowing what faced her beyond the spiral staircase. She straightened her hair, and then let her right hand fall to where her wand sat, holstered at the waistband of her full skirt. She strained her ears to hear what was going on inside the office as she rode up, all the while trying to restrain her imagination.

"Ah, Professor, I see you did decide to join us." Snape drawled as she entered.

"Headmaster," she acknowledged, trying to keep her tone civil, while her gaze fell upon Longbottom and the youngest Weasley. "Are you unharmed?" she asked looking from one then to the other.

She received two sharp nods in return, despite the fact that Neville was sporting a burnishing black eye, Ginny was cradling a wrist to her chest and both were being held in place by one of Amycus Carrow's hands on their upper arms. She turned to face the Headmaster, knowing that her anger was plain in her stance however hard she was working to control her tone. She was so tightly wound that she almost jumped out of her skin when the door behind her banged open.

"I found this one hanging around in the corridor." Alecto Carrow crowed as she dragged the Lovegood girl in by the scruff of her neck. "Shall I…?" she began, a kind of enthusiasm glinting in her eyes that only served to increase the foreboding growing within Minerva.

"No." Severus stopped her but made no further mention of what it was she had been alluding to. "And I think the Deputy Headmistress can be held responsible for all these students especially considering what it was they were attempting to steal."

It was only then that she noticed what it was that Snape was holding like a cane. Alastor would have lambasted her soundly for the oversight, and Minerva could hear his cry of 'Constant Vigilance' so clearly that it almost hurt.

"Now Miss Weasley, Mr Longbottom," Severus began to pace back and forth across the hearth, swinging the impressive sword in idle, yet surprisingly skilful figure-of-eights. "would you like to enlighten me as to what exactly it was you were thinking?"

"Not particularly."

"Miss Weasley!" she snapped, her student's blatant provocation of Snape and the danger she was consequently putting herself in, enough to break her restraint.

"I have been informed," Severus continued, "that a certain Undesirable Number 1 seems to believe he has some claim to this relic."

"He has more than a claim" Longbottom countered. "it should be his. Professor Dumbledore wanted Harry to have it." In one instant, Minerva was struck by just how much Neville Longbottom had grown over these last years and her heart swelled with pride.

The Headmaster spun on the spot and pointed the point of the sword directly at Neville's heart.

"You would do well to be careful to whom you pledge your allegiances." He drawled, holding the students gaze as if daring him to look away. Longbottom did not however and after a moment the Headmaster let the sword fall back to his side and resumed his languid pacing. "Well, no matter your motivation – you will have to be punished severely for such a blatant breaking of not only school rules, but also the law. As Headmaster, there are," he turned at the end of the rug, and stopped to look at the three of them, "a number of options open to me when it comes to punishing miscreants."

"Headmaster," Minerva began, determined to try and intercede only to be waved off in an instant.

"I could call the Ministry and ask for their professional help." He allowed thoughts of Azkaban and interrogation chambers and their families to all roll through their minds. "But I rather feel that there is scope enough for your punishment within the confines of the school. Mr Filch has been begging for a chance to use the manacles he's hung in the Entrance Hall… Or perhaps I shall hand you over to the Professors' Carrow…" This prospect concerned her more than she would have liked to admit.

"Really Headmaster!" she protested, scrabbling through her mind for something, anything that might dissuade him from treating the three youngsters so harshly.

"And then there is," he continued, turning his irritated glare upon her, "of course, the matter of your Professor, whom it is becoming rapidly apparent cannot control her own temper never mind her students."

"I am ultimately responsible for my students behaviour." She acknowledged, hoping despite herself that she could tempt him with an alternative course of action, no mater what it might cost her personally.

"Are you suggesting that you should take the brunt of the punishment for your students misbehaviour?" Severus asked with another one of those smirks that set her hairs on end. "And what," he continued as he approached her, "could I possibly do to the upstanding and righteous Minerva McGonagall that would serve as a sterling example to the rest of the school?"

He was barely inches away from her now, and he lifted a hand only to pause and ensure he had her full attention, before trailing the back of his fingers along the curve of her cheek. Inside, a voice screamed at her to pull away, to get as far away from this man as she could and to never come back, but there was a louder voice. One of her principle functions at the school was to be in loco parentis. How often in these last weeks had she tried to assuage the fears of the parents who wrote to her. No, she would not be able to live with herself if she were not to do everything in her power to protect her students from these dangers.

She bore his touch, managing to suppress her instinctive flinch as he held her chin between thumb and forefinger, tilting her face in the flickering candle light.

"Oh, I think I might quite enjoy that challenge." He said, letting go of her chin only to replace the hand firmly on her shoulder. "Kneel."

She did not obey, but held his gaze, refusing even to blink. There was something lurking in his obsidian eyes, something more than just malice, something that caused her fear to writhe within her and panic gnaw at the edge of her resolve but she did not look away.

"Kneel." He instructed more forcefully, holding the sword out for Alecto Carrow to take. Just before Minerva's intellectual side won the battle and she bent at the knee, he leant even closer to her.

"Don't make me angry, Minerva," he began before breaking eye contact at last and leaning in to whisper in her ear. "you wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

Both his nearness and his tone combined to overcome her pride and she couldn't suppress her natural instinct to shudder this time and with his heavy hand on her shoulder, she allowed her knees to buckle.

The jolt as she hit the floor was accompanied by an eruption of noise around her as Ginny and Neville began to protest but through the disturbance it was Luna Lovegood's voice that grasped her attention.

"Professor Dumbledore!" she exclaimed, in that slightly airy fashion of hers.

Minerva followed her gaze and found herself looking up at the portrait but could not for the life of her see what it was that had made Luna cry out. "He was awake." She added, seemingly unconcerned by the fact that the rooms inhabitants had all turned to follow her gaze. All that was, save Severus Snape whose eyes never once left the Ravenclaw's.

"You would all do well," he intoned with enough force to ensure that he received everyone's attention, "not to make your Professor's act of sacrifice futile by further misbehaviour." He turned his gaze to the two Gryffindors who were still protesting and pulling against their captor.

They turned to look at her and she was suddenly hugely aware of her lack of voluminous robes, and her subjugate position at the feet of the headmaster. Looking them straight in the eye though, she left them in no doubt who between them was in charge.

"Do as he says." Seeing that both of them were on the verge of protesting. "It will be fine." She continued, trying to impress upon them the truth of that fact, while trying to ignore the unnerving sensation of Snape walking around her and standing just outside her peripheral vision but still close enough to touch.

Leaning in towards her, he spoke just loudly enough for them all to hear.

"I do wish you wouldn't utter such inane platitudes, they are so beneath a woman of your intelligence."

"Alecto, Amycus – take these three to Hagrid's cabin and tell him I want them to join him on his foray into the forest for me. And tell him that I expect four times the yield he would normally harvest. Meanwhile, I think I shall teach Professor McGonagall a little something about control and… restraint." With his words, bonds sprung forth around her wrists and ankles.

"Make sure we're not disturbed." He instructed finally, before turning back to her and with a wave of his hand muttered, "Obscuro".