"Yes, you can. They will sort it out themselves," the painting of Snape assured her.
                              
"That game? Pain or humiliation?" William muttered, wondering if that was what his old Potions Master was getting at.
                              
"It's ridiculous. Why you let it happen when you were Head of House, I have no idea, but I...."
                              
"I allowed it to happen, too, Minerva. Slytherins do police themselves," Albus defended him.
                              
"Letting students hex and humiliate each other seems barbaric to me. I don't want them to hurt each other. This is supposed to be a school. A safe haven. They saw enough depravity last year."
                              
"Draco almost stopped it. It's not going to come back as it once had. I think this once... you should let it go," Severus suggested.
                              
"And how often will it happen after this? Why did you even let it happen before now?"
                              
"It's not a question of let. They won't outright say what happened, accuse anyone. We can't lord over the common room every night, every hour. How often did you go to your dorm?" Snape snapped. "We have to let them handle betrayal themselves. Slytherins are not Gryffindors. They have power struggles for command and the whole school hates us."
                              
"Us?"
                              
"Yes... no one likes Slytherins. We only have each other and know that we can't fight the whole school and each other. The rules must be followed."
                              
"And the game. It's more about proving your worth more than anything else. Only a few used it to be punitive," Dumbledore explained.
                              
"We should stop it," she said, hesitant to get into arguments with paintings of dead headmasters and headmistresses. "You know how it started."
                              
"I have tried, Minerva. But it keeps resurfacing and they only do it in secret," Dumbledore advised.
                              
"We can't stop it. Only the students can," Snape interjected. "It's them you have to convince... Harper, Malfoy and Zabini."
                              
"Severus is right," Albus agreed.
                              
She tutted and was about to argue with them more when old Professor Dippet came into his frame. "From Poppy, Mr. Harper is in the hospital wing, and... oh, sorry, Headmistress. I didn't realize that you had company."
                              
"It's fine, Armando. How is he?" she asked, giving into the ludicrously of having multiple conversations. No wonder Albus seemed so distracted in his office.
                              
"Poppy had to remove all the bones in his arm... shattered beyond repair. There was more damage that she couldn't fix, as well," he reported.
                              
Minerva shook her head. "Still think we should let them do what they will?"
                              
"Go and ask the boy, first," Severus sneered. "He'll not speak an ill word against them."
                              
"That doesn't make it okay! This isn't humiliation. It's torture."
                              
"Pain," Bill offered and she gave him a look. He held up his hands, declaring that he was out of her squabble with the headmasters of old.
                              
"I don't care what it is. I don't want it here anymore. This is getting out of hand."
                              
"You can't make people like Draco. They're going to hurt him. Blaise is going to protect him and everyone will slowly be drawn into the fight," Snape argued.
                              
"And wait around and do nothing is so much better?" she snapped.
                              
"You'll only drive the attacks further into secret. The more hidden it is, the more brutal it will be."
                              
"Slytherins," she said as though cursing. "Was there anything else, William?"
                              
"Draco's doing as well as can be expected. He left with Harry, though."