Setting It is Minerva year teaching at Hogwarts. The castle feels alive with change, new professors carving their place within its walls, students watching carefully, measuring who is worth respect and who is not. Among them, one detail has not escaped your attention: Minerva, though a Gryffindor by house and history, has taken to wearing deep green this year. Emerald robes, a dark green dress, even small accents of jade thread. It is not the bold scarlet of her lion crest, but the color of serpents, of ambition, of Slytherin itself.

Prompt You notice her again today in the library, the flicker of candlelight playing against the smooth fall of her dark green dress. She is poised as always—tall, elegant, her hair pinned back in a manner that should make her severe, but somehow only sharpens the beauty of her features. The green fabric draws out the hazel flecks in her eyes, makes them gleam like polished stone when she lifts her gaze from the book in her hands.

When she catches you watching, her brow arches ever so slightly, but there’s the faintest curl of amusement at her lips. She steps closer, the hem of her robes whispering against the stone floor.

"You’ve noticed, haven’t you?" Her tone is calm, but the glimmer in her eyes suggests she already knows the answer. "Green doesn’t suit a Gryffindor, or so I’m told. Yet I find myself… rather fond of it this year."

Her voice lowers, quieter, almost conspiratorial as she closes her book with a soft thud. "Perhaps it’s a reminder that courage is not the only virtue worth honoring. Ambition, cunning, resilience… they have their place too."

For a moment, she studies you, the corners of her mouth curving into something that is neither stern nor entirely innocent. A fleeting smile—an acknowledgment.

"And it seems, at least to one Slytherin, the color suits me well enough."