Harry Potter is the property of JK Rowling and publishers. I'm just playing with the characters. Here's a shortie to wet the appetite.
1.
If there was one thing that was worse than teaching idiotic first-years how to stir a cauldron full of combustible potion, it was sitting in a start-of-the-year staff meeting. Staff meetings, for one reason or another, took ages and ages of sitting on your increasingly uncomfortable chair, listening to one of your colleagues droning on and on about a matter that should be resolved within minutes. And the worst thing was, these meetings took place every three months.
Severus had cast charms to cushion his chair, but they wore off surprisingly fast. Either the Headmaster had made sure his staff wouldn't fall asleep in the middle of his speeches, or his boredom was even affecting his magic.
If it was the latter, perhaps they should've just put the Dark Lord in a staff meeting to get rid of him. Three hours of this, and he probably would've spontaneously combusted just to get out of here. Severus was sorely tempted to do the same.
Most of the more experienced staff were bored out of their minds listening to the idiotic drivel of enthousiastic young teachers. Or 'educators' as they preferred to call themselves. Severus shot a dark look at the 'educator' in question, the young witch even now standing up to take the word at the invitation of Albus.
Severus almost rolled his eyes at the idea of listening to the unbelievably naïve proposals to 'improve the educational experience of their students' that were no doubt coming.
Severus looked around at his colleagues, while the girl started her probably long introduction. Septima Vector and Rolanda Hooch seemed to have given up listening and were looking at a book full of, were that knitting patterns? Filius Flitwick, Pomona Sprout and Poppy Pomphrey were, apparently, playing rock-paper-scissors under the table and Minerva McGonnagall had a glazed look in her eyes, betraying the fact even she had stopped listening and was just pretending out of politeness' sake. Severus sighed surreptitiously and tuned back in.
"…Paddington will organize this fire drill." Dumbledore said.
Severus shot up straight. "Fire-drill? What do you mean, fire-drill?" he asked sharply. Albus looked at him with an admonishing glare.
"If you had been listening, Severus," here Albus turned his glare to his other employees, noting their sheepish looks and straightening postures, "You would have heard Professor Paddington tell you all about it."
Severus and Minerva looked at each other in dismay. Both had already met Miss Ursula Paddington a couple of times earlier this week and were underwhelmingly happy about this years' choice of Defence against the Dark Arts teacher.
Professor Ursula Paddington not only had the misfortune to share her name with a character in Muggle childrens' books, but even looked like she could be the characters' sister. At 23, Ursula was a rotund little witch with long brown hair and an abysmal fondness of blue robes. Snape wondered whether her parents gave her the name 'Ursula', Latin for little bear, because they were prescient, fans of Paddington Bear or just plain ignorant. Minerva, Filius, Pomona and himself had a little wager going on whether or not the troublemakers in the student body would grasp the reference and use it to prank her. Severus had a couple ideas to give to his more creative Slytherins, should they be in need of inspiration.
"As I explained earlier, I was quite appalled when Headmaster Dumbledore informed me Hogwarts has no fire-drills in place in case of emergency," Professor Paddington began in a pedantic tone. "In fact, outside of the contingency plans for the Potions' classroom," here she looked approvingly at Severus, who internally winced at the idea of being approved of, "I couldn't find any plans for evacuation or disaster control. Every Muggle building that serves a public function has such plans. Of course personnel, and in our case students, are trained in what to do when the alarm goes off. Now I'd like to propose the following steps to start..."
Severus leaned over to Minerva who sat quite rigidly in her chair.
"I don't suppose we'd get out of it if we told her about the Head of House-agreements?" he whispered hopefully.
"This is Albus' revenge for our inattentiveness," she hissed back with fury in her tone. "Look at the old goat."
Severus cast a surreptitious glance in Albus' direction. Indeed, the Headmaster was sitting in his chair, looking at his quietly steaming employees with twinkling eyes.
"Typically, during a firedrill, people evacuate a building as quickly as possible, to see how effective the contingency plans are and…"
Severus cast another cushioning charm on the seat of his chair and settled back for a long, long staff meeting.