My thanks, as always, to my fabulous betas, kellychambliss and tetleythesecond. Not only for the many improvements they made to this story, but also for the courage with which they relived their worst Inspirational Speaker traumas and their generosity in allowing me to use them. Without their sufferings, this story couldn't have been written.

Two Capable Women

They were simply born to be best friends.

Everyone said so.

Repeatedly and emphatically.

It did no good at all.

"Irma's mother and I have been very close ever since our own school days, and I recommend her most strongly," said Muriel Prewett, Chairwoman of the Hogwarts Board. "She'll not only be an excellent addition to the staff; she'll make a very suitable friend for you, Minerva.

"It's important to have good friends, especially for an unmarried woman. Now for me, it was easy. I have always played my part in Society, and a rather prominent part too, if I say so myself. But for someone in your position – a schoolteacher's life is so much more restricted – Irma will be a godsend. Mark my words."

Muriel Prewett had clearly given the matter much careful thought.

"Irma Pince?" said Poppy when Minerva gave her a summary of the latest Board Meeting in which the words 'infuriating', 'meddlesome', and 'busybody' figured rather prominently. "Yes, I remember her well. She was several years above me – a Slytherin. Frightfully clever. Always with her nose in a book. Never mind Muriel Prewett; I can assure you you'll enjoy meeting Irma, really, you will."

When a professional reassurer such as Healer Pomfrey sets to work, she deserves to succeed. It wasn't her fault that she didn't.

"I'm so glad to have you on our team," said Albus as Irma Pince signed her employment contract. "I hope you'll be very happy here. I look forward to introducing you to Professor McGonagall. You'll work closely with her – such a pity she couldn't be here today. A Transfiguration conference, you see, and one that she has been looking forward to for a long time. But I'm certain the two of you will be great friends when you do meet."

He didn't just say that because a friendly team is a happy team and therefore easy to work with; he really worked for the smaller good of a pleasant friendship for Minerva.

"Professor Dumbledore is right," beamed Pomona, who had replaced Minerva for the interview. "The two of you are bound to get along. Like a house on fire."

And while Pomona would be hard put to explain why, exactly, the image of a home going up in flames is so apt for female bonding, she truly meant extremely well.

They all meant extremely well.

With a build-up like that, lesser women would have decided to hate each other at first sight.

Minerva McGonagall and Irma Pince, however, were both highly professional.

If Irma thought Professor McGonagall's tight bun a schoolmarmish affectation, she never betrayed the fact. Irma herself favoured a chignon that did something for a woman. That softened too-sharp lines and filled out a perhaps somewhat-too-thin face. Having an exquisite jaw-line and cheekbones that were bloody perfection didn't mean one didn't have to make an effort. Surely one could be a schoolteacher without looking like a stereotype? But if Professor McGonagall wanted to be severe and forbidding, that was fine with Irma. They just needed to work well together.

And if Minerva thought Madam Pince rather stand-offish, she would not hold it against her. She was even perfectly willing to admit that the woman had a point. There was a difference between support staff and faculty; Albus could twinkle all he liked, but that didn't change facts. Clearly Madam Pince wanted to start as she meant to go on.

But she could have made a bit more of an effort. After all, she, Minerva, had bothered to make some small talk. Still, there was nothing wrong with an aloof and respectful attitude. After all, there was no need to be 'bestest friends forever', regardless of what all the world and their Muggle cats seemed to think. They just needed to work well together.

And work well together they did.

Minerva respected Madam Pince's professional abilities and enjoyed the spirit of quiet she had managed to bring back to the library. Under her predecessor, the place had turned into a social club for students who chatted, flirted, and only reached up for a book when they thought the movement would set off muscular shoulders or perky breasts. Under Madam Pince's guidance, it was once more a place for study.

Irma in her turn respected Professor McGonagall's excellent, easy order and the quality of her assignments. If only some of the other Professors would take a leaf from her book! Their assignments were either so detailed that thirty students fought over the same volume at the same time, or they were so vague that the children had no idea where to start. Professor McGonagall's assignments taught the students both Transfiguration and proper research and library skills – in a way that fitted their age and level of schooling.

In short, theirs was collaboration between two very capable women who always spoke highly of each other and who got along just fine, professionally speaking. Strictly professionally speaking.

End of story.

Or so all their friends thought.

By the time Irma had spent her first year at Hogwarts, Albus, Poppy, and even Pomona had stopped saying, "What a pity those two aren't closer friends – they were just made to get along". The time for head-shaking, tut-tutting, and commenting on the stubbornness of the Scottish was past. So was the time for commenting on the stubbornness of the Welsh, for that matter, for Irma was every bit as unmovable as Minerva, and that was yet another thing they had in common, said Pomona – it was really too bad.

Poppy agreed.

But there was nothing to be done about it.

So they all thought.

In the end, they were wrong.

But one can't blame them for thinking the way they did. If a situation demands the combined efforts of You-Know-Who, Albus P.W.B. Dumbledore, and Wilberforce (Bertie) Arbuthnot to sort itself out, one can hardly berate people for not Seeing the events that took place in the summer of 1982.

You-Know-Who's contribution consisted of rising, exercising a reign of terror, and disappearing, leaving in his wake The Boy Who Lived and a wizarding world that was torn apart and that had to find a way to rebuild itself, integrating both the families of Death Eaters and the families of their victims.

Albus Dumbledore's contribution consisted of doing what he did best and that did not involve Use #13 of Dragon Blood. What Albus did was attend a Ministry meeting and get everything out of it he wanted to get, without antagonising the Minister or even seeming to win.

What he got was:
a) Large funds for Hogwarts that would enable him to make some long-wished-for changes to the curriculum;
b) The appointment of Severus Snape, who, Albus felt, would make a capable Potions teacher despite his past (which was the main reason for wanting him on the staff and the main reason the Ministry opposed the idea) and despite his youth (which was only a temporary problem, after all, but one of which Albus made so much that even the Minister, at one point, said the young man couldn't be blamed for being young, now, could he? After that, the appointment was a piece of cake);
c) Wilberforce Arbuthnot, a Ministerial high-flyer who was making his mark on the Reconciliation Committee and who would come to Hogwarts to give all staff, faculty and support alike, a training course in 'Dealing with Enmity among Children'.

To give Albus his due, the Enmity among Children training was not precisely his heart's desire. In fact, he would rather not have had that course inflicted on his staff. He could give several reasons why it was not a good idea to send in a twenty-something to teach his teachers.

He also knew that Minerva might come up with even more reasons than he had found himself and would not hesitate to share them with him. He did not look forward to telling her that she, as his Deputy, was to give this event her full support.

But he had gone to the meeting with the firm intention to get that money, to get Severus on board, and to use the damn training course as small change in the negotiations if necessary. It had been necessary, and because of his wise forethought, the Ministerial damage to Hogwarts remained limited to one day of annoyance for his staff.

Best case scenario, they would enjoy baiting young Arbuthnot.

Worst case scenario, they would grumble like mad. But if he played his gobstones well, they would rage against the Ministry and bond in doing so, while Albus would be seen as the man who had brought home the large funding. Well, he was the man who had brought home the large funding.

As prices went, the training was a small one to pay.

Thus Minerva, with her customary efficiency, sent all staff members the information on the Enmity course, which was to take place on 29th August 1982. She fulfilled her duty of supporting Albus by not actually calling it The Enmity Course. She also took care to delete the phrase 'so that you will all start the new school year on the right note of Interhouse Reconciliation' from Arbuthnot's Owl. This saved her some furious messages along the lines of 'what is it we're supposed to have done so far – set them at each other's throats?'

She dealt equally capably with the Owls she did get: on disrupted holiday plans from Sybill Trelawney, who clearly had not Seen the training coming; on overtime compensation from Argus Filch, who was willing to explain, during normal working hours, mind, the uses of thumbscrews to whomever was truly interested in Means of Reconciliation; and on the inadvisability of planning a training on Quidditch Final Day from Rolanda Hooch, who was dying to see the match but played a straight broom when it came to asking for a day off.

Minerva shook her head over Horace Slughorn's Owl, announcing the sudden demise of a grandmother that would stop Horace from attending the useful training he had really been looking forward to. Minerva knew that Horace, too, was dying to see the match, and that he didn't care about straight brooms as long as he could grasp the Snitch.

She reminded him that he had already finished off four grannies on past occasions and that the excuse was wearing thin, but, being Minerva, she did so in terms of exquisite politeness, stressing the point that however often we suffer such a loss, it does come as a shock.

In reply she got an equally carefully-worded Owl in which Horace agreed that yes, on this one occasion, he would remember his late, beloved Gran in the privacy of his own chambers rather than by attending a more formal gathering. Naturally, no mention was made of the Holyhead Harpies match or the eminent suitability of that occasion for purposes of remembrance – since nothing brought to life the memory of the one grandmother Horace had actually known more vividly than a mention of the word harpy.

All, then, was set for a day of fruitful and constructive boredom.