Department Meeting
"Thank you for taking time away from your holiday to be here," said Dumbledore, looking at the staff members before him. All the finest minds in magical academia one could hope for and Hagrid.
"As if we had a choice," Snape said, his tone as acidic as a Honeydukes Acid Pop that was long past its sell-by-date and was veering dangerously close to the 'do not consume unless tired with living pain-free'.
"Well this is a matter of utmost security," Dumbledore replied with his trademark calmness. "Hagrid, do you have it?"
"Do I have what?" Hagrid asked innocently, unused to being included in matters involving such esteem discussions save for the usual 'where are we going to house the unearthly abominations the third year students produced after a particularly ineffective Transfiguration class'. "Oh, right, yes, the stone. Yeah, it's here in my pocket."
Several other things were in his pocket, to the point where one questioned whether the pockets were perhaps magically bigger than they appeared, a feat of magic far above a man who had been mostly responsible for setting up the 'home for Transfiguration disasters' in the first place.
McGonagall watched the growing pile of knicks and knacks, wondering what they were going to do with Harry Potter's now magically deformed cousin. She was honestly impressed by how badly he had botched the spell. No doubt it'd be her job to go fix the boy, or at least cast a quick Diffindo and call it a day.
"Right, there you go," said Hagrid, pulling out a small, grubby parcel covered in sandwich crumbs.
"Thank you," said Dumbledore, taking the small package and unwrapping it to reveal...
"Is that the Philosopher's Stone?" said Flitwick, the stone's glare bouncing off his widened eyes.
"It is indeed," replied Dumbledore, casually examining one of the most priceless artefacts in magical history.
"And that was what Hagrid was sent to Gringotts to retrieve?" asked Sprout, trying to be her usual polite self while her internal critic was screaming at the madness of it all.
"The very same."
"So Hagrid was carrying one of the most powerful items of magic ever created... in his coat?" Snape let out a small chuckle as he finished.
"Quite so, quite so," said Dumbledore, apparently unfazed.
There was a muffled yell of something that sounded incredibly similar to the words 'mother' and 'trucker'. The room turned to find the source of the noise, which at nearest guess was-
"Did you say something, Quirinus?" Dumbledore inquired.
"W-what?" said Quirrell, acting if the conversation he seemed to be preoccupied with was different to the one he was supposed in at the moment. "Y-yes I s-s-said... most luckier than n-n-normal that no-one decided to attack Hagrid. A dark witch or wizard m-m-might have been able to get the s-s-stone off of him."
"Yes, well," said Dumbledore hurriedly. "The important thing now is that we have to keep it safe."
"Oh yes?" said Snape with an air of slight disbelief. "Hogwarts is safer than Gringotts? They have a dragon, if I remember correctly. All we have is a three-headed dog whose greatest danger is slobbering someone to death."
"Yes, I was thinking of putting him at the front, as a way of scaring away any students foolish enough to ignore my instructions. I was also thinking of saying something along the lines of 'the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a most painful death."
"Albus!" said McGonagall.
"Oh come now, it'll be fine," Albus replied gently. "Fluffy won't really hurt them." He paused, his eyes peering at Hagrid over his half-moon glasses.
"Probably," he added cautiously.
"Plus it wouldn't hurt to lose a few more Gryffindors," Snape added.
"Severus!" McGonagall exclaimed.
"Oh please, we all know that 'don't go here unless you want to die' is Gryffindor for 'come on in, see what the fuss is all about, it'll be fine.'"
McGonagall opened her mouth to counter such a crass and defamatory accusation, only to realize that it was more or less true.
"Whose going to clean up after Fluffy?" Hagrid added, knowing full-well that most of the conversations in these meetings were above his head, but at least here he had some knowledge of the proceedings.
"Oh I'm sure Filch can do it," said Dumbledore. "That reminds me, I must make sure to give him a shovel when he gets back."
"S-s-so the elixir of life will be g-g-guarded by a dog?" Quirrell ventured.
"Oh no, not just a dog," said Dumbledore. "That would be unsafe."
Quirrell tried to hide the look of disappointment of his face by successfully looking rather pained, as if someone very close to him was shouting in his ear.
"We're all going to pitch in and create a series of obstacles that any would-be thief would need to overcome. So, let's all have a think. Remember, there's no bad ideas."
"How about we lock it in a safe like the Muggles use with a tripwire alarm?" offered Burbage.
"Or make those attempting to enter have to solve an increasingly difficult set of arithamtic puzzles?" added Vector.
"Or have them divine the true symbols to unlock the door by staring deep into the tea leaves," concluded Trelawney.
"Yes, yes," said Dumbledore. "But I think we might want to stick to the main subjects. The first year students. It wouldn't be fair if, for example, a year one student were to go through all this and be stuck with a puzzle they've never been taught about."
"Forgive me, sir," said Sprout carefully, "but isn't that what we'd want to avoid?"
"Yes yes," repeated Dumbledore. "Anyway, since you spoke up, what do you think you'll bring to this?"
"Me?" said Sprout, her internal critic screaming that she should have kept quiet and this was just like the incident last year with the Puffapod fiasco. "I'm thinking Devil Snare. Yes, that'll choke the life out of any intruder."
"Can you perhaps make a less lethal version?"
Sprout was tempted to counter and ask if he wanted it to tap dance if he was asking for the impossible, but he had that look in his eyes that made it very clear why he survived fighting Grindelwald, and he could be called upon to do an encore if need-be.
"Certainly," said Sprout between gritted teeth.
"What about you Severus? Any ideas?"
"Well I could conjure up a wall of fire that can only safely be crossed with a special potion."
"Ah yes, ingenious. And I suppose this potion would be on a table filled with bottles of all shapes and sizes, to stop any would-be thieves for knowing which to drink."
"That is certainly an idea sir. Of course I'll make sure to explicitly tell you which bottle is the safe one."
Dumbledore shook his head, his eyes twinkling that ever persistent twinkle.
"That won't do. What if I forget? No, what you need to do is create a logic puzzle that would stop most thieves in their track. I know several great witches and wizards who don't have an ounce of logic in their body."
"And I leave that riddle in your office, so that you can remember?"
"That won't do, what if I need to get to the stone, and I leave the paper in my office? Better to leave it next to the potions."
"I-" Snape saw the hurdle before him and decided that it was better to just quit the race altogether. "Whatever you say sir," he murmured.
"Splendid. As for you, Minerva?"
"I'm thinking a giant enchanted chess set," she said, barely hiding the sarcasm in her Scottish voice. "Where one has to win the game in order to advance."
"Excellent," said Dumbledore. "I'm not sure how it fits into Transfiguration, but I'll leave that to you."
"Albus you cannot think I was being serious-" began McGonagall, before catching the eye of both Sprout and Snape and realized this was the same man who thought singing a house song at the start of every feast in any rhythm the students liked was a competent use of curriculum time.
"What about you, Flitwick?"
"I, err..." Filius glanced around the room nervously. Truth be told he'd been rather preoccupied thinking about the rather lovely ice tea that was rapidly warming up on the Florida beaches from which he'd come from, and his swimming garments were starting to become very twisted beneath his hurriedly thrown on robes. He glanced around the room desperately, finally settling upon Hooch.
"Flying keys!" he said triumphantly, waiting for any sort of negative feedback before deciding to continue on regardless. "And the thief has to ride a broom to catch the right one. The brooms will be in the chamber of course-" he added quickly, anticipating both Dumbledore's response and the growing knowledge that that lovely redhead would become otherwise engaged with another if he didn't reappear soon.
"A cracking idea as always," said Dumbledore calmly. "And as for you, Quirinus?"
"W-what?" said Quirrell, once again only seemingly realizing that everyone was hearing the question posed to him and not just himself. "O-oh. Defences. I... err... I... think... we should have... a..." He paused, as if some horrific idea was whispered to him and he was debating internally whether to voice it or not for fear of the social repercussions. He sat there, seemingly quietly debating with himself, before realizing that everyone was waiting on his final thought much like commuters waited for a particularly poorly-scheduled Knight Bus.
"A troll," he murmured, eyes downcast.
"A troll, of course," beamed Dumbledore happy, knowing full-well that if he looked around the room he'd see a sea of horrified faces and thus rather wisely decided he wasn't going to bother to do so. "And what else."
"What do you mean, what else?" Snape asked. "Isn't a bloody troll enough? What's someone going to do, knock it out with its own club?"
"Yes, I suppose you have a point," said Dumbledore. "Right then, it's settled. I presume you all don't mind staying and working on all of this, do you? I know it will probably take the rest of the holidays, but I'm sure you're committed to the safety of this stone as I am."
"W-what do you p-p-plan to do?" Quirrell asked.
"Oh I have an idea," said Dumbledore slyly.
"Is it some sort of test that results in anyone who would want the stone not being able to get it?" asked Snape. "Thus rendering our entire contribution pointless?"
"I think we'll call this meeting to a close," Dumbledore said quickly. "Thank you for all this, and I look forward to this new year starting. I think it'll be a nice, peaceful time, don't you?"