Chapter 7 – The First Staff Meeting
"I hereby call the first staff meeting of Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to order," Godric declared in his most authoritative tone. He banged on the table with a small hammer.
"You do realise that if you keep doing that, you're eventually going to wear a groove in the table?" Helga pointed out.
"I thought we said we didn't need one of those anyway," Rowena commented.
"I went back for it later," Godric said proudly. "I feel it gives the right impression of authority."
"It makes you look a berk," Salazar chimed in.
"Humph," Godric mumbled something incoherent and banged on the table again.
"When did we decide you were in charge anyway?" Rowena asked.
"We didn't," Salazar replied.
"We'll take turns," interrupted Godric. "I'll take charge this time, then Salazar next and then back to me again."
"Ahem," Helga coughed loudly and Godric jerked slightly in his seat. Rowena had a suspicion that a sharp kick had just been delivered to their self-appointed leader's shin.
"Very well, we'll all take turns," Godric amended. "Happy?"
"Thank you," Helga replied demurely.
"First order of business…er…feet." Godric looked around the table suspiciously. "Members of staff will keep their feet to themselves at all times during staff meetings."
"How can you tell we aren't?" Salazar asked innocently.
"He's not referring to us," answered Rowena. "Helga just kicked him, didn't you notice?"
"Er…" Salazar looked at the somewhat guilty looking Helga as Godric ducked down to look under the table.
"If all staff could keep their feet to themselves," Godric asked as he sat back up.
Rowena sat up straighter so it looked as if she was complying with the request and smiled sweetly.
"Second order of business," Godric continued. "Sal will remain outside the castle at all times in the future."
"Hey!" Salazar exclaimed indignantly.
"Not you," Godric amended. "The goat. Blasted animal ate its way through two lots of bed hangings in the Gryffindor quarters yesterday and then chewed up my draft lesson plans as well for good measure."
Rowena snickered. It was about time someone else had a complaint against the little demon.
"I'll fix a pen for her near my herb garden," Helga promised as Godric marked a small tick on the parchment in front of him.
"Next, what subjects are we going to be teaching? We need to make sure that we're all in agreement about these." Godric paused at this point and handed out lists of subjects to each of the others.
"Do we really have to teach Divination?" Rowena asked with a sigh. "It's so pointless. You either have the sight or you don't, you can't teach someone to have the gift."
"And none of us have the gift either," Helga pointed out. "Who's going to teach it?"
"I'll come to that later," Godric said as Rowena continued to scan the list.
"Why are we teaching Muggle Studies?" asked Salazar with a frown. "What do the young witches and wizards need to know about muggles? Other than apparate out of there quick smart when they charge at you with flaming torches and pitchforks, I really don't see what the lessons will entail."
"I thought perhaps it might be useful for the youngsters to know enough about muggles so that they can blend into society and not attract the mobs with pitchforks," Godric replied.
"Still seems a bit pointless to me," Salazar muttered. "And you needn't think I'm teaching it either."
"I never thought that for a moment," Godric assured him. "We already know what we're going to be teaching, Muggle Studies is one of the subjects we need to sort out before term starts."
"What are we all teaching again?" Rowena asked, knowing that the answer had been changing on a regular basis since their arrival in Scotland and not entirely trusting Godric's list.
"Helga is going to take charge of Herbology and Charms, I will take Defence Against the Dark Arts and Care of Magical Creatures, you Rowena will be teaching Transfiguration and History of Magic, Salazar will be teaching Potions and Astronomy."
"About that," Salazar interrupted. "When I agreed to teach Astronomy it wasn't clear that I'd be up one of your ruddy towers at the time."
"Wilbur knows a lot about Astronomy," Helga suggested. "Perhaps he could teach that as well as flying."
"Will he want paying more?" Salazar asked.
"If he doesn't think of asking for more, I'll be sure to remind him," Helga replied sweetly.
"Well if that's settled it means you can take over one of the remaining subjects," Godric said to Salazar with a smile of satisfaction.
"I'm not teaching Divination or Muggle Studies," Salazar muttered. "Which others are we short of staff on?"
"Ancient Runes and Arithmancy," Godric replied.
"My two worst subjects," Salazar replied with a groan. "Rowena you're an expert in Ancient Runes, swap you Transfiguration for that one."
Rowena frowned slightly. Transfiguration was her favourite subject and the one she was most looking forward to teaching.
"Oh go on Rowena," Salazar begged.
"I'll swap History of Magic for Ancient Runes," she finally conceded.
Salazar contemplated this for a moment or two.
"Come on Rowena, be reasonable," Godric interrupted. "You know Salazar doesn't particularly like History of Magic either."
"He knows it all though," Rowena pointed out. "And I'm much better at Transfiguration than he is."
"That doesn't mean he'll back down and teach History of Magic," Godric pointed out. "If one of you doesn't back down we'll still be arguing about this when the students arrive in September."
"Please Sal," Rowena begged in the most whiney voice she could muster. She inched the toe of her boot a little further up his leg as she smiled innocently across the table.
"All right, History of Magic it is," Salazar replied with a small groan of resignation.
Godric scribbled the amendments to the staffing arrangements onto the parchment hurriedly before anyone changed their minds.
Rowena smiled sweetly and blew him a kiss across the table.
"Score one to Rowena," Helga muttered under her breath to Rowena. She'd clearly noticed the activities under the table even if Godric hadn't. "Don't you feel even slightly guilty about how you handled that?"
"No," Rowena replied with a grin. "He'll come around when he's got over the idea that I thought of it first."
"Right," Godric said with a glare at the whispering women. "That leaves Muggle Studies, Arithmancy and Divination."
"Anyway, didn't you mention last week that you'd found someone who might want to teach Divination?" Salazar asked Helga. "That batty old loon down south."
"She's just a little eccentric," Helga replied. "She might take the Divination post but I don't know about the Muggle Studies or Arithmancy. It'll save money if we can find someone who'll do two subjects like the rest of us."
"Well send her an owl and ask her if she wants to teach one of those anyway," Godric suggested.
Helga nodded in agreement. They still had a little over two months before they opened their doors to the students so things weren't entirely desperate with regard to teaching staff just yet.
"I think I know someone who might take on the post on librarian as well," Helga said with a smile. "I've already acquired the services of a married couple who are prepared to cook for the school. They're bringing servants with them, house elves I believe, and I've prepared quarters for them all near the kitchens. I'll be helping them when I can. As for the other staff, a caretaker shouldn't be too difficult, there have been a couple of interested parties in Hogsmeade itself. But I'm having problems finding a healer prepared to come out here. We just can't offer the same sort of money as other establishments."
"Well keep trying and we'll all ask around as well," Salazar said. "My mother might know a healer, I'll send her an owl."
"The only other subject is apparating and I think that should be taught by each of us to the students in our own houses," Helga concluded. "It's not really necessary for the younger students of course but in a couple of years time I think that should work. It shouldn't take more than a few months to teach them so should be easy enough to fit into our timetables as we'll only be teaching one subject each by then."
"Finally we have to sort out the students," Godric said. "Who we're taking and so forth."
"I think we agreed that we'd only take eleven to fourteen year olds this first year," Rowena said. "Any more than that and we'll need more staff right away."
"Agreed," everyone replied.
"We'll keep the older students on until they're of age and then they'll leave after that year. That gives us plenty of time to find more teachers." Again everyone nodded in agreement.
"What about who we invite to come here?" Salazar asked as everyone else suddenly began intently studying the subject lists again. It was a subject that had cropped up a couple of times before but now it had to be dealt with instead of being brushed aside for later.
"Everyone with magical abilities should be invited to study here," Helga said firmly.
"You don't think that might be a little bit dangerous?" Salazar asked. "Sometimes magic appears in a family of muggles."
"There's nothing wrong with being muggle-born," Helga stated, her voice rising slightly with conviction.
"I'm more concerned about exposing the students and staff to the aforementioned mobs with the pitchforks if we start inviting the children of muggles in here. We've put a lot of protective charms on the place to keep muggles away, it won't do much good if we then invite them here via their children."
"You don't seriously think the parents of any student would attack us?" Godric asked with a sigh of impatience.
"It wouldn't be the first time a father or mother have turned on their child because they have powers they don't understand," Salazar retorted.
"But we would help them to understand," Helga pointed out.
"You can't make someone understand if they don't want to," Salazar snapped. "We have to think of the safety of all the students."
"We aren't excluding students just because they're muggle-born," Helga snapped back.
"Maybe we should limit it to those with the strength of character and bravery to stand up to their families if things do go the way Salazar's suggesting?" Godric put forward.
"If we're going to start limiting students based whether they pose a danger to the others, maybe we should limit it to those who have had previous magical training and can control their powers already?" Rowena waited for the others to consider her suggestion. She already had visions of explosions and magical accidents every other day as the untrained children wreaked havoc in their school.
"We're not limiting the student admissions," Helga snapped again. "Not on how brave they are, not on how clever they are, and especially not on who their parents are!"
Everyone fell silent as Helga made her speech. It was rare that she raised her voice and ever rarer that she really lost her temper. As such they all listened whenever her voice was raised.
The other three cast sheepish looks at each other as Helga glared at each of them in turn.
"We've already decided to split the students into houses," Helga continued in a normal tone. "If you all have reservations about certain students then there's nothing stopping you from excluding them from your own houses. I'll take any that none of you want to deal with. I'm sure we'll manage."
Everyone nodded in agreement and the atmosphere soon cleared, their differences quickly forgotten in the excitement of their venture.