Chapter 9 – Requirements

"But you wanted the staircase to lead to that corridor only on weekends!" exclaimed Rowena as she waved her hands in frustration.

"I'm thinking that perhaps that might not be frequently enough," Godric admitted as he descended the newly moved staircase to where the rest of the founders were waiting.

"How did you get up there anyway?" Helga asked. "The staircase moved back to the other position last night at midnight."

"I was devising lesson plans last evening and lost track of time," Godric replied.

"You mean you've been stuck up there all night?" Rowena asked as she bit back a smile.

"I was certainly not stuck," Godric assured her with a frown. "Had I had my wand with me I'd have been down here again in no time at all."

"Why do you keep leaving your wand lying around anyway?" Helga asked. "We thought you were lost again."

"I have never been lost," Godric announced with a pompous sniff. "I have always known exactly where I am, even if I haven't recognised any of my surroundings."

"Yes Godric, that's what the rest of us call 'being lost'," Salazar pointed out.

"So do you feel up to our second staff meeting?" Helga asked. "We can put it off until this afternoon if you would rather get some sleep."

"No need for that," Godric said as he shook his head. "I just used the bedchamber up there. Good idea that by the way."

"Who in the world would put a bedchamber up there?" Helga asked. "Rowena was that you?"

"I love the way you automatically assume it was me," Rowena replied as she shook her head. "Was it you Salazar?"

"No," Salazar answered. "Are you sure there was a bedchamber, Godric?"

"I think I am perfectly able to recognise a bedchamber when I see one."

"So who put it up there?" Rowena asked. "If none of us did and no one else can alter the structure of the building, then how did it get there?"

"Salazar, where are you going?" Helga called out as the man turned and ran up the stairs that Godric had just come down. "You'll be late for the meeting!"

Rowena turned and ran after Salazar, followed immediately by Godric.

Helga shrugged and followed them up the stairs. It's not like the meeting could start without all of them.

"What is it?" Rowena asked as she caught up with Salazar who was standing in the middle of the corridor looking at a blank wall.

"Don't you recognise where we are?" he asked instead of answering her question.

"Somewhere on the seventh floor," Rowena replied with a shrug. "To be honest the corridors all kind of look the same to me. I keep telling you we need to get some pictures up or some statues or something to let everyone know where there are."

"Are you going to enlighten us as to why you're staring at a blank wall some time this morning?" asked Helga with a touch of impatience. Salazar took no notice and started to prod the wall with his wand, muttering under his breath at the same time.

Rowena leaned back against the opposite wall. She recognised the type of mood Salazar was in. Something was bothering him and until he figured it out there would be no point in trying to get anything resembling sense out of him.

"Is there any chance we can get to the staff meeting before the rest of the staff send out a search party for us?" Helga asked as she tapped her foot on the stone floor.

Godric meanwhile had wandered further down the corridor and was staring at a dark patch on the floor. "Is this blood?" he called out as he crouched down to get a closer look.

"Elf made wine," Salazar called back. "Rowena spilt it there the weekend before last."

"Hey!" Rowena poked Salazar in the back. "You can't blame me for every little thing that gets spilled around here."

"I'm not," answered Salazar distractedly as he continued to tap at the stones. "But you were the one who dropped the glass of wine there. I was with you at the time."

Rowena frowned, then smiled suddenly as she remembered the incident. "Oh!" She looked about her, at where Godric was looking at the wine stain, trying his hardest to remove it with a spell, but for some reason having little success, and then frowned in puzzled confusion. A moment later she joined Salazar in tapping the wall with her wand.

"Godric, would you leave the ruddy stain alone," Helga ordered. "We have a caretaker now who can take care of it."

"But why won't it disappear with magic?" Godric asked.

"Probably a result of having so many spells on the place all at once," Helga said. "Leave it for Augustus."

"Oh, is that his name?" Rowena asked, momentarily distracted from her prodding at the wall.

"Haven't you spoken to him yet?" Helga asked.

"He keeps dashing off every time he sees me coming," Rowena said with a confused shrug before turning her attention back to the wall.

"Sounds like you have an admirer," Godric teased. "Sal better watch out."

Salazar snorted with laughter. "If the reason he's running off is because he's taken a liking to Rowena then we have other problems as he keeps running off when he sees me coming as well."

"Well what do you expect?" Helga asked. "I've never been so embarrassed as when we walked in on you like that."

"You should have knocked," replied Salazar in a thoroughly unapologetic tone.

"I did. Besides, you were only in one of the classrooms," Helga pointed out. "It's not like we'd walked into your private chambers."

"Don't worry about that now Helga," Godric said. "It's one of the little things I plan to bring up at the staff meeting."

"What is?" Rowena asked at the same time as Helga pointed out yet again that they were supposed to be at that very staff meeting right now.

"It doesn't seem to be opening," Salazar muttered as he finally stopped tapping at the stones.

"That's because there's nothing there," an exasperated Helga sighed.

"Yes there is," Rowena insisted. "There's a bedroom here. It was all decorated in silver and blue."

"It was red and gold," Godric argued. "I remember it distinctly, the Gryffindor colours."

"Not when we saw it," Salazar said. "It was a combination of the Slytherin and Ravenclaw colours."

"Are you sure?" Godric asked. "If you were doing what I suspect you were, it's entirely possible you might have been too distracted to notice the colours the room was decorated in."

"We weren't that distracted," Salazar snorted. "Anyway, aren't you colour blind?"

"Not that colour blind!"

By this point Helga looked as though she was about to perform some serious harm on her co-founders if they didn't start moving back towards the staff room soon. "Okay, if we can leave the mystery of the disappearing bedchamber until some other time and please get to the staff room some time before sunset!"

"Exaggerating much?" Rowena asked as she reluctantly stopped tapping at the wall herself.

"Come on Rowena, let's go suffer through Godric's meeting before Helga gives herself an ulcer." Salazar guided her away from the wall and past Helga and Godric towards the staircase.

"Actually you're supposed to be chairing this meeting," Helga pointed out with a degree of reluctance.

"I am?" Salazar stopped and frowned. "Oh, right, I am, aren't I?"

And with that Salazar's pace quickened to a brisk trot that left the others behind.

"If I'd known that was all it would take to get him to move, I'd have said that in the first place," Helga muttered as they hurried to keep up with him.

Most of the rest of the staff were already assembled in the staff common room by the time the four founders arrived for the meeting. Everyone stood up a little straighter and tried to look smart and attentive when they saw the founders approaching.

Godric entered the room first and immediately waved his wand so that the largest table in the room and the surrounding chairs shifted into place. A second swish of the wand and ink, quills and parchments appeared in each of the places.

"If everyone could take their allocated seats," Godric asked with a smile as the witches and wizards they had hired shuffled into the room.

"Allocated seats?" Rowena asked as she approached the table. She soon saw what it was that he was referring to. Each sheet of parchment had a name written across the top. "Looks like you're sitting here Helga," she commented.

Helga took her seat and Rowena smirked as she saw that Godric had placed himself at the far end of the table. Her smile disappeared soon enough however when she saw that Godric had put herself and Salazar some distance away from each other as well. It wasn't that she couldn't bear to be too far from him or anything else that silly, just slight irritation at the feeling that they were being treated like naughty children.

She was about to sit down when the writing on the parchment in front of her faded to nothing and then new letters formed indicating that the seat she was about to take was that of Jocelyn Jones. "Your seat's here, Rowena," Salazar called from the opposite end of the table with a quick wink in her direction. "Something the matter Godric?"

Godric decided against saying anything in front of the rest of the staff as Rowena took her new seat beside Salazar.

Once everyone had taken their seats it was apparent that they were one person short.

"Where's Wilbur?" Salazar asked Helga with a frown.

"He'll be arriving this afternoon," she confirmed. "He said he had to see a man about a bludger."

"A what?" Rowena asked.

"A bludger," Helga repeated.

"What's a bludger?" asked Rhys Lynch, the recently arrived Arithmancy and Muggle Studies professor. Smartly dressed and rather snobbish, Professor Lynch fancied himself an authority on every subject imaginable. He found it unbearable to be party to a conversation where someone else knew more than he did about the subject at hand.

Helga looked at Professor Lynch and gave a shrug. She was sure that Wilbur would wish to tell everyone all about Quidditch when he arrived and there was no point in wasting even more of the meeting time on the subject.

"Maybe we should just start the meeting without him?" Godric suggested. "No sense in putting it off until he gets here. Helga will fill him in on the important details when he arrives."

"Agreed," Salazar said as he looked picked up the parchment in front of him.

"My agenda for the meeting," Godric pointed out, rather unnecessarily. The parchment unrolled revealing line after line of items he felt the staff should be discussing. "The items are in no particular order, just as they came to my attention."

"Humph," Salazar looked down the parchment. "If we have to go through all this lot today then we'll probably still be here when Wilbur arrives."

"Every item is important," Godric pointed out. "The sooner we start the sooner we finish."

Rowena rolled her eyes and started doodling on the parchment in front of her.

"Item one," Salazar began. "Student admissions."

"I think you'll find that's actually item three," Godric interrupted.

"And I think you'll find that neither the whereabouts of that ruddy goat nor Professor Ravenclaw's and my sleeping arrangements are what I would call a priority for staff meetings," Salazar replied.

"Mr Addison has Sal under control now," Helga informed the staff with a nod towards the caretaker who seemed a little shocked at being singled out at the meeting. "He's built her a more secure pen and she hasn't escaped it as yet."

"You have our thanks," Salazar said with a nod of acknowledgement to the embarrassed Augustus. "Now, student admissions."

"I really do think we need to discuss item two," Godric insisted.

"Very well." Salazar gave a smirk and turned to Rowena. "Your room or mine tonight, dear?"

Helga snorted with laughter as Rowena flushed. Despite the fact that she'd been mortifying her family by living with Salazar for some five years now, she still couldn't seem to get over the embarrassment that habitually enveloped her in situations like this. She blamed her parents for the way they'd brought her up; Salazar silently thanked them, he thought it was amusing.

"I mean for when the students arrive," Godric said. "As heads of our own houses we need to be accessible all the time, including at night. In cases of emergency…"

"All right, all right," Salazar cut him off before they wasted the entire meeting on the issue. "We'll work something out before school starts. Rowena, do make a note to think of something. Now, student admissions."

Salazar flicked his wand towards the centre of the table and a large pile of parchments appeared.

"These are the applications that have been made for our consideration. We Heads will sort out who will go in which school house after considering each one. I don't believe we need to have the entire faculty present for that. However there are a number of queries that have been raised by the students and their parents. Firstly there have been a number of parents asking if students can bring pets with them to the school."

"I don't see why not," Helga immediately responded. "We'll just include in the initial welcoming letter that they can bring pets. We've plenty of room here and Augustus is happy to help out with their upkeep."

"Erm…it's not quite that simple," Salazar explained. "One parent wants to know if his eleven year old son could bring their pet manticore with him."

"He what?" Helga's jaw dropped. "I was thinking more like owls and cats."

"Weren't we all?" Salazar commented. "If someone could please pick Augustus up from the floor?"

Madam Jones bobbed down to help the startled caretaker back into his seat.

"I think we should limit what animals we allow into the school," Salazar said. "And draw the line well before manticores."

"Actually they are rather fascinating creatures," Godric mused. "The venom is certainly worth studying and they are remarkably intelligent, at least when they're not attacking anyone that goes near them."

"You want to go and study it, then go and pay the student a home visit," Helga muttered. "This is a school, not a breeding ground for lethal and dangerous monsters."

Godric looked rather crestfallen at this but let the matter drop.

"Of the other animals requested," Salazar continued. "We have mainly owls and a few other delivery birds, cats, a couple of horses and one child who apparently can't bear to be parted from his pet toad."

"Who in the world has a pet toad?" Rowena asked.

"Reginald Williams, apparently," Salazar replied. "I don't think we can really come up with a reason why he can't bring it to school. What about the rest of the animals?"

"No problem with the cats and various delivery birds," Godric said. "Although I still don't know where we're going to keep the latter and how we're going to keep the cats from them all."

"Shove them up in the spare tower," Rowena suggested. "No one else has claimed it. Most of the cats won't venture all the way up there, it's too far from the kitchens."

"And what about the horses?" Helga asked. "Do we allow students to bring horses here? They involve a lot of care."

"I can take care of 'em," Augustus piped up.

"Excellent," Salazar announced. "That seems to be all the pet requests sorted. Godric can go visit the manticore residence and tell them the bad news." Godric brightened up slightly at this.

"Item five. Yes Godric, I'm ignoring item four," Salazar forestalled the other man's protest before he could form the words. "I'll brew what potions I like and if Rowena's daft enough to taste them, that's her problem."

Rowena kicked him. Salazar smirked. "Now about item five…"

The meeting dragged on for several hours despite Salazar's attempts to skip various items on Godric's list. Finally the staff had discussed and debated every topic and the end of the list was reached.

"Right, if that's all, then I think lunch might be ready now." Salazar stood up ready to leave when the only person to have remained silent throughout the meeting suddenly spoke.

"Balls!" Professor Daisy Plunkett suddenly shouted.

"Pardon?" several other people asked, although most just stared at her, having forgotten the Divination Professor was even there.

"I've lost my crystal balls," Professor Plunkett said as she glared around the table. "I want to know who's taken my crystal balls."

"They've been moved to your tower quarters, remember?" Helga sincerely hoped that they were still there but couldn't see why anyone would want to move them.

"My quarters are in a tower?" Professor Plunkett asked.

"Yes," Helga nodded. "Don't you remember? We took you up there a few days ago and got you settled. The crystal balls are in your classroom."

"What do I need a classroom for? I'm a bit old to be going back to school."

"No, you're teaching, remember?" Helga looked slightly panicked at the blank look on Professor Plunkett's face.

Professor Plunkett nodded thoughtfully and shuffled to the door. Everyone stood back to give her a wide berth, just in case her particular brand of insanity was contagious.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief as she opened the door. "Er, what subject am I teaching again?" she asked as she turned back to the rest of the room with a look of extreme confusion on her face.

"You hired her, you can sort her out," Salazar whispered to Helga as he busied himself with sorting out piles of papers that were in a perfectly acceptable order already.

Helga steered Professor Plunkett to her quarters whilst the rest of the staff gravitated towards the kitchens where the smell of roast venison that had been tormenting them for the last hour was coming from.

The rest of staff were still eating their late lunch in the Great Hall when the sound of something breaking came from outside in the Entrance Hall.

"Sounds like Wilbur's arrived," said Godric between bites meat.

The sound of Helga's scream echoed through the room a moment later.

"That doesn't sound like a scream of joy at the arrival of the love of her life," Salazar said as he hurriedly put down his goblet.

The staff rushed to the door to see what was the matter.

"Duck!" came Wilbur's shout as they rushed into the Entrance Hall.

Rowena ducked just in time, aided by the quick-thinking Salazar who pulled her to the floor. Jocelyn unfortunately wasn't as quick and the object flying at rapid speed around the entrance knocked her off her feet.

Rowena, with the assistance of Augustus, dragged Jocelyn back into the safety of the Great Hall.

"I think she's just knocked out," she said after a cursory examination of the woman.

"What was it?" Augustus asked with a nervous glance through the gap in the door.

"I don't know," Rowena admitted. "But something tells me it might be a bludger. Wait here with Jocelyn until we give you the all clear."

She poked a cautious head out the door to see Salazar, Godric and Rhys crouched on the ground whilst Wilbur shot off spells in every direction. She ducked down and crawled across the floor to Salazar.

"There she goes!" Wilbur yelled as he dashed to up the stairs towards the first floor.

Rowena and the others followed him, along with Helga who had ducked to avoid the bludger as it passed her on the stairs.

"A couple of things for your next staff meeting, Godric," Rowena said as they surveyed the damage the bludger was wreaking. "I suggest we make finding a healer our number one priority and…" she ducked as the bludger came dangerously close. "Do you really think we should put Quidditch on the school timetable? Because at the moment I think I'd rather face a manticore than one of Wilbur's bludgers!"