They stopped before the stone gargoyle. Torchlight sliding over it's beak. Flitwick glanced at Vinda, then at the statue.
"As far as I know, Albus liked Muggle sweets for passwords," Flitwick offered. His fingers rubbed his chin as if coaxing a list into order. "Lemon drops. Sherbet lemons. Toffee."
Vinda did not bother to look at the statue. "I will use Fiendfyre and be done with it. We save time and patience." It was not about the time and patiance but more about Dumbledore. She hated that man with passion.
Flitwick turned sharp enough to make his robes whisper. "Headmistress Rosier, Fiendfyre is not an acceptable method of entry. Not here. Not ever in a school. There must be another way."
"There is a ward stone waiting for me in that office," Vinda answered. Calm. Flat. "The Board placed it under my hand. We will not stand here while a retired dark wizard's parlor trick wastes the morning."
Corvus cleared his throat. "Let Master Flitwick show you the floor. I will try the door from another angle."
One of Vinda's brows rose. She weighed him for a beat and nodded. "Very well. Corvus."
Flitwick warmed at the suggestion immediatly. Headmistress Rosier was looking prettier by the second to his eyes. Especially is she will not use Fiendfyre. "This way, Headmistress. We will start with the seventh floor corridor." He set off at a brisk, contained pace, talking softly about charms as they went.
Corvus watched until their footsteps faded. He pulled the cloak across his shoulders and vanished from the sight. Cool air found his face. He stepped close to the statue, fixed the center of the office in his mind, and let the fire take him.
Heat bloomed and died. He stood on the rug in front of the head's desk. Portraits lined the walls in thick frames. Most was asleep others pretending to do so. One slit an eye, looked around, and shut it again. He did not bother with the desk. The wards would be bound to the door and the stair.
He crossed to the inner landing and put a hand to the latch. Passwords at entrance, not at exits. In a fire or an attack a head must leave without a riddle.
The bolt moved under his palm with a soft click. He opened the door a hand's width. Below, the gargoyle moved as the door was opened from inside. Stone scraped. The statue sprang aside. The wall beyond split and the spiral stairs showed its spine.
Corvus left the door ajar and stayed inside. He did not break the rule he had just used. He drew a breath and raised his wand.
Silver mist gathered at the tip. A raven burst into shape, wings wide, eyes bright. His first Animagus flew towards his intended target.
"To the Headmistress and to Professor Flitwick," he told it. The bird cocked its head, then shot through the open space. Feathers of light brushed the stairs and were gone.
He checked the portraits again. Still sleeping, good he thought and closed the inner door of the office and removed the cloak. He eased the door a fraction wider and listened. Footsteps came fast from the far end of the corridor. Flitwick's light step. Vinda's heels marking the stone with authority.
He stood out of the line of the door and waited. The wards pressed close, curious now that the door was open. The stair turned one more time. Cloth whispered. The first shadow reached the threshold.
"Password is not required from within," Corvus called in a level tone. "The statue has moved. The office is waiting."
The spiral gave them up, and the day found its next task.
--
Number 10 kept a room that never got used. Polished desk, drawn curtains and a heart not connected to any chimney. John Major had asked once why it sat empty. No one had an answer until last week.
He had laughed in the first briefing. Witches, Wizards. Dragons and whole other names from fairy tales for a slow day, what a joke he thought. Dame Stella Rimington did not laugh, nor did Sir Colin McColl. The files on the table were not a joke either. He learned that in the first ten minutes and felt older in the next ten.
The clock on the mantel found five. The hearth across from the desk roared with green fire. Major flinched from heat that did not arrive as three figures stepped through and shook soot from their sleeves. An elder with sharp grey eyes. A young man, tall and built, shoulders that could fill a doorway. A small woman whose poise read as law. Two wooden sticks flashed in the hands of the elder and the lady. Wands he remembered from te brief. Weapons, tools and twenty other thing all combined in a wooden stick. Ash vanished from cloth. The young man cleared his cuffs without a 'wand'. This, he was not briefed on.
Major rose from his seat, Rimington and McColl rose with him. The three crossed the carpet. The elder's presence filled the room as if he owned the lease. The woman's gaze measured the corners. The young man's eyes met Major's and held. A cold feeling went through him in a breath and gone as if his years laid bare. He fought the urge to straighten his tie. The same cold read passed over Rimington and McColl. Each felt it alone and assumed the others had not.
Rimington reached the trio first and offered her hand. McColl matched her pace. The young man did not the ask for names.
He tipped his head to the elder. "Minister, allow me." He faced the Prime Minister and his two chiefs and spoke as if reading a briefing they had written for him.
"Dame Stella Rimington. Director of the Security Service. Domestic counterintelligence and counterterrorism. Half her desk carries IRA files. Óglaigh na hÉireann by their own style. It reads as bombs and statements and poor sleep for her."
Rimington's eyes narrowed a fraction. She said nothing.
He turned a hand to Major. "Sir John Major. Conservative leader. Blue to the bone. 'The Tories' as they are called by the public, share ground with us on some policies. At home you fix with budgets and use force. Abroad you hope the fires stay where they are and do not allow them entry."
McColl got the last look. "Sir Colin McColl of SIS. Foreign intelligence. Your presence could be translated as the Crown treating wizardkind as foreign in law. Ironic, when considering we were roaming and shaping the geography of the isles when their preople were still playing with mud and drinking ale to avoid plagues. Back to him, he is mostly occupied with North and Middle East. Russia does not make it easier to deal with the crisis in Gulf I assume."
The room held its breath. Major felt the office tilt. He had expected robes and some broken Latin from a briefing. He expected people with strange abilites, wooden sticks and ignorance for the rest of the globe. He had not expected to hear his own house given back without a stumble.
The elder allowed a small smile that did not reach his eyes. The woman took a single step so she could see the line of the desk. The young man had set the tone and kept the upper hand by intorducing them and their current issues.
Major found his voice. He nodded once to each of them. "You are well informed. Informed to a degree that leaves us at a disadvantage," he said, and heard how thin it sounded.
The young man's tone stayed even. "Prime Minister, Chiefs." He shifted to the other half of the room. "Minister for Magic of Wizarding Britain, Lord Arcturus Black of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black." The elder inclined his head in a way that landed as sovereign without crown.
"I am Lord Rosier of the Ancient and Noble House of Rosier," the young man went on. "And this is Ignatia Travers of the Noble House of Travers." The small woman curtsied with perfect form. Her earrings caught the light and went quiet again. At least Major was expecting the etiquette of the seventeenth centuary.
Rimington noted the lack of a wand and filed it. McColl recalibrated targets and angles and decided she should start to monitor the abra cadabra world as well.
Major could not shake the first beat when their eyes met. The look had weighed his years, his wins and his soft defeats. It had been fast and absolute. Rimington's hand brushed his sleeve once. He understood he had not imagined it. She had felt it too.
The young man let the moment sit long enough to be remembered. Then he folded it away as if it were only a page in a docket. Rimington's mouth compressed. McColl hid whatever he thought behind habit.
The elder lifted a hand and the air settled by a degree. The woman drew a small leather book and a quill from a small pouch. The quill took ink without a bottle. Major was going to have headaches after this meeting. Nothing was making sense until now.
The young man glanced around the room, then back to the Prime Minister. "I believe we have a meeting to attend." he said, and motioned to the chairs. The fire eased to a steady burn. The hour began.
--
Vinda found the ward stone in under ten minutes. The castle's lines ran to it like veins. She set her palm to the face, felt the old pulse, and placed her magic over it with the calm of someone who knew exactly what she was doing. Authority settled. The office felt it first. She stripped the silly password and set a proper door ward that would admit by key and signature only. She stored everything in the office carefully as they were going to be examined first by her and DMLE afterwards.
She walked the circuits with the stone humming under her hand. Inefficiencies leapt out at once. Tripled charms where one would do. Wards layered at cross purposes. Work that strained the core for no gain. She took notes, Corvus would have called it inefficiency. She called it slovenly.
She cleared a corner of the desk and spread a fresh timetable. Tempus hung in the air above the parchment, then faded as she set blocks. New lessons first, because order starts at the spine. Wizarding Etiquette. Dark Arts. Healing. Rituals.
Dark Arts would be split. She would take fourth through seventh. A senior Auror would take first through third. Arcturus could find her one with a steady hand and a spine. Etiquette would belong to Narcissa Black. The woman knew how to make a greeting hold weight. Importance of station and traditions. Additionally, she wanted the name Black to etch itself to the students, after Rosier of course. Healing needed a name from St Mungo's. The matron would know who could teach and not coddle. Rituals needed a master. she tought to ask for Master Menkara and shook her head immediatly. He might be one of the best, but he was mad. Isolde Nacht would do. Last Vinda had heard she was living in Meersburg, Germany. Isolde was the expert when it comes to Rituals at their golden days. A nice letter would move her.
She wrote three notes and sealed them. Ignatia would have them on her desk soon. The castle shifted its shoulders while she worked. It liked being told what to do.
A knock touched the door.
"Enter."
Greengrass came in first with the look of a man already counting shelves. Flitwick followed, hands folded. Sprout came next, dirt at the edge of a cuff that she did not bother to hide. Morozova trailed last and let her eyes take the room apart.
"Headmistress," Flitwick began. "I hope the office has behaved."
Vinda tapped the timetable and multiplied it with a clean Gemini. Two copies drifted across the desk to Flitwick and Morozova. A third and forth went to Greengrass and Sprout. She kept the original and watched their eyes move.
Sprout broke first. "We will need consent from families if we are to teach Dark Arts."
"They may withdraw their children if they do not want a core discipline," Vinda answered. "The subject is taught across the world. We will teach it correctly. It will not tune them to something like the former headmaster. Ignorance already tried that."
Flitwick lifted his head. "For Rituals and for Etiquette. Who do you have in mind."
"Narcissa Black for Etiquette. She will set a standard. For Rituals I have written to Isolde Nacht. She will answer within the week."
"Isolde Nacht from Germany, who Grindelwald consulted for the subject?" Morozova asked curiously.
"Yes, That Isolde. She has a very deep well of knowledge when it comes to Rituals of European origin. For the rest she is more than decent." Vinda's answer got a nods from Morozova, Greengrass and Flitwick. Sprout on the other hand was not pleased.
Greengrass rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Third through seventh are ragged in Potions. First and second look sound. The ones who took Corvus' term are sounder. I will need extra sessions to drag the rest to where they ought to be."
"Transfiguration is worse," Morozova said, unbothered by offended looks of Sprou and Flitwick. "Sixth years are hardly at the level of thrid years of Durmstrang. Seventh years are no different. What is worse, we are already five months into the term."
Vinda closed her eyes for one breath and opened them again. "Night classes then. We move the day forward and take the evening for the rest."
They argued the shape for an hour. Flitwick wanted the first years spared the dawn. Greengrass wanted longer practicals. Morozova insisted on a clean block for drills. Sprout wanted greenhouses kept on their light cycles. Vinda cut and set until the thing held.
"Lessons begin at seven," she said at last. "Formal day ends at two. Evening and Night blocks will cover new subjects and catch up for Potions, Transfiguration and Dark Arts. Etiquette will run by house on rotation. Dark Arts for first to third will sit under an Auror until summer break. Fourth to seventh will sit with me. Rituals begin when Nacht arrives. Healing when Mungo's sends me a decent healer."
Flitwick scanned the copy and let out a small breath that was almost relief. "It will work."
Greengrass folded his and slipped it away. "I will see the stockrooms."
Sprout gave a single nod. "I will adjust the plants."
Morozova looked pleased in the way ice looks pleased. "We will see what they remember by Friday."
They left with the timetables in hand. The door closed. Vinda leaned back and listened to the wards. It hummed. She wondered, not without interest, how her heir fared with the Muggle Prime Minister.