Entry tags:

beholder 2013, femslash, fic, irma pince, minerva mcgonagall, minerva mcgonagall/irma pince, rating:r

FIC: "Two Capable Women" for albalark
Recipient: albalark
Author: : ???
Title: Two Capable Women
Rating: R
Pairings: Irma Pince/Minerva McGonagall
Word Count: 6700
Warnings/Content Information (Highlight to View): *none*
Summary: A great many dreadful things have befallen the Hogwarts staff over the years, but the motivational training by Wilberforce (Bertie) Arbuthnot counts among the worst. However, Irma and Minerva rise to the occasion with the fortitude one may expect of two very capable women.
Author's/Notes: : My thanks, as always, to my fabulous betas. 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.

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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.

On the morning of 29th August the sun shone brightly, little birds chirped and frolicked, flowers unfolded their petals, and the world looked, Irma Pince thought morosely as she stared out of her bedroom window, as it must have done on that perfect moment just before the Creator of All Things decided that yes, humans were that one last thing the place needed.

She threw a last, longing look at the biography of Dilys Derwent, a book that promised to do full justice to Dilys’s life-long friendship with Selina Purvis. Irma, who had always felt that the story of the former Headmistress’s legendary fiancé who allegedly succumbed to Spattergroit, thus leaving Dilys with a desire to heal and a lifetime of spinsterhood, had been a load of balderdash invented by an embarrassed family and spread further by a succession of heteronormative biographers.

Bathilda Bagshot’s book would be different. And now Irma’d have to wait all day before she could curl up with it. Curse the Ministry and damn Albus for giving in to that ridiculous training request. Although he had brought home quite a large sum of money, and some of it might pay for the modernisation of the library catalogue system.

Blast Arbuthnot, then. A young whippersnapper who had never worked in a school and had no idea of what it was like to face teenagers in large groups. And the Ministry called him ‘inspirational’. Those were the worst.

Irma sighed as she made her way to the staff room.

All over the castle, her colleagues were preparing themselves in various ways for what the Ministry brochure described as an ‘uplifting and motivating experience’.

Argus Filch, dressing himself in his Sunday best for this day of interaction with faculty, had a long man-to-cat talk with Mrs Norris about the various jobs the two of them ought to tackle instead of attending that rigmarole. Mrs Norris, who loved her human dearly, purred agreement and tactfully waited until Filch had closed the door behind him before she curled up on the comfortable little rug that guaranteed several hours of sunlit basking.

Horace Slughorn gave some fleeting thought to the match of the day and the Owl he had sent to his regular bookie. Nothing much, just a small flutter, but it was more fun with a bet. Even more fun to watch in person, of course. As Horace knotted his tie, he thought of the Harpies’ chances, the perfect weather for a match, and the possibility that Rolanda Hooch would bring a radio, however small, so that they could hear something of it. The one thing he did not think of was his Gran. A sin of omission that would have made Minerva McGonagall smile, had she known of it.

As things stood, Minerva found very little to smile about. Her first, brief encounter with Wilberforce (“Call me Bertie!”) Arbuthnot had confirmed her worst suspicions. He did not want a blackboard, or a lectern, or any of the more usual tools of the teaching trade.

What he did want was for the chairs to be put in a cosy circle, and no, desks were not necessary, what could they possibly need desks for?

“Writing?” Minerva had suggested. “Note-taking?” she had added when Arbuthnot had given her a blank stare.

“Oh, we won’t be as boringly traditional as that,” Arbuthnot had enthused. “We will use inventive means of self-exploration that help the student to actively learn, rather than to dumbly absorb.”

As Minerva gave the final instructions for lunch and break times to the house-elves, she couldn’t help thinking that an excellent way to spend the day would be to bang this young man in an old-fashioned desk, explain all about the Split Infinitive with the help of a blackboard, and make him spend several hours on writing exercises that would teach him once and for all to avoid it.

At nine o’clock sharp, the collective inmates of Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry reluctantly took their places in Arbuthnot’s cosy circle, which actually was half a one, while that bright young man welcomed them most heartily. And most patronisingly.

Pomona, Rolanda, Poppy, and Filius were willing to believe that this was an unintentional side-effect of nerves.

Horace thought it a problem the young man would need to address sooner rather than later if he wanted to remain a high-flyer in the traditional sense of the word, not as the more literal result of a well-placed hex from one of his aggravated colleagues.

Argus thought the trainer nobbut a waste of time and took some grim satisfaction from seeing his worst expectations confirmed.

Sybill Saw that it would be a very long and difficult day; a True Prediction that unfortunately never made it to the history books.

And Minerva and Irma happened to look at each other. An eyebrow was arched, the corner of a mouth was curled, and they both experienced the little flush of pleasure that comes with recognising a kindred spirit.

“We’ll now start on something truly physical, to get the blood pumping and the energy surging,” announced Arbuthnot. Noticing the marked lack of enthusiasm and attributing it to a resistance to change – so few people were willing to truly embrace modern methods of teaching – he singled out the one person who looked somewhat encouraging, a middle-aged woman with spikey grey hair.

“You!” he cried, pointing at her. “Do something really physical!”

Rolanda Hooch nodded and started an on-the-spot warming-up that could serve as a model for any aspiring athlete. Her colleagues smiled encouragingly.

“You call that energetic?” shouted Arbuthnot. “That’s the best you can do? Come on! More! More! More! Cheer her on, all of you!” And he started clapping his hands and shouting, “Come on! Come on!”

He got a few half-hearted handclaps, several looks of utter surprise, and a snort from both Irma and Minerva, who experienced the pleasure of being in total agreement for the second time in less than ten minutes.

To give Arbuthnot his due, and one must give even Inspirational Speakers their due, if nothing else, this was a small proof of his skills. “Let’s make blood pound and energy surge,” he had said, and true enough some energy did surge and blood did pump. It was not much, but more than had happened between Minerva and Irma in the past year. They positively began to warm to each other.

Meanwhile Rolanda hopped to her own beat, then halted, shook her arms and legs, and said, “There. That will do for a warming-up.”

“Come ON!” yelled Arbuthnot. “What makes you think that will do?”

“Six years of playing Quidditch for Britain on the National Team,” said Rolanda. She did not actually utter the words ‘and what are your qualifications?’ It was not necessary.

Arbuthnot turned around and selected another candidate, this time choosing a difficult one intentionally. Always best to deal with the difficult ones right away, before they could form a group of acolytes.

“Now you do something that will give you true energy,” he cried. “ Jump! Swing! Kick your legs! Come on, come ON, COME ON!” And he clapped his hands.

It was the only sound in a room where the assembled staff tried to imagine a world in which Minerva McGonagall would jump, swing, or kick her legs. They failed miserably. They then tried to imagine a world in which Minerva would start to kick arse, Arbuthnot’s arse, to be precise. This was disconcertingly easy.

Minerva, meanwhile, stood quite still with a very focused look in her eyes. Filius and Horace, who stood closest to her, could feel the magical energy surge and could feel their own blood pump at the thought of the scene of unspeakable violence that was clearly about to take place. The rest of the group stared from the young man to their Deputy Headmistress and back.

No-one looked at the coffee urn on the side table.

They only noticed it when it landed in their midst with a very gentle thud. Not a drop was spilled. It was followed by mugs, a plate of biscuits, a jar of milk and a bowl of sugar, all in immaculate condition.

It was a breath-taking display of wordless, wandless magic.

“This, one presumes, will give us all true energy while you explain your programme for the rest of the day,” said Minerva in her clipped, precise voice. Her colleagues, however, noticed a slight increase of her Scottish brogue. They all knew that, on days like this, survival of the fittest starts with sticking to ‘yes, Minerva, you are quite right’.

Amidst a chorus of “Quite right” and “hear, hear” the staff fetched their mugs from Argus, who had volunteered to be mother, and sat down with a look of expectation that had nothing to do with Arbuthnot’s energy exercise, but that filled the optimistic young man with hope, nonetheless.

“This morning,” he said when everyone was seated and sipping coffee, “you will all do something that’ll get you out of your normal little routines. Something new and exciting that’ll make you see Life in a Different Way. In fact, and that is the purpose of this exercise, it will make you see Life as The Other Half Sees It.”

An overexposure to motivational posters can cause a regrettable tendency to Talk in Capitals in an otherwise promising young man.

The staff then found themselves paired up and instructed to invent and create something that would help reconciliation, in an environment that would be ‘refreshingly alien’ to them.

The staff, most of whom had worked at Hogwarts for decades and were more familiar with every nook and cranny than with the content of their own pockets – in the case of Pomona Sprout, who was the despair of the house-elves who dealt with washing, especially with the contents of her own pockets – reached for a second round of coffee as one man.

They then learned that Rolanda and Argus would work together in the library.

“Jolly good, we can create an obstacle course between the bookcases,” said Rolanda. “Joking!” she added after a quick glance at Irma. Rolanda’s reputation for dodging Bludgers was both legendary and well-deserved.

Poppy and Pomona would work in the dungeons, Horace and Filius in the Astronomy tower, and Minerva and Irma in the Forbidden Forest, where they would experience ‘the joys of the outdoorsy life, the better to understand your young students.”

And with a hearty “Go and Be Creative” they were all sent on their way.

Minerva and Irma went.

Creativity, for a Slytherin/Gryffindor definition of the word, was practically pouring from their robes.

“I’ve brought the urn,” said Minerva as she took it from her pocket. “I’ll Engorgio it once we’ve found a nice place for elevenses.”

“I saw you do it; I thought I might take the biscuits as well. If ever there was a time and a place for carbs, this is it,” said Irma. “I couldn’t bring the cups, but then …”

“Quite,” said Minerva, picking up two pebbles and Transfiguring them into mugs. “As Interhouse Collaboration goes, we’re doing rather splendidly, I think.”

They strolled towards the Forbidden Forest. It was a fine day to be outdoors, for those who liked that sort of thing. Irma, who had always been firmly of the opinion that outdoors was an area one had to cross in order to reach various indoorsy activities, thought once again of her Derwent biography, and of the joys of reading in a sunlit wingchair. A wingchair with a fine view of the Hogwarts grounds. Irma didn’t mind a view, as long as she could enjoy it with a drink in her hand.

Then again, reading her book would mean giving up Minerva’s company – and to her surprise, Irma found she was reluctant to do so.

“Now, about this outdoorsy, creative endeavour that will work towards Reconciliation,” said Minerva as they entered the Forest and found themselves a suitable clearing to have their coffee. “The traditional way of open-air Interhouse collaboration involves bushes thick enough to hide two people, a little open space, preferably soft and mossy, and two students with raging adolescent hormones. It makes them share just about everything, including but not limited to bodily fluids.”

“We might create such a spot and add a supply of condoms,” suggested Irma, who was nothing if not practical. And outspoken.

Minerva chuckled. “I couldn’t agree more. But I need to do something a bit more Headmistressy, I think. And we might shock that very young man. Now, what else can we think of? The first thing that springs to mind is a mutual enemy.”

“An enemy? But we’re supposed to stop enmity, not promote it.”

“Something to fight – but something neutral. Not House-related. An Acromantula, say, or a Dragon. Or a Troll. Nothing brings people together like jointly fighting a Troll. There’s but the one downside …”

“Yes, I can see how parents might not like the idea,” said Irma. “And you would have to answer their letters. Something less dangerous then, but still scary. Wait! I know the very thing that can cause a feeling of dread in the bravest of even Gryffindors.”

“Really?”

“Yes. It’s ghastly, it’s repellent, it ought to be destroyed for the greater good, and it’s not actually lethal. Not in the traditional sense, that is.”

“Well?”

“Here comes: our Inspirational Speaker!”

Minerva stared at her. Then she smiled. Then she chuckled. Then she laughed out loud.

“The perfect plan. But does he look scary enough for our students? Not that we couldn’t make him scary, if we set our minds to it. And once he opens his mouth, the students will want to do the right thing and hex him into the next century. After all, we do try to bring them up with a proper set of values.”

“There are downsides, though,” said Irma thoughtfully. “He might escape. He’s reputedly a high-flyer. We might enter the staff room, one morning, and find him there before we’ve had our first cup of coffee.”

“And our instinctive response might land us in Azkaban,” nodded Minerva. “What is the Slytherin way of dealing with that? Since we are to do this seeing how the other half thinks exercise?”

“We’d bring a friend,” said Irma promptly.

“Really? How, in this particular situation …”

“A friend,” explained Irma, “is someone who’ll Obliviate the witnesses.”

“I see. Yes, I see … Well, we can’t expose our students to him, of course, but I do feel it would be a good deed in an evil world if we, a Gryffindor with a Slytherin friend – if I may be so bold?”

“Of course,” cried Irma. And she meant it, too. Well, not the notion of doing away with Ghastly Bertie, although she agreed it would make the world a better place. But the idea of calling Minerva her friend … it was suddenly strangely attractive. Would they seek each other’s company after this? Minerva would have to take the initiative, of course, being the Deputy Headmistress. Irma wouldn’t want to presume.

But she hoped Minerva would. And she, Irma, would encourage her.

“Meanwhile, fun though this is,” said Minerva, and realised that it actually was. Fun. The whole bothersome training day turned out to be rather fun – because she was sharing it with Irma. An Irma who wasn’t stand-offish at all, but a witty companion who only needed half a word to know what Minerva was thinking.

And she was a very attractive woman, too, come to think of it. Lovely smile. Positively mischievous, sometimes. The way she was sitting there, supporting herself with a rather beautiful slender hand … Nice shoulders, too. A great figure altogether.

Which was all nonsense, of course. For years, she had not even liked Irma. Respected her, yes. Admired her work, that too. Admired her as a woman? No! She had only ever admired Irma professionally.

Hadn’t she?

However, the notion of something approaching a friendship might not be a bad one, after all. Even though she would have to endure Poppy’s and Pomona’s unbearably smug ‘we knew it’ comments.

If at some future point she, Minerva, were to suggest a cup of coffee, or even a drink at Rosmerta’s, would Irma accept? Or would she return to her earlier, overly-formal ways?

Minerva rather thought she would not. Something had changed between them. Well, there it was – nothing like fighting a Troll together.

“… do something about it,” said Irma.

Damn. Minerva had completely missed her words. Such a lack of attention was hardly a good start for a friendship.

“Look – one storm would do it.” And Irma pointed at a big and very dead tree that was leaning towards the clearing in which they were sitting. Minerva saw what she meant – it was an accident waiting to happen.

“You’re right,” she said quickly, glad that her little lapse had gone unnoticed.

It hadn’t.

Irma had noticed the lack of attention for her words, and had rightly attributed it to an overdose of attention for her person. She had been a bit flustered at first. Had thought she saw things that weren’t there. And then she realised that they were. And that she wasn’t actually adverse to the idea.

Minerva was a very attractive woman, if one looked beyond the bun. And one could visualise circumstances in which that stern bun might add quite a little frisson …

So Irma decided to do things the Slytherin Way. Which means that one doesn’t disturb a little daydream if one rather likes the path that daydream seems to be taking. Nor does one make the dreamer feel uncomfortable. One doesn’t even make them realise they have been found out.

But Minerva still had a lot to learn about the Slytherin Way of doing things. So she was merely eager to pick up the conversation as if nothing had happened.

“We ought to do something about that tree,” she said. “It may not be much in the way of creativity and reconciliation. But if this tree falls on a group of students, it will be a shared experience of the kind that makes reconciliation the least of our concerns.”

“True,” said Irma. “We had better take it down gently and carefully. Too bad it will take up most of this nice little clearing. But we can always Levitate it to one end, there, under those trees, for instance, and …” She paused for a moment, the better to look at the lay-out of the clearing.

“I know!” she cried. “We can put it in a nice place – a sunny one, say, and then we’ll turn it into a bench. That’s creative, and students of various Houses can sit in the sun and be reconciled.”

“Irma, you’re a genius,” said Minerva. “It’s clearly the way to go. We can even make a proper seat and back rest – the tree is big enough. You see what I mean?”

“Oh, yes. A bit like those Muggle tribes in far-off places, who make boats by hollowing out a tree. Same principle,” said Irma.

“Do they?” asked Minerva. “I didn’t know that. Must be a ghastly amount of work, without magic.”

“They do it without much in the nature of tools, either. They’re what other Muggles call ‘primitive tribes’. I’ve read that they make a small opening the length of the tree with their axes, and then they light a fire in it, and when it’s burnt out they scratch away the charcoaled bits. And then another fire, and they scratch some more. Very inventive, I’ve always thought.”

“Exceedingly so. And a tribute to their patience. But I suggest we don’t carry ‘seeing how the other half lives’ quite that far. Let’s get started.”

While Irma put the coffee things in a safe place, Minerva looked around for a good spot for their bench. She decided on the west end of the clearing, which would have the afternoon sun. That was the time the students could enjoy themselves after their lessons.

“We’d better take it down together,” suggested Minerva, who knew fully well that they were both powerful enough to do it on their own, but who also knew that aligning your magic with another witch or wizard to execute a spell together made for a very special sensation. Made you feel utterly in tune. Quite intimate, really.

“By far the best idea,” said Irma, who was just as familiar with the bonding effects of aligned magic. When a Slytherin decides to encourage someone, she’s a force to be reckoned with.

Less than ten minutes later, the two women enjoyed the pleasurable afterglow of being two wands with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one. And the tree was lying snugly at the west side of the clearing, ready for the first rays of afternoon sun.

Minerva felt positively Slytherin for having thought of aligning their magic. The experience had been everything she hoped for, and Irma had agreed readily enough – would it be too obvious to invite her for drinks at Rosmerta’s this very day?

What would a Slytherin do?

On the one hand, Ghastly Bertie provided the perfect excuse for a stiff drink after work. On the other hand, was it … no, not devious, that wasn’t the right term. Not nearly reconciling enough. Subtle. That was a good word. Slytherins valued subtlety. Was an invitation to Rosmerta’s subtle enough?

Irma felt that things were progressing smoothly, bench-wise and encouragement-wise. What next? Wait for Minerva to make the first move? She was the Deputy Head; Slytherin Subtlety dictated that she, Irma, should hold back a bit.

A Slytherin would take that as the polite next step it was meant to be.

A Gryffindor might take it as ‘not interested’. A silly idea, of course, but Gryffindors could be rather … erm … impetuous in drawing conclusions. Yes, impetuous, that was a neat word. A reconciling word.

Would she, Irma, try living the way the other half does? Try something exceedingly, impetuously Gryffindor?

“I think we’d best carve the bench jointly, too,” she suggested, carefully wiping her suddenly moist palms on her robes. “The wood might be very hard.”

“That’s what I was thinking myself,” smiled Minerva.

They had only just finished a smooth seat and back rest, and two equally-smooth arm rests (no point in messing up school robes by charmingly-rustic rough edges) when they heard brisk steps.

“Let’s see what you wonderfully-creative people have come up with,” enthused Bertie. “What is this? And he stared at a seven feet wide, perfectly-designed bench.

“It’s a post-modern statue of Ethelred the Every-Ready,” snapped Irma.

Bertie stared some more, clearly at a loss for words.

Minerva took one good look at young Arbuthnot and realised he had had quite a trying morning. Had he checked on the creative endeavours of their colleagues in the Castle first? Logistically, that would be the sensible thing to do, and it would explain the haggard look on his face. ‘Oh, Merlin, please, not another one,’ just about summed it up.

“It’s a bench,” she said, taking pity on him. She spoke in the clear, patient voice of someone who is not just paid to explain the obvious, but who is exceptionally good at it, too.

“For the students – students of ALL houses – to sit on and reconcile,” added Irma, who realised it was thanks to Bertie and his daft ideas that she and Minerva had spent such a lovely morning together. That was a strong point in his favour. The way things were going – Pomona would say, ‘like a house on fire’, but perhaps ‘like a Muggle Tree Trunk Boat on fire’ was a more constructive way of putting it – one might even say that there was nothing wrong with Bertie and his Reconciliation Course.

Well, nothing a miracle couldn’t cure.

“How fabulous,” cried Bertie. “Come and see, all of you!”

And sure enough, there was the rest of the staff. Rolanda and Pomona with the merry spring in their step of outdoorsy people who had been scooped up inside a castle for far too long already. Filch with the wary look of a man who knows that a Forest full of the most magical of creatures isn’t the best place for a Squib. Horace, walking carefully so as not to mess up his patent leather shoes and thinking this sort of outdoorsy was really too insufferably rough compared to the hospitality box in a Quidditch stadium, and why the blazes hadn’t Rolanda brought a radio?

The group was closed by Poppy, who Levitated a large hamper, and by Sybill, who smiled benevolently. She knew that a little pre-prandial tipple had been included in the luncheon arrangement. She had put it there herself.

Poppy had suggested that putting together a picnic for the enjoyment of staff from all Houses would be a truly creative and very reconciliating thing to do for two witches who had been sent to the kitchen, but not, in their younger days, to a cooking course. Sandwiches weren’t difficult – taking the crusts off was really a waste of perfectly good bread, wasn’t it? – and cold ham, cold chicken, tomatoes, and hard-boiled eggs were feasible. Especially since the cold ham and cold chicken just needed taking from the larder.

“We just need lashings and lashings of ginger beer, and it will be a feast,” said Poppy.

And Sybill had Seen at once that while Poppy excelled in getting the simple grub most of her colleagues would enjoy, she would have to deal with the more delicate refinements that a lady such as herself – or a gentleman such as Horace Slughorn, perhaps – would appreciate. A bottle of excellent Amontillado, for instance. And some chilled white wine.

Within seconds the staff had gathered on the bench, praising its position, its design, and its very presence right where they needed a place to eat.

Truly, Minerva and Irma were marvellous. If that wasn’t Interhouse Collaboration of the best kind, they didn’t know what was. Three cheers for Irma and Minerva! And three cheers for Poppy and Sybill, who had filled the hamper! And above all, three cheers for Bertie, who had agreed that a long, convivial picnic was the Very Best Way towards Reconciliation and Ending Enmity!

Rolanda, who had proposed the last cheer, looked justifiably smug for getting all those capital letters across.

Everyone looked much happier than participants in Wilberforce Arbuthnot’s “Dealing with Enmity among Children” training had any right to look.

Everyone except Wilberforce (Bertie) Arbuthnot himself. He had agreed no such thing as a several-hours-lunch break. He could feel his course slipping away from him. Hogwarts staff consisted of the most uncooperative bunch of change-resisting conservatives he had ever met. And they had even brought wine and sherry to their confounded lunch! How unprofessional was that?

Then again.

What mattered were the evaluation forms. Clearly this lot was unteachable, but as long as the forms were positive …

Alcohol could go a long way towards that.

So could the idea that Bertie was a Jolly Good Fellow, as the Hooch woman would start singing any moment – he recognised the signs.

Bertie Arbuthnot decided to throw all his creativity into being the life and soul of the party, for he truly was a most promising young man who would go very far indeed.

The only ones who were not overjoyed at the thought of several leisurely-spent hours of al-fresco eating were Irma and Minerva.

It was not that they resented the idea of food, social interaction or sunlight.

It was just that they had been so very physical all morning, making that bench.

And we all know the dire consequences of being truly physical.

Energy surges until you’re tingling with it.

Blood pumps like there is no tomorrow.

Releasing all that built-up exhilaration is priority number one for two women thus afflicted. As well they knew.

“I feel still too … bubbly … from that wonderful, creative experience to sit still,” said Irma.

“So do I – why don’t you get started on that lovely lunch while we take a little walk?” said Minerva. “A brisk walk will whet our appetites.”

“Don’t eat all the cold chicken,” said Irma.

And before even Poppy had the time to say ‘well, well, well’ they were gone.

For a brisk little walk.

Which wasn’t nearly enough to assuage the surging and pounding.

Fortunately, they were both witches with a complete grasp of all sorts of magic. They could set immovable privacy wards (there was a clear difference between impetuous and reckless, and no-one understood it better than the Head of Gryffindor). And they could do all sorts of other magical things, too.

So the solution to the problem was executed with their customary precision. (“Oh, god, yes, there.”)

With thoroughness. (“Deeper! Please! Now!”)

With attention to detail. (“There’s still a bit of moss on your robe, dear, it would give us away at once” and “that little twig spoils the effect of your bun – here, let me.”)

And, above all, with the absolute dedication that had made these women so very successful in their chosen careers. (“That’s not fixing my bun, dear. That’s undoing it again. It’s … aaahhh …”)

In short, Irma Pince and Minerva McGonagall addressed the problem of surging energy and pounding blood in such a way that stars were seen and the earth was felt to move.

It’s what happens in a collaboration between two very capable women who always speak highly of each other and who work together so very well.

And that, as Pomona and Poppy told each other afterwards, with much smiling and nodding, that was the beginning of a completely new story.

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