Small Amounts of Welcome
Just one glance around the massive chamber-like office, and Filius Flitwick suddenly found himself feeling completely overwhelmed. It was a great step up from his last office, which had essentially been a glorified broom cupboard. It might have been uncomfortably small for anyone who had come to call, but it had been a comfortable size for him.
In numerous crates stuffed with hay were all of Filius’ old dueling trophies. As of yet, there was nowhere to put all of them; the old trophy case, sized for a cupboard, would have appeared completely out of place in this new setting. Though he imagined having a new, properly-sized, case commissioned would hardly be a problem for the new Headmaster of Hogwarts.
Headmaster. No matter many times it was said, and how many time Filius said it to himself, he still found it hard to think of himself in that position. It was not as though it had been any sort of surprise, the appointment. Minerva was certainly getting on in years (though Flitwick was convinced he was still older than her), and especially towards the end of her last year as Headmistress, she had gone on and on about leaving her post and what she would be doing with her new-found freedom.
It really was for the best, the entire staff agreed. Filius was the official deputy Headmaster, so of course he had been the logical choice. Pomona had always planned to retire too, so that she could work on her own personal research. Hagrid had never finished his formal education, so he had not even been considered by the governors. Binns was dead, Trelawney was mad, Firenze wasn’t even human, and Sinistra was likely too antisocial to have anymore contact with her students than she already did.
So, of course, that only left Filius. And, of course, the governors knew that Filius was much too dedicated a teacher to refuse.
Already, steps had been taken to make this new office slightly more accessible given Filius’ short stature…and that was quite literal. A small set of wooden steps had been built and set up right next to the massive chair set behind an even more massive desk. Filius doubted that the desk would be replaced with a smaller one for him. A man with a big position needed a big desk; all the better to intimidate any misbehaving students that might be sent to him.
That aspect of the position of headmaster was one of the many reasons why Filius had felt so reluctant to accept the job. One of his chief weaknesses as a teacher, as he had been told many times, was his complete inability to enforce any sort of discipline or other unpleasantness on any Hogwarts student. It was something Severus Snape had remarked upon many times. It was something he had never been able to understand, so he mocked it instead. It was a common practice of the man, Filius had come to understand over the years. And, surprisingly, it was even something he found himself missing from time to time; now Filius felt as though he would be doing a lot of missing of the old days.
This flaw of his had been considered more or less minor when he was just a simple Charms teacher, but now that he was the one chiefly in charge of the school’s most misbehaving students, and even the most minor incidents, how was he supposed to handle it all? Not to mention all the paperwork, and the legal aspects, and the press releases, and everything else….
The student would be running while through the castle like heathens before Christmas.
Shaking his head to distract himself from such damning thoughts, Filius then looked up to the chamber-like walls of the office in hopes of finding something to occupy his mind for a short while. He soon found it in the near frame-to-frame animated portraits of past headmasters that hung all through the room.
Filius had been inside the Headmaster’s office numerous times in his career, but he had never taken any profound amount of time to examine the portraits inside. There had always been much more pressing matters to attend to. Though now there would likely be more than enough time to examine the eyes that really did follow you across the room.
And now, there was one new portrait that Filius found especially important, much more than any other the others at this point in time; that of Minerva McGonagall.
Minerva’s portrait, so new it still carried the scent of wet oils, hung directly behind the miniature desk from Filius’ old office, in perfect position to look over the man’s shoulder at any work he might be doing at any given time. It captured her perfectly, in Filius’ opinion. Her newer strands of grey contrasted sharply against the diminishing black, and she was wearing her usual robes of green velvet, complete with her square-shaped spectacles. And, of course, her nose was buried in a very thick book.
Minerva had always been such a practical person, and though her advice might have often been biting, but it was always spot on. The Minerva in this portrait, however, was the young and sharp version Filius knew he could go to when he needed to ask for help or advice when it came to anything. Again, he cared very little about the fact that he surpassed her in age. A man in need was a man who could not afford to be picky.
“Minerva,” he called up to her, only to be ignored. For a brief moment, he wondered whether or not interrupting the doings of the subject in a painting was still considered bad manners. Surely, there would be plenty of time to consult with Minerva in the future. On the other hand, whether or not it had any merit at all, Filius could not help but feel he would receive better advice from the younger Minerva than he would from her older counterpart who had taken to the lazy life of retirement, whose mind might have lost some of its sharper edges from a new life lacking in the daily challenges brought by running a school full of students.
In the end, though, the decision was taken out of his hands as Minerva looked up over the cover of her book with an expression of pleasant surprise. “Filius!” she exclaimed. “I’m so sorry I didn’t see you there. Although I suppose you have been rather busy yourself.”
Filius couldn’t help but nod at the incredibly true statement. Once again glancing around the massive office filled with crates and oversized furniture (in his eyes, at least), he felt that oh-so-familiar feeling of being completely overwhelm overtake him once again.
It was time to change the subject before he had a heart attack from the stress.
“Interesting reading material?” he asked, pointing to the book currently resting on the former headmistress’ lap.
But instead of commenting on the story, the woman just sighed and held the book open before him, only to reveal a pure white page containing absolutely no print. “There can be no story unless the artist bothers to paint one in, and how could that even be possible?” Again, she sighed as she placed the open book back on her lap. “But I suppose I just don’t know what else to do.”
“You will never be lonely in here, to say the least,” Minerva said as her eyes scanned across the walls of the office. “There is always someone to talk to here.”
Waving an arm around the wall, Minerva forced Filius to take note of all the other portraits that would be breathing down his neck. And all of them seemed to be staring right at him.
Soon, Minerva joined them. “But it looks as though you have something on your mind, Filius. What would that be?”
Suddenly, Filius was feeling very unsure about talking to the former Transfiguration teacher. When they had spoken face-to-face in the past, it had never seemed like anything spectacular. Even the fact that she always towered over him was never something that had bothered him. But now…she was much higher up, and the scene set up around her made her appear all the more imposing.
But finally, he was able to get over his anxiety”whether it was warranted or not”and asked, at last, “Do you have any advice to spare for a former colleague?” Almost as though he were a sheepish student himself, Filius stared down at his shoes. “Truth be told, I am still feeling quite overwhelmed by all of this.”
When he did look up, he could see Minerva looking down at him, puzzled and befuddled. “Filius, I am not dead, you know,” she remarked, one eyebrow peeking above the rim of her square-shaped spectacles. “You could just write me a letter and get advice from the real Minerva McGonagall.”
Filius sighed. He wasn’t quite sure if it would be considered polite to remark about the current age of the woman’s true form. The portrait of Minerva was not nearly as old as the real woman who was currently retired to South Ayrshire.
The painted Minerva must have sensed his apprehension, because she moved on to another suggestion “You do see that my portrait is not the only one here?” she told him, once again waving her arm about the paintings surrounding her. “If you do have so many questions, there are a great many different faces to spread them across.”
Then, as though they had just been waiting to be invited into the conversation, the portraits all around Minerva sprang to life, whispering and muttering to themselves and waving their hands in wild gesture. Everyone was making noise, but no one was actually initiating a real conversation.
But, finally, one of them did. “Filius Flitwick! It is good to finally see you here, my boy!”
Even before, Filius looked up, he had a feeling about who it was who had been the first to address him. Sure enough, it was Newton Scamander, Headmaster in the early twentieth century, a well-known figure in the eyes of all those in the House of Ravenclaw.
“Headmaster Flitwick!” he said the small man’s new title slowly, joy and excitement written all over his painted face. “It is good to see a fellow Ravenclaw sitting in this seat once again! It has been a long time.”
“Don’t you get too proud, Scamander!” came the chiming in of Amberose Swoot, looking incredibly stiff and uncomfortable in his Tudor-style clothing. “You have not been paying nearly enough attention as I have been over the years.”
‘Being adult’ aside, it was still a little hard not to take those words personally, although it was not like Filius to put too much weight in the words of a Divination professor, former or otherwise. All the same, the ancient Headmaster’s words still carried a certain amount of sting.
“Amberose, why must you always be so negative?” said Dexter Fortescue, a voice whom most people now associated with ice cream. “Who among us can really say we came into the position of Headmaster completely ready to take it? We were trained to be educators, not administrators. It is not in our nature to be such.”
After this, all the rest of the portraits joined in, shouting their opinions back and forth between one another to the point where Filius didn’t even try to understand them anymore. He simply stood there, twittering his fingers, feeling once again like a student waiting for all the ‘adults’ in the room to finish talking, but even after much of the noise had died down, he still found himself to be silent. He had currently found himself falling under the gaze of one portrait he had hoped would ignore him: Phineas Nigellus Black.
The man’s legend preceded him as being one of the most hated Headmasters in Hogwarts history. This could even be seen still in the man’s portrait as he stared down at Filius, almost in the manner that other people might regard a cockroach or some equally lowly creature. As a Black, even his portrait must have been able to smell those of ‘lesser blood’ were they standing right in front of him. And from the dark eyes that seemed to be driving Filius even further into the floor, he fell under this distinction.
After a very long and uncomfortable moment, Filius decided to be the one to make the first move. “Professor Black.”
“Where’s the rest of you?” he said, nearly snarling his words. “What is this supposed to be? Have the standards of Hogwarts slipped so law that one is not even required to be a wizard anymore in order to head it?”
“Phineas Nigellus, don’t be an instigator!” Minerva snapped at him with every bit of the old tone she had held as a teacher. The portrait painter had truly outdone himself.
Off to the side, there was an oh-so familiar chuckle; that of Albus Dumbledore, who” likely for his own reasons”was watching the entire show from off to the side. And recalling just how much of a polarizing figure Albus tended to be, Filius knew, in his heart, that this was probably for the best, given the current environment.
There was, however, one other familiar face that Filius had not heard from during the whole exchange, though he had no clear explanation for why. And that Headmaster was Severus Snape. Throughout the whole exchange, Severus had remained sullenly silent. As Filius turned his glance towards the man, he could see him sunk back against his burgundy-colored chair, fingers tapping against the arms of it.
“Severus,” Albus finally prompted, taking his first and only action in the exchange, “don’t you have any words of advice for your former collogue?”
The sullen man glared at Dumbledore through a curtain of black hair, almost looking like a child before the older man as well.
“Don’t let the little brats walk all over you,” he finally said, “because they can probably already do that physically.”
And at this, Filius could not help but laugh. It took a special kind of person to understand Severus’ humor. It was something that had taken Filius years, and there were times when he stilldid not always understand it. A few portraits laughed along with Filius, but most didn’t. It was clear that Severus’ portrait had not been around long enough for his humor to catch on to all the others.
Albus Dumbledore laughed the heartiest at the joke, then looked down towards Filius with a look that showed nothing other than the upmost confidence that he would be able to face whatever the position of Hogwarts Headmaster had to offer him.
“Take a seat, Headmaster Flitwick,” he invited.
Newton Scamander spoke up once again. “You have a lot of work to do.”
And so the tiny man climbed the tiny wooden steps and took a seat in his very big chair, set tall enough so he could see over the whole office and anything that might occur in it.
There was indeed a great deal of work to do.