Ch. 58

Harry's first opportunity to attend a Hogwarts staff meeting arrived far sooner than he would have liked-or perhaps it was far too late. If the first staff meeting had come to pass earlier, he might have been able to avoid an awkward subject that would inevitably be brought up at the meeting Professor McGonagall had pointedly invited him to attend. Deliberately timing his arrival, Harry slipped into the teacher's lounge and sat down on a corner chair just as Professor Dumbledore stood to call the meeting to order.

"Let us begin," Dumbledore said, his blue eyes twinkling as his gaze passed over each staff member. It was as if the headmaster enjoyed nothing more than having a good staff meeting. Harry, on the other hand, was terribly intimidated by the other professors and dreading the attention that would come his way.

"I regret that we've been unable to meet prior to this time," Dumbledore continued. "As luck would have it, the post-holiday season has been busier for me than even the holiday season was. However, I'm sure that the lack of a staff meeting has been no impediment to your teaching."

A few of the teachers shifted a little in their seats as if agreeing. Harry wondered if perhaps they considered these meetings to be a little bit of a waste of time. He supposed that he would soon know for himself.

Dumbledore passed a small stack of parchment sheets to Professor McGonagall. "Mr. Filch has informed me that several new… humor producing products have been introduced to the public recently. He fears that certain students may have stocked up over the holidays. He naturally has added them to the list of banned items."

Harry took his copy of the list and barely glanced at it.

Dumbledore didn't seem to expect anyone to study Filch's list closely either. Almost immediately, he moved onto other items. The OWLs and NEWTs had been scheduled for the same days they were always administered, the prefects had been patrolling the halls and encountering only the usual problems, Professor Carmichael's dog had been fed a love potion-Potter, Black, et al. were probably responsible, and the Slytherins were seeming more unruly than usual-couldn't Professor Dewey get a handle on them? Harry wondered if this Dewey fellow was as biased for Slytherin as Snape was. He certainly looked like an unpleasant sort of person.

The next subject, unfortunately, applied to Harry.

"Normally, I would wait until the end of the meeting to do introductions, but I think it might be appropriate to formally introduce our Potions instructor, Harry Ashworth, to all of you," Dumbledore said. "I realize that we're long overdue in personally acquainting you with the rest of the staff, Mr. Ashworth, but would you nevertheless humor us by telling us a little about yourself?"

Harry suppressed a sigh, wondering if he was supposed to stand up. Doing so would make him feel even more like a student, so he opted to remain sitting and to keep his introduction short. "I'm Harry Ashworth. Basically, I'm from Australia. I recently arrived here and was fortunate enough to get hired to teach potions until Professor Slughorn is able to return. I'm rather impressed with the students and this school. I never thought that I'd have the opportunity to teach at Hogwarts." Seeing that he was already losing the interest of the staff, Harry concluded his remarks, hoping that he had not made too much of a fool of himself.

"Fascinating," Dumbledore said, looking as if he really meant it.

This was then followed by each of the staff introducing themselves at Dumbledore's prompting. They all said their name and some of them even mentioned what subject they taught. Harry sensed that they weren't really interested in making his acquaintance. Either they were anticipating that his tenure would be short or they thought him inconsequential or both.

"Our next topic of interest," Dumbledore said as soon as introductions had concluded, "is yesterday's incident in the first-year potion class."

Harry winced. This was the awkward subject he had not been looking forward to. He supposed that he would just have to get it over with quickly. "The first-year Hufflepuff Stebbins melted a cauldron," Harry stated succinctly.

The head of Hufflepuff house took offense at this. "Are you implying something, Mr. Ashworth?"

Once he thought about it, Harry realized he had been implying something, but he wasn't about to admit it. "Of course not, Ms. Carmichael," Harry said blandly, trying not to snigger at the thought of her love-potioned dog. "The Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors share that potion class. I was merely referring to the specific class in which the incident occurred."

Professor Carmichael didn't seem satisfied with Harry's response, but there wasn't much she could say.

Harry continued. "Normally, the melting of a cauldron isn't so serious, but Stebbins had been using the wrong ingredients and the spilled potion came into contact with his partner's potion ingredient kit. That kind of started a long chain reaction and things got pretty bad. Fortunately, Madam Pomfrey took care of everything."

Stupid Stebbins, Harry groused silently. One look at him and Professor Snape would hail Neville as a genius potions master .

The rest of the professors were not impressed. "Why didn't you do something to stop the situation from getting as bad as it did?" Professor Bennings asked.

Harry felt his ears begin to burn red. He had been hoping that this would not come up. "Err… it turns out that just the day before I had been practicing some spells, and my wand exploded. Apparently Wanda and Wandel's are not representative of England's better wandmakers. The bottom line is that I don't exactly have a wand with me these days. I haven't had a chance to get out and replace it yet."

Professor Dewey muttered something about hiring Muggles to teach at Hogwarts and Harry felt his ears burn redder.

"I see," Dumbledore said. He seemed to be amused. "Let us all remind ourselves that classroom safety is very important. A wand can be a very useful tool even when we're in situations that normally don't require them. I'm sure that you'll find a replacement wand soon, Mr. Ashworth. It might be better if you avoided certain wandmakers."

"Of course," Harry mumbled.

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