It's not every morning you find a mob on your doorstep. Galilea was a welcome surprise, but I certainly hadn't expected to see a contingent of ghosts in the stone corridor. The Bloody Baron, the Hanged Lady, and the Fat Friar hovered behind the Headmistress.
I kept an eye on the others while I gave Galilea a quick kiss. No perfume today, instead she smelled of warm skin and soap...
Maybe that's not the most polite way to have greeted all the others, making them wait while Galilea and I sucked face, but if you show up on my doorstep first thing in the morning I don't feel the need to be polite to you.
''Gie a room ye tois.''

Galilea, as always, looked spectacular. Shibley rolled her eyes when I said so.
"Are your new quarters to your liking?"
"They're great," I told Galilea. "They'll be even better once I get them organized and have room to move around."
The new quarters were larger than my former room in the East Wing, but not by much. They were close to the Slytherin Dungeon - Dungeon being used in its old sense of 'rooms in the basement' - and the stairs that led up to the entrance halls. At the front I had a long, narrow office with a couple of filing cabinets but no other furniture yet. The door from the office opened into a main living area with two small windows. I'd blocked off a sleeping area with privacy screens, and the rest of the space was occupied by two wardrobes so I would finally be able to unpack, a coffee table and a couple of chairs, bookshelves, and more boxes and suitcases than I remembered packing. There were two other rooms off the living area, a bathroom and a large closet with a window. I'd turned the walk-in closet over to Shibley.
It wasn't much by modern standards, but she'd grown up in a one-room stone house that also doubled as a barn in the winter. Later she'd lived in a school where she'd shared a room with four other girls. And it seemed the Grey Sisters kept more-or-less normal monastic habits. A six-by-eight room gave Shibley more space of her own than she'd ever had.
"You're just around the corner from the Dungeons," Galilea said. "I'll instruct the students to come to you when they need adult assistance."

"Will there be any trouble with the Board over that?"

"Possibly," Galilea admitted. "But if they do decide to make an issue of it, that will simply bring them into line with my plan to reinstate the residency requirement for Heads of the Houses. And there are other quarters available. These are simply the most convenient."

"Well played. So what brings you here so early?"

Galilea glanced at the assembled ghosts. "We can discuss it in my office."
"Okay, give me a second." I turned to speak to the ghostly presence. Three out of four of the House Ghosts were there, and they'd drifted away a bit down the hall to speak with Shibley. "Shibley, will you be all right?"
"Aye, Master Geoffrey. It's nae but a ghostly matter."
"Don't keep her too long, lady and gentlemen. She has homework."
"Och, sae borin'..." Muttered Shibley.
"It's not supposed to be exciting, it's homework. Have a good day, and don't forget we've got an appointment for Second Period."
The ghosts left through the opposite wall, which I thought might lead them into the storage cellars next to the Slytherin boys' dormitory. I locked my door and Galilea and I went left down the old stone corridor. We passed the passageway to the Slytherin Dungeon on our way to the stairs leading up to the ground floor. There were only a few students up and about at that hour. I warned Severus Taylor to take his nose out of his book before he tripped on the stairs, but otherwise the students were too groggy to be aware of the adults.
On our way up the marble staircase from the ground floor Galilea brought up Hermione Granger-Weasley. "I'm not quite certain what happened, but it didn't seem to be a surprise to many."
"Yeah." I scratched at my goatee, thinking. "Arthur Weasley even seemed relieved to see it. Whatever it was must've been a long time coming."

Following Galilea we turned left at an intersection where I'd previously turned right to get to her office. We passed a beautiful example of Anglo-Saxon craftwork, a Medieval triptych framed in magnificently carved wood panels. Thanks to my recent crash-course in magical history and refresher work in general British history, I recognized the scenes as Saint Merlin's fall into madness. Odd really, given that Myrddin Wyllt was a Celtic folk-hero and this entire section of the castle hadn't been built until centuries after the Anglo-Saxon period.
"I can understand a certain degree of work-related frustration," said Galilea. "I've two meetings scheduled this week on school security, a presentation on Floo Network safety for children, preparations for an educational conference I can probably get out of - Knock wood - and then the preparations for the DME's Halloween formal toast to the king. No getting out of that short of a disaster."
"We could go on another date," I said. "If it goes as well as our first..."
A random neuron fired in my brain. "Wait. Toast to whom?" I'd been under the impression the Ministry was at least nominally loyal to the Crown, so who was this 'king'?
"The King Over The Sea," Galilea shook her head. "A Muggle in France, I believe. Or Germany."
"Jacobites! You're all a bunch of Jacobites!" I stopped dead in the hall, with Galilea staring at me.
"What is a Jacobite?".
"You! The whole damned Ministry! My God, this all makes perfect sense!"
"You lose that mid-Atlantic accent when you're excited," said Galilea.
"Forget my accent! This is amazing! A hidden village in Scotland, a secret school, code-names for the regions you live in - By the way, 'Saint Catchpole' is a dead give-away. A Ministry that claims loyalty to the Crown but virtually ignores the current government. Of course you're Jacobites!"
"You're just a bit too excited to explain, aren't you?"
"Damn right I'm excited! This explains the utter lack of historical curiosity in History of Magic regarding the end of the Stuart era! It's like nationalist Muslim scholars trying to ignore the impact of European circumnavigation of Africa, or Southerners who claim that slavery wasn't the primary cause of the US Civil War. If you don't like the outcome of a particular historical event, you try to rewrite or ignore it. Bagshot completely ignores the de facto separation of the Ministry from the rest of the government under William and Mary. Why? Because you lost the war, that's why! Because 'we don't talk about The Unpleasantness'!"
"Well, we certainly don't shout about it in the middle of the hallway."
I gave myself a shake and tried to settle down. "Sorry. Lead on."
We walked the rest of the way to the tower without me saying a word. A History Of Magic, with Annotations by Professor G.P. Hunter, PhD., M.A. - Oh, and I could use the same research for a general-audience book! The Magical Handbook of Muggle History. Yes, and articles. I could get at least a half-dozen articles out of this...
"Geoffrey? We're here."
"What?" I looked out from my plans and saw that we were at the entrance to Galilea's tower. Galilea already stood in the entryway, waiting for me. "Right, stairs. Yeah."

The papers on Galilea's desk were piled higher than they'd been the night before. "I see the Paperwork Fairies have been by. They visit Muggle offices too."
"Hah," said Galilea without a trace of humour. "My theory is that documentation breeds when no one is looking."
She summoned a chair for me. A trolley with mugs and a large steaming pot of tea appeared by her desk. "Milk, Geoffrey?"
"Black, please."
"So what happened to bring you downstairs so early?" I asked while the tea poured itself.

"An urgent early-morning owl from Ron Weasley. Among other things, he apologizes for forgetting to mention that his wife is a qualified instructor of basic Legilimency and Occlumency. She is willing to work with you, but she needs a week before before she can even think about scheduling."
"What exactly is involved with Occlumency training?"
"Quite a bit," said Galilea. "The simplest way to describe it is as a serious of extremely personal interviews about emotionally charged subjects, combined with intensive memory training. I recommend at least one private conversation between the two of you before you decide. And I suggest you have Professor Trelawney look over your horoscopes."

"Fortune-telling works?"

"Of course. Although we do sabotage Muggle practitioners before they achieve any real proficiency. It's merely one more example of how the International Statute of Secrecy has corroded our ethics."

"I'd... Love to pursue that, but you said there were other things in Ron's letter."

Galilea nodded. "Yes, although he was wonderfully vague about the other matter. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement has decided to assign more Hit-Wizards to school security. Apparently they've had some success in tracking the movements of our third attacker, the one that you cooked -"

"I didn't cook anyone! George Weasley's underwear did that!"

"A fair point. They've tracked that gentleman's activities, and whatever they've learned has lead them to increase our security. Unfortunately they obviously don't see any need to share what they have learned."

I thought that through. "So why send an urgent owl first thing in the morning? It's not really telling us anything that can't wait. That just doesn't seem very Ron-like."

I set my empty tea cup down on the saucer, and they floated back to the trolley. "Okay, Ron gets in to the office - No, it's still to early for that. How long does it take for a magical owl to fly from the south of England to Hogwarts?"

"Days," said Galilea. "But the owl-post system was reformed early in Shacklebolt's first term. Owls travel by Floo between postal offices, and then fly out from the office to deliver their messages. But even allowing for expedited handling of an urgent message, it would take at least an hour."

"So oh-dark-hundred Monday morning after a big night with his family, Ron jumps out of bed and sends us a totally non-urgent message that could have waited until later in the day, and he slaps extra postage on it to make sure it gets here as soon as possible."

Galilea sighed. "I was rather hoping that I was over-reacting to this message."

"No, I really don't think you are. Something must have got Ron up that early, it's important enough for the DMLE to boost the patrol around the school, and even if he can't tell us directly what it was he clearly thinks we need to be aware of... Something."

"Well, there's my breakfast ruined. I'll have to call Professors Longbottom and Fairbairn in for a meeting." Galilea shook her head. "School matters mean you won't be here for the meeting. Charles has asked to speak to you over breakfast. I believe it's to do with your meeting with the Board of Governors."

Galilea had placed Deputy Headmaster Charles Theobrosan in charge of official matters regarding myself and school discipline. So on top of whatever had Ron Weasley had just dropped on me, I had a breakfast meeting regarding my prospects of continued employment...

"When you think about it," I said. "This day is really being extremely polite."

Galilea arched an eyebrow at me. "Is it?"

"Oh yeah. It's not every day that gives you such an early warning that it's going to completely suck."