A talk between teachers

"Minvera." The floo flared and Flitwick's head stuck out of the fire place "May I come in?" he asked, his tone somber instead of the usual excited one.

"Yes Please Filius. Do come in." Minerva motioned before stepping away from the fireplace.

Flitwick's head dipped away from the fireplace for a moment before in a flash of green fire, he appeared in front of the Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts.

"Hello Filius. It's rare for you to come to my office. How may I help you?" she asked as she set up a chair for him beside her own. Though in her heart, she already knew the purpose behind this visit. And even though she had wanted to postpone this meeting for as long possible, she knew that sooner or later she would have to talk with Flitwick about this little problem.

Flitwick sat down on the chair at her gesture and held a somber expression "I want to know with is going on between Mr Potter and the Headmaster." He practically demanded and Minerva let out a long suffering sigh before she went to the nearest cabinet and took out a bottle of firewhiskey.

Gods knew that she was going to need it for this talk.

Flitwick himself seemed a little surprised at her reaction but aside from that, his expression remained passive and for the first time Minerva understood how much value he put on Mr Potter. For she couldn't even recall how long it had been since she last saw him looking this serious.

And in a sense, he would be correct in his stance as well. For if what he had told them was the truth and Harry indeed was a once in a millennium genius in Charms, then they had already lost the respect of this prodigy because of their carelessness and neglect.

If only Dumbledore had not lied to her when he told her that Harry was growing up in a loving home with his relatives.

If only she had not believed in his every word like a fool and gone to check on the Dursleys herself. Gods, she knew that they were the worst kind of muggles and then she had sent Harry Harry to that house regardless.

Gods she hated Dumbledore for betraying her trust like this.

And so, she started to tell Flitwick everything that she knew about Harry's life.

By the time she was through with the story, she was already on her sixth glass of Firewhiskey and openly crying out her grievances at Flitwick who looked both sad and angry at the things that Harry had suffered and at the blatant stupidity of their supposed Leader of the Light.

"How could you have let this happen Minerva?" Flitwick asked in a devastated tone as he remembered Lily, his favorite student and a genius in her own rights though even she would fallen short to the prodigious talent of Harry Potter.

But still, she was his favorite student for a long time and then she fought against the Dark Lord for the good of the Magical Britain and when she died protecting her baby, Dumbledore picked up that same baby and threw it in an abusive muggle house where he was treated worse than dirt.

In all his years as a teacher Flitwick had never felt so awful about following Dumbledore as he did now and just like the media critics, he was truly beginning to wonder if the headmaster had not truly gone senile as well.

If you cannot even protect a child from his abusive parents, then what's the point of holding three different posts like that.

Especially when the child was someone whose parents fought beside you in the war.

"It was my fault Filius." Minerva sobbed "I should not have trusted Albus' words and checked on the boy myself. Now the boy probably hates me just as much as Albus. Oh what have we done."

After a long silence that was only broken by occasional sobs from Minerva and the occasional sip from the firewhiskey, Flitwick finally said weakly "We should let the boy go Minerva."

"What?" Minerva jerked her head upward to look at her colleague incredulously. "What do you mean by that Filius?"

"I mean what I said Minerva. If the child wants to leave Hogwarts then we shouldn't stop him. He had been stifled in his home a great deal already. The more we try to keep him here, the worse he'll feel."

"And just like he said. Severus and Binns are not very good teachers." Flitwick raised his hands in order to stop her before she could refute his words.

"I know we never talk about this in the staff meetings as it is rude to discuss the teaching methods of our colleague but we all know that Severus might have been an excellent Potion Master but he was never meant to be a teacher and we all know that he's heavily biased toward his own house students. And the less is said about Binns the better. And then there is Professor Quirrel. I admit I don't know anything about his teaching methods but if teaches in the same way he talks then I've no doubt in my mind that his classes must be an absolute waste of time as well." He finished and Minerva stared at her longtime colleague who had never before slandered another teacher like this.

"But you yourself said that Mr Potter was a genius among geniuses. Don't you want to teach him yourself?" she asked incredulously.

"I do Minerva. Gods know that I do. But not at the expense of his own development." He said "I think we can both agree when I said that recently the Hogwarts standard have fallen to an all time low. It may have once been the Greatest School in all Europe, but I don't believe that it can be called that anymore Minerva. At least not with the way that the Headmaster is running things."

"So what are we supposed to do now?" Minerva asked sadly.

"The first thing we can do is stop Headmaster from forcing the child to remain here as a prisoner. To use your authority to keep a child under your thumb like that is not only deplorable, it's frankly disgusting. No wonder Harry neither trusts you nor like you all that much. In fact, it's a miracle and dare I say, a small consolation that he's attending my classes on a regular basis."

"But Albus said that…"

"Albus also said that the boy is safe in the loving house of his relatives." He half goblin spat "Look at where that got us Minerva."

Minerva at least had the sense to look ashamed at his chastisement.

"It's a testament to the blind worship you have for Albus that you'll even think for a second that forcing the child to remain here was ever a good idea."

They could have talked in detail about this. In fact, Flitwick had to planned to tell her exactly what he thought about Albus' action in this matter and how far his respect for the headmaster had fallen but one look at Minerva's distraught face and he decided to change the subject.

"Another thing I'll do is that I'll be giving the boy some extra classes in Charms." He said.

"But Filius. Didn't we all agree the before the start of the term to treat him like everyone else regardless of his fame." Minerva cried out but he held up his hand once again and Minerva stopped herself from speaking more in the subject.

"That we did Minerva. But at that time we did not knew that he would turn out to be such a prodigy. In fact, I doubt he ever learns anything in my class either. Because whenever I ask him to perform a charm, he does it without a second thought, clearly indicating that casting those charms were of no difficulty to him." He said "Sometimes I still wonder why he even bother to come to my class." He said despondently.

"Filius…"

"No it's true Minerva. There's nothing I can teach the boy in my class that would ever interest him because he's far above the level of his fellow peers. Maybe the only reason he bothers to attend my class is because I'm only one in the whole school whom he respect and who treats him with respect in return."

Minerva sipped from her Fire whiskey and thought about his words and wondered when she had lost his trust and respect.

Was it when he realized that she was one of the people who condemned him to his abusive muggle relatives.

No, she lost his respect even before that. She had lost his respect when he came to him in order to save his friend from bullying and she had foolishly told him to show her some proof in order to be impartial.

Just so she could be seen as someone who was not going to support the Boy-who-lived blindly because of his fame.

And she had condemned his friend to bullying with her own mistakes.

She felt like banging her head on the table for her foolish mistakes and wondered if James and Lily would ever forgive her for the grave mistakes she made with their precious son.

The son that both of her favorite students gave their life for.

She sipped from her glass once again as both Flitwick and her tried to come up with ways to deal with the situation at hand for the rest of the evening.