"Your position as Headmaster only occurred after you convinced old Headmaster Dippet and the then School Board to no longer offer tenure to professors. Your new position as Headmaster, therefore, did not fall under the clause of tenure you held as a tenured Professor of the time.
"As such, they could remove you from the post of Headmaster. With Minerva no longer permitted to teach, that freed up the post of Professor of Transfiguration for you. That's the position you're now, once again, filling.
"You'll find your personal effects already in your apartments and office." With a gesture of dismissal, she added, "You may go, Albus. I have a great deal of work ahead of me." Then she chose to ignore him.
Feeling impotent in his internalised rage, Dumbledore spun about, ready to head out the door again. His own recollection of the rule regarding tenure-ship showed she was right.
"Oh," she said, just as Dumbledore reached the door. When he spun back to glare at her she said, "And don't think you'll be offered Deputy Headmaster or Head of Gryffindor back, either. As your tenure-ship doesn't apply to either of those positions, I have in mind others for those."
With a silent snarl of rage he stormed from the office, not even bothering to slam the door behind him. He just left it open.
Marchbanks gave a flick of her wand and the door closed and latched. Then let loose a full-throated laugh for someone of her age. It came out as a cackle.
"Was that absolutely necessary?" asked one of the portraits in a chiding voice. None of them had spoken until that point.
Glancing up she saw it was old Eupraxia Mole. The one, she remembered, who never spoke to Dumbledore.
"Yes, dear," she replied. "Albus needs to learn his place. If I tried to be gentle about it he'd just pretend I didn't say anything, ignore me as he would usually try to and fill the air with platitudes. He needs a firm hand."
Phinneas Black said, "If I remember correctly, you were a Slytherin, were you not?"
"Ravenclaw," she replied. "You're thinking of my sister. I was also Head of House for Ravenclaw for a while and Acting Deputy Headmistress for a time, too."
"Pity," he said. "Your move with the School Board was worthy of a Slytherin."
"Just because one was not sorted into that House, does not presuppose one was not worthy of that House, dear," she smirked. "I simply did not want to be in the same House as my sister, at the time. And the Hat acquiesced to my wish."
"All too true," the Hat suddenly said from off its perch on one of the shelves. "And I still say you would have been a great Slytherin."
"Oh," snorted Phinneas in amusement. "A true Slytherin, then."
She didn't bother to reply and neither did the Hat.
_β_
β==(oIo)==β
Λ
Later in the morning, in the clothes Hermione had 'ordered' him to wear, Harry felt he had finally 'recovered' from the horrifying experience of being taken clothes shopping by the Granger women. That was also when Wendell returned from his and his wife's dental surgery.
Harry immediately took him aside, glared at the man and asked, "What did I ever do to you?"
Wendell grinned back and asked, "I take it shopping did not go well?"
"Oh, it went well enough," he grumbled. "For the ladies, that is. For me, I've never felt so much like an... an... object... as I did today.
"They treated me like a 'dress up doll'. 'Try this on, Harry.' 'Hold your arms out while I check to see the fit, Harry.' 'Take that off and try this colour, Harry. That colour doesn't suit you.' 'No, Harry, not that. Try this, instead.' 'How do those pants feel in the crotch, Harry?' 'Slowly turn around, Harry. I want to see how well those look fitting your bum.'"
By the time he'd ranted out, Harry was looking a little morose while Wendell was trying... and almost succeeding... not to laugh.
"It's not funny," Harry moped. "They also don't seem to understand that, if Cousin Andromeda gets her hands on me and has me taking potions that are meant to fix my size and weight, all those clothes aren't going to fit me any more within a few weeks. Then we're just going to have to do it all over again.
"When I tried to tell them that buying that much clothing was just a waste of money, Hermione said, 'If you have that much money you can think the cost of erecting expensive wards on my parents' home was insignificant, then you have more than enough to buy two full wardrobes.' I think she was actually using the opportunity to punish me for something I did that wasn't wrong for me to do!"
That was it for Wendell. Harry's all-too-accurate impression of his daughter broke the dam that he was struggling to maintain to hold his laughter in. He was now leaning against the wall, trying to hold himself up, as he was letting forth with great gales of laughter. He even had tears flowing from his eyes.
Harry crossed his arms and stood there, staring at the man, both annoyed and not a little hurt by his host's amusement at his earlier 'predicament'.
"Oh, God!" Wendell managed to get out after a good deal of seconds. "Tha... that impression of Hermione was bloody hil-ar-ious!" And lost himself to laughter for a little while longer.
Harry gave a huff of annoyance and headed outside onto the back patio to mull over his thoughts.
When he thought it over in his own mind he could see how it looked from Wendell's point of view. If something like that had happened to someone like Neville, he'd probably be laughing his arse off, too.
Wendell found him outside about ten minutes later.
Sitting in the other half of the pair of patio chairs of which Harry was sitting on, he said, "I'm sorry, Harry. I should have warned you."
"Warned me?" he asked.
Nodding, Wendell replied, "I know what Monica is like when it comes to clothes shopping and I knew Hermione was turning out similar. I should have joined you so I could rein them both in.
"I didn't because... well, I wanted you to experience what it was like."
Curious, Harry asked, "Why?"
Wendell thought how to answer for a bit before he said, "I wanted to see how well you'd handle it."
Harry's expression of curiosity deepened into puzzlement. "Hunh?"
"Harry," his host kindly said. "For someone who is obviously incredibly smart - you had to be to pull off your fake persona for so long at such a young age and not have anyone figure it out - on one subject, at least, you're also not a little dense."
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