"Douglas, you're finally here!"
An enthusiastic greeting pulled him from his thoughts.
Sirius Black rose from behind the excessively grand desk, a brilliant, almost dazzling smile on his face, and strode over to greet him.
There was a lightness of rebirth in his steps, as though he were walking not on carpet but on sunlit grass.
Douglas swept his gaze around the room.
This was less an office at Hogwarts than a small museum.
Dark mahogany bookshelves reached the ceiling, crammed with weighty tomes, while several exquisitely woven tapestries depicting the ancient crests of the Black family hung on the walls.
His eyebrows rose in an amused arch.
"Did you move the entire study from 12 Grimmauld Place here?"
Sirius sat down unceremoniously on the sofa beside the bookshelves and crossed his legs, his posture exuding an aristocratic nonchalance, though his tone was full of disdain.
"If I'd left it there, it would only have ended up feeding the Doxies or Bundimuns sooner or later."
He curled his lip.
"Moving it here also lightens poor Kreacher's workload. He's finally stopped hiding my plates lately."
Douglas smiled without answering.
He knew that Sirius's presence here, as Hogwarts's first-ever director of academic affairs, was the result of a carefully planned reform.
The man who had initiated that reform was none other than Albus Dumbledore.
After experiencing the succession of "surprises" Douglas had brought him, that wise and kindly elder seemed finally to have resolved to breathe new life into this ancient Castle in whatever years he had left.
And as Dumbledore's most capable problem-solving lieutenant, Douglas naturally had to help ease the headmaster's burdens.
The concept of an "Academic Affairs Office" was something he had unearthed from the dust of his memories, a pebble capable of stirring Hogwarts's stagnant waters.
Hogwarts was