An Insider's View

Celeres was bored. He was bored, he decided, because no matter how outgoing and active a personality you had, hanging on the wall outside of someone's office didn't really lend itself to a wild and interesting life.

He'd tried many things to avoid his habitual dreariness, but they all failed. Every fourth decade he tried a new hobby but there were a limited amount of hobbies one could enjoy alone. Currently he'd taken up chess as a game fit for someone with his intelligence. The problem was finding someone to play it with.

When he'd asked Professor McGonagall for a friendly game she'd stared blankly at him for a couple minutes, before abruptly dashing off down the corridor muttering to herself. Quite rude in Celeres' personal opinion, he'd have been happy for it to be his public opinion, but since nobody had ever asked, it was still just his personal one.

He'd long ago given up asking Professor Dumbledore. Whenever he asked the headmaster to be his opponent in a friendly game; he would smile and say that he "thought there was no point in playing since it would be such a mismatch of abilities." Celeres still wasn't sure how to take that particular comment.

None of the rest of the staff would be prepared to compete. That left the ghosts, and gargoyles (Celeres didn't count paintings, they were just objects, not true guardians at all).

The ghosts had an annoying tendency to float through the floor whenever they came close to losing. He was just about to declare checkmate when he'd discover that his opponent had wafted through the floor, which was not only annoying but it ruined his tally. He shook his head, so many draws.

He'd tried playing with the suits of armour, but he'd gotten bored of winning by time-expiry. As for the gargoyles, the only ones in the castle were "Stan and Fran" two idiotic young up-starts.

They'd only been guarding the gates for a couple of centuries and thought they owned the place. They didn't even do anything, just sat there, looking menacing and preening themselves, a pair of poseurs if ever he'd seen one. It wasn't as if he hadn't tried to make them feel welcome, he'd even gone so far as to invite them to the amateur dramatics group he'd tried to start; they'd never turned up.

Neither had anyone else he'd invited, so some people might call it a failure, but Celeres felt that his monologues had improved tremendously, he'd spoken to Professor Dumbledore about the possibility of giving a performance, but the headmaster had made it clear that given the limited space of the corridor, it would only be possible for a few people to see it, and it would clearly be unfair for the rest to be deprived.

The same had happened with his chess invite, they'd completely ignored it, hadn't even sent a polite refusal,

He was not complaining by any means, his position was an extremely respected one within the "Union of Gargoyles and other miscellaneous sentient Stone-carvings", he had been treasurer only three decades ago. As Gargoyles had little use for money his actual duties had been minimal, but it was still an extremely important post.

Since all of the gargoyles had full time posts, meetings were impossible. But there were regular official letters, notifying him of all the latest happenings and of any decisions taken by the Union.

Sadly, if his calculations were correct (and he'd had a lot of spare time to check them), the next one was still at least three years away. A week might be a long time in politics, but for gargoyles at least, they tended to be pretty uneventful weeks.

It wasn't that he disliked his job, indeed he was proud of it, and he knew all to well that should he ever make a mistake there would be many others desperate to take his place; and he'd heard distressing news of a couple of his oldest friends.

He'd known Lecidius right from the worktable, they'd been carved next to each other and remained friends ever since.

Lecidius was amazingly loyal, too loyal for his own good in fact. Celeres had told him time and again that once his family had been arrested (inconsiderate bunch, did they have no idea how losing a family could affect a gargoyle) that he should move on and find new employment.

There wasn't exactly a shortage of families looking for reliable guardians with a bit of history behind them. And if he felt the need for a rest then he could always take a Muggle job for a while. Sit on a wall and chat to other resting/retired gargoyles. It was common enough to see an older gargoyle take a break of a century or two before re-entering the job market.

But loyal, foolish, stubborn Lecidius had said that he'd sworn to protect his families' house and that he intended to honour that oath. He had once been voted "Most fearsome Gargoyle" Celeres snorted sadly, small chance of that being repeated, having a bird's nest in each nostril didn't really allow one to be called "fearsome".

"Interesting" maybe, "distinguished" if you were feeling kind, but not "fearsome".

And then poor old Sarpedon had gone and taken a job in Wales. With a Welsh family; unfortunately they'd up and given him "llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch" as a password. Sadly old Sarpy hadn't been able to understand it.

Celeres sighed again.

Sarpedon had kept the family locked out of the house for three days until they'd threatened to have him re-sculpted.

After that incident he'd been demoted. He now sat outside the parlour window and informed his master when guests were approaching.

Celeres quivered with rage, or at least he would've quivered if he'd been able to, he quivered mentally at any rate, and after all, it's the thought that counts.

He was shocked to his very core that a noble gargoyle of good craftsmanship could be reduced from the first line of defence to a, a talking window-box ornament. It was unthinkable.

Yet despite the problems of Lecidius and Sarpedon, Celeres still thought them lucky to have not had his problem. "LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYRNDROBWLLLLANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH" might be a difficult password to remember, but at least it was impressive. Part of the requirement for membership of the union was that each member should keep the union informed as to their current password.

This was kept in the strictest secrecy of course; there'd be an outcry if it were ever leaked. They might even start being replaced by paintings.

Celeres didn't like paintings; he considered them to flighty for guardians. As soon as the owner left they were running off into each other's frames "having a social life" and other nonsense's, never there for emergencies and when they did happen to be there no use to anyone.

He remembered what had happened when the fat one had been attacked. He saw her often enough, slipping to the Headmaster's office, blatantly disregarding his authority, not even asking permission, then darting straight out again. He was also slightly suspicious about what she did in the time she was there.

Coincidentally it was always just before Fortescue (one of the former headmasters) took his weekly constitutional around the castle. Highly unsuitable for one of his age Celeres decided, he always returned heavily flushed and out-of-breath.

But when she'd been attacked what had she done? Had she tackled the intruder? Had she warned the occupants who entrusted her with their safety? No she'd run off to hide behind a bush. You'd never see a gargoyle running from a knife-wielding maniac! Even the ones with legs wouldn't run away. They'd have stood their ground and refused entry, defended the inhabitants, as a guardian should, not hide behind bushes.

That was the problem with paintings, no backbone to them. He'd petitioned every headmaster for the last thousand years to have them replaced with good solid gargoyles, but for some reason they reply was always that they'd "been advised by certain sources" that the portraits and the fat lady in particular were "valuable assets of the school".

He suspected Fortescue had a hand in it, though what the Fat Lady could give him that would make him so anxious to keep her at the school he couldn't imagine.

Celeres sighed again. But at least the paintings got decent passwords to work with. Every time he had to submit his latest password to the union he felt a familiar sense of dread. He could just feel the others sniggering at him. A gargoyle's password was a sacred thing to it, it was very literally the reason for it's existence, a classy password was something to be proud of, it implied a certain stature and respectability to the guardian.

A password like "Draconis Major" or "Cassiopeia" maybe, would really have gained him some respect among the younger gargoyles; who were becoming increasingly insubordinate.

Instead he got "Lemon Drop", "Chocolate Frog" and "Cockroach Cluster", it was disgraceful. He'd had high hopes a couple of times that he'd get a better headmaster, one who'd understand the necessities of tradition, decorum and an impressive password. Twice in a few years Dumbledore had been removed from his office, the second time he'd even been replaced.

Celeres had instantly consulted the union as to if he could allow the new headmaster into the office, but the rules were clear, he had to allow a year of constant vacancy before he could allow any person without the password within the quarters, he'd been extremely disappointed when that woman had left, she'd looked like the kind of person who'd really put some effort into passwords. But she'd gone and he was back to a tedium of humiliating passwords.

He decided to give up chess, he'd already managed to beat himself 6,339 times straight, and the next match had an aura of predictability. He willed his smoke diary (a 750^th sculpting present from the union) into existence, once it had wafted into view he examined his next hobby. "Insulting as many students as possible", well at least that sounded imaginative, he decided to start practicing immediately.