Teamwork

Chapter 7

The morning classes crawled by. Jones' students figured out that this wasn't a day to ask questions as she snapped sarcastic answers. She sped through her lectures not caring if her students could keep up with her. Quills scribbled madly and she heard at least one break as she rattled off an incantation. She would have to remember to use this material on the final. By the time the bells tolled for lunch, she was a snarling creature.

The Dark Arts professors had their own table, set next to the door in the Great Hall. When she arrived, everyone except Rabe was already there. The near-dead things had regained eyes during the morning.

Across the room, they could see the Defense professors seating themselves. They didn't appear to be in much better shape.

Wronski looked up from his chemistry journal and seemed to be thinking. "Why is their staff so much smaller than ours? They have..." he counted again "five? We have eight."

"We used to have a much larger role." Kessler ladled out potatoes onto his plate and speared several wursts. "We used to teach adults, too. A few governments used to send their police here to take classes."

"Durmstrang is known for its Dark Arts department. We used to have a lot more people to teach. There used to be special courses for... We are lucky to have these positions." Haken took the bowl of herring and passed it to Jones who looked faintly ill as she took it.

"What'd you do before you came here?" It occurred to Jones that she'd never asked. It'd never seemed important before and no one had ever offered.

Gregorov was still having trouble focusing on anything bright so he looked at the table. "I used to work for the government. It fell. Now, I am here."

Shrugging, Lowenstein grabbed the basket of bread. "I have worked here for over twenty years. I have tenure."

Haken stared off into the distance. "There are worse places to be, worse things to do." His usual toothy grin was gone.

"Siegfried?" Jones tapped him on the shoulder. He seemed to be lost in reverie.

"It was better before the wall fell." Kessler went back to his plate of food.

"I wonder what Gilles did?" Wronski looked over at Haken who seemed to know all the gossip.

"Do not ask. It is better that way," Haken said, pushing his untouched plate away.

Nobody asked the Americans. They had already heard Jones' stories and Wronski had mentioned once or twice that he had worked at a college somewhere on the East Coast. That was more than most knew of each other.

The table sat in silence.

Across the hall, the Defense teachers laughed at a joke and one of them pointed in the silent table's direction.

"So, what do you think they're planning?" Wronski continued to page through his journal, but he kept glancing at the other table.

"That would depend on what Rabe told them." Gregorov looked the part of a predator as he watched the other table. "If it were me over there, I would work on casting another circle around mine, breaking mine and casting the demon out. That would count doubly as it would break Ludwig's wards and nullify my spell."

"Not much they can do to a potion." Wronski's journal seemed to have a diagram that needed to be displayed sideways. At the first peal of the bell, he shut it and started to pack up his bag.

"No ideas to help the team?" Jones asked with a smile.

"No team," Wronski replied as he left the table.