B.Q. Book Two: Black Princess Ascendant

Chapter 19: Equal-Opportunity Critic

Disclaimer: Did the Minister nominate for the position of High Inquisitor someone who could at least make a case for being qualified to inspect and review the Hogwarts staff?

If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.
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The door to the staff lounge closed, and Filius looked at Albus expectantly. The professors of Hogwarts had meetings at the end of every September, March, and June to go over important topics, but this meeting was already unusual and would likely only get stranger.

Hard as it was to believe, Umbridge was only part of the reason for that.

"We have a lot to go over today," the white-haired wizard began, looking over the rolls of parchment in front of him. "Does anyone have pressing business to bring up before we get started?"

Aurora cleared her throat and leaned forward. "I don't know that it's pressing, as such, but I'd dearly like to know what had the five of you running around like pixies running from a kneazle for the past week."

"I suppose we can start with that. Unless anyone else has something they wish discuss first?" The room was silent, and he sighed. "Very well. The short answer is as simple as it is unbelievable. Cuthbert seems to have... well, disappeared."

"How does someone lose a ghost?" asked Septima, a little humor noticeable in her otherwise bland question.

"He's not lost; we just misplaced him," the quarter-goblin replied, gaining a few scattered chuckles as well as glares from both Albus and Minerva. "I'll repeat what I said when we first started looking for him: he was no longer a teacher, nor was he a house ghost. If he wished to leave, that was entirely his prerogative. Yes, I would have preferred that he let us know, at the very least so we could wish him well on whatever new venture he has embarked on, but it's a minor thing overall."

"It was that suddenness that makes this so strange," Albus returned sternly. "Tell me, did anyone at this table ever see Cuthbert as being spontaneous?" No one answered, and he continued, "Neither did I. Since he would not do something like this of his own free will, we can only conclude that, strange as it may sound, something happened to him."

That no one immediately protested the otherwise ludicrous nature of that claim proved just how much of an effect discovering the petrified form of Sir Nicholas in 1992 had had on the staff. Not even ghosts were totally immune to harm, difficult as that had been to accept at the time.

"What have you been doing to discover what such a 'something' might be?" prompted Bathsheba, looking pointedly at the headmaster and heads of house.

The elderly wizard sighed. "Seeing as how Cuthbert did not relay his plans to any of us among the living, we had no other recourse but to turn to the dead. We spoke to all the ghosts in the castle, and the house ghosts multiple times, in fact."

"And?"

"...And we found nothing. None of them know anything."

"I maintain that the Fat Friar knows something," Pomona cut in. "He definitely wasn't acting like himself when I talked to him one-on-one. He was... almost cagey."