"Have you settled in for the year, Draco?" McGonagall asked her potions teacher, offering him a steaming cup of tea.<br/>Headmistress McGonagall was well aware of how her year at Hogwarts had started. For the first time in months, she was back in her office, windows open to air out the last lingering feeling of dry summer heat. After what felt like decades of disapproving Albus' fleeting management style, McGonagall found herself falling into the same, unflattering habits.<br/>Her question was meant as almost an apologetic gesture, knowing that her staff had been on the premises for close to two weeks by now; she, herself, had barely set foot in her office, let alone found the time to properly greet them.<br/>With the beginning of the school year quickly approaching, McGonagall had realized she had spent the entirety of her summer searching for a professor to teach this year's Defence course. The task had had kept her busy up until yesterday evening, when she, too, finally moved into her Hogwarts quarters for the year. She found it to be increasingly harder to find competent staff to agree to take on the position, as it had become apparent to any applicants that the position was not only temporary but potentially dangerous. McGonagall thought she had finally seen and end to her decade-long task of filling the position on a yearly basis, until last year’s professor Winkler had been hospitalized by a student during the very last week of practical exams. It had been exasperating.<br/>McGonagall leaned back into her chair, a dainty porcelain cup between her hands, eyeing the man in front of her. She was drinking catnip tea, with both lemon and honey, and for the first time in months she felt like she could relax. "It's good to see you."