Summary: Dark forces are at work, but then again, they have always been at work. Lord Voldemort seeks to control the ancient "magic" wielded by the Herald of Gentle Darkness, and it just so happens that the Herald is Harry's new DADA professor. But what is a King without his court? There's more than just one new professor, and more than just one power at large.
Rating: T (may be bumped up in later chapters)
Disclaimer: I do not own YuGiOh or Harry Potter. Rights belong to © Kazuki Takashi and J.K. Rowling
Author's Note: This chapter is a rewrite of the original first chapter. More details about chapter rewrites can be found in the chapter four's author's note.

Furthermore, this story will be featuring an OC, but I promise not to focus on her too much from the rest. I actually want to scrap her from the story altogether, but that would mean rewriting the whole thing and I'm way too lazy to do such a thing. You had no idea how long it took me just to get off my ass and rewrite this chapter.

It took me two years.

Two years to get off my ass and rewrite this, okay.

You Can't Turn Back
-(Prologue)-

No, Albus Dumbledore mused, today was just not his day.

He supposed he brought it upon himself, though. He had all summer to prepare for the school year and he waited until the last month to finally tackle the growing problem of hiring five new teachers for the year. He loved procrastination, really, but sometimes he regretted pushing aside due work. Maybe next time he would actually get his more important work done first before anything, but the Order did seem to hold him as well.

The old wizard sighed and leaned forward on his elbows, bringing his hands together meditatively. Now where in the world could he find so many professors in such a short timespan? A figuratively light bulb went off in his head as he realized something, and he stood up from his chair to give a little attention to his phoenix. The bird cooed.

"Fawkes, I've simply been thinking in the wrong places," Dumbledore said, stroking the fire bird's feathers. Fawkes made a noise of contentment and looked up at him questioningly. "England is a rather small place, as loathe as I am to admit it, but the world is huge. I think it's time you and I did some traveling."

The phoenix flapped its wings, cawing as both he and Dumbledore disappeared in a loud crack.

"Albus, something has come up—" Minerva McGonagall stepped into the room, only to see the last traces of the headmaster's apparition. The old woman shook her head and sighed. "Oh dear. It's urgent."

Dragon Sanctuary, Bucharest, Romania

"Shhhh, dear, I promise I don't bite," a woman with blue hair said, trying to coax the tiny baby dragon out of its hiding spot. It had escaped the pen and ran wild around the sanctuary, causing havoc to the workers and researchers in the area. "Well, not without your set of teeth, anyway."

The toddler dragon snarled and huffed, and did its best impression of a roar, but succeeded in letting out nothing more than a small squeak. The woman sighed, throwing her hands up in the air in frustration. If this was a grown dragon, she would be dressed to the nines in fire-proof equipment and waving around a slab of meat. Luckily, it wasn't.

"Havin' trouble there, Aqua?" a man with fiery red hair came up behind her, giving a glance to the growling baby reptile. She sighed and stroked her temples.

"I just don't have a way with dragons like you do," Aqua replied, stepping back to let the man work his metaphorical magic. "Or the same bond. You do it, Charlie."

"Hey there, buddy," Charlie said, slowly approaching the dragon and letting down all of his guard. The tiny reptile looked up to him, freezing shock still except for the growl that left his throat. "No, no, you don't need to be scared. Your mother's worried, y'know? She's havin' a huge fit since you're missing. I promise I won't hurt ya—so let me take you back to your mother."

The baby dragon looked up at him again, letting out the tiniest of snarls, before sniffing his hand. After an obnoxiously long minute, it slowly started making its way towards Charlie, one tiny step at a time. Charlie smiled, but made no move to snatch it. Finally, the beast made it up his hand and crawled its way up to his shoulders.

"That's the spirit," Charlie said, lifting his shoulder a little so that the dragon had more leverage. "See her, over there? She's already sent someone to St. Mungo's because of the burns. Your mother's a fierce dragon. Be proud."

As the two walked away, the dragon turned around and did a dragon equivalent of sticking its tongue out at Aqua before returning back to his perch on Charlie's shoulder.

((Ooooh, let me at him, let me at him—))

(Stay back. It's just a baby!)

((It was spiting us! Did you see that smug look? I'll tear off its wings—))

And with that, Aqua blocked her mental counterpart and gave a bright smile to a passerby who wasn't even looking at her. Sighing, she made her way back to her work station and collapsed into the wooden chair.

"Hey Aqua, got a minute?" Charlie came running up again, and she looked up.

"Shore, I mean—sure," she had a nasty habit of fish puns, and the voice laughing hysterically in the back of her head didn't help either.

"Great!" he pulled up a chair across from her table and sat down, folding his arms in front of him on it (after pushing some things away). "I have a friend, or—former mentor—who needs a bit of help. He actually just contacted me a few minutes ago."

"And I assume it has to do something with me?"

"Well, yes! He's in need of some teachers for his school. I've seen you with those magical history textbooks, you know, you might be qualified for the history position open,"

"Whale… I mean, well, I don't know. I don't even have a teacher's degree!"

"He's not particularly picky about that," Charlie shifted in his seat and leaned forward a bit. "Tell you what, if you're interested, you can talk over details with him. He's here, but just wanted me to approach you."

"Great! Which room is he in?"

"He's not in the sanctuary, but he's in Bucharest," he replied, taking a piece of paper from the table along with a pen and writing down an address. He looked over it once again before handing the paper to her. "He should be in this restaurant."

"What does he look like?" she asked, pocketing the paper after the memorizing the address. She had been in the restaurant a few times to know how to get there from where she was now.

"You'll know him when you seem him. He's a bit old," Charlie gave a slight grin, as if sharing some inside joke with himself. "A lot old."

Restaurant Vantra, Bucharest, Romania

Charlie was right when he said she would recognize him on sight.

Sitting amongst the locals and loud tourists in the restaurant was an old man dressed in rather… unusual clothing. He looked like he stepped out of a fairytale, with a long periwinkle robe and a pointy hat to match. His hair was pure silver and extremely long, and the same could be said for his beard. His robe was long enough to cover his boots, but it sashayed to the side to reveal buckled shoes. It all together said elderly, but the look in his eyes held something mysterious.

The receptionist approached her, and Aqua quickly spoke in broken Romanian to tell her that she already had a table, and it was with the old man in the corner. She knew it was a good idea to get a language charm cast on her before she stepped out. Well, no use crying over spilled milk.

"Professor Dumbledore?" she asked as she approached the table. The elder looked up from his large bowl of ice cream and smiled.

"That's me, unless you were looking for another Dumbledore," he replied, putting down his spoon. Aqua slid into the seat across from him.

"Charlie, er—Charlie Weasley—said you had a job position available?" she started, giving the name of a random food to the waiter that approached with a menu. He nodded once before leaving. Dumbledore raised an eyebrow in question but did not ask.

"Yes, he did. You must be miss Aqua del Sarto—Spanish?" he asked.

"Aaah, no, Italian. That would be my mother's surname,"

"Your father's?"

"A little too complicated to be adopted onto paper and remember each time," she replied sheepishly, thanking the waiter when he came back with her order. Aqua picked up the spoon and stirred, but didn't make a move to taste it yet. Dumbledore raised his spoon and took another bite of his ice cream.

"Charlie said you had an interest in magical history," he continued after swallowing, and then wiped off the excess with a napkin, being careful with his beard.

"It's fascinating, to say the least," she said eagerly before sipping her soup. "It's not too much different from muggle history, and sometimes the two tie together so closely that you'd think they were the same. Maybe not sometimes, more like all the time."

"We have a History of Magic position open in our school, along with a few others. Charlie mentioned that you might know some people who might be able to help me fill the other positions?" he asked, straight to the point. Aqua straightened subconsciously, and finished her soup after he was done talking.

"Yes, I do have a few friends! It depends on what subjects you're looking for, though,"

"We have five positions open: History of Magic, Care of Magical Creatures, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, and Defense Against the Dark Arts, which, I should mention, is open every year," he said, finding amusement in his last statement. "All of the above should only be for a year since some professors are taking the year off to take care of family."

"Whale, a year can't be that bad,"

(('Well', dear. Not whale.))

(Shut up.)

Retreating back into the recesses of her mind, her counterpart snickered and Aqua had to resist the urge to facepalm. It was her own fault, really. She needed to lose the habit of replacing ordinary words with their aquatic life phonetic counterparts.

"Then you'll take the job?" Dumbledore asked after a while, and Aqua realized she had just zoned out. Well then.

"I'd be happy to. A year shouldn't be too bass—bad," she cursed herself mentally, and was met with more snickers. "And I have a few friends that might be interested in those positions. Maybe enough to fill all of them out for you."

"Excellent! Now before we move on, what was that soup you just ordered? I have a fine eye for fine cuisine,"