Everything belongs to JKR except Sam, so don't steal her from me! LOL Pls don't forget to Read & Review!
o
Sam Black woke up with a terrible hangover. She rolled over and violently hit the snooze button on her alarm clock. Burrowing back into her pillow, she had nearly dozed off again when she was awakened by the sharp beak of her pet raven, Ebony.
"Up!" squawked the bird. "Hogwarts! Up!"
Sam groaned. She'd nearly forgotten that today was the day she was to return to Hogwarts. She dragged herself out of bed and toward the shower, grateful that at least she didn't have to be there until noon. She stood under the nearly scalding hot water and hoped school would be more fun as a teacher than it had been when she was a student.
Feeling slightly more human after her shower, she dressed and then stood in front of her mirror. "Well, at least I look like a cool teacher, don't I?"
"A teacher?" her mirror replied archly. "You do know that you're too old to be dressing like a loose teenager, don't you?"
Sam grinned at her mirror. "Do I really look like a teenager?"
The mirror continued lecturing her, but Sam tuned her out. She only kept this mirror because it had been her mother's, and was familiar and rather comforting. She never listened to its advice; Sam dressed the way she wanted to dress, and couldn't have cared less about what anyone else thought. So what if no teacher she had ever seen dressed in short skirts and knee length boots? She was young and hip and she was certain that she would easily win over the students.
She leaned closer to the mirror to apply her black eyeliner and then stood back to admire the effect. Her eyes really were her best feature: a brilliant, piercing aquamarine color, they had a way of making people feel as though she could see right through them. If they had known how true that was, they would probably have been afraid.
"Late!" squawked Ebony.
"All right. Let's go." Sam charmed her mirror to fit into her bag and stuffed it in with the rest of her things. She gave the flat one last once over, and decided that she wouldn't miss it much. She might miss the pub downstairs, but the flat itself didn't have a terrible lot of character. Hogwarts, on the other hand, had a lot of history and atmosphere. She would just have to make sure to lay in a good supply of Old Ogden's Firewhiskey to get herself though the nights, which were sure to be rather lonely. Not a lot of nightlife in a boarding school. For teachers at least, she amended, recalling her own days as a student.
Sitting in on her first Hogwarts staff meeting, Dumbledore called her to stand up in front of all the other teachers. "This is our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Black. Some of you might recall her from her own school days here at Hogwarts, so I'm sure you'll all join me in welcoming her."
She squirmed a bit under the scrutiny of the other professors as they tried to match her face with the past student in their memories. Suddenly, Professor McGonagall gasped as she recognized her. "You-you're dead!" And the Transfiguration teacher fainted dead away.
