What, two chapters in one night? Spoiling you people, honestly. —Lysandra
Cassie had been waiting here for what had to be an hour before the door out of the Chief Warlock's office, squirreled away in the centre of the subterranean corridors under the Wizengamot Hall, finally clicked open. "Finally! Wasn't the meeting supposed to end at three?"
Albus Dumbledore — looking noticeably older and frailer than last she'd seen him from this close, shoulders stooped and face a knot of wrinkles, but still holding onto his delightful sense of fashion, robes clashing blues and oranges — paused in the doorway, blinking at her for a brief, surprised moment. "Miss Lovegood? What are you doing here?"
"I wanted to talk to you about something. I tried to set an appointment, but McGee said you were scheduled out the rest of the summer, had to find a moment somehow." It was very possible the snitty, proud woman had been being difficult on purpose — they never had gotten along. Might have something to do with that time Cassie had refused to apologise for hexing her favourite "pranksters" (i.e. bullies). And that other time. And that other time. And so on.
(The boys themselves hadn't even minded, thought it was all in good fun. McGee just took everything personally. Part of why it was so fun to mess with her.)
"How did you get through the wards?"
Cassie tried not to scoff — the wards here really weren't that impressive. The anti-scrying shite was excellent, but most everything else? She'd dealt with much better. Besides, "It's almost impossible to ward against phoenix fire."
Albus frowned. "Did Fawkes let you in?" His eyes flicked around the barren, plain office, fruitlessly searching for a person who wasn't here.
"A live phoenix isn't the only source of phoenix fire." Granted, one needed to have experience in song-based casting, be able to shape spells wandlessly, and have a particularly strong alignment to the Light, so the talent was extremely rare — she'd picked it up from an Egyptian sorceress only a few years ago, following a rumour. As specialised as the Chief Warlock was in European wizardry she wouldn't be shocked if he'd never heard of a human using it before. "Come now, Mister Dumbledore, I'm not here to threaten you. In fact, I mean to solve one of your problems for you."
Closing the door behind him, Dumbledore stepped into the room, the entire way to the chair across his desk giving her a heavy, disapproving sort of look. Once he'd sat, settling with a thin sigh, he said, "As much as my political opponents have been giving me troubles of late, I'm certain I couldn't welcome your...trademark method of solving problems."
Cassie smiled. "That's not why I'm here." Dumbledore's 'opponents' weren't nearly so irredeemable as he tended to portray. Honestly, of the political Dark in Britain only a tiny minority had actually been involved with the atrocities of the Death Eaters, or even smaller evils, most of the rest were perfectly reasonable.
In fact, if she had to pick a member of the Wizengamot off the top of her head she most agreed with ideologically, it'd probably be Eirlys Ingham, firmly a member of the Traditionalist "Dark". (The Most Ancient Houses of Ingham, Monroe, and Black were generally considered the cultural core of the British "Dark", so, there's that.) The ultimate source of much of the disagreement between Dumbledore and herself was in how exactly they defined things like "Dark" and "Light" — mostly in that his definition was wrong. The so-called "Dark" in Britain used the term wrong, too. Most of them, anyway, there were a few families, like the Blacks or the Glanwvyls, who were closer, but still. So, ironically, the so-called "Light" was completely unwelcoming to the true Light, some going so far as to deny the very existence of people like Cassie. Shite, even the "Dark" was more open to the Light than the "Light" was — she was ninety-five per cent certain Fionn Ingham was a bloody white mage. Honestly...
The point was, no, she was certainly not in Britain to kill "Dark" wizards for him. Silly man.
"I came back to Britain in the first place because I was invited to be one of the judges for the Triwizard, you know."
Dumbledore let out a long, exhausted-sounding sigh. "Yes, so I've heard. The plans for the event were abruptly changed at some point in the last six months, I still haven't gotten a decent explanation of how that happened."
The new Black heiress thought it was funny — that had been fairly clear from her letter, and Cassie didn't see how more of an explanation than that was called for. International Cooperation going along with it was a little more complicated to figure out, but the logic followed easily enough. "Well, the judging stuff is only going to involve a few days of actual...doing anything, but I'm going to be in the country for the whole year. I figured I could teach Defence, as long as I'll be at Hogwarts anyway." Maybe get a duelling club going again too, supposedly Dumbledore had made Filius end it...
Unfortunately, Dumbledore didn't look like he was about to agree immediately, wrinkly face collapsing into a doubtful frown. Well, that was rude, and here she was solving the annual The Defence Professorship Is Cursed problem for him. "You can't honestly believe I'd be willing to give you the position."
"Er...why not? It's only getting harder every year to find someone willing to risk it who isn't completely useless, and here I am offering myself up for the slaughter. Hell, I doubt you have any better qualified candidates lining up." Although, technically, she wasn't qualified to teach Defence in Britain, since she'd only gotten an A on the NEWT. She knew the material of course, but she'd failed the practical — she'd refused to cast the required dark spells, the proctor hadn't accepted her light alternatives, they'd gotten into a nasty argument, it was this whole thing. But Hogwarts had long ago gotten an exception for Defence, due to their peculiar circumstances, so Hogwarts was the only educational institution in Britain she met the absolute minimum requirements for, ironically.
(Or did the Department of Education recognise foreign certificates now? She couldn't remember...)
"It's not your qualifications that are in doubt. Your temperament, on the other hand, that I have doubts about, I'm afraid."
Cassie forced out a harsh scoff, laying a hand over her heart. "You wrong me, Mister Dumbledore. I'm a sweet girl, really, you just have to get to know me."
Seemingly despite himself, a smile twitched at Dumbledore's lips, just for a second. Not surprising, he had his own reputation for irony and dramatics. "I'm sure any number of associates of yours might think so, Miss Lovegood." (Of course, he was also a bit of a chauvinist, so the joke landed for that reason too.) "But the fact remains, I am not certain yours are the hands I wish to leave the children of my school in."
"Okay, now I'm really offended. How many paedophiles have ended up teaching Defence during your tenure as Headmaster? But it's my hands you're worried about. Uh-huh."
Every trace of amusement vanished, his face sinking into a glare. "The unsuitability of previous applicants has no bearing on your own."
"It does, I would think, but not really the point." Cassie let out a short sigh. "Be reasonable, Mister Dumbledore. If, for whatever inscrutable reason, you're concerned with me having any contact with the kids at all, it's already too late to prevent that — I am going to be around for the Tournament anyway, you know. And, honestly, if I am given the position, what are you so afraid I'm going to do with it?"
"It is not a threat embodied in your person so much as the culture at large. Our attitudes and our history can be corruptive enough without helping it along. I do try to keep dark wizards and witches out of the Defence position as often as I possibly can."
Cassie actually laughed — that was one of the stupidest things she'd ever heard. "And you think I'm a dark witch? Dumbledore, I have the highest ranking ever achieved by any competitor using solely light magic in the history of the I.D.C. I'm even known for it, ask Filius if you don't follow duelling, he can tell you all about it.
"Honestly, do you have any idea how absurd what you just said sounds? I've never cast a single dark spell in my life. Ever. If you know a witch further from the Dark than me, I'd like to meet her, 'cause I kinda doubt such a thing exists." Well, white mages, of course, but Dumbledore didn't think they existed at all, so he was hardly likely to use one as an example.
All the dignified annoyance on Dumbledore's face vanished in an instant, a peculiar sort of curiosity taking its place. "Never? I wouldn't think that even possible, given your...more famous exploits."
"Yes, well, with the culture of magic here being what it is, light battlemagic is a dying art. Outside of a few isolated traditional communities, the more useful sorts of true witchcraft — nature magic, low ritual, high elementalism, that sort of thing — those have been all but extinguished. I had to look pretty damn hard to get good enough at all that to actually use it in a fight. Believe me, it's very possible for me to do what I do without touching dark magic. In fact, in some ways it's an advantage — people like me are rare enough few dark wizards are properly prepared to defend themselves. It's all out there to find, for people willing to look for it, but, after all, most dark wizards learn their dark magic competing with other dark wizards. Truly dangerous offensive light magic often sets them aback enough they're dead before they can figure out what to do."
Dumbledore seemed rather uncomfortable with the thought of just killing people before they had a chance to respond — which, despite that being the bloody obvious thing to do if you were actually trying to win, was entirely expected, given how he'd handled Voldemort's people. Waiting to respond with lethal force far longer than anybody reasonably should was practically a trademark sign of Dumbledore's influence by this point. But, despite that, Cassie saw a sort of reluctant curiosity come into his eyes, he hesitated a long moment before speaking. "I hope I can assume you would be wise enough to not put these most dangerous magics in the hands of your students."
"No, of course not." Maybe if she found a few especially promising upperclassmen, she might give a few...pointers, but not in general, no. "There's just as much variety in light battlemagic as there is in dark. For most of them, they'd just be getting a grounding in the fundamentals in the channelling of light and elemental powers, and some alternatives for the standard— Here, I started drawing up ideas." Reaching into a pocket, Cassie pulled out a matchbook-sized box, unshrinking it into shoebox-sized with a quick freeform dispel. After a bit of flipping around, she found the folder she was looking for.
"Did you already start writing up a curriculum?"
Cassie couldn't help a confused frown at the surprise on his voice. "Er...yeah? I mean, I couldn't very well ask to take the job if I wasn't sure I could do it, could I? Anyway, let's look at..." She paged through the folder for a second. "...third year, let's look at third year. The first month is mostly focusing exercises and such. All seven years start with some of that, actually — can't well have people starting in with elemental magic without determining if they have any relevant affinity, and the light exercises will make the later spellwork far easier to pull off. Might even be able to pull some of the dark-aligned kids doing that a bit to the light, but the most severe will probably have to focus on elemental magic, I've been planning two separate paths for those cases.
"But anyway, in third year I'd then get into very basic self-defence stuff — you know, shielding, disarming, stunning, that sort of thing. Since light spells derive no small portion of their power and direction from the emotional component, they should be more successful with these than kids their age would normally be with arithmantic spells. Not to mention, even weak polarised charms tend to slip right through standard shields, and light shields are far better at blocking dark curses than the ones people are normally taught, so even by the end of November they should have a leg up should they be unfortunate enough to need to defend themselves at any point.
"From there— Well, I'll be playing it by ear a little bit, but I was thinking it might be good to get into some basic healing, and there are some simple divinations which—"
"Stop." A rueful sort of smile pulling at his lips, Dumbledore shook his head, slow and heavy. "You needn't go on any further, Miss Lovegood, you've made your point. I will need to consult with the Board to be certain, but that you actually put thought into your curriculum ahead of time already puts you head and shoulders above most candidates we've considered the last decade."
"So, I've got the job?"
"I fear I may come to regret this, but yes. Provisionally, until the Board signs off."
"Good." Cassie flipped the folder closed. "Can I move into the Castle right away?"
Dumbledore blinked.
"Don't look so surprised, Headmaster. Would you want to stay with my brother any longer than you had to?"
She should probably be offended at how easily he laughed at that, just on principle.
