Chapter 4: The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher's appetite knows no bounds. The same could not be said of her fondness for her students.


IV.
The Unlikely Professor
[Hogwarts | September 1995]


"And please welcome Professor Spektor, who will be taking the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher." A smattering of applause jostles "Professor" Spektor from her reverie. Instead of a customary wave, Spektor just stares blankly out at the sea of young faces, not even thinking to display smile. Albus Dumbledore then announces the start of the feast, and everyone begins to dig in.

She's seated at the staff table between Hagrid and Minerva McGonagall. Her two former classmates barely acknowledge her, and what's more, they seem to be actively ignoring her. Hagrid inches his chair a few inches away from Spektor indiscreetly. Looking out over the Great Hall, all the students catching up, plotting, whatever they do, evokes in her a twinge of loneliness, of bitter nostalgia. But the aroma of the food adequately distracts her, and she eats with gusto. She piles onto her plate a large helping of pheasant, a mound of mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, whatever else is in reach, and smothers the whole mess in gravy. Hagrid watches her with a bemused grin. After two helpings of pudding, she pushes herself away from the table. Stuffed and sleepy, Spektor takes her leave from the feast early and steals away to locate her new lodgings. It's a far journey, winding through the familiar corridors and the moving staircase to the third floor corridor. Her living quarters adjoin the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, through a door behind the desk at the front of the room.

The room is small and minimally adorned, with a low iron-framed twin bed in the corner and a shabby desk near the window. A few empty bookcases line the walls. The desk is caked in wax, the chair just off-balance enough to be irritating. There is nothing to unpack. She sits there for a moment feeling deeply alone. But she was alone in Azkaban. How is this any different? Her eyes flit over the stone floor, the bare walls, the large window where the moonlight streams in. Don't think about that.


When Professor Spektor awakes, she notices a parcel on the desk, wrapped in brown paper and tied with a red string. She leaps out of bed, her bedsheets tangling and slipping to the floor, and grabs the package, runs her eyes over every inch of it, inspecting it. It smells like musk, embers plucked from a fire. They're still following her? After all these years? Before she had the chance to peel back the paper and uncover the parcel's contents, a knock came at the door. It was Albus Dumbledore.

"I see you're settling in. Hope you slept well." He says, glancing around the room, then setting his eyes on Spektor, who is looking nervous, hands holding the parcel trembling slightly. "What's that?" Dumbledore asks, gesturing towards the item in her hands.

"Probably nothing." She thunks it back on the desk and positions her body to block the item from Albus' view. "Is there something you wish to tell me, Albus?" Spektor asks, maybe a tad bit too insolent.

"I was hoping we'd have a chance to meet soon. I have a few questions for you." Dumbledore says. "How about this evening?"

"I think I can fit that in." Spektor mutters.

"Good. I suspect we have a lot to talk about." He says, glancing around the room again. "A bit gloomy in here, isn't it? Here." He transfigures an empty ink pot into a vase full of violets. The sight and scent of the flowers bring a genuine smile to her face. She buries her nose in their fragrant petals, and when she looks back up, Dumbledore is gone. Her attention returns to the strange parcel on her desk.

She's always been one of those people who unwrap gifts carefully so as not to tear the paper. Folding the wrappings neatly, along with the string, and setting them aside, she examines the box. It's smooth black lacquer, completely seamless, yet she's sure it's hollow in the middle—that it contains something. And she's pretty sure she knows exactly who it's from.


Students file into the cavernous classroom, vaulted ceilings lit dimly by candles fitted into iron chandeliers. The windows are darkened, and a faint crackling of a radio drifts from somewhere distant. The classroom is austere, impersonal, and most unwelcoming. The students settle into their desks, looking around for any sign of their new professor. Harry lights the tip of his wand to help see in the gloom.

"Are we early or something?" Ron asks.

"You're never early, Ron." Hermione snaps, opening her textbook. "I can barely read in this lighting, this is ridiculous." Silent footsteps creep up behind Harry's desk.

"Harry Potter." Professor Spektor says. "We didn't get a chance to properly meet earlier." Harry shivers, and jerks his head around to locate the speaker. The new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor extends her hand for him to shake. "V. Spektor. It's a pleasure..." An ominous feeling stirs in the pit of Harry's stomach. There's an intensity in her black eyes that makes him look away, like they could strip him to his very core. He takes her thin, clammy hand and shakes it politely, and a searing pain flashes in his scar. A pained look contorts Harry's face, and Spektor lets go suddenly, a frown forming in the creases of her mouth. "Sorry." She mutters. Studying her hand, she walks up to the front of the room, her robes billowing behind her. Absently she waves her wand and a screen erects itself.

"It's just as important to know how to heal yourself as it is to defend yourself." She says, more to herself than to the class. "Chances are high that if you are attacked there won't be anyone around to help you. So pay attention." She flicks her wand and a slide of a victim of a particularly nasty curse is illuminated on the screen.

"Right, just dive right in. No need for introductions for the rest of the class." Ron mutters sarcastically, propping his chin on his hand.

"What would you do if you were this poor fellow?" Half the class covers their eyes. The image is rather graphic. There's a lot of blood. Hermione's hand shoots up.

After forty-five minutes of gruesome scenes and explanations on how to heal yourself if you've been hit by a curse that tears your wand arm off and the like, the students pack up their things and head for the door slightly more nauseated than when they entered.

"My god, how stupid do you have to be to let that happen to your head?" Draco Malfoy cracks under his breath to Crabbe and Goyle. Draco Malfoy gets quite a chuckle out of some of the images as well, which Professor Spektor apparently hears. She pulls him aside.

"Draco Malfoy. You find injuries funny, do you?" She says icily.

"I...I...oh no, Professor...I don't…" Malfoy simpers, putting up his hands.

"Maybe you'd like to help me demonstrate my next lesson. Live demonstrations tend to have more...impact...I find..." Professor Spektor's veiled threat is not lost on Malfoy. The color drains from his face.

"Please, Professor..." He whines. "Don't make me..."

"I would never make you do anything." She says. Malfoy squirms. "Go on. You're going to be late to your next class." And she waves him off.


"I heard your first classes had quite an impression on the students." Albus Dumbledore says after Professor Spektor settles herself across from him in a high-backed chair in his cozy, cluttered office. "One first-year came to Professor McGonagall in tears..." He gazes at her from behind his half-moon spectacles.

"Hmmm." She says pensively. "I just taught them about common curses..."

"And I believe you demonstrated some of them on her pet toad." Dumbledore says.

"That was a pet?" she says, blinking. "You had something you wanted to ask me, Albus?"

"Yes." He nods, folding his hands in his lap. "While a student at Hogwarts, you were acquainted with a student named Tom Riddle, correct?" Spektor stares blankly back at the old wizard.

"We were in the same year." She says.

"Would you say you were friends with him?" Dumbledore ventures cautiously.

"Perhaps." She says. Dumbledore detects a small smile twitching at the corner of her mouth. "Let's not ask questions we already know the answers to, Albus. Why else would you assume I was a Death Eater?"

"Well then, what exactly was the nature of your relationship with Tom Riddle? If I may be so blunt…" Dumbledore asks outright.

"You've heard the rumors. What do you think?"

"Honestly, I don't know what to think. These rumors you mention, they sound quite improbable..." Dumbledore muses.

"I'm a little offended, Albus. You drag me out of Azkaban and call me in here and the first question you ask me is about whether I was friends with someone fifty years ago, in hopes that I can give you some information about what? What he was like as a student? What he ate in the Great Hall? What type of sweets he bought in Hogsmeade?" She leans back in the chair and crosses her arms. "You know an awful lot about him already...but hardly anything about me. And for some reason...it doesn't seem like you're the least bit curious." She says, frowning.

"Should I be?" Dumbledore says, arching his eyebrows.

"Absolutely." She says, twisting the ring on her middle finger absentmindedly.