After finding a place to park her car, which wasn't easy since Hogwarts doesn't have a parking lot, Casalameer headed towards the front doors. She had seen the Dementors outside the gate and proceeded with caution. They had investigated her and her car with ferocity and she drew them away with the Patronus spell, though they hovered still, not fully leaving. The doors to Hogwarts opened by themselves and Cas walked through, wondering how much the castle had changed over the years. Apparently not a bit because the first thing she saw was the poltergeist, Peeves taking the heads off of the suits of armour and switching them with chamber pots.
"Peeves, still up to no good, huh?" She asked.
"Ooooh a new professor! I must mind my Ps and Qs from now on!" Peeves said in a wicked voice. He floated up close to her and blew a raspberry right in her face.
"That's enough, Peeves" A voice said. Cas turned around. The face was familiar but the lines in his face almost obscured him from memory.
"Remus?" Cas exclaimed.
"Remus? Ream us? Who wants to ream us?" Peeves cackled and promptly zoomed out of the room, not before knocking over one of the chamber pots, which grossly enough, was full.
"I wondered when you'd get here." Remus Lupin said, walking over to Cas, and hugging her once he was close enough. "I'd heard from Professor Dumbledore that you'd be teaching with us."
Cas was confused and delighted all at once. "You're a teacher here too?" she asked, happy to have a friend with her.
"Yes. Dumbledore asked me to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts this year…Good man, he is. It's been hard finding a job, since Wolfare never got off the ground. That abominable ministry shut us down claiming we were banding together to hunt."
"That's ridiculous. Well you'll be a fine teacher, that's for sure. All E's in NEWT level." Cas said, smiling.
"Look who's talking, Ms Auror! I'd heard you earned an Order of Merlin Second Class!"
"Don't remind me." Cas replied. "But listen, I need to find out where I'm staying and such. I just walked in the door." She heard footsteps from the right. Albus Dumbledore stood beneath an archway to the great hall.
"Ahhh…we were wondering about you. I saw your vehicle from the window a while ago." He said.
"Well my dog ran off just when I got towards the gates. Stupid dog…He's been excited about this trip for days and when he gets here he heads for the Forbidden Forest. Dogs, I tell you." Cas shook her head, sad that her pet was gone. "Maybe he'll come back."
Dumbledore smiled, slightly concerned. "Yes…I'm sure he'll turn up again before the school year is over. In the meantime, why don't I show you to your quarters? Locomotor trunks!" And with that, he led Casalameer and her bags to her new room for the school year.
It had been a long week for Casalameer. The sorting feast had come and gone and Cas had her first glimpse at Harry Potter in twelve years. God, he looked like James. Lily's eyes, though. She couldn't help but watch him more closely than the other students. It was like seeing her friends all over again. Cas missed Lily. Gone were the days when she had a girl friend to giggle with. "Hell, I don't even have a dog anymore," she thought to herself. She also had her first encounter with Severus Snape. She always remembered the skinny Slytherin boy who was suspended upside down by the lake. He said nothing to her and pretended she wasn't there.
Her first class was with the fifth years. Only three of them were muggle born. Although they had had a few years worth of Muggle Studies, the students as a whole still had a lot to learn. Cas had led them into a safer part of the Forbidden Forest (according to Hagrid, which did not make the students feel any safer) and taught them some of the incantations and chants that many muggles who tried to be witches recited in the olden days.
Afterwards, she had her third years in and demonstrated the differences and similarities between the magical world and the muggle world and the muggles' perspective on witchcraft. "What is significant of Wicca?" she asked the class.
A bushy haired girl with slightly large teeth raised her hand at once. "Miss Granger?" Cas asked politely.
"Wicca is practiced as a religion AND a way of life for muggles whereas our community merely uses it as a way of life."
"Very good. Five points to Gryffindor!"
It looked as though teaching wasn't going to be so bad.