3. Strange Deja Vu
A new school year was about to start and Harry, Hermione and Ron were once again sitting on the train to Hogwarts. They were sharing a compartment with Ginny, Dean and Neville.
"So, who'll be next?" Ron asked the others.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, let's see. We had a Death Eater. And, oh yes, another servant of You-know-who …" – "Say Voldemort, will you?" – "… then there was a werewolf out of control and a demented civil servant. And last, but certainly not least, there was Lockhart, that old fraud," said Ron and cast Hermione an amused sideways glance.
"So is Trelawney," mumbled Hermione under her breath but loud enough for everybody to hear. They all grinned; there was no arguing with that.
They spend a good part of the trip speculating who would be the next defence against the dark arts teacher. Ron basically threw in names of people he knew from his father's work at the ministry. Hermione proposed several well-known witches and Wizards she had read about in books but none of the others knew any of the names. Ginny and Neville played Hermione's counterparts and listed names which were heard of on the Wizard wireless or in the pages of the Daily Prophet devoted to gossip. Dean and Harry, being Muggle-born and not as well-read as Hermione listened to the others.
But the evening proved that nobody had hit near the mark.
o
At the start of the banquet in the Great Hall that evening Dumbledore stood up and clapped his hands to restore silence. "I have the enormous pleasure," he announced happily, "to introduce to you our new defence against the dark arts teacher, a young witch who has already proven her capability in dealing with Death Eaters as an auror of the ministry. I am pleased to welcome professor Nymphadora Tonks." To his right, Tonks had raised from her seat and was beaming at the assembled crowd.
Harry, Ron, Ginny and Hermione gawped. "That bitch! She never told us a single word," said Ron indignantly but he stood up with the rest of them and clapped enthusiastically. Tonks, in meantime, was showing her talent by knocking over Snape's goblet when sitting down again. However, Harry had the strange impression that this latest little accident of hers was not so accidental after all. Snape seemed to think the same while glaring at her in silence. Tonks gave him her most charming, most innocent smile but her eyes seemed to glint of more than only candlelight: Mischief.
o
"Always remember," Harry lectured, sounding very much like Moody now, "there is no defence against the Deadly curse. You can deflect any other charm with enough willpower. You can overcome imperius with control of mind. You even can break a cruciatus curse. It's hard … I don't think there's more than a handful of witches and Wizards capable of doing this. But there is nothing, absolutely nothing to counteract or reverse the Killing curse."
The whole DA group was listening avidly, drinking in every single word he said.
