About that jinxed DADA posting at Hogwarts.
1958
1st March 1958
Dear Gellert
I writing to ask you as a practitioner of the Dark Arts if you will be able to lift the jinx that was put on Hogwarts' Defence Against the Dark Arts (DADA) posting by a disgruntled former student? We have been having problems retaining our faculty. Every wizard and witch hired or assigned to that post has ended up disgraced, injured, maimed or dead. It is very detrimental towards the education of our students to have to cycle through seven different tutors for the subject before their N.E.W.T.s.
Last year we had Madame Baba Yaga – a decent enough teacher once you got past the accent, until someone outed her as a hag. The year before was old Tony Skelter, who could not face down a pixie. Knew of the jinx and spent most of his time hiding from his own lectures. He had a run-in with a centaur and ended up in St Mungo's. As I write, our incumbent DADA professor is being scrubbed off the classroom walls by the house-elves. Nasty business for the fifth years who have to witness that.
So any ideas, old friend?
Albus Dumbledore
Spring 1958
Dear Albus
Frankly, I do not give a damn about your school's staffing issues. The entire class sounds lame – DADA indeed. I am not surprised even the tutor would want to play hooky. May I suggest a revamp to plain old Dark Arts as they call them in Durmstrang? I have many fond memories of perfectly-executed Imperiuses and Cruciatuses. Then the wide selection of hexes practiced. Everything a budding dark wizard could wish for a well-rounded education.
Yours sincerely
Gellert Grindelwald
20th March 1958
Dear Gellert
No, definitely no. We are not doing down that rabbit-hole of replacing DADA with Dark Arts. Though I heard some sighs of relief when that idea was floated at the academic dinner by Slughorn. The proposal, sadly failed to pass the Ministry's approval. We are still seeking a professor for the subject. Do you have any idea how it feels interviewing candidates and knowing that by this time next year they would be ruined, maimed or dead? Dippert suggested we try to seek out that earlier candidate Riddle but honestly, I am not keen for Hogwarts to host him even for a month. Though the possibility of him being hoist with his own petard is rather enticing. Can the jinxer get hit with the same jinx they set in place about a decade back?
I note that other than waxing lyrical about the practice of the Dark Arts, you have yet to offer a solution to the conundrum. Can it be that this jinx has you stumped?
Albus Dumbledore
P.S. I think Headmaster Dippert will be asking me to fill in the next academic year in absence of a candidate, given my pre-war experience teaching the subject. Do you suppose I will be able to write to you if I get knocked off a tower thanks to the jinx?
Spring 1958
Dear Albus
Are you out of your mind? Or have the narrowness of your world in the hallowed halls of Academia finally cracked you?
Do not, under any circumstances, accept that posting. If you dare, I will send a little letter off to the British Ministry of Magic to scuttle any notion of you teaching Dark Arts Defense, and maybe teaching in Hogwarts ever.
About that jinx – no, I cannot remove it from a distance, locked up in a prison cell and with my magic shackled. Remove the shackles and allow me to make a visit to your quaint little school. I will need a study of the grounds to figure out how the jinx was cast and how to break it. Method B will require you to locate this Riddle fellow and literally obliterate him. Make sure he is deader than dead. Jinx will naturally be rendered void. If he has already forgotten about setting that jinx in the first place, it might be a form of karmic justice to offer him the post now and watch him get jinxed.
If you still persist in your misguided ideas concerning how Dark Arts should be taught or not, may I propose a semesteral exchange programme with Beauxbatons or Ilvermorny given the similar principles governing your opinions on DADA? The students might actually study for a full semester without their tutor meeting an unpleasant fate.
Yours sincerely
Gellert Grindelwald
P.S. If you ever do get fired from Hogwarts, I will gladly write you a recommendation to Durmstrang.
Spring 1958
Dear Minister of Magic (Britain)
It is after much thought that I write expressing my concerns about the new proposed Defence Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts. As you may know, the post has been jinxed and a large number of our brothers and sisters have met an untimely fate. It has come to my notice that Albus Dumbledore will likely be appointed to this unsavory post. May I ask if the magical community of Britain is ready to see one of their great heroes fall to something as moronic as a jinx by a failed job applicant?
Yours in earnest sincerity
A concerned citizen who wishes to remain anonymous for the greater good
Spring 1958
Dear Cousin Udo
Greetings and salutations, fellow Drumstrang alumnus. I hear from Auntie Bathlida you have been fired from your post at Beauxbatons for something involving little girls. You never learn, do you. I hear there is an opening across the Channel in a British School for a Defence Against the Dark Arts professor and will gladly provide you with a recommendation. Just try laying off the girls for a year or so. I enclose with this letter a hex that make your bits shrivel up and drop off if you so much as flirt with any girl or boy below legal age.
It is only on account of our families' longstanding goodwill towards each other that I am helping you with finding gainful employment. It was a pity you were in hiding for much of the time when my Alliance was at its greatest. One could never have too much cannon fodder. No, I bear no ill will for all the times you poured ink over my books and washed my hair in the toilet bowl back at school. I might have once, but you were late for that unfortunate episode in Durmstrang, and I consider five out of seven bullies a good score. I nailed no. 6 literally to a barn door in 1914 for bayonet practice.
Do not disappoint me or Auntie now.
Your dark wizard cousin
Gellert
P.S. If I hear you squandered this chance I am offering, I will end you in manner so nasty, your mama will not recognize you. Then I will have a perfect score on the cards – 7 out of 7.
5th June 1958
Dear Gellert
We just received news from the Ministry that I am not to be instated as DADA professor. At the same time, one Udo Maleficus has turned up begging for the post I am forbidden to take. Might you have a hand in this, old friend? I had Theseus sneak me a copy of that letter from a concerned citizen and recognize your handwriting anywhere. Moreover, this Udo wizard is your second cousin once removed. Will this be a point of concern?
More disturbing is the rumours as to why he was forced to leave his previous post… Are you aware of this sordid business? If Hogwarts were not so in desperate need of a DADA master, we would never have hired him.
Albus Dumbledore
Summer 1958
Dear Albus
I do not know what you are talking about – me writing to the Ministry? It is like snow coming down in June. Wait, it is snowing outside now as I write. Crazy alpine weather, huh?
About Cousin Udo, do feel free to hex him if he steps out of line. He was a toad and a bully as a child and sorry excuse of a wizard. Yes, though I value wizarding blood, I do wish he is a squib or fool enough to challenge me and give me an excuse to blast him to kingdom come. The family will not miss him even if he blows himself up within the year. In fact, his folks might crack out the champagne for an embarrassment removed permanently.
Your friend always
Gellert Grindelwald
P.S. If he does meet an untimely end during his tenure, do owl me and may I request a bottle of bubbly and a picnic hamper from Fortum's to mourn his passing?
Author's Notes:
Now who is the master of manipulation? Gellert has a bit of a vengeful streak and has not quite forgiven his cousin, has he?