In_memoriam: Hogwarts
Title: Professor
Fandom: Harry Potter
Prompt: Places - Hogwarts
Characters: Charity Burbage, Albus D
Rating: G
Word Count: 517
Summary: Charity can't help feeling weird when the headmaster calls her 'professor', seeing as how the last time he spoke to her she'd just exploded a cauldron. Deathly Hallows SPOILERS. For
in_memoriam_7 - claim = Charity Burbage.
Charity Burbage stood outside the imposing gates.
“Take a deep breath, Charity,” she told herself, and did just that. It didn’t do much: a minute of careful breathing later she still wanted to panic and run far away from the ancient stone castle. Why on earth had she agreed to this?
Because your best friend asked you to, she told herself. Stop being a fool. You are a Hufflepuff, and you are going to go through with your promise. Turning tail and running is not an option.
Charity decided that if she survived a year of teaching at Hogwarts she owed Poppy a drink - at least the job paid well. She wasn’t looking forward to ten months of children shooting spells at each other whenever the professors turned their backs (just because she would be thirty in four years time didn’t mean that she had forgotten what it was like to be a student) but she would have to put up with it. And on the plus side, being best friends with the mediwitch meant easy access to the medicinal brandy.
Charity steeled herself and reached out. The wrought iron of the gate was cold beneath her hand: cold and immobile.
“Alohomora,” she said, pointing her wand at the lock in the centre of the gates. Nothing happened. Charity wasn’t surprised; just because He Who Must Not Be Named had been gone for three years didn’t mean that the school had relaxed its security. There were still Death Eaters and less zealous supporters of the darkest wizard in history loose, whatever the Ministry said. Dumbledore was no fool and Charity seriously doubted that he’d put political connections above the safety of the students he’d been protecting for more years than Charity had been alive.
“Speak of the devil,” the witch murmured. A tall man with more beard than an unsheared sheep and dubious taste in robes, Albus Dumbledore was the picture of a welcoming employer. Reaching his arms out - partly to recite a complex incantation that unlocked the gate and partly as a gesture of greeting - he looked deceptively harmless; Charity found it hard to reconcile this peaceable man with the fierce fighter she’d seen when He Who Must Not Be Named had attacked the Ministry.
“Welcome back, Professor Burbage,” Dumbledore said cheerfully when he reached the gate. The title sounded odd to Charity’s ears - it was, after all, only eight years since he’d substituted for Slughorn in a Potions lesson and Charity had accidentally added an extra Boomslang skin and almost gassed the entire 7th year class.
“It’s good to be back here,” Charity said. Dumbledore’s welcoming aura had driven most of the worry and all of the panic away for the moment and she was looking forward to exploring the castle that had been her home for ten months of seven years. It probably hadn’t changed that much, but Hogwarts was one of those places that you could live in for a lifetime and never discover all of its secrets, and besides who knew how many students had created new trick steps and false doors?
Fandom: Harry Potter
Prompt: Places - Hogwarts
Characters: Charity Burbage, Albus D
Rating: G
Word Count: 517
Summary: Charity can't help feeling weird when the headmaster calls her 'professor', seeing as how the last time he spoke to her she'd just exploded a cauldron. Deathly Hallows SPOILERS. For
in_memoriam_7 - claim = Charity Burbage.
Charity Burbage stood outside the imposing gates.
“Take a deep breath, Charity,” she told herself, and did just that. It didn’t do much: a minute of careful breathing later she still wanted to panic and run far away from the ancient stone castle. Why on earth had she agreed to this?
Because your best friend asked you to, she told herself. Stop being a fool. You are a Hufflepuff, and you are going to go through with your promise. Turning tail and running is not an option.
Charity decided that if she survived a year of teaching at Hogwarts she owed Poppy a drink - at least the job paid well. She wasn’t looking forward to ten months of children shooting spells at each other whenever the professors turned their backs (just because she would be thirty in four years time didn’t mean that she had forgotten what it was like to be a student) but she would have to put up with it. And on the plus side, being best friends with the mediwitch meant easy access to the medicinal brandy.
Charity steeled herself and reached out. The wrought iron of the gate was cold beneath her hand: cold and immobile.
“Alohomora,” she said, pointing her wand at the lock in the centre of the gates. Nothing happened. Charity wasn’t surprised; just because He Who Must Not Be Named had been gone for three years didn’t mean that the school had relaxed its security. There were still Death Eaters and less zealous supporters of the darkest wizard in history loose, whatever the Ministry said. Dumbledore was no fool and Charity seriously doubted that he’d put political connections above the safety of the students he’d been protecting for more years than Charity had been alive.
“Speak of the devil,” the witch murmured. A tall man with more beard than an unsheared sheep and dubious taste in robes, Albus Dumbledore was the picture of a welcoming employer. Reaching his arms out - partly to recite a complex incantation that unlocked the gate and partly as a gesture of greeting - he looked deceptively harmless; Charity found it hard to reconcile this peaceable man with the fierce fighter she’d seen when He Who Must Not Be Named had attacked the Ministry.
“Welcome back, Professor Burbage,” Dumbledore said cheerfully when he reached the gate. The title sounded odd to Charity’s ears - it was, after all, only eight years since he’d substituted for Slughorn in a Potions lesson and Charity had accidentally added an extra Boomslang skin and almost gassed the entire 7th year class.
“It’s good to be back here,” Charity said. Dumbledore’s welcoming aura had driven most of the worry and all of the panic away for the moment and she was looking forward to exploring the castle that had been her home for ten months of seven years. It probably hadn’t changed that much, but Hogwarts was one of those places that you could live in for a lifetime and never discover all of its secrets, and besides who knew how many students had created new trick steps and false doors?