She Who Could Not Be Zapped, Judy Colella [novel24 TXT] 📗

With deep mortification I pen this entry. In the entirety of Hogwarts history, this brief period represented perhaps the biggest stain on an otherwise glorious reputation. These things occurred before the admission of one Harry Potter – had the incidents coincided with his presence, I cannot say what would have become of my sanity. But Harry is another story, another chapter in this journal that is still in progress, and thus has no part in what I am about to write.

The beginning of the term that marked my third year of professorship at this august institution of magic, brought with it a new student who, while in possession of an usual, natural ability in wizardry, was nonetheless a social nincompoop. Spoiled, pampered, entitled – not too unlike one of my current students, one Draco Malfoy – but in no wise a born leader or bully like the Malfoy brat.

This new student had the irritating moniker of Worthington Belerophonius III. I swear, saying his name during roll call ate up several precious minutes of class time I shall never regain without a truly dark spell. To make matters worse, during the second week of classes, W. Belerophonius was visited by an aunt who claimed she had reservations about the kind of school her nephew was attending.

Why did this make matters worse? Aside from the obvious annoyance of unwanted relatives cluttering up the halls and auditing my class, was the untenable fact that she was not a witch. She even claimed she wasn’t magical in the least. I remember spending an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how she’d made her way to the doors of Hogwarts in the first place!

Dumbledore, dear wizard that he is, was hospitable to this blight on the wizardly landscape, but in retrospect, I begin to think he knew exactly what he was doing. That, however, another matter. I have titled this section of my Journal in the only way I could, with a name I was forced to give this woman, this non-muggle muggle. Surely there must exist somewhere a tome of magical lore that explains her, but I’ve yet to discover its existence.

On that blustery late-autumn day when Argus discovered her dithering at the gates, I was in the grips of frustration with my class. For some reason, not a single one of them was able to correctly measure the ingredients for a spell that I could do in my sleep as a child. When Dumbledore summoned me to his office, I admit I was relieved. Casting a time-stop spell to prevent any of my bumbling charges from blowing up the castle in my absence, I hastened away, believing anything Albus needed me for had to be of a more pleasant nature than what I was experiencing with my students. How dreadfully wrong I was!

When I entered his office, it was to find Filch offering a cup of tea to a young woman sitting in the chair facing Dumbledore’s desk. Filch never did things like that. And certainly never with the kind of silly smile he was offering with the tea.

Albus was sitting at his desk, of course, arms tucked in his sleeves, a crease between his brows that was somehow deeper than what I’d seen under the direst of circumstance. A quick glance at his phoenix showed the bird looking not at all himself either, and quite frankly, I was startled. I’d never seen a look of any kind on a bird’s face, if that’s what you call it, but this phoenix looked…I believe “discombobulated” is the word to best describe it.

“Ah, Severus,” said Dumbledore – another surprise, since he never used my first name in front of strangers.

I nodded a greeting, but said nothing.

Dumbledore continued. “Yes. Well. I’d like you to meet the aunt of one of our first year students. His name is Worthington Belerophonius III, and this is his Aunt Dianna Dylan. She has joined us to see how Worthington is adjusting to his new situation.” He cleared his throat, looking alarmed, I thought, but then gave her a nice smile.

The woman set her tea on the desk, got up, and turned to face me. I must admit, my immediate reaction was to think, “Hello, how could such a lovely young lady be related to that pestilence Worthington?” I said nothing of the kind, of course.

She put out a hand, smiled up at me, and said, “A pleasure, sir. Severus, he called you, yes?”

“Severus Snape, miss,” I told her shaking her hand and noticing she had a firm grip. For such a delicate thing she was quite strong.

“I hope you won’t mind me sitting in on your class to make sure my nephew is behaving himself. His parents asked me to come by; and to be honest, I wasn’t sure myself what kind of school this is, but so far, it seems grand.”

Forgive me, but her smile was enchanting – no pun intended even a little. I told her she was more than welcome to come back to class with me, and innocent enough mistake. Who was it who said, “Ah, what fools these mortals be?” Some nasty little imp in a Shakespeare play, I believe. In this case, the phrase, though fitting, should have been, “Ah, what fools these wizards be!”

As we walked, Miss Dylan (she explained she was unmarried when I enquired after Mr. Dylan) looked about at the walls with its many portraits and painted scenes, at the occasional shadow that had more life than some of my fellow professors, and at me. I fear I may have blushed at one point.

When we entered the classroom, I released my students from the time-stop holding them immobile, and invited Miss Dylan to sit wherever she thought she’d be comfortable.

That, I’m afraid, was the moment when things began shifting, rather like the first signs of an avalanche. Her nephew, upon spotting her, shouted, “Aunt Dianna! How did you get in here?”

Before I could reprimand him for his rudeness, Miss Dylan laughed, sat down, and said, “How wonderful to see you, too, Bel!”

Some giggling ensued from the rest of the class, no doubt in response to her nickname for him.

To Worthington’s credit, he weathered the chortles and directed the conversation back to his question. “But how did you get in here?”

“Your delightful professor escorted me from the Headmaster’s office, of course.”

“No, no, I mean how did you get into Hogwarts?”

Behind him, I could see several students mouthing the word “delightful” and looking shocked. How typical.

“Same way you did, I would imagine – through the front gates. Now stop asking silly questions, Bel. You’re disrupting Professor Snape’s class.”

I gave her a nod of appreciation and continued discussing the importance of proper measurements. Everything seemed to be returning to normal. Indeed. Well, that changed the second one of my better students did something that made his desk explode in a cloud of feathers.

To this day, I can’t explain how she did it, but as soon as I neutralized the ill-conceived spell and returned the desk to its usual state, Miss Dylan raised a hand and asked if she could help. Before I could refuse – I was terrified she might go the way of the desk – she’d gone to the boy’s side, picked up his ingredients list and said, “How in the world could you have a hard time doing this? My mother’s sugar cookie recipe is harder than this!” And so saying, she measured out the ingredients, poured them into his cauldron, grabbed his wand for heaven’s sake, stirred the contents with it, and upended the cauldron on the desk. Out fell the miniature goblin I’d been trying to get them to produce!

I nearly passed out. First, for a non-magical person to touch those ingredients was to invite disaster, but to pick up the personal wand of a wizard, even a first-year, and then to use it as…as…as a SPOON! Oh, my. She should have been blown to bits on the spot! But more astonishing than all the rest was that she completed the spell properly!

When I recovered my composure, I chided her for not being truthful about her magic.

“Magic? What are you talking about? There’s nothing magical about measuring and stirring a bunch of things together, Professor. Although I must say the result was not what I expected. What is that odd little fellow running about on the floor?”

“What?!” I looked down, probably wild-eyed, until I spotted the goblin running in circles by one of the book cases against the wall. “Catch him, will you, Marshal, there’s a good fellow?” I said to the student nearest the spot.

Have I mentioned that first year students tend to have less common sense than a banshee’s earlobe? After getting three fingers bitten, the idiot tried squashing the goblin with one of his books, and ended up with the text being flung at his face, nearly breaking his nose.

I was about to take care of it myself, but once again, the astonishing Dianna Dylan stepped in. She crouched down by the little goblin and whispered something. It stopped gritting its teeth, the smoke curling out of its pointy ears (they do that when they’re angry or afraid) stopped, and it scampered onto her extended palm. She picked it up, took a piece of candy from her pocket, and gave it to the goblin.

A teensy whoop of joy came from the creature’s throat and it hugged Miss Dylan’s thumb, then sat down on her hand, and for the remainder of the class continued breaking off small pieces of the candy and stuffing them into its mouth, grinning at her between swallows. By then, Miss Dylan had also taken a seat, this time near my desk.

Did I mention I was astonished?

When class ended, she asked if she could keep the little fellow.

“Whatever will you do with it?” I asked. And believe me, my curiosity was genuine.

“Take it home, of course. I have an old doll house I recently fixed up to use as part of my décor, and it’s the perfect size for my new friend here.”

My knowledge of miniature goblins is more or less limited to conjuring them up, so I recommended she talk to Professor Hagrid, whose specialty is magical creatures. He could advise her on the wisdom of taking the little beast out of Hogwarts in the first place, or if it was no problem, tell her the best things to feed it, all that.

“Does my nephew have any classes with this Hagrid today?”

I checked my student roll book – it includes a list of each student’s classes for the day – and was pleased to see “Bel” did have a class with Rubeus – next period, in fact – and offered to walk with her to the forest where the class would be held. Once outside of Hogwarts proper, the ground could be treacherous, especially at that time of year (or so I told myself to justify accompanying her…yes, I know. Foolish wizards and all that).

“What a lovely man you are, Professor Snape!” She patted my arm, and – I refuse to disclose my thoughts at that moment, thank you.

As we neared the cottage at the edge of the woods where Rubeus Hagrid lived, I began to have misgivings. Dianna was…Miss Dylan was not, after all, of a magical background and would no doubt be terrified at the sight of our newest Care of Magical Creatures Professor. As gentle and kind-hearted as he is, Hagrid is a half-giant, and no doubt larger and more intimidating than anyone this young woman had ever seen.

Yes. I was wrong. Again. When he lumbered out of the cottage and roared his greeting to the students, all Miss Dylan did was tilt her head, smile, and say, “What a pleasant gentleman!”

I waved to