Get comfortable, turn the page, and let’s see what this story has been hiding 🔥 ✦ After leaving Ollivanders, Elias followed Dumbledore to Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions.
Elias repeatedly insisted that his Wolf School armor was perfectly adequate for any social occasion, but Dumbledore remained unmoved.
Hogwarts, he explained, did have standards of dress.
A professor required robes.
Madam Malkin was a friendly, squat witch who greeted Dumbledore and Elias with great warmth.
Once she learned that Elias needed a set of wizarding robes, she waved her hand, and a measuring tape began circling him on its own.
After taking his measurements, Madam Malkin guided him through several styles.
Elias eventually chose a fitted black robe trimmed with gold thread at the cuffs and hem.
It also came with self-ironing, self-repairing, and temperature-regulating charms.
It cost him a full sixty Galleons.
There was no denying that a witcher’s mutated physique made an excellent frame for clothing.
In Wolf School armor, sword-backed and hard-eyed, Elias looked dangerous.
In the fitted black robes, with his tall build, amber eyes, and lean face, he looked mysterious, elegant, and faintly otherworldly.
Madam Malkin’s eyes lit with commercial instinct.
She immediately asked whether Elias might be willing to model robes for her in his free time and even offered the impressive wage of fifty Galleons a month.
Years in business had given her an excellent nose for market value, and she had clearly scented it on him.
Elias declined politely, then escaped the robe shop with Dumbledore while Madam Malkin watched them go with open disappointment.
At Dumbledore’s suggestion, Elias then bought a thick compendium of spells from Flourish and Blotts so he could begin studying this world’s magic properly.
Once the necessary purchases were complete, they prepared to return to Hogwarts.
Before heading back to the Leaky Cauldron and the Floo Network, however, Elias could not resist stopping at the sweet shop to buy a large bag of Cockroach Clusters.
Dumbledore immediately praised his taste.
In an atmosphere of mutual admiration over excellent sweets, the two returned to the Headmaster’s office by Floo.
Back in the office, Elias did not leave at once.
Dumbledore told him the story of one of his former students.
It was a fascinating story.
Elias ate quite a few Cockroach Clusters as though they were popcorn.
“Ignorance always finds a way to defeat civilization,” Elias said after hearing it all.
“People make the same mistakes again and again.
Muggles or wizards, it makes little difference.
Give someone great power, and the darkness inside him begins to feed.” He looked at Dumbledore.
“So this student of yours, Tom, was tempted by power, became a terrorist, and did not actually die?
He is going to come back?” “I can feel that he is still alive,” Dumbledore said, his expression troubled.
“I do not know what method he used to evade death.
Tom is weak now, but one day, I fear, he will return.” Elias knew about Horcruxes, of course.
He had no intention of telling Dumbledore yet.
Whether the Headmaster believed him was one problem.
The greater problem was that such knowledge would make Dumbledore suspect him far more deeply than he already did.
Silence settled heavily over the office.
In the end, Dumbledore was the one who broke it.
He asked Elias to accompany him to dinner.
It was time to introduce Hogwarts’ new professor to the students.
Before they left, Dumbledore tried several times to persuade Elias to remove the two swords from his back.
Elias refused each time.
His reason was simple: carrying swords was a witcher tradition, just as wearing that rather unattractive purple hat was evidently one of Dumbledore’s.
When Elias and Dumbledore arrived in the Great Hall, several professors were already seated.
Professor McGonagall and Professor Sprout had both heard about Elias from Professor Flitwick, and they greeted him politely.
Elias returned their greetings one by one.
Then another wizard approached.
He was handsome, dressed in emerald-green robes, and equipped with an exceptionally bright smile.
“Hello, Professor Vale.
I am Gilderoy Lockhart, internationally celebrated personality and author, Order of Merlin, Third Class, honorary member of the Dark Force Defence League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly’s Most-Charming-Smile Award.
Not that I speak of it constantly, of course.
I did not get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her.” Elias responded with equal politeness.
He knew exactly what kind of professor stood before him.
Apart from an impressive Memory Charm, Gilderoy Lockhart was an empty robe stuffed with borrowed glory.
Elias did not intend to expose him yet.
The professors returned to their seats, and Elias sat beside Lockhart.
Students soon began filing into the Great Hall for dinner.
Sharp-eyed young witches and wizards quickly noticed the unfamiliar man at the staff table.
Elias’s catlike amber eyes and the swords on his back attracted no small amount of attention.
As more students arrived, speculation about the stranger at the high table spread into a low buzz.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione entered while discussing something animatedly.
Then Ron’s gaze swept over the staff table and landed on Elias.
He went silent at once, as if someone had seized him by the throat.
His face rapidly lost color.
Harry and Hermione noticed his reaction and followed his stare.
When they saw Elias, all three of them lowered their heads and made for the Gryffindor table.
“Why is he sitting at the staff table?” Ron demanded the moment he sat down.
Harry shook his head blankly.
He had no idea.
Hermione stole a careful glance toward the professors.
“Do you think he might have been flying toward Hogwarts that day because he was coming here to teach, and you two just happened to crash into him?” Harry and Ron went even paler.
They did not dare look at Elias.
Instead, they hunched down in their seats and tried to hide behind the students around them, as if that could keep the man at the staff table from noticing them.
Elias had noticed the trio long ago.
Seeing Harry and Ron trying to disappear into the Gryffindor table made him laugh inwardly.
Apparently the two boys had acquired no small amount of psychological shadow from their flying-car accident.
When most of the students had gathered, Dumbledore finally rose.
“Before dinner today, I would like to make two announcements.
Hogwarts has temporarily added a new course: Magical Close-Quarters Defense.
Please join me in welcoming our new professor for that course, Professor Vale.” The Great Hall responded with applause that was polite rather than enthusiastic.
Most of the students were too surprised by the sudden appearance of an unfamiliar class to clap properly.
More and more eyes turned toward the staff table.
At the moment, Elias made quite an impression.
The black robes edged in gold gave him an air of mystery and restrained nobility.
His neat ponytail, unexpectedly young face, and catlike amber eyes lent him an uncanny kind of beauty.
Some older girls looked at him for a little too long, flushed for reasons they could not quite explain, and bent close to whisper with their friends.
Lockhart, seated beside Elias, suddenly developed an inexplicable sense of crisis.
One way or another, dinner ended smoothly.
Elias returned to his office, ready to prepare his lessons and study the compendium of spells properly.
✦ ✦ ✦ Ready for more?
CREATORS’ THOUGHTS EmberHollow Thank you for reading.
I hope this chapter pulled you deeper into the story.
Stick around, because there’s still a lot waiting just ahead.