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Chapter 1: “I’m Here to Apply for Divination Professor. What Are You Doing?”
🕑 Added 2025-06-27 15:40:03 +0000 UTCSummer, 1991.Hogwarts Great Hall.
Professor McGonagall sat in a row alongside Albus Dumbledore and Professor Snape, acting as one of the interviewers in Hogwarts' annual faculty recruitment. The Great Hall had been rearranged for the occasion, and every year, many wizards applied due to Hogwarts' excellent benefits.
However, as they sent off yet another applicant, McGonagall sighed deeply.
She turned to the white-bearded wizard beside her and said,"Albus, that was the twentieth applicant, and still no one wants the Defense Against the Dark Arts position. If this goes on, not only this year—we might not find anyone even next year or the year after!"
"It's precisely because everyone knows we'll be hiring again next year and the year after that… that no one wants to take the job in the first place," Snape said coldly.
It was, unfortunately, true.
The curse of the Defense Against the Dark Arts position was common knowledge in the wizarding world. No professor had lasted more than a year in that role without mishap—disappearances, injuries, worse. The job had earned a reputation less as a teaching post and more as a human sacrifice.
"I'll keep looking," Dumbledore sighed.
The only internal request he had received was from Professor Quirrell, who currently taught Muggle Studies… but Quirrell had been acting very strange lately.
Outside, the skies over Hogwarts were overcast. A fine misty rain slid down the tall windows, casting a cold and gray light. Yet inside the hall, warm yellow flames flickered from ornate silver candelabras, bringing comfort to the room. McGonagall found her mood lifting slightly.
"Next," she called toward the entrance.
With a long creak, the doors of the Great Hall opened.
Thump… thump.
Footsteps—slow and heavy—echoed through the hall.
A tall, lean young wizard entered. He wore a fitted black cloak, reminiscent of a younger Severus Snape.
—Only this man had an even darker, more eerie aura than Snape himself.
The first thing McGonagall noticed was the wide-brimmed black hat hiding most of his face. The visible skin was deathly pale, stark against his jet-black hair. A chilling image.
When he looked up, his black eyes were entirely void-like—his irises so large, they swallowed the whites of his eyes. They looked like two deep, lightless pits.
He could have walked straight out of a ghost story.
—And in that moment, McGonagall thought: We may have just found this year's Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.
Even Dumbledore's hand paused mid-beard-stroke. He quickly checked a résumé from the stack beside him.
"Mr. Viktor Vanderboom, correct?"
"Yes."
The young man stared at Dumbledore with his hollow eyes before stepping into the hall and sitting in the interview chair at the center.
McGonagall examined his résumé carefully.
"I see from your file that you apprenticed in the Far East… but you've never attended a formal school of magic?"
"That's right. I was born in a very remote village, outside the range of any magical academy. The locals feared anything that wasn't 'normal,' so I eventually had to leave."
"But as I was leaving," Viktor continued, "I encountered Baba Yaga. She kindly took me in as an apprentice. I studied magic under her for seven years."
"Baba Yaga…? That sounds Slavic," McGonagall murmured.
She glanced again at the 'Magical Skills' section and frowned slightly.
"So, you learned Divination and Necromancy from her? You're not a Defense Against the Dark Arts specialist?"
"I know a bit of every branch of magic," Viktor replied quietly.
His expression hadn't changed once—not a twitch. Even when he spoke, no other facial muscle moved. It was unsettling, enough to make the professors uneasy.
He reminded them of a Draugr—a reanimated corpse from dark magical lore.
But with the Defense position still vacant, they didn't have many options.
Besides, even if he turned out to be another Quirrell, with Dumbledore around, there wouldn't be much to worry about.
Dumbledore made a decision.
Smiling kindly, he stood and handed Viktor a form labeled:
"Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor – New Hire Intake Sheet"
"Excellent, Mr. Vanderboom. We've reviewed your qualifications. All we need now is some proof of your Defense proficiency—either documents or a demonstration. After that, you may report to Hogwarts in two weeks…"
Viktor: "...?"
He didn't take the form.
Instead, those black-hole eyes moved slightly, and he looked at Dumbledore with faint confusion.
"…Actually, I didn't come to apply for Defense Against the Dark Arts."
"What?"
"I came to apply for the Divination professor position."
McGonagall blinked."Mr. Vanderboom… Divination is not currently a vacant post. Professor Trelawney has held the position for over a decade. We are not considering any changes at the moment."
"It will be vacant soon."
Viktor said it with calm certainty.
"When the seventh chime strikes at midnight, Professor Sybill Trelawney will prick her finger on the thorn of a poisonous vine… and fall into a deep sleep."
The hall fell into stunned silence. McGonagall's brow furrowed tightly. Dumbledore's smile faded, and his blue eyes grew sharp and solemn.
That didn't sound like a prediction—it sounded like a threat.
Snape's voice was dark. "Was that a curse?"
"Quite the opposite," Viktor replied.
"Two years from now, when a comet crosses the sky, she will awaken from her slumber. From that day on, every solar eclipse will trigger a prophecy from her lips—each one half-truth, half-lie."
"Absurd!" Snape snapped.
To him, Viktor now seemed completely unhinged—better suited for St. Mungo's than Hogwarts. In all his decades in the magical world, Snape had never heard anything so bizarre.
A curse that grants prophecy powers after sleep? Who came up with that—The Brothers Grimm?
But Viktor merely shook his head.
Then, under the skeptical gaze of the professors, he rose from his chair and said:
"Please consider it. In three days, I will be waiting for your response… at shop number thirteen on Charing Cross Road."
