Enter Mary-Lou

Enter Mary-Lou

'Are you quite certain, Albus,' Professor McGonagall frowned, 'that this is the right choice? She does have something of a history, and you must admit that our record of recruitment in recent years has not been wholly unproblematic.'

'Quite certain, Minerva,' the Hogwarts Headmaster replied, flipping open the lid of the little compartment set in the arm of his favourite staff room chair and selecting a yellow wine gum. 'Having an apparently unbreakable jinx on one of the major staff positions does give us some problems in recruitment, it's true, but the governors and I are confident that our chosen candidate will bring honour to her position.' Minerva McGonagall sighed.

'Well, at least given her background she's unlikely to be in league with You Know Who.' Professor McGonagall looked across at the staff room's other occupant. 'What do you think, Severus?'

The long nose of Severus Snape rose over the August edition of the European Journal of Potions Research and he snapped the pages shut with a sharp crack.

'Judging by the previous incumbents of the post, I think she's likely to prove an absolute disaster in some degree at least. But given the lack of a credible alternative, I agree that she is at least almost certainly not a Death Eater, a fraud, a dangerous beast, a lunatic Death Eater posing as a paranoic, or a psychotic and magically incompetent Ministry hack.'

'I don't think you need put it quite like that, Severus,' said Dumbledore mildly.

'I didn't. She did, at lunch before the interview.' The Headmaster smiled.

'Oh well, you mustn't think anything of it,' he said. 'It's just her manner. It's just Mary-Lou.'

Some days later, after the house elves had finally scraped the last remains of the charred and scattered European Journal of Potions Research off the Hogwarts staff room's panelled ceiling, the school resounded for the first time in two months to the sound of children's voices. Argus Filch had handed over his revised list of forbidden objects - now comprising some four hundred and seventy-two items - to the Headmaster and made his farewell tour of the spotless corridors. Madam Pomfrey had re-stocked the infirmary, including the recently released antidotes to Fred and George Weasley's Skiving Snackbox products (the effects of the commercial product were self-limiting in that they stopped before any serious physical problems could set in, but a six-foot, thirteen stone seventh year boy could vomit over an extensive area before that happened) and prepared the beds for the inevitable first weekend rush.

'I'm not convinced this is a good idea,' the nurse had muttered to Filius Flitwick the previous evening as they waited in the Entrance Hall for the arrival of their new colleague. Professor Flitwick shrugged his small shoulders reassuringly.

'I shouldn't be too worried, Poppy,' he squeaked. 'After all, we have had Chalet School girls before. You must remember the eldest Entwhistle child at least?'

'Yes, indeed. Joanna, wasn't it? And all that unfortunate business with young Nemesis. Not to mention that I just know this one's going to call me Matron.'

The beginning of year Feast at Hogwarts was laden with tradition. The Sorting Hat would sing (Is anyone in Hogwarts/ Listening to me?/ Next weeks' winning lottery ticket/ Is 49, 12, 32, 8, 7, 3), Dumbledore would make a speech laden with dire warning and worse jokes, Hermione Granger would mutter something about eating food prepared by slave labour, and Professor Snape would stare with loathing at the new incumbent of the Defence Against the Dark Arts professorship. At the beginning of Harry's sixth year the first custom was well on track, Dumbledore having finally told the one about the troll, the hag, and the ghoul that walked into a bar, to Professor McGonagall's evident disapproval, but the other two had been interrupted. Piles of food on golden platters had magically appeared on the long house tables, but Hermione hadn't even noticed. Her attention was riveted on the staff table.

'Look at Snape!' she hissed at Ron and Harry.

'Do we have to?' Ron mumbled around a mouthful of chicken. He grunted suddenly; Hermione had kicked him in the shin.

'Yes!'

Ron and Harry looked up. It was obvious at once what had caught Hermione's attention. The Potions master was sitting next to the Defence Against the Dark Arts witch the headmaster had introduced as Professor Trelawney (it was with considerable relief that the students had heard his assurance that 'she is no relation to our distinguished professor of Divination'), but instead of his usual look of bitter resentment Snape was looking at her with a polite, if slightly wary, interest and conversing with all the appearance of civility. It was astonishing. Other students had noticed it as well as Hermione. There was low yet determined chatter among the Hufflepuffs, and over at the Slytherin table, Harry saw Draco Malfoy talking urgently to Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy Parkinson.

'She is, I'm telling you,' said Malfoy insistently. Harry looked away. Malfoy had come back to Hogwarts in ebullient mood. His father had been released from Azkaban after a week, receiving a full apology and the grovelled thanks of the Ministry of Magic after he gracefully reassured them that he had no intention of suing for wrongful imprisonment in these troubled time. Lucius Malfoy's influence in the Ministry was greater than ever. Harry looked back towards the staff table. The new Professor was still talking to Snape, and giving every impression of enjoyment. Her curly blonde hair bobbed as she waved her hands enthusiastically, her intense cornflower eyes dancing. Harry looked away before she could notice him. Next to him, Hermione was talking down the table to Lavender Brown.

'Do you really think it's her?'

'It's got to be.'

'But Mary-Lou wasn't a witch,' protested Lavender.

Hermione shrugged.

'Maybe not a trained witch, but do you really think anyone could get away with that much without magic?'

The next morning, the sixth years' first Defence Against the Dark Arts class was fraught with excitement. 'In the present climate,' as Dumbledore put it, the subject had been made compulsory at NEWT level, and as in order to promote a flexible timetable NEWT classes were not segregated by house, the classroom was also fraught with a certain tension restrained only by the fact that Draco Malfoy was far too busy arguing with Susan Bones to pay any attention to Harry.

'Just look at him,' Ron sneered, 'bet he's going on about his dad again. Oh, father's being so noble about it; the Ministry need his help. Helping You-Know-Who more like. And look at them listening,' he said in disgust. 'God, anyone would think they fancied the little runt.'

Malfoy had certainly gathered a crowd around him. Even Parvati Patil was there, flicking through a book that Malfoy had brought to the classroom. Every so often she squealed.

'Oh, I asked mother to send them,' Malfoy was saying, 'She has the whole set; all first editions, of course, and the Indian one. You can borrow it, if you'd like.'

'At least it's promoting inter-house unity,' Hermione said. Ron looked at her, shocked. She shrugged. 'He's still a rodent.'

The door banged open. There was a sudden scramble for desks and Professor Trelawney strode into the room. She was not wearing robes, but a khaki safari suit under an academic gown.

'Jean Brodie meets David Attenborough,' muttered Justin Finch-Fletchley. Professor Trelawney turned and he shrank under her clear blue gaze.

'Sorry, Professor.' Her smile flashed broad in her pleasant face.

'Then we'll say no more about it. Now, the lesson will start in one minute, so bags off desks, wands in front of you, and put that book away Miss Patil.' She strode to the sturdy lectern that Harry could not remember ever seeing in the classroom before and addressed the class in clarion tones.

'As you know, I am Professor Mary Louise Trelawney, and I am here to teach you all Defence Against the Dark Arts. Despite the disruption in your previous teaching, I'm pleased to announce that all four houses received OWL marks considerably above the common range and I believe we shall be able to advance very quickly. Now, are there any questions before we begin'

Harry didn't even have to look to know that Hermione's hand had shot into the air. More surprisingly, so had Malfoy's and Parvati's.

'Yes, Miss -?

'Granger, Professor.'

'Miss Granger. Go on.'

'Please, Professor Trelawney, can I ask you something personal?'

The titter round the classroom was instantly quelled by a glance from the bright blue eyes.

'You can,' she said pleasantly, 'and you also may.'

To half the class, the subsequent question and answer meant nothing. In the other half, there was consternation.

'I told you,' Malfoy was crowing, 'I told you it was her.'

'You read the Chalet School books?' Hermione asked. Malfoy sneered.

'Well obviously.'

'But they're Muggle books,' Hermione spluttered.

'And they're for girls,' added Justin, which Harry thought was even more to the point.

Malfoy glared at them.

'Come on, you surely don't believe a place like that could run without magic?' he drawled. 'And real wizards aren't prejudiced like Muggles are,' he added, with a breathtaking disregard for the facts. 'We don't believe in sexism.'

'Plus there's all the stripping off on adventures and the cold baths,' supplemented Zacharias Smith.

Professor Trelawney shot him a rather nasty look, and turned to Hermione, who was waving her arm again.

'Miss Granger?'

'It's just, well, Professor Trelawney, you went to at the Chalet School. You were Head Girl and you went to Oxford to read Archaeology and Anthropology and retraced the Murray-Cameron expedition. I read about it in National Geographic,' she added. 'So how can you be a witch? Did you really come to Hogwarts and the author just make your bits up sort of based on you? I know that quite a lot of the characters were inventions.'

'That's true,' Mary-Lou smiled. 'No one could possibly believe in the model reformation of Eustacia Benson, for instance. But I really was a Chalet School girl. I never attended Hogwarts.'

'But all magical children are identified at birth by an enchanted quill that writes their names down,' Hermione persisted. 'I read about it in Hogwarts: A History. Did you become a witch later? I've heard about that happening sometimes.'

'Filch is still hoping,' Ron hissed sideways to Harry.

'Oh no,' said Professor Trelawney. 'I was always a witch. And I was always very, very good at magic.' She settled herself on the edge of the desk looking suddenly oddly young, like the Chalet School girl she once had been and folded her arms. 'I suppose you want to know what happened.'

The Chalet School and associated families had not, in fact, been entirely unacquainted with magic before that fateful morning on which Minerva McGonagall arrived in the Entwhistle kitchen on the Görnetz Platz to announce that young Joanna was a witch and expected, by virtue of her British citizenship, at Hogwarts on the first of September. Mlle Lepâttre had taught at Beauxbatons for years before departing to pursue the French literature that she had always preferred to Ancient Runes, and to keep an eye on her unfortunate young Squib niece, and the school had provided a refuge over the years for a good number of continental pure-blood Squibs whose parents didn't quite know what to do with them and were prepared to spend money making it someone else's problem. That the kitchen staff was largely composed of culinarily-inclined witches was a fact that even the novels barely bothered to disguise. But Mlle Lepâttre had been dead for several years before young Mary-Lou burst upon the scene, and even had that formidable witch still been present when the child enrolled at the school, it was unlikely that she could have done anything. Disaster, it seemed, had been inevitable.

Things had not in fact turned out too badly for Mary-Lou herself. Deprived of her Hogwarts education, she had nonetheless thoroughly enjoyed her years at school, culminating in a triumphal reign as Head Girl. She had acquired an excellent degree and a more than solid career built upon the bodies of those over whom she had ridden roughshod; her fellow-pupils, the mistresses at the Chalet (with the interesting exception of Miss Ferrars, who, until incapacitated by ill-health in her old age, had become a frequent volunteer in Andromeda Black's Wittenberg laboratory), and the Oxford Dons. No one could deny Mary-Lou when she set her mind to something, and no one ever did, least of all the guerrilla fighters in the Amazonian rainforest who had the misfortune to come upon her exploratory party and mistake them for oil prospectors. The resulting firestorm, as Mary-Lou fought them off with no more than a small piece of creeper infested with nargles, destroyed more than 100 square miles of forest, several dozen of the guerrillas, and the last breeding pair of Spix's macaws. It was well known that stressful events could precipitate the display of magical powers in the untrained. It was simply not very common among Muggle women in their late thirties.

'But you weren't really a Muggle, were you?' said Draco Malfoy. Professor Trelawney nodded.

'No whispering, thank you, Mr Zabini. I'm sure we'd all like to hear your comments.'

Blaise Zabini actually blushed.

'I was just asking Draco how he knew you weren't a Muggle.'

'And how did Mr Malfoy know?'

'My aunt Andromeda researches the Unforgiveable Curses, and she tends to get enthusiastic.' Not to mention that it was a usefully neutral topic for family occasions. 'Anyway, you're absolutely notorious - or you were in the 1970s. Even the house elves know about you.'

The class gasped audibly.

'Excellent,' said Mary-Lou. 'Ten points to Slytherin for guts. And I shall need a volunteer.'

It had never ceased to amaze Susan Bones that people still volunteered in Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons, especially after Professor Moody's demonstrations. Professor Trelawney had an impressive number of victims lined up against the wall. Parvati Patil hurled herself out of the open window only to be caught by a swift levitation spell. Justin started talking about his sexual awakening (Professor Trelawney swiftly put him under a silencing charm, which would have been more effective if a good number of the Ravenclaws weren't able to lip-read), and Ernie Abbott actually wrote a letter to Gringotts donating all his gold to Werewolves Against War. Harry, Susan noticed, didn't appear to do anything dramatic except - oh yes, sit at his desk slowly plucking his nose hairs. Never once, other than to save the poor unfortunates from actual physical danger, did the Professor even move her wand.

'I could have gone quite happily through life, aging a little slowly, perhaps, but a Muggle of 110 is only unusual, not impossible,' she smiled. 'I should have been quite content. One can cast the Imperius curse upon oneself, you know - an excellent means of overcoming shyness - and no doubt when I reached more advanced years I should simply have realised that it was impossible that I should still be so healthy and so become sick. It's quite simple, really.'

It was. Simple as wandless magic, as the magus said to the showgirl.

'An indiscriminatory, unconscious use of the Imperius curse,' marvelled Hermione. 'You wanted something and someone would make it happen. You knew how people ought to react and they did.'

'Exactly. Illegal, of course, but one cannot send a Muggle to Azkaban, and as all magical children are identified at birth, I was quite clearly not a magical child.'

Awful, in a way, Hermione thought, to realise what one had done. Oh, it must have been exciting, the announcement by the emergency squad of Brazilian Aurors that Professor Trelawny was a witch, and that as such subject to magical law enforcement she had better accompany them now to a place of safety. Mary-Lou was a quick learner. She had declined, forced them to place memory charms on themselves and her companions, and leave just before the arrival of the army helicopters. Back in London, the British Ministry had tried a somewhat more subtle approach. Offer an internationally renowned archaeologist the opportunity to prove conclusively her latest controversial theory through access to some hitherto highly secret information, and you have a bargaining ploy. Offer her the chance not to unconsciously subject herself to an unnecessarily early old age, and you have a deal. Besides, Mary-Lou was never knowingly selfish: things had simply worked out her way. She hadn't known that she had forced Vi Lucy to submit her own natural leadership tendencies to Mary-Lou's, that she had made Commander Carey marry Mary-Lou's mother, or that it had been her ambition that had prompted Professor Chivers to take that Harvard Chair and leave Oxford to her. She had simply thought herself lucky To use people consciously like that, well, that was something quite different. She published her last, definitive paper as an Oxford Don and went out in a blaze of malaria. She did not retire altogether, continuing to publish the occasional, devastatingly acute paper, but she had retired from public life and intended to withdraw completely now that her second career in crypto-archaeology was well established and her magical education quite complete. A favourable exchange rate had secured her financial future, and the controversial anthropological study Kiss the Wand: Life Among Her Majesty's Sorcerous Subjects had secured a famous name. Hermione knew the book, of course; it was controversial largely because of its breathtaking perception, and its author was assured of extensive royalties.

'As a matter of fact, I'm still legally a Muggle,' said Professor Trelawney. 'Somehow the threat of Azkaban has never appealed. I've learned not to use the Imperius curse on people - which is very difficult after a lifetime - but since it will only ever be my word that I haven't and won't, I don't fancy chancing it. They'd never get me there, of course, but life on the run is equally unattractive.'

'How did they teach you to stop?' asked Malfoy. 'After all, you didn't know you were doing it in the first place.'

'That was quite clever,' said Mary-Lou. 'Miss Ferrars was a great help. The Ministry wanted to talk to her because she was the only person whom I'd never really been able to convince. Miss Ferrars had noticed that the one area in which things did not always go my way was in the sporting arena - they put it down to school-girl honour, the feeling that one must play the game, that it's better to lose honourably and all that rather than win by cheating, and not really on even to wish one's opponent to, say, miss her serve. Quite different from Quidditch attitudes, of course. It wouldn't work for you lot.' It was a frame of mind one had to put oneself into, to treat everything in life like a schoolgirl tennis match. She had things largely under control these days. Easier now than it had been, but still ... that was why she had acquired a house-elf. There was no way that she would ever force herself to be fair-minded over the washing-up.

'You still seem pretty persuasive, though,' remarked Susan. 'I heard you on that WWN debate the other day. You were very convincing about Ministry shortcomings regarding Muggle interactions.'

Mary-Lou shrugged.

'A life-time of getting one's own way makes one adept at persuading people, even without nefarious means. Of course, having an incontrovertible argument helps.

'But that's enough small talk. We must get on. As you know, I shall be teaching alternate lessons in German, and I shall expect all homework for those lessons to be completed in the same language.' The class nodded happily. 'Really,' sighed Mary-Lou, 'you might try to resist. Next time you feel like that, do at least attempt to argue back. We'll start with some theory. Take this down.' She pointed her wand at a stick of chalk, which began to write on the blackboard as she spoke.

'In 1732 in the Isle of Ely, Constantinia Cavendish established her laboratory for the study of the esoteric arts.'

The only other sound in the classroom was the scratching of quills.

'How do find our new colleague, Severus?' asked Dumbledore, as they carried their drinks to a small table in the back bar of the Three Broomsticks.

'She keeps good order in lessons. Nobody's life has yet been endangered. I even found Miss Greengrass in the library yesterday researching amputation curses. I give her nine months.'

'So little time?'

'About average, for the last few years. I must say, professor, I have wondered why you haven't yet called in specialist help to deal with the jinx on the position. I'm sure that Moon would be willing. This constant rotation is very unsettling for the students.'

'I prefer to think that the novelty keeps them interested.'

'Interested in their teachers rather than what they're being taught, perhaps.'

'Perhaps. Not necessarily a bad thing in some cases. And it does make life exciting. I still can't persuade you to take the job on, I suppose?'

'Not on your life. Teaching the jelly-legs jinx to eleven year olds who will miss their aim. It's bad enough pretending to want the job. Give me Potions any day.'

'Never mind. Perhaps Professor Trelawney will have a happier time of it than her predecessors.'

'I doubt it; that classroom of hers is too quiet. I think she's slipping.'

'Oh no, Severus, surely not after all this time. She was a Chalet School Head Girl, that's all - keeping order is bred in their bones. I'm sure she wouldn't dream of anything so...'

'Illegal? Foolhardy? Her biography scarcely speaks of her vast reserves of patience. And have you noticed some of the students behaving a little oddly lately? I've always thought some of them rather susceptible to influence. Quite how six of the Slytherin second years managed to get themselves caught in a blizzard in September I really don't know. There are very good reasons for that notoriety of hers.' Acres of rainforest, corpses burned to a cinder, a mind that no one could deny. Severus Snape smiled thinly. 'Don't worry, professor. I'm sure she doesn't mean any harm. After all, it's just or one and only Mary-Lou.'

'Professor Trelawney intends to do what?' asked Professor McGonagall. The Order of the Phoenix was gathered in its meeting room, listening to their spy's latest report.

'She is to resign her position at Hogwarts with effect from the end of the school year in order to spend a year as the guest of the Death Eaters, living amongst them and studying the culture of the organisation from the inside from an anthropological point of view.'

'But that's illegal!'

'And insane.'

'It's certainly suicidal.'

'I believe not,' said Snape. 'Professor Trelawney does indeed intend to undergo full initiation rites, but the actual risk to health is minor and, as a Muggle, her membership is not actually proscribed. As for her safety, she would say that science must come first, I'm sure, and in any case, Professor Trelawney is quite capable of looking after herself. No doubt as a professional witch, she will know when to draw the line between necessary cultural immersion and unacceptable ethical compromise.'

'Now there's a thought,' said Moody. 'If the Death Eaters give her full access we could use...'

Snape shook his head. 'Most unprofessional. She'd be drummed out of the Royal Society.'

'But the Ministry ...' Moody persisted.

'Still got that nice and flexible approach to honour, I see, Moody?' Snape's mouth twisted in the familiar sneer. 'I should not normally be the first to leap to Professor Trelawney's defence, but she, like myself, is a natural philosopher. She seeks knowledge for its own sake, and she could only despise anybody who intended to subvert that aim.'

'But she's Muggle-born,' Arthur Weasley protested. 'Why on earth would she be interested in people who must despise her?'

'Well she's used to that, isn't she? Or did the governors take up her suggestion for a Muggle consultative committee on the new Hogwarts parent contract? The question you ought to be asking is why the Death Eaters have allowed her in.'

There was a thoughtful pause.

'I suppose,' said McGonagall, 'that Mary-Lou can be very persuasive.'

Snape only smiled.

Mary-Lou Trelawney might have been the first professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts in six years to make it in one piece and with no disgrace to the end of the summer term. That she did not was only because, having the sort of tricky mind that thinks ahead and would have ensured her survival at the hands of the South American guerrillas thanks to the concealed weapons carried by a number of her colleagues, she did not rely on her own talents to defeat the jinx, but had ensured her contract ended one day before the end of term. She returned as a favoured guest to the end-of-term feast, saw the House Cup won by Ravenclaw, her own adopted party, and went off to Switzerland for a well-earned rest.

'Tell me,' Voldemort had said, when Mary-Lou put her proposal to him in the dingy old drawing room of the Riddle House, 'why have you come to us?'

Mary-Lou looked at him intently through cornflower-blue eyes. 'Power, she said. 'There is only power, and those too weak to seek it. I have a talent - God-given, they would have said in my younger days. It's a shame not to use it, but you know the Ministry. So cautious, so indulgent of the weak, and so dreadfully limited in their thinking. I'm Muggleborn and I never attended Hogwarts; I'll always be on the outside - unless I can show them something persuasive. And now that I know what I'm doing, I want a challenge.'

She never lied; Chalet girls didn't.

The Death Eaters never knew what hit them.