Alabasandria looked at the letter. Nope. Absolutely not. She went to throw it away but it stuck to her hand like glue, the intrigue of such a bizarre offer unable to leave her. Never had she read such a terrible idea before.
But…
Alabasandria was rather good with children. Or at least she was pretty sure she was. After that rough first few days with Harry, he'd never given her any serious trouble (until this recent basilisk business, but she enjoyed pretending that debacle never happened, lest she start getting gray hairs after centuries of avoiding them) and she knew the best ways to calm him down. When she'd needed assistance, she'd had her trusty parenting guide which was now worn and highlighted as she read it throughout the years. She has a much better grasp of understanding a child's needs, and Harry had so far turned out very well. A bit emotional sometimes, and not as prone to violence as she would prefer, and the definition of a stab-first-use-basic-logic-later Gryffindor, but a decent child all the same.
And it wasn't just Harry, she'd successfully babysat Luna a couple of times and had made tolerable conversation with Harry's newest minions Ron and Hermione.
Alabasandria also had plenty more experience teaching. While her apprentices came to her for necromancy, most of them had been rather stupid and had needed a more rounded education. For plenty, she had been their sole teacher of magic. Plus her Potions abilities were no ruse. She was qualified.
So why was the thought of accepting the teaching position terrifying?
No no no no. She HATED people. She was great at dealing with them, but she honestly hated every single person in the world except for her apprentice. Why would she even consider surrounding herself with hundreds of them?! People who would stick their noses into her business, into Harry's. Whining children who would not appreciate their grades. Parents! Oh, if all parents were like Molly Weasley she was going to destroy her own horcrux just to put herself out of her misery!
But… perhaps it couldn't be too bad?
Necromancy was hardly boring, but it was a once-a-month sort of thing, it's not like she spent all hours of the day poking at corpses. There were only so many human sacrifices one could make in a day. It was very dependent on the moon and the seasons. She was perfectly capable of continuing her work by sneaking away on weekends and evenings.
Most of her time was spent researching, gathering knowledge on whatever topic struck her fancy and questioning the dead for their secrets. Harry had mentioned the graveyard for the Hogwarts Founders and other famous dead, a graveyard she's been searching for herself for three hundred years. Not to mention their library was the largest curation of magical texts in Europe. It would be worth the time wasted teaching if she could use her remaining time nose deep in their books.
Although there was now the matter of Voldemort's horcruxes. Plural. More than the two they'd uncovered so far. However many more out there - ready to resurrect the stupid bastard. It was an affront to Death for the noseless and spineless coward to be that afraid of his demise. That he dared dabble in the necromantic arts. He deserved nothing more than a slow, painful trip to the Underworld. Admittedly, Alabasandria had no idea where any more of his horcruxes could be hiding. If they'd still had the diary, she could have tried to use that to find the remaining, but now she was running blind.
Although Dumbledore clearly knew a thing or two about the wizard formally known as Tom Riddle. And Tommy had already been actively practicing Dark magic while in school. So being at Hogwarts wasn't an awful place to start looking.
"This is a terrible idea," she said. Then she thought about Harry's shenanigans with the basilisk. Fine. Fine! Who knew what Harry would get up to if she wasn't at the school to keep an eye on him. This was a logical, strategic decision and absolutely not one she would come to regret.
Except for the whole surrounded by children thing.
This couldn't possibly come back to bite her.
She owled Dumbledore with her acceptance.
....
Harry was bored. Which, it went without saying, was extremely dangerous. Ron, Hermione, and Luna were all abroad for the first half of their summer break. Mama was busy coming up with lesson plans for her new teaching position and Harry was about to go crazy if he did any more homework.
That's how he found himself loitering around Diagon Alley. But there was only so much ogling at the new Firebolt broomstick mama had refused to buy him ("You're still grounded, absolutely not. No joy allowed!") before even that was boring. He wandered into Knockturn, waving to some familiar faces, the hags and the vampires that were truly quite friendly and always made interesting small talk. He wandered towards mama's derelict potions shop wedged between a used bookstore and the place that, for some reason, only sold shrunken heads. That shopkeeper unnerved even mama, but he always offered Harry an extremely expired and disgusting caramel candy, so Harry was perhaps the only person who thought he wasn't too bad.
"Hullo Victor!" He called as he entered mama's shop.
"Muuughhh," moaned Victor, an undead former apprentice of mama's and resident mostly-sentient ghoul. It looked like part of his face was starting to peel off again, a bit of his cheekbone was visible through his rotting flesh. Harry sighed and knitted the poor man's skin back together. "Maaahhhggg!" He thanked Harry and went back to his sweeping.
"No problem. Just thought I'd pass through. Mama's taken a post at Hogwarts, did she tell you? She's already told the Headmaster she'll need to step out once a month to manage things. I'll remind her to keep you in shape. We won't let your bones disintegrate again, I know that must have hurt."
"Muueeeehhh."
"Yeah, I know, it's pretty funny to think about. I'm sure she'll do a great job though. Anyway, I won't distract you." Harry took a look over the inventory while he was there. The shop wasn't very popular, it was mostly a ruse and a way to get some money back from mama's more unique experiments. It looked like the batch of fingernail dissolving solution had been sold, but not the one that made you speak French for several hours. Victor shuffled over to him and handed him a bag of coins, their earnings for the month.
Harry waved goodbye and started counting out the change. He was absolutely not considering spending it all on a fancy broomstick behind his mama's back. As he did that, he was distracted by a series of low growls coming from a side street. Harry followed the noise and came across a very large dog fighting a raccoon over a slice of pizza. Despite the grimm-like dog's obvious size and canine advantage over the raccoon, it appeared to be losing, as the cheese separated from the crust leaving the dog with only a bite of food. The raccoon bolted with its prize and the dog gave a deep sigh, its eyes haunted by loss. It was such a pitiful sight that Harry was immediately ensnared with the desire to rub the thing's face with his hands, all the while speaking to it like it was a little baby and not, in fact, a very large and dangerous hound.
"Puppy!" Harry shouted with glee. "Come here, puppy! I'll get you some food." The dog looked over at him at the mention of food. If a dog could do a spit-take, this one would have. Its eyes widened and the sadness dissolved off its face. The tail started to wag with such intensity that its whole body began to shake with the force of its excitement. Deep, unnatural barking rumbled from its chest and the dog nearly barreled over Harry in joy. The boy was promptly coated in saliva, fur, and mud. "Ok! Ok! Calm down!" He laughed. "You're filthy!" The dog rolled into his lap and let Harry smoosh its face with his hands. "You sure don't look like someone's pet, you're too skinny. Would you like to be my dog? I have lots of food and a forest full of creatures you could fight. I'm very good at taking care of pets. I have an owl and a bunch of snakes but none of them are alive and like to play with me very much. Oh, but mama won't let you stay if you get mud all over the house."
There was no amount of cleaning charms that could get the caked-in dirt out of the dog's coat, so Harry gave up and whisked them away into his bathroom. The dog whined in shock at the sudden transition but settled quickly enough once Harry started up the shower. He was under the impression that dogs didn't like water, but this one refused to get out from under the hot spray. It took sacrificing most of mama's shampoo and towels in his effort to get the dog clean. It also involved getting himself covered in water and wet fur in the process. He realized with horror that the bathroom was filthy; the dog shook out its fur and splattered the ceiling. It panted with joy.
"Ok," Harry said, dejected at the mess. Perhaps this was why mama hadn't let him have a dog before. "Let's go hide you in my room. I'll get you something to eat and then I have to clean this up before mama comes back."
....
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