Risk // Sebastian Sallow

Chapter 82: Professor

Sebastian

September 1st.

The first day.

Though technically, I had been going back and forth from home in Aranshire to Hogwarts over the summer to get my bearings, set up the classroom and my office and get surprisingly good advice from Professor Hecat before she retired for good.

"Ah, Sebastian Sallow... I should have known we'd cross paths again. But I will say, I am glad they chose you over some of the candidates I saw." She said as I entered her classroom for the first time as a Professor, not as a student.

And it was bloody intimidating.

She briefly touched on the curriculum with me, making sure to leave thorough notes everywhere.

"Don't you trust me, Professor?" I smirked, sifting through the fifth bit of parchment.

"Please, we are colleagues for today. Call me Dinah." She insisted.

I frowned but reluctantly agreed and forced the name to come off my tongue. It felt wrong, but it was the least I could do for the woman who put up with my shit for so long when I was a student.

Today though, when I got there early before the arrival of the students, the classroom was different. It was almost bare. She'd somehow taken the Hebridean Dragon skeleton with her, and now I felt like I had to do something with this room. But I suppose that could wait until I had more experience.

She'd put the skeleton there as a trophy from her work as an Unspeakable... maybe I could string Marvolo Gaunt from the ceiling to show my work as an Auror... might scare the kids into good behaviour...

But all I manged to do was shift a few books into my office and add a photo of Olive and the kids on my desk.

I sat in the chair at the desk, staring at it and the quills and parchment and wondered what the fuck I was thinking taking this job. Teaching? The guy who barely made it through exams?

I pulled out my pocket watch, I had half an hour until I had to be back for the sorting ceremony. My foot bounced under the desk and my fingers tapped along the wooden grains, fighting the battle in my brain telling me this was a mistake.

I could head there early...

Maybe a leisurely walk around would kill some time before I had to be in the Great Hall and I stood up from the quiet desk and straightened my tie, making sure to not have it too loose. Ominis would kill me if he knew I was slouching on my first day of being a literal Professor. But my shirt didn't sit right, it was tight around my throat and felt crooked tucked into my pants. The sweat in my armpits was pooling in the creases of my shirt despite how much antiperspirant I had put there.

You're a mess, Sallow.

I wiped the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand and just decided to leave anyway. Hopefully a walk amongst the cool cobblestone walls of the castle would calm my nerves.

If any of my old classmates could see what a mess I was right now, I'd never hear the end of it.

By the time I'd made my way to the Great Hall after walking at a snails pace through the corridors, I really wasn't that early after all.

"Ah, Professor Sallow! Glad you made it here and with time to spare, unlike your time here as a student." Professor Sharp greeted me as I entered the Great Hall with a smirk and an outstretched hand.

I accepted his hand, gripping it tightly and offering a warm smile of my own. "What can I say? I had to learn a thing or two about punctuality over the years," I replied, though the truth was that I had almost lost track of time during my anxious stroll through the castle.