Return of Sebastian Sallow | 10 Yr After Hogwarts

Chapter 113: A Change of Pace

I can practically hear Sharp's voice chiding me. 'Sallow, a Professor of such a prestigious institution does not lounge about in front of his classroom. Have some respect.'

...to which I'd have a couple of very specific fingers I'd happily gesture in response. Not caring a whit for decorum, and doing all I can to simply fucking survive these past few days, I find myself leading my class without a formal robe, sitting at a desk at the front of my first year Defense Against the Dark Arts class, my hair in an unkempt knot, my feet up, and spinning my wand in my right hand. It's an activity at which I've become quite adept, given all the waiting around I've been doing lately – mostly in the hospital wing.

The elegant, green-hued chess-board pattern handle of the thing feels like a disjointed melody: a bad impression of the kind of person I used to be – or thought I would become some day.

"Sebastian Sallow – Distinguished Head Auror"

"Sebastian Sallow – World-Record-Holding Curse-Breaker"

"Sebastian Sallow – Famously Trained in Dark Magic but Somehow the Singular Exception to the Rule of it Not Turning Me Into a Dark Wizard"

If I weren't so stressed and under-slept I could laugh at how naive I used to be, even going so far as to think that perhaps I should have been the one born into the Gaunt family so that I could be the one to change the legacy and destiny of Salazar Slytherin's heirs.

Oh, Ominis...petrified into a still slumber.

What I wouldn't give now to trade this wand for – I don't even know – just a stick, instead of this pompous thing. Or no wand at all – like they do at Uagadou. Or a crystal amulet like the ones Thiago let me borrow.

Poor Thiago...Merlin's beard. His battered body...

I can't wait to get back to check on them.

Could this day pass by any slower? Fuck!

"Professor Sallow?" calls a timid voice from the front row of my classroom.

Shit! How long has his hand been raised?

"Yes, Mister Spencer?" My mouth speaks automatically, almost before my brain registers the identity of the sandy-haired Ravenclaw boy with bright, grey eyes who's hand is hesitantly raised in front of me.

"Would you like us to answer the long-form questions as full-answers?"

"Sorry?" I ask, distracted by my tumultuous inner-world and generalized grief for the pain of my family.

"Oh, erm...it's only – do you want us to restate the questions at the end of the test within our answers to them?

"No – I'm not interested in how you answer so much as what you answer, Spencer. All I ask is that you communicate clearly and demonstrate a firm grasp of the knowledge, yeah? Make your arguments. And make me believe you believe them."

"Alright! Yes. Right..." he says hesitantly, pausing, and then asking once again, "but...so I can restate the question?"

My fist clenches and I inadvertently pound the desk before me while saying, "yes, that'll be fine, Mister Spencer!"

The little fellow jumps in his seat and immediately begins to scribble away.

'Ravenclaws...' I think to myself with an ounce of disdain that only exists because I know that on a different day so many years ago, I myself could have been sorted into that house. And for some reason, given the legacy of my parents, the fact that Anne was practically guaranteed to be sorted into Slytherin, and, frankly, given my vanity surrounding Hogwarts stereotypes, that close shave always felt just too close for comfort.