Deep breaths. In… Out… In… Out…
I think I may faint.
If you faint, you will not only lose your job, but you will irrevocably embarrass yourself. Do you want to end up playing for the London Symphony Orchestra for the rest of your life?
That wouldn’t be so bad. I like music. And, even more so, I like not being the only thing to look at in front of an audience.
Well if you honestly want to throw away seven years of magical education to go be your husband’s social climbing pet, then go ahead and faint. Otherwise, you bloody well better breathe.
To look at her, you might never have suspected that Amelia Lyons was on the brink of whipping off her high heeled shoes and bolting from the dungeons. The only things keeping her in the room were the contract she had signed with the headmaster to teach potions for the entirety of the academic year, and her unwillingness to see the smug look on her mother’s face if she failed in the pursuit of the one defiant act she had ever made against her parents’ wishes.
Amelia had spent nearly a month building up to telling her parents about the position she had been offered at Hogwarts. She had been pulled aside at the graduation ceremony, after she had crossed the stage to receive her certificate, and, barely separated from student status, the minister and headmaster had jointly offered her the position of potions professor. Amelia had been dumbfounded by their proposition – surely they knew that speaking in front of a group was not her forte? But, wanting to be polite, Amelia had told them she would think about it.
And then, for the next month, it was all she could think about. She thought about the offer as her parents took her on a celebratory vacation to Greece. She thought about the offer as she met with the conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and attended an extravagant banquet with the rest of the musicians. And, without fail, she lay in bed each night, thinking about what it would be like to be potions master at Hogwarts.
Eventually, after weighing all the pros and cons – by making lists, of course (OCD much?) – Amelia had come to the realization that, for the first time in her life, she knew what she wanted to do, and it didn’t coincide with what her parents expected of her. Sure, over the years, there had been fleeting moments when she had wanted to run instead of study, or stay in her room rather than attend a ball, or wear jeans rather than a skintight designer dress. But all of these had been minor desires compared to how she felt about the teaching position.
Amelia was intrinsically tied to Hogwarts; it was there that she had earned most of her success, made her parents proudest. But more than anything, Hogwarts reminded Amelia of Raoul. At home, his name was never mentioned, and all the pictures of him had been taken down. Amelia occasionally caught her father in his study with a wrinkled 4x6 photograph of his son, which he kept tucked in the very back of his desk drawer, but only once in a while, and he never shared those moments with Amelia. At Hogwarts, however, though most of the student population no longer remembered Amelia’s older brother, she felt that at least his memory wasn’t being actively hidden. And if he were ever going to return – not that Amelia dared to put much hope into such a long-shot dream – Amelia was certain Hogwarts would be where he would go first.
And so it was with unsteady conviction that Amelia had sat her parents down to tell them the news: she had accepted the position of Potions Professor at Hogwarts and contacted The Orchestra to tell them she would be withdrawing. Her mother had been furious; teaching was a job for lesser individuals, and certainly not for those with Amelia’s family connections. Anyone could teach, Antoinette said, rattling off a few of Hogwarts’ less-than-ideal candidates who had taught briefly in the past. Even knowing her mother would be furious, Amelia was having a difficult time enduring the scrutiny of the woman she had been trying to please all her life, and if it hadn’t been for her father’s calm expression and the tiniest hint of a smile on his lips, Amelia knew she probably would have caved.
“Let’s give her a chance, Antoinette,” Frederick had said calmly, after Antoinette had screeched herself into silence. Her mother hadn’t liked the idea, but her husband so rarely stepped in on these discussions, that she was forced to concede that Amelia could take the position, which consisted mostly of throwing her hands up in the air and sulking out of the room.
So now, Amelia Lyons was standing at the front of the potions classroom, looking out at the tables and stools she had been occupying less than four months ago. She had pulled her long, red hair into a chignon at the back of her head and wore a charcoal grey suit with an ivory shell and simple necklace. It was simple, but flattering, and Amelia hoped that her lack of robes would not get her into trouble. She had been far too nervous to wear the heavy material, which she would have sweat through in a matter of minutes. On the lapel of her suit, she had pinned the Ravenclaw crest, representing the House from which she had graduated, and was now head. She was leaning against the same desk that Headmaster Doyle had always favored, where he spouted his wry comments and belittled his students.
The students Amelia would face were just another on her long list of concerns this morning. Many of them would be able to identify Amelia, if not know her personally. She had never had many friends at Hogwarts, but she did interact sporadically with some of her younger peers, who would now be her students. She didn’t know what kind of reaction she would get from those students who knew her only as “The Ice Queen”, and she had even less of a chance of predicting how those few students who knew her better would react.
Ahem, Amelia’s subconscious interrupted as the tension associated with all these thoughts started to make the redhead feel as though one of her lungs had collapsed.
Oh, right. Breathe.
by Amelia Lyons Tue Aug 23, 2011 4:40 pm
