Chapter Text
Severus Snape stalked down the empty hallways of Hogwarts, and he was in a mood. With just two weeks left until the start of term, Severus had been enjoying the peace and quiet to work on a few personal projects in his lab. That is, he had been enjoying it until the perfectly peaceful atmosphere had been interrupted by Albus’s patronus, just as he had been in the middle of a particularly finicky potion. Severus had hastily cast a stasis spell on his in all likelihood ruined potion while the shimmering phoenix informed him of the need for an immediate, urgent staff meeting. The overdramatic bird then promptly burst into silvery flames, leaving Severus to shake his head in annoyance as he gathered up his supplies and headed towards the Hogwarts staff room.
Black robes billowing behind him, Severus approached the teachers’ lounge on the fourth floor. The closer he got to the room, the more it sounded like there was a faint tinny sound coming from it - could it be some sort of repetitive music? His mind quickly went through the various possible scenarios that could have led Albus to call this impromptu staff meeting. Knowing the old codger, it could be anything from immediate safety concerns for the school and its students to an acute lemon-drop shortage in the United. (Though depending on the day, these two options might well be one and the same.)
With the tinny sounds growing ever louder, Severus reached for the handle and thrust open the door to the Hogwarts staff room.
“Ah, Severus, my boy!”
He quickly looked around the room, his eyes quickly scanning over a very exasperated looking Minerva standing in the corner and finally settled on what was sure to be the cause of his next headache. There, on the floor, sat Albus Dumbledore, clad in brightly patterned robes with - was that a green and red mushroom pattern? He was seated in front of a brightly lit apparatus that also seemed to be the source of the irritating music - if one could call it that - which Severus had heard from the hallway. Severus felt his headache intensify.
“Come, come, sit and watch this, my boy!”
“Headmaster”, Severus drawled, “I believe I’d prefer to stand.”
Severus looked around the room once more. Sitting right next to Albus on a big poof was Sybil Trelawney who seemed just as transfixed by the bright images as Albus was. In a corner, Filius Flitwick stood muttering something or other to Pomona Sprout, an excited gleam in his eye.
“No, no, I insist! In fact, all of you should come, have a seat, and watch this! I have made the most fascinating discovery!”
With a careless wave of his hand and his eyes never even leaving the screen of the contraption, Albus conjured a variety of pillows, ottomans, and chairs to appear behind him. Severus heard a faint snort coming from Minerva and watched her pour what he could only surmise was whisky from a small flask she seemed to have hidden up her robe sleeves for precisely such an occasion.
Severus quickly summoned a cup of black coffee from a nearby table set up by the house elves, rubbed his temples, and then sat down next to Minerva, who offered him her flask with a sympathetic murmur. He added a healthy pour to his coffee before he turned back to watch the old wizard who was excitedly blabbering about whatever it was that he was actually doing there.
“Forgive me, Albus, but you mentioned a discovery?”, Aurora Sinistra eventually asked from her seat beside Septima Vector.
“Ah yes, yes, you see, I found this delightful little contraption in the old Muggle Studies classroom, and I simply had to see what it could do. Here, watch this…”
And for the next twenty minutes, the assembled teaching staff of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were forced to watch and listen as Albus Dumbledore, renowned Headmaster, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, and current Bane of Severus Snape’s Existence, explained all about a muggle pastime called “video games”, the adventures of an Italian healer of plumbing and his quest to save what sounded like a very important royal mushroom from an evil wizard.
“As fascinating as all of this undoubtedly is, I fail to see how this necessitated an urgent staff meeting”, Severus drawled.
“Ah yes, you all remember our little DADA problem of course…”
Severus scoffed quietly at Albus’s abrupt change in topic. How could anyone forget their “little DADA problem”? In a moment of temporary sanity earlier this summer, Albus had finally invited a group of half a dozen curse breakers to come visit the castle and figure out why exactly they had not been able to keep a Defense teacher for longer than a year in the last couple of decades.
Apparently, Lord Voldemort - or “old Tom” as Albus insisted on calling him - had been so angry after being denied the post back in his day that he had cursed the position so nobody could hold it for longer than a year.
“Unfortunately, the spellwork on this curse is rather complex and Tom seems to have tied it to the very wards of Hogwarts itself. Alas, the curse breakers see no way of outright lifting the curse that would not endanger the very foundations of our castle. However”, and at this point the twinkle in the old man’s eyes seemed to increase tenfold, “all magic has its limitations, and I do believe the muggles may have inadvertently provided us the needed inspiration to solve our little problem.”
“What limitations are we talking about here?” Septima asked. One could practically see the wheels turning in her head as Albus’s words seemed to have tickled her curiosity for analysing magical problems to their very core.
“Well, old Tom’s curse seems to apply to a total of one hundred Defense teachers, yet he made one very simple mistake:” Dumbledore glanced around the room, grinning at his professors, “While he did specify the maximum tenure length of one year, he never set a minimum length…”
Excited little murmurs broke out around the room as the teachers discussed the possible implications of this discovery. Eventually, Pomona spoke up and asked with a confused frown:
“But what does this have to do with the muggles and their little Italian man?”
At this point, the twinkle in Albus’s eyes became practically manic.
“Have you ever heard of the concept of “speedrunning”, my dear?”
And this is how all of magical Britain woke up the next morning to a bold-lettered announcement in the Daily Prophet that would mark the beginning of what would surely be Hogwarts’s most unconventional year yet.