Stereotype

The first day of term was also Tver's first official day on the job.

Although he had spent quite a while playing through a game the previous night, he still followed his body clock and got up early.

The weather was nice today, so Tver brought a copy of Wizard Chess Basics to the Great Hall.

He had just borrowed it from the library, earning himself a strange look and wasting a bit of time in the process, because Madam Pince, the librarian, had not opened up that early.

There were not many students in the Great Hall. They seemed to still be on holiday and had not yet adjusted to the schedule of school life.

The professors, on the other hand, were up rather early. Quirrell sat tucked away at the edge, eating breakfast with a heavy heart, while Professor Sprout had already finished her meal. After greeting him, she went off to tend the herbs in the greenhouses.

"Good morning, Tver." Professor Flitwick warmly invited Tver to sit beside him. "I hope nerves didn't keep you up all night."

"You seem quite experienced with that?" Tver teased as he sat down.

Flitwick beamed along with him.

"I can't remember what it was like teaching students on my first day, but I still remember how nervous several Hogwarts professors looked when they first arrived."

"But this is the first time I've seen a new professor carrying Wizard Chess Basics. Are you planning to teach Wizard Chess in class?"

Tver picked up a piece of bread from the table, carefully spreading blueberry jam across it in an even layer as he answered casually.

"I just suddenly became interested in Wizard Chess. Do you play? We could discuss it sometime when we're free."

Flitwick shrugged. Wizard Chess was far less entertaining to him than duelling.

"Then I'm afraid I can't teach you. I've never dabbled in Wizard Chess either, but you could ask Professor McGonagall. Her knowledge of Wizard Chess runs very deep."

Tver considered what it would be like to seek Professor McGonagall's guidance.

"Professor McGonagall, could you teach me how to play Wizard Chess?"

"Why do you suddenly want to learn that?"

"Oh, because I want to get past the chessboard you set up."

Better not. Learning Wizard Chess from the person involved would make it far too easy to expose himself.

Tver shook his head, tossing aside the impractical thought and focusing on his breakfast.

It was not particularly lavish—far worse than last night's feast—but still better than Durmstrang's.

Several Ravenclaw girls gathered together and whispered among themselves for quite a while before pushing one of them forward.

The girl's face had turned red all the way to her ears. Surrounded by her friends, she walked up to Tver, shy but resolute.

"Professor Fawley, may I ask you a question?"

"Of course," Tver said, having noticed them long ago, a faint smile curling at his lips. "But that was already a question, so you've finished asking."

A question mark seemed to slowly pop up above the girl's head, and the smile on her face froze.

The other girls were equally baffled, staring at Tver and Professor Flitwick beside him, who was laughing so hard he was pounding the table.

Flitwick spoke only after laughing for a while. "Professor Fawley is joking with you, Penelope. Feel free to ask him whatever you want."

He then introduced her to Tver. "This is Penelope Clearwater, an outstanding Ravenclaw student."

With her Head of House having spoken, and seeing that Professor Fawley did not object, Penelope gathered her courage again.

"May I ask what you'll be teaching us in class?"

They could hardly be blamed. The Defence Against the Dark Arts professors of the past few years had all lasted only one year, so their lessons had never formed a coherent whole.

As studious Ravenclaw students, they hoped to prepare themselves mentally in advance.

"What year are you in?" Tver asked.

Penelope did not understand what Tver meant by that. After hesitating for a moment, she answered, "We're all fourth-years."

"Then I'm sorry, but I'm only responsible for first- through third-year classes. Those of you in fourth year and above should ask Professor Quirrell over there." Tver shook his head.

The disappointment on the girls' faces was impossible to hide, and Penelope even let out a long sigh.

She wanted to turn and leave, but the companions behind her stopped her. They pointed at Tver, reminding her of the question they had originally wanted to ask.

"Oh, right. Can we know how old you are? You look very young, after all."

"It's not some great secret." Tver took in the expectant expressions of the young witches. "I only graduated this year. I'm eighteen at the moment."

Eighteen!

Penelope was so shocked that she could not speak.

There was only a four-year difference between her and a professor. If Hogwarts had a student who repeated two years, they could even be older than the professor.

"But if you only just graduated, shouldn't we have seen you around Hogwarts in previous years?"

Penelope immediately spotted the issue. There was no way they could have forgotten a handsome upperclassman as conspicuous as Tver.

The girls around her also relaxed, thinking Tver was joking with them again. But his next words left them even more astonished.

"Because I didn't study at Hogwarts. I studied at Durmstrang."

The scene immediately fell silent. Penelope and the other girls stared with their mouths wide open—wide enough to fit an owl inside.

"Don't let Professor Fawley's youth fool you—he was Durmstrang's finest graduate in its entire history," Flitwick could not help saying.

What he hated most was people judging others by their appearance. Back when he had practiced dueling in his younger days, many wizards had enjoyed mocking his height.

Though he had used his stature as an unexpected advantage and taught them a harsh lesson, it had also left him unable to tolerate seeing others looked down upon.

"The problem is, Durmstrang is a school that teaches the Dark Arts!"

Penelope shrieked, drawing the attention of all the students eating in the Great Hall.

"So that's what this is about." Flitwick shrugged unconcernedly. "Since Headmaster Dumbledore recruited him, that means you needn't worry about being exposed to magic you shouldn't be exposed to."

Unlike the students, old-established professors like Flitwick had long since studied the Dark Arts, though not as deeply as Tver had.

In truth, once one's strength reached a certain level, the magic one studied no longer had any distinction between light and dark.

Only the user's purpose was what they used to distinguish dark wizards from light ones.

But the students could not understand that way of thinking. In their minds, anyone who used the Dark Arts was a dark wizard.

While there was no evidence that Durmstrang students would necessarily use the Dark Arts after learning them, neither could anyone guarantee that Tver had never used the Dark Arts!

Thus, Penelope and the others looked at Tver as though he bore the label "dark wizard in training," with an even worse impression of him than they had of the Slytherins.

Tver had expected this situation long ago.

He knew that it was not just the students; the British wizarding world as a whole had a stereotype about Durmstrang, one he could not overturn overnight.