The first day of school was also Tver's first official day at work.
Even though he had spent much of the previous night playing through a game, he still rose early, guided by his body clock. The weather was pleasant, and Tver carried a copy of Wizard Chess Fundamentals into the Great Hall.
He had just borrowed it from the library, which had earned him a strange look and delayed him a little—after all, Madam Pince hadn't opened the doors that early.
The Great Hall wasn't crowded; the students still seemed stuck in holiday mode, not yet adjusted to school life. The professors, however, were early. Quirrell sat on the edge, eating breakfast with a distracted, brooding air, while Professor Sprout had already finished her meal. After a brief greeting, she left to tend to the herbs in the greenhouse.
"Good morning, Tver," Professor Flitwick greeted warmly, motioning for him to sit. "I hope nerves didn't keep you awake last night."
"Sounds like you've got plenty of experience with that?" Tver replied with a teasing smile as he sat down.
Flitwick grinned. "I can't recall my own first day teaching, but I still remember the nervous faces of quite a few professors when they first arrived at Hogwarts. Though this is the first time I've seen a new professor carrying Wizard Chess Fundamentals. Don't tell me you're planning to teach it in class?"
Picking up a slice of bread, Tver spread blueberry jam on it with casual precision. "I just suddenly got interested in wizard chess. Do you play? If you've got time, we could practice together."
Flitwick shrugged. Wizard chess, to him, was nowhere near as fun as dueling. "I'm afraid I can't help you. I've never played it myself. But you could ask Professor McGonagall—she knows the game inside and out."
Tver imagined the scene for a moment.
"Professor McGonagall, would you teach me wizard chess?"
"Why the sudden interest?"
"Oh, because I need to get past the board you set up."
Yeah… best not. Asking the very person who designed the challenge would be far too revealing.
He shook his head, brushing aside the impractical idea, and turned his attention back to breakfast. It wasn't lavish—far less than last night's feast—but still better than Durmstrang's fare.
A group of Ravenclaw girls sat whispering among themselves for a long while before finally sending one forward. Her face flushed red all the way to her ears as her friends encouraged her on. Shy yet determined, she stepped up to Tver.
"Professor Fawley, may I ask you a question?"
"Of course," Tver said with a small smile—he had noticed them long ago. "But that was already a question, so you've asked it."
The girl froze, a question mark practically hovering above her head, and the smile on her face stiffened. The others were equally baffled, staring at Tver in confusion while Flitwick laughed so hard he was pounding the table.
It took him a moment to catch his breath before he explained. "Professor Fawley was only joking, Penelope. Go ahead and ask him anything."
Turning back to Tver, he added by way of introduction, "This is Penelope Clearwater, one of Ravenclaw's brightest students."
With her Head of House giving encouragement, and Fawley not objecting, Penelope steadied herself again.
"What exactly will you be teaching us in class?"
Her question wasn't surprising. After all, Defence Against the Dark Arts professors had been replaced year after year, making lessons fragmented and inconsistent. As diligent Ravenclaws, they naturally wanted to prepare in advance.
"What year are you in?" Tver asked.
Penelope blinked, uncertain of his intent, before replying, "We're all fourth years."
"My apologies. I only handle first through third years. For fourth year and above, you'll need to ask Professor Quirrell over there." Tver shook his head.
The girls couldn't hide their disappointment. Penelope even sighed heavily. She was about to turn away, but her friends stopped her. Pointing at Tver, they reminded her of the question they had originally wanted to ask.
"By the way, may we ask your age? You look incredibly young."
"It's no secret," Tver replied, catching the eager looks on the young witches' faces. "I only graduated this year. I'm eighteen."
Eighteen!
Penelope was so shocked she couldn't get a word out. She was only four years younger than a professor. If a Hogwarts student had repeated two years, they could easily be older than him.
"But if you just graduated, shouldn't we have seen you at Hogwarts these past few years?"
Penelope immediately realized the inconsistency. With a senior as strikingly handsome as Tver, there was no way they wouldn't remember him.
The girls around her relaxed, assuming he was teasing them again. But his next words stunned them even more.
"Because I didn't study at Hogwarts. I went to Durmstrang."
The room instantly fell silent. Penelope and the other girls gaped, mouths open wide enough to fit an owl.
"Don't be fooled by Professor Fawley's age—he's the most outstanding graduate Durmstrang has ever produced," Flitwick couldn't help but say.
He hated people judging by appearances. In his early dueling days, plenty of wizards had mocked his height. He had turned it into an advantage, catching them off guard and thoroughly defeating them, but it left him with a strong dislike for being underestimated.
"The problem is, Durmstrang is a school that teaches Dark Magic!"
Penelope's cry drew the attention of students all across the Great Hall.
"Ah, so that's it," Flitwick shrugged indifferently. "But since Headmaster Dumbledore personally recruited him, it means you don't need to worry about being exposed to anything you shouldn't."
Unlike the students, veteran professors like Flitwick had long since studied Dark Magic themselves—just not as deeply as Tver. In truth, once one's strength reached a certain level, magic was no longer divided into light and dark. Only the purpose behind its use defined whether a wizard was seen as one or the other.
But this was something the students couldn't understand. To them, using Dark Magic automatically meant being a dark wizard.
There was no evidence that Durmstrang students inevitably practiced Dark Magic after learning it—but there was no guarantee Tver hadn't either.
And so, in Penelope and her friends' eyes, Tver carried the label of "dark wizard in training," an impression even worse than that of Slytherins.
Tver had already expected this reaction. He knew it wasn't just the students—throughout the British wizarding world, Durmstrang carried this same stereotype. It wasn't something he could change overnight.