"It's Miss Lovegood!"
Lyla immediately became interested. She knew Hogwarts had four Great Houses, each with its own characteristics.
'But which House would Miss Lovegood be in?' Lyla instinctively felt she might be a Ravenclaw... after all, Miss Lovegood was probably the most perceptive and intelligent person she had ever met.
'Certainly much smarter than I am...'
"Ravenclaw!"
Almost in the next instant, the Sorting Hat called out the House Luna should go to.
'Sure enough!'
A triumphant smile appeared on Lyla's face beneath her mask. 'I know my friends quite well, don't I?'
Lyla didn't pay attention to the subsequent students being sorted; she didn't know any of them anyway.
Soon, the last student was sorted, and Dumbledore gently tapped his golden goblet in front of him, then said, "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen."
As Dumbledore spoke, the slightly noisy Great Hall fell completely silent.
"Before we begin tonight's feast... I'd like to introduce two new Professors who have joined us this year due to curriculum changes."
'Why are you introducing us right away... Dumbledore, don't you need to say some warm-up words first?'
Not yet ready, Lyla nervously clutched her cuffs, panic rising in her chest.
"One of them is..."
"Ah, Headmaster Dumbledore, may I introduce myself?" Suddenly, Mr. Lockhart, with his gleaming golden hair, who was sitting next to Dumbledore, spoke up.
He slowly stood up and gave Dumbledore a brilliant smile.
"Oh, of course." Dumbledore was momentarily stunned but still smiled, nodded, and sat back down.
Lyla noticed that the stern Professor McGonagall sitting on his other side seemed deeply displeased... but Mr. Lockhart was really impressive.
'He actually asked to speak voluntarily in such a setting...'
"Future stars of the wizarding world! Good evening!" Lockhart said loudly, clasping his hands in front of him. "I believe many of you know my name, don't you?"
"Mr. Lockhart! It's Mr. Lockhart!"
Lyla saw a few bold female students in the audience shout out his name.
"Ah, I hear your enthusiastic voices." Lockhart nodded with immense satisfaction. "That's right, I am the internationally renowned wizard and author, honorary member of the Dark Force Defence League, recipient of the Order of Merlin, Third Class... and I've also won Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award five times."
"Of course! Of course! I'm not here to show off these things." He flashed a brilliant, practiced smile as a punctuation mark. After a brief silence, he adopted a deadly serious expression.
"I am here to teach all of you, ladies and gentlemen, to face the most dangerous! The most terrifying! The Dark Arts!"
"Of course, if I have any fans... you are more than welcome to talk to me after class."
"Cough cough cough." As Lyla listened with great interest, the stern woman next to Dumbledore loudly cleared her throat. "Professor Lockhart..."
"Please try to be more concise."
"Ah! Of course, Professor McGonagall." Lockhart smiled gently at the woman, even winking.
"Ugh."
Lyla seemed to hear a few young wizards in the audience making sounds of deep disgust; they seemed to be Gryffindor boys.
Many more students, however, still looked at Lockhart with great admiration.
'Mr. Lockhart is truly amazing!'
Lyla also started to admire Lockhart a little. Although she didn't fully understand his long, boastful speech, being able to speak fluently in front of so many people was already incredibly impressive.
She certainly couldn't do it herself.
Lockhart, whose enthusiastic momentum was interrupted by Professor McGonagall, shrugged slightly, said a couple more casual sentences, and then ended everything with another charming smile.
Then... there was a moment of silence.
Lyla pursed her lips tightly and looked at Dumbledore.
'Shouldn't you be introducing me now... and then I just stand up and nod, right?'
'Only someone as confident as Mr. Lockhart can introduce himself!'
Dumbledore seemed to catch Lyla's panicked gaze. He cleared his throat and said, "Thank you, Professor Lockhart, for your self-introduction."
"Now, I'd like to introduce our other Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor."
"Miss Lyla Hamilton," Dumbledore said, nodding gently toward her.
Whoosh.
Lyla's body trembled slightly as she slowly stood up. She could feel everyone's gaze burning into her from the audience, so she chose to squeeze her eyes shut and nod gently.
Then she sat down heavily with a sigh of relief.
This was definitely not a good self-introduction... especially with Mr. Lockhart's flamboyant introduction preceding it.
But at least she succeeded. She didn't knock over her chair due to nervousness, or trip due to fear... it was much better than her first self-introduction at Durmstrang Institute.
Dumbledore's following words, "She will be responsible for the courses of first to fourth-year students," caused a large group of young wizards to sigh in visible disappointment.
They seemed to heavily prefer Mr. Lockhart. It made sense; one was a strange, masked person who didn't even speak, while the other was a famous wizard adventurer and author.
Lyla knew which one she would choose. 'But this is good too; if they don't have high hopes for me, they won't be too disappointed. I don't think I will be a good teacher...'
"Don't be sad, everyone." Dumbledore seemed to notice their disappointment. He smiled gently, his eyes twinkling, and said, "Miss Hamilton is a very outstanding witch."
"She is definitely no less capable than Mr. Lockhart."
'Dumbledore! What are you doing!' Lyla glared at Dumbledore behind her mask, wishing she could use a non-verbal Killing Curse to take the old man's life in that instant.
'Don't talk nonsense!'
'How can someone like me... this kind of good-for-nothing... compare to an excellent wizard like Mr. Lockhart?'
'You... you're trying to flatter me to death!'
Lyla could already see the astonished, scrutinizing expressions returning to the young wizards' faces below.
"This is the first time Professor Dumbledore has said that," Hagrid whispered loudly next to her. "He thinks very highly of you!"
"N-no... no..." Lyla tremblingly tried to tell Hagrid that she was just a socially anxious good-for-nothing... but as soon as she opened her mouth, Hagrid continued on his own.
"I also know that Miss Hamilton, you are very powerful."
"Professor Dumbledore told me that you have mastered the non-verbal casting of all spells, right?" Hagrid lowered his voice slightly. "That's an incredible achievement!"
'What kind of achievement is that?! It was just so I wouldn't pass out from stuttering so I could graduate!'
'This isn't even as impressive as Mr. Lockhart's "Most-Charming-Smile" thing... and he won it five times!'
"Miss Hamilton has mastered the silent casting of all spells?" Hagrid's poor attempt to lower his voice didn't work very well.
The short Professor sitting next to him turned his head and looked at Lyla in pure surprise.
"I recall only one person ever doing that... Wait!" The tiny Professor seemed to realize something and said in shock, "You are the Miss Hamilton from Durmstrang, aren't you? The Wordless Witch!"
'No! I'm not! Hagrid! You guy! Why are you just like Dumbledore?!'
Lyla was so embarrassed she couldn't formulate a sentence. She could only nod somewhat stiffly in response to the short Professor.
"I am Filius Flitwick." The short Professor introduced himself enthusiastically after seeing Lyla nod. "I heard stories about you when I was young."
"And I even hoped to compete with you in the Wizarding Duelling Tournament," Flitwick said in a high-pitched voice. "I heard you were Durmstrang's duelling champion for two consecutive years."
"It's truly excellent that you're teaching this course." Flitwick lowered his head and whispered, "It seems our students can finally have a good year of Defense Against the Dark Arts."
"Ah... ha... haha..."
Lyla, letting out a strained, stiff laugh, really wanted to plug her pointed ears with her wand to avoid hearing these embarrassing words.