I started my dream job today, a position that should have existed through the years, but due to an oversight, has never been filled.

The need for the job became obvious when somebody noticed the appalling level of illiteracy among today’s witches and wizards, and Headmaster Dumbledore realised that while there were many teachers of magical subjects at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, there was nobody teaching the basics, like the three R’s.  That explained why so many magical spells were going wrong, because the students were having trouble reading their text books.  It’s one thing to muddle through at school with friends helping you, and the subject fresh in your mind, but three years down the track, if they wanted to check how many eyes of newt to use in a potion, many wizards didn’t have a clue how to read the recipe!

It was time something was done about it before the whole nation was turned into singing toads, so Dumbledore had to advertise for mainstream teachers in the Muggle newspapers.  Muggles, by the way, are non magical people like you and I.

I applied for and got the post of English teacher.  It sounded like fun, and perhaps I could pick up some useful magical tricks along the way.

The first intimation that this was perhaps a job better left to somebody else came when I tried to access Paddington Station’s Platform 9 3/4 for the Hogwarts Express.  I’d been told that I had to walk straight through the barrier between platforms 9 and 10, but nobody had told me that it was a painful process for a Muggle, and I ended up with skinned knees, and my ears hurt like blazes all through the train journey to Hogwarts.

The second drawback to the perfect job came yesterday evening at dinner in the Great Hall.  Nobody had warned me about the Hogwarts ghosts that made their appearance, floating above and though the four long tables, chatting with the students.  I’m terrified of ghosts, especially ghosts like the one called Nearly Headless Nick, whose neck was cut almost 90% of the way through, leaving his head dangling and wobbling in an alarming manner.

The final straw came this morning.  They had told me how the staircases in the castle moved, and to watch where I was heading, but I was taken by surprise, and got lost.  I went through the door at the top of what I thought was the staircase to the second floor classrooms, and found myself in a strange room with absolutely no windows or doors, not even the door by which I had entered.  I screamed and hammered on the door for what seemed like hours, but nobody came to my rescue.

Now all I can do is wait until somebody figures out what has happened to their new English teacher.  No there is something else I can do.  I can write a warning so that the next Muggle teacher to come here won’t end up like me.  I guess they’ll eventually find this note with my skeleton, and I’ll end up floating alongside Nearly Headless Nick, scared to death of myself!  I want out of here.  I want my mother.  I want a dole queue!