Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.

Further Disclaimer: It would of course be very naughty of me to attempt to lay claim to the defence professor in this story (since she's been around for centuries), so I'd best not try to do that either.

Note: The following one-shot follows a few minutes of a staff meeting towards the end of the first term of the 1995-1996 Hogwarts school year (Order of the Phoenix school year in canon) at which the four heads of houses and the headmaster are discussing the current incumbent of the Defence Against the Dark Arts teaching post, and her impact on the school. This is alternate universe territory that we're in here, and a slightly silly one at that, too...

Further Note: This was written when something else I was supposed to be writing wasn't going anywhere, in between efforts to redraw in a limited fashion the geography of the vicinity of Beinn Bheòil for the purposes of a different fanfiction. This story is rated 'T'.

"I'm starting to feel concerns about the new defence professor, Albus." Pomona Sprout said hesitantly.

"She seems to be doing a perfectly adequate job to me." Severus Snape smirked. "I must confess, that as soon as I had heard whom Albus had lined up to interview for this year, I immediately withdrew my own application for the position."

"It's not that my own badgers report any problems with her – or that anyone has reported a problem with her, as such – " Pomona ploughed on, "but I must admit to some unease about the way that pupils from other houses – especially Gryffindor and Slytherin – have been disappearing completely."

"I know. Isn't it wonderful?" Minerva McGonagall sighed. "The Weasley twins disappeared before even the welcoming feast, and since then the troublemakers have been steadily vanishing. My third year Transfiguration classes are filled now entirely with pupils who want to learn, with no messing around in class, and with so few pupils, I can really give the ones who are left my full time and attention."

"Filius?" Albus looked at the head of Ravenclaw who had been remarkably silent thus far.

"Ohhh, I looked her up in the library as soon as I heard whom the school had hired to avoid having to put that Umbridge woman in the job." the tiny professor said. "And I warned all my Ravenclaws most firmly, the first night of the school year, not to misbehave or to play up in her classes. I consider any who ignored me a case of lack-of-survival of the academically unfittest. I have no problems with her and I must say her live-in accommodation that she brought with her is rather fetching."

"Hagrid complained that in the first weeks it regularly got into his vegetable patch and trampled his pumpkins, when she wasn't in residence." Pomona said. "I had to help him quadruple the size of the fence he has around the patch to keep it out."

"Yes, but having a chicken-legged hut hopping around the grounds should add a certain cachet to the school, besides being something the humorous aspects of which ought to lift the spirits in these hard times." the headmaster said. He frowned. "Or at least that was what I initially hoped when I first heard about it. I must admit that having seen it 'close up' I am a touch concerned that the railings fashioned of what look like human bones around the edge of the main platform adversely affect the impression it makes."

"Come now, headmaster, she's acquired a doorknocker since the start of the school year which resembles Mr. Draco Malfoy, with the most ridiculous expression on his face, which you should admit is distinctly comical." Severus slyly said.

"Well, yes, I must concede that that is particularly entertaining, although I wish we knew where exactly young master Malfoy had gone to? Lucius made quite a fuss about it, or at least before he disappeared, too." Albus allowed himself to be diverted. "I must confess myself quite mystified as to the abruptness of his disappearance like that."

"He probably said something unwise to You-Know-Who – or to some other dark witch or wizard." Severus said dismissively. "And the Ministry made much more fuss over that Umbridge woman, who lasted barely half a day in her job of High-Inquisitor-or-Whatever-It-Was before she disappeared."

"I rather like the toad paperweight our defence teacher uses to pin down all the paperwork the Ministry seems to be sending us these days." Filius chipped in, a broad smile on his face. "Also the fact that the Ministry's given up on sending us High Inquisitors this past month, following the alarmingly high turnover of staff assigned to the position. Really, Pomona, I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill."

Pomona Sprout looked around at her fellow heads of houses and her headmaster, and saw no real support anywhere.

"Well, I must say, that this is going to be one defence teacher which I will be relieved to see the back of, after a year. To be quite frank, she gives me the creeps."

"Actually, Pomona, mistress Baba Yaga assured me that she possessed expert knowledge of the dark arts and that she had located with ease and unravelled the curse which had hitherto afflicted the position." Albus said. "She is confident that she will be unhindered by it in enjoying a long and highly successful career at Hogwarts as our defence against the dark arts instructor…"

Author Notes:

Some stories cast Baba Yaga as a villain. Others as a mentor or advisor. Online research suggested to me that she tended to be more of a threat to the 'naughty' than to the upright and morally upstanding, and I hadn't seen a Harry Potter story which featured her, so I thought I'd do a short piece of silliness where she'd been appointed Hogwarts' latest Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. It seemed to me that the Order of the Phoenix canon year might be one in which Albus Dumbledore would persuade himself that putting an old lady of possibly slightly dubious antecedents in the post was better than the alternative (Umbridge being forced upon him) and so it came to pass...

Even though Albus had filled the Defence position, the Ministry forced Umbridge in an inspection/inquisition role on Hogwarts anyway. She made her presence felt for a short time, then disappeared during a defence class that she was inspecting. Actually, curiously, most of the inquisitors that the Ministry sent out after her tended to disappear in very short order upon coming into contact with the Defence teacher...

This story is a one-shot.