Dumbledore looked down at the application with the signature which had obviously been cut off of something else and glued on.

He had a decision to make. Hire a completely unqualified candidate who didn't actually apply, or have the Ministry send someone over to take the Defense Against the Dark Arts position. Considering that rumor had it that it was going to be Umbridge rather than someone who might actually know what they were doing, he was carefully considering his options. Either way, it wasn't like he was going to get lucky three years in a row. Having a professor as qualified as Remus Lupin was phenomenally lucky considering that the quality of the professors who'd applied after rumors of the curse had gotten out had gone down to an abysmal level at which hiring Lockheart in order to expose him as an impostor was actually a step up as far as quality was concerned. Having Remus be succeeded by someone who was exceedingly qualified whom he'd never actually had to pay because an exceedingly qualified impostor who had tapped him for information did all the work went so far beyond luck as to almost be ascribed to divine intervention. Based on probability as well as studies done on Luck following the invention of the Felix Felicis Potion, there was no way he'd be as lucky as he'd previously been.

Things would be shitty with an unqualified candidate in the position, but not as shitty as having Umbridge would be though...

He looked down at the application again, torn between what was Right, and what was Easy and finding himself ready to take the Easy path in this instance. It wasn't like it was the first time that someone had attempted to assassinate an enemy by applying them for the Defense Against the Dark Arts post. Poor Professor Fullerton who'd been so happy to get a job, any job, and said yes he would take the post when he'd contacted him about the application, had turned inside out and exploded if he recalled correctly. Or was that Professor Mitchell?

The thing was, the last time someone had pulled that whole sending in an application for someone else in hopes of getting them killed trick, they'd done a much better job at forging things and had made it all look completely legal and aboveboard which had given him plausible deniability should there have been an investigation. This fellow didn't even look like they were trying...

It would be well within his rights to hire the man for the post though, since there was a job application with his signature on it. And, as little Harry's entrance in the Tri-Wizard Tournament had spectacularly proven, you don't actually have to sign something for it to be legally binding. You just have to be careless about where you leave your signature lying about. Almost as bad as leaving hair, blood, and nail clippings where someone could get at them that was.

On the one hand however, this guy wasn't even a Wizard and the person who had applied him for the post was a rank amateur who could get them both arrested if he tapped the small print at the bottom of the page and turned the job application into an employment contract without the prospective employee's actual consent. On the other hand, Umbridge...

Sighing, Dumbledore pulled his wand out and made the glued on signature look less like a Xerox copy, seamlessly blended it into the paper and tapped the bit of scrollwork at the bottom of the page that contained all of the fine print before summoning his Potions Master whom he kept around for some of the messier jobs he couldn't ask Hagrid to get involved in. A few minutes later, the man was standing in his office.

"Severus, can you please do me a favor and fetch your new colleague..." he paused and looked down at the paper. "One Eric Lensherr."

Snape's face turned to a moue of distaste at the menial task he'd been given. The Potions Master's disappointment that his annual suicide attempt via Defense Against the Dark Arts Professorship had once again been thwarted which lay underneath his disgust over being used as a gofer was almost palpable. Dumbledore didn't care about the disappointment though. As far as he was concerned, Snape could suffer through being forced to live with what he had done for at least two more years. Three if Harry failed to pull another miracle out of his arse like he had done during the last four years instead of dying as he should've by all rights done in such situations, and the war went into overtime.

If he didn't know any better, he'd swear that Lily had discovered a permanent form of Liquid Luck. How else would you explain Harry making friends who were ridiculously overspecialized in the areas needed to get past the traps that protected the Philospher's Stone, traps that would stymie most adults who wouldn't know how to recognize a Devil's Snare if it jumped up and strangled them, most adults who couldn't play chess to save their lives much less defeat a chess champion like McGonagall? How else would you explain that kid managing to not be killed by the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets long enough for Fawkes to get to him when most people would've been killed within the first five seconds? And the list just went on and on...

Pulling himself out of his musings on Harry before he ended up getting a headache, he looked back down at the application that was now an iron-clad employment contract that this Lensherr couldn't escape from until the end of the coming academic year so he wouldn't have to watch Snape throw another temper tantrum in front of him as the man looked to be building up steam for an epic one. It was as he was using the application for a distraction that he spotted something he'd overlooked. The (possible) teenager who'd sent in the application had left a rather helpful helpful note in the margins.

"Oh, and Severus," he called out as the man turned to leave rather than rant and rave over the latest "injustice" for an hour straight as he'd half expected him to do. "Be sure to not have any metal on you when you retrieve our new Professor."

Edited 12-20-16