With everything prepared, Lockhart returned to his office at Hogwarts, his expression growing steadily more somber.
Magic is a synonym for danger, and experiments are the most treacherous path of all.
Too many people have perished in the pursuit of magical discovery.
In the lore, Luna Lovegood could see Thestrals precisely because her mother had been killed in a spell-casting accident when Luna was just nine.
Such cases are legion.
Even the simplest potion-brewing is fraught with hazard; if it weren’t for Professor Snape’s iron-fisted supervision, the school would likely be a disaster zone.
Outside the safety of Hogwarts, Dark wizards and reckless adults have no such luxury, and their “accidents” are so common that they are relegated to the footnotes of the Daily Prophet.
Take something as mundane as “Asphodel root.” If one isn’t careful during cultivation, it can be infested with “Lydochek bacteria.” One can only imagine the catastrophe that would unfold if a root filled with such specialized, volatile fungal filaments were dropped into a cauldron.
At Hogwarts, this is impossible—the Board of Governors, whose own children attend the school, ensures that top-tier herbologists curate every shipment.
Magic, therefore, demands nothing less than absolute caution.
Lockhart reviewed his arsenal: the crystal Occamy-skull Pensieve, the Felix Felicis, and his new wand.
He checked them repeatedly.
He tested the wand, but aside from the Obliviate charm, he struggled; even a basic Levitation Charm barely caused the paper on his desk to twitch.
Yet, he was not discouraged.
Being able to clearly feel the hum of magic within him was something his former self would have envied.
He knew how to be satisfied.
What else is needed?
He thought for a moment, then his eyes brightened.
He sat at his desk and began writing letters to Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Draco, summoning them to his office after dinner.
If he ran into trouble, he needed children who could fetch a professor.
He had considered asking N.E.W.T.-level students, but they were busy enjoying their weekends at Hogsmeade.
Harry and his friends, on the other hand, were usually looking for something to do.
After sending the owls, he hung a “Magic Experiment in Progress: Do Not Disturb” sign on the door, locked the windows, and dragged Goldie before him to deliver a stern list of instructions.
“I bought you toys, so you’d better be useful in a pinch, understand?” Goldie blinked and nodded obediently, holding its new prize—the magical eye—and curling up by the door like a guardian.
“Good.” Satisfied, Lockhart opened the Felix Felicis, took a sip, and rubbed his face to calm his nerves.
Be calm, he told himself.
He tried to sink into that effortless, composed state that the original Lockhart had used to cast spells.
That state was the key; anxiety only caused the magic to stumble.
The technique for extracting memories was simple.
He pressed his wand to his temple and, slowly and carefully, pulled out a shimmering, silvery thread.
He flicked it into the Pensieve.
The crystal skull flared, revealing mysterious runes and glyphs etched into its surface, and the silver matter dissolved into a mist-like liquid.
It was a successful test—Borgin, though greedy, had kept his word.
Lockhart leaned over the basin.
He saw a glimpse of memory: an old wizard walking through a village street with a pumpkin lantern.
He watched with keen interest as the wizard entered his home, changed into his pajamas, extinguished his lamp, and curled into bed.
The man began to snore.
Then, in the moonlight, a hand reached out from under the bed, clutching a long, thin wand.
“Obliviate!” No one truly understood how powerful Lockhart’s version of the Obliviate charm was.
When magic is pushed to its absolute limit, its effects defy common imagination.
Just as Harry Potter’s Patronus didn’t just repel Dementors but sent hundreds fleeing in terror—an effect impossible for a normal wizard—Lockhart’s memory-wiping was equally unparalleled.
As the spell took hold, the old wizard shuddered.
His head glowed with silver light, and strands of memory, like ethereal serpents, crawled from his scalp and flowed into the wand held by the Lockhart in the memory.
Memory theft was as simple as breathing.
When Lockhart had left that room, the old man was still sleeping soundly.
He would wake up the next morning just as powerful as ever, having lost only the most brilliant memories of his life.
In fact, most great wizards never even realized they’d been robbed.
The human mind is a unique thing; when a memory is lost or altered, the brain, as a defense mechanism, smooths over the cracks, automatically modifying other memories to maintain a coherent narrative.
Aurors did this to Muggles all the time without incident.
In his office, Lockhart’s pace accelerated.
Memory after memory was extracted—from his original self and from the dozen powerful wizards he had harvested.
He was stripping away the past to ensure his own mind remained untainted by the influence of others.
Everything was going smoothly.
By the end, he was flicking his wand with ease, watching silver threads drift into the basin.
He even began to form new theories on the nature of Obliviate based on the original Lockhart’s reflections.
But the more skilled he became, the more cautious he grew.
Then, when only the very last fragment of memory remained in his mind, he hit a wall.
A sudden, overwhelming sense of primal dread surged through his soul, paralyzing him.
Stop!
You must stop!
Lockhart’s hand froze.
A crystal-clear realization struck him like a bolt of lightning: He was a Muggle!
Without the magical memories tethered to his brain, he was nothing!
If he stripped away these powerful wizarding memories entirely, he would revert to being a mere mortal.
And a Muggle, he realized with horror, possessed no means of re-inserting those memories from the Pensieve back into his own mind.
Not even Dumbledore could easily perform that feat at Hogwarts.
Lockhart’s reaction was instantaneous.
Before fear could even register on his face, he flicked his wand at the Pensieve.
“Obliviate!” In an instant, the memories stored in the basin erupted into a fountain of silver silk, swirling through the air and rushing back into his mind.
It was a failure; he had gained nothing.
The only thing he had learned was that the original Lockhart was a fool—a man who had recklessly crammed his head with powerful magical memories without any means of processing or controlling them, eventually turning himself into a mindless husk.
He watched the silver threads closing in, realizing they were far more than just “memories.” They held latent magical power.
Lockhart sighed, waiting patiently for them to return to his brain.
Then, suddenly, his expression shifted, and he let out a sharp cry.
“Oh, no!”