Eleanor steered them toward Flourish and Blotts, where a queue already stretched halfway to Madam Malkin’s.
Tobias counted three separate mothers holding copies of *Magical Me* like hymnals.
A witch near the front had even pinned Lockhart’s face to her hat—an unsettling approximation that blinked occasionally.
Eleanor glanced at the banner, then at the line.
“We’ll come back,” she decided, steering him left toward the apothecary instead.
The smell of dried nettles and pickled slugs hit them three steps from the door.
Inside, a Hogwarts third-year was arguing with the shopkeeper about the freshness of his leech juice.
Tobias watched Eleanor’s fingers tap once against her thigh—her tell for suppressing a professional opinion.
She selected their ingredients with clinical efficiency, ignoring the way the shopkeeper’s eyes lingered on her St.
Mungo’s insignia.
When they crossed back toward the bookstore, Lockhart’s voice carried over the crowd: “—and *that* is how I single-handedly repelled the Wagga Wagga Werewolf!” The ensuing applause scattered a flock of owls perched on the eaves.
Tobias felt it before he saw it—a prickle like static down his spine.
Lockhart was looking directly at him.
Not his face.
His collar.
Then Eleanor stepped between them, handing Tobias two Galleons for his new quills.
By the time he turned back, Lockhart was signing a witch’s cleavage with a peacock-feather pen.
Diagon Alley in late August was louder than it had been the year before.
The crowd pressed thicker near Flourish and Blotts now, bodies jostling in anticipation of Lockhart’s appearance.
Tobias kept close to Eleanor’s elbow, their earlier apothecary purchases tucked securely in her charmed satchel.
A witch with peacock-feather earrings bumped into him, her eyes sliding right past his face as if he were glass.
“Sorry,” Tobias murmured automatically.
She didn’t react.
Inside the shop window, seven towering stacks of Lockhart’s books formed a glittering fortress.
*Gadding with Ghouls* gleamed under enchanted spotlights, its cover slightly more worn than the others—probably the most shoplifted.
A Ministry wizard in plum robes began ushering people into orderly lines.
Eleanor’s fingers brushed Tobias’s shoulder blade once—her silent check that he hadn’t drifted.
Three healers from the Spell Damage ward stood near the entrance, their conversation pausing just long enough for polite nods.
One of them, a man with burn scars twisting up his neck, glanced at Tobias’s high collar with the same detached curiosity he might give a half-healed wound.
The queue lurched forward two steps.
Somewhere behind them, a child started crying about missing Lockhart’s autograph.
Eleanor exhaled through her nose—her version of a sigh—and adjusted her grip on the supply list.
“We’ll be in and out before the worst of it,” she said, though her eyes tracked the growing crowd at the edges.
Tobias counted fourteen Lockhart-themed hats before they reached the door.
Inside the bookshop the press of bodies was worse than at the door.
The air smelled of ink and overheated wool, the ceiling lamps casting uneven shadows where shoulders blocked the light.
A harried clerk waved them toward the center display—”Seven required for Hogwarts, take them from the marked stacks”—without looking up from her tally sheet.
Eleanor’s hand hovered over *Voyages with Vampires* before selecting it with the same resigned precision she used to remove splinters from Tobias’s palms.
“Here,” she said, passing him four volumes while she took three.
Their spines clicked together like settling bones.
The upstairs gallery was roped off, a sign dangling from the banister: *Closed for inventory*.
Lockhart’s signing table stood vacant near the front, its velvet cloth already smudged with fingerprints.
A witch in magenta robes was arranging a fresh bouquet of peacock feathers beside the guestbook.
Tobias shifted the books to one arm, his shoulder bumping against a display of *Defensive Magical Theory*.
The shelf wobbled.
He caught it with his free hand, the motion pulling his collar just enough that the burn-scarred healer glanced over again—this time with the faint crease between his eyebrows that meant professional interest.
“Side wall,” Eleanor murmured, steering them past a cluster of third-years comparing *Wanderings with Werewolves*.
One girl was tracing Lockhart’s embossed signature with reverent fingers.
The Transfiguration texts were wedged between a tower of *Quidditch Through the Ages* and a teetering stack of parchment samples.
Tobias reached for *Intermediate Transfiguration* just as an elbow jabbed into his ribs—a wizard in dragonhide gloves grabbing *Gadding with Ghouls* with far more enthusiasm than necessary.
“Sorry,” the man said, not sounding sorry at all.
His gaze slid past Tobias to the signing table, where Lockhart had just made his entrance, robes swirling like liquid gold.
The crowd surged forward in a wave of gasps and rustling pages.
Eleanor’s fingers closed around Tobias’s wrist, pulling him back against the shelves as three witches rushed past, their hat feathers brushing his cheek.
Tobias was at chest height with most of the adults and was elbowed several times.before Eleanor guided them toward an alcove near the History section.
The smell of old parchment thickened there, muting the floral cologne wafting from Lockhart’s direction.
Lockhart arrived in a swirl of robe and bright smile and took his seat at the front.
The crowd’s murmurs crescendoed into applause as he flourished his peacock-feather quill.
Tobias watched the man’s teeth gleam under the lamplight—whiter than any natural shade, like polished bone.
“Now, now, no need to push!” Lockhart laughed, standing to wave at an overeager witch in the front row.
His elbow caught the edge of a stacked pyramid of *Magical Me*, sending three copies sliding off the table.
They skidded across the floorboards, stopping near Tobias’s shoes.
He bent automatically, fingers closing around the gilded spine just as Lockhart crouched beside him.
Their shoulders almost collided.
“My dear boy!
Allow me—” Lockhart’s hand brushed Tobias’s as they both reached for the same book.
Up close, his cologne smelled artificial, like candied lilacs.
His gaze flicked to Tobias’s collar, lingered for half a heartbeat too long, then snapped back to his face with renewed brilliance.
“Ah, a Hogwarts student!
Second year, unless I miss my guess.” He plucked the book from Tobias’s grip and produced the quill from nowhere.
“Let’s make this one special, shall we?” The inscription looped across the title page in shimmering ink: *To my most promising young reader—Gilderoy Lockhart*.
His smile didn’t reach his eyes when he handed it back.
Tobias accepted the signed book and stepped back into the crowd.
Eleanor was already holding out their remaining purchases, her free hand brushing Tobias’s shoulder blade—her version of checking for missing limbs.
The bookshop’s heat pressed against his neck like a damp palm.
Outside, the Alley had begun its slow shift toward late afternoon, the crowd thinning at the edges like milk left out too long.
At the apothecary again—because Eleanor had forgotten salamander blood—the shopkeeper’s assistant stared openly at Tobias’s sleeves while measuring out powdered bicorn horn.
The fabric strained visibly above his wrists, showing a full inch of pale skin.
Madam Malkin tutted over it five minutes later, her tape measure looping around his forearm like a persistent vine.
“You’ll be needing new robes by Christmas,” she predicted, pinning the cuffs with quick, practiced jabs.
Tobias watched her thimble flash silver in the fading light.
By the time they reached Florean Fortescue’s, the peacock-feather witch from earlier was leaving, her Lockhart-themed hat now slightly askew.
Eleanor chose a corner table where the late sun wouldn’t glare off the ice cream dishes.
Tobias’s vanilla arrived in a chipped ceramic bowl, its surface already softening at the edges.
Eleanor stirred her chocolate-and-raspberry twice before tasting it—a habit leftover from potion-making.
Across the Alley, the last stragglers were exiting Flourish and Blotts, their arms full of identical gilded spines.
The Knight Bus jerked to a halt outside their terraced house, its violent stop sending Eleanor’s satchel sliding across the vinyl seat.
Tobias caught it by the strap just before it toppled into the aisle, the weight of their purchases pressing uncomfortably against his thigh.
Outside, Bromley’s streetlights flickered on one by one, casting long shadows across the pavement.
Eleanor unlocked the front door with a twist of her wand.
The house smelled of yesterday’s roast and the faint metallic tang of the Floo powder she’d spilled that morning.
She set the satchel on the kitchen table with a soft thump and began unpacking methodically—textbooks first, then ingredients, then the wrapped bundle of new quills.
The signed Lockhart book slid out last, landing atop the stack with its gold-embossed title gleaming under the overhead light.
Eleanor paused.
Her fingers hovered near the cover before retreating to the kettle.
The silence stretched as water hissed against metal.
Tobias watched her back, the way her shoulders didn’t quite relax.
He’d seen that posture before—when St.
Mungo’s administrators questioned her treatment plans, when neighbors asked why his father never visited.
The Lockhart book lay between them like an unanswered question.
By the time the tea steeped, Eleanor had moved on to checking salamander blood levels against the supply list.
Tobias took his cup upstairs without being asked.
The signed book fit neatly between *Intermediate Transfiguration* and *Magical Drafts and Potions* on his shelf, its spine slightly brighter than the others.
He put the book on his shelf upstairs and did not open it.
If Hollow at Hogwarts has caught your eye and you’d like to keep going, the full story lives on the usual site under TransmigratorTales, alongside my other ongoing serial.
More on the way, and I’m really glad you’re here reading this.